The Eden Prophecy

CHAPTER 44

Danielle came out of the interrogation room exhausted. She and Hawker had been taking four-hour shifts. Keegan had gone out. Like Moore he was trying to “tap any contact” he could find in hopes that there was information on the street about this group that the intelligence agencies did not have.

Trying to get information out of the prisoner, they’d kept the lights blazing, forced him to sit with his hands tied behind his back and questioned him repeatedly. When they weren’t firing questions at him, they taped a pair of headphones to his skull, blasting Western rock and roll into his ears. Danielle had also injected him with various stimulants and barbiturates that were supposed to weaken his resolve and loosen his tongue. But so far they’d gotten nothing from him, except a name he claimed over and over: Scindo.

As she left the room, she propped the door open and sat where she could keep her eyes on him. Considering the nature of the cult they were dealing with, she feared he might try to kill himself. It wouldn’t be easy with his hands and feet taped but she wasn’t taking any chances.

Hawker was supposed to be sleeping during her shift, but she found him sitting at the kitchen table with one of the 9 mm Berettas lying in front of him. He had the clip out and was loading it methodically, carefully slotting in one bullet after another, making sure they seated correctly, as if it mattered.

She’d seen the odd-looking type of shells before. It wasn’t a good sign. Hawker was nearing the breaking point.

“We can’t wait much longer,” he said.

Over the past sixteen hours Hawker had grown quiet, aloof, as if he couldn’t talk to her now. He hadn’t slept much more than their prisoner. Certainly she’d found it hard to sleep during his shifts, fearing Hawker would take the situation into his own hands.

They’d discussed several options, none of which she liked. And since then, Hawker had been brooding in silence.

“I’m not the enemy,” she said.

He looked up.

“I know that,” he mumbled, then went back to the loading.

At least they were talking.

She thought how heavy his heart must be. Feeling betrayed from all sides.

“You sent a text to Lavril,” she said.

“Tapping my phone now?”

“Keeping an eye on my partner.”

He didn’t seem to buy that answer. “I need to know what caliber gun was used at rue des Jardins,” he explained. “Lavril said it was a small caliber, maybe twenty-five.”

“Why?”

“Sonia mentioned being in Paris the day that all went down. She said she was looking for her father but now I’m not so sure.”

Danielle sat back, surprised. “You think she’s involved in this?”

He exhaled heavily, sounding worn-out. “What if she was at the house?” he said. “What if that.25-caliber pistol she gave you is the one that finished off those guys.”

“Hawker …”

“She and Ranga had a falling-out,” he added. “She told me she led that cult to Ranga. That she had contact with them before he did. What if all of them were involved, desperate to figure out how to save Nadia, and then Ranga bailed? His message said not to trust anybody.”

“You’re overthinking this,” she said, understanding how he was drawing the conclusions but feeling he had to be wrong. “What about the attack in Dubai?”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone, pressed the Internet button, and slid it across the desk toward her. She looked at the page displayed on his screen.

Drug company executive killed in ambush. Authorities have recordings linking him with the Dubai shootout.

The photo showed a burned-out car with an inset of the executive’s smiling face. The photo came from the company’s PR file.

“You don’t necessarily believe this?”

“The guys in Dubai were different,” he said. “They weren’t locals, they were well equipped, they came in a five-million-dollar helicopter, for goodness’ sakes.”

“Aum Shinrikyo had a helicopter, too,” she said. “A Russian gunship, minus the guns. No one says cults have to travel on foot.”

“Remember the guys in France? One of them had a knife as a weapon. The guys in Dubai were professionals.”

She put the phone down, not interested in looking at the burned-out hulk of a car anymore.

“We have two chunks of that stone,” he continued. “Maybe seventy-five percent of the whole brick. Do you see any golden ball in our sections?”

Danielle had taken the two pieces apart and found nothing, except a curved interior wall that looked as if something round or spherical had been pressed up against it when the mud dried.

