Biblical (7 page)

“Everything’s going to be fine, my son,” said Father Mullachy.

“You don’t understand, Paul,” said Gabriel and his voice was suddenly clearer, more determined. “We are becoming. We are becoming.”

“We are becoming what?” the priest frowned.

Macbeth realized he had seen it first. Everyone else was involved in his allocated role while Macbeth was simply an observer. And he observed. He observed the sudden shift in Gabriel’s demeanor; he observed the sudden animation in the until then emotionless face and gestureless body.

“You see, Father Paul,” said Gabriel, “all your life you’ve been asking the wrong question. You’ve been asking
who
God is. There is no who. There is no who or what or where. The truth is knowing
when
God is. I know when God is. We are becoming … We are becoming …” Gabriel, smiling, stepped forward and embraced the young priest in a bear hug. “Come and see …”

By now, Corbin was running towards them, the two cops and Macbeth behind him. They all froze as Gabriel, his arms still locked around Mullachy, hurled himself and the priest sideways.

The low crenellated parapet that edged the roof caught both men mid-calf and they toppled sideways over the edge and out of sight: Gabriel silent, Mullachy screaming in primal terror.

Josh Hoberman sat in the back of the black car and felt sick.

As they cruised along the long track to the road, he watched the dark velvet of the trees swallow up his home and douse the porch light he had forgotten to switch off. The track to the main road was unpaved and Hoberman had bought an SUV to make the daily trip from his home to the rail station where he made the thrice-weekly commute to his clinic in DC. The rest of the week he worked at home, in isolation. The Crown Vic’s suspension evened out the bumps and ruts in the road into gentler lunges and lurches, and the turbulence was mirrored in Hoberman’s gut.

“Where are we going?” he asked Roesler, who sat in the rear with him, the other two agents suited, silent ciphers in the front. Why had they sent three agents?

“I guess you’re going to DC, sir, but I wouldn’t know for sure,” said Roesler with the same perfunctory politeness. Hoberman realized that to Roesler he was a package for delivery, nothing more. “We’re only taking you as far as Culpeper airbase. You’re being picked up by helicopter there.”

“To go to Washington? It’s only an hour and a half by car …”

“I really don’t know where your final destination is, Professor Hoberman. I guess they’ll be able to better inform you at Culpeper.”

They were on the main highway now and Hoberman sat back in the leather and reflected on the nature of inherited memory
and cultural memes. Hoberman was a Jew collected in the middle of the night by armed government officials who wouldn’t tell him where his final destination lay; the grandson of a long-dead Jew collected in the middle of the night by armed government officials who wouldn’t tell him where his final destination lay.

The rest of the half-hour journey was silent other than when the suit in the front seat made a call to say they were ‘nearing rendezvous’. Hoberman was only mildly surprised to see that Culpeper Regional Airport was closed at that time of night, but the security man gave a small salute and let the car pass through the gates.

Gleaming under the airfield lights like some giant beetle, a large black helicopter sat on the runway, rotors already slugging into motion as the car pulled up. Roesler and one of the other agents guided Hoberman with irresistible courtesy beneath the swish of blades to where steps led up to the door. The man standing framed in the doorway was casually dressed in a black short-sleeve polo shirt, light-colored cargo pants and an overdone smile.

“Professor Hoberman?” He extended his hand and his smile. “Thanks for coming at such an ungodly hour. I’m Agent Bundy. Let’s get you comfortable.”

“Bundy?”

“No relation …” the secret serviceman said automatically, still smiling amiably, and stood back to allow Hoberman access to a small space between the pilot’s cabin and an opposing door, which Bundy slid open. Hoberman noticed that he was tanned and muscular: the professional muscles of someone whose job required brawn as well as brain. He also noticed that Bundy had the most striking eyes. Dual-colored: the irises banded bright blue on the outside and pale hazel-brown around the pupils.

“This way, Professor Hoberman,” said Bundy.

The passenger cabin of the helicopter took Hoberman by surprise. It was bright and luxurious, with cream leather armchairs unlike anything he had seen in any airliner, whatever the class of seating. There was another man in the cabin whom Bundy introduced as Bob Ryerson. Ryerson was wearing a dark, expensive-looking suit and was indecently well-groomed and fresh for the time of night. His physique came out of the same box as Bundy’s.

