F Paul Wilson - Novel 03 (22 page)

           
 
"Does it belong to you?"

           
 
The question took Kesev completely by
surprise. And she was staring at him, her narrowed eyes boring into his, as if
seeing something there.

           
 
"No . . . no . . . it belongs to—"

           
 
"Who are you?" she said.

           
 
"I told you. Kesev, with—"

           
 
"No. That's not true." Her eyes
widened now, as if she were suddenly afraid of him. "You're not who you
say you are. You're someone else. Who are you—really?"

           
 
Now it was Kesev's turn to be dumbfounded. How
did she know? How
could
she know?

           
Reflexively he backed away from her.
Who was this woman?

           
 
"Excuse me, Sister," said another
voice. "Is this man bothering you?"

           
 
Kesev looked up to see a tall priest rising
from an aisle seat a few rows back, glaring down at him as he approached.

           
 
"The poor man seems deranged,"
Sister Carolyn said.

           
 
The priest reached above the nun's seat and
pressed the call button for the stewardess. "I'll have him removed."

           
 
Kesev backed away. "Sorry. My
mistake."

           
 
The last thing he wanted was a scene. He had
no official capacity here and no logical reason he could give his superiors for
pulling this woman off the plane.

           
 
Besides, he was looking for a man and a woman,
not a nun. Especially not that nun. Something about her, something ethereal . .
. the way she'd looked at him . . . looked
through
him.

           
She'd looked at him and she knew.
She
knew!

           
 
He staggered forward through a cloud of
confusion. What was happening? Everything had been fine until that damn SCUD
had crashed near the
Resting Place
. Since then it had been one thing after another, chipping at the
foundations of his carefully reconstructed life, until today's cataclysm.

           
 
Kuttner looked at him questioningly as he
reached the front of the cabin.

           
 
"Not her," Kesev said. "But I
want to check the cargo hold."

           
 
The head stewardess groaned and Kuttner said,
"I don't know about that."

           
 
"It will only take a minute or two. The
object in question is at least a meter and a half in length. It can't be in a
suitcase. I just want to check out the larger parcels."

           
 
Kuttner shrugged resignedly. "All right.
But let's get to it."

           
 
Dan quietly slipped into 12A. His boarding
pass had him in 15D—they'd decided it was best not to sit together—but Carrie
had this half of row 12 to herself so he joined her. But not too close.

           
 
When no one was looking he reached across the
empty seat and grabbed her hand. It was cold, sweaty, trembling.

           
 
"You were great," he whispered.

           
 
She'd been more than great, she'd been
wonderful. When he'd seen that little bearded rooster of a Shin Bet man stalk
down the aisle, he'd prayed for strength in the imminent confrontation. But
he'd stopped at Carrie's seat, not Dan's. And then Dan had cursed himself for
not realizing that their pursuer would be looking for someone named Ferris. But
Carrie had stood up to that Shin Bet man, kept her cool, and faced him down.
Dan had only stepped in to add the
coup
de grace.

           
 
"I don't feel great," she said. "I
feel sick."

           
 
"What did you say to him at the
end?"

           
 
"What do you mean?"

           
 
"Well, he hadn't seemed too sure of
himself in the first place, but—"

           
 
Carrie's smile was wan but real. "We can
thank your idea of getting into uniform for that."

           
 
"Sure, but you said something and all the
color went out of him."

           
 
"I asked him who he really was. As he was
speaking to me I had the strangest feeling about him, that he was an
impostor—or maybe that isn't the right word. I think he's truly from their
domestic intelligence, whatever it's called, but he's also someone else. And
he's hiding that someone else."

           
 
"Whatever it is, I'd say you struck a
nerve."

           
 
"I didn't really have a choice. I just
knew right then that I was very afraid of the person he was hiding."

           
 
"So am I, though probably not for the
same reason. Damn, I wish we'd get moving. What's the holdup?"

           
 
Dan looked past Carrie through the window at
the lights of the airport and wondered what Mr. Kesev was up to now. He
wouldn't feel safe until they were in the air and over the
Mediterranean
.

           
 
"And yet," Carrie said softly,
"there's something terribly sad about him. He said something that shocked
me."

           
 
"What?"

           
 
"He said 'please.' He said, 'Please give
it back.' Isn't that strange?"

           
 
Kesev stood at one of the panoramic windows in
the main terminal and watched the plane roar into the sky toward
London
.

           
 
Nothing.

           
 
He'd found nothing in the cargo hold or
baggage compartment large enough to contain the Mother.

           
 
That gave him hope, at least, that the Mother
was still in
Israel
. And if she was still here, he could find her

           
 
But where was she?
Where?

