by Lewis Perdue
I shook my head. "Don't have one yet, but somehow we've got to get Talmadge out of the VA in Jackson and find the load of records he hid." I summarized what we had learned from Shanker.
"I'd like to help you there, but I think Pete and I… the chief and all the others have gone about as far as we can without landing in jail."
"I understand."
"You can count on me," Tyrone said. "I went to med school right next to the VA, been in there any number of times."
"Anita still works there," Rex said.
"I'll do what I can," Quincy said, amazing Jasmine and me again.
"Get me back to my truck," Rex said. "I got me an idea."
CHAPTER 73
Rex drove us south through the night, the headlights of his truck chasing ideas for a plan that rose and vanished like wisps of road fog. I sat next to Jasmine in the backseat, holding her hand, thinking about how to rescue Talmadge, grab the documents, get them to the media.
Rex had an abundance of unconventional resources and ideas and spun one scenario after another. All of these involved rebar, ropes, breaking and entering, safety harnesses, aircraft hijacking, and numerous other criminal acts no sane person would ever consider
"When the going gets insane, the insane get going," Rex kept saying. I didn't argue because insanity had saved my life way too many times in the past. Along with outright lunacy, all our plans required the illegal appropriation of someone else's property, the fastest, most untraceable way to acquire the materials we needed. No matter what we needed, Rex seemed to know where to steal it. Thus, from one scenario to another, a plan developed, much like constructing a vase out of whatever shards were at hand.
During the lulls when the planning discussions fell silent, dark, swirling waters backed up in my head with thoughts of the quick and the dead. I thought of the recently dead—Camilla, Jay Shanker, Chris Nellis—and the incredible loss their absence would cause.
Their deaths not only gouged out holes of love and dependence in the lives of the living, but also deprived the world of the remarkable body of knowledge they had wrested from ignorance, thought by thought. Knowledge was just a different memory. Where did they go? I asked myself again. And did we go there too?
The question gnawed at me during the dark silences connecting Phillipstown, Mayday, Quofaloma, Midnight, Panther Burn, Zelleria, and a score of other lonesome settlements embedded in the Delta darkness. I could not shake my preoccupation with the intriguing theory of Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff, who think our consciousness arises
from a quantum mechanism that alters the very woof and weave of
space-time, or that of Hameroff's colleague David Chalmers, who feels
we will eventually discover consciousness as a fundamental building
block of the universe.
From there, I had no trouble thinking of consciousness as an inscription in spacetime or imagining how those inscriptions could directly affect consciousness.
For me, this begged a connection to the Hindu concept of maya, which says we are a grand illusion of God, and which, to my way of thinking, squares with Genesis, which tells us the world was without form, then God created the heavens and the earth. So, if we live in a world created by God out of nothing, there's no reason we shouldn't view our lives and everything in the world as "real," just as God intended. But I don't think we should be surprised when we dig down deep enough into the fundamentals of existence to find God created it all out of the infinite everything of nothing.
I fell asleep thinking about this. I didn't dream about whether love endured, but recognized it as one of those unknowable things the soul did.
CHAPTER 74
The country roads of Sonoma Valley still slept soundly at four thirty in the morning when Dan Gabriel steered his rental car to a halt on the westbound shoulder of Highway 116 to look at Harper's directions he had jotted down. The setting moon backlit the vineyards and pastures with a halo surrounding the highway and a ragged ridge of hills to the west.
Gabriel turned away from the scene, then flicked on the overhead dome light to decipher his sleepy scrawl. Frank Harper had called him less than two hours before and dragged Dan from his nightmares haunted by undead soldiers.
"I'm sorry to call you at this hour," Harper had apologized. "But I am concerned and can't sleep."
"Makes two of us."
"We could talk privately at the campaign meeting this afternoon at the General's retreat," Harper had said. "But this should offer a better opportunity."
Gabriel looked at his writing, then up at the road. Straight ahead he followed the westward curve of the highway, then spotted the distant traffic light, precisely as Harper had described it. A little closer, faintly as lighter black on black, a road led off to the right.
