Apocalypse Island (39 page)

“It wouldn’t be the first time,” Laura said. “For centuries churches have been held hostage by governments. Why do you think they’re even allowed to exist?”

“Freedom of religion?”

“Come on, Danny, those are just words. Churches have to exist within the framework of governments, just like everyone else. And church officials are not immune to corruption.”

Laura grabbed her computer case and extracted the laptop, put it down on the coffee table and turned it on. When the screen lit up she typed in a few key words and a picture came up. It was of a sooty brick Victorian building framed against a wooded hillside. On the face of the building all the way up to the fourth floor, someone had painted a jagged red cross. “Recognize this, Danny boy?”

Wolf squinted at the image on the screen. “Yeah, it’s where our band’s pictures were taken. The same place the band took their earlier photos with Johnny Redman.”

“He was the band’s original singer, right?”

“Yeah, he’s dead. I didn’t know him well. I was in prison when he got murdered.”

“Did you know that his murder was never solved?”

Wolf shook his head. “I told you, I didn’t know him.”

“You know where the idea for the logo came from?”

“The guys said it was Johnny’s. They said he was real passionate about it. We went over to the island one day not long after I joined the band. We took along a photographer and spent most of the day there shooting pictures. The place gave me the creeps.”

“Why do you think the band wanted to keep the original logo?”

“Mike said it’s what Johnny would have wanted. He said he didn’t want to jinx the band by going behind Johnny’s back and doing something totally different.”

“Going behind Johnny’s back? You know how weird that sounds?”

“I just thought they were being loyal.”

“To a dead guy? Something doesn’t smell right.”

Wolf shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you.”

“You know what these ruins are?”

“Some old burned out building.”

“It’s what’s left of the orphanage,” Laura said. “It’s where you became a pawn for the CIA, Danny boy.”

Wolf felt something inside him start to unravel.

“What are the chances of it being coincidence?” Laura said. “Someone painted that big red cross on it for a reason.”

“I don’t think the guys in the band knew,” Wolf said. “If they did they didn’t say anything.”

“Are you sure about that, Danny?”

Wolf’s gaze went from the image on the computer screen back to the window and the darkness beyond, his unease amplifying. “No. Suddenly I’m not sure of anything anymore.”

“I think Johnny Redman knew,” Laura said. “I think he knew everything and I think he was murdered because of what he knew.”

“What the hell does Johnny Redman have to do with it?” But even as Wolf mouthed the words he saw some of the children in his mind’s eye. Deep inside the bowels of a secret facility he saw them huddled closely together, frightened like condemned animals, holding one another, feeling something unnatural working in them, changing them. He remembered the doctors and the technicians and the strange blue light that never went away.

Yes, he was beginning to remember. The children were his friends, his brothers, his sisters, and together they had suffered a terrible ordeal, bonded by something greater than them all. Now he was seeing their faces and reciting their names in his head. It was all coming at him like an out-of-control locomotive. “Oh, shit, you’re right, Laura. I think I might have known him. Jesus, Johnny
was
there. And Sam and Shaun...and all the rest...”

Chapter 96

Cavanaugh’s house was a neatly kept ornate Victorian on Munjoy Hill with a view of Portland Harbor. Jennings pulled up in front and got out of the car. The place was in total darkness and there were no cars in the yard.

Jennings went to the door and knocked anyway. Maybe he and Kate had reconciled and she was at home. He didn’t really believe that, but he had to do something. He had to
believe
something.

He put his finger on the doorbell and heard a series of chimes from within the house. He waited, but there was no answer. The front door had sidelight windows. Jennings shielded his face from the streetlights behind him and peered through the glass. He stared for a long time, his eyes adjusting to the house’s dark interior.

“What the hell?” he said, his breath quickening, his blood freezing in his veins. At the end of the long entrance corridor there was a door that led into the living room. Jennings knew this because he’d spent a considerable amount of time here over the years. The door was open and Jennings could see all the way through the living room to the far wall. Something didn’t look right.
Christ, it can’t be.
It has to be an optical illusion.
He squinted, trying to make sure he wasn’t seeing what he thought he was seeing. Damn, he couldn’t be certain.  He tried the door latch. It was locked. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, wrapped it around his hand and punched his fist through the window closest to the lock. He reached in, unlocked the door and let himself in. Making his way down the corridor, his eyes fixed on the unsettling sight at the end.

Chapter 97

The phone on the stand beside the couch began to ring, the sound shrill and accusing. Wolf sat straight up on the couch, its noise shattering the trance-like state he’d fallen into. Laura eyed the phone with horror. “Christ,” she said. “Not now.”

“I thought you said nobody knew where we were,” Wolf said.

“Nobody does.”

“Then why is the phone ringing?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s spam. Let it ring. We need to talk about what you just remembered.” Laura was staring transfixed at the phone, her sweaty hands wringing in her lap. Wolf’s heart rate was rising rapidly.

Finally the phone stopped ringing and an answering machine picked up. A robotic voice asked the caller to leave a message. Laura sighed in relief.

A static-filled voice that sounded like it was being broadcast from some distant galaxy whispered the words,
“Cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in my eye.”

Wolf’s body convulsed as if it had been struck by a cattle prod, the movement nearly tumbling him from the couch.

“Danny?” Laura said. “For Christ’s sake, what the hell’s happening to you?”

Wolf is no longer in the room with Laura and therefore he cannot hear what she is saying. His eyes have rolled back in his head and he is looking inward at a time in his life best forgotten. In his trance he sees the interior of a very large room. The room has sterile white walls and very bright blue lights.

