by Sarah Lovett
. . . I understand what you were made of–before heat and light–and I understand what you will become when you are ready to transform.
What a rare thing in this life to meet a kindred spirit. Do you understand what I am offering? Km.t. True partnership until the end.
The letters blurred, the lines merged. Sylvia blinked again. Her eyes lingered on the last line, and she asked, "'Km.t'?"
Palmer ran slender fingers through blond hair. "One theory for the origin of the word 'alchemy' is that it comes from the Egyptian word for Egypt, which is khemet, black land or black earth." She stretched her arms overhead, and the sleeves of her robe slid down, revealing toned muscles, golden-brown skin. "The hieroglyphics for khemet—"
"Are 'km.t,'" Sweetheart finished. "That simply tells us your pen pal knows how to use an encyclopedia."
"If we bring up the initial communication—" Sylvia typed a command, then stopped. "You said the first e-mail arrived the day after Dr. Thomas's death, correct?" Glancing at Palmer for clarification, she turned back to concentrate on the text that filled the screen:
I can read your mind . . .
There is always the hunger to understand:
–while poison courses through veins, is absorbed into organs, reaches the cells and synapses of the brain.
Where does it hurt the most? Are you shivering from heat, or cold? Is that flickering of your eyelids the first sign of the convulsions to follow? Is your mouth dry? Is your brain exploding with pain? Is your stomach tied into knots? Are your thoughts fractured? Are you going blind and deaf?
Do you know death is with you . . . do you know death is with you . . . do you know death is with you?
Are you afraid?
Sylvia pulled back in the chair, turning away from the words to refocus on Palmer. "Who is he talking about? Samantha Grayson? Doug Thomas? One of the others?"
"Who can keep track?" Palmer's smile was cool.
"You think this is funny?"
"Sarcasm is my way of dealing with an unpleasant topic," Palmer said carefully. "I'm sure, as a psychologist, you can understand that particular defense mechanism."
"I don't give a shit about your defense mechanisms," Sylvia said. She turned back to the screen as Christine Palmer stood and walked from the room.
"What will you win if you alienate her?" Sweetheart asked, studying Sylvia intently.
"It's too late to win anything," Sylvia said, angered by his interference. But most of all, silently enraged by his deliberate denial of Palmer's poisonous confession in the park. She'd been holding back her emotions, and now she pulled back internally again. "Don't ask me to stick to morphological structure."
"I'm asking you to maintain communication."
"Something you're so good at."
"Something I'm not good at—which is why I need you."
Abruptly Sylvia felt dizzy, and it took all her energy to stay where she was, to ride out the wave of vertigo. She tipped her head toward her knees, then straightened.
In time to see Palmer, a glass of red wine in each hand, pass by. She set one glass on the desk next to Sweetheart as she sipped from the other and crossed to the loveseat.
"I apologize for my rudeness, Dr. Strange," she said. "You asked a serious question. I didn't give you my full attention. But I will."
Sylvia found herself staring into Palmer's blue-gray eyes. Her mouth had gone dry, but she didn't break off contact as Palmer said, "I believe he was talking about my work on a particular project."
"Which project?"
"You won't find it on my résumé. It was classified. Military."
"What was the nature of the research?"
"We were experimenting on antidotes for biochemical agents that had been used—or might be used—in combat situations."
"Was the research successful?"
"The results were erratic," Palmer said. "The project was terminated."
"Why?"
"We can talk in circles all day, Dr. Strange."
"You said it was an antidote for a biochemical agent. How did you test your antidote?"
Images flashed through Sylvia's mind: the videotape she and Sweetheart had watched in a London hotel; a pathetic laboratory monkey with psychotic eyes; obscure words on a sheet of white paper.
"Project Alkahest." She stood slowly, letting her gaze shift to Sweetheart, then back to Palmer. Confirmation was written in Christine's face—in the eyes, the shape of the mouth, the delicately flared nostrils, the sharp pulse where throat met jaw.
Sylvia's mind made the leap. "My God . . . you experimented on human subjects. Who were they? Military? Were they soldiers? Who were your guinea pigs?"
