The Tenth Saint (33 page)

Twenty-Four

S
arah tucked the article and the letter in her backpack and walked with Marie-Laure beneath the church’s arches. A blast of cold wind swept across the river from the east. Sarah shuddered. She bade Marie-Laure adieu, with a promise: “I don’t intend to let this go. I will find the truth.”

Marie-Laure turned to leave but froze. Into the shadows, she spoke firmly, fearlessly. “Who are you? What do you want?”

A man swatted Marie-Laure out of his way with a heavy paw and sent her headlong toward the ground, where she lay in a motionless heap.

The blood coursing through Sarah’s veins turned ice-cold. She had been followed from the Plaza Athénée. How much had he seen or heard?

The man reached for her shoulder bag with his bear grip. “Let it go,” he bellowed. “Let it go or die.”

Sarah refused, but her strength was no match for his.

He grabbed her shoulder and squeezed on her collarbone with a force that could crush it into shards. She screamed and bit his hand.

He pulled back. “Stupid bitch,” he yelled, and his giant mitts came with fury toward her neck.

Instinctively, she swung the bag toward his head. With a single swipe of his arm, he tossed her to the ground. As she scrambled to her feet, his guffaws echoed in the stillness of the night.

Sarah tried to run, but the giant grabbed her arm. Her hair whipped wildly as she tried to break free. She swung around and drove her thumb into his eye, eliciting a howl, but the pain didn’t bring the three hundred pounds of her attacker to his knees; instead, it made him bear down harder on the arm he held captive.

Sarah buckled.

Saliva dripped from the corners of his mouth onto her face as he lifted Sarah and carried her like a bag of trash toward the river. She kicked wildly, but his grip around her waist was so tight she could barely breathe.

A siren blared.

The man stopped and dropped Sarah by the river-bank. Running along Quai d’Orsay, he disappeared into a dark alley.

Sarah looked up and saw Marie-Laure standing ten feet away, waving her mobile phone at the police. The Frenchwoman, her face bruised and clothes disheveled, called out, “Run, Sarah. They must not see you.”

Sarah mouthed a breathless thank-you and propped herself up. On shaky legs, she ran toward the Pont de l’Alma and the bright embrace of the Rive Droite.

Twenty-Five

O
n the plane en route to London, Sarah could not sit still. Her entire body ached from the encounter outside the church. The bruises on her shoulder were so severe she could barely move it. She took two Paracetamol and tried to take her mind off the pain by reading and rereading the
Times
article Marie-Laure had handed her.

HOUSTON, TEXAS—The environmental research firm Donovan Geodynamics has announced the success of preliminary trials of its Poseidon program. The program, which has been tested since 2008 in an undisclosed area of Texas, is an experiment involving plankton-like microorganisms that theoretically consume carbon dioxide.

During the first phase of its Poseidon research, Donovan’s aquatic microbial ecology researchers reportedly discovered that the phytoplankton manufactured in the company’s labs was able to survive in a controlled environment for three hundred twenty days, well beyond the lifespan of a typical marine microorganism. In the second phase, scientists will attempt to lengthen that lifespan and to propagate the organisms via assisted reproduction. The objective is to create a self-sufficient form of plankton that can survive on sunlight and atmospheric gases.

“The rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are not going away,” said Donovan CEO Wallace Cage in a statement. “Poseidon is a viable solution to the global warming anathema that faces our planet. If our trials continue to go as well as they have thus far, we will actually have a life form that absorbs carbon dioxide and converts it into oxygen, thereby producing cleaner air. By reducing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, we can actually retard the effects of global warming.”

According to sources familiar with the project, Donovan aims to seek backing from the Alliance of Nations to End Global Warming, a fifteen-nation coalition with considerable political influence, for testing Poseidon in seven ocean sites worldwide. Alliance representatives declined to comment.

The similarities were uncanny. It was entirely plausible that this project and the
beast
of Calcedony and Gabriel’s writings were one and the same. Eager to research further, she was pleased when the landing announcement came from the cockpit.

As soon as the taxi deposited her in front of her Chelsea flat, Sarah rushed to her computer and pulled up the Cambridge articles database. She conducted searches with various combinations of
Donovan Geodynamics, Poseidon,
and
Alliance of Nations to End Global Warming.
Besides the
Times
article and a lengthier piece in the
Houston Chronicle,
the search of mass media outlets yielded surprisingly little.

She went through every issue of the trade journal
Nature
from the past two years and came upon an article titled “The Poseidon Paradox.” In that piece, several scientists were quoted as saying any organism that self-propagates presents an inherent danger of multiplying out of control, particularly when introduced to warm waters, and Donovan’s marine scientists had not yet adequately addressed that fact. Too much phytoplankton, they claimed, eventually would die and sink to the sea bottom. Their subsequent decomposition could harm the overall health of the oceans by releasing methane and depleting waters of dissolved oxygen, which other organisms needed to survive. Further, the opponents claimed the phytoplankton could be harmful to fish, which fed on exactly such substances. Because of its genetically engineered nature, the organism could lead to a massive loss of marine life, including endangered species of fish and sea mammals.

