Текст книги "26 - Storm Cycle "

Автор книги: Iris Johansen

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FIVE

Rachel hesitated as she stood before the small house to which Norton's instructions had sent her.

Knock or just go inside and face the bastard?

Knock. Norton had said Tavak was guarded, and she didn't want to surprise them and possibly get shot.

The small, dark man who opened the door beamed at her. "You are Miss Kirby, yes? I am Nuri. That is John Tavak at the table. We have been waiting for you." He flung the door wide. "He has been very impatient. Such ingratitude. I give him food, I play chess with him, I tell him interesting stories about my family, and still he wants to leave me."

"Your family obviously numbers more than a small city," Tavak said. "After you went to the second generation you lost me." He stood up and inclined his head. "I couldn't be happier to see you, Rachel Kirby."

High impact, she had thought when she had seen his photo. But seeing Tavak in person, she realized that description had been an understatement. His eyes were electric blue in his tanned face, and the aura that surrounded him was also electric. He was dressed in a white shirt, dusty brown boots, and jeans, and that tall, muscular body possessed a sort of tough elegance.

"Don't be happy." She slammed the door behind her. "Because I'm not in the least happy to see you, Tavak. You're a thief and a sneak and the worst kind of criminal. I'd like to cut your throat."

He smiled. "But then I wouldn't be any use to you at all." He drew out a chair for her. "Won't you sit down? Nuri, could we get a glass of wine for the lady?"

"Certainly." Nuri got another glass from the cabinet. "My uncle grew the grapes for this wine. Did I tell you that, Tavak?"

He made a face. "Many times." He took the chessboard from the table and set it on the bed. "And about his wife who divorced him and his daughter he sent to the Sorbonne and is going to change the world."

"She will, you know." Nuri poured wine into the glass and set it on the table. "She's very smart. She only needs a chance. Sit down. Sit down. Would you like some fruit?"

"No," Rachel said impatiently. "I don't want wine. I don't want fruit. I want to talk to Tavak alone. Will you wait outside?"

"That's discourteous," Tavak said. "Nuri is our host."

Nuri chuckled. "That is true." He patted the gun in his holster. "I must protect you from her. She seems very fierce."

"Get out," she said through bared teeth.

Nuri's smile didn't waver, but he started for the door. "As you wish. I have orders to obey you without question. Be gentle with him. He owes me money from that last chess game."

She watched the door shut behind him before she turned back to Tavak. "Talk to me."

"Where shall I start? Oh yes, I'm eternally grateful for you being so prompt in meeting my need. It was close. Very close."

"I don't want your gratitude. You know why I came. I had to find out if you were telling the truth about that tablet or just making up a story to manipulate my emotions." She paused. "I don't like being manipulated, Tavak. It makes me want to be ugly. And I can be very ugly."

He chuckled. "So I've heard. The stories about you are definitely scary."

"They didn't intimidate you enough to keep you from hacking into Jonesy."

"No one else had the power I needed so I decided to brave the dragon."

"Were you telling the truth about this Peseshet and the cure she discovered? Regeneration of the central nervous system?"

"Absolutely. As far as I know. I won't know for certain until I actually find the tablet." He paused. "Or tablets. I'll be satisfied with one cure, but it would be a bonanza if we found others. As I told you, her prime focus wasn't cellular regeneration."

"But that's my prime focus, my only focus."

"I realize that," he said quietly. "But this is something that could have a profound impact for millions of people across the entire spectrum of nervous system diseases. I'm talking Alzheimer's, Lou Gehrig's Disease, Huntington's… not to mention the fact that it might enable paraplegics to walk again."

"Pardon me if I don't get too excited, but over the years I've learned to adopt a wait-and-see attitude toward any kind of miracle cure."

"I'm sure you've already transmitted that little teaser I sent you to your Dr. Carson for an opinion. What did he say?"

"You can guess what he said."

He nodded. "Otherwise, you'd be much too practical to go off on a wild-goose chase like this. And how is your sister?"

"None of your business." Her hands clenched at her sides. "Now how can I get my hands on that tablet so that I can see for myself whether or not it's a piece of crap?"

