But he would have to put up with it for a little longer. He could be patient. Let Rachel Kirby handle Tavak and dig the information out of him. Polk had called him an iceberg and Kirby had all the force of a Titanic waiting to happen. He'd just give them a chance to collide and destroy each other.
* * *
Rachel's phone rang as she was leaving Cairo customs.
Simon.
"What have you got for me, Simon?" she asked when she picked up.
"John Tavak, age thirty-eight, unmarried, no children. Born to an affluent upper-class family; father Randolph Tavak, stockbroker, mother Nancy Carter Tavak, socialite, jet-setter. Only child."
"And this is the son of a bitch who stole my processing cycles?"
"Almost certainly. Because it turns out Tavak is something of a phenomenon. He was a child prodigy whose IQ couldn't even be measured. He was taking classes at Harvard by the age of ten. His teachers said with proper guidance and encouragement, he could be another Einstein. His problem-solving ability was astonishing." He paused. "Infiltrating Jonesy and stealing our cycles must have been a piece of cake for him."
"It was not," Rachel said. "I don't care if he was a second Einstein, I made sure that it was almost impossible to do what he did. He would have had to work damn hard at it. And why would he want to do it anyway? If he had a background like that, why steal anything? He could make any amount of money he wanted."
"Sometimes money doesn't matter. Evidently it didn't to him. According to the report, his parents treated him like some kind of prize showpiece to display to friends and business clients. He got tired of it and walked away from the good life when he was eighteen and never looked back. He disappeared from the think tank where he was the star attraction and set out to taste the world. Or maybe I should say gobble it up. In the next five years he did everything from fighting as a mercenary in Africa to smuggling artifacts out of China."
"He has a criminal record?"
"No, only under suspicion. But the report from Interpol was pretty damn conclusive."
"Is he still smuggling?"
"Not for a long time." Simon hesitated. "Considering his later activities, I'd guess he got very bored during those first years. It might have been different experiences but not much challenge. Even as a kid he needed constant stimulation and was something of an adrenaline junkie. He was a mountain climber, into powerboat racing, a pi lot. At one time he made his living repossessing airplanes."
"What?"
"He was paid to repossess fighter planes for manufacturers that didn't receive payment from the third-world countries which had purchased them. Extremely risky since he had to sneak into military bases and literally steal the planes back."
"Crazy."
"And profitable. It pays upward of a million dollars a plane. But he only does that occasionally these days. Lately he's been working at solving archaeological and technical problems. He can read hieroglyphics and several other ancient scripts and has become something of an expert on antiquities. His focus is recovering lost or stolen objects, kind of a high-tech repo man."
"Like stealing those planes?"
"Not exactly. If a company buys a defense network and refuses to pay for it, Tavak finds a way to shut it down until the money is paid. He also tracks down priceless objects that may have been pilfered from museums and private owners during time of civil unrest and steals them back. Very lucrative, very dangerous."
"My God, he really is an adrenaline junkie."
"Without a doubt. Maybe you can use that. He's going to be difficult to handle. You're going to need all the firepower you can find."
"I'll handle him. I'll stick his ass in jail if he doesn't cooperate."
"Good luck. After I hang up, I'll send you a photo of Tavak."
"I'll be seeing him in person within the hour." She paused. "Have you heard from Dr. Carson at Allie's foundation?"
"Yes, but I probably shouldn't tell you what he said about that excerpt you sent him."
She tensed. "He thought it was bullshit?"
"No, he was thrilled. Off-the-charts excited. Remember that crushed 'bone of Horus' that was listed as a primary ingredient in the cure? Turns out that's what ancient Egyptians called magnetic lodestone. Just in the past couple of years, the University of Miami has come out with some research that suggests that magnetic nanoparticles, or MNPs, can stimulate growth in damaged central nervous system axons."
Rachel almost had to remind herself to breathe. "If this pans out, Peseshet may have been almost five thousand years ahead of her time."
"Maybe. But there's a lot more to her cure that we don't have. As you know, the body sends chemical signals to inhibit growth of damaged neurons in the central nervous system. But if her cure delivers what this tablet promises, she may have discovered a way to stop those chemical signals. It could be a combination of plant extracts, sediments, or who knows what. In any case, Carson wants more."
"I don't have more."
"That's what I told him. But I knew after you got Carson's input that you wouldn't stop until you did."
"You're damn right I won't." Hope. For the first time in years, a glimmer of hope in the distance. "Tell Carson to get back to me if he thinks he's got anything. Have you been in touch with Allie?"
"Yes, she said for you to call her so that she can tear you apart." He added, "And since I did the dirty deed and broke the news, you'd better do it. Someone else besides me needs to get it in the neck."
"I'll call her. Thanks, Simon."
"Call me if you need me." He hung up.
She stood there for a moment while the news Simon had given her sank in. Hope. Carson was brilliant and not prone to jumping on the bandwagon if there wasn't some basis for doing it. There was a possibility that what she was doing here wasn't completely irrational.
He wants more.
So did Rachel, and that need was a deep and terrible hunger.
All right, then start moving. Reach out and take what Allie needed.
She pressed the button to access the photo Simon had sent her. It was a snapshot of Tavak standing beside an airplane, dressed casually, dark hair ruffled by the wind. He looked younger than thirty-eight, she thought. He was tall and deeply tanned, with sun wrinkles at the corner of his eyes. His nose was too long, his lips too full, but his blue eyes glittered with life. He was not a handsome man, but the vitality and intelligence in his expression were almost mesmerizing.
High impact, she thought.
Everything about Tavak had been high impact since that first moment she had opened that e-mail.
Ignore it. She closed her phone and headed for the exit. It didn't matter if Tavak was a power house. She had met strong men before and stood toe-to-toe with them. Tavak would be no different.
FIVE
Rachel hesitated as she stood before the small house to which Norton's instructions had sent her.
Knock or just go inside and face the bastard?