by Braun, Matt;
Before he could pursue the thought further, there was a discreet rap at the door, and he turned, somewhat annoyed at the interruption. Edgar Pollard, his attorney, hesitated in the doorway a moment, noting the frown, then nodded, smiling unctuously, and entered the study.
"Good evening, Lucas. Hope I'm not disturbing anything?"
"You're late." Brokaw waved him to a chair with a brusque gesture. "And why the hell didn't James announce you?"
"Well, it really wasn't . . . that is to say, I'm not exactly a stranger here. I just told him I could find my own way."
"You never did have any class, Eddie. A butler is supposed to butle. Or didn't they teach you that at Harvard?"
"That's an unkind remark, Lucas. And for your information," Pollard consulted his watch, "I'm not late. To be precise, I'm three minutes early."
"Humph! Don't get your bowels in an uproar." Brokaw scowled, limping around behind the desk. "And stop squinting at me like some goddamned banty rooster. Have you got the papers with you?"
"Right here." The attorney patted his briefcase. "Everything in order down to the dotted i—and as you requested, I've already had my secretary notarize them."
"Well, at least you can follow instructions. Go on, sit down, for Christ's sake! Take a load off your feet."
Pollard obediently took a chair, not at all surprised by the churlish reception. He was a wizened gnome of a man, diminutive and bald, somewhat taller than a dwarf by virtue of his elevator shoes, but a skilled lawyer and a shrewd judge of character. Although his client seemed hard and cynical, Pollard had always considered the circumstances highly extenuating. Since the death of his wife, Lucas Brokaw had undergone a radical transformation in character. His behavior had become erratic, almost schizoid, and he was given to sudden bursts of temper in which his voice took on a peculiar staccato bark. In the old days he had welcomed argument, and on rare occasions, had even been known to accept advice.
But now he brooked neither interference nor dissent from anyone. It was Pollard's opinion that the old man had lately exhibited symptoms of acute paranoia concerning not only his financial affairs but some mysterious construction project taking place beneath the mansion. Pollard himself hadn't been allowed near the project. From the little Brokaw had told him, he understood a separate contractor had been engaged for each stage of the project. Like some cloak-and-dagger intrigue, the construction had proceeded strictly on a need-to-know basis. The only man who possessed all the pieces and knew how the jigsaw fit together was Lucas Brokaw.
After seating himself, Pollard unsnapped his briefcase and extracted six copies of the will, each bound separately in a blue portfolio. He handed the documents across the desk, aware that any attempt at small talk would draw a stinging rebuff. Then he lit a Chesterfield and sat back to await the verdict. Brokaw placed the original in front of him, shoving the carbons aside, and began pouring over it in an earnest, word-by-word scrutiny.
The will was forty-eight pages long, devoted mainly to a convoluted maze of instructions, all couched in legalese hardly less bewildering than Sanskrit. To connect the interlocking directives required total concentration, and Brokaw became oblivious to everything about him. The only sound in the study was the slow riffling of paper, interspersed with an occasional grunt.
Nearly an hour passed before he turned the last page. A lopsided grin spread across his face, and Pollard quickly stubbed out his ninth cigarette, waiting expectantly. But Brokaw sat there several minutes longer, clearly gloating over his masterpiece. Then, with a deep sigh of contentment, he finally looked up.
"I guess you think I'm nutty as a fruitcake, don't you, Eddie?"
"It's your money, Lucas." The lawyer pursed his mouth, thoughtful a moment, then shrugged. "Of course, anyone who leaves his fortune to himself might be thought . . . well, to say the least . . . a bit balmy."
"If you mean senile, you're all wet." Brokaw tapped the will with his finger. "Anybody who could hatch that scheme still has all his marbles. And besides, since I don't have any heirs, there's no one to contest it anyway, is there?"
"No, I suppose not. Although we have to presume the tax boys are going to take a long, hard look at this foundation arrangement. I mean, you'll have to admit, it has some rather unorthodox features."
"In a pig's eye! You told me this thing was ironclad. Now, none of your fancy double-talk, Eddie. Is it or isn't it?"
