by Sarah Lovett
“Mmm.” The low vibrato was affirmative. He opened his door slowly, stepping out as a group of students, all male, all white, all dressed in suits and ties according to dress code, approached. Two of the younger boys glanced surreptitiously at Sylvia; one stumbled, the other punched him lightly.
After the group had passed, Sylvia said, “I’m wondering if I should feel insulted, or violated. Oh, hell, why not both?” She stooped to collect a long, dark seed pod from the manicured grass. “When did you decide you needed to treat me as one of your subjects?”
“When you agreed to participate in the evaluation of Dantes.” Sweetheart didn’t look at her, but his voice held impatience. “I make it my business to know everyone in the world of terrorism. More important, I need to know who I’m working with, whether I can trust them under pressure.”
“What’s the verdict?”
“You’re here.
“Fair is fair,” she said slowly. “When do I see your profile? Because you know what? I need to know who I’m working with, too.”
He had a way of looking—more tactile than visual—that felt invasive.
She turned her head away. “Did you guess Dantes would connect with me?”
“Leo Carreras guessed for me. He’s a very intelligent psychiatrist, a good member of the team. I respect his judgment.”
Sweetheart held out a hand for the seed pod; his fingers closed around the mahogany-toned bud. “But it’s gone much further than anyone could have foreseen, Dr. Strange. You’ve been chosen to serve as Dantes’ confessor. M won’t like that.”
“No,” she agreed softly. For a moment her eyelids hooded the energy contained in her dark golden irises. Her head dipped, her mouth relaxed. She was traveling to other worlds, her thoughts caught in the past.
Then—blink, blink—she was back, looking directly at Sweetheart.
She stepped away from the Mercedes. “Master Healey should be expecting us right about now. I told him we’d make it by eleven thirty.”
Sweetheart pointed to a neatly painted sign set a few feet above the grass: Davis Avery Gymnasium. An arrow directed pedestrians toward a large white structure about a quarter mile in the distance.
Sylvia started forward, but she swung around when Sweetheart made no move to follow. “Waiting for an invitation?”
“Oh, I’m perfectly happy to accompany you while you talk to the former headmaster.” His smile was cold. “Or I could stay right here in case M decides to drop by.”
Her eyes widened. “Doesn’t this car have an alarm system?”
“A very sensitive system. In fact, it’s designed to detonate IEDs within a range of thirty to fifty—”
“Stay.”
* * *
11:26 A.M. Avery Gymnasium was as humid as a hothouse.
The two boys locked in physical combat in the center of the wrestling mats were sweating heavily. Master Healey Sr., with his whistle and his gray workout suit, looked just as overheated as the boys.
“Don’t let Underwood up, Findlay—don’t let him up!” A strapping, big-boned man, Healey was pacing the mats, watching his fighters.
Just when Sylvia had decided he was going to ignore her presence, he signaled for her to approach. “You’re the one who called about John?”
“I’m Dr. Strange.”
“Why talk to me?”
“I thought you could answer that question. Dantes sent me to see the master.” She squared her shoulders, demanding the man’s attention. “Have you followed his career?”
“You mean the Calbomber’s career?” Healey grunted. “I’ve spent too many years with Milton and Dante not to believe arrogance and hubris are real sins. John was the brightest student I’ve ever encountered. He was a star athlete, a golden boy—he was also egotistical and self-righteous. He still is.”
Suddenly changing focus, he barked with surprising strength, “Findlay, what did I tell you, damn it! You should be able to take Underwood down in fifteen seconds!”
Sylvia watched the struggle, a primitive face-off based on strength, aggression, cunning, and heart. Underwood was being held down by Findlay, who was at least fifteen pounds heavier. Their raspy labored breath echoed almost painfully in the cavernous room.
Master Healey took four strides along the edge of the mat; he was watching his fighters, but addressing Sylvia. He said, “Dantes overestimates his strength. Something a warrior should never do.”
“He said you could tell me about Karen. Was she a teacher?”
“Charon guards the river Acheron in hell.” Healey clapped his hands together. “Pin him! Force his shoulder down to the ground!” He stopped moving abruptly. “What else did Dantes say?”
