“Not well,” I replied. But then, who did I know well? I was just like Julie.
“Okay, then I’ll call her, if I have to. Of course we may have to let her find out from . . .” His words trailed off, as though he’d just become aware of talking too much—or perhaps of being intercepted and recorded.
“The police?”
“You said it, not me.” Another pause, then: “One hour.”
There was a click, and he was gone. I replaced the airphone, snapping it back into its cradle. Then I ripped off the back cover of the magazine with Seagraves’ phone number written on it, and turned to Kyle. He was staring at me expressionlessly. Perhaps what he’d heard was too much to absorb. Maybe he’d read things in Newsweek, too, about hacker pings, slave software programs, breaking through firewalls, uplinking viruses. Who hadn’t, these days? Or maybe he was just trying to decide whether to turn me in. “Are you okay?” I asked.
“I’m . . . different,” Kyle replied.
31
As we walked up the companionway toward a concourse at JFK International, I felt my heart rate quicken like a Wahabi with a see-through rain coat. If one of the few people waiting behind the red rope beyond the end of the tunnel were wearing dark sunglasses or holding a TV news cam, I might have bolted back to the plane and demanded to be taken to Cuba. In first class, of course, where the liquor ran free. But since it was only four-thirty a.m. in New York, the news from Zion had not yet had a chance to flood every major media market in the country. That wouldn’t happen until seven a.m.. Then by eight a.m. everyone on the Eastern Seaboard would know the truth, although whether they would know the real truth was questionable. So the question for me now was: did I really want to risk flying to Washington and walking into another concourse, or should I rent a car from a different agency than I had in Des Moines, drive to Washington, and possibly arrive too late to avoid arrest when I showed up at Tactar to search my offices?
Time was running out, so I decided to take the connecting flight as planned. The shuttle was scheduled to leave in thirty-five minutes, allowing me time to say goodbye to Dr. Metcalf at a terminal coffee shop and bar opposite a fast food franchise that operated twenty-four hours. I ordered a cafe mocha, needing the sugar. Kyle ordered a straight coffee, black.
“Thanks,” I told him, “for saving my life. You may have doomed the perpetrator of this horror in the process, too. Let’s hope so, anyway.”
Kyle sipped his coffee, and looked over at the television monitor above the bar area as if watching for the first signs of the horror I’d laid on him. But there, CNN was airing a sports update, complete with a live satellite feed from a soccer match on the other side of the world. What is wrong with this picture? Kyle seemed to be thinking. His face still bore the strain of his indecision, between dread and wishful skepticism, although I conceded to myself that his shell-shocked look might just be sleeplessness sustained by caffeine. As he stared at the monitor, his red eyes seemed to will the screen to continue in its usual pattern of programming, like a jet stuck in a holding pattern. Hopefully dubious, though his look was also expectant, fearful. Then his lips moved in a half conscious muttering.
“Maybe you can return the favor sometime,” he said.
I pointed at a fat kid across the way, taking possession of his purchased burger, along with a supersized fries and soda. “Maybe I can,” I suggested. “See that boy over there? Don’t do what he’s doing, and you may outlive him.”
“Thanks,” Kyle told me, giving a short nervous laugh.
“No, I mean it. Something Kevin Connolly told me about the FDA and the American diet, before he was silenced. Said their food pyramid was upside down, while they knew they were killing people. Intimated they ignored sugar and trans fats like hydrogenated vegetable oils because it kept the AMA fully employed, and may have forced National Health Care.”
“You sound like Dr. Atkins,” Kyle chided. “Before he died.”
“Well,” I said, “it is true Eli Lilly just built another factory to make insulin. There’s a billion dollars in profit to be made every year in drugs to treat new diabetic cases. Makes you wonder about funding methods, doesn’t it?”
“If you’re paranoid. Thanks for the tip, anyway.” He glanced at his watch. “I have to go.” He gave me his card, but I had none to give him. Just as well. He didn’t seem to want one in return, particularly. Maybe he intended to claim he didn’t know my name. “I don’t know how my speech will come out,” he confessed as we limply shook hands. “I hope I can say I met an interesting nut case on the plane with paranoid delusions stemming from his experimentation with drugs.”
