Fire Will Fall (45 page)

Tyler and Shahzad just sat there, as blank as I felt and Cora looked. Maybe there's a time you need to react that just doesn't work well in movies. Nobody seemed ready to scream. Maybe we'd been drugged for too long.

Henry stood up straight, took one of the needles in his right hand, and pushed the plunger slightly. Dots of liquid flashed in the air. "Watch this," he said in quiet awe. Three drops hit the table, and after a long minute, they started to sizzle. In another three seconds, the finish turned green, then white, and then the drops started to eat into the wood itself.

"You'll be able to see straight through to the floor in half an hour, and yet it won't eat through a latex hypo. It's a shame most of it's going to go to waste. I understand the USIC went ahead and made arrests today. Anyway, I don't necessarily want to waste what I have. Let me tell you why I'm here. It's not to be entertaining. Pass me a chair, please."

I passed him the one closest to me, and he set it down in front of the now-closed double doors. "I know USIC will be here in ten minutes. I also understand that they will do anything these days to prevent kids from dying. USIC has something we need desperately."

"Which is?" I found my tongue in the silence. I supposed he wanted me to.

"A friend of ours, arrested in Amarillo, Texas, last night. We need him back."

Shahzad spoke up. "American Intelligence does not make trades."

"I'm becoming a bit of a media expert. I get research grants and use the media to get more research grants. I know the media. USIC wouldn't make swaps to save anyone ... except perhaps its 'minor children.' They wouldn't want the bad press if we start sticking you with hypos and throwing you out the door. Cora's going to take pictures. For the media."

Cora's eyes moved to her camera, then back to the pitcher. She looked so out of it. I knew she was fighting the sedative Marg gave her, but added to that seemed the idea that she really didn't care. It was the first jolt of fear I felt. If he couldn't get a rise out of her, I was afraid he'd lose all his charm.

"The bad news is that for USIC to know we're serious, we need to throw somebody out the door. Somebody's got to be sacrificed. And it's our order of business, because it needs to be done anyway. Which one of you is the Kid?"

Tyler and Shahzad looked at Henry. My heart turned to sludge. Your CBS only lasts for so long, and then you start losing it.

Tyler slowly raised his hand and said, "I am."

SCOTT EBERMAN
TUESDAY, MAY 7, 2002
12:18
P.M.
DINING ROOM

I
SHOOK MY HEAD
ever so slightly as Shahzad watched me, afraid if he confessed, the two men would get angrier. It felt like walking on a thread to keep them amused.

"Good," Henry said. "You're not going to waste our time. I like that."

"Where's Marg?" I couldn't help asking.

"I didn't shoot her full of FireFall, if that's what you're thinking. Though I don't know why not. She never liked me. She liked you more. Mr. Don Juan. Seems to me you'd be every parent's nightmare." He shot a glance at the back of Cora's chair and smiled. "I know all about the Trinity Four. And it's more than just your daily vitals, blood counts, and medications. After I wrote the grant, I went all out. I got curious. Did you know that on Sandy Copeland's blog, she writes that when she found out she was number nineteen, she got disgusted and broke up with you? What were you up to before we put you out of commission two years later?"

I'd never known why Sandy broke up with me. It was sudden. "We've all got our issues," I mumbled, then couldn't help looking him up and down with his fistful of hypos and adding, "don't we?"

He exchanged glances with Kansi, who looked suddenly more tense, and Henry shook his head. I brought one of my hands up to my lip and pinched it, knowing not to push my luck one hair farther. I thought of the goat and monkey corpses.

"In our strict culture, Mr. Eberman, you would be considered some sort of a freak. A miscreant, tainted and unfit for marriage."

I wondered if I was supposed to feel bad about that. I noticed that the doors behind Henry didn't quite meet up and that a tiny ray of sun shone through the slit. I was off to the side and figured Kansi had a better view than I did, but I watched it helplessly, thinking if USIC came back and was sneaking around, I would see breaks in the sunlight. It was all I could think to do. That, and focus on something Alan had told me back in March after the raid and the arrests. He said, "It's nothing like James Bond. They're more human than you think. They make mistakes. They
always
make mistakes."

