Ark Storm (25 page)

Gwen watched her colleagues. Barclay, perhaps impressed, or oppressed by the Sheikh’s wealth, had reined in his inner jock and was thoughtful, studious, low key. Weiss seemed on edge. He kept flicking glances between Messenger and the Sheikh, perhaps keen to impress both, gauging how well he was doing. Gwen was sure Messenger’s metrics included impressing the Sheikh. Messenger himself was guarded, old-world European correctness to the fore. He sat, straight-backed on the sofa. Gwen got the impression he had himself under lockdown. It wasn’t as if he felt the Sheikh were above him, just that he seemed unduly wary of the other man. Was that what billions did, as opposed to tens of millions? If money was your metric, then Messenger was the underdog.

“So, final questions, then I must let you all get back,” murmured the Sheikh.

“Dr. Messenger, do you think you have more progress to make with Zeus, that you can increase the rainfall further?”

Messenger turned to Gwen. “Gwen, this is your department, really. I think Peter and I have gone as far as we can with it.”

Gwen thought of the model, of how Messenger was planning to use it to ramp up an ARk Storm, to nudge a big winter storm into one. Or could it have been Sheikh Ali? Could he be Haas/Hans? It seemed unlikely. Gwen couldn’t imagine him grubbing around at a private equity conference. And he was not likely to have a Germanic name.

“There was a big storm here, back in June,” mused Gwen. “Do you remember it?” she asked the Sheikh.

He looked at her quizzically.

“I’m afraid I don’t. I spend all of June in Saudi, attending to business there so that I can come here and escape the worst of our heat over July, August, and September. Why?”

“Oh, because I learned a lot from it. Lessons I still want to apply to Zeus,” improvised Gwen. “I reckon I can get the yield up still further. Materially higher.”

There had been no such storm, but at least it had answered her question. Sheikh Ali had been out of the country during the conference.

The Sheikh nodded. “That is excellent news. Please apply those lessons. I am keen to hear the results. Now, just two more questions for you, Dr. Gwen.”

“Sure. Ask away,” responded Gwen, flip with relief that her ruse had worked.

“What I would particularly like to know is when do you think this ARk Storm might hit? And how much notice do you think we shall have that it is approaching?”

He seemed to caress the word as he spoke, rolling his
r
s over it. Arrrrk Storm.

“Well, we’re in October already,” started Gwen. “Earliest would be November, latest April. But there are no guarantees that it will hit.”

“Your percentage,” said the Sheikh, sitting forward, arms braced on his robed knees. “What percentage likelihood would you give it?”

Gwen looked at the man opposite, at his eyes, shrewd, calculating, waiting. He wasn’t smiling anymore. Gwen had a feeling, just fleeting, that the man could see right into her, could see her secrets, fluttering like moths.

She blew out a breath. This wasn’t academe,
on the one hand this, on the other that
. This was what commerce looked like, thought Gwen, glancing around. This is what commerce built. And commerce needed answers it could work with, answers it could parlay into a bigger fortune. Sheikh Ali’d be shorting the markets, Gwen was sure, along with Messenger and Falcon. And, however distasteful, it was her job to help him.

“I’d say ninety percent,” she replied grimly. “Does that work for you?” she couldn’t resist adding.

Messenger’s eyes flared, but the Sheikh didn’t seem offended.

“Thank you,” he replied thoughtfully. “That does work for me.” Then he smiled, a big open smile, revealing white teeth, brilliant against his brown skin.

“As you can see, I like living here at sea, I spend a lot of time off the coast of California. But I’d like to put some distance between myself and this storm when it comes,” he added.

“We’ll know some days in advance,” said Gwen. “At least I think we will. Remember, this has never happened in living memory, so we’re all operating on assumptions here.”

The Sheikh got to his feet. Weiss, Barclay, and Messenger all jumped up as one. Gwen rose.

The Sheikh took her hand. “Here is my business card,” he said, slipping a small gold case from his pocket, extracting a stiff card. “Please be sure to call me, keep me personally informed.”

Gwen took the card, nodded. The Sheikh said his good-byes to the others, escorted them all out onto the deck where the helicopter waited. She moved to go, but the Sheikh caught her arm.

“Just one second, Dr. Gwen.”

She turned back to him. He smiled at her, dark eyes intent. The others were already getting into the helicopter, couldn’t hear what he was saying to her.

