Hulagu's Web The Presidential Pursuit of Katherine Laforge

by David Hearne

  I am alive, she told herself as she rose from the bed. Her hand reached for the terrycloth robe draped across the foot of the bed and froze. Kat Laforge looked back at her from the full-length closet door mirror. To reassure herself, she was different, she touched the fuller cheeks, the stronger chin, which were legacies of her time in Iraq. Like the faint scars on her hip.

  “I’m not Katherine Laforge,” she said aloud, “no matter what my memories tell me. I am Zoe Shelly,” she said, emphasizing each word, each syllable. “I am Zoe. I will be Zoe … today, tomorrow and the day past that.”

  Brazenly she stood before the mirror. More gray than brown showed in the hair Katherine Laforge took such great pains to color. Her eyes traveled downward, assessing everything, missing nothing. Breasts, waist, thighs -- I’ve lost weight and muscle-tone, she thought with chagrin, but nothing that can’t be regained.

  Her thoughts drifted to her rescuer. She pictured Wilson Lawson from Kat’s memories, an Inter-City black kid in her private school on special scholarship; Wilson Lawson who became a fashionable rebel when he discovered his true talent and future lay in computer science.

  Time had been as kind to Wilson as it had to her. He was nearing sixty, but he had the physique of a man fifteen years younger.

  Zoe knew she looked frail now, but that gaunt look would pass. How many women my age can wear a size eight dress and have it look like it really fits? She thought with some pride, even if it was borrowed from Kat’s values.

  Her thoughts turned again to Wilson. “He was in love with me once”-- She broke and corrected her thought, rather she said. “He was in love with Kat once.”

  Zoe regretted using him and realized these were also borrowed sentiments from Kat’s lingering affection for Wilson, affection that time had not erased. She shook her head, took a deep breath, let it out in a prolonged sigh.

  Will I ever be free of Kat and wholly Zoe? She questioned. Then another stray thought surfaced that left her even more perplexed. Do I really want to be?

  * * * *

  By late morning the sun crested the low clouds massed along the eastern horizon, and bathed the Gulf of Oman in golden light. From her perch near the yacht’s bowsprit, Zoe closed her eyes, tilted her head back, and let sea spray carried by the wind caress her face. The sensation was even more exhilarating than Kat’s memories suggested. She licked her lips, reveled in the brine-sour taste on her tongue. The wind in her hair only heightened her thrill of freedom.

  They ran southeast under full sail, taking advantage of the prevailing winds. The fifty-six-foot yacht was a greyhound under full sail. While she slept off the worst of her ordeal, the Black Phantom ran the gauntlet of American warships paused for war, streaked past the dangerous shallows along Saudi Arabia’s western shores and rounded the Strait of Hormuz into the Gulf of Oman. Soon they would sweep past Oman’s eastern tip, then catch the westerly winds and current for the run across the Arabian Sea. After that, the long run around Africa, and finally the trek up the Atlantic to the Gulf of Mexico.

  Zoe’s mind formed vivid images, drawn from maps and real places which were all shaped from Laforge’s memories. More and more she felt like a thief. “I shouldn’t be here,” she told the sea. “I am a mistake, a miscalculation“

  In her mind’s eye, she saw the glass panel in the Lumberton lab that separated her--separated Kat from ComDefC1. In that snippet of memory, she watched it die again. Zoe understood its fears; she shared them.

  “Laforge watched me die that day, or something so much like me that it really makes no difference.”

  She had been a tool, a weapon to be deployed. No more than that. I did what they wanted. That knowledge was plainly etched in Kat’s mind. When it was my turn, with just hours to live, I wanted them to count for something.

  Zoe reminded herself that she hadn’t died. And because of what she was, and what she knew, there were men out there who would seek her out and try to kill her. They would keep trying until they succeeded.

  “But this time I won’t go meekly, like a lamb to slaughter,” she promised. She ignored the favorite Albert Einstein quote in Kat’s memories that challenged her resistance: Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.

  Zoe gripped the bowsprit rail defiantly until her hands trembled from the strain. “In whatever time I have left, I want my own life, my own future,” she cried. She blinked back unbidden tears. “Is--that--so--wrong?”

