The Savior's Game (The Daniel Byrne Trilogy Book 3)

by Sean Chercover

  He awoke the next morning with Judas licking his face, and he hugged the mutt and cried, overwhelmed by relief. And shame.

  Daniel had spent most of his life searching for proof, constitutionally unable as he was to abide in faith. Funny, a priest without faith, but that’s what he’d become, casting the world aside, denying himself a normal life, on a single-minded mission to find a miracle, to see God’s face.

  Just once, and then he’d be free.

  But there had been no miracles.

  At least, not until his search brought him back around to his estranged uncle, and Daniel saw AIT for the first time, entering a world of questions without answers, leaving the priesthood behind, determined to follow the questions where they led, no longer searching for the face of God, but for the truth, whether that truth included a god or not.

  He discovered a beautiful world called Source where reality runs on attention and intention, and where you can’t ignore the feelings of others. A strange and magical place where he’d spend half his life if he could bring Kara and their child, or visit if he couldn’t. He could spend weeks in Source and only be gone an hour. All the time in the world.

  A beautiful world, but for Noah.

  You gonna save us? Huck had asked Daniel.

  I’m gonna try.

  Daniel wanted to ask for help.

  He wanted to pray.

  But he couldn’t.

  In the end, Daniel’s lifetime search had led him to Source, to uncertainty as the only certainty regardless of existential discomfort, and to the notion that there wasn’t much difference between yearning to see God and yearning to be God.

  Praying just didn’t make sense to him anymore.

  Still, he wanted to ask for help.

  He looked back to the stained-glass Saint James, writing in Tim Trinity’s blue Bible. The portrait appeared to shimmer for a moment and Daniel thought he could taste cinnamon, but it passed so quickly he decided he’d imagined it.

  He wondered if Noah’s followers were meditating on the chapel right now.

  Wondered if Noah could see him.

  He stepped down from the altar and stood in the middle of the room, facing the stained glass.

  “I didn’t quit, Noah,” he said aloud. “I didn’t quit, and I figured you out. And you’re not a god. You’re just a sad man who wants to be God. And I am awash in sin, but I’m not gonna let you win tomorrow.”

  He walked between the pews all the way to the door, turned back to face the chapel. He said, “And there’s absolutely nothing you can do to stop me, because you can’t cross over. And this is not a dream.”

  34

  Most of the guests at the Arlington Inn had no idea they were staying fewer than ten miles from the most secure property in Kent. Catering primarily to bird watchers, the old hotel in town played the role of hospitable country squire perfectly. A tweedy old man stood behind the hand-carved reception desk, oversized room keys hanging on wall hooks behind him. A couple of resident English Spaniels flaked out on green tartan dog beds, and a fire crackled in the lobby’s stone fireplace. Just off the lobby, a cozy library bar, shelves crammed with popular fiction, local histories, and books on ornithology.

  Daniel unpacked in his room, then ate dinner alone in the library bar. Pat had stayed to go over details with the security team, and Raoul had ordered Daniel to bed early, adding a dig about how exhausted he looked.

  Getting on local time was a good idea, in theory, but Daniel had lived in perpetual jet lag since flying to Barcelona . . . when was that, a week ago?

  He couldn’t remember. Anyway, it was nothing compared to the jet lag between Earth and Source.

  Still, he had to do what he could. So he ate a dinner he could barely taste because he needed the nutrition. And he limited himself to one glass of red wine, and a wee dram of Laphroaig for dessert. The same single malt he’d shared with Kara on the south coast of Norway, the night of their first kiss.

  A beautiful night.

  Source was beautiful, but Earth was also beautiful, despite Pat’s commitment to cynicism. Pat wasn’t wrong about the ugliness and cruelty in the world. But there was also beauty, so much it sometimes made Daniel’s chest ache.

  And there was Kara. And a child on the way.

  Daniel tipped back his glass, filling his mouth with whisky. Not as strong as he’d remembered, certainly a shadow of what it would be in Source, but he could taste the smokiness of it and it was pretty damn good.

  Worth fighting for.

