The Soul of the Matter

by Bruce Buff

  It had been difficult since he’d returned. He’d gotten no closer to finding the passcodes needed to access Stephen’s work. Ava’s prognosis disturbed him deeply. Nancy was holding together, but not by much. Dan and Trish were still under the watchful eyes of Evans’s men, and there was no indication of when Evans would return, demanding answers. He had to go to meet Father Michael in Italy. Through it all, he was preparing for a confrontation, one that he looked forward to, even foolishly wanted to seek, with Sergei.

  Focusing on his immediate goal, he pushed ahead and maintained his pace. There wasn’t far to go before he reached the destination that was the main objective of the run.

  Sweat formed thickly on his brow in the warm, humid air. Dan wiped it away before its stinging droplets reached his eyes, knocking askew the interactive video glasses he was wearing. After adjusting them, he issued a voice-activated command that triggered a display of a series of images showing his immediate surroundings and a map of security cameras on his route, including their blind spots. No one could approach him without being noticed. In case it was needed, a Taser, along with several other items, was tucked inside the pack on the back of his running belt. A tablet was strapped to his back, hidden underneath his shirt. An eighth of a mile ahead, one of Evans’s agents rode on a bicycle. Another agent drove discreetly behind him, periodically pulling in and out of spots to allow traffic to pass while maintaining proximity with Dan. A tracking device was attached to Dan’s wrist. The agents and tracking device were a condition of Dan’s freedom, officially for his protection, though no doubt also meant for observation. While these things were “optional,” Dan knew that declining Evans’s requests would likely lead to more restrictive confinement, which, while not legally enforceable in the long term, could take time to challenge and overturn, time that Dan didn’t have. However, he welcomed the protection for Trish.

  The challenge now was how to make his prearranged rendezvous, away from the watchful eyes of his protectors and without raising alarm.

  Despite his precautions and the agents’ presence, he felt he was being stalked. He’d first noticed it the evening before, at Stephen’s house. The suspicion had reappeared after breakfast and now was at the outskirts of his mind. Something made him feel as though he was being shadowed, as though something was biding its time before making itself known and demanding his full attention. It didn’t feel like the paranoia he had experienced when he had isolated himself in his bedroom. It had a quality of reality, though no trace of it seemed to exist. With his sounder mind and sharper focus, he pushed the feeling of being stalked out of his consciousness.

  Reaching a rightward bend in the river, Dan approached central Cambridge. Tall sycamores lined the left side of Memorial Drive, their long branches extending over the roadway, forming a partial arch. A single line of parked cars formed a continuous ribbon under the sycamores. Parking on the right side of the road wasn’t permitted, and it was clear on that side. Across the water, the Harvard crew teams’ green-roofed boathouse sat at the river’s edge. The top of the distant, tall HBC building seemed to puncture the boathouse roof.

  Turning his head backward, Dan raised two fingers, then tugged at his shorts and pointed at a building across the street, indicating he had to use the bathroom. He knew the agent on the bicycle ahead wouldn’t see the gestures and the agent in the car behind would have to find a parking spot if he wanted to follow Dan inside.

  With a rapid burst of speed, following a path in the security cameras’ blind spots, Dan crossed the roadway and ducked down the alleyway of an apartment building. At the backside, he turned right into the monastic community of the Society of Saint John the Evangelist.

  Entering the complex, Dan found the bathroom, took off the tracking device, and hid it in the paper towel dispenser. Dan exited the bathroom and found and entered the chapel, where a vision of old-world beauty greeted him. On the edge of Cambridge, the small-scale chapel was in the style of a European, early Christian basilica, with marble floors, limestone walls, and intricate stained glass. It seemed to transport him out of the Boston metropolis and into a different place.

  Following the diagram he had received from Father Michael, Dan located and entered the confessional area. An Episcopal priest was waiting on a bench. Placing their conversation under what ought to be strict confidence, that could not be disclosed to anyone, under any conditions, Dan asked, “Are you hearing confessions now?” He was unwilling to say anything similar to what he had brought up to say: ‘forgive me, for I have sinned.’

  “Yes, now is an acceptable time for whatever you have to say,” the priest replied.

  Dan compared the face of the priest with the mobile message he’d received from Kevin. A sixty-year old man, bald at the crown, thin, short dark hair on the sides of his head, with a bright and vital face looked back at Dan. He was part of the ecumenical community that Father Michael was spearheading in the US on behalf of the Vatican. While Dan had doubts about the wisdom of working through this group, it was the best means he had available.

  Reusing the code phrase Stephen had set up with Father Michael, Dan asked, “What happens if an already fallen race eats from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil?”

  In response, the priest said, “May we never experience the consequences of such a thing as knowing fully that we are in a state that can’t withstand it.”

  Satisfied, Dan said, “I have to be fast. Is everything ready?”

  “I am told by our mutual friend that everything has been arranged as you requested.”

  “Good,” Dan said. He took a small packet out of his running pouch and the tablet that was strapped to his back, and gave both to the priest. “As per his instructions, get this to our friend using his organization’s fastest courier service. It must arrive before ten a.m.”

