Driven (15 page)

G
avin seethed with anger at his own shortsightedness. Krogan had used the same psychology on Gasman that he himself had used
regarding the story exclusive. He’d never even considered the possibility. But whose fault was that? Certainly not Gasman’s.
Maybe if he had let Katz spend a little more time in Krogan’s past he would have picked up more of his tendencies. So what
if they were past lives? Who was he to say that sort of thing didn’t exist? A good detective looked under every stone. He’d
screwed up, and someone had died because of it. Oh, sure, he’d warned Gasman that Krogan would try to kill him. But by then
it was too late. He should have known telling Gasman to stay away from a story like the one Krogan offered would be futile—like
warning a hungry tiger that the helpless goat tied to the stake might be bait set out by the hunter.

Gavin could still hear himself arguing with Gasman as he walked solemnly about the airfield. Fire engines and ambulances and
police cars decorated the acreage with a colorful assortment of flashing lights. Helicopters hovered and camera crews hustled
about. Both the FBI and the FAA were already here and it wouldn’t be long before they were knocking on his door for whatever
information they could scrounge up. He would cooperate, but only because the lieutenant would pull him off the case if he
didn’t. He would provide them with file data only, though, and nothing more. As far as he was concerned, the FBI would have
to wait their turn.

Crime scenes, especially of this magnitude, had a tendency to
suck you in and make you oblivious to the world outside. Gavin, though, felt strangely distant. The chaos before him was eerily
reminiscent of the hypnotic episodes Karianne had revealed. The thought of Karianne recalling Krogan’s past atrocities made
him wonder if someone would recall this one someday in the future.

FBI agents were everywhere. They could no longer watch from a distance. As far as they were concerned, Krogan was now a bona
fide terrorist. He might not have the organized connections other groups had, but five more lives lost in the destruction
of a jet was more than they could pass off to the local police.

The crime scene unit was carefully placing a pair of bolt cutters into a large plastic bag. They’d been found on the ground
by the chain-link fence and had been used to cut the fence adequately enough for the truck to break through without the risk
of being snagged like a fish in a net. Gavin already knew Krogan’s fingerprints would be all over the tool. If anything, Krogan
probably wanted the credit for pulling off such a good job—for killing Gasman so utterly and completely… and sensationally.

Off in the distance, on the grass by the end of the runway, the fire department was still working on the blazing Learjet.
Gavin doubted the bodies would even be recognizable. He’d never really liked Gasman, but that didn’t stop him from feeling
somewhat responsible for his death. Gavin had played him, preying on his weaknesses. The reporter had wanted nothing more
than a good story, and Gavin had taken advantage of that foible; he’d exploited Gasman’s tunnel-vision ambition to be famous
and it had backfired.

But Gavin had learned one thing new about Krogan from Gasman’s death: he was definitely capable of being motivated. This was
100 percent premeditated and as cold as anything Gavin had ever seen. But the thought persisted: if he had been a little more
open-minded and less concerned with when and where Katz was bringing Karianne, maybe he could have prevented this.

A hundred feet away stood Krogan’s weapon, the Lighting Company bucket truck. Gavin was a little surprised Krogan hadn’t driven
away with it. Except for the fact the bucket had been torn off the boom, nothing was wrong with it. Another surprise was that
there were no beer cans or lobster claws in it. Apparently, Krogan didn’t need to be drunk to be deadly. In fact, he was just
as efficient a killer, if not more so, without his trademark borrowed party vehicle.

At the marina crash, Gavin had wondered how Krogan could hit the boat so precisely, especially when drunk. To knock a Learjet
from the sky with a bucket truck would require ten times the luck… or skill. Was there something in this past-life stuff
about transferred skill and abilities? After seeing this, how could he not at least consider such craziness? Krogan’s timing
had been perfect. Near superhuman. He was now at least two for two in highly improbable feats of destruction. Dumb luck? No
way. Not this time.

“Hope you haven’t eaten yet,” one of the forensic techs said as Gavin approached the bucket. Gavin ignored him and continued.
He stopped next to a medical examiner who was writing on a pad a few feet from the bucket. The man looked up from his notes
and did a slight double take when he saw Gavin.

