Dying Memories

by Dave Zeltserman

  Chapter 84

  Bill thought over what Kloot had told him. “This makes me feel so special,” he said. “That’s why you had Gail Hawes kill Forster, just to suck me into this?”

  “Well, of course another woman was meant to do the shooting, but yes, that was partly the motivation, also to worry and scare off certain people, and a high profile shooting like that did the job, especially once I had you nosing around. Of course, it was also done because Forster had become a liability.”

  “Why was that? Did he find out about the twenty million dollars you diverted to Beasman’s presidential campaign?” Bill asked.

  Kloot’s lips pressed into a tight smile. “No money was diverted to Howard Beasman,” he said. “I’m guessing that Lee Dobson told you that. Clearly a convincing lie on his part. A clever man.”

  “Tell me about your plan for this drug.”

  Kloot slowed to a crawl as he approached a red light. “I’m sure you’ve already guessed it,” he said. The rearview mirror showed his long face seeming to shrink as he stared straight ahead, any remnants of his good humor drying up from his eyes. “It’s to get Howard Beasman elected president.”

  “And you would do that with Operation Bubonic? That’s why you had top immunology scientists on the project?”

  “Very good, Bill, very impressive that you discovered Operation Bubonic. Let me guess, more leaks from that idiot Henry Schlow? Never mind. But yes, that’s why Howard Beasman will be elected our next president in eight days.”

  “Explain it to me.”

  “No more than what you must be thinking. The first and rudimentary delivery system for the drug is, as you know, through a needle injection. Operation Bubonic provides a delivery system through a massively contagious but otherwise harmless virus. Within days, memories of unspeakable acts being committed by the two major party candidates will be released and will spread rapidly within the continental US, and will guarantee that voters will be fighting their way to elect Howard Beasman as our next president. It will be a landslide.”

  “You’re acting as if this is still going to happen.”

  “Oh, it will. There are historic forces at play, Bill, powerful forces that won’t be disrupted by this little hissy fit of yours. I’ll help you get your evidence, for all the good it will do you. But these forces won’t be denied. Whether you end up passing out from blood loss, or the bullet is still in you and moves enough to kill you, or whatever else ends up happening, this will all be for naught. You won’t be helped by this, and I promise you when we have our election I’ll be witnessing a truly historic event.”

  The light changed and Kloot gently accelerated the car forward. For a long moment Bill studied Kloot’s reflection and tried to figure out whether he was delusional enough to believe what he was saying. “Why Howard Beasman?” Bill asked.

  “Why? You must be joking, Bill. The country, our way of life, is in peril. This technology can, in the right hands, conquer worlds. We need a great man, a man of strength and courage, someone with enough vision to understand this, and be willing to wield this technology the way it’s meant to be used. Howard Beasman is that man. The two major party candidates? No Bill, sorry, not even close. For all of their pontificating and noise, they’re both cut from the same cloth, and both of them would be too gutless to do what is needed. Our first revolution was born right here in Boston, and our second and far greater revolution will also be birthed here.”

  “Does Beasman know about this?”

  “Of course.”

  From his reflection in the rearview mirror, Kloot’s eyes showed the same religious fervor of any other fanatic. Bill just wanted to be done with him. More than anything he just wanted to be able to take some painkillers and lie down. He knew it was no picnic for Kloot either with that needle in his neck, not with how the guy was sweating.

  “I’m confused about something,” Bill said. “You had Schlow killed, right? Why?”

  Kloot made a face like he swallowed vinegar. “You gave me the opportunity when you abducted him and I simply took advantage of it,” he said. “The man was a narcissist with delusions of grandeur. To give Henry credit, this was his brainchild—the idea of the drug and how we could use it to elect a president worthy of the position. But it was becoming clear he needed to go, and besides, killing him the way we did put more pressure on you, which served my purpose.”

  “Were Simon and his ox-sized pal in on this?”

  “Certainly not. They’re simply small-minded men carrying out orders. Neither of them would have the vision to understand what I’m doing for the sake of our country, and I’m sure if they had sniffed it out they would have been going after me as ardently as they did you.”

  They drove in silence after that. Five minutes later Kloot pulled into ViGen’s back parking lot. Except for the Mercedes the lot was empty. As he parked the car, Kloot let out a tired sigh. “I guess now it’s time for the real fun,” he said.

  Chapter 85

  It took several minutes, but Bill carefully maneuvered himself and Kloot out of the car so that Kloot wouldn’t have the opportunity to jerk himself free of the needle. And then they were walking together into the vestibule area.

  Kloot’s access card got them into the building. They took an elevator to the basement level, then walked along a corridor that led them through a maze of different medical labs, with the last one having rows of caged animals. Bill could swear that the caged monkeys were grinning at the sight of Peter Kloot with a needle stuck into his neck. Kloot brought them to a locked room and told Bill that everything he was looking for was in there.

  “You’ve been here before,” Kloot said, his eyes again crinkling in their good-natured way. “I need my access card again.”

  “Go ahead.”

