Chapter 11

Don and Amita ate their fill, then wrapped up the remaining sandwiches and cookies for Alan and Larry. Don's cell phone rang. "Eppes," he answered. "Hey, Megan, that was fast... Okay, what do you have?... Okay, ... Really?... I don't believe it... Okay, well thanks." He hung up and stared at the phone, shaking his head.

"What?" Amita asked.

"Charlie was in Baghdad last week."

"Baghdad?! What on earth was he doing there?"

"No idea." Don gestured at Charlie's computer. "But maybe you'll find something in there." He took out his cell phone. "I'm going to call Dad. Hopefully he forgot to turn off his cell phone."

Alan looked around guiltily as his cell phone rang. He slipped it out of his pocket, silenced the ringer and looked at the caller ID. He flipped the phone open and whispered, "Donnie?"

"Hey, Dad. I was hoping you forgot to turn your phone off. Listen, are you sitting down?"

"Why? What now?"

"Okay, Dad, be careful of your reactions now. Don't let that NSA agent know what's going on, okay?"

"All right. Go ahead." Alan took a deep breath and gripped the arm of his chair with his free hand.

"I found out where Charlie was last week. He was in Baghdad."

Alan opened his mouth to say something, then closed it and finally started to speak. "Well, that's wonderful, Donnie. It sounds like a beautiful place."

"See if you can get away from the NSA guys and let House know, okay?"

"I will do that, Son. And thank you. Are you and Amita going to be back soon?"

Don's smile filled his voice. "Yeah, Amita's trying to hack into Charlie's computer now. We've got sandwiches and coffee and will be there as soon as we can."

Alan hung up his phone and said to Larry, "Don and Amita will be back in a little while with sandwiches and coffee."

"Oh, that would be wonderful!" Larry said, grinning.

Alan touched Charlie's face, and picked up the cold washcloth the nurse had left after she had given Charlie a sponge bath. He wiped Charlie's face and arms. Charlie muttered something in his sleep and pulled away from the washcloth. "Shhhh." Alan soothed. "It's going to be all right, my baby boy." Alan put the washcloth on the night stand and stood. "Larry, I'm going to stretch my legs before Donnie gets here. Will you hold down the fort for me?"

"Of course, Alan," Larry stood and took Alan's seat. "I'll be right here."

Alan patted Larry's shoulder. "Thank you, Larry." He nodded to Reid as he left.

Once out of Reid's sight, Alan found a nurse and asked for directions to Dr. House's office. The nurse looked at him like he'd grown a second head. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, I am," Alan said firmly. She shrugged and gave him the directions. He only got lost once in the maze of a hospital. House's door was open, and in the subdued light, Alan saw the doctor, leg elevated on his desk, leaning back with his keyboard on his lap, staring at his computer monitor.

Alan knocked on the door, and House glared at him. "What?"

"I'm sorry to disturb you, but I have some information I think you might need. Charlie was in Baghdad last week."

"Well, well," House said. "That makes a whole lot of sense. Any idea what he was doing there?"

"He consults for a few government agencies. It could have been any of them, though it was probably the NSA the way they have their watchdogs shadowing him."

"What kind of consulting?"

"He's a world class mathematician. So I assume it's something to do with that."

House picked up a pink tennis ball the size of a softball and tossed it into the air. "So how does a world class mathematician end up exposed to anthrax in Baghdad?"

Alan started to reply, and House cut him off. "That was rhetorical." He used both hands to lift his right leg from the desk, then pulled himself painfully to his feet. "Get back to your son and let me get my minions to work on this new bit of information."

House left the room without another word, and went next door, where his team was drinking coffee and chatting. "Listen up," he said, limping to the white board. "We've finally got something new to work with."

"What, did the patient develop new symptoms?" Foreman said sarcastically.

"No, smart guy. He was lying to us, for some ridiculous reason. Who'd a thunk it? He wasn't in Washington, DC all week." House paused. "What, no drumroll? Anyway, he was in Baghdad."

"Iraq," Chase looked up, shocked.

"No, Baghdad, Ohio. Of course, Iraq. Home of those never discovered weapons of mass destruction. Like those lovely new and improved diseases designed to foil diagnosticians all over the world."

Cameron nodded. "If Charlie was infected with a weaponized version of anthrax, who knows what treatments will work on it."