It reminded her of the Styrofoam that came with everything big enough to need a cardboard box. After you emptied the box you could tell what had been in it by the shape of the preformed Styrofoam packaging.

She remembered what Sonia had said. The ancients sealed the seeds in a waxen ball and then covered them in gold, before hiding it within the secret vessel.

If that golden ball existed it seemed likely that it had been contained entirely within the small section that Sonia had taken.

“She just grabbed what was in front of her,” Danielle said.

“She grabbed it first,” he said. “Before either of us reached in. Before I even said anything.”

“That doesn’t mean she knew what she was getting.”

“I think she did,” Hawker said. “She studied it, when it broke.”

Danielle remembered Sonia looking at the broken pieces, staring at them like she was in shock. It had seemed like confusion and sadness to Danielle; now Hawker seemed to see it as cold, calculating study.

“For an instant, in the dark,” she said, defending the young woman.

“She slowed us down on the way back to the ATVs and then she slipped and gave us away.”

It all made some sense, but Danielle couldn’t believe it was true. More likely lack of sleep and desperation were getting the better of Hawker. “Don’t do this to yourself,” she begged. “In the end it doesn’t really matter, does it? She’s not the important thing here.”

He tilted his head slightly, pursing his lips as if another blow had just landed. Instantly she regretted the choice of her words. Tact was often the first casualty of exhaustion.

“I need to know,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because I want to believe in her.”

Danielle could understand that. “If Lavril says the wounds are from a.25-caliber that doesn’t prove anything. Even if it did, it’ll just leave you hating her for betraying you and hating yourself for believing in her.”

He remained silent and she hoped her words were reaching him.

“And if it comes back that the kill shots were fired from a.32 or .380 or a .22, then you’ll hate yourself for failing her somehow even though you did everything you could.”

Hawker took a breath. He put the last bullet in the clip and slid the clip home in the handle of the gun.

She reached out and put her hand on his hand and the pistol at the same time. She wasn’t good at this part, at healing or helping. It had never been her nature.

He looked up and this time he held her gaze. “What would you have me do?” he asked.

She did her best to answer honestly. “I’d try to forget about her and finish the mission. I’m not saying it’s easy.”

He looked at the wall, bitter and tense.

“Why else would she run to them?” he asked, getting to the point that obviously hurt him the most.

Everyone had their blind spots, things they just couldn’t see because their temperament prevented it. She guessed that maybe Hawker had manufactured his own blind spot in regards to Sonia.

“Do you really not get it?” she asked. “She saw you on the hill. You think she didn’t know what was going to happen? You think she didn’t know you were going to die up there trying to save her?”

Hawker looked away, considering the thought.

“You think either of us wanted you to stay there?” she added. “If it had been her — or me — up on the hill, what would you have done?”

Hawker seemed to get what she was saying, but she couldn’t tell if he believed it. Maybe didn’t want to. Maybe it was easier not to.

“She loves you,” Danielle said bluntly. “You were willing to die to save her and she was willing to return the favor.”

“I wasn’t planning on dying,” he said.

“But it was a distinct possibility.”

“She couldn’t know they’d follow her,” he said.

There was still anger in his voice, a ragged edge.

“She knew they weren’t shooting at her. She made a choice. You have to decide if you think it was for her benefit or for yours.”

Beside her, Hawker’s phone lit up. She noticed a French country code. But it was a text, not a call.

“It’s Lavril,” she said.

He nodded. “And?”

She pressed the View Message icon, then hesitated for a moment as she read it. “The gun was a twenty-two. Not Sonia’s.”

A look of relief eased onto Hawker’s face. And then a new kind of anger took its place.

“So she’s at their mercy,” he said, and then nodded toward the detention room. “And that son of a bitch in there knows where she is.”

Before she could react, he snatched up the pistol, stormed toward the interrogation room, and kicked the door open.