“I wish that were it,” I said.
“Maybe it is, and you just don’t know it.” He turned to walk away, then stopped himself to look back. “Good luck in Washington. Call me later and fill me in.”
“Just watch the news, that’ll fill you in. As far as calling you, it may be my lawyer, seeking your testimony.”
It was an awkward goodbye, with a little half wave and a nervous backward glance or three. When he was gone, I looked at my own watch and went to a pay phone on the end of a line of a dozen similar aluminum cubicles. My sister answered on the second ring this time.
“Hello? Alan?”
“Yeah, it’s me. Listen, Rachel, I’m sorry for—”
“I couldn’t find that Seagraves guy,” she interrupted.
“Forget that, Sis, I alrea—”
“But I talked to that other guy. The one in Cedar Rapids.”
“Jim Thurman?”
“That’s right. It was an unlisted number, but I claimed an emergency like you said to do. The operator wouldn’t give me the number, she just connected me instead.”
“And?”
“And Jim said he never heard of Seagraves, or you. He wanted to know what I wanted, and I didn’t know what to say. It was a very weird twenty seconds there.”
“I’ll bet. Did you get his number?”
“I did. It wasn’t easy. I had to give him mine first. Was that okay? What’s going on, Alan?”
“Later. Listen, if anyone calls you asking about me, you haven’t talked to me in weeks. Got it?”
“Anyone?”
“That’s right, anyone. Not even the FBI.”
Her voice took a sudden upward arc. “The FBI?”
“Yeah. But if I call you back from Langley, Virginia, you can tell them what you know.”
“But I don’t know anything, Alan!” Rachel complained, as if arguing with Mom.
“Good,” I said. “Now give me Jim’s number.”
I memorized the number by repeating it five times to myself. Then I thanked my way through another awkward goodbye, and hung up. Finally, I called the number I’d memorized. A sleepy yet audibly disturbed voice growled, “Yeah?”
“Mr. Thurman?”
“Who is it now?”
“It’s Alan Dyson. You don’t know me, sir, but I know your sister Jean. Have you heard from her yet tonight?”
“Why? What, is there something wrong?” His voice lost its hostility.
“Yes, but your sister is fine. She, her boy, and my friend may be coming to stay with you soon. I was hoping they were already there.”
“Why?”
“I can’t tell you right now, there isn’t time. But please tell Julie I’ll call back soon, and I’m sorry I had to strand them at the airport.”
“Julie?”
“And . . . Jim? No matter what you hear on the news shortly, when I last saw your sister and her son, they were out of danger.”
“What danger?” His hostility returned, from frustration. “What the hell do you—”
“Later,” I told him, and hung up.
Checking my watch, I wondered with anxious guilt what had happened to Julie. She should have been in Cedar Rapids by now. Unless they got a hotel room, which was likely. I bought a hot pretzel and lemonade, more out of nervous agitation than hunger, then returned to the bank of aluminum phone cubicles
to place another call. The phone rang only once before it was picked up at the other end this time.
“Hello,” said the same computer generated voice I’d heard earlier, attenuated by a slight buzzing sound as though a recording device had been activated.
“It’s me,” I announced. “You there, Seagraves?”
“But of course,” Seagraves replied, replacing the computer voice. “And call me Cliff.”
“I’m walking on the edge of a cliff, Cliff. What have you got for me?”
“Not over the phone,” Seagraves insisted. “It may be compromised.”
“That bad, huh?” I looked through the dark glass opposite the phone bank at the adjacent concourse, where a jet was being directed to its gate. My shuttle to Washington. “What do I do?” I asked, flustered. “Come to you, or . . .”
“There is a ticket waiting for you at American Airlines under your middle name,” Seagraves said.
“But I have a ticket.”
“And a new destination, now. Call me when you get there.”
“Where?”
