Book of Cures (A Thomas McAlister Adventure 2)

by Hunt Kingsbury

  DJ Warrant was lying on the bed naked, face up, apparently unconscious. Later, McAlister would see the beet-red strangle marks on his neck.

  There was a naked man straddling DJ, knees in DJ’s arm pits, who was masturbating with his left hand while slowly thrusting a large stainless steel spike into the side of DJ’s neck with his right.

  As grotesque and gruesome as that was, none of that shocked McAlister as badly as this: the man who was on top of DJ, the man with his penis in one hand and a long metal spike in the other, was him, Thomas McAlister.

  He stood, frozen, watching himself on top of Warrant. A terrible dream. Without thinking he pinched his forearm, hard. But it wasn’t a dream. Could it be an out-of- body experience, a bi-location, like Padre Pio had experienced so many times during his lifetime?

  But how could it be? How? He’d never been inside Warrant’s house. He’d never done, or even thought of doing, the things being done to Warrant.

  He looked on in horror and slowly his rational side began to edge back in, forcing him to realize there had to be, there must be, a rational explanation.

  The tip of the metal spike pierced DJ’s skin and thick purple blood began to pulse down DJ’s neck and puddle on the plain white bed sheet.

  McAlister looked on, eyes locked on his own face, as if he were watching a video of himself. He was paralyzed, shocked and frozen, watching himself masturbate and murder DJ Warrant at the same time.

  Chapter 54

  McAlister’s eyes slowly traveled from the penis to the spike where a steady stream of blood trickled from DJ’s neck.

  The sight of the blood prompted him to utter, “What . . . what are you doing?”

  Slowly, mechanically the man on top of Warrant turned toward the window. It was like looking in a mirror. As McAlister stared at his own image in the stark bedroom light, through the window screen, he saw that the eyes--excited at the thought of simultaneous masturbation and murder--were not his. But he had seen them before.

  They were the eyes of the man he’d bumped into outside Hai Cai’s house that day with Lisa after meeting her at PJ Clarke’s. The eyes he’d gazed into outside the burning clinic in Tibet after Dr. Li had burned to death. The cold, lifeless eyes of a psychotic killer. The devil’s eyes, pure evil, and seeing them jolted McAlister awake.

  After a flash of recognition the imposter flew from the bed and began a long horizontal dive toward the window, holding the sharp fang out in front of him like the tip of a spear.

  McAlister could do nothing but lean back and collapse. As he hit the ground he groped for the gun, finally getting hold of the grip. He was on his back when Uri, expertly disguised, came ripping through the window screen, soaring out the window, over the bushes toward the back lawn.

  McAlister pointed the tranquilizer gun toward the sky and as Uri passed over McAlister fired a dart squarely into his abdomen.

  Uri hit the ground, rolled and came up on his feet. McAlister pushed himself up, ready for the fight of his life, but seconds later the tranquilizers reached Uri’s central nervous system, his legs wobbled, and he lurched forward, hitting the ground with a solid thump.

  McAlister moved out of the bushes and nudged him with his toe. Uri was slack.

  McAlister took the mini-Maglite out of his pocket and rolled the man over. His knee was bandaged and fresh blood was soaking through the gauze.

  Ann had explained that her father had shot the kneecap of the man who’d taken the book from Elmo. On the phone, Undertaker had told him that someone working for him had tried to steal the book from Bertram as he came out of the Dakota but had failed. This had to be that man.

  This was probably also the person who’d stolen the virus, likely while in this same disguise. And he was probably the person who’d kidnapped Lisa.

  McAlister shone his light on The Clone’s face and now, up close, he could see the makeup and the line where his wig had come apart from the skin underneath.

  The man’s jaw was shut at an awkward angle. McAlister pushed his chin to try to open his mouth but it wouldn’t budge. He applied pressure but that only made his entire head shift down. He slid his fingers between the man’s lips and saw wire extending from top to bottom. Many teeth were missing. His gums were blue and red. His mouth was a dentist’s nightmare.