  He checked his watch: almost eight o’clock. He signed the bill and headed into the lobby. Before he got to the stairs, Pat entered from outside.

  “You eaten?” said Pat.

  Daniel nodded. “Just heading to bed. Big day tomorrow.”

  “Good. You can sleep ’til nine, that’ll get you almost twelve hours.”

  “Do I look that tired?”

  “Yeah, man, you do. Raoul’s letting you on-site tomorrow in case you have a vision that helps, but he’s not thrilled about it. Said to tell you if you show up before noon, he’ll have you shot.”

  “Fine,” said Daniel.

  “Listen, I’m gonna grab dinner with the boys, engage in a little pre-battle bonding.”

  “Have fun.” Daniel said. “Tell the boys Oorah for me.”

  “Hooyah,” said Pat. “Oorah is for pussies.” He started for the door. “See ya in the a.m.”

  Daniel climbed the stairs to his room, feeling a smile invade his face.

  Noon tomorrow.

  He opened his laptop on the bed, got online, and checked his email, pulse pounding in his wrist against the edge of the keyboard.

  The email from Kara contained only two words, but they were exactly the words Daniel needed to read.

  In London.

  He hit Reply.

  He dreamed of Source. Dreamed of the warm late-afternoon sun and the sound of the gentle surf. Dreamed of spot-traveling through the seaside town, down to the beach where Digger had once introduced him to the creative potential of the uncertainty principle.

  A boy stood on the beach.

  Huck.

  The boy said, “I tried to call you back here.”

  “It worked,” said Daniel.

  “I had a vision. I met Tim Trinity. He said he was your uncle. Is that true?”

  Daniel felt lightheaded.

  “Yes, it is.”

  “He told me to manifest this and give it to you.” Huck dug in his pocket and held out a blue rabbit’s foot, a single key on the brass keychain.

  Daniel took it from Huck’s hand. He read his own initials where he’d scratched them on the brass after attaching his house key to the chain. Tim Trinity had bought it for him in a souvenir shop at Stone Mountain when they visited for Daniel’s seventh birthday. When Daniel still believed his uncle was God’s chosen messenger, and the world was still a strange and magical place.

  “I don’t know what it means,” said Huck, “but I figured I should give it to you.”

  Daniel put the rabbit’s foot in his pocket, and—

  The dream ended. He opened his eyes.

  The bedside clock read three a.m.

  He rolled onto his other side, closed his eyes again, and fell back into a fitful sleep, the taste of cinnamon fading on his tongue.

  35

  Today is a good day to die. But I’ve decided to stay alive until tomorrow.

  Daniel opened his eyes and sat for a few seconds, then rose from zazen and drew the curtains wide. Unrelenting cloud cover pressed down on the Earth like a heavy pewter blanket, promising rain.

  He’d been careful with his morning meditation and stayed with breath counting, not wanting to risk going too deep in case he accidentally crossed over into Source.

  Or woke up.

  Earth was continuing to feel unreal, increasingly so, and Daniel had awakened remembering the dream with Huck, and he couldn’t decide if it had really been a dream or if he’d been to Source in his sleep. But how could
Huck have had a vision of Tim? And did the decreasing sense of reality here mean that Earth was a dream, or that Daniel was leaving more of his consciousness in Source with each visit? Or did it mean the worlds were growing closer, ribbons almost touching?

  He had to stop the cacophony of these questions and the many others they raised. He knew he was at risk of spiraling—getting lost, as Digger had called it in Source.

  Sometimes people on Earth got lost, too, and just before Daniel closed his eyes and stilled his mind, he thought of Jay Eckinsburger, who got lost in both places.

  The meditation was a risk he had to take, and the breath counting had worked well enough, and he now went through his kata routine with a relatively quiet mind.

  Then a hot shower, blasting cold for the final minute.

  He took stock in the mirror while shaving. Mirror-Daniel had a scab where his lip had split, a lively bruise on his left cheekbone, and another on the side of his neck. Also, heavy black bags under both eyes and at least a dozen new gray hairs.

