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.”
“I’m not paying you millions of dollars to see where things are going,” Cassel said, anger overriding fear and concern. “I want the fucking drug you promised, the one you said would change everything.”
Draco tilted his head, the tattoo-covered scar around his neck stretching oddly. “Give me my money and let me continue the search.”
Cassel’s mind spun. Continue the search. The man spoke the words like he was looking for a lost dog. If Cassel counted right, he’d killed nearly a dozen people on this search already, including Ranga Milan, the man who was supposed to give them what they were after.
“I’m done with you,” Cassel said.
Across from him Draco sat taller. “Are you now?”
“Think you’re going to kill me and walk out of here?” Cassel asked. “No way.”
Draco stood and stepped forward. Cassel reached his hand toward a red button on the desk.
“I touch this button and they lock this place down, and I don’t care how store-bought they are, you’ll never get past them if I’m not with you.”
Draco walked ominously toward Cassel, putting the vial down on the desk in front of Cassel.
“Inside is the virus sent to the UN a week ago,” Draco said. “Ranga’s prototype. They’re still trying to figure out what it is. I would hate for them to know it was designed with equipment you gave us.”
“They’ll never trace it.”
“I’ll prove it to them if you make me.”
Cassel drew his hand back.
“While you’ve been dutifully hiding, burning and destroying any evidence of our partnership, I’ve been taping, recording, and tracking every one of our transactions. I have enough to prove where my money came from and what we agreed to do. It makes no difference to me. I’m a wanted man anyway. But you …”
Cassel stared at him. “I have people who will hunt you down,” he insisted.
“Yes, I’m sure you do,” Draco replied. “And you’re willing to take risks. That’s why I came to you. But now you have exposure and, as someone once told me, It’s a terrible thing to live with exposure.” He pushed the vial across the table. “Put two million in the account.”
“You said one.”
“For my troubles.”
“And then what?”
Draco smiled a sinister grin. “I know someone who can finish the synthesis for you. I just have to reel her in.”
“Who?” Cassel asked, curious despite all that had gone on.
“The one who led us to Ranga in the first place.”
“His daughter.”
Draco nodded.
Despite his revulsion for Draco, Cassel warmed instantly to this thought. Ranga had almost completed work on something magnificent. If CPC could get it and tweak it, move it away from what Ranga wanted and toward something more commercial, Cassel could turn it into the single greatest drug of all time. He would measure sales in the billions per month. And that was just the beginning.
The problem lay with the complexity of what Ranga had done. Even with a sample, it would take years for his people to deconstruct the changes and coding. His daughter, Sonia, was known to have worked with Ranga for years before the two had a falling-out. If anyone could finish the serum he’d been working on quickly, it was probably her.
Perhaps Draco’s skills in the criminal arts remained useful. If he could get into Cassel’s office unannounced, what was to stop him from finding and abducting Ranga’s daughter?
“You can bring her in?” Cassel asked.
“We won’t have to bring her in,” Draco insisted. “With the right offer, she’ll beg us to let her on board.”
CHAPTER 16
Hawker crossed the tarmac of Paris — Charles de Gaulle Airport beneath a dark and threatening sky. Danielle walked ahead of him as they approached the NRI Citation that had brought them in forty-eight hours before.
The plan was to get to Beirut, find out what Ranga and Bashir were looking for down there, and see if they could develop a lead as to who’d kidnapped them and why. It was thin as hell but it was all they had.
As she looked up, a figure stood by the aircraft waiting for them, a sturdy gray-haired man in a green overcoat: Arnold Moore.
Great, Hawker thought. He looked like an angry parent come to collect his wayward children.
“Done remodeling Paris, you two?”
“For now,” he heard Danielle say. “Come to chaperone us?”
“As if it would help,” Moore replied.
A short time later, the three of them were airborne and headed to the southeast, toward Beirut.
Danielle explained their misadventures to Moore. Hawker noticed that she left out any mention of the deal with Lavril. It was a kindness he hadn’t expected and didn’t really deserve. It made him realize how some of the things he’d said must have sounded to her; hurtful and selfish, and yet she protected him. It reminded him of the argument with Keegan and the fact that he seemed to have better friends than maybe he warranted at times.
As Danielle finished, Moore spoke his own piece. His voice was grave.
“The French shared the letter with us,” he said. “We ran everything we have on these people through the database. Using the letter of responsibility, the manner of Ranga’s death, and the religious branding, we’ve come up with a profile.”
He handed them a pair of matching dossiers.
Hawker scanned the front sheet: a Mossad report on a group that called itself the Cult of Men.
“They’re an extremely obscure group. Responsible for several killings over the last year or so, but nothing before that.”
“Whose side are they on?” Hawker asked.
“Their own, it would seem.”
Danielle was reading further. “They’ve claimed responsibility for the deaths of Israeli settlers, Hamas militants, and even Christian pilgrims trying to bring about the onset of revelation. The first attack claimed and attributed to them was the bombing of a building in Belfast.