Palmer opened her mouth, shook her head, then ran her tongue around her lips. "They were British. And they were American. A joint project." She pushed herself out of the love seat, moving restlessly now. "The alkahest was delivered with a dozen other injections. It's done all the time—the Gulf War, UN troops—it's routine. The assumption was made that it worked. Questions arose only later."
"What happened—" Sylvia broke off. Words evaporated and reformed. "I need to know about the alkahest," she whispered.
"It's no doomsday weapon." Palmer began to pace a narrow path in the center of the room. "It's a neurotoxin, a class of biotoxin. Others on the market deliver much higher lethality. What makes it valuable is the manufacturing process. We've enhanced it, made it desirable because it's malleable. Dispersible through topical absorption, through ingestion, but at its best when it's aerosolized. In asymmetrical warfare, when biologicals are used, the issue is always dispersement. And destructive potential. Alkahest isn't intended to kill, although it certainly can. In the correct dosage it causes neurological damage, damage to the cortex—the symptoms may mimic those of encephalitis, severe psychosis."
Detached from the reality of suffering and death, Palmer was describing the strengths of a specially gifted offspring. She was delivering an impassioned lecture to the uninitiated. "It's advantageous in biowarfare to maim. "Her breath quickened. "The resources of an enemy are taxed by caring for victims—the enemy is demoralized. The living are haunted by the deformed and dysfunctional more than by the dead. Insanity, paralysis, acute pain—these are difficult to ignore."
She turned now, retracing her steps. Her voice, her body had taken on new energy. She was almost smiling as she said, "The latest generation of the toxin has a very brief window of contagion. Inhaled, absorbed, it will remain in human cells, but it's unlikely to linger in the air. That's the beauty of this particular biological agent. It is selective, allowing a short window of acute toxicity, harming only the immediately exposed victims. Unless, of course, it is stabilized in some other form—in which case it remains potent until it is ingested." Palmer came to a standstill in front of the windows. She stared past her own reflection into darkness. The only sound was the gusting wind and the click of branches against the house.
Finally she seemed to hear a question and turned abruptly toward the others. "Do you actually believe there's some perfect line that divides the moral from the immoral in my world? Those rules don't apply. My world is amoral. This is science, the search for the holy grail, chemical, nuclear, biological in all its forms, ugly and beautiful. My work saves lives."
"Christine," Sweetheart warned. "That's enough."
But Sylvia, intent on Palmer, had already risen from the chair. "You stand here talking about saving lives. You tried to kill me—you even confessed to my face." She turned recklessly toward Sweetheart. "And you heard her. Back there, as we were leaving the park, she said she poisoned me—but you did nothing."
"What are you talking about?" Sweetheart was staring at Sylvia, and his eyes held fear. "Christine never confessed to poisoning you—not here, not in the park. What are you saying?"
"I heard her—you must have—you're lying again."
"Listen to me, Dr. Strange," Palmer said softly. "Hallucinations, delusions, are not atypical in this type of case."
"But I heard you."
"You imagined it, Sylvia." Sweetheart was walking toward her.
"Get her away from me," Sylvia whispered. They were telling her the truth. She stumbled toward the glass door, stepped out onto the deck, gripped the railing.
Sliding into a world she'd discovered through poison.
She turned her face to the sky.
Rain-slicked bark and needles. The plaintive cry of doves. Brittle wind.
The hiss of the sliding glass door.
She turned to see Palmer's face, cut in half by shadow, a Picasso, an abstract of eye, nose, mouth; lips pulled back to reveal a slick glimmer of teeth.
Saw Sweetheart standing just a few feet away behind glass.
He would do whatever she asked.
But she was ready to deal with Christine Palmer on her own.
"Dr. Strange, you need to go back inside."
"No."
"You're ill." Palmer's voice softened.
Sylvia stepped toward Palmer, studying each detail of the other woman's face, her physical presence, as if she might absorb understanding as easily as light through pupil; as if insight could be honed by cornea and lens to form a perfect retinal image; as if the nerve impulses zagging from retina to brain could produce anything more than superficial illusion.
