Black Death Reprise. Don Pendleton

      “Yes. But let’s wait until Kurtzman gets here.”

      As if on cue, the doors to the elevator built into the corner of the room slid open, and Barbara Price, Stony Man’s mission controller, appeared, followed by Aaron Kurtzman, who wheeled himself to his place at the head of the conference table. As Price slid into a vacant seat next to Tokaido, Kurtzman took his oversize mug of steaming coffee and placed it on the table in front of him.

      “Hal, Zagorski’s debrief,” he said without wasting any words on greetings.

      “It’s not good,” the big Fed replied. “As we suspected, the Order of Raphael is definitely working to develop a bioweapon. In the three years between 1345 and 1348, the Black Death wiped out somewhere between thirty and fifty percent of Europe’s population. Zagorski thinks the Order actually stored blood taken from plague victims during the fourteenth century in wine bottles in one of their cellars. They began those experiments that caught the attention of Sentinelles hoping to resurrect the disease, but the blood was too old. They decided instead to create a modern pandemic from scratch.”

      “Motivation?” Bolan asked.

      “I can answer that,” Price spoke up. In addition to the skills she brought to her management responsibilities, the former model with honey-blond hair was an adept researcher. She was knowledgeable and incisive, but even she admitted that her mind lacked that special ability to make the type of quantum leaps the cybernetics team often achieved when they pooled their mental resources.

      “The Order dates all the way back to before the Crusades,” Price said. “When Pope Clement moved the papal seat to Avignon and it looked like there would be a schism with Rome, L’Abbaye de Raphael, along with all the other French monasteries, became more prominent in Church affairs. They’re mentioned in many medieval documents, but it’s hard to tell where truth leaves off and a rather incredible legend begins. Some believe that the Order’s calling was to help enforce God’s punishments on man.”

      When Price paused for a moment, Wethers said, “Vigilante monks killing sinners?” His voice held a note of skepticism.

      He placed the ivory stem of a briar pipe between his teeth and leaned back in his chair, taking on a pose multitudes of students had observed whenever the African-American professor assumed what he called his Socratic mode of teaching.

      “Not exactly,” Price answered. “More like facilitators. The Old Testament is very explicit concerning God’s quid pro quo relationship with his Chosen People. Sinning gets out of control, and He sends a flood, choosing Noah to work with Him to punish mankind. Avenging angels are sent to destroy Sodom and Gomorra. Moses is tasked to impose a forty-year cleansing march onto the doubting children of Israel. The legend is that the Order of Raphael was chosen to help spread the plague throughout Europe. Supposedly, a task force called the Forty Martyrs infected themselves and went on their way, spreading the disease along with God’s gospel. In those times, monks and priests were one of few groups allowed free travel across international borders.”

      “Why forty?” Delahunt, ever the addict for attention to detail, asked.

      “One for each lash Jesus received. But they weren’t all dispatched at once. The story goes that the Order sent them out in pairs and trios over a three-year period when the plague devastated European populations the Order’s abbot constantly watched for a sign telling him when to deploy the final couriers of death, steadfastly believing God would let him know. The plague ended up manifesting itself in three variants—bubonic, with black tumors and death within two weeks, pneumatic, zeroing in on the respiratory system, spread merely by breathing on someone and fatal in days, and finally, the septicemic version, of which the initial symptom was a violent vomiting of blood with death occurring within hours. The appearance of the third mutation, interpreted by the Order’s abbot to symbolize the Trinity, was his signal to deploy the last group. The plague died out shortly thereafter.”

      “Are you saying that the explanation we learned in school, that the Black Death was spread by fleas carried on rats, is false?” Bolan asked.

      “I’m just telling you what the legend is, Striker,” Price said.

      “Why did the plague stop spreading? Rats didn’t change their travel patterns,” Tokaido asked.

      “Darwinian natural selection,” Wethers answered in his authoritarian voice. “People possessing a natural resistance survived, and as those contracting the disease died, potential victims became fewer and fewer. Almost half the population in some places was wiped out.”

      “In Europe,” Tokaido countered. “Rats didn’t migrate off the continent?” He snapped his gum and added, “Probability of the legend being fact is not zero.”

      “Akira’s right,” Delahunt said. “Assume the Order was the breakout epicenter, targeting only the Christian world for God’s punishment. They stop sending couriers and the disease dies out. Coincidence? There must have been susceptible people in places like the Ottoman Empire, which bordered the continent. Why was the disease confined almost exclusively to Europe?”