Nearest Night

by David VanDyke

  Cassandra marched back to her office, grumbling under her breath.

  Her assistant stood to hand her a file as she passed.

  “Not now. Give me five minutes.” She closed her door, sank into her chair and stared vacantly at her computer screen.

  I love and trust you like a brother, Daniel, she thought, but this time you’re making the wrong call. These people are indispensible, especially Spooky, I hate to admit. Without him, we’re losing ground. The drug cartels and criminal networks are already getting frisky, pushing back. I’m not ruthless enough to keep them in line, and I don’t have his reputation.

  Eventually she logged on to check her secure messages. One from Reaper stood out, titled “What do we know about this guy?” asking for background on Conlan “Buzz” O’Malley.

  “Dammit, Reaper,” muttered Cassandra, “I sent you to keep an eye on Spooky. He’s the one we need to be worrying about.”

  She forwarded the request for information to her people. As she did, there came a knock on her door.

  “Come in.”

  The door opened and her assistant entered the office, holding out a file folder. “This really shouldn’t wait.”

  Cassandra took it and flipped it open. “What now?”

  “Director Nguyen’s deputy says the President of Colombia is demanding more money, or FC headquarters has to leave the country.”

  “Damn.” She skimmed the report. “He knows Spooky is out of pocket. He’s trying to hold us up for double his usual bribe. Thinks that as a woman I’ll be easy to strong-arm. Typical Latin machismo. Too bad corruption is viewed as completely normal here. Even making this guy an Eden didn’t change his morals…or lack thereof.”

  “Maybe it would just be easier to pay him. Let Nguyen handle it when he returns.”

  “No,” said Cassandra. “That will only embolden him to demand more. Besides, I can be tough. Pull everything we have on the man. I need leverage.”

  “Also, you missed a meeting with Rogett and his security people.”

  “Damn, too much happening all at once.”

  “And that British guy Nigel called. Said it was urgent that you get back with him soonest.”

  “Tell Rogett I’ll be in the commander’s office at 1600. Remind me at 1545.”

  “Sure, boss.”

  Cassandra opened up her message queue and noticed a series of emails from Larry’s wife Shawna. All said pretty much the same thing: Tell me he’s okay. Tell me you’ve found him. Tell me not to worry.

  “Dammit, I don’t know anything,” she muttered. “I already told you what to do, who to contact.” She typed up a quick, emphatic response to Shawna, resisting the urge to be too harsh. Then she retrieved Nigel’s secure phone number.

  Her assistant came back in the door. “Markis just called. Said he wants you to drop everything and come brief him on Cuba.”

  “Now?”

  “He said it was urgent. Evidently the Cuban foreign minister is visiting his counterpart in Panama and Markis has been invited to dinner.”

  “When is this?”

  “Tonight. He leaves in one hour.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  The assistant shrugged.

  “Fine. Get Fleede to throw something together. Tell him I need it in fifteen minutes. Then tell Markis I’ll be there in twenty. Best I can do.”

  “Yes, boss.” Her assistant closed the door.

  Whatever made me take this job? Cassandra asked herself. “I never thought I’d say this,” she muttered, “but Tran, I miss you.”

  Chapter 26

  Skull had driven most of the day in the car he’d rented outside Jersey City. Now he lay on the bed of a roadside hotel off I-95, a book on the Black Plague held open before him.

  The world calls the Eden virus a plague, Skull thought. This was a plague. It killed one quarter the population of medieval Europe.

  Loud music from the hotel bar downstairs kept distracting Skull from his reading. He couldn’t decide if it was annoying or appealing. He decided a drink might help him sleep. Climbing out of bed, he put his boots back on and walked downstairs.

  He found a table in the corner and ordered a beer when the waitress came. The place seemed crowded with a mixture of locals and guests. Loud music thumped from an overtaxed jukebox. A few people danced in a cleared space nearby. Skull sipped his drink and felt the booming and the ambience of humanity wash over him.

