Perfect Killer

by Lewis Perdue

  During his indecisive moment of silence, I felt my heart beating and listened to the dripping of wine. Then like lightning from a clear sky, came a voice I had heard many times on television.

  "One might say the same of you, Jack!"

  Clark Braxton's voice preceded a soft-crepe thunder that filled the cellar with the shuffling of SWAT-clad troops with M16s, soft-rubbersoled boots, and perfectly secured gear that had made no sound at all.

  CHAPTER 97

  "Let's play our cards," Jasmine said as she turned away from the laptop screen. Tyrone hesitated, transfixed at the vision of Braxton and his body-armored security guards. Jasmine grabbed his sleeve and dragged him out of the pickup's cab. "Let's get airborne."

  Tyrone and Jasmine connected the auxiliary wires and quickly got the first small aircraft off the ground. With her eyes on the small plane and her hands on the control joysticks, Jasmine sidled back to the cab of the truck.

  "Now get the camera that looks out the window," Jasmine said. "The one which almost showed us." She looked up at the small aircraft. "Let me know when you see the airplane on the camera, then guide me in."

  Tyrone scrambled back into the cab.

  "Oh, hell," Tyrone said when be got back behind the keyboard. "You are not going to believe what Braxton just did!"

  * * * * * Dressed in a tuxedo and patent-leather shoes that threw off light like a mirror, Clark Braxton's face twisted itself deep and red with a fury rolling off him like a shock wave. His hands trembled at his side as he surveyed the enological carnage.

  Braxton's big security chief stood at his side, silhouetted against the last orange hues of the smoke-stained sunset bleeding through the distant window. I had no doubt he and Braxton would use this as the escape attempt they needed as an excuse to kill us.

  Braxton's fists and arms trembled as he surveyed the wreckage. His eyes passed through anger and fury, then began to reflect light in a manner that grew truly frightening.

  Unaware of his boss's gathering rage, the big security chief barked orders at his men. At the corner of my eye, I saw Rex duck around the corner of the wine rack,

  "Stop!" The security chief yelled after Rex and directed two of his men to pursue him. As the other troops fanned out and took our weapons, I heard Rex and Harper.

  "Come on!" Rex said "Quick."

  "No. You go."

  "Move, Doc!"

  "I'm too slow. You go."

  "Hell!"

  I heard the report of Rex's 9mm pistol followed by a three-round burst from one of the M16s, Then another 9mm shot.

  "Damn! I'm hit," cried a voice. Not Rex's.

  The security chief directed another man toward the action. "It's okay," called the wounded man. "My vest caught it."

  Then another voice: "There's a hole in the wall. Shall I pursue?"

  "Negative!" yelled the security chief. "It leads to the barrel cellar. We've got a man posted there. Stay here; make sure nobody comes out."

  "Sir!"

  Braxton knelt on one knee to examine a broken wine bottle as a guard dragged Frank Harper around the corner. Braxton stood slowly, looking at the broken wine bottle like a mother holding her dead child. His entire body pulsed with barely restrained power. Then he dropped the bottle and leveled a killing gaze at Harper.

  "You lame, worthless, feeble piece of dog shit." Braxton's voice started faint and low like the preamble to a prayer, then rose in pitch and volume as Harper and his captor grew closer. "You traitorous old fool!"

  "Yes, I am an old fool," Harper said. Braxton nodded and the guard halted next to the wine rack. "And I am a traitor for saving your life."

  Braxton flew apart. "You damned fool! Look at the damage you have done!" The General swept an outstretched arm around the cellar. He turned then and pulled his security chief's sidearm from its holster.

  The guard holding Harper leaped to the side as Braxton shot the old man in the face, slamming him back against the wine racks. The crack-shot former general shot Harper again as he slumped toward the tile. Harper died before he hit the floor.

  Shock and disapproval registered in the eyes of the SWAT-clad men holding the rest of us. Killing innocent people was not part of a professional soldier's charter. The grip on my arm loosened.