Putting the car in gear, Dan pressed ahead, nearly running off the road at the poorly marked transition onto Arnold Drive. Two traffic lights down and a left turn later, he drove streets lined with neatly landscaped houses. Gabriel got lost twice on the winding streets, before spotting Harper at the end of the correct cul-de-sac, leaning against a cane by his mailbox.
"Thanks for coming," Harper said as Gabriel stepped out of the white rental car and shook the offered hand. Harper's grip was strong despite the underlying Parkinson's tremor.
"Come on inside. I have a fresh pot of coffee on."
Gabriel walked patiently behind Harper, past trimmed juniper bushes and blooming agapanthas lit up by the front-porch lights. As he followed the old man, Gabriel thought again of how he had let events of his life sweep him along and how this meeting marked an irrevocable break.
He had long considered his Navy enlistment as evidence he was captain of his own ship. But the years—and especially the past six months—had made him realize his act of extreme adolescent rebellion was a reaction, not a real choice. He knew now he had to seize the tiller and steer his own course regardless of the consequences.
"My hearts heavy," Harper said as he directed Gabriel to a chair in the fluorescentlit breakfast nook off the kitchen. "Heavy."
Harper sloshed his coffee as he set it down on the table and painfully eased himself into a chair.
"Clark Braxton is a creation of mine." His eyes were bright and strong and searched Gabriel's. "I'm the last man who knows the whole story. By the time you leave today, you'll know it as well."
"Why me? Why now?"
Harper's direct gaze searched Gabriel's eyes, then turned inward. After a moment, Harper said, "Because you are a good, honest man. A capable man with the ability to act on what I will tell you."
"Thank you."
And now's the time because I feel more mortal than ever before. I have a cardiac pacemaker, electronics to control my Parkinson's, and electronics to deal with chronic back pain." His hand shook as he sipped at the coffee.
"It's time because Clark Braxton's slipping away. I monitor the man continuously via a remote Internet monitoring system. And in the end, I guess it boils down to something Clark told me not long ago up there at that damned Masada fortress, palace of his, over in Napa Valley. Clark looked at me and said, ‘The problem with old men is that time and guilt loosens their lips. When consequences disappear, people do things that we can't tolerate.' Well, at the time, I assumed he was talking about Darryl Talmadge."
Shaking his head, Harper looked down at his hands, which trembled with a life of their own. "I firmly believe now he was talking about me, not Talmadge."
"Wow," Gabriel exhaled.
"Yes. And knowing what I am about to tell you is a dangerous burden. You can leave now. I'll understand. You have many years left."
The two men looked at each other silently. An old pendulum clock ticked loudly from the hallway. We cross many of the great divides in our lives without recognizing them as such until many years later, if at all. But Gabriel saw this one clearly. Dan Gabriel visualized himself thanking the frail old man and walking out right then. As his thoughts followed the future of that decision, h
e felt a lifetime of regret gathering in his heart. So he said, "Please tell me."
Harper smiled. "I knew you were the right man." He took a long draft from his coffee mug.
"One thing Laura LaHaye and Greg McGovern and the others neglected to tell you at your briefing at the General's retreat the last time has to do with a long history of secret, and often unethical, medical experiments performed by the U.S. military and intelligence communities on members of the armed forces and the general public.
"A tiny bit has leaked out: Project 112, Project SHAD, and a couple of others, which affected tens of thousands of unsuspecting people who were unwilling and unwitting guinea pigs in the testing of potentially dangerous chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons."
Harper closed his eyes and gave Dan a faint sigh as he shook his head. "But what I have done with the General's support and urging is far, far worse, farther ranging, and has the potential for altering the very nature of what it means to be human. Unless we do something within the next week, we will unleash a monster which will bring global bloodshed like never seen before."
CHAPTER 75
Early dawn caught us driving along County Line Road. All peach, pastel, and bright, the sun shimmered off the lazy waters of the Ross Barnett Reservoir as we crested the top of the levee west of the main spillway gates. The vast thirty-three-thousand acre man-made lake created by damming the Pearl River north of Jackson was constructed as a flood-control project but turned out to be a major recreational attraction for boater waterskiers, anglers, and duck hunters.
