Carl could not believe what he’d just heard. He was so astonished, that for a moment, he couldn’t speak. How could this man, whom he’d known so long, have become such a loathsome creature? “What about me? Don’t all the years we’ve been so close mean anything to you?”
“Of course they do. That’s why I didn’t want to hear any discussion of what they’re going to do with you before closing off the mine shafts.”
“You and my father were practically brothers. How can you do this to me?”
A look of surprise crossed Irby’s face. “I thought you knew.”
“Knew what?”
“You’re one of them. You’re a construct, too.”
Chapter 50
EVERYONE IN Artisan to be killed . . . Carl a construct . . . The punches just kept coming, giving Beth no opportunity to clear her head.
Carl’s reaction to Irby telling him he was a construct was to think the man had lost his mind or had suffered some kind of brain damage that had turned him into a delusional stranger.
“About the time the first constructs were being born,” Irby said. “Celia Martin, the woman you believed to be your mother, had a miscarriage of the child she had conceived with Robert. Both were so distraught I badly wanted to do something for them. You had a remarkable resemblance to Robert, so I thought you could fill the void left in their lives by the child they lost.”
Carl’s mind went back to the documents in the metal box at the burned cabin. All the constructs had been sent to one of the three facilities in Puerto Rico, except in a single case, where the destination had been Little Rock. Good God. That was him. But if that were true . . . “Everyone in Artisan has blistered red cells. How come I don’t?”
“It’s a side effect of the free radical scavenger they’ve all been given.”
Of course. In retrospect that had to be the explanation. If Carl hadn’t been so shocked by the circumstances of his own birth, and had thought about a moment, he would have seen that.
He now understood as he hadn’t before, how Beth felt when she first realized she was a construct. All his life had been a lie. His mother, his father, he wasn’t related to them.
But then the part of him that had comforted Beth in her moment of discovery asserted itself. Celia and Robert Martin had loved him and taken care of him. That’s what mattered. Not where and how he’d been conceived. And even if he hadn’t had them, his life would still have value. To believe otherwise would be to accept the warped reasoning that allowed Jaeger and Irby to treat the others as lab animals. But his father, Robert, hadn’t been a construct.
“Were you responsible for my father’s death?”
“The directive came from higher up.”
“But you let it happen.”
“I lost a lot of sleep over that. I still do.”
“When they investigate what you’ve done in Artisan, they’ll discover the mines. They’ll tunnel through the caved-in sections and find us. They’ll figure it all out. And you’ll be in worse trouble than you are now.”
“There’ll be no reason to dig. And even if the idea does occur to someone, you’ll be so deeply hidden, it would take a major commitment of resources to get through the rubble. With only idle curiosity driving such an exploration, it just won’t happen, especially in a poor state like Arkansas.”
“They’ll do autopsies and see that everyone in Artisan had abnormal red cells.”
“Which will lead nowhere. It’ll just be an unsolved mystery.” Irby cut his eyes away from Carl to Echols. “Now get moving.” He looked at Meggs. “Let him drive the truck. You take their car and leave it somewhere. Grab a couple of those gloves before you get anywhere near it.”
“Frank, my father loved you,” Carl said. “So did I. And I know you loved us. This is not that man. This is not the man who cared so much for my parents he wanted to replace the child they’d lost. This is not the man who sat with my mother all night in the hospital when my father had his heart attack. Or the one that taught me to ride a horse and rappel down a cliff. Why would you do that for someone who was nothing but a construct?
“I’ll tell you why . . . Because you know in your heart that’s just some convenient dehumanizing crap to justify what you’ve done to Beth and those people in Artisan. Frank, you’re a better man than that. I know you are.”
A bit of the granite left Irby’s eyes. “No Carl, I’m just what you see tonight.”
MEGGS WATCHED Echols drop Carl onto the floor of the Ryder truck they’d driven to Irby’s home. Beth was already there, two turns of duct tape around her head so it covered her mouth. Echols tied Carl to the wooden rails along the side wall as he had Beth, then reached down for the tape.
“Hold on a minute,” Meggs said to Echols. “I want to ask him something.”
“Do it quickly.”
Meggs moved over to where Carl sat. “I found Hollenbeck’s PDA in your car. How did you know he was involved?”
Carl didn’t want to tell him anything, but there was something he needed to know, too. “I’ll answer if you tell me why my father was killed.”
Meggs hesitated, then said, “You still think of him as your father even after what Irby told you?” He nodded slowly. “I guess you would, considering he raised you. All right, you want to know . . .
“Hollenbeck arrived drunk at a Sigma Xi dinner your father attended. The lecturer that night spoke about the historical development of in vitro fertilization and embryo freezing. As you discovered, Hollenbeck led the world on those techniques and was at least five years ahead of anyone else. But because of his work for Jaeger, who was funding him, they didn’t want him drawing attention to himself by letting the world know what he could do.
“By the time Jaeger let him go public, others had caught up. That night at Sigma Xi, he became angry at not being given his proper place in the history of the field. He approached your father and began a drunken tirade, dropping thinly veiled references to Artisan and the origins of your birth.”
