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CAPITOL GRILLE

WASHINGTON, DC

Helen Remington Carmichael weaved her way through the crowded steak house and found DNC chairman Russell Mercer at his usual table behind a large porterhouse and an even larger glass of Archery Summit Pinot Noir. “Helen,” said the portly man as he rose to meet his unexpected guest. “How nice to see you.”

“Cut the crap, Russ. I’ve been trying to get hold of you for two goddamn days.”

“I’ve been a bit busy.”

“I can see that,” said Carmichael as she looked at the three attractive young women seated with him. “Let me guess. Polling?”

Mercer could smell a showdown coming, and the last thing he wanted was witnesses. “My tab should still be open at the bar, “He said as he stood and politely shooed the women from his booth. “I’ll let you know as soon as we’re done here.”

Once they had filed past, Carmichael sat down and snapped her fingers at the nearest waiter. “Kettle One martini up, very dirty with lots of olives. “When the waiter had disappeared, Carmichael focused her ire back on Mercer. “Judging by the looks of your companions, they charge by the hour, so I’ll make this short.”

“I’m not going to even dignify that remark with a response,” replied the DNC chairman.

“Well, let’s see what you will dignify. I heard you had a very candid meeting at the White House with Chuck Anderson.”

“Yes, I did.”

“And you told him I wouldn’t be on the Democratic ticket?”

“That’s what I told him.”

“How dare you?” she hissed.

Mercer leaned forward over the table, and his eyes bored right into hers. “Listen to me, Helen, and listen good. Your ball-busting routine might have charmed the voters of Pennsylvania, but you’re in the big leagues now, and we play by a different set of rules here. If you want the party’s nomination, you’ve gotta damn well earn it. You don’t just sashay up to my table, insult my guests, and demand I hand it to you on a silver platter.”

Carmichael was indignant. “And you don’t control the party, Russ. The ticket needs a strong vice-presidential candidate, and there isn’t anyone else out there as strong as I am.”

“You think so?” replied Mercer. “I happen to think Senator Koda of Maine could do a lot to help the ticket.”

“And if assholes had wings, this whole fucking town would be an airport,” she replied, rolling her eyes. “Listen, Koda may be good, but I’m better, and you damn well know it.”

“So what? You haven’t earned it.”

“Earned it? How dare you say I haven’t earned it? I’ve busted my ass for the party.”

“And it hasn’t gone unnoticed.”

“Then how can you say I haven’t earned a spot on the ticket?”

“You haven’t earned your stripes,” replied Mercer as he held out his sleeve and patted his forearm. “Nobody gives a shit what you’ve done for the state of Pennsylvania. If it weren’t for your husband, you wouldn’t have that job in the first place. What’s more, you’ve got a shitty public image. Half of voting Americans, hell, half of your own constituents think you’re a raging bull dyke, and the other half think the only reason you’re in office is to help facilitate your husband’s business deals. It won’t sell. Not where we need it the most.”

Carmichael waited for the waiter to set down her martini and back away from the table before responding. “My own people have been encouraging me to work on my public image, and I’ll admit I’ve been slow to respond, but I can change that. I’ll even bring in outside consultants if I have to. Whatever it takes, I’ll do it. You want me to soften things up? Consider it done. Just don’t scratch me off the list of possible contenders for the ticket.”

The woman was amazing. She was an absolute chameleon. One minute she could be the Beltway’s biggest brass-balled bitch, and the next she was turning in a “Please, sir, may I have some more?” performance worthy of the best Dickens novel. Mercer, though, had seen it all before. Political ambition came in a million shapes and styles. If Helen Carmichael wanted the Democratic nomination so bad, she was going to have to work for it, and Mercer knew just how to make her do it. Regardless of whether they put her on the ticket or not, if the DNC kept her focused, Senator Carmichael could broadside the Republicans so bad there was no way President Rutledge’s campaign would be able to bail water fast enough.

Mercer settled back into the booth, reached for his wineglass, and said, “Maybe we can work something out. Tell me, how are your hearings progressing?”

HOTEL GARE DU NORD

PARIS

Tell me some more about Hannibal and his love of biological weapons,” said Harvath, unbuttoning his shirt as Jillian emptied the ice bucket on top of the mini bar into a plastic bag and handed it to him.

“First things first,” she replied. “Let me take a look at your ribs.”

Harvath pulled back his shirt so Jillian could see the softball-sized bruise that was setting up shop along his left side.