The brilliant morning sun helped chase the fuzziness from my head. Rex stopped at the sign atop the levee and turned left.
"We're headed up in the trees northeast of the Yacht Club," Rex said as he accelerated past a waterside restaurant. "The house owner's a rich guy from Meridian who throws wild parties for legislators and bureaucrats when he needs a vote or some quick action. It's off a private road and out of sight and earshot of neighbors.
"They beat the place up pretty badly during the last party and I got the contract to redo the drywall. I don't reckon we'll see anybody there for a while."
It seemed that no matter what needed doing, Rex had discreet ways to accomplish it. He was the ultimate good-hearted bad boy, and I was thankful to call him friend.
* * * * * Frank Harper grew visibly fatigued as his story approached the present. He spoke continuously, stopping once to make more coffee and pausing only to spell a name, a word, or to let Dan Gabriel catch up with his notes.
"I was thrilled at first," Harper had begun. "Suddenly I had the blessings of the Army and the resources of the U.S. government behind my quest to look inside the heads of human beings and look for the thing which really separates us from the rest of God's creatures. I didn't pay attention to the fabric of deceit being woven around me."
Harper studied the empty bottom of his mug. "Now, the direct result of my life's efforts means the military will begin widespread deployment of Xantaeus next week, disguised as transdermal patches for vitamins and micronutrients."
"But I thought— In the briefing, Wim Baaker said Xantaeus would be deployed in the next year or two," Gabriel stuttered.
"Baaker doesn't know the whole story. The president does not know, and maybe three people at the Pentagon are truly aware."
"What about the adverse side effects?"
"Like I mentioned, about one percent of the people taking the drug never fully recover."
"That would produce thousands of dangerous killers."
"Completely psychopathic killers," Harper said. "People with no compunction about killing, but with the ability to appear normal and above suspicion."
"Like General Braxton."
"Like General Braxton," Harper agreed. "At least most of the time. Xantaeus'll ship next week, and you must stop it."
Suddenly the kitchen of Frank Harper's modest California ranch house erupted with a riot of noise and armed men clothed in black from their boots to balaclavas. Gabriel identified the men as the former Special Forces personnel who formed the core of the Defense Therapeutics security team and knew resistance would be foolish. He allowed himself to be handcuffed and led into the garage. One of the black-clad men opened the garage door, revealing the back of a medium-sized U-Haul truck.
CHAPTER 76
We slept until noon and got up when Rex turned up the downstairs stereo full blast and blasted us with the beat of vintage Boston. I awakened on my left side in a mammoth heart-shaped bed, staring out the window at a green mass of oaks and pines shivering in a light breeze.
When I sat up, I was a little relieved and a lot disappointed Jasmine was not there and, from the topography of the pillows and bed linens, had not been there. An instant later, I remembered kissing her good-night at the door to a bedroom down an impressively long hall and falling asleep with my arms and heart empty.
Under me, the mattress resonated to the deep, familiar bass from the vintage rock and roll. I sat up. The shattered mirror over the bed told part of the story, as did a pair of women's shiny gold, six-inch spiked heels embedded in the drywall. Empty Chivas and Crown Royal bottles littered a polished cherrywood bureau. Half-empty rocks glasses sat near the bottles; three of them had lipstick imprints, one in hot pink, another in cherry red, and the third a deep Goth black with a used condom draped over its rim.
I didn't want to think about the provenance of the bedsheets, but I was grateful to have fallen asleep fully clothed.
Downstairs, the "Rock and Roll Band" cut ended, and in the momentary silence Rex yelled that lunch was getting cold. I detoured through a luxurious shower before dressing in another pair of cargo shorts and a plain gray T-shirt.
