The Eden Prophecy (15 page)

There were few things in the world that Hawker considered impressive simply in and of themselves, but setting eyes on this building, he added one to the list.

Far behind him, in the central part of the city, the tallest building in the world towered like a spike, but the Burj
Khalifa did not hold the eye or move the spirit like the structure in front of him.

For a moment Hawker was speechless.

Unfortunately the man beside him was not.

“It was hella hot when we got off that plane,” the man said, pulling at his silk tie. “Damn hot. Worse than I expected.”

“It’s a desert,” Hawker said. “And it’s July.”

The man looked up at him. “That’s a good point. You are damn observant. No wonder you went into the security business.”

The man laughed at his own joke and Hawker struggled to decide if he wanted to laugh with him or slap him. “Yes, sir,” he said, somewhat painfully.

Had Danielle been sent to the fund-raising event, she would have gone as an NRI representative or even a proxy for some company on the NRI’s list of civilian partners, but Hawker’s knowledge of genetics would have lasted ten seconds in such an environment. That made such a proposition more difficult.

Thoughts of flying
his
turbocharged Jaguar in from Croatia, tooling down the coast, and driving up to the Burj in an Armani suit and posing as an investor were likewise dashed, since that required a specific invite to what was essentially a closed party.

Besides, Hawker knew little more about venture capital or international business than he did about genetics. And even if he could pass off the role, he guessed that Sonia would recognize him fairly quickly. She might have changed from a twenty-year-old to a young woman, but he didn’t look that much different; a little gray in the stubble of his beard when he didn’t shave, a few more lines on his face and around his eyes. But that was it. Not enough change to fool someone who had spent the better part of a year pining for him.

So if he couldn’t pretend to be someone else, then he had only one other choice: pretend to be himself.

Moore had pulled some strings and one of the venture capitalists had suddenly lost his security team. With a diplomatic problem holding his own men up, Mr. James B. Callahan of Fresno, California, found himself needing to hire someone. And the U.S. embassy found itself recommending someone they’d never heard of before.

But orders were orders, and Hawker had signed on for forty-eight hours of close protection. He wondered if he could survive forty-eight hours of listening to Callahan.

Callahan turned to their host, an Emirate man wearing a
kandura
, the traditional long white cloak worn in the region.

“How much does real estate go for around here?” Callahan asked. “ ’Cause you can’t buy a pot to piss in near Silicon Valley without a million bucks.”

The Emirate man smiled politely and glanced at Hawker as if looking for help. Hawker just shrugged and rolled his eyes. Unfortunately, shooting Callahan and throwing him off the train would blow his cover.

“If you like, I can put you in touch with a broker,” the Emirate man said politely.

“I like,” Callahan said. “Oh yeah, absolutely. I like. Heard about that island you got, the one that looks like a palm tree. Might want to buy me something there.”

The Emirate nodded and Callahan turned to Hawker. “I got a good feeling about this,” he said.

Funny
, Hawker thought, because he felt just the opposite. As if he were heading toward some type of doom long avoided but always creeping closer. He’d always known that Ranga and Sonia were keeping some great secret during their time in Africa. Whatever it was, it drove them on, binding them together yet also forcing them apart. Even then, Sonia spent nearly as much time in the lab as her father, receiving an education at his hands.

It was only when the generals started pushing him harder that Ranga began working in the lab alone. Did he want to protect Sonia or to keep her from knowing what he was doing?

Hawker didn’t know and at the time hadn’t asked. Questions and explanations weren’t part of the deal. But after viewing the tape and listening to Ranga speak, Hawker wondered if he’d been protecting a lunatic.

He wondered if things might not have been better had he let Ranga and Sonia die or languish as captives all those years ago. If he had, the world might not be staring down the barrel of a heavily loaded gun.

As the thoughts swirled, he felt a little guilty about lumping Sonia in with her father. Truth was, he didn’t know what her part was in all of this, either then or now. Had she gotten away from Ranga’s circus as soon as she had the chance, like Keegan suggested? Certainly, it seemed like she’d built her own life. Then again, Paradox, the company she worked for, listed Ranga as an original principal. Was it simply a natural place for her to land, a place where the Milan family knew a few people?