“Does anything feel broken?” she asked as she reached her hand out toward his side.

“Hold on a second,” said Harvath as he caught her hand. “You’re a doctor of paleopathology, not medicine.”

“For your information, I rode ambulances to help pay for school and doubled as a nurse’s assistant on several archeological digs during my summers off from Durham.”

“Imagine my luck,” said Harvath as Jillian’s fingers slid across his flesh. “Any of your patients actually live?”

“Very funny,” she said, applying pressure to an obviously sensitive part of the bruise. “This looks tender.”

Harvath sucked in a painful breath as Jillian continued, “You know, this all could have been avoided if you hadn’t lost your head.”

“I lost my head?” said Harvath. “Is that what you think happened?”

“I’ve seen it before,” she said as she continued probing for broken bones. “It’s a typical male reaction. You’re the hammer, and any problems you encounter in life are nothing more than nails.”

“Hammer this, lady,” said Harvath as he stood up from the bed and put his shirt back on. Even if he had managed to crack a rib or two, Jillian Alcott wouldn’t be able to tell just by touching him. And broken or not, there was nothing she could do for him. His ribs would just have to heal on their own.

“Sit back down,” ordered Jillian. “I’m not done examining you yet.”

“If you want to see any more, “He replied, walking over to the mini bar to retrieve a small bottle of Moskovskaya vodka, “you’re going to have to buy me dinner and tell me you love me first.”

Jillian smiled. “That’s not what I meant.”

“I know what you meant, “He said as he poured the vodka into a glass and looked around for some ice. “Let’s get back to Hannibal.”

Jillian picked the ice pack up off the bed and threw it to him. Harvath untied the bag, removed a couple of cubes, and dropped them into his glass. “I’m all ears.”

“There isn’t much else to add. Like Vanessa said, what we know about Hannibal comes to us mostly from Roman accounts, and there aren’t many. We do know that he was extremely brilliant and would go to any lengths to get the ultimate edge. There was no one else like him.”

“I’ll drink to that,” said Harvath as he took a sip of Moskovskaya to kill the pain in his side. As he set his drink on the nightstand he asked, “What about the India connection? Is it possible Hannibal had contact with them?”

“There’s no arguing with those breastplates. Those are Azemiops feae vipers, no doubt about it.”

“How does the wolf image fit in?”

“Wolves were considered very fierce, very ferocious animals. They were also a symbol of Rome. Hannibal might have been attempting to steal some of the Romans’thunder by using their symbol in that way.”

“Possibly,” said Harvath, though he had a feeling that theory was off the mark.

“What we do know,” said Alcott, “is that the weapon itself had to have been the most frightening thing he had in his arsenal. That’s why the Azemiops feae were depicted on the breastplates. He would have wanted everyone, especially his soldiers, to be constantly aware of the weapon they were carrying.”

“Are you saying that replicating poisonous snakes on arrow shafts and depicting Azemiops feae vipers on breastplates could be used to scare the enemy and embolden your own troops at the same time?”

“Exactly,” replied Alcott. “Once the snake plan had been announced, Hannibal ’s navy felt confident they couldn’t lose, even in the face of a much mightier opponent.”

Harvath sorted through the logic, trying to tie everything together. “So let’s assume that Hannibal got his hands on a copy of the Arthashastra.”

“Which would have been no small feat at the time. It was a pretty powerful book, and I doubt they were just giving it away on street corners, especially to nations that could wind up as potential enemies at some point down the road.”

“I’ll put my faith in Hannibal. He was a pretty crafty guy, but whether he bought the Arthashastra, stole it, or it was given to him doesn’t matter. Let’s just say he got a copy of it.”

“Okay.”

“Then he got hold of someone to translate it for him. Maybe he even brought some enterprising Indian scientist or soldier to the Mediterranean to help out with it. He could have even sent teams back and forth to India to get the snakes they needed, since Azemiops feae wasn’t native to the Greco-Roman world, and then used members of the Psylli tribe to handle them and extract the venom.”

“All possible,” replied Jillian, “but Vanessa said she’d been through the entire Arthashastra and couldn’t find a recipe that matches up with all the symptoms seen in Asalaam.”

“I know,” said Harvath, “but what if the Carthaginians only used the Arthashastra as a base or a jumping-off point of some sort? What if they came up with an Azemiops feae hybrid? What if they duplexed it and came up with an illness nobody had ever seen before?”

