The Forever Man: A Near-Future Thriller (13 page)

***

Harlan Green is an asshole. Harlan Green is a job.

Rachel Heinz idly speculates on the relationship between these two facts as she sprawls on the couch in her apartment and cycles through the Feed looking for political news, however slanted, corrupted, or misdirected it may be. Like most political professionals, she is once and always a political junkie as well. She watches politicians from local council members to the president of the United States with the same practiced eye. She compulsively analyzes their words, delivery, gestures, messaging, and subtext. She always spots the flaws and the fixes, regardless of ideology.

In some ways, the Street Party is an ideal home for Rachel because she grew up very
close to the street. Her adolescence featured a long-gone dad and alcoholic mother. But while other disadvantaged girls turned to sex as a weapon, she saw a much larger battlefield. Politics was power writ large, and she intuitively understood this. She stayed in school, she worked on campaigns, she studied the issues, and she came to understand the intricate web of relationships that formed the essence of the political milieu. But she kept her personal ambitions to herself: First, a seat on the city council, then state rep, then the U.S. Congress. Then, who knew what?

But before college, the incident intervened. She knew she needed a degree, but had no financial aid. With student loans already a relic of the distant past, she worked long hours while pursuing a degree in political science. If she excelled, maybe she had a shot at a grant and an advanced degree. But employment was hard to come by for a young woman with no social leverage, and she had to take whatever she could get. She wound up working nights as a “model,” where she performed for men of means who peeped in at her through a small glass window. Then, one night, the police showed up. Someone hadn’t paid off someone, and the place was going down, and Rachel’s dreams of higher office along with it. She served no time, but it didn’t matter. The conviction was there, waiting for any inquisitive future journalists to dig up and fling out over the Feed.

She finished school and decided to stay in the game, even if she had to play from the sidelines. She started as an intern on the mayor’s staff and quickly ascended. Then along came Harlan and the Street Party. She recognized his potential long before others did. Working with him gave her a shot at the national stage. She quickly signed on.

While Harlan’s politics didn’t quite synchronize with hers, they were close enough. And she resonated with his personal ascendancy from the lower strata of American life. Still, she was immune to his charisma, and he seemed to value her distance. A sycophantic chief of staff was a liability.

The early days were the good days, but now they were long gone. As Harlan gradually consolidated his power, he had canonized himself. He became a higher court, a court of no appeal. He was astute enough to conceal this monstrous conceit from his followers, but in private, the symptoms were all too apparent. History had witnessed them countless times in others of his disposition. Angry outbursts, paranoia, insufferable vanity, and capricious cruelty.

She sighs and shifts her weight on the couch. A window pops up on top of the Feed and interrupts her rumination. It’s from the security camera down in the lobby.

“Johnny! What are you doing here?”

“I look pretty good for someone who’s dead, don’t you think?”

In fact, he looks pretty awful. “What happened to you?”

“Hard to say. Why don’t you buzz me up and we’ll talk about it?”

When she lets him in, he looks like he’s just climbed out of the plane wreck. Dirty
clothes, stringy hair, smudged face and hands.

“Wow,” she exclaims. “You want to get cleaned up?”

“Later,” he says as he plops down into an easy chair. “Right now, a deal has to be made.”

“A deal? What kind of deal?”

He reaches into his shirt, produces the card from his discarded handheld, and hands it to her. “Take a look at this. It’ll be the first clip to come up.”

She picks up her handheld off the end table, inserts the card, and starts the video. It shows a thing, an awful monstrosity pulsating in the back of what appears to be a van. The only motion seems to be some kind of respiration, and bubbles forming atop several unidentifiable orifices.

“Oh Jesus! What is this?”

“Let me have the card back and we can talk.”

“This is sick, really sick,” she says as she hands the card back.

“And it’s only the opening act. You know, I don’t follow politics too closely, but I do know a bit about your boss. It seems that he’s made Mount Tabor a symbol of sorts, a place where big corporations do evil things behind closed doors. And you know what? Turns out he’s right. What a lucky guy!”

