The Seventh Stone (24 page)

“
More like ironic,” said Rambitskov. He watched as Fenton glided silently into the orangery, balancing a sterling tray holding a cut crystal carafe and two snifters. The butler set the tray noiselessly on the glass table, then exited the room. “Considering their emergency meeting is on world peace.”

“
Only time will reveal the true irony of the venue,” Baltasar said. He crossed to the table, popped the crystal stopper from the decanter. He poured two fingers of the bronze libation into a snifter. “And you have dispersed the vial into the water?”

“
At noon today, despite the suddenly accelerated time frame.”

“
It was necessary.” Gabriella had forced his hand. He couldn’t risk being exposed. The deaths, beginning with her own children, would be on her head. He lifted the globe-shaped glass, swirled the liquid within its rims to warm it. He offered the snifter to Rambitskov. “Cognac?”

“
No.”

“
Shame,” said Baltasar. “It’s a Courvoisier XO.” He breathed in the silky aroma, placed the rim of the glass to his lips and drew a small draught into his mouth. He savored the sensation as the cognac caressed his taste buds. “You placed the poison into the single intake conduit?”

“
Amazing how easy that was,” said Rambitskov, “even if I am Homeland Security. It took less than two minutes to access that hydrant on Forty-fifth Street.”

“
So your department’s information was spot on,” said Baltasar. “The officials in Atlanta calculated it takes two minutes to insert toxins through a fire hydrant. The website is quite clear on the system’s vulnerability.”

“
Like plastering it on the internet is going to help prevent the danger.”

“
Prevent? No. For
escalating
the danger, the internet has been remarkably helpful.” Baltasar plucked a pressed linen cocktail napkin from the table and dabbed his lips. “It is a valuable tool,” he said. “It is why I found you.”

“
And my department plastering guidebooks for terrorists on the internet is why I let you find me.”

Baltasar pursed his lips. To think the man could consider that he played a part in his own destiny. “As per my plan,” he emphasized, “New World Pharmaceuticals is generously providing the wine, beer and non-alcoholic beverages, but no water bottles.”

“
Greenies insisted the G-20 doesn’t use any plastic water bottles,” said Rambinsky. “I suppose you were behind that, too.”

“
Well,” Baltasar said, “our poison is organic.”

“
Funny,” said Rambitskov, his stoicism unmoved. “That vial didn’t have much poison in it. They got one hundred and ninety-eight people on that guest list. That’s a lot of water.”

“
You need not worry about its potency,” he said. “Look at the website information. A typical hydrant holds up to seventeen gallons of liquid. Only one-twentieth of a quart of anthrax will contaminate one million gallons of water, and that can contaminate more than 100 miles of distribution pipe. That’s tens of thousands of homes. Our poison is more toxic than anthrax.”

“
I’m well aware of the toxicity of anthrax,” he said. “It’s my job. But this poison of yours has never been proven.”

“
But it has,” said Contreras, “by my ancestor, five hundred years ago. He nearly conquered an empire with it.”

“
And he came home broke and in chains,” said Rambitskov, “returning only with two packs of seeds smuggled in his Bible.”

“
The seeds of life and the seeds of death,” Baltasar said. “The seeds of a new world. An inheritance infinitely more valuable than any gold or silver.”

“
You’ve been cultivating the plants for generations, trying to duplicate the hybrids your ancestor created. How do you know the poison will work?”

“
I know,” Contreras said. The man had been told more than enough.

“
So you say,” countered Rambitskov, “but we know not everybody will be affected by the poison.”

Baltasar swallowed, rankled that the tender burning of the cognac in his throat passed so quickly. “You need only to make a point once,” he said. Nothing galled him more than an affront to his attention to detail. “I have told you that enough will succumb. Our demands will be met.”

“
Not until we prove the threat is overwhelming,” he said. “That’s going to take a lot more than making some halfwit world leaders sick. We have a powerful weapon. We should strike, like a snake, quick and without mercy.”

Baltasar almost chuckled at the simile. “We’ll be tempting them with the forbidden fruit soon. The masses are my weapon,” he said, “and I will be the hand that wields it, in due time. My family has planned this for generations. I have honed every detail.”

Rambo straightened his shoulders. He leaned forward menacingly. “We have to act now, before they catch on to what we plan to do to the G-20. I will not fail because you’re too afraid to use what we got.”

“
To veer from the plan is to invite catastrophe,” he hissed. “My network is awaiting my command. Then we will unleash the poison globally, at the precise moment it is needed.”

Rambo met Baltasar’s increasingly hostile impatience with a preternatural calm. “U.S. policy is not to bargain with terrorists,” he said.

“
We are not terrorists,” Baltasar snapped back. He had to end this meeting. It was souring the pleasure of his cognac. “The G-20 is seeking world peace. I am merely offering it to them.” He tried another sip, but it had more the texture of sandpaper than velvet. “Besides, government officials will only refuse to negotiate with terrorists if others’ lives are at stake. Now their lives will be threatened. They get sick enough and they’ll see the light, if not in this life, then the next.”

“
We might have to give the antidote to one of them to prove our bargaining position.”

Baltasar searched Rambitskov’s enigmatic face. Part of him admired the man, one of the few still living who dared to challenge him. He wondered if he suspected that Baltasar didn’t have the antidote, or if he cared. No matter. He would have the antidote in time. Getting it was all part of the intricate plan that he had set in motion. History would remember him not as a villain, but a hero. “We’ll have more power over their lives than God, my dear Rambo, and more determination in our purpose than Satan. We will not have to bargain.”