“Relentless thoughts—b-k-nine,” she blurted out, thinking of the message from M. “Does that mean anything to you?”
He was quiet for several moments. “How current is your Milton?”
“Paradise Lost. High school.” Sylvia blinked at the blatant condescension. “Refresh me.”
“My students knew the great books, I saw to that.” By now his skin had turned an alarming shade of pink. Ignoring the boys, he stopped directly in front of her, his face inches from hers. In round vowels, affecting a light Germanic accent, he intoned, “‘For only in destroying I find ease/To my relentless thoughts.’”
His eyes disappeared behind wrinkled lids. “Book nine of John Milton’s Paradise Lost.” His chin jutted out as he glared. “As spoken by Satan.”
Healey returned his attention to the boys on the mat. “Don’t let him step out, Findlay. Don’t let him get his other arm free!”
As if on command, Underwood suddenly slid his arm free of the larger boy’s grasp and jumped several feet out of the action. He looked toward Healey for approval.
Healey bellowed, “You just gave away two points, Findlay. You just let a guy, a peanut half your size, get away from you, you effing simpleton.”
Switching gears, the former headmaster dropped his voice so that it had an edge of intimacy. “John Milton set out to justify a Puritan God who was less than tolerant. In my mind, in the mind of many other scholars, he failed. But Milton succeeded in creating one of the consummate tragic figures in Western literature, the fallen hero.”
“Satan.”
“A painfully human Satan.” Healey glanced over to the mat.
“Why did John Dantes send me to find you, Master Healey?”
“Why don’t you ask him?”
“Was there another student?” Sylvia pressed, fishing for connections, for anything that might lead to M. “Someone he was involved with? A teacher?”
Healey kept his back to Sylvia, his focus on his wrestlers.
Finally, Sylvia said, “Perhaps Dantes meant another master.” She covered the twenty feet to the double doors. Her palm touched wood—
“I can tell you who played the unforgiving God to the fallen hero!” Healey called out.
She stopped.
Shoving the whistle in his mouth, Healey blew a sharp command. Findlay, the larger wrestler, now hovered over the smaller. The boys’ bodies contracted, their faces grew tight, and their skin began to redden. Round two had begun.
Slowly, Sylvia retraced her steps.
“There was a student,” Healey said, ushering her away from the mats. His mouth pursed, as if he’d eaten something sour. He kept his voice low. “Simon Mole. The boys had some bond. I tried to discourage it. It wasn’t . . . healthy.”
“Was it a homosexual?”
“God, no.” A look of disgust crossed Healey’s face. “More like hero worship; Simon was always acting the sycophant.” Healey frowned. “I spoke to John about the fact this friendship was . . . undesirable. Especially for the school’s only scholarship student.”
“How did Dantes respond?”
“He ignored my advice.” Healey looked as angry as if the episode had occurred yesterday, instead of two decades earlier. “For the honors program, they completed their senior dissertations as a dialogue. Dantes
wrote a primitive draft of his Inferno—many years later, of course, that became his Ph.D. thesis as well as a best-seller.”
“And Simon Mole?”
“Simon responded with a Miltonian treatise: Mole’s Lost Paradise. It was a campus joke; the other students nicknamed it Mole’s Manifesto. It was adolescent rivalry at best.”
“Did you—”
“You know what to do!” Healey barked toward the center of the room, where the boys were locked in fierce and silent struggle. “So do it!”
His cold and cloudy blue eyes refocused on Sylvia. “Just inside the gates of hell, Dante and Virgil see a raging demon rowing across the river, where souls of the damned wait for passage. The demon is Charon, the ferryman. But Charon recognizes that Dante is still alive, and he refuses to let him cross.”
“Charon won’t take Dantes?”
Master Healey smiled meanly. “Don’t you mean Dante Alighieri?” Watching her confusion, he mocked her. “But you’re right . . . it is John Dantes’ journey you and I are concerned with. Don’t forget the original Inferno was an autobiographical work meant to purge Alighieri’s own demons.”
