by Graham Brown
Najir emerged from his alcove, limping and bleeding.
Danielle grabbed him and supported him.
“I’m okay,” he said. “I’m okay.”
She looked at the thin man. “You’d better show us the way out now.”
“This way,” he said.
With the thin man leading the way and Danielle still carrying the dory in her hand, the group moved to the back, checking for survivors and dragging the wounded with them.
A stairwell opened beneath a trapdoor and the group took it down, arriving at a new level even with the water table of the city. A thin walkway ran beside a wide aqueduct filled with water.
The thin man pointed to a second stairwell he’d come down earlier.
It sounded like walking right back into trouble to Danielle. “They’ll probably be watching it,” she said. “What’s this way?”
“I don’t know,” the thin man said.
Danielle looked at the Iraqi.
He shook his head.
“Let’s find out,” she said.
Along the thin edge of the aqueduct, they traveled into absolute darkness. At one point the ledge disappeared completely and they were forced to wade in the storm drain for a half mile before spotting a shaft of light prying its way through the pitch dark. Another stairwell, poorly lit, but it seemed bright and cheery after the darkness of the tunnel.
They pushed through it and made their way to street level. Danielle and the thin man pushed the heavy grate up and over and the survivors of the incident began to drag their way out and disappear into the night.
The thin man and his boss remained behind, huddling with them in an alley lit only by blue moonlight.
“I must thank you,” the thin man said. “I should have known it wasn’t a raid. We bribe all the right people.”
“You can repay us with information,” Danielle said. “Starting with the names of the people who were at this party.”
“I cannot,” the man said. “Not if I wish to live.”
“What about addresses, where these people have their things delivered?” she asked. “Clearly no one walked out of here with a statue or a fifty-pound clay tablet or five-foot spear.”
“Banks in London, Cairo. Office buildings in Abu Dhabi,” he said. “They won’t do you much good.”
The man was afraid of blowback. “One name then,” she said. “Your bidder number four.”
“I told you, I cannot—”
“In case you missed it, he wasn’t around when the soldiers came in.”
The thin man hesitated, as if he was attempting to remember. He conferred in Arabic with the other Iraqi.
“He was angry about your last-minute infusion of cash,” the thin man said.
“And he took the scroll,” she said. “I didn’t see them carrying anything else out. Ten to one this was the backup plan,” Danielle said.
“I know him only as Marko,” the thin man said. “His account is here, his vetting was Greek, his delivery address is in Kuwait — Kuwait City.”
“And what about the copper scroll,” she said. “Where did it come from?”
“A private owner,” he said. “A man who buys and sells; he is not even a big player. I understand the scroll was found in the desert by Bedouins some years back. No one knows exactly where.”
“Why would anyone want something that bad?”
The thin man shook his head.
“Come on,” she demanded. “Half a dozen people have already been killed over it. It can’t just be art.”
“I have no idea what makes it so special to anyone. Until tonight, I expected few bids aside from Bashir. That is why it was originally paired with the statue.”
She glanced at Najir. He looked increasingly bad; blood continued to flow from his wound. They couldn’t wait much longer.
She looked back toward the thin man. “You have pictures of that scroll,” she said, looking back toward the thin man. “Better pictures than what I saw?”
The thin man nodded.
“I need them,” she said. “You get them to me, we’re square.”
The thin man spoke with the Iraqi for a second and then he nodded.
“Where do I send them?”
She pointed to her wounded host. “I’m getting Najir to the hospital. You get the pictures to him. He’ll know how to find me.”
CHAPTER 28
Carlsbad, California
On a day when the marine layer had burned off and the sun shone warmly over Southern California, Professor Michael McCarter sat on the rear porch of his son’s house, babysitting his five-year-old grandchild. The boy was attempting to hit an oversized plastic golf ball with an oversized plastic club. So far the little guy had hit almost everything else around him, including both of McCarter’s shins. But he hadn’t given up.
The sound of the phone ringing got McCarter’s attention. “You keep swinging,” he said. “Grandpa has to get the phone.”
The boy smiled with the type of gleam only a five-year-old could possess, and then whammed the head off one of the prize roses.
McCarter stepped inside, shaking his head and mumbling, “It’s a Cinderella story …”
He closed the screen door behind him and picked up the phone.
“Hello.”
“Professor,” a female voice said.
McCarter did not struggle to place it — they were too close for that — but his emotions were mixed. On the one hand, he cared greatly for the person on the other end of that line. On the other hand, he now wished it had been a telemarketer.
“Please tell me you’re retired,” he said, “and you need a reference or a place to crash.”
“Afraid not,” she said. “Looking for some help. Knowledge really. Got a minute?”
McCarter felt his throat closing up. He’d worked with the NRI for the better part of two years, first as a consultant and then as an operative of some kind — he still wasn’t quite sure what his title had been. They’d turned out to be the two most thrilling, important, and mind-altering years of his life. They’d also been incredibly painful and dangerous. Having barely survived, he’d been damn glad when they were over.