"It's okay," Henry said. "Honestly, I found my situation with Cora close to unbearable. I just hated sitting on the bed with her, touching her hair, smelling her sweet smell. It made her seem almost human. And she's not, you know."

Cora's eyes closed, but she didn't move otherwise.

"A bunch of my friends and I, in college in Hamburg, we knew a woman like you, Cora. Obviously, we never touched her. We called her the
Vergewaltigung.
"

Shahzad's eyes rose to her and widened. He knew a lot of languages...

Henry went on, "Cora's e-mails indicate she's trying to figure out who her father is. Maybe one of these days she can narrow it down to one of sixteen or so Iraqi soldiers. Terrible, isn't it? To have a gang rape for a father? Isn't that rather like being an incest baby? My god. How can you walk about with your head so high? How is it you put on so many airs, Cora? What do you have to be so proud of?"

"My mother," she muttered, and watched the air like maybe she was hearing things again. She sat up and said in a nervy, loud voice not her own, "I haven't heard you say where
you
really come from, Henry. Maybe you'd care to share with everyone whatever ... glorious lineage you're referring to."

Gang rape baby?
For later. Now I wanted to stuff my fist in her mouth. I had gone quickly from thinking she should try to get a rise out of him to thinking maybe she should keep quiet because she would piss him off. But he merely smiled and waved down Kansi, who tensed, dying to strike.

"I'm exempt," he said. "I am sent from the Father Above."

I didn't consider myself a religious person, but there is something paralyzing about hearing a line like that from a guy like this. I swallowed metallic spit as my soul collided with my brother's.

Shahzad swallowed likewise and muttered into the table, "
Das ist Amerika, wo Sie sind willkommen, auch wenn Ihr Vater ist ein hippo.
"

Henry turned to them and spat out in a taunting whisper, "
Ja. Deshalb nennen wir es der Hund Haus. Die Grube der Mischlinge.
" Then he looked at his watch. "I had forgotten about you two. You're not nearly as interesting, are you? You're a write-off, a failed experiment of Omar's before he decided to listen to me. Scott, go get your brother and the Steckerman girl."

He must have sensed the "go to hell" wafting off of me.

"We only need one body, but we need everyone in one place. Sick kids fall asleep, sick kids wake up. I don't need them running around the house screaming in panic while I'm trying to kill people. Go. Don't make me angry."

I moved through the kitchen and felt Kansi following me, leaving Tyler, Shahzad, and Cora with one guy who held six syringes and maybe had a gun under his jacket. It was humiliating. I went into the TV room and found the window was wide open, the screen punched out. The room was empty. The remotes lay in the middle of the couch. Kansi checked behind the couches and the drapes.

"They must have heard you and taken off," I said.
Not as stupid as you thought, you little ape.

He touched my arm to pull me back, and that sent me into a deeper level of calm, equal to how bad I should have wanted to kill him. I didn't try anything.

"They're outside," Kansi said as we returned.

"Ah. Our guys in the brush need hostages, too. That works well."

They're hostages. My brother will never live through this. Think of it later.

He pulled a flat-bottomed beaker out of his pocket and with the hand holding the hypos, used his fingers to get the top off. Too much self-control. He set it in front of Tyler. "FireFall is a terrible way to go. This is not. Drink it."

Shahzad gazed at me again and I shook my head, looking to the floor. What Tyler had done was noble, but what was done was done. We needed to keep Henry seated. If the beaker got anywhere close to Tyler's mouth, I was diving for Henry.

Tyler's CBS was still with him for some reason. I glanced over my shoulder for something to hurl—not that we had a chance. The swinging door to the kitchen was still open, and I could see a carton of a dozen or so cans of organic tomato paste, but we'd all be dead by the time I reached and heaved even one. And I hadn't pitched in baseball since I was twelve.

Tyler stuck his head down to the beaker and smelled it.
Ballsy, ballsy.
"Smells lousy. What is it?"

"Just drink it."

"What if I don't want to?"

"You will. If you don't, I'll stick Cora with one of these."