           
 
He trembled at the thought of what might
happen if she were not safely returned to the
Resting Place
.

           
The
Greenbriar—
Off
Crete

           
 
Second mate Dennis Maguire was rounding the
port side of the superstructure amidships when he saw her.

           
 
At least it seemed to be a her. He couldn't be
sure in the downpour. The figure stood a good fifty feet away in the center of
the aft hold's hatch, wrapped head to toe in some sort of blanket, completely
unmindful of the driving rain as she stared aftward. He couldn't make out any
features in the dimness, but something in his gut knew he was looking at a
she.

           
 
They'd run into the squall shortly after dark
the first night out of
Haifa
. Maguire was running a topside check to make double sure everything was
secure. A sturdy little tramp, the
Greenbriar
was, with a 200-foot keel and thirty feet abeam, she could haul good cargo
in her two holds, and haul it fast. But any storm, even lightweight
Mediterranean
squalls like this one, could be trouble if
everything wasn't secured the way it was supposed to be. And Captain Liam could
be hell on wheels if something went wrong because of carelessness.

           
 
So Maguire had learned: Do it right the first
time, then double check to make sure you did what you thought you did.

           
 
And after he wound up this little tour of the
deck, he could retire to his cabin and work on his bottle of Jameson's.

           
 
I'm glad I haven't touched that bottle yet, he
thought. Because right now he'd be blaming the whiskey for what he was seeing.

           
 
A
woman?
How the hell had a woman got aboard? And why would any woman
want
to be aboard?

           
 
She stood facing aft, like some green-gilled
landlubber staring homeward.

           
 
"Hello?" he said, approaching the
hatch.

           
 
She turned toward him but the glow from the
lights in the superstructure weren't strong enough to light her features
through the rain. And then he noticed something: the blanket or cloak or robe
or whatever she was wrapped up in wasn't moving or even fluttering in the wind.
In fact, it didn't even look
wet.

           
 
He blinked and turned his head as a
particularly nasty gust stung his face with needle-sharp droplets, and when he
looked again, she was gone.

           
 
He ran across the hatch and searched the
entire afterdeck but could not find a trace of her. So he ran and told the
captain.

           
 
Liam Harrity puffed his pipe and stared out at
him from the mass of red hair that encircled his face.

           
 
"What have we discussed about you hitting
the Jameson's while you're on duty, Denny?" he said.

           
 
"Captain, I swear, I haven't touched a
drop to me lips since last night." Maguire leaned closer. "Here.
Smell me breath."

           
 
The captain waved him off. "I don't want
to be smelling your foul breath! Just get to your bunk and don't be after
coming to me with any more stories of women on my ship Get!"

           
 
Dennis Maguire got, but he knew in his heart
there'd been someone out there in the storm tonight. And somehow he knew they
hadn't seen the last of her.

Paraiso

           
 
"Charlie, Charlie, Charlie," the
senador
said, shaking his head sadly.

           
 
Emilio Sanchez stood at a respectful distance
from the father and son confrontation. He had moved to leave the great room
after delivering Charlie here, but the
senador
had motioned him to stay. Emilio was proud of the
senador's
show of trust and confidence in him, but it pained him to
see so great a man in such distress. So Emilio stepped back against the great
fireplace and stared out at the seamless blackness beyond the windows where the
clouded night sky merged with the Pacific. And listened.

           
 
"I thought we had an understanding,
Charlie," the
senador
said. He
leaned forward, staring earnestly across the long, free-form redwood coffee
table at his son who sat with elbows on knees, head down. "You promised me
six months. You promised me you'd stay here and go through therapy . . . learn
to pray."

           
 
"It's not what you think, Dad,"
Charlie said softly in a hoarse voice. He sounded exhausted. Defeated.

           
 
The fight seemed to have gone out of Charlie.
Which didn't jibe at all with his recent flight from Paraiso. If he wasn't
bucking his father, why did he run?

           
 
Two days ago the
senador
had called Emilio to his home office in a minor panic.
Charlie was gone. His room was empty, and he was nowhere in the house or on the
grounds. Juanita said she'd passed a taxi coming the other way when she'd
arrived early this morning.

           
 
Emilio had sighed and nodded.
Here we go again.

           
 
Fortunately Juanita remembered the name of the
cab company. From there it was easy to trace that particular fare—the whole
damn company was buzzing about picking up a fare at Paraiso that wanted to be
taken all the way to Frisco. The driver had dropped his fare off on
California Street
.

           
 
Charlie had run to his favorite rat hole
again.