Danielle and Hawker had been part of his world then, but he’d bid them farewell six months ago and hadn’t heard from them since. Not that he’d expected to, at least not until one or both came to their senses and gave up risking their necks around the world.
“I’m finally walking without a limp,” he said, thinking about the bullet wound that had almost cost him his leg.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’m not asking you to rejoin the team, just need your take on something.”
McCarter felt somewhat relieved by that statement. “Are you with Hawker?”
“He’s elsewhere right now. And I’m guessing he’s got his hands full, although probably in a much more interesting way than I do.”
McCarter wondered what she meant. He chose not to ask.
“So what have you gotten yourselves into now?” he said.
“I can’t tell you,” she said. “But I have photographs of an ancient scroll that need to be looked at. Not a normal scroll, either. It’s made from pounded sheets of copper.”
“Like the copper scroll from the Dead Sea,” he said.
“So I’m told, although it’s been said that this one is much older.”
“Where did it come from?”
“Somewhere in Iraq,” she said. “Or maybe Iran. Some of the writing on it is supposed to be Sumerian. Although it could be Klingon for all I know.”
McCarter laughed. “I can work on the Sumerian for you. And I know a few Trekkies who can do the Klingon, if you need it.”
“Good,” she said. “I’m sending an encrypted email.”
“What’s the password?”
“The date our last adventure ended,” she said. “Do you remember?”
It had been the culmination of years of research, a moment that had changed his perspective on what man was truly cap
able of.
“How could I forget?”
“Good,” she said. “The file’s on its way. Moore knows how to reach me when you have something.”
McCarter knew how to reach Arnold Moore, and though he would have preferred just to deal with Danielle, he guessed she would be on the move constantly.
He looked around at the nice suburban setting he now called home. He was wearing flip-flops, a faded Hawaiian shirt, and some old comfortable jeans. He felt safe and secure and blissful in his son’s house.
And yet the call from Danielle sparked worries in his mind. Worries for her and Hawker, worries for what they might be involved in trying to stop. Worries for his children and most of all for his grandchild.
“Should I be afraid?” he asked.
“You won’t be in danger for doing this,” she insisted.
“That’s not what I mean.”
Danielle hesitated; an ominous sign.
“It may be nothing,” she said.
“But …”
“We’re trying to stop something from happening,” she said. “Something that none of us wants to see occur.”
Of course they were. What else would they be doing?
“The scroll may have nothing to do with it,” she added. “Or it might. It’s just a lead we have to run down, but the quicker the better.”
For a moment McCarter thought of digging deeper; if he pried she would tell him. She owed him that. But then he decided he didn’t want to know. If the answers were too terrible, it would distract him.
“How bad is it?” he asked.
“Bad enough that I need all the help you can give us,” she said.
McCarter took a deep breath. “I’ll get to the file as soon as it comes in,” he said. “I’ll be as quick as I can.”
CHAPTER 29
Hawker stood near the aft end of a forty-foot cabin cruiser as Savi piloted the boat away from one of Dubai’s marinas. Behind them the lights of the city blazed into the night, obscured in places by the smoke rising from the base of the Burj Al Arab. The glare made it impossible to see anything else. No stars, no features on the water beyond fifty feet or so. Looking ahead it seemed as if they were sailing into a void.
In some ways, that matched the feelings Hawker fought to silence. The situation reminded him of the past, the dash across the Republic of the Congo and into Algeria he’d guided Ranga and Sonia on in a desperate attempt to escape dangerous men. But the facts were plain then, or at least he’d thought they were. He didn’t know the facts here, not enough of them anyway.
He needed to press Sonia about her father, the people he’d been mixed up with and the work he’d been doing. That was all that really mattered, but the sudden turn of events — the revelation that Sonia had a sister and the young girl’s odd condition — had stunned him, blinding him in a sense to what was up ahead.
Sonia had taken her sister into the forward cabin, bringing with her some medications and hoping to put her back to bed. She did not seem to be in pain, nor did she seem undeveloped mentally. To keep her calm as they drove to the boat in the middle of the night, Sonia had practiced spelling and math with her. Then the little girl had picked up a book and begun reading on her own.
At first he’d guessed that maybe her aged appearance was just cosmetic, and then she struggled climbing into the boat, because of a knee that Sonia said was arthritic. And the thick glasses suggested vision problems like many older people had.
He suddenly remembered Ranga’s questions about retribution and divine punishment and his speech about humanity living too long, a speech given before Hawker had even met Ranga, before he had even become a renegade. If Hawker had the dates right, it was the year before Nadia was born. Since then she must have been hidden with Savi: Ranga’s sister, Sonia’s aunt. Certainly the little child hadn’t been with them in Africa.
Crazy thoughts ran through Hawker’s mind. Thoughts he wanted to banish but couldn’t. Could Ranga have done something to Nadia? Could he have administered some drug or experimented with some type of genetic therapy on his own child? Could Ranga have created a prototype of his life-shortening drug and given it first to his own child? Aging her, like the rats Danielle had seen in his lab?