  Gentle hands slipped around her shoulders, embraced her from behind, and a voice whispered in her ear. “I hope I can help you wash away all your pain.”

  She did not remember turning, but suddenly she was in Wilson’s arms, chin tilted to accept his lips. Ira’s image flashed through her mind, along with Kat’s indignation at her weakness and her infidelity. But Zoe was only months old and lonely, lonely beyond words. She was not Kat, would never be Kat, and the sensations, the passion Wilson stirred in her at that moment drowned out all Laforge’s denials.

  * * * *

  Anxiety plagued Zoe’s slumber. In her dreams she struggled to reach the beach. Dreams became nightmares, and she ran for her life. Then she was staggering through sand and surf to where Lawson’s inflatable boat waited. Those vivid images were forever etched in her memory. Zoe remembered her relief the moment she saw the dingy. Thank God Lawson had listened. Thank God he had come.

  She was exhausted and out of breath when the crewmen plucked her from the waves. Zoe barely recalled the dash across the water from Al Qushlah to Lawson’s yacht.

  Soaked to the skin, shivering from reaction, suffering from the shock of the doctor’s death, struggling with the guilt of killing with her own hands, she offered no protest when Wilson lifted her in his arms, and carried her below. She had lost the will to fight. A dim memory lingered of Lawson undressing her, toweling her dry, and then easing her into bed. Alone, Lawson was like that, a gentleman.

  As Zoe spiraled from sleep to semi-wakefulness, her nightmares faded. A languid blissfulness replaced her anxiety, fruits of the passion she and Wilson shared. Sighing, she hugged her pillow and her eyes fluttered open.

  Wilson smiled down at her as he pulled his crew-necked shirt across his broad shoulders, and let it hang outside his walking shorts. “Ah, the Lady wakes.”

  “Ummm--mmmm,” Zoe answered dreamily, lifted her face from the pillow, and offered him a wide smile.

  “From that expression I’d say the lady has no regrets.”

  Zoe let go of her pillow, and turned over. None of us do, she mused, even Kat--in spite of all her objections. In the midst of stretching lazily, she found her voice. “You have no idea,” she murmured, “no idea at all.”

  He sat down on the bed beside her, leaned down to brush her lips with his. His dark skin glistened in the soft lights. Her arms lifted, encircled his neck, extended the kiss, and slowly drew him to her. Zoe clung to him, pulled his strength against her. New passion stirred. She gave herself to it. And this time Kat’s voice was silent.

  Afterward they lay quiet in each other’s arms; her cheek nestled on his chest. Wilson gently combed her hair with his fingertips. “I fell in love with you almost from the first time we met,” he said quietly. “I didn’t have to tell you. You knew. Did you ever wonder why?”

  Zoe lifted her head, and turned so that she could rest her other cheek against him. She wanted to watch his eyes. “Yes,” she answered honestly. “I did wonder.”

  “My race meant nothing to you. You accepted me for my talents and my abilities without putting on airs.” He grinned. “If anything, you were always up front and honest. Especially, about our relationship. No one else was.”

  She stared at him across a gulf she could never bridge. And now everything I am, everything I appear to be--is all a lie. As much as I want you to understand, I can’t share with you, the man I’ve just made love to, that I’m not the woman you want me to be. Her heart caught. Or how desperately I need you right now just to stay alive.

  Something in her ex
pression alerted him. “You’re in real trouble, aren’t you?”

  Genuinely concerned for him, she pushed up so she faced him. “I may have put you in terrible danger, Wil-O,” she confessed, using the childhood name he and Kat shared without thinking. It was there in Laforge’s memories. They shared a first kiss beneath a willow tree. “The CIA wants me dead, if they catch us together, they’ll kill you, too.”

  For long moments he said nothing. Zoe wondered if he had been listening or just didn’t believe her. Finally, he sighed. “I wondered what would send Katherine Laforge running across Iraq scared of her shadow. Now I know.”