  McAlister remembered Warrant’s neck and rushed to the window. He couldn’t tell if DJ was breathing or not. Rather than climb through the window, McAlister ran around to the front door. It was unlocked.

  The house had either been ransacked or there’d been a ferocious fight, or both. In the bedroom, Warrant’s clothes were on the floor. Underneath them was something shaped like a cereal box enclosed in a green felt bag. He picked it up and pulled a book that looked like the Blue Beryl out of the bag. He rifled through the pages, making sure it was the real thing. It was.

  He wasn’t sure how long the tranquilizer would last on the animal laying in the backyard.

  Warrant had been badly beaten. Swollen areas were red; tomorrow they’d be purple and black. There was still a steady pulsating flow of blood coming from the hole in his neck where the strange spike had pierced him.

  DJ’s hands were tied with thick gray duct tape. McAlister cut the tape, removed it and stuck it firmly over the hole in DJ’s neck. Yet another use for duct tape—plugging open arteries.

  He ran out the back door. The imposter was where McAlister had left him. McAlister checked the man’s jeans for car keys and pulled out a single key to one of the most reliable cars ever made, a Nissan Altima.

  He was getting ready to leave when he noticed that an outer seam of the rubber disguise was loose. On impulse McAlister tugged at it and slowly Uri’s entire McAlister disguise pulled off, revealing his true face.

  McAlister took a long look. It was a simple face, narrow, good for adding layers of disguise. There was bruising and two blue lines running from the corners of his mouth back toward his ears. The lines were taped with clear tape, stitches visible on the inside, revealing a masterful plastic surgery job.

  After a full minute of study, McAlister rose. This man had an unpredictable, animal-like presence, and he wanted to get far away from him as quickly as he could.

  With the key in one hand and the book in the other, he ran around the house to the front yard. No cars. In fact, the only car on the street at this hour was his own, far down the block and on the other side of the street.

  McAlister ran back in the house and dialed 911.

  “Emergency center, how may I assist you?”

  “There’s been an attempted murder. A man, Caucasian, around fifty-five years old has been stabbed in the neck. He’s a government agent. He’s still alive, but he needs help fast.”

  “What is the address, sir?”

  Thomas gave her the address, made her repeat it back, and then hung up as she was asking his name.

  He went out the back door and across the back yard, where he catapulted over the fence that divided DJ’s back yard from his neighbors. He went past the neighbors’ house out into the front yard, in front of which a blue Nissan Altima was parked.

  McAlister sprinted to it and unlocked the door. There was a large tackle box on the passenger side and a duffel bag on the floor. He rifled through the duffel bag, finding only clothing.

  The tackle box was full of make-up, hair, and the rubber forms makeup artists use to create facial contours. He closed the box and opened the glove compartment. It was empty. He looked under each visor and both seats. Still nothing.

  Frustrated, McAlister slammed the door and started to walk away. But he paused and stood still for a moment, his shadow long and vulnerable on the asphalt street. Something was wrong.

  He hurried back to the car, opened the door, and reopened the tackle box. It was a large box, but it was so full of makeup and accessories, there wasn’t much free space in the bottom.

  McAlister dumped everything out onto the floor and stared at the bottom. Like his poker chip box at home, there might
be a false bottom. He scanned the edges and saw it. A little piece of beige fabric sticking up out of nowhere.

  He pulled the fabric and the false bottom sprang up. In the compartment below were passports, drivers’ licenses, a small black calendar book, and rolls of hundred-dollar bills rubber-banded together.

  Thomas took it all, even the money, stuffed it into the bag with the book, and went around to the trunk.

  He didn’t know what he expected to find in the trunk. He wasn’t even sure why he felt the need to open it, but he did, and that was when he found Lisa.

  Chapter 55

  Her skin was translucent against the shaft of light that fell diagonally across her from the street lamp above. She’d put up one hell of a fight. The bruises ranged from dime-sized to cantaloupe, and varied in color from blood red to deep-ocean blue. Mainly they were purple.

