Dark River (11 page)
Gabriel returned to the dining area and concealed himself behind a concrete pillar. A few seconds later, four tough-looking men wearing phone headsets came down the escalator and ran through the doorway to the track area. The moment they were gone, Gabriel went the other way, climbing a staircase to the main concourse and passing through a doorway to the street. The cold winter air made his eyes water and his face sting. The Traveler put his head down and stepped into the night.
DURING THEIR TIME in New York, Maya had insisted that everyone memorize safe routes through the city and a list of single-residency hotels that were off the Grid. One of these places was the Efficiency Hotel on Tenth Avenue in Manhattan. For twenty dollars in cash you got twelve hours in a windowless fiberglass pod that was eight feet long and five feet high. The forty-eight pods lined both sides of a corridor and made the hotel look like a mausoleum.
Before Gabriel entered the hotel, he took off his leather jacket again and folded it so that the bloodstains weren’t visible. The hotel clerk was an elderly Chinese man who sat behind a bulletproof barrier and waited for customers to slip their cash into a narrow slot. Gabriel paid him twenty dollars for the use of the pod and an extra five dollars for a foam rubber pad and a cotton blanket.
He received a key and walked down the hallway to the communal bathroom. Two Latino restaurant workers were standing bare-chested in front of the sinks, chattering to each other in Spanish as they washed the cooking grease off their faces and arms. Gabriel hid in a toilet stall until the two men were gone, then came out and washed his jacket in the sink. When he was done, he climbed a ladder to his rented space and crawled inside. Each pod had a fluorescent light and a small fan to keep the air circulating. There was a single peg to hold his jacket, and the wet leather began to drip softly, as if it were still sodden with blood.
Lying on the foam pad, Gabriel couldn’t stop thinking about Sophia Briggs. He had felt the Light within her, surging and moving like a powerful wave of water, and then it had flowed through his hands. He could hear muffled voices through the thin walls of the pod and it felt like he was drifting through shadows, surrounded by ghosts.
MAYA HAD TAUGHT Gabriel that the Grid was not absolute; there were still gaps and shadow areas where you could move safely through the city. The next morning, it took him about an hour to avoid the surveillance cameras and walk over to Tompkins Square Park. In the financial district and in the Midtown area, the gray bedrock of Manhattan was close to the surface, providing a foundation for the skyscrapers that dominated the city. On the Lower East Side, the bedrock was hundreds of feet below the surface, and the buildings that lined the streets were only four or five stories high.
Tompkins Square Park had been the traditional site for political protests for more than a hundred years. A generation earlier, a group of homeless people had established a camp there until the police had closed the park and surrounded it with a massive circle of officers. The police then walked toward the center, ripping apart improvised shelters and beating anyone who refused to leave. These days, huge elm trees shaded the park in the summer, and black iron railings surrounded every patch of ground. There were only two surveillance cameras in the park; both were aimed at the children’s playgrounds and easily avoided.
Gabriel walked cautiously through the park and approached the small redbrick building occupied by the gardening staff. He passed through some open gates and stopped in front of a white marble stela with a small lion’s-head fountain at the center. Faintly visible in the marble were the outline of some children’s faces and the words THEY WERE THE EARTH’S PUREST CHILDREN, YOUNG AND FAIR. This was the memorial to a 1904 disaster when a ferry ship called the General Slocum left New York Harbor carrying a group of German immigrants to a Sunday school picnic. The boat caught fire and sank without lifeboats, and over a thousand women and children died.
Maya used the memorial as one of three message boards around Manhattan. The boards gave their small group a communications alternative to the easily monitored cell phones. On the backside of the stela, at the marble base, Gabriel found some graffiti that Maya had left a few weeks ago. It was a Harlequin sign: an oval with three lines that symbolized a lute. He looked around at the nearby basketball court and the small garden. It was seven o’clock in the morning and no one was there. All the negative possibilities he had pushed out of his mind this morning returned with a dreadful power. Everyone was dead. And somehow, he was the cause of it.
