The Eden Prophecy (41 page)

Behind him, Keegan held the little girl, who was now fully conscious and confused. “Sonia?” she asked. “Where’s Sonia?”

Hawker felt his heart break even more. He continued to stare at the island behind them as another round of Tomahawks hammered it, once again raising fire to the sky.

I
n the shade of some trees, fifty yards back from a white sand beach and the warm waters of the Aegean, Danielle Laidlaw sat on an old stone wall. The wall wasn’t ancient enough to be from the classical Greek era or from Roman times, but she guessed a few generations had passed since its construction.

Enough time for the world to change and the height of technology to go from steam engines to spacecraft, from vacuum tubes to computers, from penicillin as
the
only miracle drug to the manipulation of DNA and the very building blocks of life.

All paths of growing knowledge that might lead to either paradise or perdition.

She wasn’t sure they’d ever know the truth about the place they’d found, whether it was connected to the biblical Garden of Eden or not. She wasn’t even sure if such a fact
could
be determined. But with the Iranians fuming over the incursion and the bombing of the cormorant island, and the American government trying to explain why they’d unleashed twenty-four missiles on a flyspeck in the middle the Gulf, she doubted anyone, particularly an American like McCarter, would get the chance to try.

In the end, it probably didn’t matter. Those who wanted to believe it would, and those who wanted to believe
something else would believe that something else. Like all things connected to religion and spirituality, it wouldn’t require faith if you could prove it one way or another.

She looked out to the beach where Hawker sat, shoes off, shirt open, watching the waves as his skin grew darker in the sun. For reasons known only to him, he’d insisted they come here and avoid hooking up with the authorities of any country or any representatives of the U.S. government, including the NRI.

After what he’d been through, what he’d lost and what he’d already done for her in his life, she didn’t question it, even as the days passed.

They were staying in Keegan’s place, a decent-sized chalet on the beach. But Keegan wasn’t there. He’d gone out on some mission for Hawker.

Since then life had been a model of consistency.

Every day Hawker would check in with Keegan by phone and then he’d bring Nadia to the beach and let her play, watching over her as if she were his own. Every day Moore would call Danielle on the satellite line and ask when she and Hawker would be returning for debriefing. And every day Danielle would say “maybe tomorrow.”

Truth was, she didn’t know. Even as Hawker’s physical wounds healed—helped on by a local surgeon—his mental anguish only seemed to deepen. Watching him, as he watched Nadia, Danielle felt a tremendous need to protect and shelter him. But he wouldn’t let her in, and so she had to do it from afar.

Back in Washington, Moore was doing the same, deflecting and redirecting the thousand questions that were probably pounding down his door. In a way, it felt good to raise their shields around Hawker. After all, he was one of their tribe.

Sliding the satellite phone into her pocket, Danielle started across the beach, walking across the warm sand until she’d reached a spot beside him. She sat, brought
her knees up toward her chest, and rested her arms on them, leaning forward.

Ahead of them, a small wave swept in and over the sand castle Nadia was building. The young child, looking like a tiny old woman, shrieked with delight as the foamy water swirled around and then slid back into the ocean.

“She wants to know where Sonia is,” Hawker said. “Where Savi is. And when her father is coming back.”

He looked down at the sand and then over at Danielle. “How do you tell a little girl that everyone she loved is gone?”

“What about her mother?” Danielle asked.

“She died giving birth to Nadia.”

“Cousins? Uncles?”

“No one yet,” he said. “She’s all alone.”

Danielle turned toward him, brushing the hair out of her eyes. “Is that why we’re still here?”

“I don’t know where else to go,” he said, sounding lost.

As long as she’d known him, Hawker had always been sure of himself. Even when he was wrong he made his mistakes at a thousand miles an hour. To be suddenly uncertain about things might feel worse than being wrong.

“You can’t keep her here,” she said. “You can’t stay here forever, even if Keegan says you can.”

For the first time he looked at her. “I know that. But where do we go?”

“We?” she said. “There are agencies. I’m sure with our influence—”

“A child with her problems?” he said. “You’re going to put her in foster care?”

