The Eden Prophecy (7 page)

“You know more than I do,” he said, holding up the file.

“We don’t know what happened in Africa. We have pictures, guesses. You were with him.”

He closed the file but held on to it. She sensed a reluctance to talk on his part, but he spoke anyway.

“I met Ranga in ’05. I spent fourteen months with him and his daughter, providing protection. First he was looking for funding and then he took a job in the Republic of the Congo in central Africa, studying drought-resistant crops or something like that. I went with them.”

He put the file down, pushed it away.

“It didn’t take long for them to ask him for something more, something other than what he’d agreed to. Eventually they began to make threats. At one point they tried to take his daughter hostage to force his hand.”

Hawker glanced out the window. The Citation had begun to taxi.

“After that he promised them whatever they wanted and things calmed down for a while. I don’t know if he believed them or if he just wanted to use them as long as he could, but I almost had to put a gun to his head to get him to leave.”

“He’s known to be obsessive,” she said.

He nodded.

“Usually people like that have an ax to grind. Some perceived slight to avenge. Did you sense that at all?”

Hawker shook his head.

“Did he ever tell you what he was working on? Or at least hint at it?”

Hawker leaned back, a distant look in his eyes, as he tried to recall.

“He talked more about God than genetics,” Hawker said. “Wondered how any god could allow what was happening around the world. He seemed to cycle between atheism and fearing that God was punishing him for things he’d said and done. I remember him asking what a man like me thought about divine retribution.”

Knowing Hawker’s past, she understood why the question might matter. But the issue was Ranga.

“Do you think he’s capable of this?” she asked. “Not the construction of the virus—we assume that—but the use of it?”

Hawker took his time. “I know Interpol has him labeled as some public enemy–slash–mad scientist. I’ll give you the mad part, but the guy I knew could not be a mass murderer. On our run out of the Congo, he would not carry a weapon because he didn’t want to kill anyone.”

“People change,” she said.

“You asked me what I thought.”

“I did,” she replied.

“He was trying to get my help for a reason,” Hawker said. “Someone was hunting him. My guess is, whoever that was caught him and forced him to send the virus. I mean if you’re going to foist a plague on the world and send the letter anonymously, are you really going to be dumb enough to get your fingerprints all over it?”

It was a good point. And the fact that the UN letter had come through internal sources while Ranga Milan was three thousand miles away meant someone else was involved. But who?

Unfortunately, UN security was almost wholly focused on the perimeter. Few cameras or controls were allowed
on the inside, so the diplomats could move and talk freely without fear of being recorded.

Across from her, Hawker leaned forward. Looking into her eyes, his intensity ratcheting up, he spoke.

“I honestly don’t know what the hell Ranga was doing. Either then or now. But I know he was basically a good man. I feel it. I saw it. Otherwise he would have just given the bastards in the Congo what they wanted. Or he would have given these people what they wanted instead of ending up dead.”

She paused, considering what he’d said and the force with which he’d said it. She knew he was leading up to something. She could guess what it was.

“You want to go after them?”

He nodded. “When this plane lands in Hamburg, I’m off the clock. I’m asking for whatever information you can share. But I can’t let this stand.”

“I understand how you feel,” she said. “I’m not surprised. But there’s a bigger issue.”

“You’re going to fight me on this?”

“No,” she said. “I’m going to help you. We—the NRI—we’re going to help you. It’s an odd coincidence, but Ambassador Gonzales was once an employee of the NRI, ten years ago. And as you’re now working with us, the powers that be have determined that we’re the appropriate agency to work this case. Back home we’re teaming with the CDC to study the virus, out here … out here we’ve been ordered to track down the players involved, if we can. That includes the people who killed your friend.”

Hawker sat back again, a look of concern on his face.

“You’d rather do it alone?” she asked.

“No,” he said.

“You don’t believe we’ll be helpful?”

“No,” he said. “I don’t believe in coincidence, and for the second time in twenty-four hours I’m staring one in the face.”

