by Gary Braver
“Okay, but please don’t hurt my daughter. I beg you.”
“I’m not going to touch her.”
He rolled her onto her side, then put loose cords around her ankles and hands. When she was in place, he slipped a sleep mask over her eyes. “Okay, open your mouth. For a gag.”
She opened wide. And in a flash, he pulled from his jacket an aerosol can of methane gas used to test gas leak alarms, and he jammed the nozzle into her mouth and released a continuous spray. She tried to snap her head away, but he clamped down on her face with his other hand and continued to force-fill her lungs until she passed out. It took less than half a minute. When she was still, he removed the tethers and gag, positioned her on the pillow, then turned off the AC and left the room with the door ajar.
He returned to the daughter’s room. She was still asleep. As he stared at her darkened form, he rehearsed how he’d dispatch her without a clue. Before she knew what hit her, he’d straddle her body, lock her with his knees, then with his gloved hands clamp her carotid arteries, stopping the blood flow to her brain. In under a minute, she’d pass out. Then he’d close her eyelids and while her lungs still functioned fill them with gas from the aerosol.
But something held him back. His mission was Satan’s handmaid, not her kid.
He closed the door, then slipped down the stairs and into the cellar, leaving the door wide open. With a penlight, he found the furnace and extinguished the pilot light. He removed the batteries from a fire-and-gas alarm and disconnected a contact wire from the alarm at the top of the second landing. In the kitchen, he extinguished the stove pilot light to prevent an explosion. By morning, the place would be full of methane gas, including the master bedroom, but not the daughter’s room with the AC.
Perfect, and another fifteen thousand in the green.
If true, he also had incredible information that could be worth a king’s ransom to the right buyer. Although he knew nothing about those who bankrolled him, what the woman revealed had explosive implications.
In fact, by the time he arrived at his condo, Roman was so wired over the possibilities that he needed a double hit of vodka to compose his mind to rest. But as he dozed off, like a closed loop in the back of his brain, he heard the lulling whispers of Father X’s promise play over and over again:
A second chance at life eternal.
19
Miracle? Coma Victim “Resurrected from the Dead”
A 24-year-old Northeastern graduate student who had spent 12 weeks in a coma regained consciousness yesterday at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
The case is being described by some as “a miracle.” Zachary Kashian, who lost control of his bicycle the evening of January 28, sustained serious head trauma and remained in a “persistent vegetative state” until Sunday. According to Dr. Seth Andrew, head of neurology at MGH, he was completely unresponsive to stimulation efforts by the medical staff. “The sudden awakening of coma patients sometimes happens,” said Andrew. “But given the severity of his trauma and coma level, the odds were slim.” He added, “I’m not sure if his waking up is a bona fide miracle, but it’s as close as it gets.”
Others, however, are convinced. “Of course it’s a miracle,” claimed Richard Rossi, one of several people who had earlier flocked to Kashian’s bedside. “He remained comatose for 3 months. Then on Good Friday he speaks the words of Jesus in Aramaic and wakes up on Easter. If that’s not a sign the Lord’s working through him, I don’t know what is.…”
Kashian gained notoriety three days before his emergence when he allegedly recited passages in the ancient language. According to Arthur Avedisian, Harvard professor of Near Eastern languages, his recorded words came from the Sermon on the Mount, a compilation of the sayings of Jesus from the biblical Book of Matthew.…
Although dialects of Aramaic are still spoken by a small number of speakers in the Middle East, it is not known how Kashian could have recalled those passages.…
Maggie stuffed the paper into her briefcase and headed up the elevator to the seventh-floor ward. He had woken up two days ago and had remained alert as the doctors made mental and physical assessments. But he had not been told about the religious fanatics crashing his room, claiming that God was speaking through him.
“He’s doing well,” said Dr. Andrew. “His cognitive functions look normal. We’ve done memory tests as well as verbal, analytical, and visual tests, and he passed them all with flying colors.”
“Thank you,” Maggie said. “I can’t tell you how grateful I am for all you and your staff have done.…” She trailed off, to keep from breaking down.
The doctor gave her a hug. “Of course, he’ll need physical therapy. The PT people were pretty vigorous keeping his muscles exercised. They’re setting up a schedule.”
Because of their efforts, rehab would be no more than a few weeks. And he could be released in a couple of days.
“We’d like to observe him a little more up here before sending him to PT.”
“Is there a problem?”
“Well, we’re not sure.”
Maggie’s heart froze. “What?”
“The MRI shows that he suffered some trauma to his parietal lobe. That’s the area associated with physical orientation. Usually, patients with posterior superior parietal injuries have some difficulty determining their spatial limits—where they end and the external world begins, so to speak. In preliminary tests, he seems fine. But we’d like to make sure he’s a hundred percent—that he can navigate on his own. We’ll be working in conjunction with PT, of course.”
“But you don’t see a problem.” It was more of a statement than a question.
“No, but we want to be certain there’s nothing we aren’t aware of. It’ll be only a few days.”
