The Eden Prophecy by Graham Brown

Author:Graham Brown [Brown, Graham]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780345527806
Publisher: Bantam
Published: 2012-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 29

Hawker stood near the aft end of a forty-foot cabin cruiser as Savi piloted the boat away from one of Dubai’s marinas. Behind them the lights of the city blazed into the night, obscured in places by the smoke rising from the base of the Burj Al Arab. The glare made it impossible to see anything else. No stars, no features on the water beyond fifty feet or so. Looking ahead it seemed as if they were sailing into a void.

In some ways, that matched the feelings Hawker fought to silence. The situation reminded him of the past, the dash across the Republic of the Congo and into Algeria he’d guided Ranga and Sonia on in a desperate attempt to escape dangerous men. But the facts were plain then, or at least he’d thought they were. He didn’t know the facts here, not enough of them anyway.

He needed to press Sonia about her father, the people he’d been mixed up with and the work he’d been doing. That was all that really mattered, but the sudden turn of events—the revelation that Sonia had a sister and the young girl’s odd condition—had stunned him, blinding him in a sense to what was up ahead.

Sonia had taken her sister into the forward cabin, bringing with her some medications and hoping to put her back to bed. She did not seem to be in pain, nor did she seem undeveloped mentally. To keep her calm as they drove to the boat in the middle of the night, Sonia had practiced spelling and math with her. Then the little girl had picked up a book and begun reading on her own.

At first he’d guessed that maybe her aged appearance was just cosmetic, and then she struggled climbing into the boat, because of a knee that Sonia said was arthritic. And the thick glasses suggested vision problems like many older people had.

He suddenly remembered Ranga’s questions about retribution and divine punishment and his speech about humanity living too long, a speech given before Hawker had even met Ranga, before he had even become a renegade. If Hawker had the dates right, it was the year before Nadia was born. Since then she must have been hidden with Savi: Ranga’s sister, Sonia’s aunt. Certainly the little child hadn’t been with them in Africa.

Crazy thoughts ran through Hawker’s mind. Thoughts he wanted to banish but couldn’t. Could Ranga have done something to Nadia? Could he have administered some drug or experimented with some type of genetic therapy on his own child? Could Ranga have created a prototype of his life-shortening drug and given it first to his own child? Aging her, like the rats Danielle had seen in his lab?

He prayed it was something less evil, but he couldn’t say it was impossible.

For one thing, that might explain why Ranga wondered about divine retribution even as he claimed not to believe in any God. The scientist messing with the code of life, an act previously reserved for the Almighty alone.

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