“That creature on the video came from Mount Tabor?”

“I’ve played all the cards I’m going to without talking to Mr. Green himself. The deal is simple. I’ll trade Mount Tabor for personal protection of the highest order.”

“I don’t know. I’ll have to see what I can do. By the way, your brother’s looking for you. He’s really worried. You need to let him know you’re okay.”

“He doesn’t need to know anything about this, at least, not for now. I can handle this by myself. Keep Lane out of it. Completely. If he gets wind of it, the deal’s off.”

Rachel shrugs. “Your call.” He reminds her of a surfer who’s cleared the crest of a big wave and started the long ride down.

At police headquarters, Lane hunches over a computer in a vacant office, one of many such vacancies brought on by ever-shrinking budgets. The buzz of random conversation floats in from outside as he types, points, and clicks. Whoever’s behind Johnny’s disappearance might be onto him already. He’s Johnny’s only family, the only interested party, and a cop to boot. But they can’t trace him to this particular machine, which is more or less public property. Besides, it gives him a free ride to the higher access levels of the Meternet.

It takes him no time at all to run down the Institute for the Study of Genetic Disorders. It has an impeccable provenance and credentials, along with nicely crafted copy that explains its mission and goals. Since the majority of the mutation-triggered diseases strike in childhood and claim their victims at an early and supremely tragic age, the Institute’s mission is to put a stop to this, once and for all. It funds and coordinates a variety of research efforts in the search for a comprehensive cure. The site lists the executive staff, which is led by a CEO named Linda Crampton. Her photo shows a mature but attractive woman with a slightly showy hairstyle and clever eyes.

Lane leans back. So much for the management, what about the funding? Where’s the money? No mention. Then he sees a link that leads to press releases, and he follows it. He finds no money but he does find Johnny. A release from eighteen months ago announces Johnny’s latest research contract, with its emphasis on the computerized simulation of genetic action in human development. Beyond that, it makes little sense. Lane suspects the PR people had little idea what they were talking about and blew several paragraphs of thick smoke.

He moves on and finds no more on his brother. But he uncovers two other releases in the same time frame that announce major research contracts. One is to a principal investigator named Dr. Martin Griffen, and the other to a Dr. Juan Ortiz. Both specialize in areas too esoteric to make any sense within the confines of a press release.

Griffen and Ortiz. Two more big players in the science sweepstakes sponsored by the Institute. What if they were part of the big deal, the trip to New York? Lane grabs his handheld and punches in Bellows at the Washington County coroner.

“Yes, Mr. Anslow,” Bellows says with transparent impatience.

“I’m sorry to bother you again, but I should have asked about my brother’s associates,
Griffen and Ortiz. They’re both friends of the family. Have you managed an ID on either of them?”

“No, we have not. And as I told you about your brother, it’s unlikely that we ever will. Is there anything else?”

“No, that’ll do it. Thanks.”

Lane pockets his handheld and smiles. Bellows just gave away the store without even knowing it.

“Lane, they told me I’d find you in here.” Lieutenant Siefert comes in and plops down in a chair on the other side of the desk. “What are you working on?”

“I’m not sure. I’ll let you know when I know. How’s that?”

“That’s great.” Siefert scratches the scruffy brown fringe wrapped around his bald head. “But there’s something else we gotta talk about. As of now, you’re off the active contractors’ list. No more gigs.”

“And why’s that?” Lane doesn’t want to feel sick, but he does.

“You know why. You’re too old. We’ve already bent the rules for you, and if we bend them any further, they’re gonna break.”

“Okay then, just tell me one thing. Did you think this up all by yourself, or did somebody whisper in your ear?”

Siefert manages a sad smile. “I know you’d like to think it’s some kind of plot, but it’s not. Sorry. It’s quite simple. You’re too damn old to be running around the Middle East mixing it up with Bad Boys half your age. End of story.”

“Yeah, end of story.”

“You’ve done good work. We can do letters of commendation. You can get a consulting gig.”

“Sure.”

Siefert gets up and heads for the door. “Keep in touch, okay?”

Lane doesn’t bother answering.