He is naked and lying on his back on an examination table, his arms and legs immobilized by restraints. The examination table is equipped with sensors and diodes and monitors and tons of other electronic equipment, all of it far too sophisticated for an eight-year-old boy to comprehend. Some sort of device has been inserted into his mouth to prevent him from swallowing his tongue and his head has been rendered immobile by a neck brace. There are electrodes attached to his head in a multitude of places and still more electrodes have been taped in strategic places on his body, their wires running back to a large portable monitor panel beside him.

The center of the large room is dominated by a smaller, dome-shaped object that in itself is quite imposing. The object is surrounded by oval windows, and Wolf sees that the nearly blinding blue light is emanating from within the object. Also there is a ceaseless low-frequency hum similar to that of a running engine, but different somehow. Although Wolf’s experience is limited, considering his age, it is a sound like none other that he’s ever heard. 

There are several men in Wolf’s field of vision and they are all wearing sunglasses. Above him stands a man who wears the familiar robe and white collar of a priest. And even though the priest is wearing sunglasses, he recognizes him as Father Patrick Byrne. Another of the men wears a dark suit with his shirt collar open and his tie hanging askew. He is a harried looking young man, tall and thin, with bushy red hair and a freckled face, and he paces constantly as he nervously combs the splayed fingers of his right hand through his hair. A second man also wears a business suit. He is shorter than the first man and has close-cropped sandy hair and a tanned complexion. Wolf knows him as Boss Man, because that is what all his subordinates call him.

A third man crosses Wolf’s line of sight, and he recognizes him immediately. He is a much younger version of Dr. Hardwick. This revelation is so shocking that a series of painful and powerful contractions ripple through his body.

“Danny!” Laura cried. Wolf had just slipped from the couch and was lying on the floor twitching with spasms, eyes rolled back in his head with only the whites visible.

Although Wolf does not actually hear Laura, not in the physical sense, somewhere deep inside his psyche he is acutely aware of her presence. He realizes that he is somehow occupying two totally separate planes of existence simultaneously. He understands that he is a man in his mid-thirties in a house on a lake with a beautiful policewoman, but he also knows that somehow he has been transported back more than twenty-five years to a time in his life he had completely forgotten about.

As his trance-state deepens Wolf sees that the room’s sterile walls are lined with work stations. Atop the stations rest a variety of sophisticated-looking electronic equipment. Sitting in front of computer monitors working keyboards are a variety of technicians wearing white lab coats and the ever-present sunglasses.

The man Wolf recognizes as a young Dr. Hardwick has just filled a syringe with liquid from a small medical vial. As he depresses the plunger, a small amount of the liquid shoots through the air in a silvery arc. Now he moves toward Wolf with the needle.

“Okay to go, Boss Man?” he asks, and the short man with sandy hair nods.

Several other people in white lab coats have gathered around the table to watch. Dr. Hardwick insert the needle into Wolf’s neck, directly into the carotid artery, and in just a few short seconds Wolf feels pain like he never thought possible. It is as if liquid fire is pumping through his veins. He writhes against his restraints and tries to scream, but his throat is nearly closed and he is unable to make a sound. Soon even his struggling ceases as his system succumbs to the drug’s dark influence. A trap door opens up in his mind as he begins to experience something he can scarcely believe.

“We’ve got something here,” one of the technicians says excitedly. He is staring intently at his monitor. “Holy shit, this is amazing. Look at this kid’s vitals. He’s the best one so far.”

“Well, it’s about time,” says Boss Man. He moves closer to the table and stares down at Wolf. “Maybe we’re finally getting somewhere. Danny, can you see into the light? Is the light communicating in any way with you? Is the light talking to you?”

“No!” Wolf fires back in reply, but he is lying. He has to lie. The light does not want him to reveal what he knows about it because he believes if the children give these men what they want they will no longer have any use for them. He doesn’t know why this irrational thought is plaguing him, but he suspects it is coming from the light.

“Are you sure the light’s not talking to you, Danny?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

“I don’t believe you, Danny. I know you know what that thing is. You know why it’s here and what it wants. You see it, you understand its purpose. You’re connected to it, aren’t you?”

“Noooo!” Wolf screams. The pain is now so severe that he nearly loses consciousness.

“You’re lying!” the man says angrily. “You are a little troublemaker and if I don’t hear the truth from you soon I will punish the other children.”

“It will kill you,” the child says, and his voice is cold, eerily calm. “Some day the light will kill you for what you’ve done here.”

“How do you know that?”

“I just do.”

For a long moment Boss Man stares curiously down at the child. Finally he says, “You’re just making that up, you clever little bastard.”

“Are you sure about that?” Father Byrne asks.

“All right then,” Boss Man says. “If that’s how he wants to play this.” He spins around and speaks to one of the techs, “Ramp it up all the way!” His voice is filled with carefully controlled fury. Wolf stiffens, his body pressing painfully against his restraints as the technician obeys the order and sends what feels like a high voltage stream of electricity surging through his body. Wolf’s brain squeals in intense pain. His heart is beating so wildly that he believes it will actually punch a hole out through his chest and skip across the floor.

Beside him the bank of electronic equipment is beeping crazily with noise.

“Stop this!” Father Byrne shrieks. “You’re killing him. Can’t you see he’s had enough! I will not allow this to continue!”

“I’m afraid you don’t have a choice, priest,” says Boss Man. “I’m in charge of this facility, and my orders are quite clear. If you cannot stand to witness what goes on in this laboratory then I suggest you get the hell out.”

“This is not a laboratory, it’s a torture chamber,” the priest rails. “I’m here to monitor the treatment of these children, and I do not like any of this!”

“These are not children,” Boss Man shoots back. “These are test subjects. Property of the United States Government.”

“You’re crazy,” says the priest. “You’ve gone crazy with power.”

“Shut up, Byrne. I’m tired of listening to your shit, and I’m not going to warn you again.”