“Lucky for him he wasn’t around for all the excitement. Those arrows killed him hours ago,” the man volunteered. “You got
a real winner on your hands this time, driving all around Nassau County with a dead man in the bucket. What would he have
said if he got pulled over? And then he whacks a Learjet with the guy still in there?” He shook his head in amazement.

Gavin remained silent. He had already instructed the Lighting Company to immediately fax headquarters with a list of the unfortunate
employee’s assignments along with a probable driving route. If there had been an assignment printout or clipboard in the truck,
there wasn’t one now. He figured Krogan had tossed it. That nobody
anywhere in the county had reported what was probably a silent murder drastically reduced the possibility of a witness. But,
still, the way Krogan left fingerprints around there was no telling what might show up if he could find the spot the truck
was stolen from.

He stared at the mangled mess that had been a man. The fact he wasn’t shocked or horrified at what he saw bothered him; unlike
others around him who were registering their disbelief of the broad-head hunting arrows in the man’s shoulder and neck, Gavin
wasn’t surprised. If Katz was correct, a man with Krogan’s vast history would have killed with arrows thousands of times.
What would surprise Gavin was if the beast had ever done it without pleasure.

He pulled out his cell phone, called the hospital, and had them page Katz.

“Katz here.”

“I want another meeting… session… whatever you freakin’ call it, and I want it tonight.”

“The hospital’s releasing her as we speak,” Katz said. “She’s only been here as long as she has to accommodate us.”

“Then we’ll have it at her place or your place or my place, but we’ve got to have it.”

“I don’t know, Pierce. She going to be tired after—”

“Make it happen, Katz. You can hypnotize her and take her anywhere you want to—ten years ago, ten thousand years ago. I don’t
care anymore, just as long as Krogan’s there. I want to know everything about this guy—who he was, who he is, what turns him
on, what turns him off, what he likes to do besides killing people… everything. I want to eat, drink, and sleep this psychopath
until I know what he’s thinking, starting tonight. We’re out of time. And don’t let Karianne out of your sight. The last thing
we want is for something to happen to her.”

“What if she refuses to do it tonight?”

Gavin looked at the smoldering plane wreck, then at the dead man in the smashed bucket. “Then I’ll talk to her. But I don’t
think that’ll be necessary. I think I was wrong about her, Katz. I think she’s a good lady who had a bad day. I don’t know
how any of this past-life connection stuff really works, but I do believe she wants him stopped as much as anyone. If she’s
his enemy then she’s our friend. What’s your professional opinion?”

“Uh, ditto.”

Gavin managed a fleeting smile. “Thanks. That was exactly what I needed to hear right now. Oh, by the way. I want some kind
of language expert there other than just your Uncle Hiram. I don’t want us guessing what she’s saying when she starts to speak
Greek or Swahili.”

“But how am I going to get a language expert on such short notice?”

“You told me this was the find of a lifetime, Katz. I’m sure you can round up someone who wants to be in your book.”

Gavin put away his phone. He’d seen enough. He was about to turn and walk away when he noticed something curious about the
wrist of the dead man. His left wrist looked the same as Gavin’s did when taking a shower… when he wasn’t wearing his watch.
The wrist was tanned except for a watch-sized band. It was possible the guy had lost the thing in the crash, but it was also
possible Krogan had stolen it. A souvenir? Or had Krogan needed to know what time it was?

Before he left, Gavin asked someone on the CSU to keep a lookout for the man’s watch. Walking briskly back to his car, he
was intercepted by a man with a miniature tape recorder.

“Excuse me, sir. Are you Detective Pierce?”

“Yeah,” Gavin said without breaking stride.

“I’m Bennett Norel from the
Post,
” the man said, holding out a card. Gavin didn’t take it, so Norel continued. “Uh, according to
the receptionist, Mr. Gasman was heard speaking to someone he called Pierce before he got on the jet.”

Gavin stopped and turned to look at the man.

“Look… Norel, did you say it was?”