Gabriel knelt down like a man about to pray. He took a felt-tip pen out of his jacket and wrote on the monument G. here. Where you?
He left the park immediately, walking across Avenue A to a small coffeehouse filled with old tables, rickety chairs, and a pair of school desks that looked as though they had been found on the street. Gabriel bought a cup of coffee and sat in the back room with his eyes on the doorway. His feeling of hopelessness was almost unbearable. Sophia and the families at New Harmony had been murdered. And now there was a strong possibility that the Tabula had killed Maya and his friends.
He stared down at the scratched surface of the table and tried to quiet the angry voice in his brain. Why was he a Traveler? And why had he caused all this pain? Only his father could answer these questions— and Matthew Corrigan was apparently living in London. Gabriel knew there were more surveillance cameras in London than in any other city in the world. It was a dangerous place, but his father must have gone there for some important reason.
No one paid attention as Gabriel opened his shoulder bag and counted the money in the packet Vicki had given him last night. There seemed to be enough cash to buy a plane ticket to Great Britain. Since Gabriel had spent his entire life off the Grid, the biometric data on his passport chip couldn’t be compared against any previous identity. Maya had seemed sure that he wouldn’t have problems traveling to another country. As far as the authorities were concerned, he was a citizen named Tim Bentley who worked as a commercial real estate agent in Tucson, Arizona.
He finished his coffee and returned to the memorial in Tompkins Square Park. Using a scrap of newspaper he wiped out his previous message and wrote G2LONDON. He felt like the survivor of a shipwreck who had just carved a few words on a scrap of wood. If his friends were still alive, then they would know what had happened. They would follow him to London and find him at Tyburn Convent. If everyone was dead, then it was a message to no one.
Gabriel left the park without looking back and walked south on Avenue B. The morning air was still cold, but the sky was clear— almost painfully blue. He was on his way.
** CHAPTER 11
Michael finished his second cup of coffee, got up from the oak table, and walked over to the Gothic windows at one end of the morning room. The lead frames of the windows imposed a black grid upon the outer world. He was west of Montreal on an island in the middle of the Saint Lawrence River. Rain had fallen the night before, and a thick layer of clouds still lingered in the sky.
A meeting of the Brethren’s executive board was supposed to begin at eleven o’clock in the morning, but the boat carrying the board members still hadn’t arrived. The journey from Chippewa Bay to Dark Island took about forty minutes. If the waves were choppy, people stepped onto the dock looking pale. A helicopter ride from any city in New York State would have been much more efficient, but Kennard Nash had rejected a proposal to construct a helicopter pad near the boathouse.
“The trip across the river is a good experience for the Brethren,” Nash explained. “It makes them feel like they’re getting away from the ordinary world. I think that it encourages a certain kind of respect for the unique nature of our organization.”
Michael found himself agreeing with Nash; Dark Island was a special place. A wealthy American industrialist who manufactured sewing machines constructed the castle on the island in the early twentieth century. Blocks of granite were dragged across the winter ice to build a four-story clock tower, a boathouse, and a castle. The castle had turrets and towers and fireplaces big enough to roast an entire steer.
These days a group of wealthy Germans owned Dark Island. Tourists were allowed to visit for a few months in autumn, but the Brethren used the castle during the rest of the year. Michael and General Nash had arrived three days ago with a technical crew from the Evergreen Foundation. The men installed microphones and television cameras so that members all over the world could participate in the executive board meeting.
The first day on the island, Michael was allowed to leave the castle and walk alone to the cliffs. Dark Island got its name from the massive fir trees that extended their branches over the pathways, filtering the light and creating shadowy tunnels of green. Michael found a marble bench at the edge of the cliff, and he spent several hours there, smelling the sharp pine scent and looking out at the river.
That night he ate dinner with General Nash, followed by whiskey in the oak-paneled drawing room. Everything at the castle was massive— the hand-carved furniture, framed paintings, and liquor cabinets. Animal heads were mounted on the wall of the drawing room, and Michael felt as if a dead elk were staring at him.