  Her hair was askew and there was one spot, on the left, that was blood caked and matted. In the shadow of the trunk lid, the blood looked black. She was lying in the exact position you’d expect of someone who’d been beaten senseless, tossed into a trunk and driven around for a hundred miles.

  He’d used wire, not tape or fabric, to bind her hands and ankles. The job had been rough and careless and both were swollen and bleeding where wire had sliced skin.

  McAlister stood for a moment digesting the grisly scene in which his girlfriend was the principal figure.

  Until he’d seen what that maniac was doing to DJ, he hadn’t fully recognized the gravity that obtaining and possessing the Blue Beryl held for the people he was working against.

  Now, in the thirty seconds since discovering Lisa’s body, the seriousness became elevated to a level he’d never played on, and a black yearning for revenge swept over him.

  His first thought was to go back and swiftly, yet savagely, slash the assassin’s throat.

  He didn’t need to check Lisa’s pulse. He could tell she was alive because every time she exhaled he heard a wet rattle from deep inside of her chest. She was drowning in her own blood.

  He threw the car key into some bushes, set the felt bag on the fender, and bent and lifted Lisa, cradling her like a baby. As he steadied her, he ran his hand along her ribs. Suddenly his fingers slid across something slippery. He thought it might be grease from the trunk. As he moved his fingers further, the end of his middle finger hit something sharp. It shouldn’t have been there. McAlister immediately knew what is was, and it broke his heart.

  On her right side, midway between her shoulder and her waist, a broken rib had sliced through her skin and was sticking out of her body by about an inch. The edge was sharp and slippery wet with blood.

  Not car grease. Blood.

  And the sharp edge of Lisa’s broken rib had just punctured his finger.

  He gagged and staggered backward, swaying, straining to hold Lisa. Willing himself to stay composed.

  When he touched the bone, she moaned and gently squirmed, until he moved his finger and the pressure subsided. It was the first move, other than breathing, she’d made.

  McAlister took a deep breath and moved toward the felt bag. As he did, he glimpsed the all-too-familiar sign for hazardous materials in the trunk. The box had been under Lisa. It read: “Hazardous Material: Property of New York BioMedical Research Facility.” The box was covered with Lisa’s blood.

  McAlister bent down, picked up the box with his right hand, grabbed the felt bag with his left and began the arduous walk back to his car.

  The box sealed it: the assassin who’d been trying to kill DJ was the man who’d worked with Undertaker to frame McAlister.

  McAlister trudged back to his rental car, carrying one hundred and thirty pounds of broken, beaten girl, a madman’s cache, and a box containing one of the deadliest viruses on the face of the planet.

  Once in the car, he pulled into a driveway and pointed the rental car away from Warrant’s house.

  Sirens were getting closer.

  McAlister had never witnessed anything as deranged as what had been going on in that bedroom, and he could not will his car to go fast enough away from it.

  With Lisa in the back seat, he wove his way to a hospital, thinking about her but also about DJ Warrant. It was possible he’d saved DJ’s life. Despite that, the last thing DJ had seen was a man who looked exactly like McAlister trying to kill him. Which, of course, was exactly what the assassin wanted. If he did live, he’d pursue McAlister with a vengeance.

  Chapter 56

  When McAlister left Lisa at the hospital, he didn’t think the disguise artist from DJ Warrant’s apartment would be able to find her. And he hoped that since he now had the Blue Beryl, always the primary objective, the killer would come after him.

  Lisa began to recover sixty seconds after the nurse hooked up the IV bag. McAlister explained that she’d been mugged and beaten. The police came, filled out the required report and left.

  The doctor said she was dehydrated, bleeding internally, and in shock. They sedated her for surgery to fix her broken ribs, and that was when McAlister left the hospital. He asked that they keep an extra orderly near the door to her room. They said they were understaffed but would do what they could.

  McAlister really wanted to stay with her, but could accomplish far more, even for Lisa, if he left.

  Walking out of the hospital that night was one of the hardest things McAlister had ever done, but his instincts told him Lisa would be all right.

