The Eden Prophecy (12 page)

“A weapon,” Lavril asked.

“Probably. Or a drug, or something that could be turned into either.”

Lavril stood still, calculating. “Is Paris at risk?”

Danielle shook her head. “As far as I could tell, whatever stock had been present was already gone, moved or destroyed. And that explosion was extremely hot.”

“Over a thousand degrees,” Lavril said. “Thermite mixed with C-4 according to our bomb squad. Three other buildings burned and the fire melted the steel railings across the street.”

Danielle nodded. “I’d guess he rigged it that way on purpose,” she said. “To destroy any evidence or any pathogens, or both, should something like this occur.”

“So a plague is not imminent?”

“I wouldn’t think so,” Danielle said, realizing he was focused particularly on that subject. “Do you have reason to think Paris is a target?”

Lavril had been caught in his own trap, asking one too many questions. “We received a letter,” he said. “The writers claim responsibility for the incident at the tower. And they promise to wreak a plague far worse than any that has gone before upon the rest of us.”

Danielle’s eyes widened. “Is it authentic?”

“It relayed the details of each man’s kidnapping and murder as proof of its authenticity. And then it followed with a list of threats.

“It promises a plague that will wash away ‘all false evidence of a false god.’ It then says: ‘All shall fall, Canterbury, Notre Dame, the Dome of the Rock, and the Wall at
its feet. Mecca, Jerusalem, and the Holy See: All will be powerless to the truth revealed.’ ”

Danielle listened intently. Canterbury Cathedral was home of the Church of England. The Dome of the Rock was the second most holy site in Islam, Mecca being the first. The Wailing Wall was the last remnant of the Jewish Temple. And the Holy See was of course the home of the Vatican. Could some madman really be declaring war on every major Western religion at once?

Lavril continued reading. “This is just the beginning,” he said. “It goes on to promise the power of life and death will lie in the cult’s grasp. ‘You will lay all of them down and worship us,’ it says.

“The letter is signed ‘Draco—the serpent.’ ”

It sounded like madness, like the deranged ramblings of a hundred other groups, but if this group had what Ranga had been working on, and if the notes she’d seen in his lab were accurate, they might just wield some great power over life and death.

“Do you know who they are?” Hawker asked.

“Murderers,” Lavril said. “Beyond that …” He shook his head.

It certainly sounded like some type of cult. Perhaps that explained the torture and burning Ranga had endured; perhaps it had been some ceremonial punishment. Perhaps that explained the brand seared into his chest. The French policemen were not killed in the same way.

As Lavril spoke, she saw Hawker’s eyes narrow, saw his jaw clench, and she wished she could speak to him alone, warn him of what she feared.

“What do you know?” she asked Lavril.

The commandant pursed his lips as if thinking hard about what he was about to say.

She would say nothing further, not without something from him. “Quid pro quo,” she said. Something for something.

“Your scientist had been tortured; you know this,” Lavril said. “But he also had old wounds. Healed wounds. Perhaps it was not the first time.”

Danielle took that in.

“And he had stingers in his skin,” Lavril added.

“Stingers?” Hawker asked.

“From a jellyfish,” Lavril said. “On his hands and arms and neck. Does it mean anything to you?”

“No,” she said. “What else?”

“Asbestos and heavy oil under his fingernails.”

It sounded like a random list of things. Almost as if Lavril had made it up on the fly, yet Danielle sensed honesty from the commandant and guessed that these facts would help in some way at some time. For now she racked her brain and came up empty.

Lavril looked on expectantly. “Does it mean anything to you?”

She looked at Hawker, who shook his head. “I wish it did.”

Lavril looked down at the floor, as if disappointed. He scratched at a spot beneath his ear in an almost subconscious way, then looked back up.

It seemed he’d decided something.

He went back behind the desk, sat down, and began scribbling on several sheets of paper.

“Your job is to seek these men, yes?”

Danielle nodded. Hawker did the same.

“Then you will be released,” he said, glancing briefly at Danielle and then focusing on Hawker once again.

