CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Facility 23. That moment.
Loraine sat alone in the cafeteria, drinking coffee. She was aware that the two guards who'd escorted her were still leaning against the wall behind her, weapons cradled in their arms. Bored but watching.
She had finally slept a bit after the facility nurse had given her a sleeping pill. The nightmares had been persistent. But she felt better now than she had last night. The feeling of having been mentally violated was receding, though she still felt a dull ache, right through her.
She'd been trained for tough interrogations; she'd been trained to withstand torture, to think of it as an accident, like breaking your leg; to not get emotionally identified with it. She was trained to deal with it as much as anyone could be.
But when Loraine thought of that eye-tipped tendril, jabbing into her forehead...
Her stomach curled up inside her like a child shrinking away from a beating.
She heard footsteps behind her and froze, afraid it was Forsythe again. After a moment she smelled an aftershave she recognized, a honeysuckle smell, and she relaxed a little. “Dr. Helman.”
“Loraine, would you come with me, please? Oh, and—gentlemen, you may stand down.”
She turned and saw that, beyond Helman, the two black berets were approaching—the two who'd escorted the women into that courtyard.
“Sir,” the scowling one said, “General Forsythe—”
“No need for you to come along, Corporal.” Helman was trying to sound commanding but his voice was a bit shrill, his hands trembling. He seemed to realize this and put his hands too casually into his coat pockets. The coat was rumpled, as if he hadn't changed out of it, and dark smudges were under his eyes. “You may check with the general if you like. But it seems pointless—I've had full authority here all this time.”
The guards stared, but didn't try to stop them when Loraine followed Dr. Helman out of the cafeteria. She and Helman walked in silence down the hall—toward Building 4, Containment. Was he going to lock her up?
“You look as if you had as rough a night as I did,” she said. Trying to remind him that they were** caught up in CCA together.
“Certain things...” His voice was almost a whisper. He looked over his shoulder before he went on. “Certain things have come to my attention. I'm a bit alarmed. I'm afraid we may be in danger of... digressing from our real purpose, here. We've just lost two containees. And the manner in which...” He broke off, shaking his head. “You'll see.”
They passed through a metal door, overseen by a whirring camera, into Building 4. A yawning black-haired woman, a medic, was chatting with two black berets at the administration desk. “No need, no need,” Helman said, waving them away impatiently, when one of them started toward him.
He led Loraine down a side corridor, to a door marked 17-B3. He took a small device like an automatic car-door opener from his pocket, pointed it at the lock, and the door clicked, stood slightly open. Immediately, Loraine caught the familiar smell of a dead body, from inside.
He held the door open. “An unpleasant sight, I'm afraid.”
She stepped into the room...and found Conrad Pflug, Scribbler, sitting on his bunk, his back against the wall in the corner. And quite dead.
His arms were limp, palms turned upward, wrists messily torn open. A red-ink pen was still stuck halfway into the wound of his left arm—he'd used it to gouge open his veins, with such force she could see torn tendons. Scribbler's bulging, unblinking eyes stared into hers. The smell of death was in the room, sweet and ugly.
Loraine felt sick with sadness, looking at him.
“I haven't shown this to anyone else,” Helman said dully. “I have my reasons.” He sighed. “Conrad was already quite agitated. Threatening suicide. Really could not bear confinement here. Then Forsythe went in to interrogate him. I believe the general used the same methods on you. And...well, this is the result. You were stronger than Scribbler. What I really wanted to show you was this—on the wall here.”
Lines were written at a steep angle down the wall in shaky, thin, red ballpoint ink...mixed with something else.
“I gave him the red pen...and some paper. Hoping he might prophesy for us. He chose to write ow the walls...in his own blood, as he was dying.”
Most of the lines were illegible. All she could make out clearly was the door stands cracked, chain still holds. Hand in a puppet reaches through. Helman obsolete. Outliving his usefulness. When he dies, the President taken puppeteer has two hands... the Wilderness howls... CCA is a wasp nest in the walls... Sean Bleak and Forsythe will...
There was one more line—but she couldn't quite read it. Was it tear down the wall?
“It sounds...like you might be at risk, Doctor,” Loraine said. Thinking, through her distress, that this might be a chance to forge an alliance with Helman.