Danielle nodded. She didn’t much believe in coincidence, either, but the fact was, Claudia Gonzales had worked for the public division of the NRI, as had several hundred thousand other people over the last decade. Many of them had gone on to important careers in corporate America, politics, and other government agencies. Gonzales had no connection with the operations division, would not even know its real purpose, and certainly, having left ten years ago, knew nothing about Hawker’s role with the NRI.

If ever there was a coincidence, this was one.

“Does it change your mind?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “Nothing on earth could change my mind right now.”

Danielle nodded and pressed her intercom switch, buzzing the pilot.

“We’re ready for takeoff,” the pilot said.

“Good,” she replied. “As soon as we’re over international waters, I want you to amend the flight plan.”

“Where to?”

“Paris?” she said, looking over at Hawker.

He nodded.

“Direct to Paris,” she said, speaking to the pilot.

Hawker leaned back in his seat. He offered a halfhearted smile. “Wish it was under better circumstances,” he said. “But it’s nice to be working with you again.”

H
is name was Marko. A sullen face, a square jaw, and a large bony brow gave him the look of a giant. He was only six feet tall but thick as a tree, with hands like the paws of a bear. He was first beneath the Master and within the group he was known as the Killer, or as
Cruor
, the Man of Blood, for it was he who put the blades into those the Master marked. It was he who had strangled the life out of the officers from the French police force.

He would do all that the Master requested, because it was his purpose.

Today he waited at the end of the boulevard in a dilapidated shelter that had once been a bus stop and watched as a young man in ratty jeans, boots, and an oversized hoodie walked the trash-littered sidewalk toward him. Rusting cars and graffiti marked the youth’s progress—even a van that had burned in the last riots and had yet to be removed.

La Courneuve was a suburb of Paris and one of the toughest slums in Western Europe. Poor French and waves of immigrants settled here, piled in together, jobless, hopeless, soaked in the stench of despair.

The riots of 2005 had begun here after two youths hiding from police were accidentally electrocuted. Media claims pegged the riot on ethnic tensions, but Marko
knew better. There were many ethnicities here, many creeds and colors. All of them shared the anger and frustration of being forgotten, hated, and ignored.

Citizens claimed police brutality on a regular basis, and the police, having been attacked and ambushed so often in La Courneuve, considered it a red zone, where entry was not recommended without heavy support.

Whatever the normal course of action might have been, the police were out in force now. As Marko watched, a small convoy of two cars and an armored SUV cruised slowly down the street. The bodies of the slain policemen had been discovered here and the French police were intent on doling out a reprisal and perhaps even making arrests.

The convoy passed the youth, who did not look up. He knew better than to eye the cops. He continued on, finally joining Marko on the scarred and weathered bench.

“You did as I asked,” Marko noted. “I am pleased. The Master is pleased.”

“The police have found the bodies.”

“Yes,” Marko said. “It was planned.”

The young man, whose name was Yousef, seemed sick at the notion.

“Why did we want them to be found?”

Marko ignored the question. “Do you feel sorry for them?”

“I hate what they do to us,” Yousef said.

“Then they got what they deserved,” Marko offered.

Yousef seemed to agree, though Marko could feel some reluctance. “Do I join you now?”

“Are you ready to give up everything?”

“What do I have left?”

“What do you have left?” Marko asked.

Yousef shook his head. “I have no father, no brother. I am French but the French call me ‘dirty Arab.’ I am not one of them.”

“You are a Muslim,” Marko noted.

“I no longer pray.”

“Why?”

Yousef seemed confused.

“Why do you not pray, Yousef?”

The young man gazed at the ground. “Allah does not answer me,” he said.

“You are on the right path,” Marko assured him.

A brief pause followed, as if Yousef were contemplating his next words.

“What about the others?” he asked.

