Year Zero (40 page)

The Captain nodded once. “It was a bad place. But good for thinking,” he said. “Now things are very clear to me.” He didn’t elaborate.

The driver had been instructed to deliver Nathan Lee first. “Dr. Abbot is waiting for you.”

“He can wait a little more,” said Nathan Lee. He made the driver first take the Captain to his little house above the town. It was set among the pines, and Nathan Lee saw a treehouse made of scrap wood. That was for Tara. The Captain got out stiffly. Nathan Lee stayed in the deeper recesses of the hummer. He didn’t want Tara to see him, not this morning when he would only leave her too soon.

The Captain faced his home. He didn’t have an ounce of luggage. “We’ll see you later,” he said.

Near the tip of the mesa finger they came to Miranda’s house. Nathan Lee approached the front door. He could still taste the toothpaste from South Sector. After all the decon, he’d probably never smelled so clean in his life.

Miranda opened the door before he could knock. She was taller than he remembered. He felt frail and self conscious. He half-expected a plague kiss, which had become the fashion in Los Alamos, a darting of cheek toward cheek, lips pursed, no contact. She kissed him on the mouth and hugged him tight enough to feel her heart drumming in her ribs. “You’re back,” she whispered.

Her father was in the kitchen, one cellphone to his ear, another in his opposite hand. His hair was thick and black, combed straight back from his high forehead. He was dressed sharply, ready for prime time, issuing a command. He measured Nathan Lee from the corner of his eye. Nathan Lee saw Miranda’s height and strong jaw in Paul Abbot, and her long, columnar neck.

“You need to eat,” Miranda said to Nathan Lee. She poured a glass of orange juice from the refrigerator, and he took his time with it, savoring the coldness and sweet taste.

Everything seemed so delicate. And deep. The mountains looked a million miles away. His focus had dwindled to a few feet away within the cell.

“Sit,” she commanded. She was nervous, which brought the dictator out in her. “Or stand.”

“I’m fine, Miranda.”

Her father held up a one-minute finger.

Glancing around, Nathan Lee saw Miranda’s defiance to her father. It was in the details. She had left dirty dishes stacked in the sink, which was not like her, and books piled on the counter. Also, she had brought Nathan Lee’s Matisse statue from the bedroom. The little nude was conspicuous in a beam of sunlight. The jade glowed with inner light, all curves and hips and attitude.

Then he saw a cube of clear plastic, three inches square, on the kitchen table. Suspended in its center was what looked like a morphine ampule, the type combat soldiers stabbed into wounded comrades. He’d seen enough of them on his passage through America to know that this one didn’t contain morphine, though. The liquid was wheat-colored, like the sera Miranda had showed him in the storage freezers. It was easy to infer this was what his midnight visitor had described, the Sera-III.

Abbot finished. In one movement, he flipped shut the phone, stood, and thrust out one hand. Handshakes had fallen from fashion, too, but he didn’t hesitate. “Nathan Lee Swift,” he said. In the pool of his gaze, Nathan Lee saw that everything that could be known about him, Abbot knew, including his latest blood analysis. Arguably the most powerful man on earth, Abbot had probably had his daughter’s lover all but dissected.

“How does it feel to rejoin the living?” he said. His grip was powerful. The release was equally powerful. He ruled by that hand.

“The leaves were turning when I left,” Nathan Lee said. He kept it simple. “Now they’re gone.”

“Miranda told me about your tragic discovery in Denver.” Abbot waited. He was trolling. He wanted to hear Nathan Lee speak. He wanted, Nathan Lee realized, to see his grief…or grit.

“Dad.” Miranda tried to intervene. Abbot didn’t take his eyes from Nathan Lee’s.

“I don’t know why I didn’t know,” Nathan Lee said to him. “Now it’s over.”

Abbot offered no further condolences. The world was full of lost souls and mournful tribes. He was steeled against the outsiders. His borders were confined, his hoard rich, but finite. His domain was for the privileged few, and he was unapologetic about it.

Miranda hovered to one side. She didn’t know what to do with these two men. They took up all the space in her kitchen, Nathan Lee could feel it. They were wearing her out. “Sit,” she said again.

