were childlike and helpless but also knowing and vengeful. There was a rule that no animal should be subjected to a procedure in front of the others. If the screams of a test animal reached the ears of those in cages waiting their turn, they would cry out in terror.
Jürgen couldn’t stand it. More than once, Henry spotted him weeping. His repentance was evident in the canvas shoes, the vegan diet, and the quaver in his voice when he spoke of the need for additional animal trials. He was the most brilliant figure in a field he despised, like a great warrior who hated killing but also saw the cost of failure. He believed—and Henry came to believe as well—that the future of civilization, and perhaps of humanity, rested in the hands of the highly classified research that Jürgen and his team were conducting on the old Maryland farmstead that had become Fort Detrick. That future also demanded the euthanization of thousands and thousands of animals.
Henry could scarcely reflect on those years without obsessing over the weakness in his character that had led him to enter what he now regarded as a cult. It was a scientific cult, to be sure, not a pseudo religion, and yet it bore the hallmark of any powerful cult in that it presented itself as the extreme opposite of a prison of thought. Freedom was what Jürgen Stark was selling: the freedom to imagine, to experiment, and to create anything, no matter how dire or dangerous. Instead of threatening the future of humanity—they told themselves—we are saving it. If we turn away, who else will shoulder the task? Who else has the skill, the judgment, the insight, the moral courage to venture into the darkest chambers of the human mind? Who else would enter this closet of death, solely for the purpose of blocking the villains who would do us harm? Who else could hack the mind-set of the malevolent forces of the world so that when—not if—they discover the same virulent forces that we are manipulating into existence, we will be ready with the antidote? “Only we can do it”—it was a refrain that Henry couldn’t get out of his mind. They all believed it, and took comfort in each other’s belief.
13
Something Big
Prince Majid and Colonel al-Shehri walked quickly through the vast tent city of Mina, guided by a boy scout named Mamdouh, who dodged the strolling hajjis and darted through the dirty pathways like a little goat. Majid was breathless but amused by the boy’s agility and thoughtlessness.
There was order imposed on this mass of humanity. A hundred thousand identical white tents, made of fire-resistant fiberglass, were formed into neighborhoods corresponding to countries of origin. The paths were color coded and the tents numbered. Every pilgrim was obliged to carry a badge in the color of his country with the number of his tent. Theoretically, no one could get lost, but thousands of boy scouts like Mamdouh were on hand to serve as escorts for those who still managed to become disoriented.
Mamdouh took a turn into the yellow corridor and they arrived at the huge Indonesian encampment—a quarter-million people, an appropriate allotment for the world’s most populous Muslim country. The scout consulted the GPS on his iPad and located the tent number corresponding to Bambang Idris’s name. Inside were about fifty men with bare torsos sitting cross-legged and talking in low tones or sharing the photos on their phones.
“Bambang Idris?” Colonel al-Shehri shouted, awakening those who were napping on the floor mats.
One of the men responded that Mr. Bambang had gotten separated from them on the march to Jamarat. Another pilgrim suggested that he might have gone to the slaughterhouse to sacrifice his animal, or perhaps he was having his head shaved. These rituals were to be performed after the pelting of the devil. The men in the tent were just waiting for the crowds to subside to do the same.
All Majid had was a visa photo of Bambang. It was going to be difficult to pick him out of the mass of identically dressed humanity, even more so if the barber had done his work. The prince enlisted an English speaker who knew Bambang to join them—at once!
First they made their way through the massive slaughterhouse, which contained ten thousand butchers. They could hear the bawling sheep awaiting their turn with the knife. There was a registry in the office with phone numbers for pilgrims who had purchased their ritual animal