The God Gene: A Novel Page 17

  He had just passed the post office when he heard the scrape of a shoe on the sidewalk behind him. He turned and saw a silhouetted figure pointing something at him. He started to cry out as a tepid stream splashed over his face and neck, some getting in his mouth. No taste but it felt oily on his tongue and his skin. He spat and wiped it away.

  “That’s right,” the figure spoke in English. “Smear it around, and get it on your hands as well. The more surface contact, the better.”

  Abilio recognized the voice. “Jeukens?”

  “Keep rubbing, Abilio. It will work quicker that way.”

  Quicker? What would work quicker?

  And then Abilio knew.

  “Ah, não! Não VX!”

  “Afraid so. You were right. And you’ve just been sprayed with it.”

  Abilio cried out but his tongue wouldn’t respond, and his throat seemed locked. His cheeks were bathed in sweat as the muscles of his face began to twitch.

  “I didn’t want to do this,” Jeukens said. “Truly, I didn’t. But you left me no choice.”

  Abilio retched, then vomited the water he’d drunk on the dhow ride over. His legs would no longer support him and he crumbled to the ground.

  Air! He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t draw air!

  “Your diaphragm is seizing up now, Abilio. It won’t be long. I didn’t want to hurt you. You seem like a good man. We could have gone our separate ways, but it’s just terribly bad luck that you recognized that canister. You must understand that I can’t risk you talking about it. Not when my work is so important.”

  Abilio’s vision was fading as Jeukens leaned over him.

  “Do you have any children? We never did get around to discussing family. Well, if you do, your children and your children’s children would understand. If they knew the holocaust I’ll be preventing, they might even thank me for silencing you.”

  The Afrikaner’s face faded as darkness roared in.

  SUNDAY

  May 22

  1

  MAPUTO, MOZAMBIQUE

  There he is, Amaury thought as he watched the bearded figure stride down the wharf. Still the Indiana Jones hat and his skinny arms sticking out of his sleeveless safari jacket. The black duffel on his shoulder looked new.

  “Bonjour,” Amaury said as Jeukens reached the Sorcière’s dock. “Right on time.”

  Jeukens seemed tense. He’d already glanced over his shoulder twice since he’d appeared.

  “Is something wrong, mon ami?”

  “What? No, nothing.”

  And now a third look back.

  “I was wondering whether you’d show.”

  Jeukens stared out over the channel where the as yet unseen sun was starting to ignite the horizon. “You said to be here at first light Sunday morning. Sunrise is six thirty, so here I am.”

  “Bon, let us get you aboard and settled.”

  Jeukens handed his duffel across, then stepped onto the deck.

  Amaury hefted the bag, surprised at the weight. “What do you have in here?”

  “A tent and food.”

  “We have tents and food.”

  “I didn’t know if you had a tent for me, and”—he winked—“I already know what your food is like.”

  Amaury laughed. “The more food, the better! As a matter of fact, my two helpers, Bakari and Razi, are in town stocking up. You will meet them soon.”

  Jeukens gestured to the two holding cages that crowded most of the aft deck space. “It appears you’re planning on bringing back a lot of the little creatures.”

  “Depends on how plentiful they are. I want to be prepared if we find a large colony.”

  “I’m willing to bet you’ll find more than you ever imagined. But where are the traps?”

  Amaury pointed toward the foredeck. “Up there, under that tarp. Live traps, of course. They fold flat for transport.”

  “Spring doors?”

  “Exactly. Designed to catch raccoon-size animals so they should have no problem holding our little primates.”

  “If I were you I’d worry less about their fitting inside and more about their staying in the trap until you can get them to your transport containers.”

  This bothered Amaury. “What do you mean?”

  “They’re smart and adaptable. They learn very quickly.”

  “Ah, but the cages are strong and the wire mesh is tight.”

  Jeukens was smiling. “We’ll see. You’re going to export all males at first, I assume?”

  A smart one, this Afrikaner.