"Alkahest," she whispered. "What you described—it's inside me, isn't it?"
Palmer took one step back, then another, as if she might avoid a precipice.
Sylvia moved with her. "Can I have children?"
Palmer stopped, reaching out with one hand.
Sylvia flinched and Palmer pulled back.
But Sylvia gripped Palmer's wrist. "Is the damage part of my DNA? Will I pass it on?"
Palmer came to life—ice breaking—freeing herself.
Sylvia stood in place. It seemed as if she'd gone numb, but when she examined her emotions, she realized she was calm. As if she'd stepped through some portal and was now standing on the other side, looking back at herself. "You made a mistake when you didn't kill me, Christine."
"It doesn't matter if you—"
Sylvia slapped Palmer's cheek. The sound of impact, of skin on skin, was sharp and loud.
For a long moment, Palmer didn't move. Then, slowly and with care, she touched her hand to her reddening jaw. "The answer is yes. Your DNA is damaged. Yes, you will pass it on."
She pushed past Sylvia, gliding down redwood steps to the soft wet mat of pine needles. She kept walking, her bare feet following a familiar path, her caftan billowing as she disappeared between the dark trees.
Sylvia followed. Into the darkness. The mist was beginning to turn to rain again. The wind had a bite, snapping at pine branches until the forest was a dark, undulating sea.
Sylvia made her way along a rough path. She moved quickly, her running shoes sliding over slick ground, then snagging on roots and rocks.
She spun around to see Palmer.
"Walk away, Dr. Strange." Palmer's hair was darkened by rain, the thin fabric of her robe soaked through. "Raw courage isn't enough to get you through this. Look at yourself. You're hearing things, imagining confessions. This was just a warning. It could be much worse."
The rain felt like hot ice on Sylvia's skin. She and Palmer were inches apart. Instead of stepping back, gaining distance, Sylvia moved closer. "Why did you come after me? What threat did I represent?"
"I thought you were the one with the answers." Palmer had raised her voice to be heard above a particularly strong gust of wind. "I thought it was your job to explain this mythical creature, this homicidal Dr. Palmer, to the FBI, to Edmond. Was I mistaken?"
"I have some of the answers," Sylvia said. "You poisoned your father and your lover. Mercy killings, that's what you told yourself, because their cancer was so horrible, their deaths so excruciating. I believe they asked—perhaps pleaded—for death. And you granted their wishes." Sylvia wrapped her arms tightly around herself, shivering as the cold cut through her sweater. "But at night, in the dark, you wonder if you killed for mercy or for pleasure."
Palmer had gone still. The world seemed to move around her, as if she exerted her own gravitational force. But Sylvia leaned closer to whisper in her ear: "I don't really give a shit why you're a sociopath. Narcissism, attachment disorders, abuse, a chemical imbalance—let's just chalk it up to some cocktail of pathology. But it must have been an incredible moment when you realized you held the power of death over life."
Somewhere close by, a feral cat gave a sharp cry. Sylvia pushed herself, riding a final wave of energy. "So you convinced yourself you were killing bad people. Cheats, spies out to steal national secrets. That was a true stroke of genius—you playing the good, psychopath. Samantha Grayson deserved to die because she was a thief. So was Dr. Thomas."
"They were stealing my research," Palmer hissed abruptly. Her eyes gleamed, dark and dangerous. "They were selling my toxin for profit, they didn't care—"
"But you did?"
"Yes. Always. Even though I've never possessed my father's moral certainty." She shook her head, looking lost, physically smaller.
Sylvia saw it suddenly—Christine was sweating, breath quickening. Fighting fear. But she wasn't afraid of Sweetheart, she wasn't afraid of the FBI investigation; she still seemed untouchable, unreachable.
What would terrify her—
"You don't know how to maintain a simple relationship, and that scares the hell out of you. You don't know how to connect—not with friends, not with lovers, not with your own kin—except by killing." As she spoke, Sylvia looked into Palmer's eyes, and she saw nothing, just an emptiness that was breathtaking.
