Code of Conduct

CHAPTER 34

The second time his phone went off, Harvath gave up trying to sleep and got out of bed.

Walking downstairs to the kitchen, he put on some coffee, booted up his laptop, and turned on the TV. So far, there was nothing on the news.

Nicholas was tapped into the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. He had hacked into the system and had been monitoring their Epi-X, or Epidemic Information Exchange. It was a password-protected area where local, county, state, and national public health officials could rapidly access and share disease outbreak surveillance information.

In the last twelve hours, two people — one in Chicago and one in Houston — had presented to their local emergency rooms with high fevers and flu-like symptoms. Each had rapidly deteriorated and bled out. They had bled from everywhere including their eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and gums. Any path the blood and liquefying organs could take to escape the body, it did. The ooze was so dark it was almost black. The ICU floors were covered with it and looked like something out of a horror movie.

Though the rapid test kits were not confirming it as Ebola, officials on Epi-X were already referring to it as “some form” of Hemorrhagic Fever. Samples had been dispatched to the CDC for analysis.

While Harvath wasn’t a doctor, he already knew what they were looking at. Weaponized African Hemorrhagic Fever had been set loose.

Once Nicholas had the names of the two patients, he began working up backgrounds on them. The sample was too small to prove a pattern, but Harvath was worried. Both were male and both had Muslim names. His gut told him this was going to get much worse.

Looking at his watch, he debated calling Carlton, but decided against it. He already knew the questions he was going to ask. Until he and Nicholas had more information, it didn’t make sense to wake him up.

Harvath also made a mental note to remember to thank him. It was Carlton who had invited Lara down from Boston so that she could be there when he got back from Congo. The Old Man knew Lara was special to him, and that she was someone he cared about.

While the blame wasn’t his to take for spoiling their vacation, he took it anyway. Harvath wasn’t quite sure what he had said to her, but it had gone a long way toward easing her disappointment over their trip.

Had she been upset? Absolutely. It was why she hadn’t replied to his text. But by the time Harvath had arrived home, all she wanted to do was put her arms around him.

When he tried to speak, she wouldn’t let him. They kissed and tumbled into bed.

Afterward, he drifted off to sleep exhausted. When he awoke, he opened his eyes and looked at her, hoping she was awake, but she wasn’t.

That was okay. It would keep.

Now, as he poured his coffee, he heard the sound of bare feet crossing the worn, wooden planks of his kitchen floor. He smiled.

Lara wrapped her arms around him and kissed his back. “Jet lag?” she asked.

“There’s a lot going on,” he replied, hugging her back. Turning, he kissed her. “It’s going to be a rough day.”

“Anything I can do?”

He shook his head. “You already did it. You’re here.”

It felt so damn good holding her there in his kitchen. It was something he could get used to, something he could learn to look forward to.

Lowering his forehead until it touched hers, he interlaced his fingers in the small of her back and closed his eyes. In all the craziness, it was an exquisite moment of peace. Maybe this was what it was all about. Maybe life was about nothing more than moments.

“Not a bad way to start the day,” she murmured.

“I know how we can make it even better,” he replied, lowering his hands.

Pressing herself even tighter against him, she kissed her way over to his ear and whispered, “Tell me.”

God, she was beautiful. And so sexy. He loved everything about her. She was tall, with amazing gold-flecked, green eyes and long brown hair that had kept its summer highlights. She was even still tan, something she attributed to the Brazilian DNA she received from her parents.

She so resembled one of the women from Victoria’s Secret that his buddies jokingly referred to her as the “underwear model.” It was a guy thing and actually an incredible compliment. They were jealous as hell of him. Not just because of how gorgeous Lara was, but also because of how happy the two of them were together — even if it was divided between Boston and D.C.

For Harvath, though, the way he felt about her went beyond her looks and how attracted he was to her. He loved how smart she was. She was off-the-charts brilliant. She also treated him better than anyone he had ever known.

Standing there in his kitchen, holding her, he realized that he loved her and wanted to tell her.

Gently, he pushed her back a step and looked into her eyes.

“What is it?” she asked.

He opened his lips to tell her, and his cell phone went off. He knew who it was by the ringtone.

The Old Man had been relegated to the classic ringing of an old school telephone, while Nicholas had chosen his own ringtone on Harvath’s phone — “Atomic Dog” by George Clinton.

Their mutual love of funk music had been one of the first things they had learned about each other as their friendship evolved.

Glancing at his phone on the counter, he saw the wild picture of George Clinton that Nicholas used as his avatar. He hated breaking away from Lara, but he had to.

“It’s okay,” she said, reading his thoughts. “Answer it. I’ll start breakfast.”

He gave her a quick kiss as he reached over and picked up the phone.

“What’s up?” he asked as he connected the call and lifted the phone to his ear.

“A third case has just been reported,” Nicholas replied.

“Where?”

“Detroit.”

“Same symptoms?” he asked.

“Unfortunately.”

“Do we know anything about the patient?”

Nicholas clicked a couple of keys on his end and read the information. “Male. Thirty-seven years old.”

“Name?”

“I was afraid you were going to ask that. Abdulraham Mafid Marzook.”

That made three. “I’m guessing we can rule out Dutch Reformed again,” said Harvath.

Nicholas let out a short laugh. Graveyard humor had always been part of their relationship. Without it, both men would have gone crazy a long time ago.

“Barring pictures of them riding bikes with wooden shoes, I’m going to say that’s a safe bet. Even safer when you see what else I found. Are you near your computer?”

Lara poured a cup of coffee and handed it to him. Harvath mouthed “thank you” and walked over to the table where he sat down in front of his laptop.

“Okay, I’m at my computer. What did you find?”

“Check these out,” Nicholas replied as he pressed send on the encrypted email. “Open them in order.”

When the email arrived seconds later, Harvath did as instructed. The first attachment showed the passport applications and photos of the three deceased patients: Shukri Abu Odeh, Mousa Abulqader Elashi, and Abdulraham Mafid Marzook. The following attachments contained passenger flight manifests, U.S. Customs and Border Protection entry information, and three U.S. Customs Declaration Forms.

“What am I looking for?”

“I can’t find anything connecting the three of them. No phone calls, no emails, no social media overlap, nothing. But in the last two weeks, all three of them travelled to the same place,” Nicholas replied.

“Together or separately?”

“Separately.”

Harvath scanned the Declaration forms and finally found it. “Saudi Arabia.”

“Correct. And based on the flight manifests, they went in and out of King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah.”

Harvath went back through and looked at everything again.

As he did, Nicholas asked. “What do you think? Typhoid Mohammeds? Could the Saudis actually be part of this whole thing?”

The Saudis funded a lot of terrorism. Fifteen of the 9/11 hijackers had been from the Kingdom. They didn’t have clean hands by any means, but the fact that Odeh, Elashi, and Marzook had done nothing to hide their travel bothered him. The Saudi Intelligence services wouldn’t have left such an obvious trail. It had to be something else. Then it hit him.

“Jeddah wasn’t their final destination,” he said.

“Where do you think they went?”

Harvath pulled up a web site he used to help calculate dates in the Muslim calendar and said, “They, along with more than two million other people, went to Mecca for the Hajj.”