“I’ve noticed that.”
James Lee clasped his fingers tightly together under the sheet so that his hands wouldn’t shake. He licked his dry lips. He swayed against the sides of the gurney as it rounded a corner. Finally the attendants arrived at the stainless-steel doors to the operating room. It opened with a loud whoosh. The gurney was wheeled forward, then parked parallel to an operating table.
“What, exactly, am I being operated on for?” James Lee asked.
“It’s just a little exploratory operation, James. We’re looking—inside you. Believe me, you won’t feel a thing.”
The antiseptic smell was strong in the operating theater, and the constant pinging sounds of medical equipment made everything a little too real. For a moment James Lee’s fear almost got the best of him. He had an impulse to say, “Forget it. I’ve changed my mind.”
Then a deep voice directly above him said, “On my count.”
He felt hands under him, two sets of strong male hands.
“One, two, three. Upsy-daisy, James.”
He was lifted easily onto the table and immediately covered with thin flannel sheets.
A nurse then swabbed a vein inside his left elbow with alcohol and pierced the skin with a needle. The IV drip began.
“You feeling okay, Mr. Lee?”
It was Dr. Kane, who always inspired supreme confidence in James. The doctor had a sculpted, muscular physique—even his hand felt hard and unyielding when he placed it on the young man’s shoulder. The face looming above him was square and tanned beneath a blond layered cut. Intelligence radiated from the clear bright blue eyes. Dr. Kane was a real winner.
“I’m fine,” said James Lee as a nurse fitted a metal helmet over his shaved head. “This really isn’t going to hurt?”
“Not at all. Your tape is sensational, by the way. The best we’ve seen yet.”
33
JAMES LEE COULDN’T BELIEVE WHAT WAS HAPPENING inside his head. Wow! This was close to perfect. Just what he had imagined. Maybe even better! He clenched and unclenched his fists and prepared himself for his debut. This was the best!
He was on the stage of the world-famous Starlight Lounge in Las Vegas. In his mind, anyway. But it felt as if he were really there.
And he was ready. Oh man, was he ready.
This was his tape! He’d been fantasizing about this exact scene for years. God, this was exactly what he’d had in mind.
Lee ran his small hands down the fitted bodice of his strapless white cocktail dress and flounced the layered organza skirt. He pressed his freshly lipsticked lips together and touched his lacquered bouffant hairstyle. Everything was so right. So real.
Suddenly, a pin light in the ceiling came on and illuminated him with a small blue light. There was the rustling sound of people shifting in their seats and ohs of surprise coming from the audience. Hundreds of pairs of eyes were trained on him.
The opening notes from the orchestra rose from the pit and spilled onto the stage—followed by a dominant seventh chord that served as the transition from the intro to the main melody.
His tape was even better than he’d imagined. Fuller and richer.
James Lee heard the gasps and the moans of the audience as the stage lights blazed. Through the smoky haze, he could see friends and family who’d come to see him perform. There was his mother smiling up at him from the front row. She’d always had faith in him. Man, he was about to prove himself to the one person who really loved him.
Lee slowly raised the mike to his mouth. Then with a breathy Astrud Gilberto voice, he began a song made famous by the incomparable Brenda Lee.
“I’m sorry, so sorry . . . that I was such a fool.”
Jesus, he sounded great, too. The audience in the Starlight Lounge was eating him up. How could they not?
“Mr. Lee? Jimmy.”
Someone was interrupting his performance. James Lee’s head snapped around. It was a friendly, authoritative voice that seemed to speak inside his head!
“Ground control to James. Mr. Lee, Mr. Lee. Oh, Mr. Lee?”
Now he remembered. This was a medical procedure. The stage show was all in his mind—just a distraction, but what a distraction. In some forgotten place, his naked body was lying on an operating table at the Hospital in Maryland.
“Yes,” James said. “I hear you, Dr. Kane. Now, please go away. You’re ruining my performance.”
“Are you comfortable?”