“Please feel free to call me at any time. Not just to update me, but if you have any worries, any concerns that I might be able to help you with.…”

He let his offer float. Gwen swallowed. Had she been that transparent?

“I’ll remember that,” she said. The Sheikh nodded back. He let her go, turned, disappeared back inside his yacht. The door hissed shut after him and closed with a heavy thud.

63

THE SUPER-YACHT,
ZEPHYR

Back in his stateroom, the Sheikh turned to Ashgar, the handbag checker.

“Did you plant the transmitter?”

Ashgar nodded. “Inside her pocketbook, under all her coins, in the lining. It looks like any normal stud.”

“Well done. Nimbly done.”

Ashgar smiled. For an instant his face transformed, the hardness left him, revealing echoes of the sweet boy he had once been. “Thank you, my Sheikh. The benefits of a misspent youth. I picked pockets on the West Bank from five years of age.”

“Yes, but you took, not planted.”

“I’ve done my share of planting since.”

The Sheikh nodded.

“Women take their pocketbooks everywhere,” said Ashgar. “We’ll have a very good idea where Gwen Boudain is, twenty-four/seven.” Ashgar had spent the last three years in the US, either onboard the yacht, or else in San Diego. He had learned to blend in. His English was flawless.

“Good. Then arrange to keep having her followed. With the tracker in place you can afford to be extremely discreet.”

Ashgar nodded. “And the battery life of the tracker is at least a month, so it gives us plenty of time,” he added.

The Sheikh’s eyes narrowed and his voice dropped to the ominous murmur Ashgar knew so well. “No more accidents. No more interrupted house entries, no more midnight collisions.”

Ashgar bowed his head. “I am sorry, my Sheikh. Their errors are my errors. Their failings are my failings.”

“We cannot afford errors, not whilst waging jihad.”

“I can atone. I can join the ranks of the Shuhada’.”

“You are too valuable to me to blow yourself to pieces, no matter the rewards, the seventy-two virgins who would await you. I need you here on earth.”

Ashgar looked up, met the Sheikh’s eyes, nodded. “Thank you.” He paused, gave the moment its full respect before he spoke again. “You just want her followed? Nothing more?”

“Nothing more, for now. This is the day of second chances, for you and the onshore team. This is the day of stayed executions, for Dr. Gwen Boudain too. She is too valuable to kill just yet. By her own words, she is improving the model. Has some way to go. And, if my calculations are correct, she won’t go to the police or the authorities yet. She’s keeping herself busy on the trail of
justice
,” intoned the Sheikh, contempt lacing his voice. “We’ll hear from the device in her little house if she is planning to go to the authorities, and if she is, then, and only then can you act.”

Ashgar nodded. “I’ll brief The Man. I’ll tell him to let her live. For now.”

64

THE LAB, TUESDAY P.M.

Gwen stared at the card Sheikh Ali had given her. Did the Sheikh have a Haas/Hans aboard who knew enough about Zeus to plan to ramp a winter storm into an ARk Storm? She doubted it. This was the stuff of masterminds, not minions. Messengers …

She played with the Zeus model, looking at how else she might get the rain yield up. Then, in the name of scientific testing, she reversed many of the inputs, discovered, theoretically at least, that while the model could increase rainfall, it could also reduce it. Messenger
had
mentioned that, but she was impressed to see how it worked on the model. She filed that one away as a potential lifesaver all of its own.

Her phone rang. She snatched it up. Dan.

“I’ve got your stuff,” he said by way of hello.

“That was quick.”

“I’m a quick mover, Boudy. Given half a chance.”

Gwen smiled to herself.

“When shall I bring it over?” Dan asked.

Gwen paused. “I’ll come and get it, if that’s OK. Haven’t seen how you live, Dan. Want to make sure you’re not still living at home with Mama.” Truth was, she wanted to get out of her cottage too, away from Hurricane Point, if only for a while.

He laughed. “And if I were?”

“Then I’d have to find someone else to fantasize about.”

A slight pause, a lowered voice. “Don’t you get bored, Boudy, just fantasizing? I grant you it can be good, very good if you fantasize about the right person, but I’m a reality guy by choice.”

Gwen felt her blood begin to pound.

“Can’t always get what we want, Dan,” she drawled, affecting nonchalance. “Didn’t your mother ever tell you that?”

