by Graham Brown
Two and a half years ago, on a mission like that, they’d also retained Hawker. He’d been little more than a hired gun at the time, but as the mission frayed at the edges and then blew itself apart, Hawker had been the one factor that kept the damage from becoming all-encompassing.
The final tally was grave, with more than a dozen deaths and a barely contained scandal that led right back to the agency’s then director, Stuart Gibbs. He’d disappeared before Danielle and the team made it home, and the NRI itself had almost collapsed, maintaining its existence by the thinnest of margins.
In the words of one critic, the mission had been “cataclysmic in the scope and magnitude of its failure,” but she and several others, mostly civilians, had survived, almost exclusively due to Hawker’s efforts.
The experience had been so intense that it took Danielle a while to work out her feelings. Only later had she come to realize the irony of Hawker, the fugitive mercenary and pariah, showing her, the upstanding straight-A government agent, what mattered and what didn’t.
It reminded her of deep-seated beliefs about honor and righteousness that she’d somehow buried or rationalized away as a hindrance to getting the job done. It had been the beginning of the way back to herself. And when the dust cleared, she found that she liked new her—the old her—better.
Eventually she’d returned to the NRI with renewed purpose and strength, determined that she could do what was right and still do her job.
Perhaps that was why her feelings for Hawker went deeper than the physical attraction they both felt. She was fairly certain that he’d touched her soul somehow.
Someday, in some way, she hoped, they’d get a chance to see where things might go, but so far Hawker’s cover required him to live exactly as he had for the previous decade. He lived in the shadows as a target for Interpol and American agencies like the FBI that were purposefully kept in the dark as to his change in status, lest it leak out. He never spent more than a few weeks in one place. Not exactly the way to start a relationship.
She’d hoped that after this mission to Croatia they might have some time to be by themselves, but Hawker’s message and the information she’d uncovered trying to help him meant there was little chance of that.
As she waited and worried for him, it grieved her that she was here to deliver terrible news.
On the screen she saw an expensive-looking white sedan slide through the gate at the edge of the taxiway. The car rolled across the apron and parked beside the Citation, stopping at the foot of the stairs. Her heart filled with relief when Hawker got out, handed the keys to another man, and then began to climb the stairs.
He stepped through the door and looked directly toward her.
She couldn’t help but smile.
He grinned back at her, handsome and rugged.
“I have to ask,” she said, playfully, “why are you driving a Jaguar?”
“They didn’t have an Aston Martin,” he said.
“That’s not what I meant.”
As the stairs were rolled away, Hawker pulled the door shut, locked it into place, and came back to sit with her.
Pressing an intercom button on her armrest, she spoke to the pilot. “We’re ready to go.”
The pilot’s voice came over the intercom. “We’ve filed a flight plan to Hamburg. Do you want us to amend?”
“I’ll let you know once we’re airborne,” she said, and then turned her attention back to Hawker. “That’s going to be a little hard to explain on the expense report.”
“Tell them it’s a finder’s fee,” he said.
La Bruzca had been suspected of trafficking arms for years, but the extent had never been known. Loaning Hawker out to the CIA for a while gave them a chance to get a look at his operation. Danielle had read his report already, including the successful planting of a tracer in the nose cone of one missile. Wherever La Bruzca took his wares they should be able to follow. And if he sold them, the tracer that Hawker planted would lead the CIA right to the end user. She guessed that ought to be worth a car or two.
As the engines spooled up outside the cabin, Hawker’s eyes tightened on her. Despite her efforts to turn the conversation in another direction, he asked the exact question she’d hoped he would delay.
“Were you guys able to get a line on Ranga?”
“Yes,” she told him. “But it’s more complicated than that.”
He nodded. “I figured it would be. I don’t need you to release the hounds or give me a key to the National Archives. I just want to know if there’s anything you can tell me.”
She took a breath.
Hawker’s fears for an old friend might have fallen on deaf ears, except for a few simple facts. To begin with, Ranga Milan was considered a ticking time bomb, an A. Q. Khan in the making, only in possession of knowledge far more deadly than the simple skills required to build an atomic bomb.
Genetic technology could be almost infinitely dangerous. It was telling that the SALT and START arms limitation treaties and the Geneva Convention all but banned the creation and use of biological weapons, while nations stockpiled tens of thousands of nuclear weapons and pointed them at one another.
The fact was that biological weapons were easily controllable, right up until the moment they were used. After that, all bets were off.