  “This can’t be how thirty-four is supposed to look,” Daniel said to Mirror-Daniel. He shaved extra close in a futile attempt to compensate.

  And he put on cologne.

  Pat rapped on the door as Daniel was tying his tie. Daniel flipped the latch and Pat came in carrying a small black Pelican case.

  “Jacket ’n tie?” He looked at Daniel askance. “You know today might possibly involve some runnin’ and gunnin’, right?”

  “I’ll change after breakfast.”

  “Shucks, you don’t gotta get all gussied up on my account.”

  “I’m having breakfast with Kara,” said Daniel. “You’re on your own, I’m afraid.” He leaned into Pat’s personal space, then backed out. “You think I went too heavy with the cologne?”

  Pat stared at him for more than a few seconds before speaking. “You’re not pullin’ my leg, are you? She actually came to London.”

  “That she did.”

  Pat made no effort to hide his dismay. “Have you lost your freakin’ mind? You have got to be on-site at noon. London’s more than sixty miles from here, and what if you get stuck in traffic?”

  “Dude, relax. She rented a car. I’m meeting her at the little faux-French café across the street. We’ll have a couple croissants and a press pot of coffee, maybe Edith Piaf will be playing in the background. I’ll pour my heart out—maybe it’ll get broken, maybe not—and I’ll be back before eleven and still have an hour to twiddle my thumbs before I’m allowed on-site.”

  Pat spoke as if addressing a child. “Let me explain. You can’t effectively run ’n gun around the castle while moping over a broken heart. Just leave it ’til after, and get your head in the game.”

  “I might die today—I can accept that. But I can’t be thinking, I passed up the chance to tell her how I feel and now she’ll never know while I’m out there. So what I’m doing is getting my head in the game.”

  Pat thought about it, grudgingly conceded. “Fair enough, I guess you’re right. I’ll be downstairs in the car at eleven thirty. You can dry your tears on the drive over.”

  “I’ll be ready,” said Daniel.

  Pat put the case on the desk. “But first, we shoot up. Lose the jacket a second.” He pushed his own sleeve up, opened the case, and pulled out two pre-loaded syringes. “High-test antibiotic cocktail, special delivery from Foundation HQ.”

  Daniel remembered Kara injecting them both in the Foundation jet, on the way to South Carolina just before Conrad Winter’s team crop-dusted the general population with a weaponized plague, plunging the state—and then the nation—into chaos, and pinning the attack on Yemeni terrorists.

  Injecting himself, Pat said, “Nobody’d believe Russia would launch a biological attack on British soil to stop a trade deal, but we don’t know Russia’s the intended patsy. You could link it to Gulf state terrorism or religious lunatics, I suppose. Not what I would do, but . . .” He pulled the needle out of his arm, returned it to the case.

  Daniel said, “Either way, we know it’s in Conrad’s bag of tricks, which means it’s in Noah’s bag of tricks.” He removed his jacket and laid it on the bed, rolled up his sleeve, started pumping his left fist. “I’ll do me.”

  Daniel held out his hand and Pat gave him the other syringe, and he flipped the orange cap off the needle. He didn’t see any bubbles, but he held the syringe pointy end up and flicked it with his fingernail a few times, just to be safe. He picked a good vein, injected himself, and handed the syringe back, and Pat returned it to the case and snapped the case shut.

  Daniel rolled his sleeve down and slipped back into his jacket. He straightened his tie and spread his hands to his sides.

  “How do I look? And feel free to lie.”

  Pat said, “You look like hell, but you smell lovely. Just the right amount of cologne.”

  “Wish me luck.”

  Daniel took two steps toward the door but then his legs stopped cooperating. He tried to force the next step, but his leg wouldn’t move. He felt himself wobble in place.

  Pat reached a hand out to steady him.

  “Easy there. Maybe you should sit down.”

  Daniel’s body didn’t give him a choice. He sat hard on the floor, leaning back against the bed. He couldn’t taste cinnamon and he wasn’t spontaneously crossing over—this felt different—but for a moment he could only think of the fact that he was going to stand Kara up.