  He was surprised to see it was almost 4:30 a.m. It had been sixteen hours since he’d eaten. There was an open-all-night burger place across the street. He ordered a “premium chicken” sandwich and got rubbery chicken topped with something that at one point along the supply chain had been lettuce, served with three tablespoons of mayonnaise on each bun.

  He scraped the mayonnaise off and ate it. It had come with fries, but he threw them away. Other than cheesecake and rat poison, French fries were the single worst thing you could put in your body.

  A long drive back to New York ahead, he walked across the street to a donut place for coffee. There’s a donut place across from every hospital in every city in the country. It’s how they decide where to build them. He ordered coffee and while he waited listened to the conversation between the only other people in the restaurant. Two girls, one obese, one simply thick, discussed ways in which they might increase the number of friends they had on a website called Facebook.

  McAlister knew about the social networking site, and wondered if the word friend was the correct definition for the contacts made there. Some people had thousands of “friends.” He wondered when Webster’s would catch up.

  He took the coffee and looked at the girls on the way out. Both had blurry blue tattoos, one had a nose ring, the other an eyebrow piercing.

  He’d always wondered how one would blow one’s nose if it had a hole in it. It was one of the great mysteries of the world.

  Chapter 57

  The first Thursday in August was a hot, hopeful day. It was also the day they gave Taylor what the more sports-minded doctors call a “slam-dunk.” A ”slam-dunk” means giving a terminal patient every possible drug that you think might have an outside chance of helping them survive the next twenty-four hours.

  Taylor, ever the optimist, even allowed them to give him an experimental concoction not even out of round one of FDA testing.

  After the doctors had administered their official, unlikely-to-work, FDA-approved medication, Dr. Hong stepped in. Dr. Hong, an eighty-year-old Chinese doctor, born and trained in Asia, had Taylor swallow four little brown balls the size of M&Ms. These were made and administered according to a prescription in the Blue Beryl. Two were supposed to cure an avian flu, and two were to cure mammalian viruses.

  Dr. Hong was familiar with most of the ingredients, but had never seen them combined like the recipe in the Blue Beryl. He felt that a few of the ingredients might actually be harmful if mixed and taken together. But, for a small fee, he did it anyway and made enough dosages for
the coming weeks.

  With the help of the nurses, all of whom now knew and loved him, Taylor would take sixteen of the pills per day, until he died or was cured. McAlister could not risk entering the hospital, so he waited outside in a limousine with smoked windows.

  Dr. Hong told McAlister he didn’t think there would be a discernible impact from the medication for at least twenty-four hours, so he could go home if he liked.

  McAlister told Dr. Hong his home was floating in an overly expensive harbor in Miami, so he’d go to Taylor’s house and get it ready for his return.

  Hong explained that Taylor’s internal organs had been shutting down over the past week and no one, not the nurses and not the doctors, believed the Eastern medicine was anything more than a placebo.

  After dropping Dr. Hong off at his clinic in Chinatown, McAlister called an old friend of Taylor’s, someone who had worked on Broadway for over twenty years. He needed a favor.

  Chapter 58

  The Ghoul’s limousine sat on one of a few corners of downtown Manhattan that provided a clear three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view in all directions: the corner of 4th Avenue and 14th Street, just south of Union Square.

  His driver, Mark, was a former Delta Operator who had graduated at the top of his class from the world’s most prestigious bodyguard training school. The limousine was armored with Level IV protection from Armortek International. The Ghoul paid out of his own pocket the difference between Mark’s salary and what a regular driver would have cost. It was one of many ways he blurred the lines between running a public company and his personal life.

  Slightly ahead of their agreed-upon meeting time of 1 p.m., the Ghoul watched as Uri rounded the corner of 5th Avenue and 14th and began walking toward the limousine. He was carrying a plastic grocery bag that seemed to have a square object inside. Mortimar immediately noticed that he had not followed instructions. He was wearing a sports jacket over his t-shirt.