“Is this
Marine One
?” Hoberman asked. Bundy laughed.

“No sir, the main helicopter used as
Marine One
is a bigger craft than this. But
Marine One
is any helicopter that has the President on board, and
only
if the President is on board. But you’re right to think that this is an HMX-1 craft: Marine Helicopter Squadron One … Presidential executive transport. Please, take a seat and buckle up for takeoff, Professor Hoberman.”

“So you and
Bob
here,” said Hoberman without taking his seat. “What are you? CIA? NSA? FBI? DHS? Or have I missed something in our fine nation’s clandestine alphabet soup?”

“You could say all of the above,” said Bundy, smile still in place. “I am officially an FBI Special Agent, but my job description has become …
flexible
. Everything’s become a little more integrated post-nine-eleven. But Bob and I are both tasked with Presidential security and protection, if that’s what you mean. Please, Professor Hoberman, sit down and buckle up and we’ll get under way.”

“Under way where?” Hoberman remained standing as resolutely as he could manage. “And why? I have a right to know where the hell you’re taking me and for what reason.”

Bundy smiled indulgently. “I believe you received a note …”

“That only told me the
who
, not the
where
and
why
.”

“I can answer your first question, Doctor,” Ryerson answered. Hoberman noticed his demeanor was less convivial than Bundy’s car-salesman cheeriness. “We’re flying to Camp David
in Maryland. As for your second question, neither of us know why you’ve been summoned, but we were told to give you this.” He removed a dossier from a black leather attaché case and handed it to Hoberman.

The dossier was fastened shut by an unbroken Presidential seal. Hoberman stared at it the same way he’d stared at the gun in his hand. Alien, out of place. Hoberman, standing in the luxury of a Presidential fleet helicopter with its immaculate cream leather seats, cherrywood drinks table and green curtains, felt alien and out of place himself.

“Now, Professor Hoberman …” said Bundy, extending his hand towards one of the seats. “If you don’t mind …”

When it came to the naked man, pronouncing life extinct didn’t stretch Macbeth’s medical training.

Gabriel had hit the flagstones head first and a gray-flecked halo of blood bloomed around his shattered skull; viscous clots oozed from each nostril and one eye remained wide open, gazing up at the night sky, while the other was half closed, the lid like a carelessly pulled down window blind.

He must have held the young priest in his unrelenting embrace all the way to the ground, because the two men now lay entangled. Corbin and Macbeth turned their attention to Father Mullachy, who lay partly across Gabriel’s chest. The priest also stared up at the dark sky, but his chest pulsed rapidly in short, shallow heaves.

“Can you hear me?” asked Corbin. “Father Mullachy? Can you hear me Father Mullachy?”

The priest said nothing, his gaze remaining fixed on the stars above, his breathing still fast and shallow. Corbin pressed an ear to the injured man’s chest, first one side, then the other.

“Get an ambulance!” Corbin called over his shoulder to the policemen, then turned back to Macbeth. “How’s your emergency medicine?”

“Rusty …” Macbeth lied. Emergency procedures were exactly the kind of thing that he remembered. Perfectly. How to do things, processes, facts and methods he had learned; taxonomies, systems, structured knowledge – these were the memories
that were catalogued, indexed and filed, dusted and maintained in the warehouse in his brain labeled Procedural Memory and could be brought back into his recall shining bright and working like new. In contrast, when it came to his Autobiographical Memory, Macbeth found himself in an ill-lit storeroom of cluttered shelves that he could never quite find his way around. Real-life remembrances had to be dusted off before he could examine their faded images. Even then he was never sure what truly belonged to his life and what had been borrowed from others.

Corbin was clearly aware of Macbeth’s recall of procedure, because he made a ‘help yourself’ gesture towards the injured man. Macbeth ran his hands over the priest’s body, like a cop frisking a suspect. Old skills came back in an instant and as he felt each fracture beneath his fingertips, he announced it to Corbin. When Macbeth examined his ribs, Mullachy made a short moaning sound, the only protest he could manage between breaths; then again, louder, when Macbeth felt around the hips. Shattered pelvis. The good thing was that Mullachy could feel the pain in his lower body, meaning his spinal cord was intact. Macbeth checked the distal pulses then worked his way back to the chest. Carefully removing the priest’s dog collar, he inspected his neck: no deformations or serious swelling. Mullachy must have landed in a way that prevented serious injury to his head and spine, the most common cause of death in falls. As Macbeth examined the priest’s throat, he saw a rash of small, raised bumps on the skin, like an extreme form of gooseflesh. Whenever he touched a bump, it moved or popped beneath his fingers, the skin flattening but other bumps appearing elsewhere.