Lane doesn’t go home. It feels better to be immersed in the hustle of the city. He drifts down to a little joint on the river and orders a straight whiskey. In one of the booths, a young woman beams and giggles at her clueless boyfriend. In another, a fat guy lays waste to a cheeseburger. He washes it down with beer straight from the pitcher.

Lane sits at the bar, where the Feed drones on about oil prices topping a thousand dollars a barrel. He pulls out his cell and checks his bank account. He has enough for maybe six weeks. Then, the street.

Or the Bird. Undoubtedly, the Bird would pay well. Lane might even be able to get
behind a gate somewhere.

He takes a gulp of whiskey and feels its buttery burn on the way down. All he’d have to do to earn his keep was whatever the Bird told him. Impossible.

Time for a distraction. He pulls out his handheld and connects with Rachel Heinz at the Street Party.

“How are you, Mr. Anslow?” She comes across cool and confident, like she’s won the race before it’s even run. He has to admire that.

“About the same. I’m just following up on our agreement to share. Anything new?”

“Nothing new.”

He catches it. In the shape of the words. The microchanges in pitch. The slight shift in accent. She’s an excellent liar. He has to admire that, also. Still, this isn’t the time for a confrontation. “You’ll keep in touch, right?”

“I most certainly will.”

“Later, then.”

“Later.”

He disconnects and takes another gulp of whiskey. He’d bet everything that she was covering up.

Unfortunately, his everything was now next to nothing.

Rachel places her handheld on her desk and leans back. Outside her office, the clerical buzz drones on relentlessly. She breathes deeply and lets it wash over her as she struggles to absorb her feelings.

She doesn’t regret deceiving Lane. After all, she’d already promised Johnny that she’d keep Lane in the dark, and she meant to honor that commitment. It had left her no choice but to lie. That wasn’t the cause of the queasy feeling in her stomach. The cause was Lane himself. He had a kind of moral certainty about him, but not in the smug, righteous way you’d expect from a cop. Instead, it sprung from an almost complete absence of guile. It seemed ironic that someone like him would have this quality. It also made him more attractive to her than she wanted to think about, especially under the present circumstances.

She stares at her hands, those of a woman in her later thirties. A slight freckling of the flesh, a modest yet growing presence of veins and tendons. Once there had been boyfriends, relationships, suitors; but they had thinned over the years, and now had vanished completely. She feels no sorrow over their absence, no regret. She’s transmuted the output of her libido into fuel for her job, and it’s paying off handsomely. She’s an integral part of an organization that’s poised to assume the national stage.

Still, she can feel the subtle yet insistent tug of the man, like an undertow at the beach
that washes the sand from between your toes, but leaves you upright and still anchored to the shore.

She smiles to herself now that she’s confronted the fact of the matter. It’s definitely manageable. At least, for now.

***

The South War Front they call it. A tight cluster of high-rises situated on ten blocks along the west bank of the Willamette River, Portland’s principal waterway. Great shells of tinted glass and treated steel thrusting a dozen or more stories above the pavement. Once a bold adventure in upscale urban residency, it was a concentrated haven of upper mid-range prosperity, with concrete caverns housing Hummers, Escalades, and BMWs.

It was the South Waterfront back then, several decades ago, in the time before the trouble. But then came the ballistic assault from Ross Island, a thickly wooded stretch of land about a mile long in mid-river. The island’s west shore sat only 200 yards across the river channel from the front row of luxury residences.

The first barrage came in the wee hours of a moonless summer night. Stones the size of grapefruits crashed at murderous velocity through windows on the sides of the buildings nearest the water. They lodged in walls, mirrors, side servers, couches, and floors of the finest natural woods. They shredded Persian carpets, cratered granite countertops, and atomized glass coffee tables. They launched a fog of crystalline shrapnel that penetrated deep into the psyches of those within.

In the morning, the police combed the island’s dense forestation and found nothing, until a forensics team noticed bands of stripped bark on two adjacent trees ten feet up their trunks. About fifteen feet back, more banding was found on the trunk of a third tree.