“Yes, thank you. I’m in heaven,” he sighed.
“Not yet, but soon,” said Dr. Ethan Kane. Then he whispered, “Okay, shuck him.”
34
DR. ETHAN KANE got to leave the Hospital early that night—at least, it was early for him. He decided to go to his “second home,” which was out in the rolling, wooded hills of Maryland, where he could have a little privacy.
Forty minutes later, as he climbed from his Mercedes at the house, he heard the dogs start to bark and it brought a rare and mischievous smile to his lips. “Jesus, they’re well-trained animals. Keep out the riffraff.”
He unlocked the front door of the large fieldstone house and went inside. The dogs continued to bark.
A tall brunette woman wearing an apron over a flowery blue dress emerged from the kitchen. She was stunningly beautiful and had the warmest, most open smile this side of Ohio. “Oh, you’re home, Ethan. I’m so happy. Your dinner will be ready at eight-thirty. The Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal are laid out in the study, as is a Johnnie Black rocks. Go relax. You’ve earned it.”
Ethan Kane never said a word to his wife, Juliette. He didn’t move to hug or kiss her. Instead, he pulled a compact black case from his pocket. It was similar to the locking device he used for the Mercedes, though considerably more complex.
Dr. Kane pressed his forefinger to one of several buttons, and Juliette stopped talking immediately, stopped moving, shut down altogether. She just stood there frozen like a department store mannequin, in the center of the foyer.
“You’re perfect, darling,” he muttered, “The completely evolved woman. What would I do without you?”
Kane then pushed another button that turned off the barking of the dogs.
He walked to the study, where he read his favorite newspapers while he sipped his scotch. Just past 8:30 he went into the kitchen and ate dinner: chicken marsala, fresh asparagus and broccoli rabe, risotto with morels, a sliver of apple crisp and cheddar cheese. All expertly prepared by Juliette.
Before he went upstairs, Dr. Kane returned to the foyer and switched on the security alarms. He then turned Juliette back on.
“Hello, sweetheart,” she said, and smiled demurely.
“Let’s go up to bed, darling,” he whispered against her ear as she lightly stroked the front of his trousers. He put one hand on a pert, nicely rounded breast, the other between her legs. What waited there for him was the perfect fit. Kane knew that for certain. He’d measured.
“I need you, Ethan,” said Juliette—and there was that dazzling smile of hers again. “You’re such a wonderful lover.”
“Carry me up to bed, darling,” he whispered.
35
LINDA SCHEIN’S WORK DESK faced a blank white wall without a single adornment. On purpose.
Her picture window afforded a stunning mountain view from her condo on Fourteenth Street near Market in Denver, but Linda couldn’t handle the distraction when she was writing. And at the moment, she was drafting the story that would both make her career and make her rich.
As she typed on her laptop, Linda heard a creaky whine somewhere in the apartment. She ignored the sound.
She was in the Zone, that rare and special creative state where time has no meaning and every word falls into place poetically and logically. The Resurrection Project story had incredible scope, with scientific and ethical and religious implications. Potentially, it was more explosive than the original exposé of the School, and even the revelation of the bird children themselves.
And
it was her story.
No one else was even close to it. At least, she hoped and prayed no one was. It was so ground-shaking she didn’t mind having lied to Max about being abused as a child. Actually, her childhood in Ridgewood, New Jersey, had been splendid.
Linda imagined her story running serially in a major newspaper, ten or twelve installments of three thousand words or so spaced over a two-week period. She would pitch it to the Washington Post, the New York Times, The Times in London. Maybe Time and Newsweek, and People. Let them fight over her. Let them pay the big bucks. And then—the Book.
Linda drained her morning’s fourth cup of coffee and blew a few pesky bangs off her forehead. She was polishing her lead, bracketing the letters TK where facts were still “to come,” and punching up the kicker.
She heard a squeak on the parquet floor in the foyer.
“Mrs. Martinez?” she called out, her housekeeper’s name. “Is that you? Hello there?”
