by Graham Brown
If he lasted that long it meant La Bruzca had no idea that he’d attached a transmitter to the guidance system of the Stinger missile. It meant that La Bruzca had buttoned up his crates and begun looking for another, less sophisticated buyer.
Hawker was almost certain this would be the case. It had gone well at the warehouse. And even if La Bruzca chose to check the missile in question, he or his men would have to know exactly what they were looking for. The transmitter itself was all but identical to the rest of the circuit board. A well-schooled technician might miss it.
In fact, he would have been completely certain of the operation’s success, had it not been for La Bruzca’s odd comment and vague threat regarding what he knew or believed about Hawker.
Reaching the top of the stairs, Hawker turned. He passed the host’s stand with a nod to the employees he’d paid handsomely to reserve his table and then strode down the narrow aisle of the balcony.
Evenly spaced tables sat pressed against a waist-high wall on his right. On his left a glass partition kept the remainder of the restaurant out of the ever-changing weather.
He passed a lone patron at the first table and a continental power couple dining at the second. The man wore a thousand-euro suit, while a watch that cost twice that dangled from his wrist. The woman might have walked off the runway somewhere. Dressed in couture, way too skinny, she looked entirely bored as she sipped champagne.
She flashed her eyes at Hawker as he passed, an act the man with her seemed to notice with disdain. Hawker ignored them both and continued on toward his table at the end of the row.
Halfway there, a red-haired patron turned. The man stretched out a hand and, using a cane, blocked Hawker’s path like a toll gate.
Hawker looked down at the cane and then over at the man who held it. Powerfully built, with shoulders like Olympus and steel-gray eyes that seemed out of place beneath tangled hair the color of tomato sauce, David Keegan was a former member of the British SAS and onetime agent for MI-6. Before all that and before an explosion that had torn half his guts out, Keegan had been an alternate for the British national rugby team. What he did now was anyone’s guess. Hawker had a few ideas, none of them good.
A porcelain-skinned woman sat across from Keegan, picking at some sashimi, her eyes hidden by mirrored aviators. She dressed the part, but unlike the trophy sitting at table number two, this woman might be as deadly as either of them.
Keegan smiled. “I would have sat at your table, mate, but the view is just crap from there.”
“Depends what you’re looking for,” Hawker said.
The Brit shrugged in agreement. “I suppose it does.”
Hawker glanced around. He had no reason to expect trouble from Keegan, he’d even saved the man’s life once, but Hawker didn’t believe in coincidence, and Keegan’s brash manner suggested more than a casual meeting.
La Bruzca’s words began running through his mind again. If I believed even half of what I’m told, you’d be dead. Could Keegan have known who Hawker worked for now? Could he have given that information away?
With the cane still blocking his way, and damn curious as to what Keegan might be doing there, Hawker grabbed a chair. He pulled it up and sat down in the only spot available: right between the two.
With Keegan on his left, the girl on his right, and his back to the glass wall and the goings-on in the restaurant, Hawker became painfully aware that he was now in exactly the position he didn’t want to be.
“What the hell you doing here?” he asked.
Keegan flashed a smile across the table to the girl.
“How’s that for a greeting?” he said. “We come all the way from merry old England to find him and he ain’t even got a simple hello for us.”
“We were at your place in Greece,” the girl said flatly.
“Quiet, love,” Keegan said. “And order something else, will you. You know I can’t stand that stuff.”
She smiled at him and took another bite.
“Fish is meant to be cooked,” he said. “Now hold this.”
As Keegan handed the cane over, Hawker tracked it from the corner of his eye, watching as the girl rested it against the edge of the table.
“So you two are here on your honeymoon?” Hawker said.
The girl sucked at her teeth as if the idea was absurd. Keegan scowled. “Who’m I gonna find to marry me?”
“Only half the women in London,” Hawker said.
Keegan looked appalled. “Don’t believe a word he says, love; it’s more like a third.”