“So my father wasn’t part of it.”
“No. He never knew where you really came from. He was just told that a young girl had decided to give up her baby and it needed a home. I pulled Hollenbeck away from him, but it was clear that Hollenbeck could no longer be trusted.”
“And he needed to have an accident.”
Meggs shrugged.
“And my father?”
“We felt Hollenbeck had told your father too much. There was concern he might put it all together. Now . . . my question.”
“Go to hell.”
“We had a deal.”
“I changed my mind.”
“I can get him to change it back,” Echols said.
“Forget it.” Meggs looked hard at Carl. “With what time you have left, think about how what’s about to happen in Artisan tomorrow morning is in large measure your fault. If you’d never driven up there and been so curious, the people at Jaeger wouldn’t have ordered the project terminated, and tomorrow in Artisan would be just like any other Sunday. It’s ironic really . . . there was hope you would be the salvation of everyone there, but now, you’ve become their executioner.” He turned to Echols. “Let’s just get this all over with.”
MEGGS DUMPED CARL’S rental car in a parking lot that served a small apartment building four miles from Irby’s home. In that location, it could be weeks before anyone checked on it. He then hurried back to the truck and got in.
“I’m certainly not looking forward to anything about the next twelve hours,” Meggs said, settling into his seat and pulling off his rubber gloves.
“Why do you say that?” Echols replied, putting the truck in gear.
“What you’re about to do doesn’t bother you?”
“If you bleed for everybody, there’s nothing left for those close to you.”
That made Meggs think. His dog was all he had. Uncomfortable with this sudden portal onto his life, he closed it. “You aren’t going to need my help with this hacker, are you?”
“I can handle him. But you’re the one who’s going to load up everything we’re taking.”
SALVATION. THERE WAS hope you would be the salvation of everyone there.
Despite the dire position Carl and Beth were in and the need to focus on finding a way out, Carl couldn’t help running Meggs’s final remark to him over and over in his head. What did he mean? Was he just trying to get back at him in some way for refusing to answer that question about Hollenbeck? Or was there something else going on here he hadn’t figured out?
Chapter 51
“CAN THEY HEAR us in the back?” Meggs asked Echols as they headed to pick up The Worm.
“What difference does it make?”
“Just doesn’t seem like a good idea to say too much in front of them.”
“Between all they’ve learned on their own and what we said back there when we caught them, what’s left?”
“Details of the events tomorrow morning.”
“They can’t hear.”
“You sure?”
“If you’ve got something to say, do it. Otherwise, sit back and save your energy for all the things you’ll soon be carrying to the truck.”
“Whose idea was it to sacrifice Hanson?”
“Not for you to know.”
“Have you considered that when Hanson realizes something is wrong, he’ll just run from the church?”
“Doors will be locked.”
“He has a master key. He’ll unlock them.”
“It’ll all be taken care of.”
Meggs sat quietly for a moment, working up the courage to ask the other question gnawing at him. Finally, staring at the road in front of them, he said, “What about me? Is there a bullet at the end of this for me?”
“It’s a natural concern isn’t it?” Echols said. “We turn on Hanson, why wouldn’t we do the same to you?” He fell silent, and Meggs thought that might be the only answer he’d get. But then Echols glanced at him and said, “Hanson was forced into participating. You did so voluntarily.”
“And that makes a difference?”
“Of course. And you’re the obvious choice to alert the local constabulary that something is wrong in the town, Monday morning. You come into work, there’s no one at the gate, no signs of life. You report it. Upon questioning, you say you were afraid of something like this happening, that you saw over the last few months how Hanson was growing mentally unstable. You weren’t told any of this?”
“Just wanted to hear your thoughts on it.”
CARL AND BETH weren’t blindfolded, but the interior of the truck was so dark they couldn’t even see each other, though they were no more than three feet apart. The truck had stopped once, and they’d heard one of the doors slam. Carl had thought they might have reached The Worm’s home, but then, whoever had gotten out, returned, and they again started moving.
After a while the truck came to another stop and the engine was turned off. Carl felt a slight rocking motion that indicated someone was getting out. He listened for a door slam, but heard nothing. This convinced him Echols was about to make his move.
Time passed like seasons turning. The only sounds came from the occasional scuffling as Carl and Beth tried to adjust their positions to ease the aches arising from their enforced quiescence.
The rear door of the truck suddenly flew open, allowing in a faint aura of diffused light. A heavy object thudded onto the floor. As Carl’s hopes for The Worm’s escape evaporated, a dark figure that was presumably Echols, climbed into the truck and dragged the object to the opposite wall.
Echols returned to the doors and closed them, remaining inside. A cone of illumination appeared from a small penlight in Echols’s mouth. With his hands free, he went to The Worm and tied him against the side rails.
In the dim light, Carl could see that The Worm’s hands and feet were already bound and he had duct tape over his mouth. His lids were closed, yet fluttering, so that Carl supposed he was conscious but just protecting his sensitive eyes against the penlight hovering over him.