  "And you!" Braxton stepped away from his big security chief and leveled the man's own gun at his chest. "You were supposed to prevent this!" Dried spittle stuck like cotton to one corner of Braxton's mouth.

  "But you let these amateurs ruin the perfection of the world's greatest wine collection! Just look at it now! It was complete and now… " Braxton trembled. Around the room, the security troops were stunned by the sight of the General and the security chief locked in mortal combat. Their training had never prepared them for this

  "You ruined it, ruined it!"

  When Braxton shot his security chief, Gabriel, Kilgore, and I broke for the hole in the wall. As we turned the corner, the two guards who had not seen the shootings raised their weapons. We ducked back around the end of the wine racks and saw Braxton standing over the head of his security detail as the man struggled to sit up.

  Two of the guards moved toward the General as he aimed the gun down at the fallen man's head and pulled the trigger again. Behind us, we heard one of the guards move away from the hole in the wall, his boots crunching on the broken glass.

  Then, from beyond the window, out where the sun had begun surrendering to darkness, a toy airplane bobbed toward us. I turned and took shelter at the base of the wine rack along with Gabriel and Kilgore.

  The explosion rocked the cellar and filled the enclosed space with glass and wine.

  CHAPTER 98

  "Okaaay, there went the security cam," Tyrone said as he and Jasmine raced to launch a second radio-controlled airplane.

  "We'll put this and the other two in about the same area," she said. "If Brad's still alive, he'll be heading away from there. Maybe we can pull security to where he isn't anymore."

  She paused.

  "Then we get the hell out of here."

  * * * * * The cellar noise receded quickly as we stumbled down the dark stairwell. "What took you so long, kemo sabe?"

  Rex appeared out of the darkness with a small, bright LED light. "Lead the way, Tonto," Kilgore replied.

  "Right this way asshole."

  At the bottom, we found no guard in the barrel cave and none in the tunnels or on the loading docks. We did hear another explosion faintly as we made our way to the wine delivery truck, gridlocked in a panicked tangle of traffic.

  "You gentlemen up for a jog?" Gabriel said. "I know a nice trail to the road."

  "I'm allergic to running," Rex said. "But not as allergic as I am to lead."

  Outside the service area and beyond the beautiful green curtain that kept it from blighting the visions of important people, we found chaos like the last helicopter out of Saigon. Guests in evening dress came off the aerial gondola and were hustled by their own security people to waiting limousines, all of which jammed the driveway out.

  We followed Gabriel in the shadows of the trees. At first, we walked to avoid attracting attention, then ran swiftly through the trees toward Silverado Trail.

  We had walked through a shallow stream and were crawling up the bank when Rex asked us to stop for a moment.

  "You finally going to quit smoking now?" I asked him.

  "You can be a true asshole," he said only half-joking. "I have half a mind to tell your lady here"—he tapped at the walkie-talkie—"tell her you didn't make it… and see to it myself that I ain't lying."

  He pulled the earbud and lavalier from his ear. "But I promised y'mama, you know."

  He handed me the earbud and the walkie-talkie.

  It was Jasmine.

  EPILOGUE

  A score of postdoctoral and medical school students jammed themselves around a long, elliptical plastic-laminate table, took notes, and sipped coffee when I paused and listened to me with an embarrassing degree of intensity as I shuffled
my way toward the last pages of my notes.

  Around the perimeter of the windowless room stood a collection of people who would be my classroom students in the fall, and a sprinkling of faculty members I vaguely recognized but whose names I could not recall.

  "I realize its a big shock for many, but the theoretical and practical successes of quantum theory expose classical physics as a primitive tool. For the purposes of studying consciousness, it's like using a muzzle-loading cannon when you really need a particle accelerator. Regardless, the classically misled consciousness establishment remains mired in the seventeenth century wearing Sir Isaac Newton about their necks like an albatross." I glanced hopefully at the door for an instant, then back to my notes. "This stubborn refusal to relinquish obsolete ideas has damaged our ability to understand consciousness and to examine and discuss the existence of free will."