  She reached up, pressed his lips tenderly with her fingertips, quieting any protest he would make. “Katherine Laforge is not here,” she stressed matter-of-factly. “Zoe Shelly is. You must think of me this way. You must! Even in private. If you slip at the wrong time and call me Katherine Laforge or even ‘Kat,’ it could betray us.”

  Briefly, she outlined what she must do, what she needed him to do. He listened without interruption, and then nodded. “I’ll get you to Texas,” he promised. “It’s not as difficult as you believe. The Black Phantom can stay at sea for weeks at a time, under sail.” He grinned. “And your CIA can’t know where I’ll put in for supplies--or when.”

  Wilson pulled her to him, kissed her, and she gave herself to his kiss. When he pulled back, he shook his head, regret plain in his eyes. “I have to go topside awhile. Even a captain has his duties.”

  * * * *

  That night he held her in the darkness. “What about Ira?” he asked softly. “What happens after Texas?”

  Zoe’s heart froze. “You’re asking things I can’t answer. They will be monitoring Ira, bugging his phones, hoping I’ll try to make contact.” She sighed, and answered him with as much truth as she could. “That goes for the Washington staff as well. I don’t know whom I can trust.”

  He digested that, and was silent for some time. “I guessed that. I suppose at some point they’ll get around to me.”

  “I hope not,” and she meant it. “I hope that, they will never find out about you at all.”

  But Zoe knew that was very unlikely. If she remembered Wilson, so would Kat, eventually. Which meant, she must get to Texas and disappear before they tracked the Black Phantom into the Gulf of Mexico.

  “I’d be naïve to think you have no other contacts, people to help you,” he said with forced calm, “people you don’t want me to know about so I can’t compromise you. I won’t break the law to help you, but I will bend it.”

  His voice hardened. “Just be careful who you trust. Especially, in the Bureaus and on the Hill. I worked for them, but I never trusted them. Not then, and especially not now.”

  When she said nothing, Wilson continued. “Use my communications equipment for whatever contacts you must make. I actually use it very little.” He moved against her, and she realized it was a shrug. “Mostly in my business contacts, weather updates, and…,” he exhaled sharply, “sports, of course. Got to follow my teams.”

  He pulled her against him, nuzzled her ear. “While you slept, I arranged secure com links piggy-backing the Defense Department satellite net. If they tap and attempt to trace your location,” he chuckled softly, “let’s just say, you won’t be traced.”

  * * * *

  Beneath a night sky dome ablaze with stars, the Black Phantom rendezvoused at sea in the Mozambique Channel with a darkened cabin cruiser out of Nosey Be, just off the northwest tip of Madagascar. Offloading provisions and water quickly, the Black Phantom’s five-man crew made fast work of the storage, and the fleet twin-mastered yacht resumed its southeast heading.

  From the darkened wheelhouse, Wilson pointed toward Nosey Be. “That small island boasts some of the most marvelous beaches in the world and twelve months of sunshine,” he told Zoe. She could not see his face, but his tone held a half-serious note. “Perhaps one day I’ll show you…”

  In the darkness she snuggled against him. “Where now?”

  “Around the Horn of Africa,” he whispered, “and straight on ‘til morning.”

  * * * *

  She was choking. Blood filled her mouth, dribbled from her lips, and stifled any scream she might have made. Pain racked her body, and she couldn’t escape.

  With a plea for help only her anguished eyes could express, she caught the attention of someone outside her glass prison. Across that bridge of awareness, she was at once both victim and observer, tortured and torturer.

  For the love of God, help me! She cried soundlessly over and over until the words became… End this pain. If you won’t save me, kill me quickly! Don’t make me suffer so!

  But there was no help. No mercy. Throughout the ordeal the woman watched. And Senator Laforge was that woman.

  In the close darkness Zoe bolted awake, her hand at her throat; choking. In that moment she waited for death, waited for the pain that accompanied it.

  But there was no pain. And the only blood she tasted seeped from a bit lip. She shuddered. It had felt so real!