  Again.

  Then he turned his head and looked at the case holding the empty syringes.

  Pat said, “You gotta let me explain.”

  Daniel’s body was becoming a distant thing. He couldn’t lift his arms. When he tried, his hands slipped off his thighs and came to rest on the rug.

  “Pat?”

  Pat sat on the floor across from Daniel and lit a cigarette. He said, “It’s a temporary paralytic of sorts. Your body’ll go numb for about ten minutes, then you’ll pass out for a brief spell. I promise, after a nap you’ll wake feeling bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Believe me, it’s in your best interest to sit this one out.”

  Daniel didn’t feel the urge to sleep, not yet, but he realized his brain function was somewhat compromised and he had to force himself to stop focusing on the fact that he now couldn’t feel the rug under his palms.

  They sat and looked at each other without speaking, and it occurred to Daniel that Pat was waiting for him to put it together.

  Oh. Shit.

  “What are you gonna do, Pat?”

  “Come on, man, you know what I’m gonna do.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m gonna shoot the president of Latvia in the fuckin’ head and start the next global war. Where ya been?”

  “But . . . why?”

  “Because Noah’s right.” Blue smoke rose like ghost worms from the cigarette between Pat’s fingers. “Because we’re hardwired to remain savages, and there’s no making this a better dream. Human beings are just no damn good. Time to end this dream and start a new one.”

  Daniel said, “This can’t be happening,” but he knew that it was. He tried to think of what to say, how to reach Pat. He bought time with, “Listen to me: and remember, this is your best friend talking—”

  But Pat wasn’t listening. “It’s all right. Just the end of a bad dream.” He snapped his fingers. “Opportunity for a better one.”

  “When did Noah get to you?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Yes. It does.”

  Pat shook his head. “I don’t have AIT and I can’t cross over, but Noah’s got more followers in the dream than you realize. His emissaries have recruited thousands more than just those who sometimes wake up in Source. They reached me a few months back, explained Source and the dream, and it all just made sense.”

  “This is not a dream! Kara is real. My unborn child is real.”

  “Sure, I’m real, too. But deep inside, I’ve always known I’m dreaming and I just can’t wake up. Never
will. Like most people.”

  “Doesn’t matter if it’s just a dream,” said Daniel. “It’s the only dream we’ve got.”

  “And take a good look at it!” Pat spat the words out like spoiled food. His eyes flashed fire. “It’s not a dream, it’s a fuckin’ snuff film. A charnel house.” He flicked his cigarette, sending ash to the floor. “Spent my whole life fighting secret wars, killing other human beings, tellin’ myself I was spreading the blessings of democracy. Complete and utter bullshit. I was killing so we can continue suckin’ wealth from the same people we conquered hundreds of years ago and kept down ever since. We disguise it, but our luxury, to this very day, is provided by the slaver’s whip.”

  Pat’s eyes grew moist and he took another deep drag on the cigarette, regaining control. “We had the whole goddamn world, and look what we made with it. And you can spare me the but look how far we’ve come, and the what about love and laughter and art and music and science and children and puppies and rainbows—that’s just you trying to let humanity off the hook. Face it: We suck. Tell me I’m wrong.”

  Daniel said, “Pat, I love you and I’m telling you straight. Your head is broken—something’s gone wrong with your mind.”

  “You’re one to talk.”

  Daniel could feel sleep waving at him from a distance. How much longer did he have, and what could he say, or was Pat too far gone to reach?

  He said, “All those oppressed people we treat so badly—did you ask their opinion before deciding to end their entire existence? Do they get a vote?”

  Pat said, “You still don’t get it. And you don’t even see how important you are, man. You’re stuck trying to defend a bad dream, and you’re missing what comes next. The present is the future of the past—it has to be—but it doesn’t have to be the past of the future. We end this dream so the next dream can be born unburdened by history.”

  “Is that what Noah’s emissaries told you? And you think he’s gonna dream puppies and rainbows, unburdened by history? You think a guy like Conrad Winter is gonna create a dream of Paradise?”