I padded down the curved, Tara-like stairs in my bare feet. A massive chandelier hung from the ceiling and dominated the thirty-foot-high cylindrical space within the staircase. Six pairs of thong panties in various Day-Glo shades dangled from one of the chandelier's hand-cut, oak-leaf crystal fobs along with a pair of large, striped boxers.
At the landing at the foot of the stairs, paper bags, milk crates, and cardboard boxes of gear covered the floor, save for a narrow path from the front door to a set of French doors to the left. Voices murmured against the French-door panes.
I paused to scan the piles of gear and recognized most of it from the list we had drawn up hours earlier on the drive down from the Delta.
Hanks of half-inch, high-vee, sixteen-stranded braided rope with the New England Ropes Safety Blue labels still on it were piled next to Miller shock-absorbing lanyards with locking snaps, full-body safety harnesses, webbed lineman's belts, and half a dozen bright red Petzl Ecrin Roc helmets, great for the head, bad for camouflage, but undoubtedly the only thing quickly available wherever the hell he'd found it. I walked over to a bag full of carabiners and pulled one out. Petzl again, four-and-an-eighth-inch balllock models. The tag said they tested out at over sixty-two hundred pounds.
I tossed the carabiner back in the bag and bent over another one, filled with StrikeTeam goggles with thick ballistic-rated polycarbonate lenses, and below those, leather gloves, a pile of Garmin GPS receivers, Motorola Spirit XTN two-watt, heavyduty walkie-talkies with earbuds and talk-to-speak microphones.
A pile of boot boxes was stacked up to my armpits, all full of brand-new Thorogood ten-inch wildland firefighting boots in a range of sizes. Next to them was a case of Counter Assault Bear Deterrent pepper spray. I bent over and cracked the cardboard box and pulled out a container the size of a spray-paint can. We had all agreed to minimize injuries to police and military personnel, who, after all, were only doing their jobs.
I read the label of the can to myself: "Strong enough to stop a bear in its tracks ... range to thirty feet." I made a quiet, low whistle to myself. I had put pepper spray on the list, but had the smaller canisters in mind. I replaced the can in its case box and looked around the cluttered entryway.
There were bolt cutters, backpacks, black coveralls sprouting pockets and pouches o
n every surface, flashlights, and headlights of every description, including two huge twelve-volt, 250,000 candlepower SuperNova spotlights.
There was even stuff I did not remember asking for. Like a dozen sticks of construction-grade dynamite cut in half, and a thick, clear-polyethylene Ziploc containing detonators, about evenly split between electric and regular fuses that could be lit with a match.
The dynamite and detonators were of the type and age usually found in a petroleum exploration logging unit's "doghouse." There was paint thinner, a ten-pound hand sledge, two packs of road flares, and a roll of wide nylon webbing.
A big clear-plastic bag full of dark cotton sweatshirts, pants, T-shirts, underpants, and dark athletic shoes slumped in a far corner with a Ziploc full of handcuffs and, next to it, a hefty steel wedge for splitting firewood. There was also lots and lots of duct tape and cable ties of every imaginable size and color.
I shook my head at the collection of gear and at Rex's ability and resourcefulness to assemble it all between dawn and noon while the rest of us slept.
I followed the muffled voices through the French doors and into a grand dining room, where Jasmine, Tyrone, Rex and his wife, Anita—still in hospital scrubs—sat around the far end of a polished mahogany table long enough to fill Lehman Brothers' boardroom. Little square Krystal hamburger boxes and greasy french-fry envelopes carpeted their end of the table. My heart filled with light when I laid eyes on Jasmine.
"Good morning, sleepyhead." Jasmines eyes were bright and reflected the light coming in through the window. It chased the shadows from my heart.
I headed for the empty chair between Jasmine and Anita. On the table sat a half dozen little Krystal hamburgers and a line of Styrofoam coffee cups. Tyrone gave me a nod as he chewed on his food.
"Brad!" Anita gave me a smile that was part concern and part welcome. "So good to see you."
"'Bout damn time you hauled your lazy butt down." Rex smiled. "Here we are with twelve or fifteen hours to showtime and you play Rip Van freaking Winkle."