  I turned to the big white board at the front of the room, erased my previous notes dealing with the technological verifications of quantum theory—semiconductors, nuclear bombs, GPS satellites.

  "Quantum physics and superstring theory invalidate classical physics as follows: First, classical physics says any action must be caused by current, local, and totally mechanical circumstances." I wrote as I spoke, turning back to make eye contact between each point. "Second, classical physics holds there is matter and there is energy, sometimes equal but always separate. But as we have seen, quantum entanglement and superposition destroy the first proposition. The second crumbles because matter and energy are manifestations of the same thing, and neither exists as a simple either-or dichotomy.

  "Furthermore, the universe is far weirder than we think because everything we know about matter and energy totally ignores ninety-six percent of everything."

  A coherent wall of blank stares greeted this.

  "Think for a moment about the studies from NASA and others in 2003 that proved that ordinary atoms—the stuff we're made of—comprise a mere four percent of the entire universe." I held up four fingers. "On the other hand, dark matter makes up twenty-three percent, and the rest, a whopping seventy-three percent, is dark energy.

  "And we know virtually nothing about dark matter and energy! I have no doubt that this missing ninety-six percent of the universe affects our consciousness. When we learn more I believe we will lose our bifurcated outlook on matter versus energy and find a third way that will invalidate much of the truth we hold dear."

  A hand shot up.

  "Yes?"

  "Professor, why are you talking about cosmology in a biology lecture?"

  "Because quantum physics, superstring theory, cosmology, and particle physics bring us to a point where the infinitely small intersects with the infinitely large. I believe all the hard questions in consciousness lie at the same intersection."

  "Like how?"

  "Like the incredible nonexistence of matter and energy," I said. "As we look at these on a smaller and smaller scale, matter and energy first seem to be the same thing, then appear to be some sort of ghost particle or a string if you like, produced by spacetime itself. Look at your finger." Everyone in the class looked at his or her fingers. "Now, think about a keratin molecule, any molecule. Okay, now fix on a carbon atom. Then visualize a neutron. Then visualize the quarks making up the neutron. Think about one quark, any quark. It has no mass we can measure, only energy and we have no way to determine where it is at any given point. Indeed, some variants of superstring theory postulate it's a vibration resonance emanating from space-time itself."

  I watched most of the eyes in the room close.

  "Now, imagine every other molecule and atom in your body at the same time. Visualize yourself as a collection of vibrating space-time clouds, none of which have any mass, but which you perceive as the solid, living, breathing you.

  "There is also some very good evidence from work done by Penrose and Hameroff indicating that quantum-based processes underlie our consciousness, maybe through some connection to space-time—the fabric of reality and existence—and that our thoughts alter space-time permanently. Proving this experimentally, establishing it as fact rather than a good theory, will take time."

  "So how does dark energy come into this?"

  "Obviously dark energy and matter have to be part of space-time," I said. "And therefore part of how consciousness works."

  "If Penrose and Hameroff are right," the student challenged. "And a lot of prominent people think they're dead wrong."

  "A lot of prominent people thought Copernicus and Galileo were dead wrong too," I said.

  I looked at my watch, then at the back of the room. Jasmine stood inside the door, leaning against the far wall. I caught a deep breath and tried to keep my tongue from stumbling. Her hair framed her face like a halo; the emerald studs I had bought her to celebrate Darryl Talmadge's successful defense dazzled on her ears. She wore a simple black dress and carried a suitably conservative leather handbag.

  "As you probably know from the media reports, Darryl Talmadge died in his sleep two days ago. I need to go change now for the funeral up in Itta Bena or we'll be late. If you'd like to know more about dark energy, my notes are at ConsciousnessStudies.org. Also, if you're interested in the free will issues concerning Talmadge and Braxton, a transcript of the television interview Ms. Thompson and I did is on the Web site, as well as on Ms. Thompson's site, Mississippilustice.Org. Thank you for coming," I said as I headed for the door and Jasmine's welcoming smile.