  A loner by nature, yet he felt alone at times and craved the presence of people. Not direct interaction. Not conversation. Just the perverse anonymity of the crowd, combined with the unlikely possibility of seeing something interesting.

  At his heart, a sniper was the ultimate observer. Something pleasant fizzed in the back of his brain when he was able to watch others undetected, some voyeuristic impulse.

  But the illusion of distance soon dissolved. Women began to look at him appraisingly. Men sized him up. The waitress tried to engage him in conversation, asking his story. Any one of them might be a Security Service informant.

  This was a mistake. I can’t afford mistakes.

  Skull left and went back to his room.

  Hopefully, I’ll be forgotten.

  He thought he could sleep now. The combination of beer and the contentment of briefly communing with humanity left him feeling heavy and spent. He decided to check his messages one more time and saw one from Shawna Nightingale.

  It would have been so easy to ignore it or wait until the morning to answer, but knew he should have contacted her earlier and felt a twinge of quilt. Opening the email, he saw she wanted him to call her on an untraceable video line.

  She answered on the second ring, even though it had to be early morning in Africa.

  “How you doing?” he asked her.

  “As well as can be expected,” she answered and Skull thought it looked like she’d been crying.

  “Sorry I didn’t contact you earlier. I believe Larry is alive. Whoever took him wants to use him, or get information out of him.”

  “He won’t talk.” Shawna said.

  “Everyone talks eventually.” Or dies, he didn’t say out loud.

  “Do you know where he is?”

  “I believe so.”

  “Where?”

  Skull said nothing.

  She took a deep breath that contained several hitches, as if fighting off sobs. “Dammit, Cassandra was right.”

  “Cassandra? You talked to her?”

  “Yes. You weren’t getting back to me, and…”

  She seemed about to reveal a secret. Irrationally, he placed his hand on the grip of his pistol, as if expecting enemies to burst in the door. It made him feel better. “Go ahead.”

  “Cassandra didn’t want to let you know she was involved. Now she won’t tell me anything and I’m so scared I’ll never see Larry again.”

  “Involved how?”

  “I’m not sure, but the request for Larry to go do this came through her, so she must know more than she’s letting on.”

  Skull stared a moment at her image on the screen, knowing the camera was showing his own face. “I should have expected that. At least it’s Cassandra and not…” Not Spooky, he said to himself.

  “Please, bring him back, Alan,” she said, close to tears.

  “I’ll do everything I can. This isn’t your fault. But…don’t get your hopes up. You need to prepare for the worst.”

  She nodded smiling. “I will. Thank you.”

  “Bye, Shawna,” he said. “I’ll be in touch.” He sat without moving for nearly five minutes. He thought about composing a nasty message to Cassandra, but in reality, he understood her role. She tried to do the best she could, to gain the optimal outcome possible. She gave instructions with the force of orders, not so different from a military officer. She played the spy game as well as anyone.

  He couldn’t fault her.

  Besides, he…liked her. If there was ever to be anything between them, he couldn’t hammer her too h
ard. Like the scorpion on the duck’s back, she was what she was. He wouldn’t change her.

  Skull was what he was, too, and she wouldn’t change him. He doubted anyone ever would.

  Turning off the lights, he lay on his bed and closed his eyes, listening to the muffled sounds of people from downstairs, feeling more alone than ever.

  Wrapping himself in the armor of solitude, he prepared his mind for his coming task.

  Chapter 27

  Larry was surprised there hadn’t been dire consequences for his attack on Bauersfeld. He hoped he’d infected her, but apparently not. They brought her out in a wheelchair a few days later, bruised and bandaged.

  His fast had brought with it a clarity of mind and an odd sort of humor. “Damn, girl,” Larry said. “You look rough.”

  “I’ll survive,” Bauersfeld said through puffy lips. “I got to the antivirals in time. You should have known we keep plenty of them on hand here.”

