by Graham Brown
She looked up at the man who’d called himself her master. He was now in every way. She would do anything to keep Savi and especially Nadia from harm. “Please don’t hurt them,” she pleaded. “I’ll do whatever you want. Whatever you ask.”
“I know you will,” he said. “But to prove you should not doubt me, I give you proof of my resolve.”
He snatched a gun from his belt and aimed it toward Savi.
“No!” Sonia shouted, covering Nadia’s face, burying the child’s face into her chest.
The gun sounded like a cannon when it fired. Sonia closed her eyes and heard the sickening thud of Savi’s body hitting the floor and then nothing.
She held Nadia tight, cradling the young girl’s head. “It’s okay,” she whispered over and over, not wanting the girl to look or to know or even guess. As it was, Nadia sobbed and held on to Sonia.
“Finish the serum,” her master said. “Give me what your father promised and I’ll let you all go when we’re done.”
In her heart Sonia knew it was a lie, but she couldn’t speak it, couldn’t force the truth out or stand or fight anymore. All her adult life she’d been fighting against the truth, and she couldn’t do it anymore.
“And don’t be too smart for your own good,” the Master said. “You can still save her, but whatever you give us, she gets first.”
She’d made a terrible mistake. She’d feared so badly for Hawker, been so certain he was going to die defending her on the sand hill in Iran, that she’d let herself fall off the ATV. She knew the men wouldn’t shoot her, she knew they would take her and scurry away for fear of losing their master’s prize, and she’d been certain when she did it that she would probably end up dead. But she and her father were responsible for all this misery, so who better to sacrifice?
In dying she might right the wrong. End the trail that was leading the world to perdition. She even had a plan, a thought in her mind of how she could trick these men into thinking they had what they wanted and give them nothing. But now that they had her sister and they had 951, she was powerless.
“And if I don’t give you anything?” she managed to ask.
“Then I’ll torture you both to death and I’ll release 951 instead.”
At that moment Sonia wanted to die. She found herself wishing she’d died either the day before in the desert or back in Dubai or years ago in Africa. As irrational as it was, she cursed Hawker in her mind for saving her. He’d preserved her life just long enough to send her to hell. A hell of her own making.
CHAPTER 46
Caught flat-footed because something on Hawker’s phone had distracted her, Danielle raced to catch him before he went too far.
As he slammed the door open, she saw Scindo stirring, a look of fright in his eyes. Hawker grabbed him, yanked him out of the chair, and threw him against the wall. Dropping down beside him, Hawker ripped the tape off the man’s mouth.
“You’re going to tell me where they are, you bastard!” Hawker yelled. He hoisted Scindo up, just far enough to knee him in the gut and then fire a right cross to his jaw. Scindo’s lip burst open with blood.
“Hawker, stop!” Danielle shouted. “We don’t have to do this!”
Hawker wasn’t listening. When Scindo didn’t reply, Hawker threw him to the ground again, kicked him again, and then stood on his chest.
“Listen to me,” Danielle said. “There’s something wrong here.”
“Get out of here!” Hawker shouted. He grabbed a pair of pliers off the shelf, dropped onto Scindo with a knee, and jammed the pliers into the drywall beside him.
Scindo’s eyes were as large as saucers as Hawker gouged out a huge hole right above the electrical socket. Slamming his fist into the wall, Hawker widened the hole, then he reached in and, using the pliers, tore the copper wires loose from the socket.
“Hawker, there’s a message on your phone. It came from my phone but I didn’t send it.”
Hawker wasn’t listening. “You murdered her father!” he shouted.
For the first time the man replied, his eyes filled with fear. “I did not,” he said in English.
Danielle took that as a positive and a negative. Scindo’s determination not to talk might be breaking, but did that mean Hawker’s insane plan needed to be tried?
“You lie!” Hawker shouted, yanking more of the electrical cord through the wall.
“I don’t,” Scindo said. “It was not me. I never saw him.”
Hawker stood, pulled the gun out of his belt, and put it down on the table behind him.
“Where are they taking her!” he yelled.
No answer.
“Where!”
When Scindo refused to speak, Hawker moved away from him an inch or two. Careful not to touch him, he jammed the two copper leads into Scindo’s side. Sparks jumped, the lights dimmed and came back on, and Scindo screamed.
Watching this, Danielle’s heart went into her throat. She knew what was coming. There was no way to turn back now.
“Tell me, you son of a bitch!” Hawker shouted.
“Stop it!” Danielle screamed at him.
“Tell me!”
Scindo held quiet and Hawker shocked him again.
The lights in the room dimmed and Scindo screamed. Hawker held the prongs on him, singeing the man’s skin. The smell of hair and skin burning filled the room.
“For God’s sake, Hawker!”
“Get out of here!” he yelled back.
“Please,” she begged.
His response was to shock Scindo again. And Danielle could wait no longer.
She grabbed the gun off the table and cocked the hammer. The sound got Hawker’s attention.
Hawker turned and Scindo’s eyes followed. Both of them stared at her.
Tears were streaming down her face, welling up in her eyes, and rolling across her cheeks.