“Also possible,” said Jillian as she paused to think about it, “but where does that leave us? We have no idea where all of those artifacts came from, much less who gave them to Sotheby’s in the first place, and nothing short of a court order or official government request is going to get that auction house to open their doors again for us.”

“Suppose we didn’t need them to actually open their doors for us?” suggested Harvath as he reapplied the ice pack to the bruise on his side.

It didn’t take a genius to intuit what Harvath was contemplating. Jillian sensed he wasn’t the type to give up easily. “We were lucky enough to get out of there once without being arrested,” she said. “I don’t think the odds will be very heavily in our favor for a second go around. Especially if you’re contemplating breaking in.”

Harvath smiled.

She had pegged him correctly. He was definitely a hammer.

“I think you’re wrong about today,” continued Harvath. “There was no way they were going to arrest us. Davidson can’t be sure the artifacts didn’t come from an illegitimate source, and she’s wary of bad press.”

“Even so, how do you propose we get back inside? From the security I saw, it has to be next to impossible.”

“Magic,” replied Harvath with a smile.

“What kind of magic?”

“We’re going to walk through walls.”

When Jillian came down to the Hotel Gare du Nord’s lobby, she was dressed in the second-hand clothes Harvath had sent up to her room earlier in the evening. She couldn’t figure out if he’d incorrectly guessed her sizes or if he had purchased the black turtleneck and black jeans slightly snug on purpose. Regardless of what his intentions had been, with the battered, secondhand leather jacket she felt that she looked perfectly Parisian. She was also glad to have the warm clothes, as a second storm front had moved in and the rainy night air was bitterly cold.

At exactly midnight, Harvath appeared in the lobby and motioned for her to follow him. Outside on the street, he hurried her through the rain to a tiny, windowless van. He had left it running, and though the wheezing heater was cranked all the way up, its effect was barely noticeable.

“How do the clothes fit?” he asked as they pulled away from the curb.

“Strangely enough,” replied Jillian, “the boots are a perfect fit, but everything else is a little tight.”

Harvath glanced over at her before turning right onto the boulevard de Magenta and said, “No they’re not. They’re just right.”

Jillian should have known better. Anyone who could nail her shoe size after having only spent two days with her certainly knew what he was doing with everything else. “Where’d they come from?”

The tires of the tiny van wobbled as they splashed through puddles making their way south. “I got them at a flea market.”

“And the van?”

“I know a guy who knows a guy.”

Jillian looked into the cargo area behind their seats. “And I assume everything in back is from-”

“The same guy,” said Harvath, hanging a right onto the boulevard de Strasbourg and speeding up in order to make the light at the next corner.

“So what is all that stuff?”

“Skeleton keys.”

“Skeleton keys?” repeated Jillian, looking behind her at the duffel bag and two plastic Storm-brand cases. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“I couldn’t be more serious. Trust me. You’ll see.”

Ten minutes later, they had threaded their way through the bustling Les Halles neighborhood and had managed to find a parking space around the corner from the Sotheby’s annex. Walking around to the back of the van, Harvath opened the double doors and leaned inside to get his head out of the rain. He slid the two Storm cases and heavy black duffel toward him, opened them, and checked their contents one last time.

“I thought you said you had a set of skeleton keys in there,” said Jillian, who had darted behind the van and was now leaning inside next to him.

“I do,” replied Harvath as he withdrew a small sledgehammer about a foot long from the duffel. “This one unlocks the downstairs door.”

Jillian looked at him as if he was nuts. “You realize that when I said you were like a hammer and that you approached all your problems like nails, I was speaking metaphorically, right?”

Harvath ignored her and tucked the sledgehammer beneath his coat.

“I’m serious,” said Jillian.

“I know.”

“So tell me what your real plan is.”

“I told you. I’m going to use my skeleton key to open the downstairs door.”

“What about the security guards?”

Harvath zipped up the duffel and then slung it over his shoulder. He grabbed the larger of the two Storm cases and indicated that Jillian should take the other. As he closed the rear doors of the van, he said, “If we do this right, they won’t have any idea what we’re up to.”

“And if we don’t do this right?”

“Then I hope your tight jeans don’t prevent you from running.”

“That’s a good one,” said Jillian. “You sure know how to kid a girl.”

“Who’s kidding?” replied Harvath as he set off down the block.