Hawker felt now much as he’d felt when seeing Keegan: There are no coincidences. Ranga, Sonia, Paradox, this plague—in his heart of hearts he was certain there would be some connection. And that thought bothered him more than anything else.

Ten minutes later, as they stepped out into the lobby of the hotel, the Emirate man joyfully bid them adieu. In a private room at the base of the hotel, Callahan was introduced to several staff members of the drug company. He signed papers of confidentiality and was scanned from head to toe for recording devices or other electronic equipment. An aide held out a plastic bag, into which Callahan placed his BlackBerry and his iPhone.

Then he and Hawker, who underwent the same treatment, were led to an elevator. It started upward, moving
smoothly and rapidly until it stopped and the doors opened to the top-floor ballroom.

Amber-colored marble stretched out ahead of them. Blue light shone through the tinted floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over the Persian Gulf. Out on the floor millionaires mingled, whispered, and snacked on Beluga caviar.

Callahan stepped out with Hawker at his side. A quick check told Hawker the place was secure.

“You’re in good hands here,” he told Callahan. “I’m going to walk the perimeter, make sure there are no threats or weaknesses the hotel security has overlooked.”

Callahan laughed. “That’s why I like you,” he said.

“Because I do my job?”

“No, because you take it so seriously,” Callahan said. “We’re cool here. Nothing’s gonna happen. Hell, the only reason I brought you was for looks.”

Not that he really cared, but he had to know. “What do you mean, ‘looks’?”

“A guy ain’t squat at one of these things if he don’t have his own security,” Callahan said. “It’s like a platinum card—except everybody has those now—no, it’s more like your own jet. You don’t want to be the guy who rents.”

Hawker actually smiled. He wondered how someone so idiotic could be worth so much money. Either it was all an act on Callahan’s part or there really was no justice in the world.

“Go find yourself a few drinks,” Callahan said. “And if you can find yourself a girl, have at it. I’ll pay you a bonus.”

Hawker nodded and walked off, feeling as if he’d just been paroled or something.

He checked a few doors, studied the hallways in and out, and found himself lingering near the wall of glass on the eastern side of the building. Below he could see the coast of Dubai, in the distance the city lights, and up
above, the base of the circular helipad that jutted out from the roof.

A waiter stopped by and Hawker took a glass of champagne.

A second waiter followed, holding a tray toward him.

Hawker studied the tray: thin crackers, caviar, and foie gras, if he wasn’t mistaken.

“I’m guessing you don’t have a cheeseburger hiding back there somewhere,” he said.

The man stared at him.

“Never mind,” Hawker said. He held out a hand, passing on the food.

The waiter moved off and Hawker began to scan the room.

Filling out the incredible space was an international group of investors and medical professionals. Whatever Paradox was selling, a pretty distinguished group of guests seemed interested in buying.

Wealth from twenty countries walked the floor. Americans like Callahan, Middle Eastern men in traditional garb, Chinese, Japanese, and Russian attendees could be seen and overheard. Aside from the waiters, Hawker was undoubtedly the poorest man in the room. It left him feeling oddly out of place.

And then he spotted Sonia, standing near a podium, in a form-fitting white cocktail dress. Leaning close to a thin, gray-haired man, she seemed to speak in hushed tones. A whisper here, a nod there, a smile and a handshake for someone who stopped by.

She was all grown up now, no doubt about that. The awkward beauty of a twenty-year-old had morphed into a gorgeous thirty-year-old with curves and confidence. From what he saw, she was in her element, shining as the center of attention while everything else swirled around her.

She said a few more words to the man next to her, a
partner or executive by the look of things, shook another set of hands, and then exhaled at a break in the pressing crowd.

As she took a breath her eyes came up; her gaze stretched out across the ballroom as if to relax for just a moment, and in the process landed directly on Hawker.

