Germ

Kendrick bowed his head in respect, surprised that Jack Franklin knew the citation. The Geneva Protocol of 1925, a treaty among the League of Nations, outlawed the offensive use of chemical and biological warfare agents but allowed their use to defend against attack. The treaty was still in effect.

He said, "In '69, Nixon proclaimed that the U.S. unilaterally renounced any use of biological and toxin weapons, and ordered the destruction of all of the country's biological warfare stockpiles. His administration then made quite a show of converting the biological warfare research facility at Fort Detrick to a cancer research laboratory. Other facilities suffered similar fates."

The president scowled, serious. "I am aware that several facilities survived and continued . . . experimenting, developing, whatever it is they do."

"In the spirit of the Geneva Protocol, the ultrasecret nature of our germ program allowed us to keep a few facilities up and running, the most clandestine labs."

The president nodded.

"What you don't know is that Karl Litt had a particular interest in developing race-specific diseases."

"Race-specific? You mean—"

"He wanted to target particular people groups and annihilate them."

The president started to speak, then chose instead to empty his glass into his mouth.

Kendrick said, "I think it was a remnant of his father's influence, his father's work. Josef Litt taught his son extraordinary things in the field of science. He may have instilled a distaste for Jews as well. If so, he hid it well. I never saw it overtly displayed." He shrugged. "Or it was something Karl wanted to do in honor of his father. He loved him very much, and over the years, I think he came to idolize him."

"You're talking about the Final Solution." The president shook his head. "Jews are not a race."

"Most Jews trace their lineage back to a group of Semitic, nomadic tribes dwelling in the eastern Mediterranean area before 1300 BC—the Hebrews. That gives them an ethnicity that population geneticists can identify. For years, biologists have possessed the technology to discern between ethnically defined populations. The same way we can identify certain physical traits commonly attributed to people of a particular heritage, biologists can examine DNA for ethnic traits. Litt focused his efforts on aligning pathogens with these ethnic markers."

Kendrick fell quiet a moment, remembering. "Litt told me once that he'd found a DNA characteristic unique to Ashkenazi Jews, those who settled in central and eastern Europe, and whose members include most American Jews. For some evolutionary reason, Ashkenazim are prone to ten inherited disorders—Tay-Sachs, ulcerative colitis, Gaucher's disease, I forget what else. Most of them are caused by recessive genes, meaning that symptoms appear only if two copies of the mutant gene are inherited, one from each parent. Litt was trying to mutate the second gene in people who had inherited only one. He abandoned the idea when he couldn't figure out how to accelerate the disease's effects once the mutation occurred. Victims simply took too long to succumb."

"That's insane," the president said quietly. "We supported this research?"

"Of course. Think of the applications of a substance that could instantly incapacitate an enemy while leaving our own men unaffected. Vietnam, Desert Storm—in both cases, our troops were in close combat with an army ethnically distinct from most Americans."

"So much for the melting pot."

"Some of our men would, no doubt, carry the ethnic markers of the enemy, and they would die. There's no way around that, at least for now. But the losses on our side would be insignificant compared to the losses incurred during conventional war."

Kendrick watched the president absorb this. He felt the presence of the room's vile artwork pressing in on him. The collection, which he'd always suspected was an attempt to muster courage and aggression in the men who would gather here to decide on issues of war, seemed merely repugnant in light of the current conversation.

"But . . . genocide?" the president said finally.

"Genocide would occur if the virus was used indiscriminately or maliciously, yes," Kendrick agreed. "But that would never be our intention."

"Is it Lift's intention?" Something occurred to him, and he squared his shoulders at Kendrick. "Are you saying Litt has perfected this . . . this Jew-killing virus? Kendrick, is he planning an attack on the Jews?"

Kendrick suppressed an urge to lower his head. Instead, he leaned forward. "It's much worse than that, Jack. Much worse."

seventy-seven