           
 
Over the years, during repeated trips in
search of Charlie, Emilio had been in and out of so many gay bars in
San Francisco
that some of the regulars had begun to
think he was a
maricon
himself. To
counteract that insulting notion, he'd made it a practice to bust the skull
anyone who tried to get friendly.

           
 
But this time he hadn't found Charlie down in
the Tenderloin. Instead, he'd traced him to the Embarcadero. Charlie had taken
a room in the Hyatt, of all places.

           
 
When Emilio had knocked on his door, Charlie
hadn't acted surprised, and he hadn't launched into his usual lame protests.
He'd come quietly, barely speaking during the drive back.

           
 
That wasn't like Charlie. Something was wrong.
"What
am
I to think,
Charlie?" the
senador
was
saying. "You promised me. Remember what you said? You said you'd 'give it
the old college try.' Remember that?"

           
 
"Dad—"

           
 
"And you were doing so well! Dr. Thompson
said you were very cooperative, really starting to open up to him. And you
seemed to be getting into the spirit of the prayer sessions, feeling the
presence of the Lord. What happened? Why did you break your promise?"

           
"I didn't break my
promise." He didn't look up. He stared at the table before him, seemingly
lost in the redwood whorls. "I was coming back. I needed—"

           
 
"You
don't
need that . . . sort of ... activity," the
senador
said. "By falling back into that sinfulness you've
undone all your months of work!"

           
 
"I didn't go back for sex," Charlie
said.

           
 
"Please don't make this worse by lying to
me, Charlie." During the ensuing silence, Emilio realized that normally he
too would have thought Charlie was lying, but today he didn't think so.

           
 
"It's the truth, Dad."

           
 
"How can I believe that, Charlie? Every
other time you've disappeared to Sodom-on-the-Bay it's been for sex."

           
 
"Not this time. I . . . I haven't been
feeling well enough for sex."

           
 
"Oh?"

           
 
A premonition shot through Emilio like a
bullet. The
senador
should have felt
it too, but if he did, his face did not betray it. He was still staring at
Charlie with that same hurt earnest expression. Emilio rammed his fist against
his thigh.
Bobo!
Charlie's pale,
feverish look, his weight loss . . . he should have put it together long before
now.

           
 
"I've been having night sweats, then I
developed this rash. I didn't run off to Frisco to get laid, Dad. I went to a
clinic there that knows about . . . these things."

           
 
The
senador
said nothing. A tomblike silence descended on the great room. Emilio could
hear the susurrant flow through the air-conditioning vents, the subliminal
rumble of the ocean beyond the windows, and nothing more. He realized the
senador
must be holding his breath. The
light had dawned.

           
 
Charlie looked up at his father. "I've
got AIDS, Dad."

           
 
Madre.
Emilio
exhaled.

           
 
"Wh-what?" The
senador
was suddenly as pale as his son. "That c-can't be
t-true!"

           
 
He was stuttering. Not once in all his years
with him had Emilio heard that man stutter.

           
 
Charlie was nodding. "The doctors and the
blood tests confirmed what I've guessed for some time. I've just been too
frightened to take the final step and hear someone tell me I've got it."

           
 
"Th-there's got to be some mistake!"

           
 
"No mistake, Dad. This was an AIDS
clinic. They're experts. I'm not just HIV positive. I've got AIDS."

           
 
"But didn't you use protection? Take
precautions?"

           
 
Charlie looked down again. "Yeah. Sure.
Most of the time."

           
 
"Most of the time . . ." The
senador's
voice sounded hollow, distant.
"Charlie . . . what on earth . . . ?"

           
 
"It doesn't matter, Dad. I've got it. I'm
a dead man."

           
 
"No, you're not!" the
senador
cried, new life in his voice as
he shot from his seat. "Don't you say that! You're going to live!"

           
 
"I don't think so, Dad."

           
 
"You will! I won't let you die! I'll get
you the best medical care. And we'll pray. You'll see, Charlie. With God's help
you'll come through this. You'll be a new man when it's over. You'll pass
through the flame and be cleansed, not just of your illness, but of your
sinfulness as well. You're about to be born again, Charlie. I can feel it!"

           
 
Emilio turned away and softly took the stairs
down to his quarters. He fought the urge to run. Emilio did not share the
senador's
faith in the power of prayer
over AIDS. In fact, Emilio could not remember finding prayer useful for much of
anything, especially in his line of work. Rather than listen to the
senador
rattle on about it, he wished to
wash his hands. He'd touched Charlie today. He'd driven Charlie all the way
back from
San
Francisco
today, sitting with him for hours in the same car, breathing his air.

           
 
When he reached the bottom floor, he broke
into a trot toward his quarters. He wanted more than to wash his hands. He
wanted a shower.