Ark Storm (17 page)

“I’ve dragged you from work,” said Gwen.

“Praise the Lord!”

Gwen laughed. The man was a tonic. She watched him bend, ruffle her dog’s neck.

“Let’s sit down,” she said softly.

They sat at her table, looking out to sea, an endless, innocent blue today, the blue of the cloudless sky. Out of a brilliant blue sky … she could never think those words without thinking of Nine-eleven. The terrorists had hijacked blue skies forever, it sometimes seemed to her. Her mind was jumping, spinning. She brought it back under control.

“It’s pretty wild, what I’m going to tell you,” she started, eyes fixed on his, looking for any flicker. “Riley trusted you. Something tells me I can, even though I don’t know you well. But you need to tell me if you don’t want this laid on you. Someone’s dead. I don’t want either of us to be next.”

Dan raised his eyebrows—not in a disbelieving way, more in an interested, speculative way.

“Gwen. You can trust me. Want to shake on it?”

“All right,” replied Gwen, eyeing him, seeing something flit across his eyes, a kind of concern.

They reached across the table, out on the deck, clasped each other’s hands. Gwen felt it, the surge between them, knew he did too. For a while, they just sat there, holding onto each other; then, Gwen released him and began to speak, telling him about Charles Freidland, about Paparuda, about Zeus, about ARk Storm and Messenger’s prospective insider trading.

Dan listened without interrupting, a frown etched between his eyes.

“What have you walked into, Gwen Boudain?” he asked when she’d finished.

“That’s what I’m asking myself. But I’m in now.”

“And walking away, just pretending you’ve never heard any of this, isn’t an option?”

Gwen shook her head. “Not again.”

Dan grabbed her arm as she made to stand up. “Not so fast. What do you mean
again
?”

She sat down. “I ran away once. From Peru.” Quickly, clinically, she told him about her parents. Telling him was much harder than telling Charles Freidland, and that had been hard enough.

Dan listened, face largely impassive. His eyes narrowed as she described the car crash and the little girl’s story, but he did not touch her, his eyes did not soften with sympathy, and for that she was grateful. She didn’t want sympathy, not from a man she was involved with, cared for. Sympathy undid her.

How did he know, she wondered? How did he always seem to know just the right emotional note to hit?

She finished speaking, got up quickly before he could say anything. She walked into her kitchen and began to brew up coffee. Grind the beans, spoon them into the plunger, boil the water.

Dan stayed outside, sitting at her table, gazing out into the deep blue. He didn’t move, but Gwen could sense a kind of contained tension to him. After a few minutes, he got up and joined her in the kitchen. He kept his distance though, leaning against her worktop.

“You’ve had some stuff…” he said softly.

Gwen smiled. “A bit.”

“You were right to run.”

“I should not have run. I should have got justice for my parents.”

Dan took a step closer, said softly, “Yeah, right. Getting yourself killed would avenge their murder.”

Gwen couldn’t speak. She shrugged in a gesture of utter helplessness. She saw Daniel move, then stop himself. She stood, just looking at him, seeing in his eyes a strange kind of fury. She got the feeling it was part to do with her, part something else altogether. So many secrets in his eyes.

She blew out a breath, poured him a coffee, passed it to him with a steady hand. By some kind of silent accord they both moved together, walking outside, sitting again at the table overlooking the vast blue.

“You think they ever came here, came after you?” Dan asked, bending his head to the mug, blowing gently on his coffee.

Gwen shook her head. “I looked over my shoulder for the longest time. I upped my fight training, got taught some dirty stuff from my trainer—he’s an ex-Navy SEAL,” she added, looking down to sip her own coffee, missing the flaring of his eyes.

“Now’s the danger time, I think,” she said. “No one knew I had taken on my parents’ work. Just Joaquin, my assistant, and everyone just thinks he’s a wildlife photographer. He is, he just works with me too. Lucy knows, my closest friends know. Now Falcon knows and Messenger knows. The more people know, the bigger the risk.”

Dan nodded. “Let’s hope your narco gets whacked in some turf battle. What’s his name?”

Gwen told him and added, “In my saner moments, I don’t think he’ll come after me. Doing a hit in California is not the same as in Peru. He won’t own the cops, or the judiciary. It’s not so easy here.”