  “Yes. Mostly. That leaves the females to continue breeding.”

  “And keeps your competitors from establishing their own breeding pairs, right?”

  “Exactly. Do you have a problem with that?”

  “Not at all.” Another wink. “And I don’t think the males you leave behind will have a problem with it either.”

  They both laughed at that, but the Afrikaner’s bonhomie was out of character. His smile seemed forced and faded quickly. Another glance back toward the city.

  “How much longer before we leave?”

  “As soon as my men get back. Not long. Is everything all right, mon ami?”

  “What? Yes, fine. I simply wish to be off. It’s been my dream to see those primates in their natural habitat, and we’re wasting time.”

  What was wrong with Jeukens? He looked as if the hounds of hell might be sniffing after him. What had happened since he left here Friday? Amaury had no idea, but he was sure it couldn’t have been good.

  2

  MANHATTAN, NEW YORK

  Laura glanced at her watch. The things were becoming obsolete, what with people using a phone as their primary timepiece, but she’d yet to join the iCult. She kept her phone in a pocket or her purse rather than adoringly clutched in her hand like a holy relic. Her watch read 2:11. Hari had set the meeting for two sharp.

  “Your mother’s late.”

  “Surprised?” Rick said, staring out Hari’s window at Twenty-second Street below.

  “She could be stuck in traffic.”

  “Yeah, probably it.” He turned and stepped toward her, a sardonic twist to his lips. “Sunday traffic is such a bitch in the city.”

  She understood what he was saying: Laura had breezed in from Long Island via the Queens-Midtown Tunnel, and Manhattan’s infamous crosstown traffic had been virtually nonexistent. She imagined Rick had had it just as easy from Westchester.

  “My, my, aren’t we crabby this morning.”

  “Speaking of crabs,” he said, “let’s check out Pokey.”

  Together they strolled toward the huge, virtually empty aquarium. Casey stood there with her back to them, feeding the crab.

  As they approached, Laura said softly, “When you mentioned ‘crab’ I expected another crack about your mother.”

  He grunted. “Guess I didn’t think of it. But this is just like Paulette. She’s the client so she knows Hari won’t start without her. The rest of us can just cool our jets and like it.”

  Laura shook her head. Rick had such a sore spot where Paulette was concerned. His moments with her were not his finest.

  “You know,” she said, “this meeting is all about her missing son.”

  “Exactly. So wouldn’t you think she’d be on time?”

  “Maybe she’s worried, maybe she’s afraid she’s going to hear something she’d rather not know.”

  Rick stared at her. Obviously he hadn’t thought of that. He nodded once and said, “Point taken.”

  They reached the tank with its sand, stones, and crystal clear water. Casey was feeding its single occupant, Pokey the blue crab, from the heel of a sub roll.

  “No tuna today?” Rick said.

  “Pokey eats pretty much anything,” Casey said, turning. “Especially loves carbs. Hey, you hear about Staten Island last night?”

  “How could I not?” Laura said. “It’s all over the news.” Fifty bodies shot, stabbed, and/or mutilated in some abandoned building i
n the kills. “The world’s gone mad.”

  “And then that toxin downtown?” she said, turning. “What’s going on?”

  Her straight blond hair and bangs were as platinum as ever. She was dressed in skinny jeans and a Midwich sweatshirt.

  “Wait a minute,” Rick said, pointing. “You’re kidding.”

  She grinned. “After you asked me if I was from Midwich I googled it and almost screamed when I saw the movie stills. Those village kids could have been Peter and me as children! Well, except for the glowing eyes. So I had to have a shirt made. Got one for Peter too. We wore them to a bar Thursday night and you wouldn’t believe how many people got it. And I’m thinking, why didn’t I get it when you said it?”

  Laura was about to ask what on Earth she was talking about when Paulette entered.

  “Sorry I’m late,” she said as she strode in. “The car service couldn’t find the house.”