"That's the question." He sat down at the table and gestured to the chair across from him. "And it's not one I can answer to your satisfaction in a few sentences. You can stand there and glare at me, but it's not going to make explanations go any faster. Why don't you sit down and have a glass of Nuri's wine? It's not bad."

She didn't move.

He lifted his glass to his lips. "I know that standing over me is supposed to give you a psychological advantage, but it won't work. Because you don't need an advantage. I pay my debts."

"You couldn't pay for all the cycles you've stolen from my projects."

"You never know. I told you that from the beginning I was planning on sharing information if I found the tablet."

"And I'm supposed to believe that?"

"Probably not." He leaned back and stretched his legs before him. "Just thought I'd put it on the record."

"Give me answers. I could have you thrown in jail. Norton with the NSA didn't like having you infiltrate Jonesy. All it would take is a word from me, and they'd—"

"NSA? I was wondering who you used to spring me. The CIA was amazingly lackluster in their questioning. Norton asked a favor, and they sent in the cavalry." He tilted his head, thinking about it. "He moved fast. Does he always jump when you snap your fingers?"

"You'll know if I don't find out what you know about that tablet."

"You're tense." He pushed the glass Nuri had poured for her a few inches. "The wine will relax you. I promise that I won't think it's a victory that we're drinking together."

She stared at him in frustration. He was totally relaxed, totally casual in his confidence. Threats had not fazed him at all. Go at it from another direction. She sat down, her back arrow straight in the chair. "What do you want? What can I give you?"

He studied her. "You'd give me anything, the whole damn world, wouldn't you? You shouldn't be so transparent, Rachel."

"There comes a time when putting up barriers doesn't matter any longer." She stared him in the eye. "And yes, name it. If I don't have it, I'll get it for you."

"You do like to pamper a man, don't you?" His gaze wandered to the bandage on her temple. "You're hurt. What happened?"

"That doesn't matter. What can I pay you? If you don't have the tablet, you must have an idea where it is. Dammit, you've used up enough of Jonesy's cycles to remap the human genome about five times over."

"Information can only take you so far. After that, it's analysis and working out the puzzle." He sipped his wine. "You know that, Rachel."

"Yes. Give me the information, and I'll do the rest."

"That's just what I'd expect from you." He added, "And from Peseshet. Did I tell you how much you're alike? I've been working so close to both of you in the last months that I feel as if I know you."

"You don't know me."

"You're wrong. I think I know the basics, and I'm looking forward to finding out the rest." He held up his hand as she started to speak. "I know. Information. Okay, here goes. I told you that Peseshet was the overseer of an institute of female doctors at about 2500 B.C. All knowledge of her existence was lost until her son's tomb was unearthed in 1929. Even that gave us only her name and profession. Nothing else was known about her until recently."

"I couldn't find anything more, period."

"Because the other info was discovered only a few months ago by Arthur Jamerson, the curator of a small museum in Brighton, England. Jamerson was more ambitious for himself than for either history or the benefits to mankind. The museum's Egyptian displays were totally unimportant. They had been in that tiny museum in Brighton for over a hundred years. Among the artifacts was a false door from a tomb that had been virtually forgotten for over a hundred years."

"A false door?"

"A wall that looked like a door. These tombs, or mastabas, almost always featured false doors with elaborate carved reliefs. The Egyptians believed that this representation of a door would allow the deceased to pass to the afterlife. They're fairly common, and the Egyptian government sold them by the hundreds in the early twentieth century. There was nothing special about this one until technology finally caught up to that Brighton museum. Jamerson had the wall X-rayed and discovered that it encased another wall. Carved on the secreted wall was Peseshet's story recounted by one of her physician disciples, Natifah." He paused. "And a portion of a cure of some sort. Something to do with healing nerves that had thought to have been destroyed. Cellular regeneration. Remember, Peseshet practiced while the pyramids were being built. There were undoubtedly many construction accidents, so she had a steady stream of patients on whom to try out her treatments. And, most likely, many opportunities for autopsies to observe how her treatments did or didn't work."

"But it's only a portion of a cure. Dammit, that's nothing."

