“Exactly.” My left hand crept toward my neck, but I stopped it short, forcing it to run over the silk scarf and nothing more. “At least one intelligence agency saw the military applications and… encouraged Haddad to explore them. That’s when Project Hephaestus was born.”
Will’s brows drew down. “The Greek god of blacksmiths, fire, and volcanoes?”
“It was appropriate. The powder variant is an incendiary that burns at over one thousand degrees Celsius and adheres to any surface, including water.”
Will whistled softly. “Which explains the tie to the phoenix imagery.”
“There are plenty of chemicals that do similar things, such as thermite and white phosphorus.” I nodded to Percival, who advanced the slides to a three-dimensional molecular model. “This one’s based on a stabilized Lewisite derivative—essentially an organometallic arsenic compound.”
“Nothing special there?” asked Will.
“Not really.” Memories of a jury-rigged fume hood in a makeshift lab flooded my brain. Hazy orange sunlight filtering through a window. Gunfire. The scent of geraniums in the air. I wouldnotlook through the glass walls again.
Focus, Brooke.
I found Percival’s eyes, and he nodded almost imperceptibly.You’ve got this. “Taking inspiration from the parchment he’d discovered, he constructed a method to suspend it in a synthetic lipid carrier. The carrier allowed it to penetrate most protective barriers, clinging to skin and delivering both chemical burns and systemic arsenic toxicity.”
The image on the screen animated, showing a layer of oily particles covering the molecule, encapsulating it.
“Bloody hell,” breathed Will.
“I still don’t understand.” Brie joined me in front of the wall monitor, looking more closely at the molecule. “How could something so destructive possibly heal anything?”
“That’s what makes Greek Fire truly fascinating.” I’d received plenty of sidelong looks when I spoke about Haddad’s research. It was terrifying and yet beautiful, and the biochemist in me couldn’t separate one from the other. “In highly diluted form, the liquid compound triggers rapid cell division.”
“Like a tumor?” she said.
I nodded. “The effect is chaotic, uncontrolled—but undeniably regenerative.”
“Which means Noah isn’t completely delusional when he talks about healing and curing disease,” Scarlett said.
“The theoretical foundation exists.” I watched the image change again, replacing the chemicals with graphs. Safe. Simple. “That’s why some view it as salvation rather than destruction. The line between weapon and miracle cure becomes dangerously thin.”
Brie traced one of the graphs with a finger. “Mortality rate ninety-five percent?”
“That’s what our lab simulations show.”
Haddad’s simulations reported eighty percent, but I hadn’t been able to reproduce those results. Of course, I hadn’t been allowed to produce the actual chemical itself, either.
Brie turned to me as though we were the only two people in the room. “You have firsthand experience with this, don’t you?”
I opened my mouth, but no words came out. How did she figure that out?
“Not Greek Fire directly.” Percival’s voice pulled everyone’s attention to him. Off of me. He lifted his right arm, slid his sleeve up higher to show off the puckered skin dotting his forearm. “This was from Lewisite, which it’s derived from. Hurt like a son of a bitch.”
That was an understatement.
“We’ll need to move quickly once we have a location.” Percival rolled his sleeve down. “If Fenix has been behind more than one of our hackers searching for the formula, they may have more of it than we expected.”
“From Haddad’s original research?” asked Brie.
“Possibly.”
“Thank you,” said Scarlett with a frown. “But it sounds like a stupid idea to go straight after them. They’re a bunch of murderous and delusional zealots. What if they turn this weapon on you?”
“We’ve developed a presumptive test kit for field use.” I prompted Percival to show our first line of defense. A one-by-two-inch clear pouch with reactive agents inside, plus the reaction strips that would change color for a presumptive positive result. “The multi-zone papers are inserted into the test pouch, and when the inner ampule is snapped, it will trigger a color change if either form or some of the components are present.”
“Would it detect residual traces?” Brie studied the schematic, pushing her glasses higher. “If we can track Fenix’s most recent movements, you might arrive after they’ve already cleared a site.”