Nash and the rest of the Brethren viewed Michael as their source of information about the different realms. Michael knew that his position was still tenuous. The Brethren usually killed Travelers, but he had survived. He tried to make himself as indispensable as possible without showing the extent of his ambition. If the world was going to become an invisible prison, that meant one person had to be in control of both the guards and the prisoners. And why couldn’t that person be a Traveler?
The Brethren had originally attached Michael to their quantum computer and attempted to contact more advanced civilizations in the other realms. Although the computer was destroyed, Michael had assured General Nash that he could eventually get any information they required. He thought it wise not to mention his own goals. If he found his father and gained any special knowledge, he intended to use it to his own advantage. Michael felt like a man who had escaped a firing squad.
During the last month, Michael had left his body on two different occasions. It was the same each time— at first, a few sparks of Light emerged from his body, and then all his energy seemed to flow out into a cold darkness. To find his way to any Realm, he had to pass through all four barriers: a blue sky, a desert plain, a town on fire, and an endless sea. These barriers had once seemed like insurmountable obstacles, but now he was able to cross them almost instantly— discovering the small black passageways that led him onward.
Michael opened his eyes and found himself in a town square with trees and benches and an outdoor bandstand. It was early in the evening, and men and women wearing dark suits and overcoats wandered down the sidewalk, restlessly entering the brightly lit shops, then emerging a few minutes later with nothing in their hands.
He had been here before; this was the Second Realm of the hungry ghosts. It looked like a real world, but everything in this place was an empty promise to those who could never be satisfied. All the packages in the grocery store were empty. The apples on the corner stand and the slabs of meat in the butcher shop were painted pieces of wood or pottery. Even the leather-bound books in the town library appeared real, but when Michael tried to read them he discovered there were no words on the pages.
It was dangerous to be here; he felt like the only living creature in a town of phantoms. The people living in this realm seemed to recognize that he was different; they wanted to talk to him, touch him, feel his muscles and the warm blood that moved beneath his skin. Michael had tried to hide in the shadows while he peered through windows and searched the back streets for his father. Eventually, he found the passageway that led back to his world. When he crossed over a few days later, he ended up in the same town square, as if his Light had refused to go in any other direction.
THE GRANDFATHER CLOCK in the morning room began to chime, and Michael returned to the window. A powerboat had just arrived from Chippewa Bay, and the members of the Brethren executive board were stepping onto the dock. It was cold and blustery, but General Nash stood on the dock like a politician, saying hello and shaking hands.
“Has the boat arrived?” asked a woman’s voice.
Michael turned and saw Mrs. Brewster, a board member who had arrived last night. “Yes. I counted eight people.”
“Good. That means that Dr. Jensen’s flight wasn’t delayed.”
Mrs. Brewster walked over to the sideboard and poured herself a cup of tea. She was in her fifties— a brisk Englishwoman who wore a tweed skirt, a sweater, and the kind of thick-soled practical shoes you’d need for a hike across a muddy pasture. Although Mrs. Brewster didn’t seem to have a job title, the other board members deferred to the force of her personality, and no one used her first name. She acted as if the world were a chaotic school and she were the new headmistress. Everything needed to be organized. Slipshod work and bad habits would not be tolerated. No matter what the consequences, she was going to tidy up.
Mrs. Brewster poured some cream into her teacup and smiled pleasantly. “Looking forward to the board meeting, Michael?”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m sure it’s going to be very interesting.”
“You’re quite right about that. Did General Nash tell you what was going to happen?”
“Not really.”
“The man in charge of our computer center in Berlin is going to present a major technical innovation that will help us establish the Panopticon. We need the unanimous consent of the board to move forward.”
“I’m sure you’ll get it.”
Mrs. Brewster sipped her tea, and then placed the china cup in its saucer. “The executive board has a few peculiarities. Members usually vote yes at a meeting and then put the knife in later. That’s why you’re here, Michael. Did anyone tell you that your participation was my idea?”