Iain’s experiences at war taught him that death was unfathomable to most, even to the hopelessly dying. Their eyes show their desperation—that look of shock, bewilderment, horror, and dread. Iain and Michael watched the man until he stopped twitching, and his eyes hazed over. Then they turned away as Michael cleaned his knife with a cloth torn off the man’s filthy robes.
Michael killed that man because he had to do it. The interrogation was over, and they were at the point when the informant had to die—despite any promises made to the contrary. There was no other way, and Michael knew it. He carried out his job with unflinching resolve. There was no room for sympathy or remorse.
So why now? Why the sympathy? It didn’t make sense.
When Iain watched the playback of Ben’s dream, it struck such a personal chord that he felt lightheaded and nauseous. If Ben remembered the entire dream, and not just the small fragments he currently recalled, he would see Michael in the passenger seat of the car as it drove through the heavily wooded area outside of Drapery Falls, New York.
Iain remembered the events of that night as if they happened only yesterday, and they played out in Ben’s dream exactly as Iain remembered.
Iain could see it all now: the headlights swerving along the dark road, illuminating the hazy rain, and the signpost on the side of the road reading Drapery Falls. Iain remembered parking behind Spaulding Grocers, the only grocery store in that shithole, one-gas-station town. The only thing in Drapery Falls that piqued any interest, the only reason Iain Marcus and Michael Bennet would ever visit such a piece-of-crap town, was because of Ethan Moore.
***
A younger Iain Marcus and Michael Bennet approached Drapery Falls in the dead of night.
He parked behind Spaulding Grocers and killed the engine. They would go the rest of the way on foot.
He asked Michael, “You ready?”
Michael nodded and stepped out of the car, clenching a black duffel bag in his hand. They tightened their jackets against the cold and the wind, as the light rain covered them from head to toe in a fine layer of mist.
It was almost three in the morning, late enough for the one pub in Drapery Falls to be long closed, and the patrons and staff home and in bed. Nothing stirred. No lights glowed behind shuttered windows. The only sound besides the wind was the rhythmic creaking of a wooden sign, shaped to resemble a giant tooth, swaying in a breeze outside Dr. Woodrow’s Dental Practice.
Iain moved quickly toward the residential section of town, to the side street where Ethan Moore lived. He felt vulnerable out in the open, but driving any closer could have caused a stir in the peaceful community.
His hat protected his face from the rain, with the water building up to form small droplets on the rim that fell before his eyes. Michael stayed a few steps behind, both men silent and swift as dark ghosts as they entered the landing to Ethan’s apartment building.
The door to the ground level was unlocked. Ethan lived on the second floor of the four-room complex, and the men crossed the entryway to the staircase in the back, trailing droplets of rainwater behind. They stopped before apartment 19C. Michael put his thumb over the peephole of the apartment opposite—19D—and Iain went to work picking the lock to Ethan’s door. After no time at all, the small tools found the right pins and the handle turned free. Iain put the tools in his pocket and removed the pistol from the holster under his arm.
He carried a Sig Sauer Mosquito because of its small size and hoped he would not have to use it. Guns were messy. He removed the silencer from the inside pocket of his coat and twisted it onto the barrel.
Iain slid into the room, followed by Michael. They shut the door, locking it behind them, and moved quickly, scoping out the dark room. The living room and kitchenette were empty, and the bathroom was cold and silent. Michael positioned himself next to the windows in the living room, watching the street below for movement as Iain slipped into the bedroom.
Ethan must have heard a noise, or maybe he was awake before they entered, because when Iain stepped into the doorway, Ethan was watching. The room smelled of sweat and sleep, and the air was stagnant.
“Iain.” Ethan threw the blankets off his body. The boy was quick, not trying to bypass Iain at the door, but rather leaped for the window on the far side of the room. But Iain was a trained soldier. He darted with one large step and grabbed Ethan’s arm with his left hand and yanked him backward, hard. Ethan collapsed over his own feet and sat kneeling on the ground, naked except for his underwear, and at the mercy of Iain Marcus.
