Hawker listened to the voice. He heard madness and instability. He sensed that Gibbs would destroy the world if he couldn’t be part of it. Especially now.
“And killing your own people?”
Gibbs smiled through his busted face. “I didn’t need them anymore,” he said. “The definition of expendable, so I expended them. Besides, they were bad for the bottom line and I had to let you in somehow.”
Hawker listened to the two of them. It felt as if Danielle was trying to keep Gibbs talking, trying to stall him from acting until the air strike hit. But strangely enough, it felt as if Gibbs was trying to stall as well. In his weakened state, Hawker tried to see through the fog. One last attempt to put the puzzle together.
It seemed as if everything Gibbs had done was a smoke screen. The cult, the threats, the cryptic language that never quite made sense, all these things now seemed no more than various means to an end. It some ways it had worked. It had kept the NRI guessing, kept them in a state of self-imposed blindness as they searched for some clue that would link it all together. But that clue was a ghost. It didn’t exist because the whole thing was a con, a trap designed to get them here and get Gibbs’s hands on 951 and the Eden virus.
The missiles, the old Soviet missiles La Bruzca had sold him, were probably the last piece of bait. But the information Danielle had coaxed out of Yousef had gotten them here early and Gibbs had struggled to finish, ending up on his own sinking ship.
All guesses, he realized, and probably only half-right, but they were all Hawker had to go on.
Gibbs seemed acutely deranged but still calculating. So why wasn’t he running now? Why wasn’t he backing down the hall with Nadia’s wheeled gurney in front of him as a shield? He had to know some type of air strike would be on its way. Did he think it was going to be held off until Hawker and Danielle resurfaced? Probably he knew better. He’d been in command once.
The only answer Hawker could come up with was that he wanted the air strike to hit for some reason. If he was cornered, maybe he was playing for a tie. Or more likely he had some other way of winning even if they all died in flames.
“And all this,” Danielle asked. “The cult, all this insanity?”
“New religion for the fools,” Gibbs said. “If you want someone to reject God you have to put something in His place. I chose … me.”
Moving his hands in such a way as to show the syringes better, Gibbs continued. “And now you get to choose. Red for death, white for life.”
“We’re all going to die here,” Danielle said. “And your dream is going to die with us.”
“My dream is to see you suffer,” he said. “And this planet will suffer for what you’ve done to me.”
“I destroyed your missiles,” she said, moving sideways as if she were trying to get a better line to shoot her old boss. He turned, moving the gurney on its wheels; the child seemed to stir.
“You were lucky,” he said. “But do you think I would have left them in plain sight if they were my weapon of choice? Missiles to spread disease are very hard to come by. Even with all I’ve accomplished, I couldn’t manage that. But at least I thought they’d draw you in.”
Hawker’s thoughts raced. Gibbs did have something else, one more trick. He glanced at the wall. A Series of beakers filled with clear liquid were secured there. Each one was hooked up to an electrical pump and a length of thin tubing that left the room. Hawker recognized the thin, irrigation-like drip lines.
“The birds.”
Gibbs turned to him, careful to stay in his crouch.
“You’re smarter than you look,” he sneered. “I’ve been feeding them sugar water and fish guts for weeks. At this point they’re well trained. Airborne versions of Pavlov’s dog. I hit that pump and they suck down whatever comes out of the tube. This time it’ll be the virus. And when the inevitable shock and awe air strike obliterates this ship, it will scatter those birds to the wind. Some will live and some will die, but those that survive will land in other places. Qatar, Dubai, Kuwait. It’ll give a whole new meaning to the words ‘bird flu.’ ”
Hawker noticed the beakers were divided into those with a red mark and those with a white one. Red for death, white for life.
Gibbs inched toward the beakers.
“Don’t,” Danielle said, tightening her grip on the rifle.
“You won’t shoot,” Gibbs said. “Not till the very last second at least. Because in your weak little mind you still think there may be a way out for you and him and this girl. Shoot me and she’s Typhoid Mary on a whole different scale. You’ll have to leave her here to die.”
As Gibbs spoke, Nadia opened her eyes. She looked out across the room. “Sonia?” she cried. “Savi?”
She was groggy, coming out of sedation. Hawker guessed she couldn’t see without her glasses. Sonia tried to respond but couldn’t. She reached out, her face contorted in pain.
“Sonia, don’t,” Hawker pleaded.
Grunting in agony, Sonia fell back into a pool of her own blood. Hawker put his hands on her shoulders, trying to calm her.
She looked up into his eyes. Her skin was pale, her lips turning blue, her pupils massively dilated. “I’m sorry …,” she said, barely audible.
Behind him Gibbs was inching closer to the pump. Across the room, Danielle was trying to get a bead on him. They were closing in on one minute. Maybe they would all die together after all.
Sonia reached out, touched Hawker’s face, the blood of her hand covering his cheek. Her other hand was clenched and trembling. She looked at him and then right past him. Her eyes were blank, most likely blind. “I … changed … it,” she whispered.
“Changed what?” he asked.
“White … for life. It will heal Nadia but it can’t …” She gulped for air. “It can’t live … outside … the body.”
Her strength failed and she collapsed, but Hawker found a surge of energy.
“Shoot red,” he shouted, turning and lunging for Gibbs.
He heard a shot fire and expected to see Gibbs’s hand fly off the red plunger, a bullet hole through his forearm or wrist. But instead the IV line split. Danielle had shot it out, eight inches above where it hit Nadia’s arm.
It was brilliant. No matter which plunger Gibbs pressed nothing would enter the child.
Gibbs seemed to realize this too, and he dove for the pump switch.
Hawker charged, hitting the gurney and driving it forward; he pinned Gibbs against the wall.
Gibbs stretched for the switch, which was just out of reach, and then convulsed suddenly as Danielle blasted three holes in his chest. Blood splattered the wall behind him. His arm fell and he slumped forward.
As Hawker took his weight off the gurney, Gibbs slid down the wall. He ended up facedown on the floor.
Hawker looked at the two syringes. Neither had been depressed. He glanced at his watch. Fifty seconds.
“Let’s get out of here,” Danielle said.
As fast as his weakened body would move, Hawker stood and pulled the straps off Nadia.
“I got her,” Danielle said, picking the girl up and carrying her out the door.
Hawker had to go, but for a second he dropped down beside Sonia. She was dead. He touched her face. He was sick at the thought of leaving her there, but there was no time. He went to stand and noticed something clutched in Sonia’s hand. It was a syringe, capped off and marked with a stripe.
White. White for life.
He grabbed it, stood, and lumbered down the hall.
By the time he reached the main deck he was choking and coughing up blood. He saw Danielle and Nadia go over the side. Saw Keegan come racing up in the boat.
He jumped after them, hitting the black water. His world went dark and silent.