With calmness like the eye of a tempest, he said, “Darling, why do you insist on humiliating me? Everyone knows I am a staunch proponent of Poseidon. Why, Her Majesty herself has spoken out in favor of it. The whole of the Western world believes this is our answer to global warming, but my own daughter publicly and blatantly disregards my position and indeed that of the crown. How dare you defy me in this manner?”
“I’m not defying you. I’m simply doing what my heart tells me is right.”
“Your heart? Oh, grow up, Sarah. When will you give up your childish idealism? When it costs you everything? You do know that if you stand up before the Alliance and deliver your ridiculous hocus-pocus, your career with Cambridge is over. I will make sure of it.”
“Professor Simon answers to the board of regents, not to you.”
“Does he, indeed? Remember this, Sarah: what I have the power to do, I have the power to undo.”
“What does that mean?”
“Remember that little gift I made to the school for the new engineering arts building? Let’s just say it came with a few strings attached.”
She shook her head. “What are you saying? You bought my way into the Aksum expedition?”
Sir Richard’s blue eyes had all the warmth of a glacier as he delivered the final blow. “Come now, darling. Surely you don’t think these things are done on merit. It’s all about who owes what to whom.”
The words still clung to her mind like remnants of a bad dream. That’s what she was to him: the collection of a debt. The realization stung. There was no place for her in her father’s elitist world.
Sarah tried to shift her thoughts to her plan, which she’d put into motion before leaving for Brussels. It was a long shot and so fraught with danger that she questioned whether she’d done the right thing. Too many people had been hurt already; she didn’t want to add to the toll. But the consequences of doing nothing were far too great.
She knew she needed to calm her mind and nerves before the Alliance meeting. There was no margin for error.
But there was no rest for her this night. After another hour of lying in bed, grappling with her doubts and demons, she finally gave up on sleep and decided to go down to the business center, which thankfully was open round the clock. She would read the news over a cup of tea.
She changed into a pair of jeans and a zip-up hoodie, then closed the door quietly behind her.
She launched down the long corridor to the elevator. Everything was still at that hour. The slight creak of the floor beneath her feet assaulted her ears like thunder. In the eerie hush she noticed things she never would have, like the stale smell of these old halls or the ambitious names of the suites—Lotus, Orchid, and Bird of Paradise, they were called, as if the names alone could transport one away from the reality of the fading European grandeur that imbued the place.
She thought she saw a shadow and quickly turned around, but the hallway was devoid of any movement or sound. She blamed her paranoia on her sleepless state.
At last she arrived in front of the antique brass elevator doors and pressed the down button. As the elevator began its slow labor, she shifted her weight nervously from one leg to the other. She was full of anxiety over the day ahead, the confrontation with her father, and the looming menace that still haunted her consciousness.
She heard the dull sound of footsteps on the carpet. Before she had a chance to turn around, she felt firm pressure and the coldness of metal on the small of her back.
“It’s loaded.”
Sarah heard the gun’s safety being released.
“Now come quietly. There’s someone who’s been dying to meet you.”
Thirty- Two
T
he fingers of sunrise were barely touching the K- sky when Sarah’s captor pulled up to the Gulfstream G-550 parked on the private aviation tarmac at Brussels Airport. Two dark-suited men with coiled wires extending from their ears to the inside of their collars stood at the base of the stairway. One spoke into a microphone on his wrist, announcing the car’s arrival. The other opened the door and helped Sarah out of the backseat. She shivered as the icy predawn air hit her face. Neither of the guards said anything while they escorted her up the stairs to the cabin of the Gulfstream.
Sarah knew these jets well, but this one was an extraordinary specimen. The interior had been customized to the hilt. Instead of a traditional configuration, it was arranged like a living room with a modern, almost futuristic, sensibility. An elliptical white leather sectional faced a grouping of Lucite tables in various freeform shapes. Abstract art was mounted on the walls dividing the main cabin and the galley. The floor was made of a glossy, ebony stained wood composite, with an intarsia-style inlay of a familiar logo at the center. Before the black leather Eames lounge chair swiveled around, Sarah knew whom she was about to meet.
Sandor Hughes was an elderly man, ruddy faced and wearing a barbed grin. His white hair was thicker and wavier than a man his age should have been entitled to. His blue eyes were dulled from cataracts but surveyed her with an alertness betraying his intellect. The chairman of Donovan Geodynamics waved his guards away with a pink, puffy hand and spoke in a raspy voice, not with the Texas accent she was expecting but rather with the familiar diction of a north-easterner. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Sarah. Please, sit.”
She sat tentatively on the edge of the sofa and waited for him to start the conversation. Her senses were on high alert as she faced the man responsible for so many deaths on her path here, a man capable of anything.
Hughes got right to the point. “I know you think you know who I am. The truth is, you’re right. And very, very wrong.”
She looked out the window. A drizzly morning was dawning, and in the gloom the Belgian capital looked older and more tired than usual. She kept quiet.
“Andrew Matakala was a brilliant young man with an education, a Western sensibility, and a whole lot of connections. I hired him to find the tomb and keep the prophecies hidden, nothing more. I had no way of knowing he would become more and more corrupt with every ounce of power he tasted. People have been hurt … killed. I never asked for that, never sanctioned it. I am many things, but I am not a murderer. Yet every drop of blood he spilled, I have on my hands.” He closed his eyes and lowered his head.
“Did you bring me all the way here for a confession?” Sarah snapped. “Or are you just trying to get me out of your way?”
“You know, you and I are more alike than you might want to believe.” His hands shook as he took a sip of his morning scotch. “When I was your age, before I saw the worst in human nature, I was much more of an idealist. I believed I could change the world … just as you do.”