"Who knows, indeed. I'm hoping our intrepid FBI agent will be able to find out for us. Only a government full of idiots would design a disease they have no cure for. No, wait, that pretty much describes the Iraqis. Never mind." He picked up a marker and wrote "genetically altered anthrax" on the white board. He turned and looked at his team. "Begone, minions! Find me everything you can about weaponized anthrax."

Amita sat back and rubbed her eyes. "Don," she said, "I think I've got something."

Don sat beside her and looked at the screen. He didn't see anything that made sense. "What am I looking at?" He said.

"Well, let me clean it up a bit, but I think I've gotten into Charlie's encrypted email." She tapped the keys and before long, had a list of Charlie's emails from the last two weeks.

Don's eyes widened as he saw the return addresses on the messages. "You know we shouldn't be looking at these."

"I know. But look at this one." Amita clicked on a message with the subject line "June 1 trip. Eppes, Mason, Davis and Hasigawa." The message set a date and a time for Charlie and three other men to meet at the NSA headquarters, packed for a one week trip to a hot climate.

The remaining messages didn't give any details of the job they were to do. But then Don saw a message from Charlie to Assistant Director Robert Tompkins and asked Amita to open it. Charlie was apologizing for delaying their departure. 'But we've been invited to dinner tonight at the home of Deputy Minister Ali Abu-Hassan. Mason felt it was best it we accepted. Hasigawa made arrangements for us to catch a later flight.' The message was dated four days ago.

Don whistled. "So that may be where he was exposed. I wonder who these other guys are, Mason, Davis and Hasigawa. Do any of the names sound familiar to you?"

Amita shook her head. "No. It would help if we knew something about what they were doing. If they're other civilian consultants, I could Google them. But the names are to common to be useful. I will Google Ali Abu-Hassan, though. Maybe we can learn something about him."

The thought that his little brother had been in Baghdad on some kind of secret government consulting gig, and had been exposed to some of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction scared the daylights out of Don. He wanted to run over to the hospital, take Charlie in his arms and will him back to health. Instead, he took out his cell phone and went through his contact list. Glancing at the time, he sighed and dialed.

After what seemed like forever, a groggy voice answered, "Havercamp."

"Lieutenant Havercamp, this is Don Eppes. I am so sorry to call you at this hour, but I need your help."

"Agent Eppes? What's wrong?"

Don took a deep breath. "It's my brother, Charlie. He's sick and the doctors think it's gastrointestinal anthrax. He was in Baghdad..."

"Stop. Give me a land line where I can reach you. These cell phones aren't secure. I'll call you in five minutes."

Don gave her the number for the phone on Charlie's nightstand.

"New Jersey?" Havercamp asked. "Why...? No, wait. I'll call you." She hung up.

Don sat, his hand on the phone, counting the seconds. Finally, after three and a half minutes, the phone rang. "Eppes," he answered.

"Don," Havercamp said, 'What is going on there?"

Don gave her the details, as far as he knew them, and answered when she interrupted him with questions. He gave her the names of the three men who were with Charlie, and the name of their dinner host.

He could hear Havercamp take a deep breath and release it slowly. Finally she said, "You must understand that what I'm about to tell you is classified at the National Security level. The only reason I'm telling you is that it's imperative that Charlie is treated immediately. Mason died yesterday, and Davis are in critical condition."

"The NSA has two agents assigned to Charlie now. They're taking turns staying with him," Don said.

Amita looked up, suddenly remembering something. "Excuse me, Don, but someone from the NSA also took a sample of Charlie's blood. I don't know where he took it, but he came in posing as a doctor, and Agent Reid stopped Dr. Chase from getting the blood sample away from him. I don't know if it's important..."

Don passed Amita's information to Havercamp. She asked, "Do you know if the agents are influencing Charlie's treatment at all?"

"I just got here. Let me ask Amita."

When he repeated Havercamp's question, Amita said, "They haven't said anything while I've been there. But there are two of them. I don't know where the off-duty agent goes when he leaves Charlie's room."

"I'd like to know what the NSA knows about this," Havercamp said. "I'll get the information on the treatments the other three men received, and give it to your Dr. House. That might help him eliminate something."

"Do you know anything about the anthrax they ingested?"

"It's a genetically altered form of the disease. We'll need to find out what was done to alter it. I'll get on it right away and get back to you as soon as I can."

"Thanks, Lieutenant Havercamp. I really appreciate this," Don said.

"Any time. Just pray we can come up with the right treatment in time."