  “Too bad.”

  “The Edenologists were curious about something.”

  “They’ll just have to wonder.”

  “They wanted to know how you were able to do this. How you could overcome the ‘virtue effect.’ I wasn’t threatening you, so there was no self-preservation involved.”

  “For a bunch of people who supposedly study Edens for a living,” Larry said, “you all sure don’t know much about us. I think you’re letting your prejudices get in the way. Not very scientific.”

  “So set us straight. Tell me about the virtue effect.”

  “Why should I? You’re just going to kill me anyway.”

  Bauersfeld laughed, a little too loud. Larry figured she must have indulged in some strong painkillers. “You’re far too valuable to kill,” she said. “Good thing, too, otherwise you would have been sent to the dissection chambers for what you did to me…but never mind that. I’m the forgiving sort. We hope you can shed some light on what’s going on with the FC and its leaders. Tell us your story. How it all happened in the beginning with Daniel Markis.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “Not everything,” she said. “And even confirmation of information is useful.”

  Larry thought for a few seconds. After the attack, he’d anticipated torture and mind games, and had constructed layers of believable stories around the truth. His alternate realities were there, ready to be used.

  And the more time he bought, the better. Time to be rescued? A fantasy. More likely, time to resist any way he could.

  Hope springs eternal…and maybe the horse will sing.

  “I see you thinking,” she said. “Why not just start with how you could attack me? What harm can that do?”

  Larry stepped closer to the glass of the door, which had been repaired and reinforced with extra bars.

  “Stay back!” ordered a guard from nearby.

  “Just want to see her a little better, that’s all.”

  “It’s okay,” said Bauersfeld waving away the guard.

  “The virtue effect isn’t mind control,” said Larry. “You seem to think it’s something that changes your personality or governs your actions, but all it really does is make it very hard to lie to yourself, to go against your own morals and values. Our researchers say it’s simply the result of a healthy mind and body.”

  “So your conscience didn’t give you any problems with attacking me? An unarmed woman not threatening you?”

  “You and everyone running this facility are intent on genocide. I know that each person I infect saves more lives down the road. If you get injured or even killed in the process…” He shrugged. “Fortunes of war.”

  “A war you started.”

  “No. All we did was offer humanity a gift, a salvation. People like you started a needless war, and you keep it going.”

  Bauersfeld thought for a few minutes before saying anything. “I thank you for being cooperative.” She waved at someone down the hall. “As a sign of my good faith, I brought you a reward.”

  “Reward?”

  “Yes. Southern cooking. Soul food, you’d call it.”

  Larry smelled it before he saw it. Delicious odors floated on the air up and down the hallway. He could hear the stirrings of his fellow prisoners, even a few moans.

  A guard appeared beside Bauersfeld with a tray. It contained what looked like fried chicken, a mound of mashed potatoes and gravy, collard greens with bacon, and cornbread. On the side sat a piece of red velvet cake.

  Larry closed his mouth and his eyes. Temptation. He had to resist. Or should he?

  If you eat, you can string them along, waste more of their time…maybe even get your point of view across. That’s what the seductive serpent whispered in his head.

  Bauersfeld smiled. “See, we can be reasonable. Just talk to me on occasion and things can be much better for you in here.”

  He lifted his eyes from the food, and then to Bauersfeld. Over her shoulder he saw the skeletal boy, trembling behind the glass.

  “Give it to him,” said Larry.

  “What?” She turned to look at the boy. “Why?”

  “Because I asked you to,” said Larry. “Better yet, give it to him and go fix me another one just like it.”

  “You’re in no position to make demands.”

  Larry tilted his head upward. “The Eden virus was concocted in a laboratory in Virginia. I was part of a team put together by Daniel Markis to raid the facility. And...”

  “And what?”

  “And you get me another plate of food.”

  Bauersfeld looked at Larry, and then at the boy. “Fine. Give it to him.”