CHAPTER
30

Christa turned on the desk lamp and checked her watch. It was 2:15 in the afternoon, but the greenhouse had taken on the veil of twilight. Dark clouds thickened the sky above. Thunder rumbled to the west, rattling the glass walls of the greenhouse. She had less than four hours before Contreras would call her and expect her to turn over Gabriella’s research, the Emerald and the Turquoise in exchange for Lucia’s life.

“
Baltasar Contreras plans to poison the water supply?” Daniel said. “That’s insane.”

“
True,” she said, “which is why it makes sense.” She’d given him the bare bones of her suspicions. “Contreras is desperate for Gabriella’s findings. He wants to be the sole provider of the antidote that she’s found.” She reached over to the small cage that rested on a nearby shelf. She peered into it, opened the door and scrabbled her fingers through the paper bedding. “Daniel, where is Algernon?”

“
Algernon?”

“
The field mouse,” she said. “He kept sneaking into the greenhouse when the weather turned cold. Gabriella put a box with bedding just outside so he wouldn’t keep coming in. She was worried he’d get hurt.” All three sisters had begged endlessly for a pet. They never had one, of course, not with their travelling to various digs around the world. So they adopted and promptly named everything from an injured dingo in the outback to an earthworm in the Amazon. “She told me he got sick. I got this cage for him from the biology department.” She’d been too busy grading essays to be too concerned.

“
He’s gone,” Daniel said.

“
Gone? Did he get better?”

Daniel hesitated. “He died,” he said. “The mouse was already in bad shape when I got here two days ago. I couldn’t get him to eat or drink anything. It was like he was terrified of the food, of everything. He started convulsing, and died. I buried him under that maple.” He nodded to the barren tree being bullied by a gust in the cold world outside.

Christa shivered. That did not bode well. She grabbed the journal, her eyes racing over the page. “Gabby found Algernon ten days ago, writhing on the desk. He had got hold of the belladonna, nibbled on a leaf.” Christa turned the page. “She was trying to find the antidote, different extracts from different plants.”

“
There!” Daniel pointed to an entry underlined and followed by several exclamation points. “She found the antidote, an extract of papaver somniferum. Hold on, that’s the same plant that produces opium.”

“
Algernon died, Daniel.” And she knew why. The mouse had recovered, but only for seven days.

“
At least he died happy,” he said.

This would probably be the time to let him in on her meeting with Baltasar Contreras at the playground and tell him how Contreras had forced her to drink that capful of mystery liquid.

Percival’s car pulled up to the curb in front of the greenhouse. He pushed open the car door against a gust, snugged in his windbreaker and hurried up the walk. Donohue wasn’t with him. He practically tore the greenhouse door off its wonky hinges as he rushed in. “Did you find it?” he asked. “Did you find Gabby’s journal?”

She held up the journal to show him. He rushed over and grabbed the book, pressed it against his heart. “Thank God,” he said. “Donohue wanted it as a contingency. His plan is bold to say the least. I mean, he certainly talks like he knows what he’s doing. He’s served in three wars, after all.” He stepped back, just noticing Daniel’s presence. “Did Christa call you? Christa, you didn’t call him, did you?”

“
He was here when I arrived,” she said. “Taking care of things. We found the plant specimen in the sketch, Percy. The Belladonna Conquistadorum. That’s the good news.” The only good news.

Percival flipped open the journal. “Here it is. Belladonna poison. Symptoms are dilated pupils, sensitivity to light, headache.” He swallowed, hard. “Confusion,” he read, “delirium, convulsions.”

Christa picked up a pencil from the desk. Carefully, she used the pencil point to look closer at the bright violet underside of a leaf. What was that old maxim about red bringing dread in nature? “If this is an adaptation, then its poison may be even more potent,” she said. As if delirium and convulsions weren’t potent enough.

“
And the antidote?” asked Percival.

“
That’s the bad news,” she said. “Gabriella extracted an antidote from a papaver, but it only lasts seven days. The Colombian papaver that she believes provides the permanent antidote has been extinct for five hundred years.”

“
So that capful that Contreras forced you to drink,” Percival began.

“
Gives me seven days,” said Christa, “before I go stark, raving mad.” If not before, given that Contreras kidnapped Lucia and may be tracking down Gabriella.

“
Capful?” Daniel took off his tweed jacket. His face was flushed. “When did you meet Contreras? I didn’t think you even knew him.”

Percival pointed an accusatory finger at Daniel, as if he were somehow to blame. “But you know him. You worked for him.”

Daniel stepped back. “As an historian. I thought this was about the lost Breastplate of Aaron.”

“
Maybe it is,” she said, “or Contreras wouldn’t be so obsessed about finding and restoring it. Daniel, did Gabriella say anything about an artifact when you were with her in Colombia?”

“
Nothing,” Daniel said. He jabbed his fingers through his hair, yanking it off his forehead. “Well, probably nothing.” Percival advanced towards him, his expression completely out of character. He looked ready to throttle Daniel. “A canyon,” Daniel said. “Gabriella had me asking the locals about some legendary temple at the mouth of a canyon. Nobody had heard about it and, frankly, that old Muisca shaman she was working with was suffering from dementia. All I got from the locals was a dirty look, like I was the loco one.”

For a man who had studied to become a priest, Daniel was an ardent skeptic. It was one of his qualities she admired, usually. But she was beginning to rethink her own skepticism at this point. “Did you tell Contreras,” she asked, “about this temple?”