A biological weapon was alive. It could change, mutate, grow, or spread in ways never predicted. Once you sent a plague into your enemy’s backyard, no one could promise it wouldn’t return home, even with an ocean in between. Nor could anyone guarantee that such an organism would not mutate and overcome defenses and vaccines prepared against it in advance. To use such a weapon was like building a house in a field of dry grass and then setting fire to your neighbor’s hut.
Rational minds, even if interested in world domination, knew such weapons were not practical. But in the hands of a fanatic, a suicidal lunatic, or a doomsday cult, such a weapon might be perfect.
And without an announcement by the user, it might be months before something was even noticed, at which point a disease or plague would have spread far beyond its initial starting point and become unstoppable.
Fortunately or unfortunately, someone had recently made such an announcement, in the form of a letter, carrying an unknown virus and delivered to Claudia Gonzales, the assistant U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Suspicion focused on its being the work of Ranga Milan.
That was fact number two. In the long run it would be the most painful. But under the current circumstances, Danielle guessed fact number three would bring on the most immediate anguish.
“It’s more complicated than that because of a pair of incidents that occurred over the last forty-eight hours.”
Not wanting to seem evasive, she focused first on Hawker’s question.
“Regarding Ranga,” she said. “We took the information you gave us. We found him in Paris. I’m sorry, Hawker, but Ranga’s dead.”
Hawker’s jaw clenched and he took a slow breath before responding. “How?”
The file in front of her detailed the life and painful death of Ranga Milan. She could have handed it to him, but that seemed so cold.
“Twenty-eight hours ago, a shooting occurred on the secondary observation deck of the Eiffel Tower. At first blush, it was considered a terrorist incident or even an assassination attempt against an Iranian exile who happened to be there. But we know differently now. Ranga was on that deck.”
“You’re sure?”
She nodded. “Eyewitnesses and video from the site show two men being captured and hauled off by the Parisian police. Only the police reported no one in custody.”
“I don’t understand,” he said.
“Last night the bodies of four officers were found in an abandoned house on the outskirts of the city. Someone had killed them the day before and taken their place in the tower patrol.”
“Someone who needed access to the tower.”
She nodded. It was clear the officers had been target
ed and taken before the incident. Their uniforms, IDs, and even their cars had been used.
“Any idea who?”
She shook her head. No one had a clue. Certainly no group had claimed responsibility.
“What about Ranga?” Hawker asked.
“They found him this morning,” she said. “I’m sorry to tell you this, but he’d been tortured and mutilated in some way.”
Understandably she could sense the anger rising in Hawker. “Tortured.”
She nodded slowly. “I don’t have all the details. I’m hearing it was pretty bad. He was left tied up in another vacant property for the police to find.”
After a deep breath, Hawker held out his hand. She passed him the file. It contained everything they knew, including the fact that an Iranian, confirmed to be a member of the Green Revolution and a dealer in stolen antiquities, was still missing, that a large sum of cash was found at the site, and that something had been thrown from the deck. Analysis showed the object to be made of dried clay, but the destruction was so complete it was impossible to determine just what had been destroyed.
She pointed to the file. “There’s background information in there,” she said, referring to Ranga’s profile. “Some of it you may know, some of it maybe not.”
Hawker began to read. She could see the tension in his face, could sense him battling the frustration and anger.
“I hate to say this,” she added, “but that’s not the worst of it.”
Hawker looked up.
“The day before Ranga’s disappearance, a letter was received at the UN. It carried a rather bizarre rambling threat and also some form of unknown virus.”
“I heard about an anthrax scare,” he said. “Is that what we’re talking about?”
“That’s just the cover story,” she said. “To keep people calm.”
“Anthrax is the cover story?” he repeated. “What the hell is the real story then?”
“It’s bad,” she said. “It’s like nothing anyone has seen before. It may be close to one hundred percent infectious. The threat indicates it is designed to cause a plague.”
By the look on his face, Hawker had already guessed where this was going. “And the source?”
“The letter was anonymous, but on an impermeable layer inside the envelope they found fingerprints pretty much everywhere. The prints are Ranga’s.”
Hawker looked up at the ceiling and exhaled. It wasn’t a look of disbelief but a look of frustration, as if something long feared had just been confirmed.
“He said he’d done something unforgivable. I’m guessing this is it.”
“He was your friend,” Danielle said, “so I don’t expect this to be easy. But I need you to tell me anything about him that we might not already know.”
“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.”
CHAPTER 7
La Courneuve, France
His 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.