“It’s easy if you have the will, the money, and the manpower,” said Dan absently.

Before Gwen could ask him what he meant, he spoke again.

“So what about your boss? The intriguing Gabriel Messenger. You think he’s a killer?”

“I think he could be. There’s certainly enough motive, with Paparuda.”

“Is that for real?”

“My reaction too. But yeah, I’ve seen it! They made it rain down on me.”

“It’s biblical!”

They drained their coffees, walked back into Gwen’s kitchen. They put down their cups. They both leaned back against Gwen’s faded wooden work surface, legs cocked, arms resting lightly on the wood, inches apart, flicking glances at each other. Anyone looking in from the outside might have thought they were discussing what movie to see that night. Anyone inside would have felt the tension stretching between them, joining them, filling the kitchen.

“So what’s your plan?” asked Dan. “I see it churning in your eyes. You’ve got a kind of square-jawed determined look on you.”

Gwen smiled and said sadly, “You sound like my mother.
Gwen and her plans …
I always have a plan. Like I can control life!”

“Yeah, well, you’re not the only one who harbors that particular illusion.”

Gwen studied Dan. “Not you. You seem to have emerged from life fully formed, shit together, no cracks or chinks.”

Dan raised his eyebrows. “I have my chinks, my cracks.”

“Then you must cover them with some extra special armor.”

“If I do, it’s probably called denial. We were talking about your plan.…”

Gwen shrugged, realized she wasn’t going to get any more out of him by probing.

“All I can think of is to stay put and to try to find out if there is anything to Freidland’s allegations,” she said. “Also, if I’m on the inside I can hopefully persuade Messenger to let me go to the ARk Storm team with Oracle’s predictions. Either way, I
will
go to them sooner or later.” She straightened up, paced. “That’s if I haven’t gotten myself fired. I kind of stalked off earlier.”

“I can imagine you in full stalk. But I’m sure Messenger’ll get over it. You probably just came over as a naïve academic. That’s a good act to cultivate.”

“Oh I am, trust me.” Gwen paused as an idea popped. “That venture cap conference at the Ritz-Carlton in Half Moon Bay I mentioned … I think I might go to the hotel, ask around, see if anyone knows anything about someone from Falcon getting wasted, and even what they said.”

“Great idea. Mind if I tag along?”

“Now why would you do that?”

“Call me helpful.”

Gwen raised a cynical eyebrow.

“OK then. Call it a ruse to spend the night with you at a swanky hotel.”

Gwen laughed. Dan had done it again, fractured the gloom, made everything light. My God, this man was something.…

“Why the need to spend the night there?” she asked. Everything seemed to be accelerating around her. She wanted to slow it all right down. Get it back under control.

“Hookers will hit the place on Friday night, not during the day. And don’t take this wrong, but they’ll probably be more eager to talk to me than to you.”

“You might have a point.”

“So Friday night?”

Gwen hesitated.

“You got a better idea?”

Gwen looked at him thoughtfully. Honey-colored eyes holding hers with a smile and a challenge. She felt the yearning pulse through her body like a fever.

“Maybe not,” she murmured.

40

THE SUPER-YACHT,
ZEPHYR
, MOORED OFF SAN DIEGO, MONDAY EVENING

The man stepped from the helicopter, ducked under the blades, straightened up on the spotless deck. He was met by two of the Sheikh’s men, dark skinned, clean-shaven, no doubt so as not to attract undue attention when they went ashore. They would be hajis at the very least, the designation given to those who had done the pilgrimage to Mecca at least three times, and who almost invariably sported the full beard of Islamic men, but they were probably also Jihadis who wished to disguise themselves.

They looked him over with their dead eyes, no smiles, no word of greeting. The men, and the team of others like them, posed as the sailing staff in their white polo shirts emblazoned with Z
EPHYR
and their silent, soft-soled deck shoes. The yacht swarmed with them, padding about like assassins.

One soft-shoe led him, the other fell in behind. The man paused, gathered himself for just a moment.

He always felt, despite himself, despite who he was, what he had become, that he was somehow diminished alongside the Sheikh. Part of this was the money, the towering billions; part was the entourage, the men with the dead eyes; and part of it was the knowledge that the Sheikh despised his weaknesses as the ascetic loathes the voluptuary. Even though he had made such progress, traveled so far. It never seemed to be far enough.