Linda Schein felt a movement of air a fraction of a second before she felt something cold and hard at her temple. She took in a sharp breath.
Then she peeked, and almost wished she hadn’t.
Gun.
“Be quiet, Linda. Do exactly as I say,” said a man’s voice. Linda Schein soundlessly expelled the breath she’d inhaled a moment before. Her back muscles went slack.
She squelched the compulsion to cry out, or to struggle. She didn’t turn her head any more than she had to to see the gun. She hoped to God the intruder was wearing a mask because she didn’t want to see his face. She suspected that her life depended on it.
“The only money here is in my purse,” she said. “I’m not going to cause any trouble. I get the picture.”
“Well, that’s very good to hear. But I honestly don’t know if I can believe you. My name is Dr. Ethan Kane. You’re writing a story about my lifework, so I thought we should talk. Hmmm? Shall we?”
Linda Schein felt total fear shoot through her body. He had identified himself. Oh God! Oh no!
Dr. Ethan Kane.
The Resurrection Project.
“Am I supposed to know you?” she asked, pretending ignorance, trying to sidetrack him if she could.
“No, Linda. You’re not. But you do. Now, let’s talk.” He pressed the gun barrel harder against her temple. “I want to hear everything.”
Linda Schein talked and talked until she realized she was repeating herself. “That’s fine,” Dr. Kane finally said. “I believe you, Linda. You do get the picture.”
There was a muffled explosion, then an intensely bright flash behind her eyes, and everything—her thoughts, her fantasies about fame, her fears of bodily violence—came to an end. The writer never knew that a 9 mm bullet had blown through her brain at about two thousand miles per hour.
“That didn’t hurt, did it?” asked Dr. Kane. “Any more questions about my lifework? No? Well then, I guess we’re through here. Excellent interview, Linda. Brief and right to the point. So rare with journalists today.”
36
MAX WAS UP very late that night, getting absolutely nothing accomplished, futzing about in her room.
Anxious.
Uncomfortable.
Angry without reason.
Couldn’t sit still.
Could not.
Sit.
Still.
She played her electric guitar, and she was getting pretty good. “Watch out Sheryl Crow, Eric Clapton, B. B. King.”
Then she was “down with” a Tony Hawk video game—skateboarding at its best.
Max went online, played a game of cribbage with a girl from San Diego. Her screen name was UPDRAFTGURL38.
She won at cribbage.
Of course.
She wrote in her journal, her third journal since she’d been at the Marshall house.
Current Likes And Dislikes
Leather pants (all colors) *NSYNC
Buffy Chicken Soup for the TeenageSoul
Mary Karr Bag of Bones
Firestarter Reality TV
Under Rug Swept Sunday nights on CBS
Shania, Fiona, Sheryl Reporters who lie their asses off
“The pellet with the poison’s in the vessel with the pestle” Righteous reporters who think they tell the truth, but lie
Watermelon lip gloss The Mummy movies
Josiah Bartlet The way “Moms” tries too hard
The Flock Bush League, Colorado
Especially Ozymandias! Men’s professional sports
Frannie and Kit! The kids at school (most of them)
Max stopped writing her crazy, dumb, self-involved gibberish and cocked her head slightly. She heard a noise outside. Something just slightly out of sync with the other sounds of the night.
The wind?
Someone calling her name? Oz?
Come fly with me, Max.
Maybe it was time for another strictly forbidden night flight?
She picked up her cell phone, then put it down again.
She heard another noise outside.
Definitely not the wind. Something that really sucked.
Hunters!
37
ETHAN KANE PERSONALLY LED the small team of three down the leaf-strewn slope of brambles and underbrush behind the house on Ames Road, where the Marshalls lived. They all wore seamless black clothes and black ball caps; greasepaint smeared their faces. Even in moonlight, they seemed more like shadows than real men.
They had come for the two children, but the others in the house would probably have to die. They couldn’t take a chance on detection. Not with Resurrection so close.