"No, that's a start," he said. "And enough that Jamerson copied down the procedure and sent it to an associate, Ted Mills, who was head of a pharmaceutical company in the U.S. Mills was cautiously excited. He wanted to know where the rest of the formula could be found. That was enough for Jamerson. He knew how much money medical breakthroughs could bring a man. He decided to go after the big prize. He falsified his X-ray results so that, as far as anyone at his museum knew, their Egyptian exhibit remained just as unremarkable as everyone always assumed it was. Jamerson searched until he found someone who he thought might possibly be able to find out more about the rest of the formula."

"You?"

"Me." He inclined his head. "I'm sure you have a dossier on me by now and know my credentials are unique. I met with Jamerson, and he handed over the transcription on the Natifah mastaba wall to me."

"What did he pay you to take the job?"

"Less than I'm worth. But the possibilities intrigued me."

"I want to see that transcript of the message on the mastaba wall."

"Of course."

"Now."

He shook his head. "Eventually."

"I'll go to Jamerson and get it."

"It would be a long trip. I imagine he resides in hell these days. Greed and corruption aren't looked upon kindly at the pearly gates."

She stiffened. "He's dead? You?"

"No, I took his job. I never kill the goose that lays the platinum egg. He was killed by Charles Dawson, the bastard you were so kind to save me from last night." He scowled. "But they wouldn't let me go back after him. I'm not pleased about that. Dammit, there's too good a chance that he probably went back to that tomb."

"I don't give a damn what you're pleased about. Norton was supposed to save your life and pen you up for me. That's all."

"I'll bet you'll give a damn before very long. You'll probably feel as pissed off that Dawson is still walking around as I do before this is over."

"Why? Just who is this Charles Dawson?"

"Dr. Charles Ansel Dawson. He has several degrees, one of which is medical. He's very bright, has all the ethics and conscience of a cobra, and is completely egotistical."

"Sounds like you."

"No. We differ on a number of fronts. I do have a few grains of conscience."

"So you say. Is Dawson after the Peseshet cure, too?"

Tavak nodded. "He's the hired gun for Ted Mills. That's what he does for a living. He's principally a cleanup man. When pharmaceutical companies get into hot water abroad for illegal practices, they hire Dawson to come in and make sure that their names and reputations aren't compromised. He does anything he has to do to clean up their dirty laundry." He shrugged. "And sometimes his cleanup is worse than the filth the pharmaceutical companies spread."

"And why did Dawson kill Jamerson?"

"As I said, he was hired by Jamerson's buddy, that pharmaceutical executive, Ted Mills, to uncover the same information Jamerson hired me to dig out. Dawson's first stop was Jamerson, and he wasn't gentle in his questioning. Jamerson died of a heart attack, but he'd obviously been beaten and had two ribs broken. Since Dawson has been on my trail since his death, it's logical to assume Jamerson told him everything he told me." He grimaced. "But Dawson didn't have the advantage of having Jonesy to help him, so he had to rely on my doing the work. That bloodsucking vampire would like that better anyway."

"You know him?"

"Oh yes, we had a run-in a few years ago. It wasn't a pleasant encounter for either of us, but I came out better than he did."

"What kind of run-in?"

"Nasty business. A British drug company had a manufacturing plant in Bolivia. It contaminated the groundwater and soil in several villages. Hundreds died. Dawson and his team descended on the area with a checkbook and enough firepower to change people's perceptions about what really happened. Suddenly it was announced that an abandoned pre-World War II cleaning-products factory was the culprit, and that long-forgotten underground waste-disposal tanks had ruptured."

"Long forgotten?"

"It's difficult to remember something that never existed in the first place. Local officials backed up the story. Anyone who didn't take the bribes was murdered."

Rachel shook her head. "And how did you get involved?"

"The United Nations was offering multimillion-dollar rewards for evidence of just this kind of corporate abuse. I got wind of it and decided it would be an interesting challenge."

"Naturally," she said sarcastically.

"I went down there and stayed alive long enough to get the evidence I needed. It cost the company billions. And for a long time it damaged Dawson's reputation as a corporate fix-it man. He was totally humiliated, and he's still having repercussions from it. He'd like nothing better than to see me dead."

"He can take a number." Rachel thought for a moment. "Mills Pharmaceuticals has never shown any interest in regenerative central nervous system research. It's just not their focus."

