the Miracle Strain (aka The Messiah Code) (1997)

by Cordy, Michael

  The first shock had no effect; the line on her ECG stayed flat.

  Tom waited while the paddles were recharged, then again applied them to Holly's chest. Her whole body convulsed and for a second he imagined he saw the line spike, but he was mistaken. It remained flat.

  The third shock. Nothing.

  Then the fourth.

  To Tom, the battle to bring her back seemed to last an epic amount of time, but in reality it was over in ninety-two seconds. At exactly 11:09 A. M. it became to clear to everyone around the operating table, that nothing more could be done.

  Holly Carter was dead.

  Two things happened to Tom then. The first was that he heard an awful wailing cry like that of a wounded animal, and for many seconds didn't realize that the cry was his own. The second was a revelation, so sudden and so obvious that it made him cry out again.

  Before anyone could console him, he shouted, "Don't touch anything!" and ran from the operating room. Ignoring Jasmine, Alex, and Jack waiting outside, he sprinted as fast as he could in the direction of the Crick Laboratory.

  When a body dies it does so in stages. Naturally, when the heartstops pumping blood or the lungs stop taking in oxygen or thebrain ceases to function, then to all intents and purposes the bodyis clinically dead. But a body is a collection of cells, and not allcells die at once...

  Tom Carter ignored the busy elevators and rushed to the stairs. Running up them as fast as his injured leg allowed, he jerked open the door to the second floor, pushed past one of his virologists entering the Mendel Laboratory Suite, and ran across the expanse of the main lab. Oblivious to the looks from some of the scientists bent over their work, he pushed his palm into the scanner of the secure door leading to the Crick Laboratory, willing it to open.

  As soon as it hissed and slid to one side, he raced across the empty lab to the refrigerated cabinet, which contained the thirteen vials of Trinity serum. Clawing open the cabinet, he reached in and pulled out one of the glass vials. He opened the drawer below the adjacent workbench, and scrambled around for a syringe. Ripping off the sterile wrapper he thrust the needle into the vial and filled the hypodermic with virtually all the contents. Tapping the syringe, he pushed the plunger to release any air bubbles. He pulled up his left sleeve, twisted it like a tourniquet to raise one of the veins in his forearm, then thrust the needle into his arm and depressed the plunger.

  When Jasmine led Jack and Alex into the operating room she had no more idea than the rest of them where Tom had gone. She had considered going after him until Alex had held her back, telling her that Tom would want to be alone.

  Karl Lambert looked pale, as did the rest of the operating team. He made a halfhearted gesture to keep them out of the operating room, but didn't press it. He tidied up Holly's keyhole incision and covered the top of her head with a green surgical cloth.

  When Jasmine looked down at her goddaughter, Holly's eyes were closed as if in sleep and she looked strangely peaceful. Jasmine had a strong urge to touch her and prod her into life.

  Jasmine didn't touch her, though. She didn't cry either, although she felt the same cold sadness in her heart that visited her when both her brother and Olivia had died. She didn't even cry when she saw the grief in Alex's face. Only when she saw the single tear leak from Jack Nichols's left eye and follow the arc of his scar down to his mouth, did she weep. Seeing the tough ex-FBI man shed that one tear brought home to her the whole tragedy of what had happened.

  The sudden noise startled them all. Tom didn't so much push open the swinging doors as slam them open: a gale blowing in from a hurricane. The left sleeve of his green gown was rolled up and his eyes were fever bright. Oblivious to them all he strode to the table and stared down at his daughter. For a moment Jasmine saw the fever leave his eyes and a look of infinite tenderness soften his gaze; then he leaned down and put his arms around Holly as if to lift her from her bed. But he didn't lift her; he crouched over the table and hugged his dead daughter close to him.

  Jasmine couldn't see Tom's face because he was looking down, but Holly's pale visage was clearly visible over his shoulder. The same shoulder that now began to shake as he clutched his daughter still tighter to him.

  Alex Carter placed a consoling hand on his son's back, but as soon as his fingers touched Tom he jerked his hand away, as if he had touched a hot stove. However, as he turned, his face showed no pain, only puzzled shock.

  Then Jasmine saw something that would stay with her for the rest of her life. It happened so fast that at first she wasn't sure she'd really seen it, or if she had, whether it even meant anything.

  Holly blinked.

  Jasmine looked around at the others, checking to see if they'd witnessed it too. But Jack and the doctors had turned away, leaving Tom to his grief. Even Alex was looking down, wrapped up in his own thoughts. No one could see Holly's face except her.

  Then Holly's eyes opened.

  Jasmine was either going mad or something very weird was going on. She looked around her again, trying to control her breathing and get her disobedient mouth to speak. Still the others stood in silent grief, paying no attention.

  Then Holly smiled sleepily at her and said, "Can I have a glass of water please, Jazz?"

  And Jasmine did what she had never done before in her entire life.

  She fainted.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight.

