“Possibly,” said Harvath, though he had a feeling that theory was off the mark.

“What we do know,” said Alcott, “is that the weapon itself had to have been the most frightening thing he had in his arsenal. That’s why the Azemiops feae were depicted on the breastplates. He would have wanted everyone, especially his soldiers, to be constantly aware of the weapon they were carrying.”

“Are you saying that replicating poisonous snakes on arrow shafts and depicting Azemiops feae vipers on breastplates could be used to scare the enemy and embolden your own troops at the same time?”

“Exactly,” replied Alcott. “Once the snake plan had been announced, Hannibal ’s navy felt confident they couldn’t lose, even in the face of a much mightier opponent.”

Harvath sorted through the logic, trying to tie everything together. “So let’s assume that Hannibal got his hands on a copy of the Arthashastra.”

“Which would have been no small feat at the time. It was a pretty powerful book, and I doubt they were just giving it away on street corners, especially to nations that could wind up as potential enemies at some point down the road.”

“I’ll put my faith in Hannibal. He was a pretty crafty guy, but whether he bought the Arthashastra, stole it, or it was given to him doesn’t matter. Let’s just say he got a copy of it.”

“Okay.”

“Then he got hold of someone to translate it for him. Maybe he even brought some enterprising Indian scientist or soldier to the Mediterranean to help out with it. He could have even sent teams back and forth to India to get the snakes they needed, since Azemiops feae wasn’t native to the Greco-Roman world, and then used members of the Psylli tribe to handle them and extract the venom.”

“All possible,” replied Jillian, “but Vanessa said she’d been through the entire Arthashastra and couldn’t find a recipe that matches up with all the symptoms seen in Asalaam.”

“I know,” said Harvath, “but what if the Carthaginians only used the Arthashastra as a base or a jumping-off point of some sort? What if they came up with an Azemiops feae hybrid? What if they duplexed it and came up with an illness nobody had ever seen before?”

“Also possible,” said Jillian as she paused to think about it, “but where does that leave us? We have no idea where all of those artifacts came from, much less who gave them to Sotheby’s in the first place, and nothing short of a court order or official government request is going to get that auction house to open their doors again for us.”

“Suppose we didn’t need them to actually open their doors for us?” suggested Harvath as he reapplied the ice pack to the bruise on his side.

It didn’t take a genius to intuit what Harvath was contemplating. Jillian sensed he wasn’t the type to give up easily. “We were lucky enough to get out of there once without being arrested,” she said. “I don’t think the odds will be very heavily in our favor for a second go around. Especially if you’re contemplating breaking in.”

Harvath smiled.

She had pegged him correctly. He was definitely a hammer.

“I think you’re wrong about today,” continued Harvath. “There was no way they were going to arrest us. Davidson can’t be sure the artifacts didn’t come from an illegitimate source, and she’s wary of bad press.”

“Even so, how do you propose we get back inside? From the security I saw, it has to be next to impossible.”

“Magic,” replied Harvath with a smile.

“What kind of magic?”

“We’re going to walk through walls.”

THIRTY-ONE

When Jillian came down to the Hotel Gare du Nord’s lobby, she was dressed in the second-hand clothes Harvath had sent up to her room earlier in the evening. She couldn’t figure out if he’d incorrectly guessed her sizes or if he had purchased the black turtleneck and black jeans slightly snug on purpose. Regardless of what his intentions had been, with the battered, secondhand leather jacket she felt that she looked perfectly Parisian. She was also glad to have the warm clothes, as a second storm front had moved in and the rainy night air was bitterly cold.

At exactly midnight, Harvath appeared in the lobby and motioned for her to follow him. Outside on the street, he hurried her through the rain to a tiny, windowless van. He had left it running, and though the wheezing heater was cranked all the way up, its effect was barely noticeable.

“How do the clothes fit?” he asked as they pulled away from the curb.

“Strangely enough,” replied Jillian, “the boots are a perfect fit, but everything else is a little tight.”

Harvath glanced over at her before turning right onto the boulevard de Magenta and said, “No they’re not. They’re just right.”

Jillian should have known better. Anyone who could nail her shoe size after having only spent two days with her certainly knew what he was doing with everything else. “Where’d they come from?”

The tires of the tiny van wobbled as they splashed through puddles making their way south. “I got them at a flea market.”

“And the van?”

“I know a guy who knows a guy.”

Jillian looked into the cargo area behind their seats. “And I assume everything in back is from-”

“The same guy,” said Harvath, hanging a right onto the boulevard de Strasbourg and speeding up in order to make the light at the next corner.

“So what is all that stuff?”

“Skeleton keys.”

“Skeleton keys?” repeated Jillian, looking behind her at the duffel bag and two plastic Storm-brand cases. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“I couldn’t be more serious. Trust me. You’ll see.”

Ten minutes later, they had threaded their way through the bustling Les Halles neighborhood and had managed to find a parking space around the corner from the Sotheby’s annex. Walking around to the back of the van, Harvath opened the double doors and leaned inside to get his head out of the rain. He slid the two Storm cases and heavy black duffel toward him, opened them, and checked their contents one last time.

“I thought you said you had a set of skeleton keys in there,” said Jillian, who had darted behind the van and was now leaning inside next to him.

“I do,” replied Harvath as he withdrew a small sledgehammer about a foot long from the duffel. “This one unlocks the downstairs door.”

Jillian looked at him as if he was nuts. “You realize that when I said you were like a hammer and that you approached all your problems like nails, I was speaking metaphorically, right?”

Harvath ignored her and tucked the sledgehammer beneath his coat.

“I’m serious,” said Jillian.

“I know.”

“So tell me what your real plan is.”

“I told you. I’m going to use my skeleton key to open the downstairs door.”

“What about the security guards?”

Harvath zipped up the duffel and then slung it over his shoulder. He grabbed the larger of the two Storm cases and indicated that Jillian should take the other. As he closed the rear doors of the van, he said, “If we do this right, they won’t have any idea what we’re up to.”

“And if we don’t do this right?”

“Then I hope your tight jeans don’t prevent you from running.”

“That’s a good one,” said Jillian. “You sure know how to kid a girl.”

“Who’s kidding?” replied Harvath as he set off down the block.

Jillian peppered him with questions the entire way, but Harvath didn’t feel like talking. Despite his leather jacket, the nylon straps of the overweight duffel were cutting into his shoulder. He couldn’t wait to finally set it down. Thankfully, the heavy Storm case had built-in casters that allowed it to be dragged behind him.

For her part, as much as Jillian wanted to trust Harvath, she couldn’t help feeling he was acting out of desperation. Smashing through the glass front doors of the Sotheby’s annex with a sledgehammer was the most insane plan she could ever imagine. They wouldn’t make it more than five feet before the armed guards would be on them. She was just about to say as much when Harvath pulled up three doors short of the annex. Ducking into a small alcove, he set his heavy duffel down, leaned his Storm case against the wall, and produced a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. “Here, “He said as he offered them to her.