“I’m not saying that but …” She started and then stopped, finding that she didn’t know what to say.

Hawker spoke again. “Sonia told me she’d only live
another year. God help us if we dump her on the system for the last year of her life.”

Maybe he did plan to keep her here, maybe he planned to take care of her for the rest of her days and somehow honor Sonia’s memory that way.

“Why are you putting yourself through this?” she asked. “You did everything you could.”

“A long time ago I promised Sonia I’d never let anything happen to her.”

“You kept that promise when you dragged them out of Africa,” she said. “You put them on solid ground. They chose to go back into the land of snakes. Maybe they did it with good reason. But it was their choice. Not yours.”

He looked over at her. Obviously he knew that.

“I know,” she said, gently, thinking she might have overstepped her bounds. “Rational arguments aren’t going to do much for you right now.”

He nodded and gazed back toward the water.

“Did you love Sonia?” she asked.

He hesitated.

“It’s a yes-or-no question.”

“I loved the idea of her,” he said, proving that it wasn’t. “After five years looking over your shoulder and hoping the people you’re working with or the woman you’re sleeping with aren’t planning on killing you, you end up wondering if the world would be better off without you. Then you run into someone good who needs help and suddenly you matter.”

“And you’re not alone,” she said.

He nodded, then turned her way again. “I’m not big into psychoanalysis, but I wanted to feel alive. To feel normal. It almost felt normal.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that, Hawker,” Danielle said. “There’s nothing wrong with any of that.”

“There is when you know it can’t last,” he said. “I
couldn’t go back into the light where she was going and I sure as hell couldn’t bring her with me or she’d have ended up dead somewhere.”

He stopped. He didn’t have to say it. She knew his next thoughts. She put a hand on his knee.

“Hawker, right now you’re feeling guilt stacked on guilt, but even at twenty Sonia was a grown woman and nothing that happened since had anything to do with you. The only people to blame are Gibbs and the others he corrupted.

“We destroyed them,” she added, thanking God that the president had chosen to obliterate the whole island instead of just the freighter.

“There’s no indication that the virus escaped that island. There are teams looking for infected cormorants, but they haven’t found anything, not even a bird with singed tail feathers. Nothing got away, not in that firestorm.”

He nodded.

“You don’t feel it now, but Sonia gave herself for something that mattered, even if she was misguided at times. Who isn’t? Who wouldn’t want to be? Talk about life not meaning anything.”

She hoped her words were affecting him, but he remained silent.

Before anything else was said, a white Range Rover pulled up in the drive and parked next to the old wall that Danielle had been sitting on.

The horn sounded. Out on the beach Nadia perked up. She looked over her castle and toward the white SUV.

Keegan stepped out on the driver’s side and an elderly woman with olive skin and white hair stepped out on the passenger’s side. Almost immediately Nadia got up and began to hobble toward them. The woman came out past the wall and met Nadia halfway.

A look of relief swept over Hawker’s face.

“Who’s that?”

“Nadia’s grandmother. Keegan’s been looking for her all week. She’s from Barcelona. We didn’t know if she was still alive.”

Danielle felt as if a great weight had been lifted off Hawker’s shoulders and she couldn’t help but smile.

“This is a good thing,” she said.

He stood. “It’s a start.”

“You gonna be okay?” she asked.

“Someday,” he said,

“What about today?” she prompted.

“Today,” he said, pulling something from his shirt pocket and studying it. “Today I’m going to get even.”

He turned and began walking toward Nadia, her grandmother, and Keegan. Danielle quickly stood and followed. She caught up with Hawker as he reached them, picked little Nadia up, and sat her on the wall.

It was strange. The little girl looked exactly like a miniature version of the woman in the flowing dress, even though the woman was her grandmother and had to be in her seventies.

“Remember what Sonia told you?” Hawker said to Nadia, straightening her glasses, which had gotten crooked.

“That she’d fix me,” Nadia said.

“That she’d fix you,” Hawker repeated. “I have the medicine she gave me for you.”