“Yes, sir,” the young man said eagerly, his tape recorder at the ready.

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-three.”

“You want the big story?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Are you willing to do anything for it?”

“Absolutely.”

Gavin put his hand over the mike and spoke softly, motioning toward the smoldering remains of the jet. “So was he.”

He left the young man staring at the smoking pile of metal. Hopefully Gavin had impregnated him with the kind of wisdom that
only hindsight can deliver to the blindly ambitious. The kid reminded Gavin of a young Gasman. If only he could have had such
an opportunity to remind Gasman of the dangers of ambition, maybe then he wouldn’t have felt so invincible.

Pondering the clarity of hindsight, Gavin picked up his pace. He was anxious to see what Karianne’s distant past would reveal,
but first he wanted to stop by headquarters to see if the fax from the Lighting Company had come in yet.

K
rogan had just wolfed down his third helping of ham and sunny-side-up eggs with home fries, all drenched with Tabasco sauce.
The waitress looked at him strangely as she replaced yet another empty plate, this time with a double cheeseburger deluxe
and a fresh bottle of hot sauce. Tearing into a nearby plate of hot buttered toast, two at a time, he tapped his empty coffee
cup with a dripping fork, then stabbed at the French fries.

“Honey, if you’re going for the house record, you’ve already blown it away. I’ve never seen anyone drink eight cups of coffee
before,” the waitress said as she poured.

Krogan said nothing as he poured enough sugar in the coffee to make the waitress frown, then, without stirring the sugar,
threw the steaming cupful down like it was a shot of whiskey. The waitress shivered at the sight, then turned to leave. She
had only taken two steps before he tapped the coffee cup again.

All the work involved in killing Gasman had given Krogan a ferocious appetite. He didn’t even notice, through the diner’s
window at his right, that the orange glow in the distant sky had finally been extinguished, leaving only wisps of gray smoke.
After dressing his burger with the appropriate drowning of ketchup and Tabasco, he took a healthy bite, the hot juices running
over the egg yolk on his chin. Two bites later the burger was gone. He was about to tap for more when a throaty motorcycle
rolled into a parking space outside the window. The bike was a Harley and it was saddled with some leathered-up guy and his
chick.

The guy turned the key to shut off the engine, but hadn’t removed it when the bottom of Krogan’s boot slammed into his helmet,
sending the guy onto the hood of the car in the next space. The guy fell motionless. The girl screamed as Krogan quickly mounted
the bike, started the engine, and took off with her still hanging on. Krogan laughed as the girl cursed him and beat on his
back as he sped down the road. Finally he leaned back and yelled to her, “Your place or mine?”

B
y the time Gavin got to Karianne’s apartment everyone had already been there for hours.

“Are you okay?” Amy asked, giving him a warm embrace and, after an uncharacteristically shy moment, a quick kiss on the cheek.
Gavin hid his surprise, enjoying the moment.

“Fine,” he lied. “I had to stop at headquarters and get this fax. It’s a list from the Lighting Company of the stops the truck
was supposed to make. I need to check these locations ASAP.”

“Pierce,” Katz called, looking relieved. “We were getting a little worried and wondering if we should start without you. This
is Doctor Paul Steinman. He’s the language expert you requested. Uncle Hiram had to pass on tonight. Your… our pace is a
bit too demanding for him.”

“Detective Pierce,” Steinman said with a big smile, offering his
hand. The man was in his late forties, heavyset with big cheeks and a full reddish-blond beard. His merry, Santa Claus-like
face was a contrast to Katz’s perpetually sad one.

Gavin nodded and shook the man’s outstretched hand, but was in no mood to return the smile. “Where’s Karianne?” he asked Amy.

Amy motioned toward the living room through an arched opening a few feet away. Gavin immediately left the foyer to see her.
Karianne was laying on a comfortable-looking couch with a southwestern design, her broken leg propped up on a pillow. She
smiled briefly, but said nothing.