  Four days later, Massachusetts State Penitentiary

  Maria ate her last breakfast in good spirits. Despite the fact that her execution was scheduled for midnight, she couldn't remember feeling more exhilarated or alive. The eggs tasted as if they had been prepared by the finest French chef, and the milk was fresher and colder than any she'd drunk. Her every sense was so heightened that even the most mundane experience gave her the childish joy of fresh discovery. The blue of her prison fatigues suddenly had a cornflower purity to it that made her wish she had worn clothing of this color before. And the new holding cell she had been put in prior to the execution was a wondrous distraction. She had amused herself most of yesterday afternoon just itemizing every subtle but discernible difference between this cell and her previous one. Still, what brought her the most joy and comfort was the simple but awesome power she knew resided in every cell of her body.

  She was the chosen one. She knew that now and accepted it. She had been bathed in the gene pool of God, and had mastery over life and death. No longer was there anything to fear from anybody or anything. She could still give herself an electric thrill just remembering her meeting with Father Ezekiel. When she'd touched his hand and cured his ulcer she had felt the energy---thepower--flow from her body into his. The exhaustion that followed was nothing compared to the exhilaration of knowing that her power remained undimmed from those half-remembered childhood days.

  She had found her meeting with Dr. Carter equally satisfying. She had always gained a righteous thrill from performing the kills. There was something primal and pure about taking a life, but none of her executions, not even the most exhilarating faceto-face encounters, had come close to the rush she'd experienced turning down Dr. Carter's request. She had discovered that to kill is one thing but to deny life is something else entirely. It was a virtual kill. To have the power to give life, and then to choose not to use it was like nothing she had experienced before. It felt like... Like... Like she was a god.

  She heard the now familiar click-clack of the guards' heels coming down the corridor. Her spiritual adviser had arrived for his final visit.

  Nine minutes later in the interview room she was looking at Father Ezekiel's tired, but excited face. "Is everything arranged?" she asked. He nodded. "As your spiritual adviser I will attend your execution along with the witnesses and the warden. Our contacts in the Brotherhood have ensured that the relevant personnel will be on duty to do what is necessary." A pause. "Are you still sure it will work?"

  Maria found Ezekiel's concern touching. "Have faith, my Father."

  "I do have faith in you, my ch
ild, but I'm scared that after waiting this long..." His voice trailed off. "It's just that I would have preferred a more... Conventional rescue."

  "But can you think of a better way to ensure no one doubts who I am? This way I will be able to prove I am truly the chosen one."

  Ezekiel gave a reluctant shrug and played with his ruby ring. "I suppose you are right."

  "I know I am. Will Dr. Carter be at the execution?" The less Dr. Carter could connect her to the Father the better.

  "I don't think so," said Ezekiel De La Croix. "Only two relatives of the unrighteous slain have asked to attend, and the scientist is not among them. He is too busy attending to his dying daughter. But if he does come it need not jeopardize the plan. He probably knows that I am your spiritual adviser, but assumes I only met you after discovering you possessed the genes. After all, it is only right that after a wait of two thousand years I should be with the New Messiah during her final days."

  She nodded at this. He was probably right.

  The Father rose from his chair. "I should go now and check that all the preparations are in place...." He hesitated for a moment, playing nervously with the ring on his finger, suddenly reluctant to leave. "And I may be too busy speak to you again before the execution..." His usually impassive face was suddenly an open canvas of intense emotions. She saw sorrow, regret, hope, fear, and love--yes, love for her--color the contours of that ancient face like cloud shadows rolling across a landscape. He walked around the table and stood over her. This time he didn't kneel in front of her, but bent and embraced her. Then he did something which so surprised and touched her that it brought tears to her eyes--he kissed her left cheek.

  She wished she could return the tenderness of that embrace, but the manacles denied her. Blinking back disobedient tears, she heard him whisper in her ear: "My child, I am so glad I found you in time." Then before she could say anything in reply he quickly straightened up, his face again void of all emotion. "I will go now."

  He walked to the door and pressed the buzzer. "May you be saved," he said, by way of farewell.

  A thin smile creased her stinging eyes. "So I may save the righteous, and punish the ungodly."

  When the guards opened the door the Father waited while they unfastened her manacles from the table and led her to the door. Then he gave her a small smile and walked out.

  In the corridor of white tiles she turned to her left, to the door that led to the death row visitor reception area, and the already bright sunlight of the world outside. Normally the guards quickly hustled her to the right, back down the long corridor past the execution chamber to her cell. But for some reason today they stopped and let her stand there watching Father Ezekiel's stooped frame walk away from her, down that white tunnel to the light.

  She was about to turn away of her own accord when she saw his shoulders stiffen, and his feet halt their busy steps. At first she thought he was going to turn back and say something to her, but instead he looked up through the reinforced glass screen that made up the top half of the door to the visitor reception area. The door opened and a tall figure stood there. She was only fifteen yards away but there was so much light streaming in from outside that she couldn't see who it was. Then the figure stooped and shook the Father's hand. She watched as the Father talked to the person silhouetted against the light. Ezekiel seemed awkward and anxious to leave, but he talked for a good few minutes before eventually nodding his head, shaking the person's hand again, and moving past the silhouette to the dazzling sunlight beyond.