“Get away from him,” she said firmly.
A look of utter shock appeared on Hawker’s face. “Are you out of your mind?”
“Please,” she begged. “I can’t do this. I can’t go where you’re going.”
“You’re saving him?” Hawker whispered in disbelief.
“I’m trying to save you,” she said.
Hawker’s face hardened, as if this was another betrayal. “No,” he said. “Go to hell. You’re not stopping this.”
He turned back to Scindo and shocked him again. The prisoner writhed and slammed his head into the wall.
“Hawker!”
“Tell me what you know!” Hawker shouted.
“Hawker, please!”
Hawker shocked Scindo again, only this time a gunshot echoed along with the prisoner’s screams. Hawker fell forward, dropping the electric wires and slamming into the metal chair in the corner of the room.
It collapsed with a loud clang and Hawker rolled over on it. Lying prone, he turned back to face her. Staring back from the corner, he clutched a bleeding shoulder.
“Are you insane?” he grunted.
She ignored him. “Get up!” she shouted to Scindo.
If Hawker was in shock, Scindo was even more surprised.
“Get up!”
Scindo staggered to his feet, the shackles making it hard to walk, traces of smoke rising from his charred skin.
Hawker moved as if he were about to get up but winced in pain and fell back down. “What the hell is wrong with you?” he shouted.
She backed out the door, motioning for Scindo to follow. He shuffled through and she shut and locked the door behind her.
“Come with me,” she said, heading toward the front door and wrapping a coat over Scindo’s taped hands.
She opened the front door, her heart sick, her mind spinning. She hadn’t wanted to do this, but Hawker had forced her.
“Down the stairs!” she shouted. Scindo hesitated as muffled sounds came from the interrogation room, where Hawker was shouting at the top of his lungs and slamming something against the locked door.
“Move!” Dan
ielle shouted.
Scindo complied, hustling down the stairs as fast as his shackled feet would allow. Danielle followed, wondering where the hell she was going to go and not even wanting to think about what would happen now.
CHAPTER 47
Danielle found an abandoned building two miles from the safe house. It looked like it had once been a garage for large vehicles or a military depot, but heavy shelling or bombs from above had obliterated much of it. Half the roof was gone and the place was filling with sand and desert plants.
She pulled into the most sheltered part and hid her car. She ordered Scindo out and forced him into an abandoned office. File cabinets in one corner sat scorched and partially melted from the heat, either from the bombs that fell or the fires that must have followed.
She helped Scindo in, leading him to a place against the wall, where he sat knees up, hands in front of him, the bandaged hand Hawker had fired a round through bleeding heavily once again.
“Thank you,” he said.
“Shut up!”
She pointed the gun at him.
She thought of Hawker’s words, the devil always fights by dividing, dividing people against each other, Eve from Adam, mankind from God. She felt as if she’d been torn apart herself.
“The people you’re protecting are murderers,” she said, glaring at Scindo. “Even if you didn’t kill Dr. Milan or the French policemen, you’re part of it.”
“Then why did you save me?” Scindo asked defiantly.
“I was trying to save him,” she said.
He went quiet.
“Why are you protecting them?” she asked.
“They took me,” he said. “I am part of them.”
He spoke English well, but with something of a French accent.
“If you were part of them they would have come back for you,” she said, trying to gain the upper hand.
“They did.”
“Not here they didn’t,” she said. “And they’re not going to, unless it’s to put a bullet in your brain and keep you quiet. Like they did to your friends in France.”
This seemed to hit near the mark. “You shot those men,” he said sharply.
She shook her head. “Did we kill you when we had the chance? No, we captured you. We interrogated you. Murdering people is not what we do.”
He glared back at her. He didn’t believe her, she could see that. Or he didn’t care. “What do we gain by killing off people who can tell us things? Huh? We didn’t kill your friends. We would have interrogated them if we could have. So would the French. One of your people murdered them to keep them quiet.”
Scindo stared. He seemed to be drifting toward anger. Whether it was at her or the feeling that she might be speaking the truth, she couldn’t guess. She had to push.
“There’s no rescue for you here,” she said. “They left you out there once they had what they wanted. You’re expendable, whatever your name is.”
“I’m Scindo.”
She shook her head.
“They must’ve thought I was dead,” he stated.
“They could have checked,” she said. “They could have killed all of us with ease and then checked on you. But they didn’t — they left. I’m telling you; you’re alone now.”
This seemed to bother him more than anything so far. “You shot your friend,” he said. “Maybe you’re alone, too.”
She certainly felt alone, sick to her stomach at the turn of events, but she couldn’t show it, not until there was no other hope.
“I did the right thing,” she said proudly. “If you don’t agree, I could take you back to him.”
Scindo did not reply. He seemed to be studying her, trying to figure her out. Obviously he didn’t want to be back in Hawker’s clutches.
“So what will you do with me?”
“I’m not letting you go, if that’s what you mean.”
Other than that, she wasn’t sure. There was no script for this. But at least he was talking. Maybe the madness could have some value, if she could coax even a little bit of intel out of him.