“Okay.” But she sensed something in the doctor’s hedging.
“I do have a question,” he said. “On the admittance form, it says Zack’s father had passed away. When was that?”
“Three years ago. Why?”
“Well, when he emerged from the coma, he looked at the aide and said, ‘Dad.’ Apparently he’d been dreaming about him when he woke up.”
“He told me. Is that a problem?” She tried not to sound defensive.
“Well, we were constantly monitoring blood flow and electrical activity, and the most active sectors weren’t in areas associated with dreams.”
“I’m sorry, but what are you telling me?”
“I’m not really sure.” He paused a moment to think something over. “Is your son a religious person?”
“Religious? No, and what does that have to do with anything?”
“Well, while he was under, we did some scans and found unusual electrical activity in the areas of his temporal lobe—sectors associated with abstract concept, but also mystical experiences. What some people call the ‘God lobe.’”
“My son’s not religious or mystical. And as far as I know, he’s never taken psychedelic drugs.”
“I’m not implying that. But given the trauma he experienced, the neurocircuitry appears to have undergone some reconfiguration—cross-wiring, if you will.”
Maggie simply nodded, feeling tension constrict her throat.
“Was he close to his father?”
“Not particularly.” She felt her resentment return. “Can I see him now?”
“Of course. And I know how you feel about all the religious fervor regarding the video.”
“Doctor, is there something wrong with him?” She began to wonder if he’d be prone to seizures.
“No, I don’t mean it that way. It’s just that the rest of his brain was in deep sleep, while his parietal lobe was processing information like crazy.”
“What kind of information?”
“I don’t know. Nor do I know where it came from. Areas associated with vision and auditory activity should have been dormant.”
Maggie could feel her anxiety spike. “What are you telling me? What’s wrong with him?”
“Meaning what?”
The doctor shook his head. “I’ve not seen anything like it before. But from the little literature on the subject, I’d say he was having a spiritual experience.”
20
“‘Miracle? Coma Victim “Resurrected from the Dead.”’
“He has no memory of being in a coma, no meeting the dead or finding God. He’s a professed atheist, so he probably wasn’t exposed to the scriptures, especially in the original.” Elizabeth Luria removed her glasses and handed the newspaper back to Warren Gladstone. “Maybe there’s a rational explanation.”
Warren Gladstone made a steeple with his fingers. “St. Paul tells us that God sends signs and wonders to capture our attention. A professed atheist reciting the Lord’s Prayer in Jesus’s language while in a coma and on Good Friday and then waking up on Easter Sunday—those are signs enough for me.”
“Well, given all those who showed up, you’re not alone. I was there. I saw them.”
He looked over his glasses at her. “But you don’t share their conviction.”
His statement was almost accusatory. “Warren, those people who’d flocked to his bedside were blue-collar people, some from third world countries, all ardent Christians, desperate for miracles.”
“And you’re an enlightened Harvard University neuroscientist whose Episcopal upbringing no longer has a hold on you.”
“Warren, believe me that I want to believe. I want there to be an afterlife and God and all the promise of that. Why do you think I’ve invested so much of the last six years in this?”
“And we’ll reap our rewards and maybe show you the light at the end of the tunnel.”
Elizabeth smiled at his wording and took a sip of her tea. “We can only hope.”
“Then take heart in the signs and the theological possibilities.”
Elizabeth Luria and Warren Gladstone were sitting in the sunroom of her waterfront home in Arlington, overlooking the lower Mystic Lake. It was a beautiful home with four bedrooms and lovely views—views that still reminded her of all that had been taken from her. “I suppose,” she said. “But given the imprecise calendar dates over two thousand years, who can say exactly when Jesus died and was resurrected?”
“Except those are spiritual dates—dates of believers. And the boy’s breakthrough falls precisely on them.”
“So, God uses the same Gregorian calendar as the rest of us.”
“If God wants to get our attention, then yes, He does.” He picked up the article. “From the look of things, He’s gotten the attention of lots of folks, including mine.”
“Well, the mother’s not buying it. And clearly her son wasn’t raised on the Word of God.”
“The more powerful the message: The Lord spoke through a nonbeliever,” Warren said. “And another confirmation that the ways of God are mysterious to man.”
Warren Gladstone was an unwaveringly godly man and a good man. Elizabeth had met him through her late husband. Both had been raised in an Evangelical Christian tradition in Tennessee, Warren following his faith into a mainline Protestant seminary to become a televangelist. A dozen years ago, he’d founded the GodLight Channel—a satellite network that brought to the Northeast his ministry, now encompassing most of New England and parts of New York. Much of his success had to do with his enlightened social theology. Unlike most Evangelical preachers, Warren was a political liberal—a pacifist opposed to capital punishment and supportive of gun control. He also promoted the legalization of gay marriage and laws protecting abortion. It was his progressive views that drew liberal New Englanders, amassing him a tidy fortune that he hoped would expand coverage of his cable GodLight Hour into greater markets. He once told Elizabeth that he dreamed of building the first megachurch in the Northeast—a version of the ten-thousand-member Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, California. And Elizabeth, he believed, could make that happen.