“Can we leave my mother out of this?”

Gwen laughed. “What’s your address?”

“127A, Seventeen Mile Drive.”

Gwen blew out a silent whistle. How the hell did he afford to live there on a journalist’s salary? She said, “You and Gabriel Messenger are neighbors.”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“So when’s good?”

“I’m around all day today. All night too.”

“I’ll bear that in mind.”

Gwen hung up. She allowed herself just a minute to think of him, to imagine standing face-to-face, body-to-body, holding each other. She felt the heat, even from a distance. With a supreme act of will, she forced her mind onto the weather.

65

DOJO, MONTEREY, TUESDAY AFTERNOON

At five prompt, Gwen quit the Lab, drove to Monterey through the rush hour traffic to train with Dwayne.

Her trainer stood, head angled, eyes sharp, subjecting her to his usual scrutiny as she walked from the changing room in her shorts and tee. He was seeing, she knew, into her head.

“Something’s happened. Vent or leave it outside lest you get hurt.”

“You know, you should retrain as a shrink. Honest to God,” said Gwen, doubling over into the first of her series of stretches.

Dwayne burst out laughing, a big rolling belly laugh that had Gwen smiling along.

“Nice diversion. True or false?”

“True. Shit’s flying around.” Gwen straightened up, eyed Dwayne right back.

“Work me hard, Dwayne. Make me strong. Help me to hurt someone if I need to. Really hurt them.” She spoke softly, her usual drawling intonation making her words strange and sinister.

Dwayne was unusually silent. He just stared right back at Gwen, pondering. “You sure you don’t want to talk about this.”

“Another time. Over a bottle of tequila.”

Dwayne nodded. “You can bring one to my housewarming. We’ll do it then.”

“You moved?”

“Got me a fixer-upper.” He smiled, breaking the tension, reeling off the address, an up-and-coming area on the outskirts of Monterey, with a first-time homeowner’s shy pride. “Move in next week.” His hands framed a shape in the air. “Got a big-ass peacock cut into my hedge!”

“That I
have
to see,” said Gwen.

“Any time, Boudy.” Dwayne paused, looked thoughtful again. “This hypothetical person you want to hurt…” he mused, hands on hips, gazing down at her. “Just to get it straight. You want to hurt them so bad they don’t get up again?”

Gwen nodded. “Call it a terminal pain.”

Dwayne glared at Gwen in a sudden flash of protective temper. “Jeez Boudy. What the fuck you got into?”

Gwen glared right back at him. “Don’t go there.”

Dwayne shook his head, a look not of refusal, but resignation.

“I’ll do what I can. You’re the strongest woman I ever met, Boudy, stronger than many men, but you know the score. You gotta be meaner and faster.”

“So help me get there.”

Dwayne danced back. “You ready?”

Gwen smiled. The remnants of her sedition, long buried, came bubbling up. Anger was a wonderful thing. And fear, channeled right.

“Oh yeah. I’m ready.”

*   *   *

Dwayne pushed her harder than he ever had. When they sparred he hit her hard, punished her for not deflecting or anticipating his blows. He was merciless, making her repeat again and again the new moves he was teaching her: the lethal moves—fingers to throat, chop to throat; the disabling moves—fingers to eyes, the kick to the side of the thigh, the kick to the knee, not terminal, but enough to bring your opponent to his knees, to buy you some time. When Gwen got them wrong, she had to hit the deck with twenty push-ups. She’d done over two hundred by the end of the hour. Bruised, muscles trembling, she felt near her limit when mercifully the timorous teenager she’d first seen three weeks ago pushed through the door and into the dojo.

“Charlie, my man!” called out Dwayne.

“Hey Charlie,” breathed out Gwen. “Perfect timing! I think you just saved me!”

The boy grinned, walked on over.

Dwayne greeted him with a gentle knuckle punch.

“I’ll just get changed,” said Charlie, flicking a sweet, shy smile at Gwen. She gave him a dazzler back. She pulled on a thick hoodie and flopped down on a bench.

“Dwayne, can I ask you a favor?” she said, still breathing hard. Her body ran with sweat. It dripped down her face. Her hair was soaked. It fell in tendrils to her waist. She looked, thought Dwayne, every inch Boudicca the warrior queen. He tossed her a towel. She rubbed her face in it. Dwayne sat down beside her.