Panacea (50 page)

 

7

“Well,” he said, raising a couple of fingers of Burgundy in one of the room's squat tumblers, “if you won't toast to the panacea, will you toast to ‘intellects vast, cool and unsympathetic'?”

She raised the glass he'd poured for her. “Why not your Dark Man? At least you saw him.”

Any warmth that had grown in his eyes over dinner vanished as if it had never been.

“Don't joke about that. Don't ever joke about that.”

His cold vehemence struck her like a blow.

“I'm sorry. I was just—”

He started to rise. “I'd better go.”

“No. Please.” She pushed him back, not believing she did that. “I was just trying to get you talking about yourself.”

“The me that existed before I became Rick Hayden is gone. Nothing to discuss.”

“Then what about the cult?”

“No! They were … I want to say animals but that's not fair to animals. Human monsters is more like it. They're best forgotten.” He started to rise again.

“Oh,” she said, making one last desperate try. “That's too bad. Because I think I can explain that total blackness you saw.”

“Not that dark matter idea.”

“No. It has to do with how we see.”

He sat back down. “I'm listening.”

She gathered her thoughts. She was going back to medical school classes for this. She hoped she remembered right.

“Light is part of the electromagnetic spectrum. We perceive less than one percent of the wavelengths—the so-called ‘colors.' The color we see is the wavelength the object reflects. A lemon is yellow because its skin reflects the yellow wavelength. Black is black because it reflects
none
of the visible spectrum. What you're seeing then is a
lack
of color.”

“But this was beyond black.”

“Okay. So imagine a surface that absorbs not only all the visible but all the invisible as well: ultraviolet and infrared and X-rays and gamma rays. It reflects absolutely nothing. What would that look like?”

Rick's eyes had lost focus, as if he were looking into the past.

“Like a hole in reality.”

Laura's chest tightened. Yes … she hadn't thought of it that way, but she imagined that would be exactly what it looked like.

“Do you think what you saw might have been one of the vast, cool and unsympathetic intellects?”

He shook his head. “Doubt it. Maybe just a manifestation, maybe just its pinky fingernail, maybe a trick of the light.”

She didn't want to mention the Dark Man again so she said, “Was that what this cult thought it was after? A hole in reality?”

“They found an old book from the early nineteenth century by some crazy German. It's a description of the practices of obscure religions all around the world—all the continents and lots of isolated islands. They let me take a look at a copy they'd Xeroxed off. I got through a couple of pages and”—he shuddered—“that was it. I couldn't go any further.”

“Like what?”

He waved a hand. “You don't want to know. Like you said the other day, there's some things you can't unsee. Well, there are some things you can't unread.”

“But you stuck with them?”

“Last thing I wanted, but I felt I had to. They had explosives and combustibles. They hated everything, Laura. They had this crazy idea that if they could raise this Dark Man or bring him across, he could be their WMD. I was cool with that sort of wild-goose chase. As long as they were chasing phantoms, they weren't making bombs.”

“So this evil book was actually serving a good purpose.”

“Wait,” he said. “Around this time the Company decided to pull me out. Since the group had dropped Wahhabism, Langley didn't think they were a threat to the U.S., but lemme tell you, they were a threat to
everybody
. I flew home to make my case for continued surveillance but I might as well have been talking to myself. They pulled me.”

“So what did you do?”

“I flew back on my own … and I saw what they'd been up to while I was away.”

“What?”

“Children … they'd found something in that damn book and they were doing things to little kids.”

Did she want to hear this? She didn't think so. But she had to ask.

“What sort of things?”

“Hurting them, maiming them in awful ways … this was how they would draw the Dark Man … kept the kids in a barn behind the farmhouse … I went…” He cleared his throat. “I went a little crazy, started tearing up the farmhouse. Some of the combustibles they had stored ignited. I managed to get out. They didn't.”

“The farmhouse fire that Fife's text mentioned?”

An absent nod. “And then the barn with the kids blew apart in a massive fireball. One second it was there, the next it was an inferno.”

“Oh, no!”

“The German crime-scene crew later reported that the barn had been rigged to explode, with the trigger in the house.”

“But why?”

“I'm just guessing, but I imagine they figured that if they were ever raided, they couldn't allow anyone to see what they'd done to those kids. So they had some sort of switch they could throw that would incinerate the barn and everything in it. The damage to the house must have triggered the barn detonators. And that's when I saw that thing, that hole in reality.”

Laura tried to picture the scene … and failed.

She looked up and saw him rubbing his sleeve across his reddened eyes. “Fifteen kids … and I killed them.”

“But you didn't set those charges, those monsters did.”

“If I'd simply backed off and called the cops…”

“But the children would still be dead, right? The arrival of the cops would have triggered the barn bombs, right?”

“I suppose.”

“Have you ever told anyone about this?”

“No. You're the first. Sorry to lay it on you.” He wiped his eyes on his sleeve again as he rose. “I don't drink like I used to. Out of practice, I guess.”

“You mean you've been carrying this around since…?”

It explained so much about him, especially his reaction to the tortured little Mayan girl.

He shrugged and looked uncomfortable. “I don't know about carrying it around. I just … I should go.”

Laura shot to her feet and found herself swaying. She was much more out of practice than Rick in the drinking department.

“No, wait. You can't leave like that.” On their own, her arms slipped around him and she squeezed against him. This man needed a hug. “You tried to do the right thing and it went horribly wrong. You've got to let it go.”

His arms went around her back, but lightly. When was the last time a man had held her? Too long …

“I thought I had. I'd convinced myself the dark shape I'd seen was just a hallucination, but then this panacea business popped up and brought it all back.”

She lifted her head to look at him. “Then ‘too-perfect' me came along and everything seemed ‘arranged.'”