"Japan was different, wasn't it, Christine?" Sylvia asked. "You felt a connection—it actually hurt after he'd gone. And when you found out I knew Sweetheart, you saw me as a threat. But you were mistaken, he and I never—"
"You've got it all wrong, Dr. Strange. I don't love him, and I was never jealous of you. I said before, it was a mistake."
Sylvia's eyes went wide as the belated insight finished crawling down the neural pathways, no minuscule bolt of lightning; a slow dawn.
"You didn't poison me."
Christine Palmer faced her, not moving.
Finally Sylvia whispered, "Lady Macbeth. I know what you're afraid of. Yourself. Afraid that in the end, your guilt will drive you mad." She caught her breath. "I can't tell you you're safe."
Sharp sound of branches snapping.
Both women turned to see Sweetheart, his face all but obscured by darkness.
"Somebody tipped the feds," he said. "It looks like Lang found a buyer for the alkahest."
Dead men in a house in a Santa Fe barrio. A suspected biological agent on the premises. A request for help from Los Alamos National Lab.
Instantly Sweetheart, Palmer, and federal agents went into high gear, everyone praying that Paul Lang and the missing computer data were inside that barrio house.
Palmer disappeared for a few minutes to change clothes and collect what equipment she had on the premises. Sweetheart coordinated with the FBI agents to rendezvous in Santa Fe at the emergency site.
Sylvia was out of the picture—after exposure to the neurotoxin, her nervous system was hypersensitized. Even mild reexposure could cause a serious reaction.
Matt was waiting for her. But she had one last thing to do.
She stood by the doorway of Palmer's study, watching Sweetheart as he gathered the contents of his briefcase. He felt her presence and looked up.
She spoke first. "It's not over. Not until he gets what he wants. When you're face-to-face with your spy, be very careful. He's torn between destruction and possession. He needs her, needs to believe he can possess her. Don't stand in his way. If you try to stop him, he'll take you with him. You and a thousand innocent people."
"Why can't he leave her behind?"
"Don't you know?" She watched his face, the faintest contraction of the pupils, the barely perceptible tightening around the eyes, and she felt a stab
of fear. For him. For the future. "The alchemist will bring him peace." She saw he didn't quite understand. "The alchemist will release him—she'll bring him death."
She turned, starting toward the door.
"Where are you going?"
"Home."
"Sylvia . . ."
"Don't let her blind you, Sweetheart. Your test has just begun. But you can't do it alone. You've got to trust Christine Palmer. Trust her. That's your only choice. That's our only way out of this."
She left him standing there, feeling his eyes traveling with her, knowing he was afraid she was hallucinating, delusional, out of her mind.
Was she?
She walked quickly toward Matt's dark blue Ford idling at the curb.
CHAPTER
30
The anonymous call had come through emergency dispatch at 5:10 A.M.; it was routed to the Santa Fe Police Department: Possible 10-53—man down.
The responding police officers had recognized the address: a two-story adobe next to the Santa Fe River, the family residence of a known drug offender, a small-time meth dealer, currently doing jail time. One of the officers also remembered that the repeat felon had a grandmother, a mother, and three brothers all living at the residence. Another officer knew there was a cousin who'd done a stretch for pushing heroin and cooking meth.
After an initial assessment, they'd updated the call to a 10-54, a possible dead body, this one in a clandestine meth lab. Using extreme caution, they'd braved the rain and entered the scene at 6:07 A.M.
What they'd found: suspicious equipment, bottles (some empty, some filled with liquids), burners, rubber tubing, canning tubs; multiple dead bodies, male and female—victims' faces contorted, tongues blackened, foam and vomit caked at the corners of mouths.
It had been warm inside the building. Muggy and stifling with heaters at full blast. And quiet except for the buzz of flies. Crazed flies. Vibrating, circling, gorging on the end product of death.
First count, seven dead.
They didn't wait around to do a second count.
Outside the building in the drizzling rain, at 6:26 A.M., they radioed a request for the Santa Fe Fire Department's HazMat team to deal with possible hazardous materials—hazardous death.