He prayed it was something less evil, but he couldn’t say it was impossible.
For one thing, that might explain why Ranga wondered about divine retribution even as he claimed not to believe in any God. The scientist messing with the code of life, an act previously reserved for the Almighty alone. It reminded him of Pharaoh determining the last of God’s plagues by threatening to kill the son of Moses, destroying his own child and all the firstborn of Egypt in the process.
The door to the front cabin opened and Sonia came up from below. She reached out to Hawker, took his hands, and squeezed them in a gesture of thanks. He gazed at her face. The exhaustion showed through.
“I need to ask,” he said. “What do you know about the men your father was mixed up with?”
Sonia looked away, let go of his hands.
“I don’t know much about them,” she said. “After we left Africa, Father and I went different ways. We had contact at times but …”
She looked back at him. “I told you, ten fallings-out, and at least nine reconciliations.”
“Why?”
“Because I wanted a different life.”
“So why go back to working with him then? I know you’ve had more contact than you’re admitting,” he said.
She looked away again.
“Why?” Hawker asked.
“For Nadia,” she said plainly.
Somehow the child’s condition played in this, but what mattered most was the cult, the danger.
“Why would your father work with a cult?” he asked.
“He had nowhere legitimate to turn, so he always ended up with these kinds of people.”
“How long had he been working with them?”
“A year or so?” she said, her gaze falling away. “Did they hurt him?”
It was an odd question. “They killed him, Sonia.”
“I know,” she said. “Dying is one thing, but I just … I always feared that someone would hurt him. Make him suffer. There are worse fates than dying. In Africa they threatened such horrible things.”
Hawker understood that thought. He didn’t know how to answer.
“Please tell me he didn’t suffer,” she said.
He didn’t want to lie to her, but she didn’t need the details. “People like these don’t let someone go easily.”
She looked out into the blackness of the night, her body tensing as if fighting back tears. Hawker decided to change subjects.
“What’s wrong with Nadia?” he asked. “What happened to her?”
Sonia sat down on the padded bench and studied Hawker.
“You mean, what’s happening to her.”
“Happening?” Hawker said. “As in still happening?”
Sonia nodded. “Yes. And unfortunately what’s happening to her is happening to all of us.”
“I’m sorry,” Hawker said. “I don’t understand.”
Sonia brushed a strand of hair back over her ear and motioned to the seat across from her.
Hawker sat, guessing it would be a long story.
“She’s aging,” Sonia said. “Only far more rapidly than the rest of us are.”
“You mean it’s not just her appearance?”
“Nadia is only eleven,” she said. “Nineteen years younger than me. Yet she has advanced osteoporosis. Her eyes are filling with cataracts; her skin is so brittle that if you grab her, she’ll bruise or bleed. And soon, hopefully not too soon, she’ll need dialysis because her kidneys are failing.”
Hawker looked away, finding it hard to believe such a thing was even possible. If Ranga had done this …
“How did it happen?”
“It’s a genetic disease,” Sonia said. “They call it progeria, or Werner syndrome. It’s caused by a defect in the way her
DNA repairs itself.”
“It’s naturally occurring?” he asked.
“If you call that natural,” she said.
Hawker took a deep breath. He was damn glad to hear that Ranga hadn’t caused it, at least not directly. “What I mean is, no one did this to her?”
She looked away. “Only God, if you believe in that sort of thing.”
Hawker believed in God. He’d seen enough horror in the world to make him angry at God and wonder where He was, but he’d also seen what he considered miracles.
“Is there any way to stop it?”
Sonia smiled a half smile as tears welled up in her eyes again. She seemed lost like him, looking for answers that were not there.
“We’re trying,” was all she could say, wiping away the tears.
“We,” Hawker noted. “You and your father?”
She nodded.
“Is this what you were working on in Africa? Is that what this has all been about?”
She took a deep breath. Hawker guessed he was right, but he wanted to hear it from Sonia, he wanted to understand finally what had been hidden all this time.
“My mother died giving birth to Nadia and a year later we detected the disease in her. Father tried to convince the company he was working for to fund some research, or to allow him to use their equipment to do his own research on his own time. But no one wanted to help.”
“He worked on it anyway,” Hawker said.
“He did it without their knowledge. Maybe that was foolish, but what else could he do? When they found out, they were furious. He took the data, the samples, and what money he could and he ran. I had just finished my sophomore year at Princeton. I wanted to help. I forced him to take me with him.”
She looked to the woman piloting the boat. “Nadia went with Savi. I went with Father, first to Costa Rica and then Africa. We thought that in the right place, a place with no restrictions, we might find the answer in a year or two.”
She laughed sadly. “Didn’t exactly turn out that way.”
“That’s why he stalled in the Congo,” Hawker guessed. “He thought you were close.”
“Father always thought we were close.”
Hawker was beginning to understand Ranga’s fanaticism. He’d always wondered how a man could seem kind and good and yet knowingly endanger his daughter the way he’d endangered Sonia. But he was trying to save the more helpless of his children.