  “Hail, hail, the gang’s all here,” Hari said, rising behind her desk. Her sari today was bright green. “Everybody take a seat and I’ll let Casey fill us in on what she’s discovered.”

  Paulette stopped in the middle of the room. “Nothing too bad, I hope.”

  Hari said, “Nothing directly about Keith, if that’s what you mean. This is only about the man who’s got his money.”

  Paulette looked relieved and Laura realized she’d been right about her being worried about her son.

  She sat on the loveseat and Rick and Laura each took a chair. Casey picked up a yellow legal pad from Hari’s desk and leaned against it as she began to speak.

  “I was finally able to track down the transfer from the Cayman account. It went to the Market Street branch of the First National Bank in Johannesburg. The account holder is named Marten Jeukens.” She looked around the room. “Anyone ever hear of him?”

  With a baffled expression, Paulette gave her head a vigorous shake. “Never. And I’m sure I’d remember a name like ‘Jeukens.’ Who is he? And how does someone from South Africa force my son to give him all his money? And what did he do to Keith?”

  “‘Who is he?’ is the most important,” Rick said. “Answer that one and we may not have to answer the rest.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Keith may have wanted to disappear and created a new identity named Marten…” He glanced at Hari. “What was that name?”

  “Jeukens. Think of ‘jukebox.’”

  “Right. Jeukens.”

  “I think I can help there,” Casey said. “Marten Jeukens is a real person.”

  “Oh, dear,” Paulette said, her lower lip trembling. “I was so hoping it would be Keith.”

  Laura’s heart went out to the older woman. The trail appeared to be coming to an end.

  Rick’s eyes were growing stony. “Details.”

  Casey said, “Well, I was able to cull a lot of information from the target account in First National. Once I snagged his tax number—the South Africa equivalent of a Social Security number—I was able to track him down.” She checked her yellow pad. “He’s forty-four years old, lives in a wealthy Cape Town suburb with his wife of seventeen years and two daughters.”

  Cape Town … Laura remembered watching footage of great whites chasing seals down there during Shark Week. But … “If I remember, Johannesburg is a long way from Cape Town.”

  “I was just about to bring that up,” Casey said. “And you’re right. Something like nine hundred miles. But we’re talking a lot of money.”

  “Got anything else?” Rick said.

  Casey consulted her pad again. “Well, he’s got no criminal record and he’s well off: owns a company called Jeukens Plastic Extrusion Molding. It makes what are described as ‘plastic tube enclosures.’”

  “Meaning?”

  Casey was smiling when she looked up. “He makes those little caps for toothpaste and other tubes. And he sells a ton of them.”

  “Bullshit!” Rick said.

  “I’m not kidding. Hey, somebody’s got to make them.”

  “Not that.” Rick shot to his feet. “The idea that this is a guy who could reach damn near halfway around the world to force Keith to liquidate his assets and send the cash to him.” He shook his head. “Uh-uh. Doesn’t wash.”

  The same thought had been running through Laura’s head. “I agree. He sounds like a stable, upstanding member of the middle class. What possible connection to Keith?”

  “He’s sure as heck not hiding,” Casey said. “I found an entry for him on LinkedIn.” She turned to Hari. “You should still have the link on your screen.”

  “Yep … za.linkedin.com—got it.” She clicked her mouse, then turned her monitor around. “There he is: Marten Jeukens.”

  Laura saw a completely bald man with a full beard and intense eyes.

  “He doesn’t look very dangerous.”

  “But he’s got Keith’s money,” Paulette said, “and so he must know where he is.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Casey said slowly. “About the money…”

  Uh-oh, Laura thought. Now what?

  “Yes,” Hari said, taking the lead. “There’s only fifty thousand left in the account. More than ten times that amount was transferred in seven weeks ago.”

  “Where did it go?” Paulette’s tone was alarmed.

  “We don’t know yet,” Casey said. “I was only able to access the daily totals in the account, not where the money went, but the total diminished by varying amounts every business day until it hit fifty k, then it stabilized.”

