F Paul Wilson - Novel 03 (39 page)

           
 
"So do I," Kesev said. "For
more than her sake alone. There are other matters to consider."

           
 
"Yeah? Like what?"

           
 
Dan heard the belligerence creeping into his
tone, into his mood. What right did this Israeli bastard have to come up to him
here in the depths of his grief and start bothering him about Carrie? What did
anything matter now that Carrie was dead?

           
 
"We must find the Mother."

           
 
"You
find her! She's brought me nothing but grief."

           
 
He started to rise but Kesev restrained him
with a surprisingly strong hand on his shoulder.

           
 
"If we find the Mother, we find the
killers."

           
 
Dan leaned back into the chair. Find the
killers . . . wouldn't that be nice? To wrap his fingers around that big bearded
bastard's throat and squeeze and squeeze, and keep on squeezing until—

           
 
"Father Fitzpatrick?"

           
 
Dan looked up. One of the homicide detectives
who'd questioned him before was approaching—Detective Sergeant Gardner. He
carried a black plastic bag in his hand.

           
 
What did he want now? He'd told him
everything, given descriptions of the killers, the sound of their voices,
anything he could think of. He was tapped out.

           
 
He noticed Kesev slipping away as the
detective neared.

           
 
"They're shipping her body uptown,"
Detective Gardner said.

           
 
Dan lurched to his feet. "Why?
Where?"

           
 
"S.O.P. To the morgue. They're going to
autopsy her right away."

           
 
"So soon?" Hadn't Carrie been
through enough? "I'd’ve thought—"

           
 
"The pressure's on, Father. We've got a
big, mean, unruly crowd outside your church, and from what I hear, the commish
has already heard from the Cardinal, the mayor,
Albany
, even the Israeli embassy. Everybody but
everybody wants these guys caught and that relic returned. The commish wants a
full forensic report on his desk by
six A.M.
, so they're going to do her right
away."

           
 
"Can I see her before—"

           
 
Gardner
shook his head. "Sorry. She's gone.
Saw her off myself." He held out the black plastic bag. "But here's
her personal effects. You want to return them to the convent? If not . .
."

           
 
"No, that's all right," Dan said.
"I'll take them."

           
 
Detective
Gardner
handed the bag over and stood before him,
awkward, silent. Finally he said, "We'll get them, Father."

           
 
Dan could only nod.

           
 
As the detective hurried away, Dan sat down
and opened the bag. Not much there: a wallet, a rosary, and Carrie's Ziploc
bags of the Virgin's clippings and nail filings.

           
 
For an insane moment Dan thought of cabbing up
to the morgue—it was up in the
Bellevue
complex, wasn't it? . . . First Avenue and
Thirtieth . . . he could be there in a couple of minutes. He'd sneak into the
autopsy room. He'd sprinkle the entire contents of both bags over Carrie's body
and . . .

           
 
And what? Bring her back to life?

           
 
Who am I kidding? he thought. That's Stephen
King stuff. Carrie's gone . . . forever.

           
 
Without warning, he broke into deep racking
sobs. He hadn't even felt them coming. Suddenly they were there, convulsing his
chest as they ripped free.

           
 
A hand touched his shoulder. He fought for
control and looked up. The man called Kesev had returned.

           
 
"Come, Father Fitzpatrick. I'll take you
home. There are things we must discuss."

           
 
Dan nodded absently. Home . . . where was
that? The rectory? That wasn't home. Where was home now that Carrie was dead?
He didn't care where he went now, he just knew he didn't want to stay in this
hospital any longer.

           
 
He bunched up the neck of the plastic bag and
followed Kesev toward the exit.

           
 
Dr. Darryl Chin, second assistant medical
examiner for New York City, yawned as he pulled on a pair of examination
gloves. This is what you get, he supposed, when you're down-line in the pecking
order and you live in the East Village: They need somebody quick, they call
you.

           
 
"Could be a lot worse," he muttered.

           
 
He looked down at the naked female cadaver
supine before him on the stainless steel autopsy table, dead-pale skin, breasts
caked with blood, dark hair tangled in disarray, jaw slack, dull blue eyes
staring lifelessly at the overhead fluorescents. The murdered nun he'd heard
about on the news tonight. Young, pretty, and fresh. The fresh part was
important. Only a few hours cold. He might get some useful information out of
her. Better than some stinking, macerated, crab-nibbled corpse they'd dragged
out of the
Hudson
. And this was a neat chest wound, not some
messy gut shot. They'd be through with this one in no time.

           
 
If
they
ever got started.