  The guards made no move to hurry her along. When the door closed on the Father's departing back, blocking out some of the light, she identified the figure. Dr. Carter. He had plainly come to visit her and she found this strangely annoying. She wanted to see him when she was out of here, when she could make him pay for all he had done, not now when she wasn't ready. But there was also a part of her that relished the prospect of goading him.

  She waited for him to approach her, but he stood there, fifteen yards away, toying with a piece of folded paper in his left hand. He looked radically altered somehow, a different person from the man who had visited her only eleven days ago. He was dressed casually in faded jeans and a blue polo shirt, but it wasn't the clothes that accounted for the change. Then he smiled at her and she knew what it was. The smile wasn't particularly arrogant, just confident. It made him look younger, even boyishly handsome. The difference, she realized now, was that he was happy, and she found this realization oddly unnerving. It certainly wasn't what she was expecting.

  She watched him turn back to the door and ask the guard behind to open it. Again the flood of light burst in, and when the door reclosed she saw another shorter figure standing with Dr. Carter, shorter even than Father Ezekiel. It was a girl wearing a red baseball cap. The child was holding the scientist's hand, but it was only when the girl waved at her as she had in the photograph that Maria recognized her as his daughter, the terminally ill Holly Carter.

  Maria didn't understand. The girl should be near death, dead even. But apart from the absence of hair beneath her cap she looked healthy---vibrantly healthy.

  What trick was this? What had happened?

  Before Maria could reorientate herself the door opened again, letting in the blinding light, and the girl disappeared. It was only now that Dr. Carter began to walk toward her. As if on cue, the guards marched her back into the interview room and fastened her manacles to the table.

  When Tom Carter entered the room and sat opposite Maria Benariac he felt no hatred. She was doomed to die whereas Holly had been saved. This was more than enough for him. The person he felt most sorry for was old Ezekiel De La Croix, and seeing his stooped frame moments ago had only increased his sympathy for the man. He imagined searching his whole life for someone, only to find them on death row, on the brink of being taken away forever.

  Tom had come today because he couldn't bear the thought of Maria dying with the belief that she had succeeded. He needed her to know that ultimately her homicidal fanaticism and vindictive spite had been futile. He also wanted to tell her about the genes--the wonderful genes that had saved his daughter.

  He recalled the last time he had sat in this chair, and could still summon up the metallic taste of fear and anger in his mouth. But this time he had nothing to fear from Maria Benariac. He sat back in his chair, toyed with the piece of paper in his hand and waited.

  "What happened to your daughter?" she asked moments later.

  "She died," he replied.

  "But I saw..."

  Tom nodded. "Yes. You saw Holly."

  "But I don't understand. You said she was dead."

  "She was. But she isn't anymore."

  He could see the shock in Maria's face.

  "How?" she asked.

  "I used the genes."

  "You used the genes? My genes?"

  "No, I used the original ones. The ones from Christ. But I could have used yours."

  Maria Benariac's guard was down now and her face displayed a strange blend of emotions. He could see anger and outrage that he had succeeded with Cana. But he also saw something else in her eyes: excitement.

  "But how did you use them?" she asked.

  Tom unfolded the piece of paper he had been toying with. The handwriting was clearly legible. "Well, there's something about the way they work that I think you'll find interesting." He leaned across the table with the scrap and Maria automatically turned her manacled hands palms upward as if holding a begging bowl. When he laid the piece of paper in her hands he noticed a cross-shaped scar on the pale skin of her right forearm. It was clearly an old scar, but the deep jagged quality of the cut informed his surgeon's eye that it had been made by the blade of a large knife, or dagger, not a precise instrument. His natural curiosity made him want to ask her about it, but when he considered her violent past he thought better of it.

  Instead he waited for her to read the message on the paper. "I didn't write it in blood, I'm afraid. But I thought the Prea
cher might appreciate a little quote from the Bible. Do you know where it's from?"

  "Of course," she scoffed without a moment's hesitation. "Acts, chapter 20, verse 35."

  He smiled to himself. "Yes, I thought you would. It's one of the Christian teachings I admire most."

  She shrugged her shoulders in frustration. "But I still don't understand. What's this got to do with how the genes work?"

  Refusing to be hurried he leaned farther back in his chair, trying to find the right words. And at that moment he saw the depth of hatred in her eyes.

  "You think you've won. Don't you?" she said, clearly believing he hadn't. Even at this late hour she was trying to pretend she had one last trick up her sleeve.

  He shook his head sadly, remembering Olivia, Bob Cooke, and Nora Lutz, and all the others who had died. "I don't feel like I've won. Not against you anyway, because I was never really fighting against you. Your war may have been against me and mine, but my war was with other killers--killers far more deadly than you."

  Maria clenched her jaw so hard he could see the muscles tensing on each side of her face.

  "Tell me what the message has got to do with the genes," she demanded again, stabbing the piece of paper with her finger. "Tell me what it's got to do with my genes."