“Iain, listen … I made a mistake.” Iain loomed over Ethan, black as night in the shadowy room. Droplets of rain fell from his jacket to form a dark circle around him on the carpeted floor. Iain noticed Ethan’s gaze jump from his eyes to the silhouette of the pistol in his gloved hand.
Ethan looked back to Iain’s face. Fear, sleep, and uncertainty, emanated from deep within Ethan’s eyes. He was sweating all over, and Iain could smell the ripe smell of fear and adrenaline wafting in the air.
Before Ethan had a chance to speak again, Iain leaned forward and pressed the palm of his left hand over Ethan’s face, covering his mouth and pushing him backward against the floor.
Ethan was making sounds like, “Hmmmpphh,” and as Iain predicted, Ethan’s hands came up to grab at his wrist, trying to pry his palm away from his airway. Iain slipped the pistol into his pocket, and when he took his hand back out, he was holding a thin syringe. He removed the plastic cap with a flick of his thumb and pointer finger and injected the needle into Ethan’s left arm, right below his bicep. He pushed the fluid into Ethan’s vein before the boy realized what was happening.
The entire motion was flawless. Ethan’s eyes went wide, and his muscles twitched and slackened. His grip on Iain’s wrist loosened, and Iain watched as the boy’s eyes fluttered upward and his eyelids shut. Ethan’s underwear darkened as he wet himself.
Iain dragged Ethan back to the bed and covered his body before he soiled himself further.
“Michael,” Iain hissed, looking into the living room where Michael remained at the window, gripping his own silenced pistol—a Sig Sauer just like Iain’s—in one hand and the duffel bag in the other. When Iain whispered, “Clear,” Michael holstered his pistol, and they both waited patiently in complete silence, listening for movement in the neighboring apartments, but there was no noise to be heard.
Then Michael opened the duffel bag, and they went to work. Iain made additional puncture wounds in Ethan’s arm, in the veins in the hollow of his elbow, and several in the webbing between his toes. They planted syringes throughout the apartment, and stuffed empty baggies laced with heroin in the coffee table drawers, and in the garbage next to his bed. One bag, half-full, was left open on the bedside table along with a twisted and burnt spoon and a used syringe.
All of this was just in case the fire did not erase things properly.
They located the shoebox Ethan kept hidden under a loose floorboard—the box stuffed to the brim with thousands of dollars in cash, paid to him by Mr. Kalispell for his work with Lucy. They emptied the cash into the duffel bag. That amount of cash would certainly raise eyebrows at the precinct if found, and Ethan’s death might be further investigated.
They used plastic spray-bottles, used for houseplants, to spray the drapes, the floor, the bedding, the cabinets, the kitchen counter, and the walls, with a thin mist of gasoline. Iain removed the batteries from the smoke detector, replacing them with duds. Michael went to the kitchen, put a frying pan on the stove, and cracked an egg inside. He lit the stove as Iain placed an empty pizza box only inches from the flame, and stacked several newspapers from Ethan’s recycling bin precariously close to the pizza box and all along the kitchen counter. They made a sort of trail of flammable materials, from the counter to the furniture, to the drapes, to Ethan’s bed, where they sprayed the carpet and mattress with gasoline, and stacked books from Ethan’s bookshelf under the bed. They were sure to only use a fine mist of gasoline, t
o lessen the risk of the fire being determined as arson.
The last thing Iain saw as they left the apartment was a dark trail of smoke emanating from the edge of the cardboard pizza box.
Walking fast down the street, Iain turned only once at the end of the block to see the faint orange glow of fire illuminating the otherwise dark windows of Ethan’s living room. He thought he could vaguely hear a fire alarm going off in one of the neighboring apartments. The fire was spreading faster than anticipated. Iain even thought he felt a rush of warm air, but that was most likely just a figment of his imagination.
The entire complex would be ablaze before the fire department in that shithole town could scramble together a truck. Still, though, the neighbors should be waking up soon and calling the police.
They quickened their pace.
