The Eden Prophecy (27 page)

“Meaning what? What are you getting at?”

She sighed and a weight seemed to come off her shoulders, as if she’d finally decided to put down the burden of holding in what she feared most.

“A virus that kills millions or even billions won’t destroy the world,” she said. “It would be a horrendous tragedy and we might not recover for centuries, but in the long run it might even help the world. And in any event, we could fight it, just like we fight every other disease and condition. Theoretically we could even create a counter-virus or use gene therapy to patch the DNA their plague destroyed. This is not what they want.”

“So what do they want?”

“They want to take the virus from the Tree of Life,” she said. “They want to mate it with the carrier virus that they already have and then spread it around the planet.”

Hawker could hardly follow. He had to be missing something.

“The virus from the Tree of Life?” he asked. “The same one you want? You’re telling me their big threat is to infect us with a plague that makes us live forever?” Hawker’s tone had become incredulous, but it sounded like being threatened with cake and money and good looks all at the same time. “I’m sorry, but that doesn’t sound so bad.”

“Not to you,” she said. “Not at first. But as time goes by and the virus spreads, and virtually all human life spans are doubled, tripled, or quintupled, what do you think will happen? When the old don’t die and the young don’t grow old and child-bearing age lasts a century, instead of a decade or two, the population will utterly explode. And in very short order, this planet will die under the weight of humanity.”

Suddenly Hawker began to understand.

“Seven billion now,” she said. “Fifteen billion in twenty years. Thirty billion people on this rock by the middle of the century. There will be nothing but war and misery and starvation. It will no longer matter if there’s a heaven, because earth will become hell itself and the immortal humans will be consigned to it for all eternity.”

As the words rang in his ears, Hawker felt as if he’d been blindsided. Rarely could he remember being so stunned and shocked or feeling so simple and ignorant and blind. At this moment he was the fool he’d claimed to be in Lavril’s office. In fact, he was worse.

“They could come up with an antidote,” he stammered. “Fight it like you said.”

“And who’s going to take it?” she asked. “If everyone else will, that would be awfully nice, but are you? Am I?
Most people are going to refuse to take a suicide pill just for the greater good of the world.”

“It wouldn’t be a suicide pill,” he said, realizing he was wrong even as he spoke the words.

“Of course it would. It would be exactly that. A pill that makes you live a far shorter life. What else would you call it?”

Hawker went quiet. It was the same argument Ranga had made as a young man. There were too many people in the world. And it was the same response: fine, but someone else can decrease the population, not me.

“If the carrier virus can spread the plague, another version can spread the antidote,” he said. “Something to cause the telomeres to shorten. We can use 951 to offset it.”

“Yes,” she said. “Sounds like a great idea. In fact it’s exactly what you thought my father’s murderers were about to do. Now you’re suggesting it as if it sounds rational.”

“It’s different,” he said.

She shook her head. “Only your perspective has changed.”

He knew she was right.

“A worldwide genocide. Is that what we need? A final solution? My father was derided for suggesting something similar years ago. He was called a fascist and a fanatic. But it doesn’t sound so fanatical to you anymore, does it?”

It still sounded fanatical and fascist and evil to him. He was just grasping at straws. But what else could the world do? Forced sterilization? You might have to sterilize 90 percent of humanity just to keep the population stable.

And who decided which 10 percent got to reproduce? A lottery? An even division among all races, creeds, and colors? A scientific board choosing which traits would
survive and which would die? Once again they were right back to the master race.

More than likely, the rich and powerful would get eternal life and the chance to pass on their genes, while the poor would be sterilized without their consent.

And if they did nothing, the whole world would be covered in humanity with no space to breathe or good food or clean water. Exactly what Ranga had always fought against and now he might be the cause of it.

Unforgivable
. Hawker now understood what he’d meant.

“Once this genie is out of the bottle, it can never be put back in. It cannot be treated. It cannot be cured any more than ‘life’ can be cured.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m a fool who should have kept his mouth shut. I now understand what you’re afraid of. Why you fear it so deeply.”

