Black Sun: A Thriller (35 page)

“And the Russians had it all this time,” she said.

“One of the prize possessions of the Science Directorate.”

“And they used it on Yuri,” she said. “I can see why they want him back.”

“They want the shard back,” Moore said, “and they don’t want the world knowing what they’ve been using it for. As I said, it was an experiment.”

“And at the end of the experiment?” she asked.

“It was to be removed,” he said. “A procedure that would likely kill him.”

Danielle shuddered. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “How did he end up with Kang?”

“It appears that some members of the directorate thought that removing the shard from Yuri was an inhuman decision. They kidnapped him with the help of some contacts. They sold him to Kang under promises of his good treatment. We think they’re all dead now.”

“And why did Kang want him?”

“Because Kang, who hasn’t been seen in public for years, suffers from the same disease that Yuri has. Based on the timing of his disappearance, it’s believed he came down with it five years ago. If the rumors are true, he’ll be dead in a year or so.”

Now it made sense, at least some of it. “He had
Yuri,” she pointed out. “He could have operated on him right then.”

“It seems Kang doesn’t want just a shard,” Moore said. “He believed Yuri could lead him to the stones that remained. And with those stones he could do more than gain remission; he could be healed completely.”

“So there is no fourth stone,” she said, wondering what that meant for the prophecy, either good or bad.

If the stones were designed to help, she wondered if they would have enough power to complete their task. And if they were designed to cause some havoc, would Russia now be spared while North and Central America bore the brunt of it?

“At least not anything more than a splinter,” Moore said.

Danielle took a moment to absorb what she’d just heard and then asked the obvious. “And what’s going to happen when these stones fulfill their mission?” All along she’d felt they were pursuing the right road, but now … she suddenly felt her conviction shifting.

“I don’t know,” Moore admitted. “I should think you and McCarter would have a better grasp on that than I do.”

“What’s going to happen to Yuri?” she asked pointedly.

Moore hesitated, and then spoke remorsefully. “We believe the next pulse will be far more powerful than the last. Maybe a hundred times more powerful. Maybe a thousand. And if Yuri is affected proportionally …”

“He’ll die,” she said, finishing his sentence.

Moore didn’t reply. He didn’t need to.

It seemed impossible to her, unfair beyond comprehension that Yuri could have gone through all he’d been through just to die now. She could not accept that this would be his end. There had to be a way to save him. There had to be.

She heard Moore talking, but her mind had gone numb.

“There’s more at stake here than just Yuri,” he said. “You have to stay clear on this, remain unemotional.”

Once upon a time that had been her forte.

“If you even tell me to look at the bigger picture I’ll—”

“You do need to look at the bigger picture,” he said. “If the legend is true, if it’s history and not speculation, then billions will die if we do the wrong thing. Hundreds of millions of them will be children just like Yuri.”

She took a breath and tried to harden herself as she’d once been able to. Finally she spoke. “What do you want me to do?”

“I’ve been instructed to give you the following order: Set your watches to count down independently. If you do not hear from us prior to the reading triple zero on the clock, you are to destroy the stone and bury the remnants in the deepest hole you can find.”

“They gave you a contingency order,” she said, realizing it had come from someone other than Moore. “Fine, it’s noted. But what do
you
want us to do?”

“I don’t know yet,” he said. “I feel they’re misreading this thing badly, but I can’t ask you to violate the order. Not without absolute proof.”

She knew what he wanted to say, but she understood why he held back.

“Figure out your own thoughts on this,” he added. “Find some peace with whatever you decide, and then tell me if you can do what I ask or not.”

She looked around the small guest room. Out the window at the gathering dusk she saw the people of San Ignacio. There were children getting ready for their posada play. She wanted to go see Yuri.

“I will,” she said.

“Good.”

She signed off, put the phone down, and fought hard against the tears that were trying to break through.

H
awker sat on the steps of the guesthouse watching the procession in the street. A group of the youngest children from the village were reenacting the journey of Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem. A young boy was wearing a long, blue cloth as if it were a robe; beside him a young girl wore white with yellow trim as she rode atop a small burro. The rest of the town’s children followed them. Hawker even saw Yuri mixed in with the group.

The boy playing Joseph dutifully led the burro and its passenger from door to door, knocking politely and asking if there were any
“habitaciones en la posada.”
Any room at the inn.

At each door the children of the group inhaled with expectation, but one by one they were told no. Finally, at a house several doors up from the church, a face looked out on the young Mary and Joseph and smiled.

“Sí,”
the woman said.

And the children went wild.

Minutes later the party was in full swing, with music playing, a piñata being smashed, fresh food and drink for everyone. Scenes like this were taking place all over Mexico on the nights leading up to Christmas.

In the Mayan towns like the one McCarter had temporarily resided in, a different festival was being celebrated, one that focused on the winter solstice and combined it with the looming end date on the Mayan calendar.

Scenes of joy and happiness everywhere. Hawker wondered what they would think if they knew what he knew.

Watching the party from a distance, Yuri saw him and smiled. Hawker waved and Yuri swirled away with the other kids, running and playing like a normal child.

A town like this would probably be paradise for the kid. It had electricity, but not all that much ran on it: small bulbs strung across the street to give a little public light, a few radios and televisions and phones, but nothing like the cities.

Maybe when it was all over they could just leave Yuri here, let the family that was caring for him adopt him, and allow the little guy to actually live for once. To some extent Hawker wouldn’t have minded staying here himself.

He put the thought out of his mind, picked himself up, and made his way across the street. He entered the church intending to check on McCarter and was surprised to find Danielle lighting a candle by the altar.

She wore a cotton, flower print dress of red and black. It fit like it was made for her. Her chestnut brown hair spilled over her shoulders in long, straight locks. He almost didn’t recognize her.