           
 
Where the hell was Lou Ann? She was supposed
to assist him tonight. She lived in Queens and had a longer ride, but she
should have been here by now. Probably had to put on her face before she came
in. Joe had never seen her without two tons of eye liner and mascara.

           
 
Vanity, woman be thy name.

           
 
No use in wasting time. He could get started
without her. Open and drain the thorax at least. These chest wounds always left
the cavity filled with blood.

           
 
He probed the entry wound with his little
finger. Looked like the work of a 9mm slug. Good shot. Right into the heart.
Poor girl probably never knew what hit her.

           
 
He reached up and adjusted the voice-activated
mike that hung over the table. He gave the date and read off the name of the
subject and presumed cause of death from the ID card, then reached for his
scalpel.

           
 
Time to open her up. Get the major incisions
out of the way, drain and measure the volume of blood in the thoracic cavity,
and by then Lou Ann would be here and they could start in on the individual
organs.

           
 
He poked his index finger into the
suprasternal notch atop the breast bone, laid the point of the blade against
the skin just below the notch, and leaned over the table to make the first long
incision down the center of the sternum.

           
 
"Please don't do that."

           
 
A woman's voice. He looked around.
Who
—
?

           
 
Then he looked down. The cadaver's blue eyes
were no longer dull and unfocused. They were bright and moving in their
sockets, looking at him.

           
 
The scalpel clattered on the metal table as he
jumped back.

           
 
"Jesus
Christ!"

           
 
"Please don't take His name in
vain," the nun said, staring at him as she levered up to a sitting
position on the table.

           
 
Darryl felt his heart hammering in his chest,
heard a roaring in his ears as he backed away.

           
 
She's
dead! She's dead but she's talking, moving!

           
 
She swung her legs over the side of the table
and slipped to the floor. Still backing away, Joe dumbly watched her naked form
cross the room like a sleepwalker and pull a white lab coat from a hook on the
wall.

           
 
Darryl's heel caught against something on the
floor and he fell backward, his arms pinwheeling for balance. He grabbed the
edge of a table but his fingers slipped off the shiny surface and he landed on
his buttocks. His head snapped back and struck the painted concrete block of
the wall.

           
 
Darryl tried to call out but found he had no
voice. He tried to hold onto consciousness but it was a losing battle. The last
thing he saw before darkness closed in was the dead woman slipping into the lab
coat and walking out the door, leaving it open behind her.

IN THE PACIFIC

           
24°
N, 120° W

           
 
Reconnaissance flight 705 out of
San Diego
is buffeted by tornadic winds and blinding
torrents as it fights its way toward the center of the huge, mysterious Pacific
storm that shows up on satellite photos but not radar. An unclassifiable,
logic-defying storm with the combined properties of an Atlantic hurricane, a
Pacific typhoon, and a Midwestern supercell. All that can be said of it from
orbit photos and fly-by observation is that a towering colossus of violent
weather topping out at fifty-thousand feet is crossing the Pacific in the
general direction of northern
Mexico
.

           
 
Reconnaissance 705's mission is to classify
it, but right now, hemmed in by roiling clouds and radar that shows clear,
calm, open sea ahead of them, they are truly flying blind. The pilot, Captain Harry
Densmore, has never experienced anything like this. The barometric readings are
in the mid-twenties as he approaches what should be the center of the storm. He
wants to turn back but he needs to know what's at the heart of this
monstrosity. There's no eye visible from orbit, but all indications point to an
organized center. One look, one reading, and he'll turn tail and run. This
monster hasn't killed anybody yet but he's afraid he and his crew might change
all that. He'll count himself lucky if he sees San Diego again.

           
 
Just a little farther . . .

           
 
Suddenly the plane is buffeted by a gust that
knocks it forty-five degrees off line. Metal shrieks in Densmore's ears and
he's sure she's going to come apart when suddenly they're in still air.

           
 
"It's got an eye!" he shouts.
"We're through the eye wall!"

           
 
But an eye should be clear. And in an eye this
huge, blue sky should be visible above. Not here. It's dark in this eye. Very
dark. And raining.

           
 
Maybe it'll clear up ahead.

           
 
The copilot calls out the barometric reading:
Twenty-three.

           
 
"Twenty-three?
Check that again. That's got to be wrong!"

           
 
Then lightning flashes and Densmore sees
something through the rain ahead. Something huge.

           
 
Something dark. The far side of the eye wall?
Maybe this eye isn't as big as he thought.

           
 
Maybe—

           
 
"Oh, Christ!"

           
 
He turns the wheel and kicks the rudder hard,
all but standing the plane on its wing-tip as he banks sharply to the left. The
shouts of alarm and surprise from his copilot and navigator choke off as they
see it too.