Jillian peppered him with questions the entire way, but Harvath didn’t feel like talking. Despite his leather jacket, the nylon straps of the overweight duffel were cutting into his shoulder. He couldn’t wait to finally set it down. Thankfully, the heavy Storm case had built-in casters that allowed it to be dragged behind him.

For her part, as much as Jillian wanted to trust Harvath, she couldn’t help feeling he was acting out of desperation. Smashing through the glass front doors of the Sotheby’s annex with a sledgehammer was the most insane plan she could ever imagine. They wouldn’t make it more than five feet before the armed guards would be on them. She was just about to say as much when Harvath pulled up three doors short of the annex. Ducking into a small alcove, he set his heavy duffel down, leaned his Storm case against the wall, and produced a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. “Here, “He said as he offered them to her.

“I don’t smoke.”

“Neither do I, but that’s not the point.”

“Then what is?”

“Everybody in Paris smokes.”

“So?”

Harvath turned the pack over, tapped out a cigarette, and handed it to her. “So, standing around with nothing to do looks suspicious.”

Jillian didn’t see the sense in his logic. “But it’s okay to stand around with nothing to do as long as you have a cigarette in your mouth?”

“In Paris it is,” replied Harvath as he raised the lighter for her.

“You know, I quit smoking these things about three years ago,” said Jillian as she bent over the flame. When she had it lit, she leaned back and took a deep, long drag. She felt that old familiar feeling as the smoke filled her lungs and the nicotine began to race through her bloodstream. Though she knew it was terrible, the cigarette tasted fabulous. It was like coming home. “What I do for queen and country,” she sighed.

Harvath hated cigarettes. “I didn’t say you actually had to smoke it, you know.”

“What am I supposed to do with it?”

“Fake it. Don’t inhale.”

“Too late now,” she replied as she took another hit. The damage was already done. “While I’m standing here throwing away three years of willpower and hard work, what are you supposed to be doing?” she asked.

Harvath tucked his hands in his coat pockets, rocked back and forth on his heels, and nonchalantly said, “Me? I’m just waiting for the Métro.”

“Waiting for the bloody Métro? You’re aware that it runs below ground in these parts?”

“Quite aware,” replied Harvath as he continued rocking.

Jillian had no idea what to make of him. “If you see the bus for Piccadilly coming, you’ll be a dear and let me know, won’t you?”

“No problem.”

Jillian stepped to the edge of the alcove and watched as the heavy rain pounded the roofs of cars parked up and down the street. There were flashes of lightning accompanied by peals of thunder somewhere off in the distance. Jillian counted the seconds between them. The storm was getting closer, and as it did, her unease grew. As she stared out into the rainy street, her mind was taken back to the night she had lost both her parents and her grandmother.

“The French call it the danse macabre,” said Harvath, figuring she was staring at the disturbing mural under the eaves of the building across the street. “It means-”

“Dance of death,” she replied as Harvath stepped out of the shadows of the alcove to join her for a moment.

“Do you know it?” he asked.

“Of course. It’s probably one of the single most popular allegorical art themes in the paleopathology field. People in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries believed that skeletons rose from their graves to seduce the living to join them in a mysterious dance that ended in death. From the pope on down, no one was immune. The murals served as a memento mori.”

“What’s a memento mori?”

“Simply put, it’s a reminder that no matter what we do in life, we’re all going to die. It supposedly comes from Imperial Rome when victorious generals had their triumphal processions. A slave was said to have accompanied each general as he passed through the streets repeating the chant, ‘Remember thou art mortal.’ Kind of a reality check, I guess.”

“Interesting. Do you know where the first mural was painted?”

Jillian looked at him and said, “ Germany. They refer to it as the Totentanz. It depicted a festival of the living and the dead.”

“Actually,” replied Harvath, “the first depiction of the danse macabre was painted three blocks from here in 1424, in the Church of the Holy Innocents.”

“How do you know that?”

“I’ve been to Paris a couple of times. I like to learn about the history of the places I visit.”

“You’re sure that the first danse macabre was painted here?”

“I double-checked it this afternoon,” replied Harvath, a flash of lightning illuminating his face.

Jillian counted the seconds in her head until the thunder. “I suppose then that it must have something to do with what we’re doing here?”

“In a way.”

“How so?”

The ground beneath them began to rumble with the sound of an approaching Métro. “I’ll tell you in a minute,” replied Harvath as he removed the sledgehammer from beneath his jacket. “Right now, we’ve got a train to catch.”