“Rice Krispies?” asked Corbin over Macbeth’s shoulder.

Macbeth nodded. “Snap, crackle and pop all right … Sub-Q air. If the ambulance doesn’t arrive soon, we’re going to have to improvise a chest tube.”

There was now an urgent wheezing to the priest’s breathing. He spoke urgently between shallow breaths.

“Unction …” he gasped. “Last … rites …”

“Don’t talk, Father,” said Macbeth. “Save your breath. You’re going to be fine.” He turned to Corbin. “Go see if one of the cops has got a pocket knife and a ballpoint pen.”

“You’re going to tube him here?”

“Not if I can avoid it. The last thing I want to do is attempt some kind of Boy Scout thoracostomy.” Macbeth sighed. He looked past Corbin to the lights of the surrounding high buildings; the glass globes of the streetlamps that lined the Plaza. They seemed to sparkle brighter, look sharper, harder-edged. Crystalline. There were patterns in things, in everything, and Macbeth was beginning to see them again.

Not now
, he told himself.
Not now. Focus
.

“I just want to be ready if the ambulance takes too long. His thorax is pretty rigid already. He’s bleeding out into his pleural cavity. See if the cops have anything I can use …”

Corbin nodded and ran over to where the sergeant was herding back, with impatient sweeps of his arms, a small group of onlookers.

“I’m ready …” the priest said between breaths. “I’m ready.”

“Ready for what, Paul?” Macbeth leaned in close. Even in the streetlight he could see the blue tinge to Mullachy’s pallor, his lips darker now. “Save your breath. We’re going to get you sorted out.”

Something gargled in the priest’s throat. Macbeth felt a tap on his shoulder and turned to see the older cop.

“Any news on the ambulance?” Macbeth asked the BPD sergeant.

“On its way,” the sergeant said. “There’s been some kind of incident on the Common and the traffic’s snarled up. What do you need the pen and knife for?”

“Father Mullachy is showing signs that at least one lung has
been ruptured and his pleural cavity is filling with air and blood. I reckon there’s bleeding lower down as well. There are air bubbles under the skin of his neck and throat. If he doesn’t get a chest tube in soon, the pressure’s going to squeeze his heart into cardiac arrest.”

“And you’re going to fix it with a fuckin’ ballpoint?” The cop frowned disbelievingly.

“Unless you’ve got something better.”

“There’s a responder kit in the cruiser … first aid.”

“Get me that. But hurry – we don’t have much time. And chase up that ambulance.”

The cop turned and trotted towards the cruiser, barking into his radio as he ran. Macbeth knelt back down beside the two tangled bodies. Between them, Corbin and Macbeth managed to unravel the naked man’s legs from Mullachy’s. The dead man now served as a pillow beneath the injured priest and the two doctors had better access to his injuries. Corbin eased open the front of Mullachy’s black shirt.

“I’m going to have to go in anteriorly,” said Macbeth. “We can’t risk turning him over or sitting him up without getting a neck brace on him.”

“I’m ready … I’m ready …” Mullachy repeated it like a rosary, but Macbeth knew the priest wasn’t talking about his preparedness for his improvised surgery.

“Just stay focused and stay awake, Father.” Macbeth brought his face down so they could make eye contact. “I know it’s distressing to have to fight for breath, but that will ease soon. Listen to me: you’re going to make it. You’re going to be all right.”

Mullachy shook his head in tiny, careful movements. “You … don’t … believe … do you?” he asked between pained gasps.

“You … think … it’s … all … a lie …”

“Let’s leave the theological discussions until we’ve got you breathing more comfortably, Father,” said Macbeth. “Hush now and save your breath.”

The sergeant came back with a large blue holdall. Corbin scrabbled through it and handed a pack of latex gloves and four antiseptic wound wipes to Macbeth, who snapped on the gloves and spread one of the wound wipes on the ground, using another to wipe down the skin on the priest’s bloated abdomen.