"In my opinion, it is," Pollard assured him. "Which is not to say the government won't try. Good God, Lucas, we're talking about upward of a quarter billion dollars!"
Brokaw's fist slammed into the desk. "Quit waltzing me around and just answer the question. Can they break it? And make goddamned sure you're right, Eddie. This isn't a dry run—we're playing for keeps."
There was a long silence of weighing and calculating. Brokaw waited, glowering at him, and at last Pollard dismissed it with an elaborate little wave. "Nothing to worry about, Lucas. We've anticipated every possible contingency. It's airtight, absolutely foolproof."
Brokaw nodded, apparently satisfied with the answer, but his gaze drifted back to the will. Unhurried, quite methodical in his examination, he subjected it to the acid test. One final review, with all the cold objectivity he could muster.
Unlike Rockefeller and Ford, who had merely sheltered their wealth by creating foundations, Brokaw had added a personal touch to this loophole of the rich. While all revenues from his foundation would go to Stanford University—which made the foundation itself immune to tax laws—it was stipulated that at some future time he would return to collect his millions, in effect defying the laws of both man and nature.
All he possessed, his personal fortune and the corporate empire, was bequeathed to the man who had built it and therefore the man who deserved it. The man who would one day live again to claim his own legacy.
Lucas Brokaw reincarnated.
That the scheme was susceptible to hoax bothered him not at all. It was inevitable that false claimants would come forth, but he had anticipated this eventuality. While Eddie Pollard wasn't aware of it, there were several surprises awaiting anyone who tried to pass himself off as the real Lucas Brokaw—surprises of such a nature that the lawyer's promise of a moment ago was in sum and substance a very literal truth. Even if the will failed, the plan remained foolproof.
After considerable deliberation, having assured himself that nothing had been overlooked, Brokaw set the will aside. There was a peculiar glint in his eye when he glanced up at Pollard, who by now had reduced to ashes nearly an entire pack of Chesterfields.
"Well, I guess that does it. But you better be damn sure this thing doesn't develop any leaks while I'm gone. Otherwise I'll drop around to see you when I get back. And believe me, Eddie, you wouldn't enjoy the reunion. Not even a little bit."
Pollard lifted an inquiring eyebrow. "I wish I had your faith, Lucas. It must be a great comfort, although it beats me how you can be so certain."
Brokaw's mouth quirked in a mirthless smile. When he spoke it was with a sort of sepulchral exultation, and the very intensity of his words gave the statement a ring of prophecy.
"Take my word for it, Eddie, I'll come back. I have proof. As you lawyers are so fond of spouting—incontrovertible proof!"
Before Pollard could reply, he wagged his head with a condescending air. "Don't even ask. Like we used to say when we were kids, that's for me to know and you to find out. Now, suppose you go round up James and a couple of the servants, and we'll let them witness my signature." He sank back in his chair, the glitter suddenly gone from his eyes, and sighed heavily. "Time grows short, Eddie, and I've still got things to do. So let's get with it. Chop, chop!"
Edgar Pollard scooted from his chair without a word and dutifully hurried off in search of the servants. But as he went through the door, he happened to glance back, and it occurred to him that Brokaw had the look of an elderly lion—an old and venerable monarch, wearied by the chase, in need of a peaceful snooze to regain his strength.
>
Sometime later, after Pollard had gone and the servants had been dismissed for the night, Brokaw again found himself alone. All the fuss over the will, compounded by the grim manner of everyone involved, had left him bone tired. His pain was merely an aggravating throb, but he felt sapped and depleted, and he dearly needed a bracer. For as he'd told Pollard, there was still work to be done. One last step.
The key to all that lay ahead.
Rising, Brokaw went directly to the liquor cabinet and poured himself a liberal dose of cognac. Then he walked to the window and halted, gazing out across the coastline. A livid moon flooded the cliffs in a spectral light, and far below he could hear waves crashing against the rocky shore. As he sipped the brandy, relishing its crisp bite, he reflected briefly on the curious chain of events that had led to this moment.