"Of course not. If Peseshet's cure works as well as I think it could, it will earn billions for the company that brings it to market. But Mills makes tens of billions every year with the medicines they sell now. Look at their portfolio: you'll find a range of analgesics and anticonvulsants, all designed to treat symptoms of nervous system damage. And their patients are customers for life, not just the few months it might take to administer a cure."

"You think Mills Pharmaceuticals wants the cure so they can bury it?"

"Yes, and to keep it out of anyone else's hands who could bury them. But don't take my word for it. Do the research. I think you'll come to the same conclusion." Tavak tossed back the rest of his wine. "And now I think I've given you enough to keep you content for a while. It's time you started making me happy."

"Are you crazy? I am not contented. You've told me practically zilch."

"It's all relative. You know more than you did when you came in here." He pushed back his chair and stood up. "And you did say you'd give me anything I want. Right now, I want you to call Norton and tell Nuri to go away and let me go back to my hotel. I was able to take photos of the mosaic of Peseshet and the hieroglyphics beside it. I sent it to my computer here in Cairo to be translated and possibly decoded if there was anything hidden in the script."

"That's a hell of a complicated program."

"That's what Jonesy thought when I asked him to develop it for me. I thought he'd never get the hang of it. But give him enough cycles… "

"You son of a bitch."

"Anyway, I'll let you come with me. I'm sure you'll be interested to see if Jonesy did what he was supposed to do."

" 'Let'?" He knew she wouldn't let him go and check that program without her. "Yes, I'm going." She stood up. "And I'm not telling Nuri to go away. He's going to follow us to the hotel and make sure that you don't try to slip away."

He nodded. "Smart move. I'm not above trying to regain my independence, but it won't be before I see that readout." He grabbed his backpack and headed for the door. "And actually we've been together so long I'm becoming attached to Nuri. Not that he wouldn't blow me away with that firepower he's carrying, but I believe he'd regret it for at least an hour or two."

* * *

"I will stay here." Nuri leaned against the wall across from the hotel-room door Tavak was unlocking. "Unless I'm needed, Ms. Kirby? You have only to call and I will charge in and take care of disposing of him. After he pays me what he owes me, of course."

"Of course." Tavak opened the door and stood aside to let Rachel enter first. "That goes without saying." He turned on the overhead light and dropped his backpack on the floor before he shut the door. "Stay where you are. I need to check the room out."

"Why?"

"Because Dawson has had almost twenty-four hours to do any damn thing he wanted to do." Tavak took out a small device and moved carefully around the room. "And one of the first things would be to hit this room if he hadn't already done it before he went to the tomb."

She watched him run the device over the windows and closet door. "What kind of hit?" Then she realized what he was talking about. "An explosive?"

"It's what he used in the tomb. I'm sure he still had cyclotol enough for a little job like this."

Fear surged through her as she realized this ordinary hotel room could be a death trap. "Wouldn't it have gone off when you unlocked the door?"

"No, it wasn't the door. I set up a signal device that would have gone off if the lock mechanism had been tampered with." He glanced at her. "Would you like to wait outside with Nuri?"

"No, I would not." She moistened her lips. "Just do what you have to do, and let's check that readout."

"I didn't think you'd let me out of your sight."

"What's that detector you're using?"

"It's a sensor that reads particulates in the air—the same way bomb-sniffing dogs do." He ran the device over the lamp on the bedside table, then turned it on and checked the area behind the table. "There are about nineteen thousand odors associated with explosives. This detector works very well, and it isn't affected by distractions and fatigue as dogs are."

"Do you always prepare your hotel rooms to be bombproof?"

"I try."

"That's pretty drastic. There must be a lot of people who dislike you."

"Only one would be enough." He checked the bathroom door, then opened it. "One like you, Rachel."

"I wouldn't plant an explosive… unless you tried to set me up. Unless you kept me from finding help for my sister."

"Unless." He came out of the bathroom. "That word makes me uneasy."

"It should."

"Well, I can't find anything that seems suspicious." He grinned. "Which makes me suspicious." He moved toward the desk occupied by the laptop and a small six-inch-square external hard drive. "Let's see if Natifah sent us anything we can use." He ran the small detector over the desk area and flipped open the computer. "Better still, let's see if Jonesy was able to decode anything."

"What's the external hard drive for?"