The sidebar was devoted to the view of the New York—based clean ocean initiative Oceanus. The president, Stuart Ericsson, cautioned:

”The consequences of Poseidon could be catastrophic. If the ocean temperatures rise by even five degrees, which is entirely plausible given the current rate of climate change, algae— whether naturally occurring or engineered in a lab—has the potential to grow and metamorphose. We saw this happen in the eighties in the Mediterranean, when the Caulerpa taxifolia algae grew out of control and threatened the sea’s delicate ecosystem.”

Caulerpa taxifolia, a type of phytoplankton commonly referred to as killer algae and alien algae, was accidentally released into Mediterranean waters in 1984 from the Oceanographic Museum in Monaco. Commonly used as a decorative material in aquariums, C. taxifolia was transformed into an invasive species when it came in contact with the Mediterranean Sea. The algae, which reportedly grew to cover some seven thousand four hundred acres of the sea and threatened the region’s seaweed and fish populations, has been the subject of worldwide controversy. Some scientists believe reports of outsized growth are exaggerated, while others maintain that more than half the species of fish have been eradicated in areas of the C. taxifolia infestation.

If she had never seen Gabriel’s prophecies or Calcedony’s letter, Sarah would have dismissed all the controversy as rubbish. She would have never doubted that carbon dioxide—consuming algae would be a good thing for the environment. But the questions jabbed at her mind like barbed wire.

Her phone vibrated. The caller ID announced Dr. Simon. She answered, fearing he would tell her she no longer had a job or would be confined to a teaching post, the kiss of death for an archaeologist.

“I had a call from my counterpart at Rutgers.” The professor’s tone was graver than she’d ever heard it. “It appears Daniel Madigan never made it to Riyadh.”

She sat up. “What did you say?”

“It appears he checked in at Charles de Gaulle but never got on the plane. I must know what you know about this. You were the last person to see him.”

Sarah felt numb. “I … know nothing, I promise you. I mean … we were together the night before, but he left in the morning in a hurry, didn’t even say good-bye. I haven’t heard from him since.”

“Apparently, no one else has either. Now, Sarah, I want you to keep your wits about you. We don’t know what this is. He could be AWOL, or he could be in trouble. Trouble seems to follow you two.”

Sarah hung up abruptly and checked her text messages.

A text had been sent from Daniel’s phone at four in the morning.

You have something we want. We have something you want. We suggest an even exchange. Instructions to follow. Don’t botch this.

Twenty-Six

“
C
all for the king. He is waking.”

Gabriel heard the female voice and slowly opened his eyes. It took him a few seconds to realize where he was and to recall what had happened. He lay in a hard bed, covered with fine cotton sheets and sheepskin blankets. The windows were draped with great lengths of purple and gold silk tied back to admit the moonlight. Above his head hung an iron lantern casting flecks of golden light on the lion and zebra skin rugs. Women cloaked in white circled his bed, some preparing wet compresses while others sat in the corner muttering prayers and thumbing their rosaries. The palace.

His last recollection was of taking a life. Remembering the death squeal of the Blemmye who had met his sword, he felt ill. What had happened after that he did not know. Aware he was breathing shallowly, he attempted a deep breath and felt a stabbing pain in his left side. As more of the veils of confusion were lifted, he realized he was hot with fever and his bones ached mightily. He tried to move and could not. He had never known such intense pain or malaise. It was no ordinary infection, he knew. He closed his eyes and let his consciousness melt away in meditation, hoping to enter the elusive realm where comfort and peace dwelled.

Gabriel was semiconscious when Ezana entered the room. He could feel the monarch’s presence and hear the voices around him, but the words were warped and without edges, like images in a surrealist painting.

“I am … sorry … King,” he muttered.

Ezana’s bellowing voice reverberated in Gabriel’s ears. “You have nothing to be sorry for. You saved my life by risking your own. You served your king like an honorable man. Everyone in the kingdom will know of this.”

He opened his eyes and tried to focus on the massive figure before him. Ezana was dressed in gilded robes encrusted with rubies and embroidered with gold thread, a garment usually reserved for ceremony. “What was the outcome?”

“We were victorious, God be praised. Meroe was a worthy enemy, but she fell to the might of our armies. The Aksumite empire grows as the Lord God has predicted. Soon all the lands of the Nile will be ours and the might of Aksum will reach from sea to sea. Glory be to God.”

Gabriel gasped. The words came out without his willing them. “So many bodies … so much pain …”

“It was a necessary sacrifice. Those men were martyrs fighting not only for the kingdom of Aksum but for the kingdom of God. They rest in a place of plenty, eating and drinking and dancing with angels. It was their destiny. Do not mourn them.”

Hot sweat trickled down Gabriel’s forehead. His skull throbbed, the pain in his side immobilizing. “I feel life leaving me,” he whispered.

“You cannot die. I need you in my army. Tell the women how to make you better. I have ordered them to do as you ask.”

“No. It is too late for me. Leave me be.”

Ezana looked at the head nurse who monitored the patient silently from across the room. She nodded her agreement with Gabriel’s proclamation. The king stood abruptly.

“Incompetent, every one of you.” He pointed to Gabriel. “This man was sent to me by God himself, and you just stand there and let him die? You must see to his recovery at once.”

The king stormed out of the room, his long, jeweled robes undulating behind him.