Reaping The Harvest (Harvest Trilogy, Book 3) (8 page)

“So it’s growing out of the skin of the patients?”

“Exactly.” Naomi sat back. “The interesting coincidence is that there’s a lot of anecdotal evidence that Morgellons is related to or caused by genetically modified organisms. No one’s been able to conclusively prove it, but in the context of what’s going on around us, it’s not so easy to dismiss a possible link. But this,” she tapped a few keys, and another pair of images came up on the screen, “is no coincidence. On the left is what’s alleged to be an electron microscope image of a cross-section of one of these Morgellons fibers from a young female patient. The one on the right is from a fiber bundle in a harvesters’s skeletal structure.”

“My God.” Morgan leaned closer, staring at the two images. His heart began to pound in his chest. “These are identical. Go back to the gene sequences.”

Naomi flipped back to the windows showing the two sets of DNA sequences. “Unfortunately,” she said, “this is the only data I’ve come across where the electron microscope image and the gene sequence data are correlated to a specific patient, and in my mind that correlation isn’t a hundred percent certain, because so many of these records aren’t properly sourced. But if it pans out…”

“This could be it,” Morgan said, his voice barely a whisper. Their greatest challenge in exploiting the harvester DNA was its complexity, with hundreds of times more base pairs than human DNA. Aside from the breakthrough Harmony Bates had made in identifying a sequence associated with harvester reproduction, the SEAL labs had been unsuccessful in their efforts to tie specific traits to the harvester genes. Even if the reproductive gene could somehow be disrupted, it still wouldn’t kill the current generation, only inhibit or, at best, prevent the reproduction of more. That was a vital goal, but it wasn’t what the president was hoping for. “If we were able to disrupt their skeletal structure…”

“It would change everything,” Naomi finished for him.

“But how did Morgellons come about?” He asked. “Was this an attempt by the harvesters to infect us directly, before they came up with the ploy to do it through our food?”

“There’s really no way of knowing,” Naomi told him. “Genes can be transferred from one organism to another. It’s quite common among bacteria, although not so much in more complex organisms. If humans were infected by a mutated virus from a harvester,” she went on, “it’s not inconceivable that the virus could have transferred some genetic material to the human host. That’s the basic theory behind gene therapy, and is what the harvesters used to weaponize the New Horizons seed that caused the disaster we’re facing. It’s also what we plan to do, if we can find all the pieces to the puzzle and put them together in time.”

“So Morgellon’s could just be accidental, the result of a mutated virus passed from the Group A harvesters to humans?” He nodded toward the monitors. “I’m having a hard time buying that.”
 

“Well, maybe you’ll buy this,” Naomi said. “It may not have any direct bearing on what we’re doing here, but this tidbit was very interesting.” She pulled up another web page. “While we can’t be sure they’re related, Morgellons was named after a disease originally reported in 1674 by Sir Thomas Browne in England. He documented a disease that afflicted French children that was dubbed
le morgellon
, whose key symptom was strange hair or fibers growing from their skin.” She scrolled down the page. “In 1682 the German physician Dr. Michael Ettmüller made these drawings with the aid of a microscope. Look familiar?”

Morgan stared at the images drawn by the long-dead German doctor. While Ettmüller’s hand-drawn renderings weren’t identical to the photographs Naomi had shown him, they shared enough similarities to make his skin crawl.

“So what does this mean?” Morgan said.

“It means that we have a possible — a
possible
— data point on how long the harvesters have been with us,” Naomi told him. “Nearly four hundred years. And probably longer.”

“Good God.”
 

Just then the phone on Naomi’s desk rang. She picked it up and listened. Morgan could tell even from where he was standing that it was Renee’s voice, and she was excited about something. Looking up at Morgan with disbelieving eyes, Naomi said, “I’m going to put you on speaker so Howard can hear.” She pushed a button and put the handset back in the cradle. “Okay, put him through.”

“Go ahead,” Renee’s voice said from the speaker.

“Dr. Perrault, this is Captain Kiran Chidambaram.” The voice was that of a young but authoritative man with a South Asian accent, but Morgan also sensed a slight quaver of fear.

“Kiran?” Naomi said with open-mouthed disbelief. “We thought you were dead when your plane went down! Is Vijay with you?”