He was led into the glittering stateroom, rich with the scents of cardamom and coffee, oud and bakhoor. The polished wood gleamed in the low lights, and in the distance, through the huge windows, he could see the lights of San Diego flickering like distant beacons.

And there was the Sheikh, rising from the twenty-seater horseshoe-shaped leather sofa, resplendent in his white kandoora. He wasn’t wearing the ghutra, the headdress, today, just the
taqiyah
, the white skullcap.

With a nod of his head, the Sheikh beckoned him. He moved forward over the artfully scattered Persian carpets.

“
Asalaam aliekum,
my brother,” the man intoned warmly.

“Wa aleikum asalaam,”
replied the Sheikh, resuming his seat. “What can I do for you?”

The man gasped at the breach. Normally the Sheikh, in the tradition of his region, would have spun out the niceties, offered refreshments, bided his time before they got down to business. Was something wrong? He felt his jaw clenching involuntarily. He blew out a slow, silent breath and took a seat opposite the Sheikh, fifteen feet away, separated by a Persian carpet and low intricately carved wooden tables—made from old Omani doors, the Sheikh had told him during a loquacious moment.

“I have good news for you,” announced the man. “Zeus works! Falcon staged a major trial of the mobile unit this morning, in what had been a cloudless sky, zero chance of rain. And it rained. It rained half an inch.” The man’s eyes glowed. No matter what the Sheikh did with it, Zeus was an astonishing achievement.

“Excellent!”

Approval, radiance. The man basked, felt the glow of reassurance.

“You will be well rewarded. Be sure of that.”

“You are very kind, Sheikh Ali. And there’s more. Another investment is bearing fruit.”

“Tell me.”

“Oracle forecasts the Niño phenomenon. Apparently, the one we are into at the moment will intensify into a mega-Niño.”

“And what does that mean?”

“Floods, landslides, wasted harvests around the world, drought in some places.”

“More little local catastrophes. I am weary of them.”

“And storms, Sheikh Ali. It will bring large storms. Perhaps the storm you have been waiting for, right here in California.”

There was a pause. The Sheikh’s eyes flickered with calculation.

“You think these storms will be big enough for us to use?” he asked. “You think we can
crrrreate
an ARk Storm from one of them?” The Sheikh was trying, and failing, to keep the excitement from his voice.

“The forecaster used an interesting choice of words. She described the warming water as ammunition, the pole-to-equator temperature differentials as the detonator.…”

The Sheikh laughed. “She is indeed an Oracle! And we shall provide the spark.”

The other man was silent.

“What, my friend, are you developing a conscience?” asked Al Baharna, leaning forward, eyes narrowing.

“I cannot afford one; besides, it’s too late now.” Too late for him to change his mind. Any weakness would be punished by a slow and painful death at the hands of the dead-eyed men hardened by years in Lebanon and Iraq. So he was committed, on a path of his own. The man gazed out of the dark windows, wondering what it would look like, the ARk Storm, the ten-foot walls of water slamming through the air. Forty Mississippis drowning them. He fingered his collar, suddenly feeling short of breath. He would be long gone, he reminded himself, hiding somewhere dry. As the vengeance of the holy rained down upon the infidels, money and the rewards of jihad would rain down on him.

“It is too late, my friend. Much too late. So, when do we light the spark?” asked the Sheikh, dragging him back.

“Forecaster thinks the Niño will develop into a mega-Niño over our winter.”

“Two to five months from now,” mused the Sheikh. “Are we ready?”

“We’re still perfecting our model, trying to get it to produce more rain. The forecaster is being most helpful with this.”

“I should meet this helpful Oracle,” mused the Sheikh.

“It can be arranged.” They’d have to make sure she behaved herself. She was too valuable to risk allowing her to make an enemy of the Sheikh.

“Is there a problem?” asked Al Baharna.

“No problem. I was just thinking it wouldn’t harm to have more drones and more ionizers,” improvised the man.

The Sheikh threw back his head and laughed for a few, seemingly uninhibited moments. The man wondered what on earth he had said that was so funny. The Sheikh leaned forward, eyes still creased in mirth.