Warren also was a godsend for her, embarrassing as it was. Owing to the nature of her research, she had been denied grant money even though she was a highly published tenured professor at Harvard Medical School. Critics accused her of abandoning serious neurological research for questionable pursuits. It was Gladstone and company that made possible her current quest and one that could lead him to the Promised Land.
“When you met the mother, what exactly did you say to her?”
“Nothing, really.”
“You didn’t tell her…” And he trailed off.
“No, I didn’t tell her I’d lost a son, too. That would have suggested a more disturbing bond.”
“Of course. And what was her response?”
“That she didn’t believe in miracles, but she thanked me. And that was that.”
“And you didn’t mention our…”
“No, of course not.” She walked to the window. Already the magnolia tree was fat with buds. Of all the trees in the world, she loved best the pink magnolia with their big fleshy leaves and intoxicating scent. But, sadly, full glory lasted only a week.
“Did you speak to anyone else?”
“No.”
“Emerging from a coma is not extraordinary. It’s what he uttered on the video that fills me with wonder.”
For a moment, she was taken back to the double funeral—a day that she had managed to get through only because of the consolation and compassion that had radiated from Warren Gladstone.
He had spoken of spiritual dates. Could any be more brutally ironic than her own “spiritual” date? Fourteen years ago, on a warm Sunday in May, she had announced that she wanted the day off just to hang around the house and not work, not to do chores, not do things for other people—just a day to and for herself. The weather was beautiful, and under the delft blue sky the lake looked like liquid sapphire. All she desired was to languish on the deck with a good book. The Red Sox were playing a home game, so she sent her husband and son to Fenway Park. But on the way home, their car was hit head-on by a drunk driver, and her son and husband were killed. While the faith of her Christian upbringing kept her from total despair, she could never reconcile that loss or the hideous irony of losing her family on Mother’s Day.
“His mother dismisses that,” Elizabeth said. “The rumor is that he might have written a paper on religion and found an Aramaic recording on the Internet and committed it to memory.”
“So you’re skeptical, too.”
“Yes. A lot of people were convinced that Jesus was present and was speaking through him. Except that the faithful are always seeking miracles and find them in unlikely places. Their yearning made him a spiritual figure.”
“And maybe he is.”
“And maybe it’s wish fulfillment,” she said, thinking that she’d kill to know there was an afterlife and that her child and husband were all right.
“Did you know he had an older brother who was murdered?”
“Yes, but I was not about to mention that.”
“What would you have said if you were?”
“That we both were robbed of the happiness of watching a son grow up. That we can’t bring them back. But … you know the rest.”
“Yes.”
“I have no explanation for what I saw. He spoke in a voice that apparently wasn’t his and in words that could never have been.” She gazed out the window. Maybe twenty feet in the water sat two rock islets. When Kevin was young, those rocks were the humps of giant turtles that would sing to them while they picnicked under the magnolia as the setting sun enameled the lake in gold. They’d sit until the stars came out and tell stories until Kevin dozed off, her heart roaring with joy. Now those creatures were rocks in the water, and her heart merely pumped blood.
“But this isn’t a case of bleeding statues or visions of the Virgin Mary,” Warren said. “We have a video of him speaking the words of Jes
us. And from all reports he’s a nonbeliever who never enrolled in religion courses or wrote a paper on Jesus Christ. I see no other explanation. The young man was channeling the Lord.”
“It’s pretty to think so, but remains to be seen.”
“And we should do all we can toward that end.”
“We are.”
“I appreciate that, in spite of your skepticism,” he said.
They were quiet for a moment. Then Elizabeth said, “I have some sad news. Tom Pomeroy had a heart attack the other night. You didn’t know him, but he was instrumental in our mission.” The Boston Globe article on Pomeroy was a glowing review of his accomplishments as a biophysicist, perfecting software for interpreting data produced by magnetic resonance imaging, making it possible to observe individual human cells. “He was a good man.”
“I trust you’ll get on all right still.”
“Of course, and thanks to your generous support.”
“Dear Elizabeth, no one has ever accused you of being subtle.”
And he handed her an envelope containing a bank check for $1 million.
21
At nine thirty the next morning, the nurse came smiling into Zack’s room. “Some of your friends are here to visit. Think you’re up for it?”
“Absolutely.” He felt better than he had yesterday, more lucid and stronger.
A moment later, in walked Anthony, Damian, and Geoff. “If it isn’t Zack Van Winkle,” chortled Anthony Lawrence.
“Hey,” Zack said, and greeted them all with hugs.
“How’s the head?” Damian asked.
“Better than it looks.” The headaches had subsided, but his crown was still tender to the touch. His hair was growing back and covering the scabs, and the facial bruises had nearly disappeared.
“Your bike’s feeling a lot better, too. Got the front wheel and the wires replaced. Good as new.” Anthony showed him shots of the repair job on his BlackBerry.