  “I’ll do it immediately.”

  “Thank you.”

  As Dan started to leave, the priest asked, “Don’t you want to confess and receive absolution?”

  “I am not in a state to ask for it,” Dan said.

  “You’re undertaking a perilous journey. May God be with you.”

  “Thank you,” Dan said, as the feeling of being stalked returned.

  Rushing out as fast as he could, he returned to the bathroom, put the tracking device back on, and started washing his hands, just as the agent who had been on the bicycle entered. Looking at the agent, Dan said with an awkward smile, “That was embarrassing. Sorry I had to run off like that.”

  “Maybe you should ride back in the car,” the agent said severely.

  “I’m fine now,” Dan answered, half jogging out of the bathroom.

  • • •

  Dan resumed running and would soon pass near where Stephen had been abducted. Once again, Dan wondered whether he might have been there to save Stephen—if he had handled his life better, approached it with the optimism and resolve with which Trish approached it, not spent months deliberately withdrawing into himself? He’d have to live with that question for the rest of his life.

  Meanwhile, Ava was very sick, in jeopardy of an outcome that Dan had to prevent at all costs. He would willingly sacrifice everything, including his own life, to save hers.

  At the thought of this, he ran harder, almost desperately. He was in the last mile, approaching home, but he might as well have been Odysseus setting out from Troy for Greece, for all the closer it brought Dan to the destination he sought, a life with meaning and joy that made sense in its entirety.

  He wondered how Trish did it. How did she handle what should have been desperation and suffering all around her? She wasn’t just persevering but was actually joyful and happy. She wasn’t religious in any overt way, yet he sensed a real spirituality within her. She wasn’t hiding it. It was as though it was just so naturally a part of her, without organized religion, that it required no comment. Yet it hadn’t been challenged by evil such a
s they were now encountering, and it could get far worse by the time everything was over. Would her spiritual sense remain intact, dissipate like his had, or transform into something even stronger, more explicit?

  While he was now open to God in a manner he hadn’t been for decades, it was a long way from that to belief. Yet he knew the claim that the materialist view of evolution was the most proven fact in all of science couldn’t be more wrong. The theory still might be right, but there certainly were a lot of things that required more explanation that presently had none. The lack of complete proof for materialistic evolution didn’t prove God’s existence, nor explain his own, but it left open possibilities. Dan wanted something that gave meaning and hope yet didn’t impose anyone else’s view of God, or judgment, on him. A framework was emerging in his mind that might work. He finally was becoming a different person, someone better, someone he himself would like for the right reasons.

  It all seemed to add up to a portent of change in atmosphere and fortunes. Not long ago, the low ceiling of clouds heavy with foul weather would have continued their descent, unleashed their torrents, and pressed him flat into the ground. Today, an opposing resolve kept the foulness at bay.

  Almost in sync with his thoughts, a gentle rain began to fall, the drops soothing and massaging him as they lightly made contact with his skin, then rolled down along the rest of his body before disappearing into the ground. Though the sky was now filled with streaks, the clouds were breaking and the atmosphere was clearing up.

  Finally drained of anxiety, his rhythm relaxed. Smooth strides covered the remaining distance. Turning onto Harvard Bridge, close to home, his taxed legs felt pleasantly tired. A sweet exhaustion spread within. The run had served its purpose after all. A restful nap awaited him at home. Afterward, refreshed, he’d start out on the next leg of the journey that he had already set in motion.

  Springing lightly off the bridge, he covered the last halfmile and reached the entrance of his building.

  A half dozen police vehicles, and several more from other agencies, crowded the street in front.

  • • •

  Dan approached the line of yellow tape that marked the boundaries of police activity, with the agents who had been accompanying him now talking on their cell phones behind him. He walked up to the officer that was controlling access to the site and said, “This is my building. What’s going on?”

  “Are you Dan Lawson?” the official said in reply.

  “You know that I am.”

  Ignoring Dan’s snarky response, the official said, “Please come with me. Under court order, we’re searching your premises.”

  “For what? I’ll happily provide you with whatever you like.”

  “Come inside with me.”

  “I’d like to see the warrant.”

  “You can’t. It’s sealed under special court order.”

  “I’d ask what court and judge authorized it, but I suppose even that is sealed.”

  “Now you’re getting it. You’ve heard of a John Doe investigation?”

  “Yes, in Wisconsin. They’re a gross violation of the Bill of Rights, and are the express things the founders of our government wanted to protect against and prohibit without exception.”

  “Then you know you cannot acknowledge the existence of this investigation, cannot tell anyone about it, cannot contact a lawyer, nor see any documents or orders that we have, under penalty of a felony charge.”

  “Including seeing anything that even confirms that this invasion of privacy and violation of rights, characteristic of a fascist government, is in fact a John Doe investigation.”

  “With that understanding, you should come upstairs.”

  “Gladly. It’s getting very chilly,” Dan said with an edge that implied the issue wasn’t the weather but the activities underway and the loss of civil liberties they reflected. Halfway up the stairs to his apartment, he asked, “Where’s Evans?”

  “Tending to other matters,” the lead official said.