“I don’t want to be the cause of that, any more than my father did,” she said. “But I don’t want to give up on the only chance I have to save Nadia. I want to give her and others like her a life.”

“And they want to destroy,” he said. “They think if they succeed in spreading this virus there will be no hope. No reason for hope. From their point of view, they will have destroyed God’s creation. Paradise will be lost forever.”

Hawker thought about the situation. The world was staring down the barrel of a gun, but a gun has no power without a bullet inside it.

“We have to find the Garden,” he said. “If it exists, we have to find it before they do.”

She nodded.

It seemed an absurd quest. But Sonia and her father were trained scientists, not spiritualists or religious fanatics. If they believed the Garden existed and believed it could be found, then he had to give them the benefit of
the doubt. And that meant great danger still hung over the world.

“I have to make a call,” he said. He stood, walked out of the library, and found his way back to the balcony, the phone to his ear.

Danielle answered.

“I haven’t figured it all out,” he said.

“I wouldn’t have thought you had,” she replied, sounding oddly surprised by his statement.

“But I know what we have to do next,” he said. “I know where we have to go.”

“If you say the Garden of Eden I’m going to throw up.”

“That’s their next target.”

“Hawker, it’s a dead end,” she said, sounding exasperated. “These people are fanatics. We need to focus on the virus, not chasing them all over the world.”

“I know what it means,” he said, thinking of the original threat. “
We mete out your portion of suffering, we bring you down with us
. They want the whole world to suffer, like the poor already suffer. Ranga said they would turn this place into hell on earth and he’s right, that’s exactly what they’re going to do, by granting everyone eternal life or something close to it.”

He explained what he knew and the conversation he’d just had with Sonia. Slowly, like him, Danielle came to realize the consequences.

“Well, believe it or not,” she said, “I think I know where to look.”

“Iraq,” he guessed, thinking that most scholars he’d heard of placed the Garden of Eden somewhere near the Euphrates and Tigris rivers.

“That would be too easy,” she said. “McCarter has it located in western Iran.”

“Can you get us in?”

“No one will authorize us to go across the border,” she said.

“That never stopped us before.”

“And it won’t stop us now,” she said. “But we’re on our own. Can you meet me in Al Qurnah, north of Basra?”

“I need a place to stash a few people in Kuwait,” he said.

“Have you been picking up strays again?”

“Good people,” he said. “Sonia’s sister and aunt. I can’t leave them out in the open.”

“I’ll talk to Moore, find you a safe house,” she said. “See you in Al Qurnah.”

G
iven the choice, Hawker would have connected up with Danielle, hired a few gunslingers, and made the run into Iran without Sonia along for the ride. But despite his insistence, Sonia would not give up the information she held. Whatever the final secret of the Tree of Life was, she kept it to herself. He was forced to take her along.

After stashing Savi and Nadia in an NRI safe house of sorts, Hawker and Sonia made the journey into Iraq by car. After a quick stop at the border they traveled northward, headed for the city of Al Qurnah.

Stepping out of the car at the prearranged location, Hawker spotted a familiar face, David Keegan, wearing desert camouflage and looking like the Royal Marine he’d once been. Turned out Keegan was the only gun-slinger Hawker could find on such short notice.

After a brief reunion, the three of them drove on.

“Just like old times,” Keegan said. “A road trip with nothing but trouble up ahead.”

“Yeah,” Hawker said. “It’s like we’re getting the band back together.”

Five miles down the road, Hawker pulled in beside a flatbed truck with a tarp over some large object in back.

“And who’s that?” Keegan asked, looking at the woman standing beside the front wheel.

“A friend of mine,” Hawker said. “Keep your hands off.”

Keegan chuckled. “It’s not my hands you should be worried about, mate.”

Hawker stepped out and introductions were made.

“I’m Danielle Laidlaw,” she said to Sonia. “I work for the National Research Institute.”

Sonia seemed a little confused. “You’re with the government?” She looked at Hawker as if she’d been betrayed.

“Nothing I could do,” he said. “The French grabbed me in Paris. The only way I could get out and help you is if I brought them along.”

