Birth of an Age Read online

  There was silence on the other end of the phone.

  “Bob, are you there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What should I do? Should I accept?”

  “Well,” Milner said cautiously, “this is a little ahead of schedule . . . but yes! Accept! Accept!”

  “Great,” Christopher responded softly. There was no indication of celebration in his voice, only acceptance of responsibility.

  “I just wish Alice could be here to see this day.”

  “So do I, Bob,” Christopher said sympathetically. “When will you be back in New York?”

  “I’ll have to change a few plans, but I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  “Okay. I’ll see you then.” Christopher hung up the phone.

  Decker smiled. “Like I said, do it quick, before they change their minds!”

  * * * * *

  Christopher returned to the Security Council Chamber, and as acting president called the meeting back to order. As expected, the vote was unanimous. Decker looked around the inner circle at the primary members of the Council and considered what had prompted each to vote as they had. He knew of each of the healings — that explained at least some of the votes. To Christopher’s right was Ambassador Ngordon, whom he had healed from locust stings. Next was Kruszkegin, whom Decker surmised simply felt as he had stated in his nominating remarks — that the UN needed a full-time secretary-general and that Christopher was a qualified candidate upon whom his colleagues could agree. Two of the other primaries were closely associated with the Lucius Trust, which no doubt figured into their support. Then there was Ambassador Rashid, who, like Ngordon, had been healed by Christopher, as had the wife of Ambassador Toréos, and the granddaughter of Ambassador Tanaka. Still, that left two for whom Decker had no clear explanation for their vote beyond the fact that Christopher had worked with each of them and was highly regarded by all.

  There was, however, one other factor involved: the most recent prophecies of John and Cohen. There was no denying the magnitude or clarity of their threat: they had foretold the slaughter of one-third of humanity. Still, men and women of authority have difficulty dealing with anything that challenges the perception of reality upon which their power is based. So it was in the UN Security Council. Certainly no one would willingly admit that in part their decision to nominate Christopher was based on fear of the two Israelis. Nor would they admit to making a decision based on an irrational feeling that only Christopher could lead the world out of — or at least through — what it faced. But neither could they deny that the prophecies of John and Cohen had to this point been entirely accurate and therefore would probably continue to be so.

  “Fellow members of the Security Council,” Christopher began when the room finally quieted after the vote, “it seems to me that the problem with this nomination is that the honor is accompanied by the opportunity to fail and to come out looking like a fool when the vote is put before the whole body.” The comment drew appropriate smiles and a few laughs from the members and observers. “Given that fact, and the late hour, I believe I should save any speeches for the General Assembly. Therefore, in the simplest of terms: I accept your nomination.”

  * * * * *

  Gerard Poupardin sat alone in his apartment, consumed by rage. The news reports of Christopher’s nomination echoed tauntingly in his mind. Following Albert Faure’s death, Poupardin had remained on the staff with the new French ambassador, but it wasn’t the same. He missed the excitement of serving a member of the Security Council. The new French ambassador, in his position as just one of more than two hundred UN members, seemed nauseatingly impotent compared to Faure. But that was the least of it.

  The committee investigating Albert Faure’s participation in the events leading up to the tragic conclusion of the China-India-Pakistan War had discovered no evidence that implicated Gerard Poupardin. Indeed, beyond Faure’s own confession just before he died, little hard evidence could be found even to implicate Faure. Still, it was painfully clear to Poupardin that the new French ambassador was uncomfortable about having Albert Faure’s former chief-of-staff serving as his own.

  Poupardin wasn’t concerned about his job; that, at least, was secure. International labor laws made it extremely difficult to fire anyone without being able to prove either gross incompetence or a definitive pattern of flagrant negligence. Instead, the new French ambassador had diffused Poupardin’s power by shifting many of his responsibilities to other staff members. In the end, Poupardin was chief-of-staff in name only. All-important decisions were made either by the ambassador himself or by staff committee.

  Poupardin also missed the closeness he had shared with Faure. From the very beginning, Poupardin had known that Faure was heterosexual. At first that had made his relationship with Faure even more exciting. He had no doubt that Faure enjoyed the sexual part of their relationship, but as time passed he had hoped for more. He wanted Faure’s love. But that had never come. Poupardin had hidden his disappointment from Faure and, as much as possible, from himself. At times he had suspected that Faure used the relationship simply to buy his loyalty, but Gerard had never dared confront him with the suspicion.

  When Faure died, that suspicion became moot and in the intervening months Poupardin forgot it entirely. Two years later, as he looked back at their relationship, he was fully convinced that Faure had loved him deeply, in his own way. Now, the thought of Christopher Goodman — the very man who had caused Faure’s death — rising to the post that Albert Faure had coveted for himself, and that Poupardin had so coveted for him, filled him with disgust.

  For a moment Poupardin thought back to a fantasy he had played through his mind time and again before Faure’s tragic and untimely death. Actually, it was more a plan than a simple fantasy, which had made it all the more arousing. He had worked out every detail. It would be on the night after Faure took office as secretary-general: a private party of mutual congratulation. Poupardin would lock the door to the office as he had so many times before, but this time it would be the office of the secretary-general of the United Nations. Under his clothes Poupardin would be wearing the most seductive outfit Faure had ever seen him in. That part he was sure of: he had already bought it. Now it hung, unused in his closet.