“Don’t presume to know what I believe.” Her tone carried more emotion than she wanted to betray.
“How can I not? You’ve made it amply clear by taking on this quest to vindicate the tenth saint, even if it means gambling everything—your job, your reputation, the respect of your own kin. I admire that kind of conviction. I do. But there are things you don’t understand. You have no idea what’s at stake here. Not everything is as it appears.”
Sarah looked squarely into his opaque blue eyes, bloodshot to match his ruddy complexion. “Oh, I know what’s at stake. I’ve known men like you all my life. Everything is a pawn in your game. You need the Alliance’s support to advance Poseidon. And you need Poseidon to make Donovan the biggest provider of alternative energy in the world. So what if there are a few pesky thorns in your side? Just banish them, like all the others.” Her face was hot with rage. “Where is your conscience, Mr. Hughes? Are you willing to put the earth’s future in jeopardy for your corporate profits?”
He rested his left hand on the arm of his chair and leaned forward. “Is that what you think? That I’m doing this for material gain? Because if that’s the case, you’re not as astute as I thought.”
“Then why are you trying to silence the messages of two people who saw with their own eyes an end brought on by exactly such a manipulation of the planet? The beast they spoke of and your Poseidon are one and the same. And yet you simply refuse to allow for such a possibility. It is the height of arrogance.”
He rose with great effort and leaned into a cane. He shuffled over to the bar and poured himself another two fingers of scotch over a single ice cube. “If you believe the world could be destroyed by an errant algae, you’re absolutely right.”
The last thing she had expected was for him to agree with her.
“Only that algae won’t be Poseidon. What if I were to tell you that forty years from now, the world will be suffering so much from greenhouse gases that a company named Aurora Technologies will introduce a similar product far more aggressive and volatile? And that nations, anxious to counter the insidious effects of global warming in the face of vast deforestation, will not scrutinize or test it adequately? That our leaders, desperate and out of time, will regard that program as the savior and hastily approve it without bothering to verify its stability? And that it will gradually bring about destruction, just as your prophets predicted?”
She was perplexed. Was this a theory? Or a declaration?
“If we continue on our current trajectory of manipulating the earth, Sarah, planetary conditions will deteriorate so rapidly that leaders will be forced to assume great risk to mitigate the damage. That’s why it’s important to go forward with Poseidon before things reach that breaking point. Our years of research have been focused on controlling the growth of the algae so that it does not spread or multiply out of control. We have foreseen every possible scenario—toxic substances, nuclear waste, extreme temperatures, changes in the atmosphere—and have been testing Poseidon against all of them. Our facility is so advanced that we are simulating true oceanic conditions. We are not the bad guys here. We want the same things you want: to save the planet from certain ruin. If Poseidon gets voted down, we will hasten that ruin rather than curtail it.”
“So you say. But it’s not enough to change my mind. Anyway, it doesn’t matter what I think. The decision rests with the Alliance. It’s in their hands now.”
He coughed nervously, and his face turned an ugly shade of magenta. He loosened his shirt collar to catch his breath. “Let me be candid here. I know you know things that could be very … damaging. I need your cooperation.”
Sarah stood. She stared him down, her teeth clenched but thoughts clear. She wasn’t playing his game, damn the consequences. “Why would I want to cooperate with you, after all you’ve done?”
“Because I’m on your side, Goddamn it,” he thundered. “Yes, there will be a nuclear accident. It will be the most horrific, deadliest meltdown in the history of mankind. The runoff” will spill into the oceans, and Aurora’s algae will mutate and grow exponentially. There will be nothing anyone can do to stop it. With every additional square foot it occupies, it will consume more carbon dioxide. Before long, it will crowd the oceans and cause marine life to die, sinking to the ocean floor and leaving behind a cloud of methane. The algae will eventually sap the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, leaving it with dangerously high levels of oxygen. The intense concentrations of methane will cause fires to erupt, and oxygen will feed their flames. One fire will beget another. And another. And another, until fires rage all over the earth, leaving destruction and death in their wake. And all will be lost.” He looked out the window with misty eyes. “Your prophets are right.”
Sarah froze, a chill raking her skin, the fine hairs on her arms standing on end. “Who
are
you?” she asked, though she already knew the answer.
Thirty-Three
S
arah didn’t need to hear Hughes’ story to know the truth. She could feel it in her gut with a clarity she had known only in rare moments of grace. Just as she needed no proof of Gabriel’s words, just as she harbored no doubts about Apostolos’ divinity, as surely as she trusted the mystical force that had moved her through a minefield of setbacks since the discovery of the tomb, she knew who Sandor Hughes was. As she listened to his version of events, she felt she was witnessing the unfolding of a story to which she already knew the ending.
“Gabriel and Calcedony were my students at Caltech,” he said. “Brilliant physicists, both of them. When they were doing their postdoctoral work, I handpicked them to assist me on a project that would shatter all previous conceptions about time travel. Together we built the Chronopod, an experimental device that could warp space-time into a loop where everything—past, present, and future—exists in a continuum. The idea was that you could travel backward and forward in time, but you just couldn’t know where exactly in the loop you were going to land.”
Sarah struggled to wrap her mind around the concept. Even for a scientist who believed in the infinite possibilities of the human mind, she could not fathom time travel. There was much she wanted to understand.
“Judging by the messages left behind by Calcedony and Gabriel, there was no way to get back. Is that true?”
“Well, this was not like the time machines of the old science fiction writers, where you could dial in a year and a destination and be magically transported there, then get back into your ship when things got tough and safely travel home.” He chuckled. “No, even science cannot catch up to the imagination of men. The truth is, we had no way of getting back. It was, in effect, a one-way trip. That’s why we had never before sent a live chrononaut.”