Sylvia took a deep breath; she found herself staring at the two young wrestlers. “Do you know if the boys maintained contact after they left Oxford?”
“Simon turned down Yale to go to UCLA, to be with his hero.”
“They were at UCLA together? Did the FBI see the manifesto when they were building the case against Dantes? Did they follow up on Simon Mole?”
“There was no reason to follow up.” Healey shook his head. “Before completing his first year at UCLA, Simon Mole died.”
Sylvia had covered half the distance to Sweetheart and the Mercedes when she stopped in the middle of the path. She was thinking about a demon, an angry boatman from hell who refused passage to a pilgrim who wasn’t really dead. Dantes had sent her to find out about Simon Mole; was Mole the impostor in the land of the dead?
If so, was Simon Mole living as M?
A whole history remains to be written of spaces—which would at the same time be the history of powers (both these terms in the plural)—from the great strategies of geopolitics to the little tactics of the habitat.
Michel Foucault, The Eye of Power
12:19 P.M. Sweetheart guided the convertible to a stop under Plutus’ arch. “So much for the fourth circle,” he said quietly.
As the Greek god of wealth glared down on a high-tech and highly secure exchange of information unimaginable in his golden age, Luke’s voice emerged from the speakerphone.
He said, “The Times morgue has it—” The speaker went dead for a moment, then he was back. “Uh . . . sorry . . . I’m here, I’m scanning. It was a fire—a gas explosion—and it incinerated the family home.”
He took an audible breath. “Give me five minutes, I’ll put all this in the usual directory. You can—”
“Just give me vitals,” Sweetheart said, cutting him off. “We’ll do the FTP later.”
“It’s a Valley Vista Drive address—less than three miles from where you are. April second Los Angeles Times—gas line explosion—emergency medical—” He whistled through his teeth. “Okay, okay, his sister, Laura Mole, sixteen, DOA. Simon Mole, nineteen, critical—”
He coughed, paused again, the clicking of computer keys audible. “Two days later, the Times ran a short piece—the parents were political fund-raisers—Republicans for Reagan—traveling when the accident occurred. Simon downgraded to serious condition, but he lost an eye—hold on—Times again, May twenty-eighth, the explosion ruled accidental by the LA fire and arson unit; opinion affirmed by the utility company and insurance investigations.”
“Accidents happen,” Sweetheart commented dryly.
A leaf fell from a massive oak and settled on the windshield directly in front of Sylvia. Her laptop rested on her thighs, ready to boot up. She said, “What’s the follow-up on Simon?”
“I’ve got obituaries,” Luke said. “Laura Diane Mole—a student at Holyoke.” His voice faded as he scanned through data. “No obit for Simon—hold on—bingo—but it’s almost two years later. Simon Eton Mole, both his parents, and thirteen other passengers killed in a train accident in Milan—sabotage suspected.” He blew air between his teeth. “Unlucky kid.”
“Go ahead with a kitchen-sink search on our Mole.”
“And Luke,” Sylvia said, leaning forward slightly. “Haul ass.”
She knew that the broad-based search file should eventually include school evaluations, psychological reports, academic records, family background, and credit reports—better yet, gossip and innuendo—both accident reports, medical and pathology sheets, and a death certificate. In short, any possible stat that could be tabulated on this particular human subject, dead or alive, kit and caboodle. All information would be fed into MOSAIK to become part of the intensive and complex process of databased profiling.
“How’s this for a fast ass,” Luke said with an audible grin. “I nabbed the assessor’s file.” He recited the physical address, then added: “The property was never sold; it’s in trust—a legal firm in the UK.”
“Keep us current,” Sweetheart ordered, ready to disconnect. “We’ll be back by two—”
“No, you won’t,” Gretchen’s disembodied voice interrupted. “Messages: Dr. Carreras called regarding some evaluations of Dantes at UCLA. If you can make it by one thirty, Carreras will meet you and Dr. Strange at the Bay View on PCH.”
“We can make it,” Sweetheart confirmed, with a quick glance at Sylvia.
