Strangers (33 page)

In a few months, most people had forgotten him, and when he regained the pounds he had lost in prison, they ceased to recognize him as the alleged war criminal they had seen on television. But the pain and the sense of betrayal continued to burn fiercely in him.

If being abandoned by his country was the second worst shock of his life, the worst was what had happened to Jenny while he had been stuck in that Central American prison. A thug had accosted her in the hallway of her own apartment building as she was coming home from work. He put a gun to her head, hustled her into her apartment, sodomized and raped her, clubbed her brutally with his pistol, and left her for dead.

When Jack came home at last, he found Jenny in a state institution, comatose. The level of care she had been getting was abominable.

Norman Hazzurt, the rapist who attacked Jenny, had been tracked down through fingerprints and witnesses, but a clever defense attorney had managed to delay the trial. Undertaking an investigation of his own, Jack satisfied himself that Hazzurt, with a history of violent sex offenses, was the guilty man. He also became convinced that Hazzurt would be acquitted on a technicality.

Throughout his ordeal with the press and politicians, Jack made plans for the future. There were two primary tasks ahead of him: First, he would kill Norman Hazzurt in such a way as to avoid any suspicion falling upon himself; second, he would get enough money to move Jenny to a private sanitarium, though the only way to obtain so much cash in a
hurry was to steal it. As an elite Ranger, he was trained in most weapons, explosives, martial arts, and survival techniques. His society had failed him, but it had also provided him with the knowledge and the means by which he could extract his revenge, and it had taught him how to break whatever laws stood in his way without punishment.

Norman Hazzurt died in an “accidental” gas explosion two months after Jack returned to the States. And two weeks later, Jenny’s transference to a private sanitarium was financed by the proceeds from an ingenious bank robbery executed with military precision.

The murder of Hazzurt did not satisfy Jack. In fact, it depressed him. Killing in a war was different from killing in civilian life. He did not have the detachment to kill except in self-defense.

Robbery, however, was enormously appealing. After the successful bank job, he’d been excited, exalted, exhilarated. Daring robbery had a medicinal quality. Crime gave him a reason to live. Until recently.

Now, sitting at Jenny’s bedside, Jack Twist wondered what would keep him going, day after day, if not grand larceny. The only other thing he had was Jenny. However, he no longer needed to provide for her; he had already piled up more than enough money for that. So his only reason for living was to come here several times a week, look upon her serene face, hold her hand—and pray for a miracle.

It was ironic that a man like him—a hard-headed, self-reliant individualist—should have no hope but mysticism.

As he brooded on that, he heard Jenny make a soft gurgling sound. She took two quick, deep breaths and produced a long, rattling sigh. For one crazy moment as he rose from his chair, Jack half-expected to find her eyes open, filled with awareness for the first time in more than eight years, the miracle having come to pass even as he had been day-dreaming of it. But her eyes were closed, and her face was slack. He put a hand against her face, then moved it to her throat. He felt for her pulse. What had happened was not, in fact, miraculous but
anti
-miraculous, mundane, and inevitable: Jenny Twist had died.

Chicago, Illinois

Few physicians were on duty at St. Joseph’s that Christmas, but a resident named Jarvil and an intern named Klinet were eager to talk to Father Wycazik about Emmeline Halbourg’s amazing recovery.

Klinet, an intense wiry-haired young man, escorted Stefan to a consultation room to review Emmy’s file and X-rays. “Five weeks ago, she was started on namiloxiprine—a new drug, just approved by the FDA.”

Dr. Jarvil, the resident, was soft-spoken, with heavy-lidded eyes, but when he joined them in the consultation room, he, too, was visibly excited by Emmeline Halbourg’s dramatic turn for the better.

“Namiloxiprine has several effects in bone diseases like Emmy’s,” Jarvil said. “In many instances it puts a stop to the destruction of the periosteum, promotes the growth of healthy osteocytes, and somewhat induces the accumulation of intercellular calcium. And in a case like Emmy’s, where the bone marrow is the primary target of the disease, namiloxiprine creates an unusual chemical environment in the marrow cavity and in the haversian canals, an environment that’s extremely hostile to microorganisms but actually
encourages
the growth of marrow cells, the production of blood cells, and hemoglobin formation.”