“They killed one friend of yours,” he said. “They’ve murdered four of mine. This is not America. Rarely is anyone shot here. And the police … we have not lost an officer in almost twelve years.” He shook his head. “Those men had families. To us this is a tragedy. It will haunt us for an age. But no matter how angry I am, I cannot chase
these men out of Paris; I cannot hunt them to the ends of the earth. But you can.”

Hawker nodded.

“What will you do when you find them?” Lavril asked.

“After what you’ve shown me,” Hawker said. He shook his head.

Lavril nodded knowingly. He slid two sheets of paper across the desk toward them: signed release forms, with the key to the cuffs sitting on top.

“If you find them …,” he began, then stopped. “When you find them, please give them our regards along with your own.”

Danielle hesitated. With all the talk of Adam and Eve she felt as if they were making a deal with the devil themselves. She stared at the key as if touching it would bring dark consequences. Beside her Hawker stretched forward and snatched it. Apparently he had no such qualms.

He unlocked his cuffs, dropped them onto the desk, and then handed the key to her.

“Where do you suggest we start?” he asked.

“The man who was with Ranga on the tower has been identified as an exiled Iranian named Ahmad Bashir. He had a ticket to Beirut on Air France 917 for tonight. A similar ticket was issued to another passenger using the address at rue des Jardins.”

“For what?” Hawker asked.

“I don’t know,” Lavril said. “But it must matter.”

Danielle unlocked her own cuffs, stunned at the turn of events and the deal that had just been made. She feared the ground they now stood upon, but after all they’d been through, she wouldn’t let Hawker stand alone.

She tossed her cuffs to Lavril a little quicker than might have been necessary.

“There is a car waiting for you,” Lavril said.

She turned and made her way toward the door without responding.

Hawker lingered.

“Your friend does not approve,” she heard Lavril say.

“I don’t need her for this,” Hawker said calmly.

The words stung, but Danielle kept walking as if she hadn’t heard.

For Lavril, Hawker’s connection to Ranga made him the perfect choice to go after the killers, but it also made him the worst possible choice of all.

Danielle tried to think of a way to reach Hawker, to convince him that he was going down the wrong path, but she feared confrontation might just push him so far away that she would never be able to bring him back.

Y
ousef sat against the wall in the back room of an abandoned house. He had done what he was ordered to do. But he had failed, failed to get the scientist’s samples or documents, failed to do anything but escape and survive.

He shivered in the darkness and the filth. His clothes had dried hours ago after his swim in the Seine, but now he’d drifted into shock.

He’d lost everything. His friends were dead. The police would find him soon. And he had lost any hope of ascending within the brotherhood.

He pulled a lighter from his pocket and flicked it.

Rats scurried away from the light, disappearing into a gnawed-out section of the wall.

In the dim orange glow, Yousef studied his surroundings: trash and decay scented with urine. Back where he’d started.

He felt the weight of the pistol in his hand. The weapon seemed heavier now, more substantial than when Marko had given it to him. It had drawn no blood, at least not yet.

He put it down and pulled out a cellphone, dialing from memory.

As it was answered, Yousef began to speak.

“I have failed you,” he said.

Marko’s voice came through the speaker, heavy and calm. “Where are you, Yousef?”

“I’m back in La Courneuve,” he said. “The police are looking for me.”

“Yes, they are,” Marko said, then paused. “But they will not reach you before I do.”

The words struck fear into Yousef.

“Are you coming to kill me?”

Marko laughed, and in the empty darkness of the house, the sound echoed. It haunted Yousef to the point where he thought of hanging up, of running. But where could he go? He looked at the gun on the cold floor. He thought of using it on himself, ending the misery before Marko and the others punished him.

“You have done better than you imagine,” Marko said finally. “The Master is pleased with you, Scindo. We will not leave you behind.”

For a moment the chills stopped. Yousef was alone and ready to die just to end the pain, but Scindo was not alone.

“Stay where you are,” Marko said. “I am coming for you.”