He saw her pause. Her expression changed, signaling a moment of confusion and indecision. He guessed she wasn’t sure what she was seeing or didn’t believe what her mind was telling her. And then she drew in a breath, her lips parted in surprise, and Hawker knew that she’d recognized him.

The gray-haired man tapped her on the shoulder. She turned toward him abruptly, but in a second she was back on form. And Hawker realized that Sonia wasn’t just part of the show—she was the main attraction.

Moments later the lights began to dim. Sonia and the gray-haired man stepped off the platform and Hawker lost them in the crowd. At each end of the room, huge plasma-screen monitors began to descend from the ceiling while some type of spalike music rose up.

The show was about to begin. Whatever Sonia had been up to for the last few years, whatever Paradox was selling, Hawker and the rest of the crowd were about to find out.

U
pon their arrival in Beirut, Danielle and Moore had been whisked away to the American embassy. Waiting in a secured communications room, Danielle took the opportunity to talk with Moore about Hawker.

“I’m not sure Hawker is the best person to be on this mission,” she said.

Moore remained stoic. “I was wondering when you’d mention that. What are your thoughts?”

“He has a stake in it,” she said. “He wants his friend to be cleared, wants to believe in him.”

As Moore considered her words, Danielle felt sick inside. She felt as if she were stabbing Hawker in the back somehow. She believed what she was saying and, more important, she believed she was speaking in Hawker’s best interest, whether he knew it or not.

Moore seemed less concerned. “Who wouldn’t want their friend to be proven innocent?” he said. “He seems objective to me.”

Danielle struggled. Perhaps objective versus subjective was the point, or at least it might become the point.

“There’s no one else I know more interested in doing what’s ‘right,’ ” she said. “But if what’s right from his point of view conflicts with what’s right for the rest of the world … we know where Hawker comes down on that. He believes in the tribe around him. That’s what matters.
It’s the reason we love him, and the reason he frustrates us so badly. Even in Mexico he threatened to let the world burn if it came down to choosing between those he loved and everything else.”

“And did he?”

“No,” she said, remembering how Hawker had ultimately chosen. “But it’s still a blind spot.”

Moore stopped scribbling the notes on his pad and turned toward her. “We all have blind spots,” he said. “Sometimes they’re what make us who we are.”

“I know, but—”

“Hawker joined up for a reason.”

“Because he wants a clean slate,” she said.

“That’s not why he joined,” Moore insisted.

Danielle sat back, fixing her gaze on Moore in an inquisitive way. She was pretty certain she understood the deal they’d crafted for Hawker and what he was getting out of it.

“We’re his tribe now,” Moore explained. “You in particular. He joined up so he wouldn’t be alone.”

“And the fact that he’s now making contact with a woman from his past, someone he obviously had feelings for?” she asked.

“You tell me,” Moore said. “Would he choose her over what’s right?”

She hesitated. How could she know?

“The feelings between you two are no great secret,” he said. “Can
you
be objective about it?”

“It’s not his body I’m trying to save,” she said defensively.

Moore made a face as if he were weighing the possibilities. “Then you watch him, you make the call.”

As she considered Moore’s directive, a great irony struck her. She had always been good at seeing the forest for the trees, focusing on the bigger picture. But now her mind was on Hawker. She was the one seeing it on a
personal level, trying to spare her friend from the dark road he seemed to be heading down.

She didn’t want Hawker getting pushed into a corner and forced to choose. He’d suffered enough of that already.

A moment later the feed from NRI headquarters in Virginia kicked in and Danielle recognized Walter Yang from the NRI’s medical science department. Dressed in a white lab coat with rimless glasses, Walter looked every bit the PhD in molecular biology and genetics that he was. For reasons she could not fathom, he was also wearing a holster with a pistol secured in it.

Moore cleared his throat. “Why are you armed, Walter?”

“You told me to shoot anyone who tried to break the quarantine,” Yang said.

Moore looked distraught and glanced over at Danielle. “Remind me not to use metaphors when speaking to the sciences department,” he said, and then he turned back to the screen.

“Have you shot anybody yet?”

“No,” Yang said proudly. “No one has tried to escape.”