“But it’s not supposed to work
this
fast,” Klinet said.

“And it’s basically a stop-loss drug,” Jarvil said. “It can arrest the progress of a disease, put a stop to bone deterioration. But it doesn’t make regeneration possible. Sure, it’s supposed to promote
some
reconstruction, but not the kind of rebuilding we’re seeing in Emmy.”

“
Fast
rebuilding,” Klinet said, smacking his forehead with the heel of his hand, as if to knock this amazing fact into his unwilling brain.

They showed Stefan a series of X-rays taken over the past six weeks, in which the changes in Emmy’s bones and joints were obvious.

Klinet said, “She’d been on namiloxiprine for three weeks without noticeable effect, and then suddenly, two weeks ago, her body not only went into a state of remission but began rebuilding damaged tissues.”

The timing of the girl’s turnaround coincided perfectly with the first appearance of the strange rings on Brendan Cronin’s hands. However, Stefan Wycazik made no mention of that coincidence.

Jarvil produced more X-rays and tests that showed a remarkable improvement in the child’s haversian canals, the elaborate network that carried small blood vessels and lymphatics throughout the bone for the purpose of maintenance and repair. Many of these had been clogged with a plaquelike substance that pinched off the vessels passing through them. In the past two weeks, however, the plaque almost disappeared, allowing the full circulation required for healing and regeneration.

“No one even knew that namiloxiprine could clean out the canals this way,” Jarvil said. “No record of it. Oh, yes, minor unclogging, but only as a consequence of getting the disease itself under control. Nothing like this. Amazing.”

“If regeneration continues at this rate,” Klinet said, “Emmy could be a normal, healthy girl in three months. Really phenomenal.”

Jarvil said, “She could be well again.”

They grinned at Father Wycazik, and he did not have the heart to suggest
that neither their hard work nor the wonder drug was responsible for Emmeline Halbourg’s cure. They were euphoric, so Stefan kept to himself the possibility that Emmy’s cure had been effected by some power far more mysterious than modern medicine.

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Christmas Day with Lucy, Frank, and the grandchildren was fun and therapeutic for Ernie and Faye Block. By the time they went out for a walk (just the two of them) toward the end of the afternoon, they were feeling better than they had in months.

The weather was perfect for walking: cold, crisp, but without wind. The most recent snowfall was four days old, so the sidewalks were clear. As twilight approached, the air shimmered with a purple radiance.

Bundled in heavy coats and scarves, Faye and Ernie strolled arm in arm, talking animatedly about the day’s events, enjoying the Christmas displays that Lucy’s and Frank’s neighbors had erected on their front lawns. The years slipped away, and Faye felt as if she and Ernie were still newlyweds, young and full of dreams.

From the moment they had arrived in Milwaukee on December 15, ten days ago, Faye had reason to hope that everything was going to work out all right. Ernie had seemed better—a new bounciness in his step, more genuine good humor in his smile. Evidently, just basking in the love of his daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren was sufficient to burn away some of the crippling fear that had become the central fact of his life.

The therapy sessions with Dr. Fontelaine, six so far, had also been remarkably beneficial. Ernie was still afraid of the dark but far less terrified than when they left Nevada. Phobias, according to the doctor, were easy to treat compared to many other psychiatric disorders. In recent years therapists had discovered that, in most cases, the symptoms
were
the disease rather than merely shadows cast by unresolved conflicts in the patient’s subconscious. It was no longer considered necessary—or even possible or desirable—to seek the psychological causes of the condition in order to treat it. Long courses of therapy had been abandoned in favor of teaching the patient desensitization techniques that could eradicate the symptoms in months or even weeks.

Approximately a third of all phobics could not be helped by these methods and, instead, required long-term treatment and even panic-blocking drugs like alprazolam. But Ernie had improved at a pace that even Dr. Fontelaine, an optimist by nature, found astonishing.