“Without doubt.” Helman's voice seemed slightly bleary, as if he'd been drinking. “Gulcher warned me too. And...there have been other indications. I had a session with Krasnoff this morning— he tried to warn me. Said he sawthings. Warned me about Forsythe. Krasnoff said a curious thing— that he was warning me because he didn't hate the USA! Come along.”
She was grateful to leave the cell. It reeked of death.
Helman relocked it, and they went three doors down. She walked along, still feeling sick. Remembering when she'd massaged Scribbler's hand. What a vulnerable little man he'd seemed. Eager to be of use. But most of the time simply wanting to be left alone...and he ended up here, tearing at his wrists with a red pen.
Dr. Helman opened room 20-B3. Krasnoff was lying in a fetal position, in a puddle of blood on the floor. His wrists had been raggedly ripped open—the ends of bedsprings had been used. It must have taken a while.
“Oh, God,” she muttered, her gorge rising.
“Nothing else to see in there,” Helman murmured sadly, closing the door. “I'm told Forsythe took Billy Blunt in there, just after I left. I believe he induced Krasnoff to kill himself. Because he was aware that Krasnoff had warned me about what Forsythe had become...didn't want him talking to anyone else.”
“Are there others killed this way?” Loraine asked, feeling shaky.
“Not that I know of. But come along.”
They left Building 4, and passed through a windowless passage between buildings. In Building 3p he opened another door for her, Room 32, and escorted her inside.
The medium-small room was barren of furniture. Intricate magical symbols, geometric and calligraphic sigils, marked the gray-painted walls, ceiling, and floor, in black, red, and silver.
Helman looked broodingly around. “This was Forsythe's project—this room. He spent years researching the symbols, the rituals. He went far outside our protocols to do it. He decided that to really get control of the country, we needed access to the most powerful entities in the Hidden. We could learn to control them...perhaps through ShadowComm.”
Looking around at the symbols on the walls, the floor, Loraine felt a distinct inner pinching. What had happened here? She remembered the experiment notations Helman had shown her on the transport plane.
“I knew Forsythe 'when,'“ Helman went on, chuckling, tracing one of the diagrams on the wall with an index finger. “His uncle Seymour had run MK Omega's remote-viewing project. Patriot Act surveillance turned up more and more evidence of the Shadow Community—I was working in Special Interrogations for the CIA and came upon the ShadowComm files. It was data collected by an earlier paranormal-control program—the beginnings of CCA, though it was called something different then. They'd found Gabriel Bleak's family—and the boy they took to a special Remote Viewer facility. Sean Bleak. And what incredible potential there was in those files! We imagined what real control of magic could do for this country...especially in protecting us from terrorism. I took it to Forsythe, and together we pitched CCA to the Pentagon's Domestic Defense branch, and we got a pretty decent budget...And after the terrorist attack on Miami our budget doubled.”
Helman seemed to be trying to understand, himself, how he'd come to this. “And when we found the artifact in the north—oh, my dear, it presented intriguing possibilities. We could have the power of magic—but restrict it so no one else had it. I thought it might be best done electronically—give selected ShadowComm recruits a device that electronically sheltered them from the artifact. Forsythe had another plan—the specialized use of Unconventionally Bodied allies. A plan which I'm only just beginning to grasp fully. I thought! understood it.” He shook his head. “I was for it when you and I had that little conference, where you met Sean, but...ah, well.”
Helman walked to the center of the room, squatted by a pentagram etched in silver on the floor, touching the lines wonderingly with the tips of his fingers. “Some of the Joint Chiefs argued for just repairing the artifact and reburying it. Those two thorns in our side, Erlich and Swanson, kept at us. But Forsythe had the ear of the president. Forsythe knew Breslin was headed for disaster, next election. So Forsythe suggested that the president might not have to have another election. And Breslin agreed. He made some deals, tripled our budget, gave us new access. Time to give the country a new direction.”
“Not just a temporary suspension of elections? President-for-life?”
“Yes. His philosophy of governance was ours. Strict social control. But without military backing, president-for-life can't be done. They're an authoritarian bunch at the Pentagon—but most of them are quite sentimental about our so-called democracy. I felt we had to turn the corner, leave the old style of government behind, to make sure America was really safe. I had family who died in Miami. Oh, yes. To me, a truly controlled society seemed like a wonderful chance to close up every rat-hole terrorists could use to get in the country, you see. We could use magic to close those rat-holes—and to give us the power to counterbalance the military. To control people like Erlich and Swanson, through Gulcher...so that the military would not oppose Breslin's new role.”