There was a click, and then a dial tone. I hung up slowly, stunned. What was going on? I wondered. Had I been framed so expertly that even computer hackers couldn’t extricate me? No way was I going to leave the country and cool my heels in Barbados waiting to find out. Jeffers was getting away with murder. Julie wasn’t safe yet, either. No. I would go to the Tactar plant as planned, search my office, and find out what Roger had discovered in my apartment. I would go to the FBI if I had to, as well, and demand they put out an APB across state lines on a blue El Dorado with Virginia plates. Even if I didn’t think Jeffers was stupid enough to drive to California or Mexico—or wherever he was going—in the same car. That is, unless he thought he was home free, and was headed home . . . which might explain why he drove in the first place, so as not to have a flight record into Des Moines.
I was almost to the gate, where the shuttle to Washington prepared for takeoff, when curiosity got the better of me. I ran with considerable effort and pain toward the American Airlines ticket counter, having to dodge only a few fellow passengers in the predawn hours. A statuesque blond stared at me panting in front of her.
“You’re quite early, I assure you,” she said, noting the Arrival/Departure monitor. “Ticket?”
“That’s what I’m here for,” I gasped. “You have it. Name’s Edward Dyson.”
“Destination?”
I said nothing, pretending I hadn’t heard.
“Could you spell your last name, sir?”
I did. She searched computer records, found the name, and began to print out my ticket. “Please hurry,” I said.
“What’s the rush? Your flight doesn’t leave for an hour and forty-five minutes yet.”
“I . . . have to use the restroom,” I told her, bleakly.
She smiled, despite herself. “Here you go, sir. May I see your ID, please?”
“You . . . don’t need my passport?”
“No, sir. A driver’s license will do.”
I showed her the ID, and then looked down at the ticket in my hand. It was for American Flight 189, a Boeing 727 from Washington DC to Miami, FL, with a stop in Atlanta. Departure was at 6:29 a.m.. Breakfast would be served.
32
The story broke en-route to Atlanta. I picked it up on the in-flight news channel. Until I heard the word “Zion” mentioned, I wasn’t paying attention. I was busy wondering what the hell I was doing, and whether Seagraves had another ticket waiting for me at the Air Chile ticket counter at Miami International. From the tone of the reporter’s voice on the headphones, one might guess a thermonuclear device had just gone off in Hollywood, taking out the movie industry. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Looking around at the other passengers, I tried to remain calm, but felt my Adam’s apple bobbing like an arsonist at his first parole hearing. Breakfast croissants and juice were served as I listened to the casualty reports on my headset. A running tally of the rising body count was being vectored to a central statistician, as though from pollsters to Census Headquarters. When the number reached thirty dead, mass madness was cited as a possible cause of all the homicides and suicides. But why a sleepy, tiny Midwest town had suddenly gone apeshit they didn’t yet know. FEMA and the FBI were on the way, with assistance for the survivors. That was the important thing, after tallying the body count for all the networks seeking coverage ratings.
When the reporter I listened to finally took a break for a news report of rescue helicopters being sent to typhoon victims in Kenya, I doffed my headset and found that my hands were shaking. I had no appetite, so I ordered a Screwdriver instead, then downed it and ordered another. The stewardess started to ask me if I was feeling okay, but then she decided against it. Perhaps she’d correctly interpreted the torture in my eyes as fear, not physical pain. Although, considering my bandaged hand, the alcohol was a better clue. I’d read somewhere that many women were sensitive even to minute variations in facial expressions or body language, so I had to be careful not to appear too suspicious. Especially in this newly dangerous hijack-crazed era.
When the stewardess moved away I eyed the airphone in the seat back in front of me, and thought about Julie. I considered calling Jim Thurman in Cedar Rapids again to find out if she’d arrived yet. But how would I explain being on a flight to Miami? And what might be going on in Washington with Seagraves and Tactar? A chill spread along my upper arms to flash across my face as I suddenly considered a new possibility—that Seagraves had been involved with Jeffers or the CIA from the beginning, unknown to Darryl. Which would mean Seagraves was only burying me deeper, and had sent me to Miami to buy time while he re-obtained the evidence that had been planted in my apartment. Then he’d replant it. Hadn’t I given him Roger’s name? Like a desperate fool, in blind trust, I had. Now he could tip off the police to pick me up at the Miami airport, where a ticket awaited to take me out of the country!