Carl wanted so badly to apologize and explain the circumstances of his perfidy. But he could do nothing except sit there and watch it all happen.
Echols finished and left the truck, closing the doors behind him. In the dark, Carl could hear The Worm breathing hard.
Again, time passed at glacial speed. Then the doors opened and a small object was thrust inside, probably one of The Worm’s computers. There followed many openings and closings as other objects were shoved in. Finally, Carl heard the engine start and the truck began moving.
The final stage of their journey had begun.
Chapter 52
LIGHT STREAMED into the open door of the truck, blinding the dark-adapted eyes of the occupants tied up inside.
“Get them out of there,” Echols’s voice said.
There were scraping noises, then the truck began to rock on its springs as someone climbed in.
Through slitted eyes, Carl saw a pair of legs approach Beth. He looked up into the face of the guy she’d slammed into the wall when they’d escaped from Artisan after stealing the urns.
“Welcome back, asswipe,” the man said, returning Carl’s stare. He reached in his pocket and took out an automatic. He leaned across Beth and shoved the muzzle into Carl’s left eye. “How’d you like a cold one in your brain right now?”
It was probably a good thing Carl was gagged. If he wasn’t, he might have asked the guy how it felt to be knocked senseless by a woman. And that surely would have been a tad unlikely to defuse the situation.
“Stop harassing him,” Echols ordered from just outside the open door. “And give me the girl.”
Clenching his jaw and raising his lips to show a set of teeth the color of an old coffee mug, the guy put his gun away and turned to Beth. In a few seconds, after he’d untied her from the side rails, he yanked her to her feet and dragged her through a cleared path between The Worm’s computer equipment and clothing to where Echols waited. He handed her down and came back for Carl.
While working on Carl’s ropes, the guy let his bony knee rest on Carl’s chest, so it practically carved his initials in Carl’s sternum. When the guy had him free of the side rails, he gave Carl a last sharp thrust with his knee, then hauled him to his feet. At the doors, Carl was lowered onto the shoulder of a tall man he didn’t recognize.
Draped over the tall guy’s shoulder like a sack of manure, Carl couldn’t see anything but the guy’s loafers and the cement floor under them. Beth’s legs came into the periphery of his visual field. At nearly the same instant, he was spun off the guy’s shoulder and dropped hard onto his butt beside her.
Carl could now see they were in the mine parking area below the parsonage. The floor around the truck was soaked from water dripping off its chassis and wheels, validating his belief the drumming noise they’d heard on the truck roof for the last few miles had been rain.
They seemed to be up against five men: the one in the truck, the one who’d just dropped him, Meggs and Echols, and a guy with sandy hair and soft laugh lines around his eyes. This one walked over and sank into a crouch in front of Beth.
“Beth, why did you leave us?” he said. “This didn’t have to happen. You brought it on yourself. How many times did I tell you all that you must not mix with outsiders?”
From the way he was speaking, Carl concluded this must be Father Hanson.
As would be expected, Beth was incensed to have Hanson chide her, acting as though he was blameless, that he cared for their welfare. The hypocrisy. Behind her duct tape gag, she screamed, “Liar. You’re despicable and disgusting.”
But all anyone heard were angry grunts.
The tall one returned and dumped The Worm next to Carl, but Carl was so busy watching Beth he didn’t notice.
“Get away from her,” Echols said to Hanson. “You’re upsetting her.”
Hanson stood and gave Echols a hard look. “Who do you think you’re talking to? I’m second in charge here. And you’re not first.”
Echols strolled over and put his face an inch from Hanson’s nose, “Don’t you have a sermon to give in the morning?”
“Yes.”
“Go upstairs then and make sure you’re ready to give it.”
“I am ready.”
“No, you need to go over it one more time. Don’t you?”
Hanson hesitated, and Echols leaned closer, his eyes locked on those of the shorter man. “Don’t you . . .”
“Guess I could look at it again,” Hanson said feebly, breaking eye contact. He turned and headed for the steps to the parsonage.
Afraid he’d gone too far, Echols called after him, “I’ll be gone in the morning. Then everything will be as it was.”
This seemed to Carl a very odd thing for Echols to say, considering what was going to happen in the morning. Unless Hanson didn’t know anything about the coming horror. Noticing The Worm beside him, Carl glanced at the man’s face to see how he was taking all this. He seemed to be conscious, but his eyes were shut. And his face and neck looked very swollen.
“What are we supposed to do with these three?” Mead asked Echols.
“Make sure they’re never found,” Echols replied. “Which means you get to guide us to the most remote section of mineshaft down here, one that has a lot of methane seepage.”
“I know just the place. But we’ll need flashlights.”
“So get us three of them.”
Echols turned to face the captives on the floor. He pulled a large switchblade from his pocket and flicked the blade open. “I’m going to free your legs. Then we’re all going to take a walk. Trouble from any of you, and I’ll cut your throat where you stand. Cooperate, and I’ll make sure your death is quick and clean.”
The Blood Betrayal Page 26