“As dictator.” She couldn't keep the disgust out of her voice.
“It really has such an unsavory sound when you say it! Well—we didn't have enough influence, enough power, to pull off a real coup. Not militarily. But magically! We might do it that way. It was exciting—a chance to remake the world!” Helman stood up. “But it's tainted now, all tainted. General Forsythe is under the complete control of a UBE—I'm convinced of it. It was his idea, after he engaged in the contact rituals in this room, to bring the elements together for the Opening ritual. But now I see it wasn't in fact his idea at all. It seems he's been...been taken over by something, by this thing he calls the Great Wrath, what the Tradition calls Moloch.” Helman grimaced, shook his head. “Whatever its agenda really is, it's not the interests of the United States of America.”
Loraine heard herself laughing softly, bitterly. “Really. You think? 'Not in the interests of the USA.' You thought you could work with the thing that looked into my mind? I looked back at 'Moloch,' Dr. Helman. I looked into that abyss. That thing has no thought of working with you. Or anyone else! Any more than you care what a chicken has on its mind before you order it slaughtered and fried.” She took a long, ragged breath. Forced away the memory of the lamprey mouths, the probing eye...
“Yes.” His voice was hoarse. “I believe you're right, my dear. You know,” he added dreamily, “in ancient times, Moloch demanded of his worshippers that they place their firstborn child into the heated brass hands of his idol... and the child burned alive there, as enormous drums beat so the parents would not have to hear their infant's screams. Yes. I have been...naive.” He turned her a heavy-lidded, feverish look, like that of a man sleepwalking through a nightmare. “Something to tell you...shouldn't be telling you this, Loraine. But—Forsythe saw your real feelings, in your mind—in your little session with Forsythe. He will not”—Helman yawned, rubbed his eyes—”not let you leave here alive. Remember that.” He shook himself, straightened, seemed to rally, looking at her more forcefully. “You need me—and I need someone I can work with. To stop Forsythe before he gives everything we've worked for...to that thing. Before he...who knows?...gives our infants to burn in Moloch's hands.”
“You want to stop him—now?” She couldn't help needling him in her bitterness. “Now that you're rethinking treason?”
He was faintly surprised. “Treason? I didn't see it as treason. I thought of it as the ultimate loyalty. But...Forsythe knows I've changed my mind...that I oppose the Opening.” He stared into space—and shrugged. “It appears that if I don't get out in time, I'm going to die here. Right here in this building. Look.” He opened his coat, showing a small automatic pistol in a rather petite shoulder holster. “Rarely carry them. But I've brought the .25 along—since I found the bodies.” He sighed. “Doubt I could hit much with it.”
“You've suspected for a while. The report you showed me—Forsythe's account...”
“I suspected. But I made up my mind that I was wrong—because being right meant the entire project had gone to hell. So I talked myself into believing that Forsythe's agenda was exactly as he said it was. Only—having talked to Gulcher and having seen what I have seen, and now the murders of Krasnoff and Pflug, valuable containees... I knew. It's more than a suspicion now.” He yawned. “I feel sleepy. Isn't that odd? With all that's happened?”
She was thinking about something he'd said. “Bring the elements together for the Opening ritual.”
It all came together for her then, with what he'd said in the conference room, that day. “A special work with Gabriel Bleak. “ Helman had told her. “Sean and Gabriel Bleak. The elements for the ritual!”
Helman nodded. “Yes. To bring Moloch.” “But the artifact...”