The living room was not big, but had a very cozy feel to it. Neat but well lived in. To his left the wall was full of photos,
most of them of Karianne posing with friends in various outdoor scenes. Mountain backgrounds, beach shots, both snow- and
water-skiing. All probably the result of the perks of her job. The other walls were full of small watercolor paintings, wall
hangings, and other likely souvenirs. A long table in front of a window behind the couch she was on held a collection of live
plants. Everything pointed to a healthy, active life. In other words, there was no obvious evidence of alcoholism or partying.
If indeed she hadn’t had a drink in five years, she had helped her cause by not even allowing a bottle in the photos or paintings.
It was hard for Gavin to easily connect the woman’s immediate situation with the one represented in the room.

He knelt down before her on one knee so he would be more or less at eye level. “Thank you,” he said as sincerely as he could.
“You’re quite a trooper. The courage you’ve shown in allowing us to pursue the killer through you is, at this point, heroic.”

She laughed. “Heroic. I’m scared to death. I don’t know what I’m doing, how I’m doing it, or what will come next. The only
thing I understand is real people in this time are dying. If there’s any
way I can help, tell me and I’ll do it. Everyone else around here is jumping through hoops and giving their 110 percent.”

Gavin was comforted by her willingness. It didn’t make sense to him that she could have been in the car with Krogan, much
less that she had been traveling from one lifetime to another as his sometime sidekick. He wondered if the others that had
died as Krogan’s passengers were also reincarnated
shadahd
dates. Time-traveling party souls that had an occasional irresistible impulse to destroy.

Gavin turned to see Amy, Katz, and his language expert all standing behind him, waiting to start. The video camera was set
up across the room and an additional tape recorder, probably Steinman’s, was on a small chair.

Katz brought in another chair and placed it next to the couch by Karianne’s feet so he could face her straight on. Steinman
took a seat in an overstuffed beige chair close enough to the recorder that any of his comments could be easily picked up
by its small internal microphone. Katz also provided Gavin and Amy with a small dry-erase board on a stand so they could communicate
with him without speaking.

“Dr. Katz,” Karianne said, halting the psychologist just before he was about to go to work. “Do you think while you have me
hypnotized you could ask me what I did with my opening-day football ticket? I haven’t seen it since… since that night. The
game is two days away and the ticket was a gift from one of the players. It’s a great location, too—second tier, right on
the fifty yard line.”

Katz smiled. “We’ll see what we can do,” he said, then continued.

Karianne slipped into her hypnotic state almost automatically. Gavin wondered if Katz had ever really brought her completely
out from the last time.

Steinman was at the edge of his seat. He’d probably never seen anything like this, Gavin thought.

“Now, Karianne, I want you to think about Krogan. Do you see him?”

“Yes.”

“I want you to see him smile, see him happy—the happiest you’ve ever seen him. Are you there?”

Karianne’s eyes flickered. Her head moved slowly, as if there was an unseen thickness about her. “Sic. Krogan,” she said.

“Krogan is sick?” Katz asked.

“Haud!” she yelled. “Delectatio. Krogan delecto,” she continued. Her tone was almost scary. Gavin thought she might be angry
she had to repeat herself.

All eyes fell upon Steinman.

Steinman was obviously stunned. “She’s speaking Latin! Ancient Latin.
Haud
means ‘no.’ She said Krogan is not sick but very happy, delighted, enjoying himself.”

Katz smiled at everyone, then turned back to Karianne. “Good! And why is he happy?”

“Congrego.”

“Gathering,” Steinman said.

“Hmm. Who is gathering together that Krogan is so happy?”

“Refragatio.”

“Resistance,” Steinman said.

“Revolutionaries?” Katz asked.

“Sic.”

“Yes,” Steinman said.

“Are you a member of the resistance?”

“Sic.”

“Are you happy, too?”

Karianne laughed. “Sic, sic, sic.”

“Are there any others from the resistance that are from another time—another life?”

“Sic.”

Katz looked around the room. He had the same expression someone would have if they had just found a recipe for a peanut butter
and jelly sandwich written in Martian. He was probably imagining his name next to Freud’s… Da Vinci’s. Gavin gave him a warning
look, and he turned back to Karianne.