  “As everyone here should be,” Dan replied, earning a visual rebuke from the official.

  • • •

  Of course the agents found nothing of consequence during their painstakingly thorough search of the apartment. Everything important was stored on well-hidden cloud servers. Accessing or viewing the files was virtually impossible to anyone who didn’t know the access paths. Stephen’s original journals were kept elsewhere. Dan’s apartment was devoid of anything that he didn’t want to be found. In case of a situation like this, he had deliberately left, in places where they could be discovered, but not too easily, questionable technology and information so that a determined searcher would not come away empty-handed. He’d let them find enough to feel they had succeeded, and therefore would believe Dan wasn’t hiding anything else, though what he gave them would not prove detrimental to him.

  Still, the time the search took had been enough for Dan to take a quick shower and rest for a short while. While he could have used more rest, at least the vise of fatigue around his head had dissipated, and his mind was sharp.

  Now it was time to head downtown to finally meet with Evans. Certainly they both had a lot to say to each other. He had to make sure that it didn’t take so long that it would interfere with the plans he had confirmed back at the monastery.

  In five hours, he needed to board a commercial flight, alone, using false identification.

  Chapter 66

  Evans’s stone-cold face chilled the air over the bare metal table as he glowered at Dan in a small, windowless, concrete room located deep inside Boston’s FBI offices. Two hulks, sidearms in full view, flanked Evans.

  Tired of waiting for Evans to speak, and wanting to convey both innocence and confidence, Dan spoke. “I presume you brought me here for reasons other than staring. I’m not that good-looking, nor your type.”

  “Did you already forget what took place in Seattle and at your apartment?”

  “I’m sorry, if an investigation is underway, I’m not allowed to comment on it,” Dan answered curtly.

  A flash of real anger flashed across Evans’s eyes. Evidently, whatever latitude Dan had previously enjoyed was gone.

  Without altering his gaze, Evans said in a slow, emphatic voice, “You need to listen very, very carefully and, for a change, weigh your course of action wisely before you do or say anything. The well-being of one young girl, or of you or your traveling companion, is of no consideration whatsoever in comparison to what is at stake.”

  After a pause meant to allow Dan to absorb the words, Evans continued. “Lawson, I don’t know what you know, but it’s time you stopped screwing around and started cooperating. Events of the highest importance are unfolding. You have no idea what steps people in Washington want to take with you. The only reason I’m here, and you’re not there, is that our leadership views my relationship with you as an asset, and I negotiated a deal on your behalf, presuming you’re wise enough to take it. Otherwise, well, things work a bit differently these days. Indefinite custody in a location where we’d have the autonomy to gain your cooperation, while leaving your new friend to fend for herself, would be the least of it.”

  Dan’s mind raced through questions and possibilities. What led Evans to speak to him this way? The explosion at the physics lab was catastrophic but localized. The fusion technology, while revolutionary, shouldn’t lead to international conflict. Stephen’s and Sam’s deaths were terrible, but hardly rose to the level of a national security concern.

  On the other hand, Sergei’s involvement didn’t bode well. Had others somehow gained access to Stephen’s work, despite Dan’s precautions? How much of what Evans was saying was real, and how much was just a bluff? He looked as serious as Dan had ever seen him. Surely that was part of the intent of having Evans face him now—that Dan would recognize it. But what if Evans was being bluffed as well? Evans could be sincere while
nonetheless being misled. Dan had to choose his response prudently. If Evans’s arms were being twisted, if Dan made it clear to Evans he was playing the expected part for the benefit of the broader audience that was undoubtedly monitoring their interaction, Evans might recognize Dan’s unspoken thoughts, and help guide him, with communication only they would recognize.

  Referring back to their conversation at Stephen’s MIT office, Dan replied, “I don’t understand why the government is treating Stephen’s death as a national security issue by trying to connect it to an explosion at a research laboratory that worked on unclassified, non-defense-related physics technology, and then trying to connect that to me. Whoever was after Stephen’s genetics work went after Sam Abrams in Seattle . . . not me. Isn’t it obvious they had reason to do that?”

  Evans’s face first tightened then softened just slightly into a knowing exasperation, as though Dan had answered exactly as Evans had expected.

  Continuing, Dan said, “And I’m confused by your saying ‘our leadership.’ I’m retired.”

  Evans withdraw a sheet of paper and pushed it across the table to Dan. “Actually, you were on temporary leave. Fortunately for you, we recently discovered a ‘clerical error’ that prevented the final processing of your retirement papers. Otherwise the agency technology you’ve been using—including accessing classified databases, using government protocols to access private consumer data, such as cell phone tower usage, misdirecting Chinese hackers to NSA resources to bring them to the attention of US government cybersecurity investigators—would all be viewed as serious crimes, with potential sentences of several lifetimes. But as the paper in front of you states, that you will sign, you’ve been reinstated to active duty, and all of the aforementioned activities were legal and at our behest. The agreement also includes a confidentiality clause. Only a handful of people will know you are an active agent. You are not permitted to disclose this to anyone other than me.”

  Dan tried to stifle his surprise and anger.