“We need the artifact—even Moloch needs it, once he's here. It has weakened its output enough that he can come partway into our world—think of it as a crack in the hull of a ship. A giant squid reaches through the crack—one tentacle, controlling Forsythe. Two, controlling Gulcher—though not as directly. Then three: third tentacle shows itself with influences here—like Gulcher, all that he's done—and that man in New Jersey, flinging fire about. A whole darker kind of ShadowComm, prompted by Moloch. But Forsythe wanted to use the Bleak brothers to open it the rest of the way...to let the whole beast in. And he wants to use the Wall of Force—to close that opening behind it. Keep the other entities out...so it can control our world alone. No help from the spirits of light, no competition from other demons. That which has kept it at bay—will then keep it strong. I must move
about, try to wake up a bit.” Helman stretched, like a man getting out of bed, then began to walk wobblingly back and forth in the small space, so that she had to retreat to a corner to get out of his way. “I had been told that this Moloch entity would be controlled by Gulcher. Ironic, since clearly it has a great influence over him. But of course Moloch will allow no control over it at all.” Helman's voice had started to fade as if he were slipping into a reverie.
“Suppose we went to General Erlich, and to Congress...would you testify about all this? I mean —in a closed session?”
“Oh...if the chance comes. If it...but I'm beginning to feel... that it won't... that all my chances are over...” The words just trailed off.
Then he crossed to the door and pointed the controller at it, and the door clicked within itself. “Are you locking someone out—or me in?”
He looked at the controller in confusion. “I'm not precisely sure...why I did that. But the door is locked...can only be unlocked with another...” His voice faded again and he leaned against a wall, loosening his tie with one hand, sinking down to sit in a corner. “Do you know what I really wanted to go into, as a career?”
She looked at the door. Was it really locked from the inside? “No—what?”
“Horticulture. My father, you see—he had a large nursery. Raised flowers, of all kinds, for florists. And I rather liked it. It's why I wear those ties, with the flowers on them, hand-painted, you know. But father was ambitious for me. He pushed me to use my talents 'for the greater good'—go into government research. And then I drifted into...intelligence...1...” He seemed decidedly dreamy now. Adding wistfully, “I wonder if I should have stuck with... raising flowers.”
She went and tried the door. Locked. “Dr. Helman? Why did you lock the door?”
“To tell you the truth...I don't know. I felt under a sort of...compulsion to do it...and I'm so tired... I only wish... to sit here and...”
Then his eyes became glassy, and he stared silently off into space.
“Give me the door opener you used. Will you please? Doctor?”
He opened his hand. There it was. She took it, turned to unlock the door. “It won't work, now,” he said. “The door won't open.” And it didn't.
***
“YOU PEOPLE KEEP TELLING me I'm lucky to be here,” Gulcher growled. “Like I'm—what does Helman say?—'empowered' by CCA. But trapped is more like it.”
They were in the windowless conference room, the same one that Dr. Helman and Sean and Loraine had used, Gulcher sitting at the table, a suppressor thrumming behind him, Forsythe standing.
“It's what ya call a matter of perspective,” Forsythe said. “Now—I'm going to bring in our guests. When we turn off the suppressor, don't you allow yourself to be distracted by the surge in connectivity. You've gotta focus. So far, I can't do much to help. It's up to you and Billy.”
So far. Gulcher wondered what he meant by that. But aloud he said, “We got to have that sick little kid in on this? I don't like the smell of him.”
“You bet 'we got to,'“ Forsythe said, winking. Just like a human being would. “That little dickens is my pride and joy.”
A beeping sounded, and Forsythe checked a PDA. “Ah—they're here. Hold yourself good and quiet, there, Troy, till we've got them in hand.”
A minute later two generals in full uniform came in. The stocky one, General Erlich, according to his name tag, had thin white hair, a comb-over, a bulldog face, was maybe sixty; the taller, stooped one, General Swanson, had a craggy face, the kind of guy with hair growing out of his nose and ears. Both of them glanced at Gulcher as if they didn't like the look of him, though he was cleaned up and wearing a white formal shirt and some slick trousers. Behind the generals came Drake Zweig, their escort; Zweig seemed to be sucking food out of his teeth as he came—maybe just ate his lunch. Which reminded Gulcher he hadn't had any yet. But his stomach was flighty, nervous. With the suppressor on, he wasn't sure where he stood. But he knew he was going to look for a chance to use his power in some way these bastards didn't expect. And he knew it could all go sideways. Bringing that kid Billy in here was dealing a wild card. “He'll be there just to make sure,” Forsythe had said, earlier. One of them would control Swanson, the other Erlich. Both an experiment and a method for getting rid of “obstacles,” Forsythe said. Killing two birds with one stone.