Iain and Michael got back to the car just as a foghorn blared, so deep that it seemed to vibrate the thick fog in the air. They would be out of Drapery Falls before a fire truck left the station.
The story made local papers, but did not spread much further. All four apartments in the complex were destroyed. A couple on the first floor woke up when their own fire alarms began beeping and called the police once their children were outside. The husband received minor wounds attempting to rescue the elderly man who lived in the apartment across the hall. The old man died several hours later at the neighboring Twin Falls Hospital due to smoke inhalation. The fourth apartment, the one across from Ethan’s—19D—was vacant.
The police found, among the wreckage in Ethan’s apartment, two charred and half-melted spoons with their long ends twisted back, crusted with heroin residue. Two melted hypodermic needles were also found. The headlines in the papers read:
Drugs Involved in Deadly Apartment Blaze
A black and white photo underneath showed the burnt shell of the apartment building as emergency crews packed up their gear. Smoke still lingered in the air and the ground was still wet with the water that doused the flames.
Guilt never aroused in Iain. Ethan had an opportunity to make a lot of money, just like Ben. The Nano serum was still in its infancy, and Ethan began to experience serious side effects to his health after only three months of trials. Instead of working with the team to alleviate his distress, Ethan got greedy. He threatened to go public if certain demands were not met. He wanted money—a lot of money. Mr. Kalispell paid. He gave Ethan tens of thousands of dollars, but that wasn’t enough. Ethan wanted more. He wanted every penny he could squeeze out of Mr. Kalispell and Kalispell Industries—he wanted everything.
The day after Ethan received his bribe—and promised to remain silent—he made a phone call to a lawyer. When the phone-tap on Ethan’s phone registered the number as belonging to a law firm, the call was redirected to a team member who answered, ‘Law office of Marshal and Byrne. How can I help you?’ The call was then transferred to Michael Bennett, who did a fantastic job of impersonating a lawyer. Michael listened and talked to Ethan as he rambled on about the tests, the serum, the Nano, the lab, names and places—everything. He was going to expose it all, with no regret.
He had to be stopped.
Ethan made that call at 2:52 in the afternoon, and at three o’clock the following morning, Iain and Michael arrived in Drapery Falls in the fog and the rain.
Iain felt that the old man who died of smoke inhalation was just part of the risk, an unfortunate collateral death. Iain could live with himself. Innocent casualties were an unfortunate part of the job—serving the greater good.
However, Iain noticed upon reading the headlines the next day that Michael was very quiet, and as the days progressed, Michael’s demeanor grew grim.
Chapter 19
“Hello Bennie.”
“Jesus!” Ben shouted. Shards of shattered ceramic and steaming-hot coffee encircled his feet.
He closed his eyes and jerked his head, harder and harder, the blood in his veins pumping so fast he saw red around the periphery of his vision.
Wake up Ben. Wake up!
“Stop that, Ben. You look silly. You’re not sleeping. Come, sit.” She patted the seat beside her.
“Emma … Emily?” His mouth fell open. “No, no, no … what’s going on?”
“Come, Ben. Sit down.”
She was wearing that black dress with the red fabric belt in the middle that tied in the back. That dress fit her body like a glove, so snug, showing her curves just right. It rode above her knees when she sat with her legs crossed, showing just a glimpse of her cream-white thighs, and those stilettos on her feet that made her look so classy.
“Emma …” A shiver went down his spine.
He walked in a trance to the couch and sat. The air around her was fragrant of Dolce and Gabbana, Pour Femme Eau de Parfum. He found an empty bottle of that same perfume mixed in with a box of his toiletries when he moved to Baltimore. He spent countless nights removing the red rectangular cap and placing his nose to the spray nozzle, breathing in the last traces of that sweet perfume. He shattered the bottle in a fit of drunken rage one night many nights ago, and wished to God he had never done so. This was the first time he smelled the perfume since that night, and the fragrance flooded him with memories.