“My cousin is dead. He…he did not survive the crash.”

“I’m so sorry,” Naomi told him, closing her eyes. “He was a good man. He’ll be truly missed.”

“Yes…yes, he will be.” He paused. “Doctor, I need to see you as quickly as possible. It is very important.”

“We’ll do the best we can, but it may take a while to get to you.”
 

She looked at Morgan, but he only offered a noncommittal shrug. Vijay Chidambaram would have been a welcome addition to the team and a valuable resource. His cousin Kiran certainly had value as an Indian military officer, but he wasn’t an asset that Carl was likely to go out of his way to collect. “Kiran, this is Howard Morgan, the technical director for the lab where Naomi works. Air traffic is restricted worldwide, and some countries aren’t allowing any overflights at all. But we’ll do what we can. Where are you?”

“I am…” There was a longer pause. “I am in a place called Damlacik, in eastern Turkey near the Iranian border. Dr. Perrault, I must see you soon. This cannot wait.”

“What’s so urgent?” Naomi asked. “Did Vijay discover something?”

“No…it’s the harvesters who captured me,” he said, his voice trembling now. “They say they want to join forces with you.”

CLOAK AND DAGGER

Jack’s stay in Norway after the Russian nuclear strike had been brief. Six hours after the Russian nuclear strike, General Nesvold had presented Jack with a sheet of paper. In three lines of stark military prose, the Army had recalled him to active duty, promoted him one grade from his former service rank of captain to major, and assigned him to Headquarters, United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM).
 

A second sheet of paper contained an equally brief set of orders from his new command, directing him to get to Ramstein Air Base in Germany as quickly as possible, but giving him no clue as to why.

The Norwegians were requested to provide a security element for Jack, and so he found himself escorted by Terje Halvorsen, Frode Stoltenberg (who brought along his cat, Lurva, in a collapsible crate), and two other soldiers of
Forsvarets Spesialkommando
,
Norwegian Special Forces, aboard a C-130 at Bodø.
 

Once at Ramstein, they picked up the twelve men of a U.S. Army Special Forces A Team of the 10
^th
Special Forces Group, led by Captain Jesus Alvarez.
 

“I’m Captain Alvarez, sir,” the wiry Hispanic officer said as he shook Jack’s proffered hand while his team quickly settled into their seats. The rear cargo ramp hadn’t yet closed before the C-130 was taxiing for takeoff. “Nice to meet you.”

“Any idea what this mission’s about?” Jack asked as Alvarez strapped into the seat next to him. Opposite them sat Halvorsen and Stoltenberg, who were leaning forward, straining to hear what Alvarez had to say over the roar of the C-130’s engines.
 

Alvarez shook his head. “Not a clue, sir. We just got back from an op in Budapest, helping the Marines evacuate our embassy there.” He shook his head as the plane angled upward and leaped into the sky. “We barely had time to change into clean uniforms and check our gear before joining this party.”
 

Halvorsen and Stoltenberg shared a look. “You had no time for mission planning?” Stoltenberg asked. “We’re just going into this blind?”

“Pretty much,” Alvarez admitted. “I don’t like it. It’s a piss-poor way to do things, but I couldn’t really argue with the three-star who gave me the orders. We’ve got no intel, no details on logistics or support, no objectives. All I know is that this bird is taking us to Incirlik, Turkey where we’ll be catching a different ride. Past that, they didn’t tell us shit.”
 

Jack rubbed his eyes. His headache had just grown worse. “Christ.”

“Here, sir,” Alvarez said, dragging over a big olive drab flight bag he’d brought aboard with him. “We were told you didn’t have a go-bag, so we brought some gear for you.”

Opening the bag, Jack found a helmet with night vision goggles attached, an M4A1 assault rifle with an under-barrel 40mm grenade launcher, body armor, and a combat vest loaded with magazines for the rifle and grenades for the launcher, a pair of white phosphorus grenades and another pair of high explosive frags, and a personal radio. At the very bottom was a set of fatigues. Jack pulled out the other gear and set it on the seat beside him, leaving the uniform in the bag.
 

“The ammo for the M4 is a mix of standard and incendiary,” Alvarez said. “The 40mm grenades are all high explosive.”
 

Jack checked that the weapon was empty and safe, then set it aside before he pulled on the vest over the Norwegian uniform he was wearing.
 