  Was real, she corrected herself. Again her mind replayed Katherine’s memories of the death of ComDefC1 in the Lumberton lab. Or maybe it was the death of another numbered clone. There had been so many of them in the experiments that she couldn’t really distinguish one from another. She just could not remember. She closed her eyes again and wondered if the daydreams she had been experiencing of moving about the old house in Houston were something more. Perhaps her mind was channeling through Katherine’s. The visions were usually a collage of mundane scenes played in a staccato like fashion in her mind. She recognized the interior of the house, but strangely many things within it changed from daydream to daydream. She thought in some of these flashing scenes she had actually glimpsed newspapers that had headlined her death in Iraq. One appeared on a coffee table, and then it rose and was crumbled into a ball of paper. This was some sort of telepathic manifestation.

  Zoe realized that she was very unique; she was not only a clone, but Katherine’s twin. Their mental frequencies were probably the same, since they were in many ways parts of the same entity. It seemed obvious that she could wittingly or unwittingly receive images or messages that came from processes in Katherine’s brain.

  The mind’s functions and abilities are virgin territory to scientists. A thought is a form of energy, but how that energy originates or how it is dispersed is unknown. Zoe knew that some scientists theorize thoughts enter into a global consciousness, an infinite network that is omnipotent in nature linking all humanity to God’s purview. But others argue that we can actually focus thoughts like a laser beam at a particular receptive individual.

  Regardless of how it works, Zoe felt she was developing the ability to receive thoughts from Katherine. Some sort of thought transference was elevated between them. Maybe because she was a special twin, her mind had developed perceptive abilities greater than a normal human. Or perhaps, since she was still an infant to the world, she had not blocked out the sixth sense that some feel lies dormant within us.

  One other explanation for her assumed telepathic ability might be related to quantum entanglement, where distant objects respond immediately to changes to a related object light years away. She was cloned using quantum methods so this phenomenon might also be an answer to why she seems to now have this unique ability.

  Regardless she would be patient and persistent in taking control of this new power. She promised herself to work harder at remembering the scenes in these odd daydreams. Tuning into these messages might at first be elusive, but she was sure she could learn to do it with practice.

  Zoe wondered if Katherine experienced some strange sense of possession when her thoughts and visions were being hijacked. She was sure she now had more of a connection to Katherine than her creators had planned.

  Suddenly cold, Zoe found her skin damp, wet with perspiration. Easing from bed, Zoe slipped into her bathrobe. Barefooted and in the dark, careful not to wake Wilson, she went up on deck
.

  A fresh sea breeze greeted her, and toyed with her hair. Moonlight cast a silver patina across the Black Phantom’s deck, and silvered the ocean whitecaps surrounding the yacht. It was serene, peaceful, but the aftermath of the nightmare left Zoe no peace. The might-have-been physicist in Katherine Laforge did not dwell on the moral implications involved in cloning, but Zoe could hardly avoid them.

  Do I possess a soul? She agonized. Zoe carefully searched Kat’s knowledge.

  Was there a dividing line between reality and spirituality? Where is it? Her eyes widened, her thoughts raced. What if there was more stored in the brain’s limbic system than just memories?

  Zoe struggled to remember more. What if the Limbic system also was the seat of spiritual consciousness? Would the host and its clone share a soul?

  She remembered that she was created as a weapon, programmed through the training of her host, Katherine Laforge, and then became part of her fabric. She had been trained to serve a greater cause. A clone’s life was finite, dedicated to the mission. A clone was not meant to outlive their mission.

  “But I have survived,” she said matter-of-factly. “And for good or ill, I am real.” A higher power must have intervened, and that provided Zoe’s existence a purpose and meaning. These thoughts gave her more hope and soothed her. If she outlived the purpose for her creation, then she was not a tool to be used and discarded. She was now God’s creation.

  In the moonlight, silver streaks rose from the waves in graceful arcs, hundreds of them. Her mind told her it was only fish jumping, following their natural rhythms. But a deeper part of her accepted it as a sign she had been heard.

  * * * *

  Zoe sat in the main cabin and pictured in her mind her alter ego. Where was Katherine Laforge? You went to ground somewhere while I was a news item, but you weren’t so isolated that you are inaccessible.