“What do you want?” Sonia asked.

“The same thing as you,” Danielle explained. “To find these seeds and determine if anything can be done with them.”

“So you’ll take them from me,” Sonia said defensively. “After all this.”

“No,” Danielle said. “We’ll work with you. We’ll even fund your experiments. You’ll be allowed to do what you need for your sister and other patients like her, but only once we’ve altered the delivery virus and ended its ability to cause an epidemic.”

Sonia brightened but appeared uncertain. She looked at Hawker, touching his arm as she spoke. “Is this legitimate? Can I trust them?”

“As far as I know,” Hawker said, looking at Danielle. “So far they’ve honored what they promised me.”

Sonia turned back to study Danielle. “Okay,” she said. “If Hawker trusts you, I trust you.”

She squeezed Hawker’s arm again as if excited about the possibilities. And Hawker noticed what appeared to be very mixed emotions on Danielle’s face. He understood, but they had a job to do.

The deal made, Danielle shook hands with Keegan.

He smiled broadly. “Hawk here says you’re single and that you might be available.”

Danielle cut her eyes at Hawker.

He shook his head.

“I’m single for a reason,” she said. “Most people annoy me.”

“Funny,” Keegan said. “I know just what you mean. By the way, how do you feel about sushi?”

“Can’t stand the stuff,” Danielle replied, then turned and headed for the rear of the truck, ending all further conversation.

Keegan grinned. “That one’s a keeper.”

“Get in the truck,” Hawker said, holding the door for his friend.

As Sonia and Keegan settled into the cab of the vehicle, Hawker caught up with Danielle at the rear of the flatbed.

“Friendly little thing you’ve got there,” she said.

“Which one?”

She tilted her head like a puppy and opened her eyes, wide and innocent.
“Oh Hawker, is this okay?”
she said. “
If you think it’s okay, it sounds okay to me
. I thought I was going to gag.”

“It’s a good thing she likes me,” he said. “Since the cover you chose is so diabolically tricky. Nothing like telling people exactly who you are.”

He climbed onto the flatbed and looked under the tarp.

“No need for a cover,” she replied. “Truth works better here.”

“A little heads-up next time,” he said. “I don’t think that well on my feet.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Especially when you’ve been off them so recently.”

Hawker looked under the tarp. An airboat that might have been at home in the Everglades sat chained to the bed of the truck. “This looks good. We have weapons?”

She nodded, opening a locker. Four AR-15s sat in a rack, grenade launchers slung under two of them. A well-stocked box of clips sat to the left of the rifles.

“We can put the other two on that tripod if we need it.” She pointed to a mount on the front of the boat.

“What else?”

“Body armor. Radar-absorbent coating on the boat. And we can make smoke if we need to.”

It wouldn’t be much if they ran into the Iranian military but it would help if they encountered anyone else.

“How far in are we going?” Hawker asked.

“Nineteen miles across the swamp, the last eight on the Iranian side. From there it’s five miles over land.”

“You sure it’s deserted?”

“The last satellite pass was three hours ago. Nothing for miles.”

Hawker looked up; it was almost dusk. They would move under cover of darkness.

“This seem too easy to you?”

“Of course,” she said. “Should be a piece of cake. That’s why I doubled my insurance policy before I came out.”

Thirty minutes later Hawker was backing the flatbed into the water at the edge of the Hawizeh Marsh, a wetland that extended on both sides of the Iran-Iraq border.

Danielle climbed aboard and made sure all systems were go, then waved Hawker, Keegan, and Sonia aboard. With the retaining straps disconnected, the airboat floated off the back of the truck once Hawker had backed it far enough in.

“Ready?” she asked.

They nodded and Danielle engaged the secondary motor.

For stealth, the black-clad skiff moved under the power of a quiet electric impeller. The impeller sucked water in through a wide opening in the front, accelerated it, and pushed it out a narrower vent in the rear. It was an almost silent way to travel, but it was slow. They could move no more than seven knots with this motor. That meant a three-hour transit time to the other side.