Yousef had recruited several friends for the attack. Young men disgruntled like he was. But they did not have the zeal that he had. Marko shook his head. “The others are not worthy as you are. They will be paid and you will leave them behind. Or you will stay.”

If Marko judged the young man correctly, this part was harder. It was one thing to give up a country that did not want you, or to reject a god that did not favor you, but to leave friends behind, friends that were the only family a youth from the street had ever known, that was more difficult.

It had been the hardest part for Marko a year before, but like Yousef’s friends, Marko’s comrades did not really understand where their tyranny originated. They railed against government, the wealthy, and other perceived oppressors. They did not want their lot in life but they wanted others to change it for them.

The Master had opened Marko’s eyes to the truth, given him the chance to be free from the lies, and now Marko offered that same chance to Yousef.

“Then I will leave them,” Yousef said, staring at the ground. “They will be better off without me.”

“No,” Marko said coarsely. “It is you who will be better off. But first, there is one more task.”

Yousef looked up.

“There is a house on rue des Jardins-St.-Paul. It was the scientist’s laboratory. Go there. Bring everything you can find to us. And if anyone interferes, be ready to kill them.”

He handed the youth a folded card. On it was the address.

Yousef took it and hid it away.

Marko sensed hesitation. For a moment he wondered if the boy would follow through.

Yousef stood and almost turned to face Marko before catching himself. He checked himself and gazed out along the littered street once again. His body went still.

“You have a question,” Marko guessed. “Ask it.”

“What will you name me?” Yousef said finally.

“The Master will name you.”

“You’re the Master,” Yousef said, guessing incorrectly.

“No,” Marko said. “The Master found me. You will see him one day.”

Yousef nodded. “What will he name me?”

Marko smiled. Yousef was ready to give up the past, to let go of his given name and self and take up the destiny that waited before him.

“He will call you Scindo,” Marko said. “You are the one who divides.”

Even now the young man did not turn to him—he well understood not to look Marko in the eye—but he stood taller and the air filled his lungs.
Scindo
would carry a sense of pride and purpose that no name he’d been given ever had.

“Go now,” Marko said, sending the boy forth. “Do as I command.”

H
awker and Danielle touched down at Paris–Charles de Gaulle Airport just before noon. Thirty minutes later they were humming along the motorway from the airport into Paris, driving a rented Peugeot.

A conversation via satellite with Arnold Moore, the NRI’s director of operations, had confirmed how little anyone knew about the situation. No leads, evidence, or even “chatter” had been discovered to link any known terrorist group to either the situation in Paris or the letter sent to the UN.

They were dealing with either an entirely new group or one that had managed to keep itself hidden from the world. Or the threat was so deadly that even groups that would normally boast about such things were remaining quiet for fear of reprisals.

Understandably, the French had been whipped into a frenzy by the deaths of four police officers, but after rounding up and questioning hundreds of possible suspects they had no new information. At least nothing they wanted to share.

About the only lead they had came from the CIA. Since the Iranian, Ahmad Bashir, was a prominent member of the Green Revolution, the CIA had been keeping track of him, perhaps looking for ways to support him.
With Iran it was always tricky. Open U.S. support for a candidate there could often cost more votes than it earned them, if it didn’t get them killed outright. So far they’d done nothing but watch and listen. In the process they’d intercepted a call to him the night before he and Ranga disappeared. It had come from a house in central Paris, and the voice on the phone had since been matched to Ranga Milan.

“This address is a block from the Seine,” Danielle said, studying the GPS map on her phone.

“Any idea what we’re going to find there?” Hawker asked, navigating a bend in the highway.

Danielle was studying the satellite photo from Google Maps. “Aside from a group of Baroque townhomes and a highly recommended bistro, not a clue.”

Hawker had expected a darker neck of the woods, industrial or commercial. Apparently whatever backing Ranga had secured in Paris included enough funding to live well.

“Life on the run, mad scientist style,” Hawker joked. “Who needs a spider hole when you can rent out riverfront property?”