  A guard took the tray and slid it contemptuously through the slot. The boy grabbed the tray and retreated to the far corner, where he began to gorge.

  “Why do you care about him?” Bauersfeld asked. “He’s a nobody.”

  “Then why is he here, in the special cell block?”

  “Special request from higher up, I hear. He also seems to be infected with a new version of the virus. One that doesn’t burn out its host quite as quickly as the original. One like you yourself have. What do you know about that?”

  “I know a lot,” he half-lied. “First, though, I want better food for everyone on this block. Doesn’t have to be anything special, just enough calories to live on.”

  “I’m afraid that’s quite imposs –”

  “That’s not all. We all get some yard time each day. At least an hour. I know you have fenced-in areas outside. I saw them when I came in. None of this will hinder your research.” He spoke the last word with dripping contempt.

  “Is that all?”

  “For now.”

  “I think you overestimate your value.”

  “I don’t think so. Why the hell are we even here? All this could have been done back in the Netherlands. Or could it?”

  “I wanted to see to your case personally.”

  “Exactly,” smiled Larry. “You said it yourself. I’m important. Lots of interesting stuff in my head. I’m your ticket to your next promotion. You want to present your findings to your bosses in person, without anyone else taking the credit. I can see it in your swollen, bloodshot eyes.”

  Larry kept Bauersfeld arguing for nearly an hour. In the end he got what he wanted. In exchange, he doled out tiny morsels of information to Bauersfeld, who recorded their conversations with barely contained glee.

  Later that day, he walked in the yard under the open sky. It was heaven just to feel the air and hear the birds. He didn’t realize how much he’d missed the sun until he saw it again. It still hurt his regenerated eyes, and he avoided looking at the horrors stumbling around the grounds in every direction. He couldn’t help them. Bauersfeld would only grant so much.

  There came a tug at his pants. Larry looked down and saw the ever-present boy from the opposite cell. He’d never told Larry his name. In fact, he’d not yet spoken, but had become Larry’s shadow.

  So that’s what Larry called him.

  Shadow.


  Larry saw Shadow trembling, gazing off to the east. There, a backhoe dug in a field while guards forced prisoners to stack bodies in a pile beside the fresh dirt. He could have sworn some of the bodies were still moving.

  “Don’t look at it,” said Larry, turning the boy and marching him irresistibly away to put the scene out of sight.

  Edens clustered in the yard like dismal prison gangs. They stared at the giant man and his shadow with curiosity, but left them alone. They appeared to divide themselves ethnically or culturally, and Larry found out these people were not only Americans; they hailed from all over the world. It reminded him of what he’d read: that the Big Three threw international law out the window when it came to Edens. Any infected person, even a documented citizen of another country, might be seized and interned, and “disappeared.”

  He noticed several groups of Asians of various sorts, but one cluster of about twenty men, women and children against a corner of the fence line seemed familiar. He studied them at length. They might be Vietnamese, Laotian or Cambodian, he thought. His time in the military had introduced him to many from Southeast Asia.

  Shadow stared at them as well.

  “What do you say? Want to go be neighborly? Not like we got anything else going on.”

  Shadow nodded solemnly.

  Larry strolled casually in the group’s direction, the boy close behind him. As he got closer, he divined a physical resemblance among them all. He guessed they were part of a family group. Naturally, the Eden virus’ ability to reverse aging made all the adults appear to be in their twenties at first glance. They seemed older because of their painful emaciation. Larry might have been embarrassed, had he not also lost fifty pounds in the last few weeks, despite the recent improvement in his diet.

  “Hello,” said Larry, bowing slightly. “I’m Larry. This is my friend, Shadow.”

  Several of the males bowed in return, but none of them spoke. All eyes regarded him carefully.

  He tried humor. “What you guys think of this camp? Personally, the next time I go on vacation I’m choosing someplace different.”