He smiled. “I'm glad you did. I'm glad I was along to help you out. But I've decided you're not too perfect. You're simply perfect.”

Somehow their lips met, a touch as gentle as it was brief.

“I probably should leave now.”

The “probably” struck. Yeah, he was probably right, but she wanted to try that again.

So instead of backing away she leaned into him and they kissed again. More firmly this time. Laura felt a sigh half escape. A sudden pounding on the door cut it off.

“Laura! Laura!” Clotilde's voice.

“What the—?”

“Laura, open up! Emergency!”

She broke from Rick and yanked open the door. A distraught Clotilde stood there, hands clasped between her breasts.

“What's wrong?”

“Your daughter—she is in hospital. Very sick!”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“My people there have learned that she was hospitalized three days ago.”

Three days? No way. The initial shock and fear began to fade.

“No, that can't be. If her last name is Fanning, you've got the wrong girl. Her name is Gaines. I've been in touch daily. She's fine.”

Clotilde's eyes narrowed. “You've spoken to her?”

“No, the phones won't—oh, dear God.”

“Fife?” Rick said.

“We think so,” Clotilde said, nodding.

Laura backed up a step, looking from one to the other. “Wait—what?”

Clotilde held up a smartphone. “Brother Fife's. You left the 536 phones with me. I found texts from him telling someone what texts to send you from your husband and to your husband from you.” She looked at Rick. “I even found a fascinating text concerning your companion.”

The horror was seeping through.

“But why?

“To keep you on the trail of the
ikhar
.”

“The son of a bitch,” Rick said. “I hope that lays to rest any lingering guilt about his passing.”

Laura couldn't care less about Fife.

“Marissa … how bad?”

“Gravely ill. An infection. Something called—”

“Please don't say CMV.”

Clotilde nodded. “That is what we have heard. She is at a place called Stony Brook.”

Laura knew what that meant. But even though she was in good hands …

“I'm going to lose her.” She looked around for shoulder her bag, grabbed it, and began to push past Clotilde. “Gotta get back. Now.”

Clotilde stepped aside and let her pass. Laura noticed Rick close behind her.

“You don't have to—”

“Yeah, I do.”

“I just quit Stahlman,” she said.

“I didn't. But that's not the point. You're gonna need me.”

“I'll be fine.”

“Trust me. You're gonna need me.”

Right now all she needed was to get to Marissa.

 

MARISSA

 

1

“Uh-oh,” Rick said as they stepped out into the midday sunlight—blinding after all those hours in terminals and on the plane. “I was afraid of this.”

“What?” Laura said.

She was running on fumes now. They'd abandoned their luggage at the hotel and rushed to the Kirkwall airport where someone made a few calls and found a pilot to fly them to Heathrow. They looked for the first flight to the New York metro area—JFK, Newark, no matter—and lucked out with a Virgin flight to JFK, landing just shy of noon.

Laura had tried to call Steven while they waited at Heathrow but his phone was still playing games. So she called the medical center, got connected to the PICU, and learned the whole story: admitted early Wednesday followed by steady deterioration. CMV pneumonia complicated by cerebral edema secondary to CMV meningitis. Every relevant specialist and subspecialist on the pediatric staff had tried to halt her downhill course, all with no success. She'd slipped into a coma and the prognosis was grave. She didn't have long.

Rick had dozed off immediately after the first-class dinner Laura couldn't eat and she'd wished she could do the same—the trip would have gone so much faster. But sleep was out of the question. He'd bullied them to be first off the plane but Customs and Immigration would not be rushed. She'd felt her control slipping with the delay. Once they were finally cleared they'd run through the cavernous Terminal Four to the public transportation area.

Rick pointed to a familiar-looking van, idling in a no-idling zone. “Stahlman's here. Shit.”

Laura didn't see the problem. “What's wrong? He can drive us to Stony Brook.”

“Yeah. Maybe. Let me do the talking here.”

“I'm perfectly capable of—”

“Just follow my lead, okay?”

She wondered what had him so concerned as she matched him stride for stride toward the van.

Stahlman's driver—James, was it?—stepped forward. “Do you have luggage?”

“The boss inside?” Rick said.

James gestured toward the open side panel. “He awaits.”

She followed Rick inside with James close behind. The door slid shut behind them.

“What the—?” Rick said, turning. “Where is he?”

“Mister Stahlman awaits … at home. He is too sick to greet you in person. He sent me to bring you to him.”

“Fine,” Rick said. “But we've got a stop to make first.”

“That won't be possible, I'm afraid. Mister Stahlman said I was to bring you both directly from the airport.”

“We don't have his panacea,” Laura said. “I'm sorry.”

Rick touched Laura's upper arm. “Come on, Doc. We'll grab a cab.”

James said, “Wait.” He had a gun in his hand.

“Whoa-whoa!” Rick said

Oh, God, this was insane. This couldn't be happening. A gun at an airport. She glanced through the van's windows, hoping for a cop, but they were too darkly tinted for anyone to see inside.

“My daughter is dying!”

James's expression was tortured. “I'm sorry, but my boss is dying.”

“I told you,” she said, “I don't have it!”

Rick stepped around Laura and put himself between her and the gun. “We've got a sick kid to visit. And anyway, you're not crazy enough to start shooting at an airport, are you?”

“I don't want to, Rick, but Mister—”

Laura didn't see what happened then. All she could see was Rick's back, but there seemed to be an instant of struggle and the next thing she knew, Rick had shifted to the side and had a pistol muzzle jammed up under James's chin.

Somehow, she wasn't surprised.

“Didn't think so,” Rick said. “But you know
I'm
crazy enough, right?”

James looked frightened. “Look, this wasn't—”

“Your idea? I know that. That's why you're going to turn around and put your hands behind your back.”