“How many of the resistance do you know from other lives?”

“Plurimus,” she said.

“Most or all,” Steinman translated.

What she said was startling, even to Gavin. Amy put her hand on his hand, but continued to look at Karianne.

Katz frowned. “Was that why you gathered? Because you all knew each other in other lives?”

“Haud. Celebritas.”

“No. Celebration,” Steinman said.

“What are you all celebrating?”

“Neco. Leto ensis… nex.
Shadahd,
” she said with a snarl.

Steinman frowned, then shook his head slightly before he said, “Put to death. Kill the sword. Violent death. The last word
sounds like Hebrew.”

“We know what the last word means,” Katz said quietly. “Is this an execution?”

“Sic.”

“Someone is going to be killed with a sword?”

“Haud. Neco ensis.”

“No. Kill the sword,” Steinman said.

Katz frowned and tapped his finger on his knee. “You’re going to kill a sword?”

“Sic.”

“Is the sword a person?”

“Sic.”

Katz smiled and nodded at everyone, obviously proud of his perceptiveness. “What country are you in?”

“Y’hudah.”

Katz’s eyebrows raised and he mouthed Israel to Steinman, who nodded in agreement. “What city are you in?”

“Yerushalayim.”

Katz paused. “What are you wearing on your feet?”

“Auarca.”

“A leather sandal,” Steinman said. “The kind usually worn by a peasant. She’s probably visiting from Rome. That would be in
keeping with the dialect.”

“What is your name?”

“Glaucus Tertius.”

“Are you Roman?” Katz asked.

“Sic.”

“Who is the emperor?”

“Tiberius.”

Steinman leaned so far forward he almost fell out of his seat. Katz ran his fingers through his hair. His hand was shaking
as he dragged his fingers across his lips. Gavin didn’t know too much about history, but he knew plenty about shock, and Katz
was shocked. Which emperor was Tiberius? What was Katz thinking?

Katz cleared his throat. “The one you call ‘Sword’… is there any other name you call him?”

“Filius.”

Steinman exhaled heavily before he spoke. “The Son.”

Now Gavin knew what was freaking Katz out. He didn’t need to know much about history to know whom Karianne was talking about.
But who was this Glaucus character and who was Krogan that he would gather with a band of people who had been meeting each
other through the centuries and were now all in one place, celebrating the execution of the one they all knew as The Sword?

He tapped on the dry-erase board until he got Katz’s attention, then wrote
Krogan.
Katz nodded.

“What is Krogan doing?”

“Crapula. Derideo. Accendo.”

“She says he’s drinking wine, laughing and mocking someone, and trying to get others to do the same,” Steinman said.

“Who is he mocking?”

“Deludo deus filius,” she yelled, then laughed. “Deludo deus filius,” she repeated again and again in an eerie chant as if
she too were drunk.

Gavin snapped his fingers several times at Steinman, who was staring straight ahead with his eyes wide open, as though he
was afraid to interpret. He looked at Gavin, nodded quickly, and exhaled. “She says he’s… mocking God’s Son.”

Amy’s hand, already on Gavin’s knee, squeezed tightly, intensifying the shiver traveling through his veins.

After a long silence, Katz pulled out a handkerchief and wiped the sweat off his forehead. “What do the people who are not
in your resistance call the one who you call The Sword?”

“Haud,” she yelled.

“No?” Katz asked, apparently surprised by either her sudden anger or her refusal to answer him.

“Haud,” she repeated loudly.

Katz frowned, looked at Gavin, and shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe Karianne can tell us what Glaucus won’t,” he said in a hushed
version of his deep voice. “You are now moving forward through the centuries until you are Karianne again. You will be able
to recall all you have seen while being Glaucus Tertius.”

Karianne’s head began moving slowly from side to side again, like it had before.

“Who are you?” Katz asked.

“Karianne,” she said.

“Very good. Now I want you to—”

Suddenly, unexpectedly, Karianne’s eyes stopped fluttering and
then opened. She looked around the room at each of the faces in it, then screamed and cried convulsively.