It had started the day his doctor confirmed the diagnosis and gave him six months to live. And the damnable irony of it! Now, with the war ended, and his industrial empire already geared to peacetime production; in an age of scientific marvels—the atom bomb and jet aircraft—his brain tumor remained inoperable. It was almost diabolical. As though the gods, after all, toyed with a man's life for mere sport.
That night he'd had the dream for the first time. And afterward it was always the same dream. At first, before he understood, he thought it related in some way to the cancer, and he'd feared for his sanity. The shadow of pain had been with him constantly at the outset, and he knew its cumulative effect would be the horror of anticipation, a dread that might well undermine his will to endure. It was the very thing he'd feared most, the psychic terror, and through it, the slow rending of his spirit. Yet all that had passed once he grasped the meaning of the dream—the night he'd accepted not just who he was but who he had been.
Sergeant John Hughes. C Company, Seventh Cavalry. Killed at the Battle of the Little Big Horn on June 25, 1876, at four o'clock in the afternoon. Precisely one hour and twelve minutes before Elizabeth Brokaw gave birth to a son in a Denver charity ward.
All indications were that his reincarnation would follow the same pattern, that he would be reborn on the day of his death. But he meant to hedge his bet, to ensure that everything went off according to schedule. Nothing would be left to chance, for in his view the gods were inept as well as whimsical and could use a helping hand. Particularly from someone crafty enough to have arranged a way to take his fortune with him.
Now, restored by the cognac, Brokaw was alert and unafraid. Just as the dream was a window into the past, so it was a reflection of the future, a glimpse beyond the veil. To die was nothing, a minor inconvenience, for he was possessed of complete and utter faith that he would live again. This very night.
After draining his brandy glass, Brokaw left the study and walked to a staircase at the far end of the foyer. The steps were hewn from natural stone, as was the cavernous passageway, and descended by slow spirals into the bowels of the cliff. Although lighted, the descent was steep and long, ending some 200 feet beneath the mansion and slightly below sea level. There was an eerie, netherworld quality about the winding corridor; Brokaw felt his pulse quicken as the echo of his footsteps bounced back from the depths of the earth. Whenever he came here, it was as though he had stepped through a time warp, erasing whole centuries, and was moving inexorably downward into some dank, medieval dungeon. Which was precisely the illusion he'd hoped to achieve the night he drafted the master plan.
At the bottom of the stairs was a short landing which led to the entranceway of a subterranean crypt. The crypt was comprised of two rooms, an outer chamber and an inner vault, both of which had been excavated from the rocky substrata of the cliff. The walls were solid stone, as was the floor and the ceiling. The entranceway leading into the crypt was not a door but merely a large, rectangular opening in the stone.
Brokaw stood for a moment surveying the crypt. It was an undertaking of such complexity that he considered it the masterwork of his life. The outer chamber was spacious, roughly ten by twenty feet in dimension, but it was completely bare except for a table in the center of the room that supported a curious machine similar in appearance to a typewriter. The device was actually a cryptography machine of the sort normally used in enciphering government communiqués into secret code. Beyond the machine, centered along the far wall, was the entrance to the inner vault. A massive steel door, an exact duplicate of those found in banks, guarded the vault, which was square and substantial, approximately ten by ten, and solid as a fortress.
Satisfied that all was in order, Brokaw walked to the table and quickly checked various adjustments on the cryptography machine. Then he programmed a sentence into the machine, ripped the enciphered printout from the carriage, and spent several minutes memorizing the oddly juxtaposed characters. Finally, certain that the coded sentence was indelibly etched in his mind, he pulled out a Zippo lighter and burned the printout, grinding the ashes underfoot.
Intent now on the next step, he shoved the steel door ajar, entered the vault, and proceeded directly to two large wall safes at the back of the room. The safes were recessed into the stone wall, and on the inside of each safe door there was a projecting flange, unusual in design and obviously custom-built. Sophisticated explosive charges cased in the olive drab of military demolitions were visible on the bottom shelves of both safes. Working swiftly, his movements skillful and precise, he wired the explosives to a small mechanism inside each safe, and in turn, wired these mechanisms to the irregular-shaped door flanges. With the booby traps properly rigged, he extracted two sealed envelopes from his coat pocket, inspected them carefully, and placed one envelope on the upper shelf of each safe. Then he set the combination locks, paused briefly to run over his mental checklist, and firmly closed the safe doors.