As Danielle watched, Hawker showed Nadia a large syringe marked in white. Danielle recognized it as coming from the lab on the freighter.
White for life
.

No wonder he’d been unwilling to meet with any government officials. The sample would certainly have been taken.

Realizing what he was about to do, she felt a pang of fear.

“Hawker.”

“Sonia changed it,” he said, without looking up. “She couldn’t let Gibbs have what he wanted, but she wasn’t willing to hurt Nadia or take away her chance for life. She changed it so the virus can’t live outside the body. Once Nadia is healed and her body destroys the remnants of the carrier, the Eden virus will be gone.”

Nadia stretched out her arm, no doubt having received so many injections in her short life that she knew what to expect. Hawker found her vein, rubbed a small amount of antibacterial gel on her arm, and pulled the cap off the syringe.

Danielle took a deep breath but held back as he pressed the needle through the young girl’s skin and into her vein.

Nadia winced and made a little noise but that was it. Hawker slowly pressed the plunger down until 75 percent of the serum was gone. He stopped, pulled the syringe out, and capped it.

“I think the rest should go to the lab,” he said, handing it to Danielle. “Maybe Walter Yang can find other uses for it.”

Danielle took the syringe, thinking about the medical possibilities and worrying about the possible effects of what Hawker had just done.

“What if you’re wrong?” she asked.

He turned toward her and she could tell he’d already considered the possibility. Maybe that’s what he’d been pondering all these days on the beach.

“Then maybe we’ll start caring about this planet if we have to live on it forever.”

Danielle understood why he’d done what he’d done. She prayed he was right.

“Will she be well?” Nadia’s grandmother asked.

“I hope so,” Hawker said.

“Thank you,” the woman said.

“It was your son and Sonia,” he said.

The woman smiled.

“Come on, Nadia,” Keegan said. “All the ice cream you can eat inside.”

Excited, Nadia got down from the wall and headed for the beach house, not waiting for any of the adults.

“I’ll see to it,” her grandmother said, following after the little girl.

Keegan watched them go in, then turned to Danielle and Hawker. “So does this make me part of the team?” he asked.

“What team?” Hawker said.

“Your team, mate. The one with the big government pension and the expense accounts for all the Jags and the business jets. I could enjoy all of that.”

Hawker turned to Danielle. “Tell him all about it,” he said. “Break his heart.”

Hawker began walking toward the bungalow, leaving them behind.

“He’s your friend,” Danielle said, catching up to Hawker and looping her arm through his.

For a second Keegan was left alone. He sounded stunned.

“Is this because I’m a Brit?” he asked, turning to follow. “What, a Brit can’t earn a few dollars from America? I mean come on, you already took all our rock and rollers, and Beckham. Why can’t I hop across the pond? I could be huge there.”

“Keegan,” Hawker said, “look at this place. The big government pension you’re talking about wouldn’t cover your cleaning bill.”

“Sure,” he said, pushing between them and putting one arm over Hawker’s shoulder and the other over Danielle’s. “But I could lose all this in one bad week at the tables. And then what would I have to fall back on? There’s my good looks and charm, of course. I’ll always ’ave those. But that only goes so far.”

They reached the door and stopped.

“Where did you get him?” Danielle asked Hawker.

Hawker shrugged. “Apparently I pick up strays.”

Somehow she felt like the one who picked up strays. Looking at Hawker and now Keegan, she suddenly felt the tribe growing.

“Who else is going to have your back?” Keegan said. “Did you see how I swooped in with that boat?”

“It was damn good to see you,” Hawker admitted.

“Exactly,” Keegan said. “And that’s exactly how you’re going to feel every time you see my smiling mug from here on out.”

Hawker looked over at Danielle. She felt like she was being conned, but there was no resisting at this point. “I’ll see what I can do,” she said.

With that Keegan opened the door and the three of them went inside.

T
he crowd swirled around him in white and tan. Pilgrims numbering in the tens of thousands pressed forward, moving toward the three walls known collectively as the Jamarat. Most were eager, even emotionally overcome at the chance to complete this part of the hajj, the holy pilgrimage of Islam.