  Kloot reached slowly into his pants pocket and pulled out his access card which he used to open the door. He then led Bill into the same room that Bill had woken up in and saw for the first time the man he had thought of as G. He had to smile thinking of how after they had hit him with a car that night he was fleeing ViGen, they just brought him right back inside.

  Kloot directed Bill past all the beeping and flashing electronic equipment to a series of cabinets where Kloot proceeded to methodically search through a large stack of DVDs. He was busy doing this when Bill asked him whether they manipulated Trey Megeet to kill Tim Zhang. Kloot’s patience was clearly being tested by the interruption, but he forced a thin smile and answered affirmatively.

  “Why do something that elaborate? If you wanted Zhang killed, why not just have one of your goons take care of him?”

  Kloot gave Bill a look as if he were a child. “It’s not that easy to kill someone,” he said. “Especially a high-profile scientist like Zhang. There are the inevitable investigations, questions, and other such messiness that could’ve easily led the police back to ViGen. Having an alcoholic homeless man do the deed with a seemingly delusional insistence that the victim killed his wife seemed safe, and besides, it allowed us to perform an invaluable field trial. Now if you don’t mind, I’d like to get back to finding you your evidence so you can take this damn needle out of my neck.”

  Kloot went back to searching through the stack of DVDs, finally pulling two of them out. One was labeled ‘K. Wilkerson’ the other ‘E. Chandler’. Kloot handed both to Bill. “These have the animated sequences that were used to build the memories we gave to your previous and recent girlfriends. Do you need to see them?”

  “Yes.”

  Kloot sighed at that, but led the way to a desktop computer where he played the sequences from both DVDs. While clearly animated, they were amazingly lifelike, with one of them showing Bill stabbing Joseph Hartley repeatedly, then turning on Karen and savagely attacking her; the other having Bill standing inside Emily’s apartment, his hands and clothing dripping in blood. His animated image told Emily how he killed both Karen and Hartley, then stripped off his bloody clothing and headed to the bathroom.

  “This is on
ly part of the process,” Kloot explained. “The final memories created are far more vivid and lifelike.”

  “I still need evidence clearing me of Schlow’s murder.”

  “Of course you do.”

  Kloot led Bill to a large file cabinet, and after unlocking it with his access card, searched through folders before pulling one of them out and handing it to Bill. Inside were surveillance photos showing Bill driving away after leaving Schlow still alive. Bill wondered how they were able to get those photos, but he didn’t bother asking. He just badly wanted to be done with this.

  “I also need evidence for what you did to Gail Hawes and Trey Megeet,” Bill said.

  Kloot groaned inwardly, but took Bill to the same stack of DVDs, where he searched through them and pulled out two more, one of them labeled ‘J. Larson’, the woman who Gail Hawes was mistaken for, the other ‘T. Megeet’.

  “You don’t need to see those, do you?” Kloot asked with a forced civility.

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “So we’re done?”

  “We’re done.”

  Bill pushed down on the plunger sending the memory drug into Peter Kloot’s neck. Since it wasn’t injected directly into the bloodstream it took several seconds for the drug to act, and during those seconds Kloot turned to Bill with a look of utter hurt and betrayal flooding his eyes. Then the drug took hold of him, and his mouth stretched wide into a silent scream. Muscles strained as they pushed hard from his face. Veins bulged from his forehead and corded up along his neck. He seemed frozen in his silent scream while a wild panic glistened in his eyes, then he started pounding on the side of his head with his fists. It seemed to take a great effort on his part to stop himself from doing that. He stood rigid again, breathing hard, his eyes distended, all the while muscles and veins pushing out from every visible part of his skin.

  “It’s not real,” he forced between ragged breaths, his voice eerily unreal. “It’s fake. It’s not real.”

  He screamed an insane scream then. Monkeys and other caged animal from the lab nearby answered with their own hysterical cries. Kloot fought again to control his screaming. “A live rat was not put in my skull,” he gasped out in a horrible whisper. “A rat is not now eating my brain. It can’t be. It can’t be real.”

  Bill intentionally hadn’t asked what memory they had concocted for him. He didn’t want to know. He wasn’t sure he would be able to inject Kloot if he did. As he thought about the sadism involved in what Kloot had arranged for him, he felt nothing towards Kloot, no remorse or pity. He watched with almost disinterest as Kloot started again pounding on his skull.

  The pounding stopped. Kloot forced himself rigid. A pinkish foam bubbled from his mouth, and then with what seemed like a great effort, Kloot staggered out of the room.

  Bill followed Kloot as he weaved drunkenly to one of the lab tables where he searched until picking up a small circular saw, something that was clearly used for cutting bone. Kloot gave Bill a desperate wild-eyed look before turning the saw on. All sanity was gone from those eyes. Kloot proceeded to cut into the top of his skull. It took him several minutes to remove the top section of his skull, and then without hesitation he thrust his hand into the opening as if grabbing for a ravenous animal. For a brief instance, something human and vulnerable showed in Kloot’s eyes, then it was gone. His hand squeezed into a fist as if he were trying to break an animal’s neck. He was dead before he hit the floor. There was a short moment of quiet from the caged animals beyond, and then they started screaming.