“Did you kill the policemen?” she asked.
“No,” he said defiantly. “I’m not a killer, either.”
He seemed proud of that, adamant, in fact. “Then why do you stand by while the people who left you plan to butcher half the world?”
Finally she seemed to be reaching him. He seemed moved by her statement, somewhat off balance. “I know your tricks,” he said defensively.
She ignored him. There was a crack in his armor and she had to exploit it.
“They’re going to release a virus that will cause misery everywhere. Do you understand that? Millions will end up starving, maybe billions. There’ll be wars and hatred and violence. You can stop it.”
“I live in it every day,” he said.
“Where?” she asked.
He hesitated.
“And for that matter what’s your real name?” she added. “I know my Latin. You weren’t born with the name Scindo.”
“What does it matter what name I was born with?” he said. “They don’t call me by it. They call me dirty Arab. They spit at me. I’m French but the French hate me. If we fight they beat us; if we don’t they ignore us. If we would just die and go away they would be happier.”
“We?”
“All of us,” he said, growing more agitated.
“Like the friends this cult of yours killed?”
“I didn’t … they …”
He was agitated, straining at his cuffs, nostrils flaring. He was talking freely now. He was shouting.
“Where are you from?” she asked softly. “What can it hurt?”
It was a question she’d asked a hundred times before, only now she realized she already knew the answer. She needed him to say it first. A little crack, a trickle of truth, and then the flood. Or so she hoped.
“La Courneuve,” he said finally.
“And your name,” she said, speaking as kindly as possible. “Your real name.”
His eyes darted around but he said nothing.
“You should really tell me,” she said.
“Why?”
“Because if your friends find us before mine do, I’ll probably be the last person to ever hear it.”
“The Master named me Scindo,” he said.
“What does your mother call you?”
He hesitated, a kind of sad pause.
“It’s just a name,” she said. “Mine is Danielle.”
He looked around. He seemed to be thinking. His eyes fell for a moment and then he looked at her again. She could only guess at the war going on inside him.
“My mother named me Yousef,” he said as his eyes found the floor. “Yousef Kazim. It was her father’s name.”
“Do you love her?” she asked.
“Of course. I love all my family.” His voice rose. “That is why I fight.”
This was the opening. This was her chance.
“Don’t you understand what will happen if these people get what they want? Don’t you realize that everyone you know will be harmed; everyone you care for will be worse off than before. They will suffer.”
“It will be equal,” he said defensively.
“No,” she said. “It’ll never be equal. Not on earth, not at the hands of men. The rich will still prosper but the poor will be worse off. They will see more misery and starvation, more destruction and pain.”
“The rich will fear them,” he said.
“Yes,” she said. “And when they fear them they will pay armies to attack. Your family’s lives will go from tough to miserable. It will happen everywhere. It will be a nightmare. And whatever chance they had once had, whatever hope you thought any of them had, will burn up like paper in the fire. And what will you have accomplished, but to seal their fate forever?”
“This is not true,” he said, growing angry.
“It is,” she said softly. “You know it is.”
“And how will it be any differe
nt if I help you?” he said. The question was spat at her with venom, but she sensed there was at least a hint of honesty in it. How would it be different?
“Lives will be spared,” she said. “Millions of lives. Maybe billions.”
“And my family in La Courneuve?”
“I can’t promise you it will be better,” she said. “But it won’t be worse. At least your mother will still have a son.”
“I will not tell you,” he insisted.
She sensed it slipping away.
“There’s nothing to be gained from this,” she said, feeling desperate now. “No riches, immortality, or fame. Only punishment.”
“There is no God to punish me,” he said.
“Maybe some believe that,” she said, “but you don’t. You have to believe in God to be angry with Him. You hate Him for what He’s given you, but you believe He’s out there.”
“I don’t,” he insisted.
Now he looked away and Danielle knew this was the moment. She had to make him speak or he would retreat back into the shell of Scindo, the false persona that protected him, and they’d never break him in time, no matter what they did.
“Even if that’s the case, you’re still at the end,” she said. “My friends will find us. They’ll take me in chains and they’ll take you somewhere that will seem like the darkest pit of hell. And I promise you, Yousef, they will not stop until they have made you speak every last secret you hold.”
“I will not talk.”
“You will,” she said, pitifully. “If not to me, to them. They’ll break you and you’ll hate yourself for being broken. And you will have nothing left.”
He looked up at her.
“And what do you have left?” He finally sounded as sad as her.
“I have myself, Yousef. I did what was right in trying to save you.”
She saw him quiver and look down. The drugs, the lack of sleep, the mental strain, she hoped it had weakened him enough.
“Please,” she asked quietly.
He gazed at the floor.
“Please.”
He did not look up, but staring at the ground, as if in a trance, he finally spoke.
“There’s an island,” he said.
“Where?”
“Out there,” he said, still looking at the ground but nodding toward the south and the Persian Gulf. “There are buildings there, bombed and full of holes. A ship, a freighter I think, it sits on the rocks. That is where they took me.”