Only, the stones in this place could fly around in the air and come back to smash out your damn brains. And all Gulcher wanted was to find a way out of CCA.
“All this,” Erlich said, in a gravelly voice, “is a waste of time, Forsythe.” He strolled into the room, hands in his pockets, looking around dubiously. “A conference room. Very impressive. You haven't even got coffee here for us? I sure could use a cup of coffee.”
“Oh, there'll be coffee after, General Erlich, if you still feel like it,” Forsythe said, with a sharklike grin. “This won't take long.”
Swanson's cynical gaze took in Gulcher. “Don't I know this man's face? I can't place it.”
“I'll include that in the briefing as soon as the rest of our team gets here for the demonstration.”
“I don't care what you can demonstrate,” Erlich said, looking exasperated. “We're out of our depth—all of us. You too, Forsythe. This is a work for theologians, not scientists. Newton knew what he was doing.”
“If I thought it could be controlled,” Swanson put in, his voice nasal, Bostonian, “I would consider it. For a while we thought—maybe. But now—I don't think it's doable. It's like herding cats. Black cats. It's not quantifiable. Whatever it is you think you can demonstrate today is not going to change our minds, Forsythe. It could be spectacular and it wouldn't matter. If we have anything to say*? about it, we're going to shut CCA down.”
“That is, in fact, why you're here,” Forsythe said. “You see, we need just a little more time—we can't have you take that time away from us.”
“So you think you can persuade us with a magic trick?” Erlich asked, snorting.
The door opened and Billy Blunt came in, looking around, with his mouth open, a finger in one nostril. He still wore the BRAINSUCKER T-shirt—and smelled as if he'd never washed it. The two black berets who had escorted him here stood uncertainly in the doorway.
“You fellas just wait down the hall, in the cafeteria,” Forsythe said.
“Sir? This kid—”
“Don't worry.” Forsythe patted the suppressor. “We've got it under control. Go ahead.”
They closed the door from the outside. Gulcher was glad they were gone. Those little machine guns they carried made him nervous—in their hands. Sure like to get hold of one.
“Now,” Forsythe said, “let's have a chin-wag. I'll start us off—I have some questions to ask you about the defenses at the Pentagon.”
“What?” Erlich seemed startled. “Why would you ask us about that? And why would we talk about it here in front of...this odious child and”—he nodded at Gulcher—”and whoever this man is.”
“Why—I'll need the information later for a smoother transition, when I take over the Pentagon, gentlemen.” Forsythe's grin was now perfectly raffish.
Erlich and Swanson glanced at one another. “You're out of your mind, Forsythe,” Swanson said.
“Sounds that way, I know. First—let's squeeze the information out of you. Then—we video one of you killing the other. The video will be mostly for our own study. And for my amusement. I thought we might have you strangle General Erlich.”
“The devil you say!” Swanson spat, starting for the door.
Forsythe switched off the suppressor—and nodded to Gulcher. Who spoke a name and reached out.
And Swanson stopped in his tracks.
THE SUN WAS HIGH overhead, burning the back of his neck. The shadows were shrunken. And she was near. Bleak could feel it. She was in that building.
He could still change his mind. He could get up—and walk away from this. That'd be the smart thing to do. Going into the lion's den to rescue Loraine...when he wasn't even sure she wanted to be rescued.
Bleak grimaced. Coming here to find her had a grating feeling of compulsion about it. Seemed connected to their status as “soul mates.” Not so much in the romantic sense—but in the esoteric sense. Something destined, something he was shaped for at birth. Like astrology but without wiggle room. Compulsion.
Supposedly, it was his destiny—but going with compulsion went against his grain. One reason he and the army hadn't been a good fit.
He suspected he was being usedby something. By someone. By “Mike the Light,” and the other spirits of light. Entities who'd had precious little time for him over the years—who'd held aloof. Suddenly he was supposed to do their bidding.
But you had to serve somebody, as the song said. In the end, you had to choose sides. The smart thing to do wasn't always the wise thing to do.
And there was something else. He looked inside himself, and finally, he had to admit it: he really, really wanted to see Loraine Sarikosca again. Even if it meant risking his life.
Bleak sighed—and made up his mind.
Lying flat in the dry, yellow grass around the black trunks of the dying oaks, Bleak looked over the facility, its fence about sixty feet away. What was the best way to get in?
