“How long will it take them to combat it?”
“I have no idea, but I am certain that someone will eventually be able to beat it,” John said. “But, by the time someone does, the world will have changed so much that who knows how many people will be left alive.”
“How can you be so certain that a cure for the virus will ever be developed?”
“Because my father created such a vaccine,” John replied.
“Where is that vaccine now?”
“Destroyed.” John lied, “Many years ago. Along with the life’s work of my father before the Berlin wall was finally demolished.
“And the price?”
He then slid the paper slip of paper over to him.
The sheik smiled as he looked at the price tag.
“Twenty billion dollars is a lot of money.” He looked as though he was considering the price of a pound of fish, and then he said, “But then resetting the key players in the world is worth it.”
“I’ll need half the money now and the other half on delivery.”
“But, of course. My men will take care of the transfer of money to a bank of your choosing.”
With no further discussion, Abdulla left the room, walked through the narrow passageway, down the stairs, and climbed into his car, closing the door without looking back.
John heard the jet engines power up to full.
The entire aircraft shuddered under their force.
Once airborne, John placed another secure call on his Sat phone. It rang a couple times before someone answered. This time, it was a woman’s voice on the line.
“Yes?” She said.
“I’ve done it,” he said. He then disconnected the phone and looked out the window once more, at the desert below.
He would be glad to leave this desolate place.
Aliana was worried about her father.
He had sounded more concerned than normal over the phone. Something was wrong. She was certain of it. The more she thought about it, the more she realized that she would have to fly to Europe and meet up with him before returning to her studies.
She had three weeks left before she had to return to her university. Aliana’s thoughts instantly turned to Sam Reilly, the unique man she’d met in Australia. He’d said that he wanted to meet up again if she was ever free, and their lives crossed paths.
And it appeared, that they just did. She would be in Europe the same time as him.
Aliana looked at the phone number that Sam had given her. She could do with some fun, but she’d only make the call if there was time.
Her father, she realized, often worried about a number of things which mattered little to her — money, younger women, expanding his already enormous wealth, and most of all, beating his father in the world of medicine. Her father's recent Nobel Prize went a long way toward improving his self-esteem, but like all great men, he needed more.
When she’d spoken to him today, it was different. All those things, the money, the women, they were simply games to a man at the top echelon of a life filled with politicians, rich tycoons, and world-changing scientists.
Something had rattled him.
Whatever it was this time, it was different. It had really frightened him.
Obviously, he wouldn’t talk to her about such things. He never had. To him, she would always be his 16 year old girl, despite her pursuit of a PhD in microbiology at MIT.
That night, she made the decision to stop in at her father’s Berlin office before returning to Michigan. The next morning, she changed her flights, and 18 hours later, she was standing in front of his office building enjoying the warmth of a mild German summer.
“Hey Dad…” she called out to him, as he came through the revolving door in front of his building.
He stopped walking immediately.
Aliana was happy to have genuinely surprised him.
“Aliana.” He bent down to kiss her cheeks. “What are you doing here?”
“I was worried about you.”
“Me? Why would you worry about me?”
“Come on, Dad. You can take me to dinner and tell me all about it.” Aliana said, knowing that her father would never betray his feelings out in the open.
He took her to the Lorenz Adlon for dinner, located in the heart of Berlin. The two spoke about simpler things — how her studies were progressing, the growth of bacteria off the coast of Antarctica, and the effects of the further stabilization of the American dollar. After dinner, they walked back to the penthouse he kept in Berlin.
Aliana was about to go to bed when she turned towards her father and said, “Dad, really … is everything all right?”
“Yes, of course it is. Work’s just been keeping me busy, that’s all.” His words seemed sincere, but she noticed that he avoided meeting her eyes as he spoke.
“Okay, then.” She kissed him on his cheek. “I’m going to bed. I just want you to know that I’m not a little girl anymore. If you need me, I’m here for you. I don’t start classes again for another two weeks.”
“I know, but you will always be my little girl.”
A half-hour later she heard a gentle knock on her door. She’d been reading a new thriller to take her mind off things.
“Yes?”
“Are you still awake, my love?”
It was her father.
“Yes,” Aliana replied as she met him at the door.
“Would you like a hot chocolate?”
Years ago, the two of them would stay up chatting for hours, while sipping their rich hot chocolate. Real hot chocolate, the kind that only the Europeans believed in. None of this watered down, milky stuff they made elsewhere in the world.
“Yes, I’d like that.”
She followed him downstairs to the kitchen and watched as he added rich, cocoa into a flame-lit saucepan, followed by several blocks of solid chocolate, and stirring it slowly until it turned into a molten goo of chocolate.
He then added several drops of rich liqueur.
The two moved to the couch and sat alongside one another, sipping their hot chocolate for a few minutes before Aliana finally spoke.
“Dad. What’s wrong?”
“When you were very little, do you remember when I took financial backing from a man so that I could finally get your grandfather’s company back off the ground?”
“Yes, of course. For years the newspapers questioned who your backer was, and why, even though you own fifty percent of the company, the other half has never been seen.”
“For more than twenty years I have not heard so much as a single word from that man, not until a week ago.”
“What did he say to you?”
“He told me that it’s time for him to collect.”
Chapter Ten
Sam read a book during the long flight from Sydney to Munich on Lithuanian Airlines. After years of working in and out of helicopters, and after having flown aboard a number of fixed wing and rotary aircraft, one might assume that he was comfortable aboard the enormous Airbus A380.
Yet, somehow he didn’t trust something quite so large in the air.
Tom, he noted, hadn’t woken since their departure. Like a cat, he could sleep anywhere. He nudged Tom with the sharp point of his elbow.
“Everyone’s starting to deplane.”
“Oh yeah?” Tom feigned disappointment. “I said wake me when the food comes around!”
“Yeah, well I decided you weren’t hungry, and ate your food instead.”
“Some friend, you are!” Tom said, looking aggrieved.
At Munich’s International Airport they were met by a man named Dietrich. He was who had arranged for the delivery of the equipment they had requested, and also for a Robinson 44 four-seat helicopter to be fueled, waiting, and ready for them to board.