  “How?” Rick said. “In-person withdrawals, wire transfers, checks?”

  “I can’t say yet. There’s a credit card attached to the account but I haven’t been able to access it.”

  Paulette rose and began to wander the office. “This is so frustrating!”

  “I know,” Hari said, her tone soothing, “but we know so much more now than we did yesterday. We have a name, a place, a face.”

  Paulette stopped her pacing and faced the room. “But we don’t have Keith.”

  “And we still don’t know why,” Rick added, pulling his notepad from a pocket. “Made a timeline that might help. According to his assistant, Keith ran Mozi’s genome on February twenty-fourth. According to Hari—correct me if I’m wrong—he started liquidating on March second, right?”

  Hari was nodding. “Right. That was the start.”

  “So, less than a week after being spooked by Mozi’s genome, he starts his sell-off.”

  “And three weeks later,” Hari said, “on March twenty-third to be exact, he finished. All his liquid assets had been converted to cash.”

  Rick said, “Okay, on March thirtieth, a week after everything’s in cash, he shows up at the Schelling primatarium with Mozi, dead of a broken neck. March thirty-first he makes a trip home and dumps her ashes into the sound. April first he and his money are gone. So, Mozi dies and forty-eight hours later he walks out of his office and is never seen again.”

  “That monkey and Keith’s disappearance,” Paulette said. “I’ve always said there’s a connection.”

  Rick nodded. “And I’m sure you’ll say it again soon. But consider the timing: If we assume someone was pressuring him for a payoff—forcing him to liquidate all those assets for whatever reason—maybe that someone killed Mozi as a convincer, a preemptive strike to show Keith how serious he was.”

  Hari said, “You think it shook Keith up so much he ran?”

  “Or maybe it ticked him off to the point where he told whoever to shove it and they, um, dealt with him.”

  Laura noticed Paulette’s stricken expression and said, “Maybe we should ratchet down the speculation.”

  After a few heartbeats of silence, Rick looked Paulette’s way. “You told me his strange parting remarks when you last saw him. Tell me again, with his exact wording.”

  “I’ll never forget them. He said, ‘I’m being backed into something I would have considered inconceivable just weeks ago.’”

  Hari said, “Well, if t
hat doesn’t sound like coercion, I don’t know what does.”

  Rick said, “Do we know where this Jeukens lives?”

  “The only address the bank has is a Cape Town post office box,” Casey said.

  “What about his toothpaste cap factory?”

  “That we have—it’s in the LinkedIn entry.”

  “Write that down for me, will you? Looks like I’ll be headed to Cape Town.” His expression turned grim. “Got a few questions for Mister Marten Jeukens.”

  That sounded like trouble to Laura … trouble for Rick as well as the mysterious Jeukens.

  “Do you think that’s such a good idea?” she said.

  He shrugged. “Got a better one?”

  She didn’t, but she’d damn well work on one.

  3

  SHIRLEY, NEW YORK

  Laura had banished Rick to the family room with Marissa where they were catching the end of the first game of a Mets doubleheader. She’d retreated to her office and its computer.

  They’d argued all the way home from Hari’s office, but she’d finally prevailed: He wasn’t going to Cape Town alone; she was coming along. She’d used all the basic arguments of two heads being better than one, how she’d act as his Gal Friday and his sounding board.

  She didn’t give him the real reason: that he’d need her along for protection. Not from any external threat—he was eminently qualified to handle that. No, he needed someone to protect him from himself.

  Rick had become emotionally invested in finding his brother. That was fine when operating from afar, but it could cloud his judgement when he reached South Africa.

  She’d volunteered to book the flights. He might book only one seat if she left it up to him.

  She heard someone enter the office behind her.

  “How’s it going?” Rick said.

  “The best time to Cape Town out of JFK is nineteen hours via South African Airways.”

  He gave a low whistle. “All nineteen in the air?”

  “Mostly, except for a layover in Johannesburg. No nonstops. In all your travels, you’ve never been to South Africa?”