He heard a rumble of engine noise approaching, and three soldiers in black berets—two Hispanic and one gangly white one—came riding along the other side of the high, razor-topped steel fence in something like a golf cart, but painted in military camouflage colors. They were all armed, and not with golf clubs.
Special Forces. Could be alert for Gabriel Bleak. Not good.
Bleak waited, motionless, till they'd ridden past. He considered the security camera mounted on a pole over the gate. Whirring back and forth, it was aimed along the entrance road. Was probably motion sensitive enough to swivel his way if he got close.
When he was sure the men in the cart were gone around the corner of the front facility building, he stood up, balling an energy bullet in his right hand, winding up like a pitcher as he ran toward the camera. It was turned away from him just then—he had to hit it before it swiveled back. He fixed his attention on it and threw the energy bullet, a purple-violet meteor that sizzled through the air and struck the camera square. The camera's aluminum cowling blackened; the lens cracked; sparks shed from its wiring; and it stopped moving.
Bleak smiled, thinking he should really get back onto a softball team. If he survived.
He walked up to the metal gate in the fence, reached out to transfer explosive energy into its locks...then stopped his hand an inch from the steel mesh. He could sense the electrical power radiating through the metal. And dead birds, two crows and a finch, were lying on the ground nearby.
Bleak stepped back and thought that, anyway, if he broke the lock, it might well set off an alarm. There was another way.
He backed up twenty feet and drew energy from the Hidden. He formed the ramp in the air and reified it, made it dear in his mind—which made it more defined in the air.
And then Bleak ran for the fence. Felt the lift almost immediately, as he ran up the invisible ramp, up, up, and over the fence, jumping down to hit the asphalt on the balls of his feet, as the energy of the ramp drained away behind him.
He ran toward the nearest door—then saw a camera over it, swiveling toward him. Was there a more discreet way in?
Bleak dodged left, around a corner—and immediately encountered the three soldiers, about ten yards off, coming back in the cammied “golf cart,” looking bored...till they spotted him.
He was already forming energy bullets in both hands, and as the guards screeched their little vehicle to a halt, sideways to him, jumping out and swinging their weapons his way, Bleak flung the energy bullets overhand, left and right, forming two more the instant he let go of the first ones.
The four energy bullets sizzled through the air, right to their marks: the soldiers' guns, and the cart. The men yelled, their hands burnt, and flung the guns away; bullets exploded in the fallen guns and whined along the ground nearby; Bleak's fourth energy bullet striking the cart's electrical engine —it gushed smoke and sparks. That was for show, to keep them confused while he turned, making a stairway in the air with compressed energy, running up it before it was quite fully formed so that he had to create steps ahead of him as he went...up, and onto the roof of the building.
The soldiers were shouting into communicators, their voices distant from up here as Bleak ran clatteringly across the metal-sheathed roof to the other side—found himself looking down into a courtyard between several buildings. He knelt, took hold of the edge of the roof, lowered himself, and dropped into the empty concrete courtyard, turning to run immediately to the nearest door. An alarm was yipping somewhere.
He put his hand on the metal over the door's lock, focused energy, and its works burst apart. The door sprang open. He looked through—an empty corridor.
Loraine. Loraine Sarikosca...
Picturing her. Extending his senses into the Hidden. His intuitive sensitivity coupled with his esoteric connection to her should be enough to guide him. There—he felt her to the right.
Bleak ran along the corridor...and stopped dead, seeing Conrad Pflug standing there in front of him at the end of the hall a few strides away. Scribbler. And Bleak knew immediately that this was a ghost.
That Scribbler was dead.
A clue to his death was his wrists—both of them ripped open. He thought of stigmata.
“If you go to her now,” Scribbler said blandly, “we may lose our only allies. There is no time.” He reached out with a finger and wrote in the air, and the letters appeared, backward to Bleak, in red. He was able to read it backward, mentally translating:
Find the Gulcher and the Blunt and the three generals, behind you.
Then Scribbler closed his eyes, his face screwing up in pain. “Can't stay...I'm going to the After. Maybe I can just leave a little bit of...” Then he dissolved, shimmering away. Bleak thought— What should I do? Should he be guided by Scribbler...or look for Loraine?