“Of course, the other half want to kill you,” Hawker added.
“That part might be true,” Keegan admitted.
The girl did not seem to care.
“Neither of which explains what you’re doing here.”
“I’m here to find you, mate.”
“I guessed that,” Hawker said. “Why? And for that matter, how the hell did you know I was here?”
To do what Hawker did — and survive for any great length of time — took an unusual set of skills: brains, brawn, and quick reflexes. It also required an ability to think two steps ahead of everyone else and doses of absolute confidence and healthy paranoia. Let the ratio get out of whack in either direction and you ended up walking into a bullet or paralyzed by fear.
“Listen, mate,” Keegan said. “This is my stomping grounds now. And you’ve been walking around in it lit up like neon. The whole world knows you’re here, because you wanted them to know you were here. Now whether you’re buying or selling or—”
Before Keegan could finish, Hawker’s left hand shot out, swinging around his old friend’s shoulders, grabbing him by the back of the neck, and slamming him forward. At almost the same instant, Hawker’s right hand shot inside his jacket, hitting the grip of his pistol, tilting it, and jamming the barrel against Keegan’s ribs.
As Keegan grunted in shock, Hawker glanced back. The girl had grabbed the cane. Hawker kicked it with his heel, knocking it out of her hands and sending it flying across the balcony’s stone floor.
Buried inside that cane, Hawker knew, were two 9 mm shells that could be fired at the touch of a button and a knife that could be pulled from the handle.
The girl went to move.
“Don’t,” Hawker growled, flashing enough of the gun for her to see.
The commotion had stirred the other patrons and Hawker realized he was in a precarious situation. But he couldn’t let Keegan spit out what he was probably about to say. Most likely, the girl knew everything Keegan knew, but on the odd chance she didn’t, Hawker needed to shut him up.
A few tables down, Mr. Thousand Euro Suit had stood up, tossed his napkin down, and begun coming their way.
“One of yours?” Hawker asked.
Keegan shook his head.
Hawker cut his eyes at the man. “I’d sit down if I was you.”
The man stopped in his tracks. Whether he’d seen or guessed that Hawker was holding a gun or just realized this wasn’t a person to mess with, he walked back to his table, grabbed his date, and left.
The rest of the balcony began to clear out and Hawker figured he had a minute or so before security showed their faces. He’d dropped enough money on the important people at the hotel that it wouldn’t be a problem, but the conversation would be over and the cops might follow.
He leaned close to Keegan’s ear. “Tell me who you’re working for and what you want, or I’ll blow what’s left of your guts out and dump your sushi-eating friend over the balcony.”
Keegan glanced up at him and then pulled from his grasp. Even now he was strong as an ox.
“Choose your words carefully,” Hawker added.
“Same old Hawker,” Keegan announced. “Can’t tell a friend from a foe.”
“Can you?” Hawker said.
Keegan looked across the table at his girl, ignoring Hawker.
“I ever tell you about the time Hawk here found me half blown to bits in the desert. He pushed my inte
stines back in, wrapped me up, and dragged me a half mile through enemy fire to a waiting air evac unit.”
Keegan turned to Hawker, locking eyes with him.
“I don’t care what you think, mate, that makes us blood. Understand? I’d go to hell and back for you. So take that damned gun out of my ribs and listen to me for a minute.”
Hawker eased off. The fact that no other thugs had appeared and the girl hadn’t shot or stabbed him was somewhat reassuring, but he held the gun on his lap just the same.
“You’ve got sixty seconds,” Hawker said.
“You still into helping friends?”
“You need help?”
“No,” Keegan said. “I’m in the information trade now. I run a legitimately illegitimate business these days. Just like you. I’m here for another friend, a less capable friend. A guy I helped you spirit out of Africa five years ago.”
A name came to mind: Ranga Milan, a Spanish geneticist he’d met in Africa a decade ago.