B
arton Cassel IV walked into his office on the thirty-eighth floor of the Cassel Pharmaceuticals office tower in downtown Nice. An American who preferred to be considered a citizen of the world, Cassel had taken over the family business from his father at the ripe old age of twenty-nine; thirty years later he’d transformed it from a sleepy little drug distribution company to an international producer of four blockbuster medications. CPC (Cassel Pharmaceutical Corporation) revenues had reached almost $3 billion per year. Profits would hit $200 million for the trailing twelve months, depending on the exchange rate.

Such wealth had transformed Cassel into an international playboy of sorts. He owned yachts anchored in Miami and Monaco; he had purchased a run-down castle and transformed it into a thirty-thousand-square-foot home where he threw lavish parties that attracted supermodels, movie stars, and Formula One drivers. Recently he’d toyed with the idea of buying some type of title so he could be officially addressed as Duke, Prince, or Count.

But for all his wealth, Barton Cassel IV was not a man without problems. To begin with, his four blockbuster drugs generated 95 percent of the company’s revenues, but three of them would go generic within the next year; the fourth would follow shortly, crippling CPC. Revenues
would drop by half, and without huge layoffs and other cutbacks, especially in the horrendously expensive research and development budget, profits would disappear and the red ink would flow as if a dam had burst.

Despite a massive effort Cassel had nothing in the pipeline to replace them. And cutting the R and D budget meant there would be little likelihood of coming up with anything anytime soon.

That was one problem. As he switched on the light in his sprawling office, a second, derivative problem stared him in the face.

“Hello, Barton,” a voice said.

Cassel looked up. On a couch near the small kitchen and wet bar that were part of his office, he saw a man with a shaven head and a dark, rectangular tattoo wrapping halfway around his neck like a collar.

Cassel knew the voice, the tattoo, the ugly gaze.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“I came to bring you news,” the tattooed man said.

Cassel looked toward the door, a bit too obviously.

“Don’t bother,” the tattooed man warned. Then as if it weren’t a threat: “You’re going to want to hear what I have to say.”

Cassel fumed. He had the best security service in the country, multiple layers of protection from the street on up; he had cameras and scanners and even a key-coded lock on his own door that he’d just opened. All designed to keep him from dealing with “stuff.”

The man across from him definitely qualified as stuff.

“How the hell did you get in here?”

The tattooed man laughed. “Did you really think your store-bought security would keep me out? I spent half my life figuring out how to get through systems like yours. Most of them a hell of a lot better than your pathetic little show.”

Cassel shifted in his seat. He knew all this, of course; it
was the danger of dealing with a man from such a background.

“I paid a heavy price for relying on my own security once,” the tattooed man said. “A heavy price. I suggest you avoid making the same mistake. You’re not out of reach. No one is.”

The man across from him had once been respected and powerful, Cassel knew that. It was the only reason Cassel had listened to him when he’d first come in, the only reason he’d agreed to work with him. Not the only reason perhaps—desperation played a part—but what Cassel hadn’t realized was that far more than the man’s appearance had changed.

The man called himself “Draco” now and he seemed to think of himself in bizarre, vainglorious tones. Apparently suits and ties being replaced by tattoos and Goth-like clothing were more than a cosmetic change. Madness had come and settled in. Draco had gone from being merely ruthless to vicious, sadistic, and erratic in his behavior.

Perhaps a fall from such high places did that to a man. Cassel had no desire to find out personally.

“What kind of news do you have?” he asked.

“I need more money,” Draco said.

“That’s not news.”

“Put another million dollars into the account,” Draco said, as if Cassel worked for him.

“Another million? And what do I have to show for the millions I’ve already spent? Do you have my sample? Do you have the proteins you promised, or the coding?”

“I have a sample, but it’s not the sample you want.”

Cassel squinted. Draco held up a small vial the size of a thimble, sealed but unlabeled.

“What the hell are you talking about? Our deal was for the drug Milan was working on. What’s this?”

“Partial delivery,” the man said. “Some of Milan’s latest work is contained in that vial. Enough for you to see where it’s going.”