Finished, he turned and walked from the vault into the outer chamber. With the utmost care, gingerly avoiding any contact with the door handle, he swung the steel door closed, waiting until he heard the muffled thud of the lock rods. Then he twirled the combination knob and halted it on zero. Symbolic yet ambiguous, another little riddle to be unraveled by anyone foolish enough to try.
A faint smile crossed his face, giving him a curiously beatific appearance, as he crossed the outer chamber and passed through the entranceway. Without a backward glance, almost jubilant, he mounted the stairs and hurried toward his appointment in the world above.
Shortly before the hall clock tolled nine, Lucas Brokaw reentered his study. Three hours was cutting it close, but he had every confidence that the time remaining was adequate to the task. Limping noticeably now, wearied by the long climb upstairs, he moved directly to the liquor cabinet. His hand steady, thoroughly at peace with himself, he took the vial of Dilaudid from the top shelf and emptied its contents into the medicinal beaker. After capping the vial and returning it to the cabinet, he held the beaker to the light. Squinting, he studied the level with a critical eye, then nodded and chuckled softly to himself. It stood well above the half-gram mark.
Walking to the window, his limp all but forgotten, he looked down upon a world shrouded in moonglow. Somewhere out there a new life awaited the transmigration of his soul. In that other life—young again—he would return to claim his own legacy. And in the meantime, his crypt was impregnable, as safe from desecration as a Pharaoh's tomb. It was a moment to be savored. Not so much an end as a beginning. A journey to immortality.
At last, eager to be on his way, he lifted the beaker to his lips and drained it.
I
Stanford University
October 3, 1977
The tower carillon began to peal as he stepped from his car.
On a still day the chimes could be heard all across campus, thundering pleasant variations on a battery of nearly three dozen bells. Tanner had often envisioned a squad of Swiss monks hammering and pounding in a stone-deaf frenzy as they scurried about the tower. But that was in his undergraduate days. Later, after he'd discovered the world was no laughing matter, his sense of imagery had unde
rgone a pronounced change.
The thought bothered him, as did his presence here today. It was nothing he could articulate, but all the way down from San Francisco he'd been badgered by it, searching for a reasonable explanation. Hearing the bells again merely aggravated his uncertainty, except that he wasn't quite sure where the chance left off and choice began.
And the hell of it was he didn't need a job!
Squinting, head canted back, he stared up at the tower. It rose majestically above the Hoover Institute, framed against a gauzy autumn sky. He had always found it an impressive sight, never more so than when the chimes rumbled to life. Yet this was the first time in almost five years that he'd visited the campus. Since law school, he had felt ho desire whatever to see the tower or hear the chimes or look again upon the old sandstone quadrangles.
Until yesterday.
Which left him not just perplexed but thoroughly mystified. However vagrant, it was one of those spur-of-the-moment things that bad drawn him here to seek a position about which he knew little or nothing, that he hadn't even known existed until he'd seen the advertisement in the Law Enforcement Quarterly less than twenty-four hours ago.
Perhaps that was what bothered him. The impulse. Upon reflection, it seemed too quick, too frivolous. Not just enticing but damn near irresistible.
So he’d called in sick that morning and driven down to Palo Alto. Yet he hadn't the foggiest notion of why he was here! Granted, he was bored and overworked and underpaid, but that was all part of the drill. An occupational hazard of working for the bureau. And he'd long ago reconciled himself to the fact that playing gangbusters was nine parts drudgery and one part bravado.
Or had he?
As he started up the walkway, it occurred to him that perhaps this trip wasn't a lark after all. If a man really was content, completely satisfied with his lot in life, then why would he . . . the question hung there, unanswered, just as it had since yesterday.