“Haven’t heard from him in years,” Hawker said.
Keegan raised his eyebrows. “What about Sonia?”
For reasons Hawker could never fathom, Ranga’s twenty-year-old, American-born daughter, Sonia, had been with him. She was a budding scientist in her own right, but the Republic of the Congo was a dangerous spot, no place for a beautiful young girl. Then again, the whole situation had been a little odd.
Ranga and his daughter were supposed to be working on genetically modified crops, but the paymasters were military men. Whatever the original deal was it seemed to change over time. Veiled threats became outright demands; the generals wanted a bio-weapon.
While Ranga lived in denial, Hawker made escape plans, spending all his time guarding Sonia. Both he and Ranga knew she’d be the target if the generals needed more leverage. They grew closer during that time and she’d convinced herself that she loved him.
Hawker recalled trying to dissuade her from the idea, though he wasn’t sure that he’d tried that hard. Either way, when they’d finally cleared the border and made it to safety she’d begged Hawker to come to Europe with them or to take her wherever he was headed. Hawker had put her on the plane with Keegan and had never seen or heard from her again.
“She was in love with you, mate,” Keegan said. “You telling me you haven’t spoken?”
“Not since the three of you left Algiers.”
“Too bad,” Keegan said grinning. “Thought you’d have found her, run off, and had a bushelful of kids by now.”
“I think she deserved better.”
Keegan nodded. “Probably right about that.”
“Did she come to you?” Hawker asked.
“No, mate, Ranga did. He found me in Athens. Don’t ask me how. He wanted me to find you. Said he was desperate. Someone was trying to put a bullet in his head.”
“Why didn’t you help him?”
Keegan looked insulted. “I offered,” he said. “Even offered to stake him if he needed cash. But he said money wouldn’t do it. And he didn’t trust me the way he trusted you.”
Hawker remembered Ranga being troubled in his own way. He lived in some brooding world in his own mind, alternating between dark spells and manic euphoria as he chased whatever it was that possessed him. How such a brilliant man could seem utterly clueless, Hawker didn’t know. But Ranga had pulled it off.
Forcing him to see what was about to happen in the Congo had almost broken him, as if giving up on what he was doing would drive him to madness. After that, mostly silence and then a simple thank-you when he realized what Hawker had saved him and his daughter from.
Apparently Ranga had become no better at choosing his partners.
“What the hell did he get himself into now?” Hawker asked.
“Don’t know,” Keegan said. “Loose grip on reality, that one. But he looked bad when I saw him. Halfway to dead. Swore there were devils after him. And that he’d done something …” Keegan seemed to struggle. “He used the word unforgivable.”
“He say where I could find him?”
“He said to make your way to Paris. Check in to the Trianon Palace Hotel. He’d find you there.” As he finished, Keegan reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a flash drive.
“He gave me this,” Keegan said, handing the drive over. “Said you’d understand.”
Understand. Right now Hawker didn’t understand anything. He had the sickening feeling of a moment spinning out of control.
In many ways, Keegan couldn’t have picked a worse time or place to find him, or worse news to tell him. But even with a hundred questions racing around in his head, Hawker knew the bell was about to ring. Time to go.
He stood. “Was she with him?”
“No, mate. I’m thinking she left his crazy little circus the first chance she got.”
The situation had always been odd. All families had secrets, but whatever drove Ranga and Sonia both pulled them together and drove them apart
Good for her if she did leave, Hawker thought. And yet, if Ranga was in such deep trouble, she might still be in danger. What better way was there to pressure a father than by threatening his daughter.
“Do you know where she is?”
Keegan shook his head.
“She might be in danger. And she might be in hiding,” Hawker said. “Think you can you find her?”
Keegan pursed his lips as if the question was ludicrous. “Sure. And what do I get for it?”
“You get even.”
Keegan smiled and then he laughed lightly. “There’s no such thing as even, Hawk. You should know that.”