"It's Jonesy's decoding program. It was using too much memory, so I put it on a separate hard drive." He pulled up the transmission that revealed his photo of Peseshet in the tomb. "Here she is. Your first glimpse of Peseshet. Looks arrogant as hell, doesn't she?"

"Yes, but I doubt if she posed for it. It's just the way she was perceived."

"Perception is everything. Whoever created that image thought she was either a goddess or a Pharaoh." He zoomed in on her face. "And if she saved the life of Kontar, the man who occupied that tomb, he probably worshipped her as if she were both. And you're right, she didn't pose for it. She was dead by the time this tomb was built. Natifah was undoubtedly the one who told the man who built it how Peseshet should be portrayed and what should be written on the wall."

"Natifah?"

"Remember? She was the physician who carved the story of Peseshet on that mastaba wall in Brighton. She was one of her disciples and evidently was chosen by Peseshet to hide her formulas from the Pharaoh. Pretty difficult since she was on the run herself."

"Why? I thought you said the Pharaoh appointed Peseshet the head of his institute of female doctors."

"He did and was elated at her success. She was a jewel in his crown. He sent her and the other doctors to all the countries in the civilized world to show them the power and brilliance of his court. Peseshet became famous and a very valuable resource since the Pharaoh could barter their services to foreign leaders in exchange for goods, access to trade routes, or whatever else he could hold them up for. As she continued to make medical discoveries, his prices skyrocketed." Tavak zoomed in on the hieroglyphics on the wall beside Peseshet's mosaic. "At some point Peseshet rebelled and told him she wanted to give away her formulas and procedures to whoever needed them."

Rachel shook her head. "That wasn't very smart of your 'brilliant' doctor."

"No, but he thought he had the solution. He'd forced her to give him copies of all her research work. Now all he had to do was rid himself of a troublesome insurgent before she gave away his precious secrets. He ordered his soldiers to hunt down and kill Peseshet and all the other women doctors, which they did with great efficiency. As far as we know, only Natifah survived the bloodbath."

"It's sickening."

"In his eyes, he was a god, and they had tried to take something from him. So he let loose his lightning. Only later did he discover that Peseshet hadn't given him and his personal physicians the entirety of her cures. She had left out some vital ingredients and processes in all of them."

"Good for her." She frowned. "But maybe if the Pharaoh had gotten the right formulas, we wouldn't have to be searching for them now."

"Or maybe he would have kept the secrets and had them buried with him. After all, he considered them as belonging to him to take to the next world if he pleased." He frowned. "I can't see anything that could be encoded here. Let me check and see if Jonesy found anything… " He typed in an access code and waited. "It's not responding. This is damn slow going."

Rachel waited for a couple minutes, staring at the blank monitor screen before she asked, "So before Peseshet died, she told Natifah to hide her secrets from the Pharaoh?"

"Yes, but she also told her that the knowledge must not be lost. That she had to find a way to cheat him, yet give her legacy to those who needed it. So Natifah set out to do what she'd been commanded to do. She couldn't risk just hiding the tablets in a single place. Their location had to be a puzzle so complicated that no one in Pharaoh's court would be able to put the pieces together. So, like Hansel and Gretel she started scattering bread crumbs of information that would eventually bring someone to the tablets."

"If I remember correctly, Hansel and Gretel were almost eaten by the witch before they had the opportunity to make a try at getting home," Rachel said dryly.

"Yes." He smiled. "That comparison must have been a Freudian slip. Ben and I were almost devoured by Dawson because we followed Natifah's bread crumbs."

"And the first crumb told you to go to that tomb and find the chamber of Peseshet? She wrote that on the mastaba wall?"

"It wasn't that simple. But in the story she casually listed Kontar as a friend to Peseshet along with many others. And after Natifah said that about scattering information and setting her puzzle, I set Jonesy to work on developing my decoder. Translation of hieroglyphics and decoding combined was a monumental task. He finally picked up Kontar as a possibility and came up with this tomb."

"Do you think that the text you sent to this computer will point the way to the tablet?"

"She used the term 'scatter' and the word 'five.' I'd bet the most we can hope for will be another bread crumb." He pressed the access button again. "Why the hell aren't we getting anything?"

Rachel was wondering the same thing. "Maybe your decoding program isn't as good as you thought."