“Danielle?”

She turned.

“Look at you.”

She actually blushed slightly, then glanced toward the door as firecrackers went off outside at the party.

“You like it?”

It was so different. “I’ve never seen you like this.” He couldn’t stop smiling.

“I borrowed it from the woman who is taking care of Yuri,” she said.

“I just saw him,” Hawker said. “He’s enjoying himself.”

Her smile faded. “At least for now.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Moore thinks Yuri will die when the stones release their energy tomorrow.”

“What?” Hawker said, shocked. “Why?”

“Because the object buried in his cerebral cortex isn’t a medical device; it’s a shard from the Russian stone.”

She went on to explain what Moore had told her, what it meant. Hawker looked away. It was like they just couldn’t win.

Danielle turned back toward the altar. She took the candle she was holding, whispered a prayer, and placed it beside the others.

If ever there was a time for it
.

“Maybe he doesn’t have to die,” Hawker said.

She looked over her shoulder at him.

“The wine cellar downstairs,” Hawker told her. “The one our mad scientist professor won’t leave until he’s found the secret formula. It’s twenty feet belowground. It might shield him, the way the temples in the Amazon and under the gulf shielded those stones. The same way the tunnel at Yucca Mountain is keeping that one from linking up with ours.”

She looked up at him.

“As someone reminded me awhile ago, this
is
a sanctuary,” he said. “So why not let it be one?”

Her eyes were locked on his, and he felt as if she were reaching out to him.

“I don’t know how you can say you have no hope,” she said. “Because you bring me hope whenever you’re around.”

The statement caught him off guard. The look in her eyes and the tone of her voice touched him deeper than he would normally allow. He thought instantly of the way his life had progressed, of lost friends, lost battles, some of which had been caused by his reckless, arrogant choices. He thought of the day Moore had come to meet him, when he’d been sitting in Devera’s church in Africa, unable to sleep or speak or think.

“The last time I was in a church, I was literally covered with blood,” he said. “I kind of felt like Pilate, you know? At some point it doesn’t come off.”

“Might be the only trait we share. I feel guilty for everything. For McCarter, for Yuri, for Marcus … for you.”

“Me?”

Her eyes tracked him. “I don’t know what it is that haunts you so deeply,” she said. “But that’s the past. And today I’ve come to realize that we can’t change that. No matter how hard we try. No matter what we have in our possession. Including these stones.”

There was something in her voice, a partial resolution of her own issues, he guessed.

“All we can do is fight for a better future,” she added.

“With the stones,” he said.

“With everything we have,” she replied. “For everyone we love.”

She continued to gaze at him and he again had a sense of her searching him, as if he were hiding something and she was unwilling to let him continue.

“What would you decide,” she said, finally, “if it was up to you?”

He held her gaze in the quiet of the church. He’d long since lost faith in most things: governments, churches, himself. The thought of having this decision rest on his shoulders had not weighed easy on him before. Since arriving in San Ignacio that feeling had grown worse.

“You’re the only one who hasn’t been affected,” she said.

“Let’s see what McCarter finds,” he said.

“I just spoke with him,” she said. “It’s not going well. And he didn’t look particularly good, either, so I don’t know how much we are going to get out of him.”

Hawker didn’t like the sound of that. Without McCarter’s translation they would be left with little more than guesswork.

“So if you have to decide,” she said, pressing him.

He felt more than a sense of ambivalence toward the stones; he felt anger. They were like some kind of blank piece of paper to him, letting everyone see what they wanted to see.

“Most of what I’ve seen from humanity is brutality, selfishness, and greed. You want me to trust in mankind?” He looked toward the crucifix, the image of Christ battered and bleeding. “This is what we do.”

He stared into her eyes. “Better hope McCarter figures something out, because if using those stones means
harm to you, or him or Yuri …” He shook his head. “Then the hell with them. I’ll smash that stone into a thousand pieces. And if the world burns around us, so be it.”

Her eyes were locked on his. She didn’t blink or move or speak. She just stared at him in the silence. And he didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

He looked around the church, feeling out of place, much as he had in the simple wooden building in Africa. “I should go,” he said.

“I’ll go with you,” she replied.

She looked back to the altar, crossing herself, and then turned and walked with Hawker to the church door. Together they stepped out into the cool night air.

For the briefest second, as they stepped outside, Hawker thought he heard the sound of a small plane. But he tilted his head and couldn’t pick it up. A moment later the musicians in the street began to play and Danielle led him off to where the town folk were dancing.

Three hundred miles away, at Kang’s command center in the warehouse, Kang’s men processed the incoming data. The foot patrol units with their networked cameras had scanned nearly two hundred thousand faces with no sign of the NRI team, while the aerial drones surveyed the terrain along the line that led into the mountains. They probed the jungle with a combination of infrared cameras, magnetometers, and a specialized receptor designed to pick up the faint signature of medical-grade radioactive material.

So far they’d found several parties of hikers, a crashed military trainer that had rusted to pieces in the trees, and three possible sites of undiscovered ruins. But there had been no sign of his quarry, at least until now.

One of the drone operators received an alarm. He sat facing a pair of large computer screens displaying what looked a great deal like a modern military cockpit. And indeed it was similar. The readouts on his screens were created by remote telemetry from the sensors and instruments in the drone. Three hundred miles away, sitting on the ground in Campeche, the “pilot” controlled the drone and he had taken this one to the very end of its range, before picking up a signal.

The strength of the signal faded rapidly and he decided to risk one more pass before turning the million-dollar machine for home. This time the signal came in stronger.

He pressed the intercom switch, which buzzed Kang’s office. “I report contact from drone number five. I repeat we have contact. I’m locking the location in now.” He typed the coordinates into the computer and hit
ENTER
.