Ethan Kane held up his hand, a signal to the others to stop. “Max and Matthew are very fast. They’re also strong, and clever. Please don’t underestimate them. In fact, don’t think of them as children,” he said in an undertone.
Kane turned and studied the Marshall house. An unimpressive, slightly depressing split-level house. Dark at midnight. Not even a television glow at a single window.
This might be easier than he’d expected. They had no logical reason to have their guard up. Kane hadn’t bothered to bring in professionals like Marco Vincenti. He felt he could trust his team tonight; he wasn’t so sure about Mr. Vincenti. He wanted the kids alive—for a while, anyway.
He had his reasons. Extraordinarily good reasons that only he understood.
He signaled again, and the others fanned out around a jungle gym, then the brick patio and fireplace in the backyard. “Just watch the house. I’ll do the work inside,” he whispered.
Dr. Ethan Kane walked directly to the mudroom door. He opened the lock with a twist and turn of a thin L-shaped pick.
Then he made his way silently through the mudroom to the kitchen, and to the stairs that led to the bedrooms.
He reached into a pocket in his jacket and took out a black case that held several syringes.
Silently, he climbed the stairs. The girl’s room was on the right, the boy’s on the left. Max and Matthew. The biological parents were in the master bedroom at the end of the hall. Terry and Art.
You talk, he said to himself, you die. Or at least you get sold to the Chinese.
Whatever the cost in human lives, Resurrection was worth it. And so were these amazing, amazing children who could fly like eagles.
He gently pushed open the door to the girl’s room. This was it. The moment of truth. As he entered the room a flashlight beam blinded him.
“What the hell?” he muttered.
“You got that right, pal.”
Almost simultaneously, someone crashed into him, taking the wind right out of Dr. Kane’s sails and nearly dislocating his shoulder.
My God, it was the girl! It was Maximum herself! Strong as a horse!
“Run, Matthew, run!” Max called out. “They’ve come for us. I knew they would.”
But the two of them didn’t run.
They flew!
Straight down the upstairs hallway and out an open window, like a pair of guided missi
les.
“Don’t shoot the little bastards!” Kane issued a fierce command. “Catch them! Don’t let them get away! Bring them back to me. Alive!”
38
“I’M REALLY FREEZING COLD,” Matthew whispered to Max a few moments later. “I’m fricking shivering. I’m mad as hell, too. What was that about? Who were they? Who are they? What’s happening to us, Max? Do I want to hear the answer to these questions?”
He and his sister were in their flannel PJs, huddled together in the top of a wobbly fir tree. They were maybe two hundred yards from the Marshall house, fifty feet off the ground. Max figured they were pretty much invisible to the searching eyes below.
“Shhhh, Matty!” She was still panting from fear, still pretty much in shock herself.
The men were inside the house. The hunters. Were the Marshalls safe from them?
Or had they been put to sleep? Please, God, don’t let that have happened. Please protect Art and Terry, Max prayed. Please, oh please. I do love them.
As she watched, a plain black panel van pulled up to the house. Her eyes followed the four men who crept from the shadows around the house. The tallest was holding his arm against his body and limping. Good, I hurt his sorry ass. Good, good, good. Shame he can still walk.
The men got into the vehicle, and it raced away. They were retreating.
“They were trying to kill us, weren’t they, Max? To put us to sleep? Those worthless bastards. Those lousy, crummy shitheads.”
“I think so, Matty. I guess they were. Okay, yeah, they were trying to kill us.”
She hugged Matthew so hard that he protested. “Hey! That hurts. Jeez, Max. You know how strong you are. First you save me from the baddies. Then you almost kill me yourself.”
“Very funny. Glad you haven’t lost your very strange sense of humor.”
Max gave him a big kiss and released her grip. Then she turned on her handheld and clicked to an Internet application. Oz was online.
Max sent him an instant message, one she hoped couldn’t be captured or traced.
The Lake House Page 8