  Slowly Gerard Poupardin began to understand what he must do.

  Christopher Goodman must die.

  Chapter 13

  The Avenger of Blood

  Nine days later

  New York

  The vote by the General Assembly was set for two weeks after Christopher’s nomination to allow sufficient time for the nominee to meet with the caucuses of each of the world’s ten regions. Immediately before the vote, Christopher was to address the United Nations and the world from the Hall of the General Assembly at UN headquarters in New York. He had his own speechwriters who participated, but for something this important it made sense to take advantage of Decker’s experience and skill.

  Decker’s availability, however, was limited by his own responsibilities. His staff was certainly capable of handling the media requests for background information on Christopher as well as questions on the process and procedures of electing a new secretary-general. But because Decker had raised Christopher since he was fourteen, the media insisted on talking to Decker directly. After all these years working with the press, Decker was surprised to find it a heady experience. He had been in literally thousands of press conferences over the years, but this was different. Except for the time after he and Tom Donafin escaped from Lebanon, he had always been writing about, or a spokesman for, someone else. Now he was answering for himself.

  Decker had returned to his office after completing just such a meeting with the press when Christopher arrived.

  “Good morning, Mr. Secretary-General,” Decker said.

  “Careful,” Christopher said. “You’re liable to jinx it for me.”

  “Just practicing,” Decker replied.

  Christopher let it pass. “I just got
the most recent draft of the speech,” he said. “Are you available to go over it with me?”

  “Absolutely,” Decker answered, though he already had as much work as he could possibly handle. “Let’s take a look.” They sat down and were just about to begin when Decker noticed Christopher yawning.

  “You want some coffee before we start?” Decker asked.

  “That would be great.”

  Decker asked one of his secretarial staff to bring coffee. Christopher was yawning again. “Have you been getting enough sleep?”

  “It’s been pretty tough the last several nights,” Christopher answered.

  “You’re not nervous, are you?”

  “No. Just um—”

  “Because, there’s no reason to be. Polls of the membership indicate a very strong vote in your favor.”

  “That’s good, but it’s what happens afterward that concerns me. In the desert, my father told me that only when I understood the full truth about myself would it be time for me to rule.” Christopher shook his head. “I don’t think I know anymore now than I did then. Maybe we’ve jumped the gun on this. Maybe Bob was wrong; maybe I should have refused the nomination until I was sure it was the right time.”

  Decker thought for a moment; it wasn’t easy to offer meaningful encouragement in such a situation. “Maybe the election will act as the catalyst to reveal whatever it is that you don’t yet understand.” It was not a very convincing suggestion. “Anyway,” Decker continued after a moment, “it won’t do you any good to lose sleep over it.”

  “Yeah,” Christopher agreed, “but how do you control your dreams?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Christopher exhaled audibly. “It’s that crazy dream about the box. You probably don’t remember. I think the last time I had it was the night that the warheads exploded over Russia. That was nearly twenty years ago.”

  “I remember you had a dream that woke you up that night.”

  Christopher sighed and shook his head. “The dream is weird enough by itself, but I have a strange feeling about it. It’s like I dreamed it long ago, not just twenty years ago, but maybe even when I was Jesus.” He shrugged and continued. “I’m in a room surrounded by immense heavy curtains decorated with gold and silver threads. The floor is made of stone and in the middle of the room is a table with an old wooden box. I feel compelled to look inside, but at the same time I seem to know that there’s something terrifying. I look down and suddenly the floor has disappeared. I start to fall, but I manage to grab the table the box is sitting on. After a minute my hands slip. Then I hear this really creepy laughter.”

  “And you dreamed this again last night?” Decker asked.

  “Every night since the nomination.”

  There was a long pause as Decker tried to find some clue of the dream’s meaning and searched for something comforting to say.

  Christopher continued. “But while I wonder if I might have acted too soon on the nomination, I’m also concerned that I might have already waited too long.” He shook his head, conveying not puzzlement but distress. “Whatever it is that John and Cohen have in mind for their next curse will occur very, very soon — within days. And I am absolutely certain that whatever it is, it will far eclipse all that they’ve done so far.”

  Five days later

  It was the day of Christopher Goodman’s address to the General Assembly, and Gerard Poupardin had called in sick. Scanning the English and French news sites, he agonized as he watched and read stories about Christopher through the stale cigarette smoke that filled the air. Around him on the floor of his usually immaculate apartment were dozens of articles about Christopher. Poupardin hardly moved as he smoked a cigarette nearly down to the filter and then snuffed out the butt in a saucer that served as an ashtray. These days the art of smoking was lost to all but a few devotees of old movies, and ashtrays were sold primarily as novelties in antique shops. Smoking was prohibited in all public and multi-resident buildings, but the windows were closed and by the time anyone noticed, it wouldn’t matter. Poupardin had not tried smoking since he was a teenager and was shocked to find that the price was now about twenty-six international dollars a pack. Still, it was a small price to pay to soothe his nerves. And besides, he would soon have little use for money.