She shrugged. What evaluations had Leo managed to dig up? Why hadn’t she seen them before? She wanted to get her hands on them ASAP.
Nodding, she barely registered Gretchen finishing a list of international callers: “ . . . and Special Agent Purcell, who said she’ll contact you at oh four-thirty hours.” Gretchen hesitated a fraction of a second. “Professor? Your niece called. Molly needs to meet with you—”
But Sweetheart disconnected before she could finish the message.
12:29 P.M. Looking more surly than Plutus, Sweetheart guided the Mercedes from the academy grounds onto Coldwater Canyon Road. At the intersection with Mulholland Drive, he braked, heading toward Vista Valley Drive.
Settled deep in leather upholstery, Sylvia kept her eyes carefully on the roadside scenery, the visually eclectic progression of homes lining this stretch of Mulholland Drive. The side streets were named for artists—Picasso Way, Dali Drive. And indeed, the urban view from the ridge made her think of paintings, the pastel dreams of Monet, the primary nightmares of Brueghel.
She felt her mood spiraling, but she kept silent while she organized her thoughts; she knew stress, exhaustion, and fear could push her past the point of control. Professional boundaries blurred under these circumstances.
Still, she’d been shocked by Sweetheart’s crude reaction to mention of his niece.
The road narrowed where Sweetheart guided the convertible around a tight corner, cutting close to the steep drop-off from Mulholland into the San Fernando Valley.
“What?” he asked, finally. “You keep looking at me.”
“No, I don’t.” She fingered her bracelet. “I’ve made it a point not to look at you.” After a moment’s silence, she said, “It really bothered me the way you reacted to Molly Redding’s name.”
“That’s none of your business.”
“Wrong.” She snapped down the cover on her laptop. “An hour ago you told me you ran a profile on me. Why? So you’d know who you’re dealing with—and more important, whether you could trust me under pressure.”
“If you’ve got trust issues, Dr. Strange, I suggest you deal with them.”
“Fine and fuck you.” She stared at him, fighting to regain control over her emotions—
The words slipped out: “When we get back to your house, I’ll run it through MOSAIK: what’s the skinny on Sweetheart’s screwed-up relationship with his niece?”
She was sorry as soon as she said
it.
But Sweetheart didn’t give her time to apologize. He shifted into third gear, his foot riding the gas pedal.
Sylvia was aware of the narrow winding road and the speedometer needle, trembling just above fifty miles per hour—then fifty-five—sixty.
She said, “I’ll apologize if you slow down.”
He just scowled, mouth set, as the Mercedes picked up speed. Warm wind kicked up dust, spinning tires spit gravel. Trees and shrubs blurred into a tapestry of watery color. The needle on the speedometer jerked upward in small but steady increments.
“Slow down.”
He ignored her.
“Slow. Down.”
But he didn’t, and the greenery melted into one continuous soft hedge bordering the roadside. The verge of Mulholland Road seemed to undulate beneath the Mercedes’ tires. She counted to five.
“Pull the fuck over, I’ll fucking walk!”
He didn’t look at her, but his foot eased off the accelerator. The car coasted for a quarter mile, rolling to a stop near a tall stand of eucalyptus. Dust swirled around them, settling reluctantly. With the engine silenced, the cicadas swelled to song. Sylvia sat stiffly.
“You want to talk about it?” she asked finally.
“I don’t need a shrink.” He snapped the visor up. “There’s nothing mysterious about compensatory attachment objects, affiliatory readjustments.” His speech was flat and mechanical; he tipped his head every few beats, physically marking criteria off some internalized master list. “These are life’s unpleasant but mundane stressors.”
“Stop.” Sylvia took a deep breath, waiting several seconds before she was able to continue. “Don’t call Jason Redding’s death mundane.”
When Sweetheart spoke again, he sounded diminished, worn down like a stone in the tidal zone. “My niece was never stable; she’s been troubled all her life; but Jason was bright and gifted. When he died—” His voice broke.
Sylvia closed her eyes; Sweetheart’s pain was an invisible presence; it took up space. She felt cornered, she felt crowded.