In a panic I punched the Eject button on the airphone, and I nabbed it as it came off into my good hand. Activating it with my credit card, I imagined Rachel just getting the news on TV, stunned by the images from Zion. Although I couldn’t imagine what Julie might be doing. I couldn’t remember Jim Thurman’s number, either, and realized that I should have written it down instead of trying to memorize it. Because if I did possess a photographic memory, it was not a Polaroid but a daguerreotype, which took hours to fix an image. But no matter. I could always get the number from Rachel again, and I wasn’t calling either of them until I had an explanation or excuse for myself.
My neighbor Roger answered the phone wearily. “Yeah?”
“It’s Alan.”
“Oh yeah? Where’s my money, honey?”
“Why?” I asked, with suspicion.
“Why? Whatdaya mean, why? I risk my—”
“Has someone been to see you?” There was a pause as I felt my throat tighten. I almost croaked, “Roger?”
“Ya better not be tryin’ ta get outta payin’ me,” he warned. “Your friend Cliff was here, yeah.”
“Cliff,” I repeated, in disbelief.
“That’s right. Cliff. Said you weren’t comin’ for a while, an’ you wanted him to pick up your stuff.”
“And you let him, didn’t you, Roger?”
“Hey, he said he had yer permission. How’d he know I had the stuff if you didn’t tell’em?”
“Right,” I said. “Except I told you not to answer the door unless it was me.”
“He called me ‘fore he came over.”
“Or answer the phone.”
“Hey, I ain’t some recluse, man. I did ya a favor. You owe me big time.”
“Sure,” I said. “Where did Cliff take my ‘stuff,’ Roger?”
“Where? Hell if I know. Why don’t ya ask him?”
“I’ll do that. Did he go into my apartment afterward?”
“Do I know? Ain’t none a’ my business.”
“It is, if you expect to
be paid. Go look, see if my computer is there. I’ll wait. And hurry.”
There was a muffled curse, followed by a door opening. Moments later, Roger returned. “Nope, no computer. Looks the same. Want me ta call the police now, report the break-in? Cost ya another grand.”
“No thanks,” I said, and disconnected. Then I imagined Clifford Seagraves turning away from my dilemma, and with the same nonchalant shrug that samurai Mifune gave in Kurosawa’s movie Sanjuro after easily killing three men with his sword. But it still left me with another question. Why, I wondered, hadn’t he returned my computer to my apartment?
I got off the plane in Atlanta just after ten a.m.. It was only to be a thirty minute stop in route, but I felt as claustrophobic as when lying in George’s coffin. While waiting for a pay phone, I watched the TV monitor in the corner of a glassed-off smoking room opposite me. I couldn’t hear the TV because the door was required to remain shut by Federal law. But after the local ABC affiliate cycled through the usual auto and chicken sandwich commercials, the words “Special Report” appeared. A reporter's head shot was followed by a steadycam image of Zion’s main street. The demolished cars there had been cleared to the side to make way for emergency vehicles, and no bodies were visible except for the shapes within two body bags stretched out in front of the Slow Poke.
A renewed sense of guilt swept me. Had I been fooling myself, imagining that my flight from the scene had to do with stopping Jeffers from escaping justice? Was I really clearing a path to a future life for Julie and me? Logically, there had been little choice for me, other than this, or running away and becoming a fugitive. Certainly I was not running away, because if Seagraves’ clandestine hacker group was linked with the private group in Zion, I was more likely running into a trap. That possibility seemed more than plausible, considering my own computer had been hacked. And it all led me to wonder how Darryl could not know about such a link, and think to offer Mills—or whoever he was—a bogus application to join the group. Such thoughts were enough to drive me crazy.
When one of the telephones came free, I decided to call Seagraves to see if there were other clues to uncover, which might help me decode the true nature of my dilemma.
The Methuselah Gene Page 23