Abbot stayed on his feet. He was amused. “Did Miranda tell you?” he asked Nathan Lee. “She’s the new director.”

“No,” said Nathan Lee. Cavendish was gone? Had he died? But what about his clone, Nathan Lee wondered. The thought streaked by, a whimsy. In past times the succession of power might have gone to a wife or son, and the clone was said to be identical in every way to Cavendish except for his physical perfection. But Miranda had inherited the throne, handpicked by her father. She was being groomed for command. He said, “Congratulations.”

Now he understood her ferocious defense of the city. It really was hers. And yet the new director did not look pleased. Bureaucracy and politics had not been positive experiences for her.

“It will mean less time in the lab. But it was time to close down this cloning business,” Abbot said. “In the end, it was just a big U-turn back into ourselves. And Cavendish had to go. Everyone said so. The man’s missing in action. Wouldn’t take a meeting. I don’t know what he’s up to in South Sector.” Not dead, thought Nathan Lee. Out of sight, out of mind. “Mischief, that’s all I’ve seen,” said Abbot. “No leadership. No presence. We need unity. Shared purpose. Clear science. Especially now, with people afraid. Soon enough the sanctuary will be ready.”

“I heard about the setback,” Nathan Lee said.

Abbot’s face changed. His eyes narrowed. “Which would that be?”

“The flooding. The collapse of floors.”

Abbot snapped a glance at his daughter. “You told him?”

But Miranda was staring at Nathan Lee. “No one’s supposed to know that,” she said to him. “How on earth did you find out?”

“In decon,” said Nathan Lee. “One of the doctors.” He gestured at the cube with the Sera-III inside. “He told me about that, too. The three-year immunity.”

“Which one of the doctors?” Abbot demanded.

“A psychiatrist. I never saw him, only heard his voice.”

“His name,” said Abbot. “I want his name.”

“He never gave it. I asked the staff. They thought I made him up.”

“What is going on up here?” Abbot muttered darkly. “Are you sure this isn’t your doing, Miranda?”

“I want people to stay, not panic,” she snapped back at him.

Abbot rapped his knuckles on the table. “Look into it,” he told her. “The last thing we need is some provocateur….”

“Cavendish,” said Miranda. “He was stripped of power. Maybe he’s leaking secrets, sowing chaos.”

“I don’t think so,” Nathan Lee volunteered. “It didn’t seem like his voice. It was too strong.”

“He wouldn’t try anything so direct,” said Abbot to Miranda. “But don’t let your guard down. He’ll try to sabotage you, but not the sanctuary. I know that much. He’s lost his nerve. He wants what the rest of the city wants, a roof over their heads. Shelter from the tempest.”

“Not everybody wants what you want,” Miranda retorted. But the handful of scientists who considered the sanctuary to be a death trap was in the minority. Almost everyone else could not wait to get out of harm’s way, even if it meant sacrificing the sun for the next decade, or half century, however long it took.

Nathan Lee looked from father to daughter. They were wary and at odds.

“Dissidents,” said Abbot. “Your little confederacy of optimists. Fools.”

“They’re making the choice themselves,” Miranda said.

Abbot snorted. “You’ll see. When the day arrives, they’ll make their real choice. And it won’t be this noble last stand of yours.”

“If we can make it through the winter,” Miranda said, “we won’t need to bury ourselves in the bowels of the earth. The die-off will be complete. The plague will have passed us by.”

“The plague is passing no one by.”

“We have other options,” Miranda insisted.

Abbot pointed at the Sera-III sealed inside the cube, but did not touch it. Miranda had brought it for him, Nathan Lee surmised. Show and tell. “Like your suicide pill?” her father said.

“It’s not suicide,” Miranda protested. “There are survivors out there. They could hold the answer. But it will take time to find them, and we have to be up here in the open to do it. The vaccine gives us a shield.”

“Then kills you. Three years,” he said. “I’m offering them thirty years. Fifty. A hundred. We don’t have to dose ourselves with poison. If there are survivors, we’ll find them. Or our children’s children will.”