Faye had been reading extensively about phobias and had discovered
she could help Ernie by digging up amusing, curious facts that allowed him to view his condition from a different—less fearsome—perspective. He was especially fond of hearing about bizarre phobias that made his terror of the dark seem reasonable by comparison. For example, knowing there were pteronophobics out there, people who lived in constant and unreasonable fear of feathers, made his abhorrence of nightfall seem not only bearable but almost ordinary and logical, as well. Ichthyophobes were horrified by the prospect of encountering a fish, and pediophobes ran screaming at the sight of a doll. And Ernie’s nyctophobia was certainly preferable to coitophobia (the fear of sexual intercourse), and not a fraction as debilitating as autophobia (the fear of oneself).

Now, walking through the twilight, Faye tried to keep Ernie’s mind off the descending darkness by telling him about the late author, John Cheever, winner of the National Book Award, who’d been gephyrophobic. Cheever had suffered from a crippling fear of crossing high bridges.

Ernie listened with fascination, but he was no less aware of the onset of nightfall. As the shadows lengthened across the snow, his hand steadily tightened on her arm until it would have been painful if she had not been wearing a thick sweater and heavy coat.

By the time they had gone seven blocks, they were too far from the house to have any hope of returning to it before full darkness settled on the land. Two-thirds of the sky was black already, and the other third was deep purple. The shadows had spread like spilt ink.

The streetlamps had come on. Faye halted Ernie in a cone of light, giving him a brief reprieve. His eyes had a wild look, and his steaming exhalations rushed from him at a rate that indicated incipient panic.

“Remember to control your breathing,” Faye said.

He nodded and began at once to take deeper, slower breaths.

When all the light in the sky had been extinguished, she said, “Ready to go back?”

“Ready,” he said hollowly.

They stepped out of the glow of the streetlamp, into darkness, heading back toward the house, and Ernie hissed between clenched teeth.

What they were engaged upon, for the third time, was a dramatic therapeutic technique called “flooding,” in which the phobic was encouraged to confront the thing he feared and to endure it long enough to break its hold on him. Flooding is based on the fact that panic attacks are self-limiting. The human body cannot sustain a very high level of panic indefinitely, cannot produce endless adrenaline, so the mind must adapt to, and make peace—or at least a truce—with what it fears. Unmodified flooding can be a cruel, barbaric method of cracking a phobia, for it puts the patient at risk of a breakdown. Dr. Fontelaine preferred a modified
version of the technique involving three stages of confrontation with the source of fear.

The first stage, in Ernie’s case, was to put himself in darkness for fifteen minutes, but with Faye at his side for support and with lighted areas easily accessible. Now, each time they arrived at the lighted sidewalk beneath a streetlamp, they paused to let him gather his courage, then went on into the next patch of darkness.

The second stage, which they would try in another week or two, after more sessions with the doctor, would involve driving to a place where there were no streetlamps, no easily reached lighted areas. There, they would walk together arm in arm across an unrelieved vista of darkness until Ernie could tolerate no more, at which time Faye would switch on a flashlight and give him a moment’s respite.

In the third stage of treatment, Ernie would go for a stroll alone in a completely dark area. After a few outings like that, he would almost certainly be cured.

But he was not cured yet, and by the time they covered six blocks of the seven-block return journey to the house, Ernie was breathing like a well-run racehorse, and he bolted for the safety of the light inside. Not bad, though—six blocks. Better than before. At this rate, he would be cured in no time.

As Faye followed him into the house, where Lucy was already helping him out of his coat, she tried to feel good about his progress to date. If this pace held, he would complete the third and final stage weeks—maybe even a couple of months—ahead of schedule. That was what worried Faye. His rapid improvement was amazing; it seemed too rapid and too amazing to be real. She wanted to believe the nightmare would be put behind them quickly, but the pace of his recuperation made her wonder if it was lasting. Striving always to think positive, Faye Block was nevertheless plagued by the instinctive and unnerving feeling that something was wrong. Very wrong.

Boston, Massachusetts

Inevitably, given his exotic background as a godson of Picasso and a once-famous European stage performer, Pablo Jackson was a star in Boston social circles. Furthermore, during World War II, he had been a liaison between British Intelligence and the French Resistance forces, and his recent work as a hypnotist with police agencies had only added to his mystique. He never lacked invitations.