  Bill removed Kloot’s access card from his body, trying hard not to catch a glimpse of his open skull and his crushed brain inside of it. He went back to search the room they had left and found more incriminating memos and directives from Kloot, things that Kloot clearly would not have wanted in anyone else’s hands, and things that spelled out everything that was done. As Bill gathered all of this up, he realized how weak and feverish he felt. He didn’t have to touch his side to know that his bandages had gotten damp with blood. A clock showed it was almost two-thirty. He still had a long night ahead of him. Before leaving the room, he took out the microcassete recorder that he had concealed in his jacket, and he scanned through sections of the recording he made. Kloot’s voice could be heard loudly enough on it.

  He had earlier paid attention when Kloot entered his access code, and he used the card and code to get out of the building. From there, he drove the Mercedes to the Tribune offices in South Boston. That was where he had earlier stashed the Forster hedge fund papers, as well as the Operation Bubonic paperwork. His Tribune access card still worked, and he knew that after the recent cutbacks they only kept a skeleton crew at night. As it turned out he had no problem slipping in and stashing the papers in Jack’s desk. He figured if he ended up dead, at least Jack would find those papers and maybe he’d able to make sense of them.

  It was ten minutes to three when he entered the Tribune for the second time that night. He went to Jack’s office, took the papers from the desk drawer, and started typing away like a man possessed. He was still typing feverishly when he realized Jack O’Donnell was standing in the open doorway staring at him. He looked at the time then and saw it was six-thirty.

  “You don’t look too good,” Jack said.

  “I don’t feel too good,” Bill admitted. “I was shot over six hours ago and I’m still bleeding.”

  Off in the distance a siren could be heard. Jack nodded, and told Bill that he had already called the police. “Probably best that you just stay seated where you are,” he added.

  Bill laughed weakly at that. “I don’t think I could get up if I wanted to,” he said. “Look, I have this article mostly done, you should be able to finish it up. All the supporting evidence is in this pile on your desk. When you listen to the recording I made, the other voice is Peter Kloot. He was the mastermind behind all this. You’ll understand more when you read what I wrote and go through all this stuff.” Bill paused to wipe a hand across his brow, and added, “Right now, I’m fucking beat. I think I’m just going to close my eyes until the police come. You can wake me then.”

  Chapter 86

  It was over twenty-four hours before Bill opened his eyes again. His being shot was more than just a grazing, and more than a flesh wound. The bullet had nicked his kidney, and had left him slowly bleeding to death. An emergency surgery at Boston City Hospital saved his life. When he next opened his eyes, he found that the story he broke for the Tribune had gone national. Federal agents were investigating ViGen. Simon and his ox-sized companion had disappeared, others had been arrested, including Lee Dobson. Howard Beasman was denying any involvement in the planned coup of the United States, but it didn’t matter. His campaign was dead, not that he would have had much chance anyway without the aid of Kloot’s fake memories. Federal agents were chomping at the bit to talk to Bill, but Jack had arranged a lawyer for him, and his lawyer was able to keep the agents at bay. Bill did meet Jack that first day, and he asked him to deliver a message to Emily, also to check whether anyone was taking care of Jeremy’s cat, Augustine. Jack promised he would do both.

  It ended up taking Bill three weeks to recover enough to be discharged. If they had released him earlier he would’ve been arrested and taken to Suffolk County Jail. One of the district attorneys involved was adamant that Bill’s newspapers articles amounted to a confession to a long laundry list of violent crimes, including home invasion and kidnapping. All of that ended, though, when Bill received a presidential pardon.

  It was four days after he was released from the hospital when a soft knocking outside his apartment door woke him from a nap that he had drifted into. He had been sitting in his recliner, and Augustine, who was laying in his lap, scrambled off him as Bill jerked awake.

  “I’ll be right there,” Bill yelled out in a hoarse voice. It still felt as if someone was playing around inside of him with a knife, and he had to grit his teeth as he maneuvered out of the recliner and grabbed a hold of the cane th
at he was using. When he opened the door and saw Emily standing outside looking miserable, he felt his heart leap into his throat. He wanted to kiss her or hug her, or at least hold her hand, but he felt the distance between them, and instead he just smiled and invited her in. She followed him into the kitchen where he put up a pot of coffee for brewing.

  “Are you in a lot of pain?” she asked.

  “Nah, the gunshot was just a scratch,” Bill said with a forced lopsided grin. “I barely feel anything.”

  “According to the news you almost died.”

  There was concern in her eyes, but still that same distance as if everything that they had before was gone. Bill found himself tearing up, and he turned away, ostensibly so he could pour the coffee, but more so he could wipe a hand across his eyes.

  “They exaggerated that part of it to sell papers,” Bill said as he struggled to keep his voice composed. He brought the coffee over to the table where Emily was sitting, then brought over a carton of milk from the refrigerator so Emily could have her coffee the way she liked it.

  “I saw on the news that they’re going to be releasing Gail Hawes, and that other man, Trey Megeet. Because of you.”

  “Yeah, I was glad to see that happen. They’re going to need a lot of help, though.”

  Emily looked down at her clasped hands. “What those people were doing is so unbelievable,” she said, “and what they put you through…”