“Just find her,” Hawker said.
Keegan nodded, which Hawker took as acknowledgment that he would try. “Give me your number.”
Keegan handed him a business card.
“You have cards?”
“Don’t you?”
Hawker shook his head, typed the number into his phone, and then hit Send. A ringing came from Keegan’s pocket.
Hawker hung up.
“Find her and call me,” he said. And then he turned to go.
As Hawker strode away Keegan raised his hands, palms outstretched like a man who’d been left with nothing.
“Is that it then!” he shouted, a false look of shock plastered all over his face. “No goodbye kiss or nothing?” He was laughing deliriously by now, probably reveling in the attention of the few people left on the balcony.
As Hawker passed the host’s stand and took the stairway down, he could hear Keegan laughing even as he yelled after Hawker.
“And after all we’ve meant to each other!”
As he left Keegan behind, Hawker regretted threatening him, but sometimes that was the only way to know who was a friend and who wasn’t.
He reached the bottom of the stairs, left the hotel, and caught a cab into town. Once there, he cut diagonally across a few city blocks, entered a large office building, and came out the back side. There he grabbed another taxi that took him to the Stradun, Dubrovnik’s busiest street.
Feeling certain he’d lost anyone who might have been following, and mixing with a throng of people who didn’t speak much English, he found a quiet corner and dialed a number on his cellphone. The scrambled signal went to a satellite, bounced its way to Washington, and was routed to the person he was looking for.
A female voice came on the line, a soothing voice that he recognized: Danielle Laidlaw, his liaison to the National Research Institute, the organization he now worked for.
The NRI was a strange hybrid of a government agency. It had a large aboveboard department that worked with universities and corporations on cutting-edge research, and it had a smaller, less well known department that functioned like the CIA but in the world of industrial secrets.
Hawker and Danielle worked for the operations department. However, because of his particular background, Hawker had been “loaned out” to the CIA to set up La Bruzca.
“I need extraction,” he said.
“You’
re three days early,” she said. “Is something wrong?”
He knew she was referring to the deal with La Bruzca, but his thoughts had left that behind. He couldn’t imagine what Ranga had gotten himself into but he knew for the man to reach out, it had to be substantial. He pulled the flash drive out of his pocket, wondering what might be contained inside.
“I’m not sure,” Hawker said, eyeing the memory stick. “But I have a feeling something may be very wrong.”
CHAPTER 5
Paris, France
Ranga Milan stood at the base of the Eiffel Tower, staring upward. The Iron Lady of France soared above him, a thousand feet of steel bent into a shape that was both structure and art.
Somewhere up on the observation deck, a man waited for him carrying an object with a dual nature of its own: a carved tablet more than seven thousand years old. It was considered a priceless artifact, a remnant of history to most, but Ranga knew better. It contained a secret, hidden since the beginning of recorded time, a secret that could change the future of the world for good or for evil.
Surrounded by the crowd, Ranga felt terribly alone. He’d sent for help but none had come. He’d waited too late, he knew that. But now he was taking a risk that he feared might be too great. He’d come out of hiding and into the open; he was a target.
Dizzy from gazing upward, Ranga lowered his eyes and moved toward the elevator. He edged into a crowd of tourists, fighting every urge to hurry. Rushing would only draw attention. The wrong kind of attention.
From the outside looking in, Ranga had little need to worry. Nearly sixty, of average height and build, he had nondescript features and short dark hair. He was a common-looking everyman. No one ever looked twice.
His background was more impressive. A genetics expert, a former fellow at the prestigious Advanced Genetics Lab of Johns Hopkins University and a onetime Nobel Prize candidate, Ranga had once been a pillar of the community.
Now he was a fugitive.
Listed on Interpol’s high-priority register, this nondescript everyman was considered one of the most dangerous people in the world. Not for anything he’d done, for he had committed no crime greater than fraud and theft, but for what they knew he was capable of doing.