Henry didn't even move to Cora, didn't hold it to her throat. His confidence stunned me more than his threats did. We couldn't rush him, not considering he was holding something more lethal than a gun. Kansi swung his nunchuks once, which I supposed meant he'd come after me as well, and then they disappeared into his crossed arms again. The
whir-spit-whir
sound caught Tyler's attention. He looked at me, then at the beaker, and I could see the terror written all over his face.

"Don't waste our time. You're supposed to be dead anyway." Henry was leaning back in his chair, the top still caught up under the door handles, not looking the least bit nervous. "I'm counting backwards for you. Ten. Nine. Eight."

Tyler pulled his sense of humor out of his ass. "Can I say grace?"

"You may not. Seven. Six."

"That's a terrible thing. Maybe you're not the only religious guy in this room."

"Five. Four."

"Thanks, God. Amen..."

"Three—"

The rest happened so fast, yet it left an eternity of flash images in my mind. A
bang!
drew my eyes to Kansi, who dropped his nunchucks and gripped his chest as blood poured through it. Tyler and Shahzad flew under the table, yanking Cora down with them, and Kansi staggered toward Henry, reaching him at the same time my brother did. I dove for Kansi and took him to the floor. I didn't have to hold him down for more than a few seconds. He went limp and was, I presumed, dead, leaving me to stare at my brother, frozen with horror.

Owen held Marg's smoking gun in his hands and had it pointed square in the middle of Henry's forehead. Henry had his fistful of hypos stuck up to my brother's neck. If either of them moved...

"Careful, Owen," I whispered in the most even voice I could find.

Henry smiled, though I noticed his Adam's apple bob deep into his throat as he swallowed. "Well. It appears we're at cross-purposes. I'll put mine down if you'll put yours down first."

Owen laughed once without smiling. His hands shook badly, even with one gripping the other. "What did you say a few minutes back? You're sent from
where?
"

"From the Father Above," Henry repeated without wavering.

My brother's exhale was so sickened, I expected his last meal to follow. I'm sure he was picturing Mom and thinking about the concept of guys sent from the Father Above sending her on.

Owen's whole face was shaking now too, even his eyelids. But he said, "I got a great idea. Let's both go there ... and find out who stays."

The trigger made one little click. He would face off, in spite of his terror, I just knew it.

I think Henry got the idea he was serious. He didn't move, but tension rattled in his laugh. "I thought you were the nonviolent one."

"I am," Owen managed to say. "I don't have to like it. But I will split your head open and put your soul into orbit. We can see where it lands. Shall we?"

"You don't want to die this way," Henry said. "It's slow."

Owen's shaking was ridiculous, yet the butt end was an inch from Henry's forehead, and Owen looked ready to squeeze the trigger. "So? We'll be dead a
long
time. I'm ready. Are you?"

Owen, just shut up and pop him. It's just. Take a risk.
The electric silence that followed could have killed the rest of us. Henry wasn't shaking—it could have proved fatal if he had been, what with a hand full of hypos—but I noticed his face was shiny wet. A line of sweat trailed in front of his ear. I got a flash thought that the only edge my brother had on this rocket scientist was that he'd had lots of time to think about this particular thing. My brother was born to think about stuff like death.

Rain's feet floated past me. I hadn't seen her come in. She stopped so her feet were beside theirs, square in the middle.

"What do you want, little Miss USIC?" Henry asked. "You come to watch your boyfriend sign off?"

"I just had an idea," Rain said. Her voice was really quivering. "Wouldn't you rather pick on me than him? Considering who my dad is?"

Her legs started to glisten. She was pissing herself. I almost dove for Henry, just because I couldn't stand it. But his voice rose.

"Frankly, I would. But I'm afraid to move," Henry said. "Do you have any persuasion with this man?"

Rain would not put herself in the death seat. I just knew it—not that she didn't have the nerve. She just didn't have the faith. I didn't either. Hence, what my brother was doing was so inconceivable that I could only watch.

"Oh. So you
are
afraid. What are you afraid of?" my brother yelled. I think Rain had confused him, had confused Henry, making them both panic, both more likely to screw this up. And she did about the stupidest thing you could do, only somehow it worked out. She shoved Henry's arm outward, and glistening threads shot into the air as he hit the plungers. My brother shot Henry square in the face, and he toppled to the ground. Owen's hand relaxed, and the gun dropped immediately.