  The heels of Jasmine's black dress pumps tapped on the polished linoleum as we hurried toward my office.

  "I'm sorry," I said. "I lost track of the time." I rechecked my watch. "Oh, man, I really, really hate being late."

  Jasmine gave me one of her trademark mysterious smiles. After all these months, I had learned to read her smiles better and realized she still had as many ways of smiling as Sonia did for saying "Oy!" We rounded the corner and spotted Sonia toward the end of the corridor. She stood in the doorway of my new office at the University of Mississippi School of Medicine.

  As we drew close to Sonia, I saw the bright, happy look on her face as her eyes connected my expression with the fond look in Jasmine's eyes. "You are going to be late, Dr. Stone," she said, trying to sound reproachful and not quite making it. "Quincy's waiting."

  "Yes, Ma'am," I told her as I hurried into the reception area.

  "Sorry," I apologized to Quincy.

  "We'll make it," he said easily. "Be cool."

  I gave him a smile, then hurried into my office and pulled on the same suit I had worn at Vanessa's funeral. Quincy and I had grown close since the night we both had too much to drink and he'd pulled out a worn, brown, expandable folder full of legal documents proving he was my half-uncle via the Judge and Vanessa's mother. The Judge's financial support to Quincy's mother had allowed them a far more decent life than the average resident of Balance Due. The Judge had also secretly arranged financial aid that had put Vanessa and Quincy through college.

  I had not been as surprised to learn all this as Jasmine was.

  "Vanessa and your grandmother and I decided there was no reason to saddle you with the ugly details," Quincy had told her, but I had seen a look of betrayal on her face and a realization that the specter of the black woman and the white planter from the big house had struck closer to home than she had imagined.

  The revelations that had brought me closer to Quincy had wedged themselves between Jasmine and me for months.

  Quincy still taught at Mississippi Valley State University, but came down to Jackson often, as did Jasmine. I had arranged my classes, clinical appointments, and lectures into a schedule allowing me to spend about half my time in Greenwood. I bought an old building off Cotton Street and loved to spend time renovating it. It was only a couple of minutes away from the hospital where Tyrone had resumed his work and I volunteered.

  "Who's driving?" I said as I rushed out of my office, coat and tie in hand.

  "I've got the Suburban," Quincy said. "Remember, we're givi
ng Rex and Anita a ride."

  Quincy picked up Anita and Rex at their home in Madison, then headed north on I55. We rode in silence, watching the colors of spring race past the windows. The dogwoods filled the roadside forests with explosions of pink-tinted white. The emerging new leaves frosted the rest of the woods with bright green, full of hope and promise.

  I still had not reconciled myself with Camilla, the way she had died and my memories of her I reflected on my lecture from that morning and whether the Camilla I had known and loved had been trapped in her damaged brain all along, the same software and memories and person she had always been, but the damaged hardware failing to let her out.

  Maybe it had been the same with Talmadge's wife and her Alzheimer's. I had certainly made my best case about this to the juries who had considered the charges against Braxton and Talmadge, but doubts still lingered in my mind.

  The courts had remanded Talmadge to the high-security wing of Pacific Hills in Malibu so Flowers and I could continue to study him. Braxton's expensive legal team had got him off with a temporary-insanity plea that has allowed him to live as a mostly free man other than for a court-ordered monitoring of his medication.

  Talmadge lived longer than anyone expected before the cancer got him.

  Harper's notes had been seized by Laura LaHaye's office and made unavailable to us. The Xantaeus fiasco had been embarrassing but not a career killer for her, Greg McGovern, and the nondepleting-neurotrop team at Defense Therapeutics. While the patches had been withdrawn, the research continued because being first to have it was too important to the Pentagon.

  Dan Gabriel had gone back to college at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo and was studying marine biology. In his spare time, he volunteered for an organization he had founded that warned the public about the dangers of what had become known as "the chemical soldier." I don't think anyone has paid much attention to them, and for that we will suffer one day.