“Buried a half mile deep?”

Abbot abruptly disengaged. He smiled. “There you have it,” he said to Nathan Lee. “My rebel daughter.”

As if noticing it for the first time, Abbot picked up the little jade nude. It was a magical thing. She could be lascivious, or imperial, or restful, depending on who held her. Abbot turned the statue this way and that in the sun, and she became Miranda, undressed in Nathan Lee’s arms. Miranda’s eyes shifted away. Abbot set the statue back in its sunbeam. He looked at Nathan Lee.

“I thought we should have a little man-to-man talk,” he said. “Let’s go for a walk. Outside.”

Miranda started to object.

“We’ll be back in a few minutes,” her father said. Nathan Lee stepped outside. Abbot slid the door shut behind them.

Miranda’s butterflies had died in the cold. Her cage was empty. All that remained were a few pinches of color on the dirt. Abbot walked toward the rim of the mesa. Then he turned, deliberately, ten feet from the edge.

“Close enough,” he said to Nathan Lee. “I don’t have your mountain climber’s footing.” It was neither an excuse nor a compliment.

Nathan Lee waited.

“I’ve studied your file,” Abbot said. “It reads like a high-wire act. You fall, but you recover. You’ve made an art of landing on your feet. You always survive.” His voice turned austere. Dark and hard. “That is why I spared your life.”

The bluntness comforted Nathan Lee. He had not been summoned for brunch with Dad. They were driving to the heart of the matter, and quickly. Abbot had a bargain in mind.

Abbot took a letter from an inner pocket, and unfolded it. “Have you ever seen a deportation order?” he asked.

“I’ve only heard about them.” Deport orders were like arrows that turned to serpents once their victim was gone. They killed you, then vanished.

“I hadn’t either, until this.” Abbot tapped the letter. “It has your name on it.”

He handed the letter to Nathan Lee. It was formal-looking, with language about quarantine and instructions to the bearer to arrest and transport Nathan Lee Swift to the next city or location targeted for a deck sweep. The warrant had been filled out by Ochs. A notary public had even stamped the box at the bottom. It was dated one day after Nathan Lee’s return from Denver. No sooner had Nathan Lee been plucked from death, than Ochs had condemned him to die again.

But someone had drawn a neat line through Nathan Lee’s name. Above it was written
David Ochs.
It now read so that Ochs had signed his own death warrant. Nathan Lee looked more carefully at the initials in the margin, and then the hasty signature at the bottom.
P.A.,
it said.
Paul Abbot.

“A memento,” said Abbot. “Miranda called me. She begged me. You have no idea how extraordinary that is. She was sure Ochs might try something. My agents intercepted it.”

Nathan Lee could see the hatred in the ink. “Ochs,” he said aloud.

“Ochs is gone,” said Abbot. “But he will return. Count on it.”

“Here?”

“Salt Lake City was the next deck sweep. Five hundred miles as the bird flies. But that was too far away for my purposes. So I had a discussion with Dr. Ochs. He seemed perfectly happy to leave Los Alamos on his own.”

Nathan Lee heard the edges of deeper cunning. Abbot had spared not one life, but two, both for some larger, hidden design. By sharing this further secret, Abbot was preparing Nathan Lee. A service was going to be required of him.

“Tell me,” said Abbot, “was Ochs always such a lunatic?”

“What do you mean?”

“This messianic fever. It’s like a disease. Or was he like that before?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“The miracle.”

“What miracle?”

“Never mind,” said Abbot. “It’s all in motion now.”

Nathan Lee could practically feel invisible wheels turning around him. He had already been inserted into the clockwork. Whatever his part was, it would be revealed in due time.

“Your role is simple,” Abbot said. “For the time being, do whatever it is you do up here. Talk to God. Smell the roses. Sleep with my daughter. Make her happy. Keep her in love. No matter what, keep close to her.”

Abbot handed him one of his cellphones.

“The day is coming,” he said. “E-Day. And I know Miranda. She’ll argue to stay up here. You’ve heard her. But you will bring her to me. She’ll fight you. She may hate you until the end of time. But you will bring her down into the sanctuary.”