“I was told you might need this, too.” Alvarez leaned over and attached a rank tab with a copper-colored oak leaf to Jack’s vest. “Now the snipers will take you out first instead of me.”

Stoltenberg guffawed at the joke.

“Sir, if you don’t mind telling us,” one of Alvarez’s men asked, raising his voice so that the other men could hear, “you’ve seen action before, right? This isn’t your first field op, is it?”

The others turned to look at Jack with keen interest.

“I’ve got two holes in my chest from AK-47 rounds, courtesy of the Taliban.” Jack put his right thumb and forefinger to his chest, marking where the bullets had hit him. “And the scars on my face are from a grenade. So yeah, I’ve seen a little action.”

The other men nodded somberly.
 

“But Jack,” Stoltenberg protested, his face splitting into a wide grin, “all that means is you know how to get shot.”

***

The flight from Ramstein was uneventful, and Jack even managed to get a little sleep before the C-130 began its descent into Incirlik Air Base. Jack looked at his watch. It was just past 0100, or one o’clock in the morning.
 

After landing, their plane taxied to a revetment area at the northeast corner of the airfield. The crew chief lowered the ramp and ushered them out.
 

Jack led the others down the ramp to where an Air Force sergeant in a flight uniform awaited them. “This way, sir,” he said, gesturing for Jack and the others to follow.

“Do you know what the hell’s going on?” Jack asked.

“The pilot’ll brief you, sir. This way.”

He led them to an Air Force Special Operations Command CV-22 Osprey, its huge wingtip rotors already spinning. The sergeant, who turned out to be the aircraft’s crew chief, guided them aboard through the rear ramp. The men quickly settled into their seats, with Jack and the other officers sitting nearest the ramp.
 

The crew chief handed them headsets and double-checked that they could hear over the intercom. Jack gave a thumbs-up. A few moments later, the engines began to howl and the Osprey lifted off.

“Welcome aboard, boys and girls,” the pilot said. “Hold on to your hats, use the puke bags if you feel like giving back your breakfast, and enjoy the nighttime tour of Turkey’s friendly skies.”

“Pilot, this is Major Dawson,” Jack said. “Do you have any idea what our mission orders are?”

“I don’t know about
your
orders, major, but mine are to fly you and your merry band of warriors just shy of five hundred miles northeast of here to the thriving metropolis of Damlacik, which is in easy pissing distance of the border with our friendly neighborhood Iranians.”

“Is that it?” Alvarez said, shooting Jack an
I don’t believe this shit
look. “You don’t have any more details on this mission?”

“Well, if you want to get technical,” the pilot replied, “my orders are to fly you to Damlacik, where Major Dawson, as in Major Dawson personally, will receive further instructions over the radio on frequency 149.800 megahertz, and that I’m supposed to do whatever the hell you tell me to do. I think the military-speak was that you have
full operational discretion.
I’m fine with anything you order me to do except giving up cartoons on Saturday. That’s it. Sounds fun, huh?”

“Yeah,” Jack grated. “A goddamn barrel of monkeys.”

“This is very strange, Jack,” Terje said. “How can we do…whatever we are supposed to do if we have no idea what it is?”

“It’s one of the joys of ‘need to know’ taken to an extreme,” Jack told him. “I guess we just have to hope that whoever is on the other end of the radio when we get to Damlacik has a clue.”

Alvarez looked disgusted. Stoltenberg gave a Cheshire Cat smile in the darkened compartment and shook his head. Terje sighed and leaned back, closing his eyes.
 

An hour and a half later, the pilot announced, “We’re going feet wet over Lake Van, boys and girls, about forty minutes out from the target. We’re going to be making a low approach to keep the Iranians from painting us on their radar and getting their panties in a bunch. The ride’s going to be a bit rough once we go feet dry on the far side of the lake, so get your barf bags ready.”

“If we were on a Norwegian plane,” Stoltenberg told him, “we’d have in-flight service and free drinks. Don’t you have any whiskey?”

“Yeah,” the pilot told him, “but that’s only for the pilots. Passengers have to fend for themselves.”

The pilot and Stoltenberg shared a laugh as the CV-22 pitched over and dove toward the black water of Lake Van, leveling out less than a hundred feet above the water.