  He easily could have gone to a drugstore and picked up something stronger and certainly cheaper than the cigarettes — almost everything was legal as long as a doctor or med-tech had authorized it and it wasn’t used while driving or operating heavy equipment. With a diplomatic passport, even these requirements and obstacles disappeared. But Poupardin needed to be alert, in full control of his faculties. He would have only one opportunity to accomplish the task he had set for himself.

  Taking another cigarette from the pack, he saw it was his last. His calculations were a bit off: The pack should have lasted at least another twenty minutes. Now he was left with only one cigarette and he still had twenty minutes to kill. He decided to take a long hot shower and start getting ready. He would save the last cigarette for later. For now, he returned it to the pack and set it down on the table next to the .38-caliber snub-nosed pistol he had purchased two days earlier.

  * * * * *

  Decker sat in his office re-reading Christopher’s speech for the umpteenth time. He felt a bit like a novice again, worrying about each word, reading the speech aloud to make sure the words flowed easily off the tongue and gently into the ear of the listener, while conveying both sincerity and conviction. He hadn’t made any changes in the last three times he had read it, but decided to read it once more just to be sure.

  As he began the final final read, the intercom line buzzed. “Mr. Hawthorne,” said a woman’s voice.

  “Yes?” Decker answered without looking away from the speech.

  “I’m sorry to disturb you.”

  “That’s all right, Jody. What is it?”

  “There’s a call from Security in the visitors lobby. There’s a man there asking to see you. I explained that you were busy and that he’d need to make an appointment, but he says he’s a friend of yours. He was pretty insistent.”

  “I’m not expecting anyone. Did he say his name?”

  “Mr. Donovan.”

  Decker thought for a moment. “I don’t think I know anyone by that name. Did he say what he wanted to see me about?”

  “No, sir. Just that he was a friend of yours and he wanted to see you. Shall I tell him you’re not available?”

  “No,” he answered, reluctantly. “Go ahead and patch the call in here to me.”

  “Yes, sir,” she answered, and a second later the phone rang.

  “This is Decker Hawthorne.”

  “Yes, sir. This is Johnson with Security in the visitors lobby. There’s a Mr. Tom Donafin here to see you.”

  Decker fell suddenly silent.

  “Sir?” the guard said after a moment, not sure Decker was still there.

  “Donafin?” Decker asked. His secretary had said “Donovan.”

  “Yes, sir,” the guard responded. “Would you spell that, please?” Decker heard the security guard ask the man to spell his name, and in response, heard a voice that nearly stopped his heart.

  “D – O – N—” the security guard began to echo.

  “I’ll be right there,” Decker interrupted and hung up the phone. He reached the elevator at a full run. It was only then, as he tapped his foot nervously on the floor while waiting for the elevator, that he realized this couldn’t be happening. Tom Donafin was dead! He died in Israel on the first day of the last Arab-Israeli war. The elevator arrived and Decker stepped on, utterly confused by what was happening. He was too deep in thought to do anything but that to which his momentum compelled him.

  As the elevator descended the thirty-eight stories to the ground, Decker quickly tried to consider every possible explanation. It couldn’t be a relative. Tom didn’t have any. It might be someone with the same name, but that wouldn’t explain the voice or why the man
identified himself as a friend. If Decker had met someone else named Tom Donafin, he surely would have remembered. Was his mind playing tricks on him? Or could this whole thing be just a dream? Could someone be playing a sick joke? No, he decided, there was no one he knew now who had even known Tom Donafin. Besides, no one he knew would be that sadistic. In rapid succession Decker ran through every possibility, speeding toward the conclusion he desperately wanted to reach, but fearing his hopes would be dashed by some completely logical explanation he had overlooked along the way. He realized it simply wasn’t possible to summarily eliminate all of the other explanations, and so he took another approach.

  Could it really be Tom Donafin? Decker replayed in his mind the circumstances of Tom’s death. Tom’s car was hit by a stray air-to-air missile; there were no survivors. The force of the explosion had so completely demolished and incinerated the car that there were no remains. . . . Could Tom have escaped the explosion?

  Just as the elevator stopped on the first floor and the door opened, Decker was hit with one solid piece of evidence that he had thus far overlooked: It had been nearly twenty years. If Tom were alive, he would certainly have contacted Decker long before this. The conclusion was as clear as it was deflating to his hope: Despite the visitor’s name, despite the apparent similarity to Tom’s voice, Tom was dead.

  Decker took a deep breath and stepped from the elevator. For a moment he just stood there, unsure of what to do. He leaned against a wall and realized he was shaking and his heart was racing. He thought of going back, but the urge to go on was still there, and he was still curious. Besides, Johnson at Security was expecting him.

  Walking through the halls from the Secretariat Building to the General Assembly Building, Decker tried to put the brief confusion behind him and hoped only that this wouldn’t be a total waste of his time. As he came to the visitors lobby, he forced his thoughts back to the wording of Christopher’s speech. There were still a couple things he thought might be said more compellingly. There was the issue of . . . He scanned the faces and profiles of those near the front security desk. There was no one there he recognized.