“Emily …”
He started to cry. She touched his hand, and a jolt, like electricity, went straight to his heart. He spent entire days, weeks, dreaming of her touch, hundreds of lucid dreams embraced in her arms, but this was different, this was real. He could feel the warmth coming off her body, feel the softness of her hands—those amazing hands of hers—those hands that created whole worlds on canvas with nothing more than a few brushes and a dozen or so different colored paints.
“I missed you, Bennie.”
“Emily, I miss you so much. Oh my god, how I’ve missed you! My Emma.” He hugged her and their embrace was long and warm. He cried a stream of tears into her shoulder as she stroked back his hair. “Now, now, Ben. Now, now.”
She straightened up, and they parted, holding hands, their legs touching at the thigh.
“We have to talk.”
“This can’t be real. I’m dreaming—I must be dreaming.” Ben closed his eyes, lowering his face into his palm, letting the tears fall through the cracks of his fingers. “This isn’t fair! This isn’t fair!”
“Ben, look at me.”
He didn’t look up.
“Look at me, Bennie. Feel my hand. Can you hear my voice?”
Ben looked at her, squinting through his tears into her clear eyes. He nodded.
“You’re not dreaming. You know you’re awake, Ben. You know this isn’t a dream. Am I wrong?”
Ben shook his head. This wasn’t a dream.
“I’m as real as you need me to be, and right now you need me to be real. I’m going to help you.”
“I don’t understand. Help me with what? Everything is finally going good for me, for the first time … since … I’m making money, Emma, good money. I’m out of the restaurant business, maybe for good. I have a … umm …”
“It’s okay, Bennie. You can tell me.”
Words wouldn’t come.
“I’m serious; you can tell me about her. I won’t be mad.”
Ben looked into her face. She was smiling, her big eyes framed by those gently bouncing curls of hair resting on her shoulders. She looked even more beautiful than he remembered, if that was at all possible. He looked at the ground.
“I … met somebody.”
“I know, Ben, and I’m happy for you.”
“Her name is Sophia. Sophia Lorenz.”
“Who is Sophia Lorenz?”
“I met her at the airport in Paris, and we’ve met up a few times. I’m so sorry. If I thought for a second that I might ever see you again—ever—I never would have—”
“I’m not mad, Ben. This isn’t a confession. Like I said, I’m here to help you. Now, who is Sophia Lorenz?”
“She’s … I met her in Paris, when she was flying out here, to Baltimore. I’m going to, w
ell, I was going to fly to Paris next week. I don’t know what you mean?”
“She doesn’t ask you why you travel so much, what you do for a living, or who your travel companions are?”
“Well—no, she’s asked a little. We’ve talked about it. I can’t tell her much.”
“Tell me, Ben, who else has met Sophia Lorenz? You’re not thinking clearly, you’re not focusing. Your mind is clouded. Think, Ben. Clear your mind. Who is Sophia Lorenz?”
“I …” He strained to understand what Emily was getting at. Who was Sophia? Did he know her in the past? Did she work for Mr. Kalispell? Should he be wary of her—could she be dangerous? He pictured them together in Rome, the two of them at dinner, and their date in Baltimore at Steaks & Capital. He saw her face, her smile, the glass of wine touch her lips. He saw it all clear as day. What was she getting at?
Emily reached out and brushed his sleep-matted hair from off his forehead.
And that was all it took.
Her touch sent a spark to his mind. A flash of white light went off in his brain and he saw it all—saw the bartender at Metro give him strange looks, and the waiter at Steaks & Capital sneer mockingly, asking if he wanted a doggie bag. He saw her glass of wine actually full at the bar, her plate not touched as they left the restaurant. He saw his arm around her as they walked drunkenly down the hallway in Rome, back to his room, passing Iain, who stared at him. He saw himself ordering every drink, every meal, paying for everything himself. He saw her empty barstool at Metro, and saw himself talking to an empty chair at Steaks & Capital. He saw his arm over nothing but air, stumbling through the hallway, drunk and alone, with Iain looking at him with tired and confused eyes. He saw himself sleeping on the plane ride back from Paris, an empty seat beside him.
The Experiment of Dreams Page 19