"I have more trust in Jonesy than you do. It led me to Kontar's tomb."

"This may be more difficult than—"

The words suddenly popped up on the screen.

No information available. External drive has failed.

"Son of a bitch." Tavak frowned. "It couldn't have failed. I built in so many safeguards that—" He stopped his gaze going to the lamp on the bedside table. He tensed. "That bulb is flickering."

"Why would—"

"Oh, shit!" Tavak jumped to his feet and grabbed Rachel's arm. "Out!" He was dragging her across the room. "Fast!"

"What are you—"

"Don't argue. Move!" He tore open the hall door. "He got fancy. He substituted the lamp. I didn't—"

The lamp exploded.

The force of the blast blew them into the hall.

Tavak covered her body as a storm of debris hurled on top of them.

She heard Nuri cursing and saw him pick himself up off the floor.

"Are you all right?" Tavak was looking down at her.

"I—think so." She drew a deep breath. She was dazed and shook her head to clear it. "It was a bomb?"

"What else?" He got off her and turned to Nuri. "Okay?"

"Yes, no thanks to you." Nuri straightened his shirt. "Why do people keep trying to blow you up? It's most unsettling."

"I'd say that was an understatement." Rachel got to her feet. Lord, her legs were shaking. She stared at the ruin of the hotel room. "What happened? I thought you said that detector would sniff out any explosives."

"Most of them. But lately there are a few explosives that have been formulated that don't have a common odor. They've been used in Iraq." He was brushing flakes of drywall from his hair and shoulder. "Dawson must have configured the computer as a triggering device that wirelessly set the bomb off in the lamp with a Bluetooth signal when the computer came online. Crafty son of a bitch. The computer had no explosive properties, and the lamp had no complex electronic triggering device to be detected."

"Bluetooth." She was trying to remember the details of those last confusing minutes. "The light was flickering."

"The compound was heating up in the lamp," he said absently, his gaze on the flames erupting in the room. "I have to get back in there before—" He started for the room, then stopped. Doors were opening, and people were streaming out into the hall. "Get her out of here, Nuri. Quick. Take the stairs. The hotel is going to be a little upset about this, and security should be up here any minute. I'll meet you down at that coffee shop two blocks away."

"Right." Nuri took Rachel's arm and led her toward the exit door. "Come along. I will take care of you."

Rachel looked back over her shoulder to see Tavak going into the room. "What are you doing?"

"I have to get something. If it didn't get blown to hell. I'll be right behind you."

* * *

It wasn't until Rachel and Nuri were walking down the street that it hit home what an idiot she had been. She stopped in her tracks. "I'm going back."

Nuri shook his head. "Not wise. The hotel will call the police, and they will not be kind to you. Better just to disappear."

"That's what Tavak is going to do. He'll just disappear and leave me without a hope of finding him again. I'm going back."

"It's too late. If what you say is true, he'll already be gone, and you'll be left to deal with the police." Nuri took her elbow. "Come, we will go to the cafe and wait. Maybe you are wrong."

"Not likely." But Nuri's reasoning was correct. Tavak would have had enough time to make his escape. She had no choice but to wait, on the chance that he might come. Dammit to hell.

She started toward the cafe a few doors down. "Let's go."

"He may come," Nuri said. "If it pleases him. It's hard to say. I find Tavak puzzling."

So did Rachel. Puzzling and infuriating… and intriguing. Dear God, the lightning speed of the way his mind had worked in that hotel room was astonishing. It had been only seconds from the time that he had caught a glimpse of that flickering light that he had put everything together and was pulling her out of the room.

Events had moved so fast since she had met him that she had barely been able to catch her breath. Her head was whirling with all the information he had thrown at her, and hope, confusion, and anger were fighting for dominance. She had come here on what she had thought was probably a wild-goose chase, and that chase was proving wilder than she had dreamed.

Yet, dammit, she believed what Tavak had been telling her. He was mocking, unscrupulous, reckless, and completely self-absorbed. But the confidence and intelligence that were present in his every move and word were fascinating. Intelligence always fascinated her, and Tavak had already proved that he was brilliant. She just had to control that brilliance until she got what she needed from him.

If she got the chance of controlling him.

How was she going to find him in this huge maze of a foreign city if he'd decided to run out on her?