Michael felt like he’d played the scene too many times before, trying to convince Murphy that the impossible was possible, that the unthinkable had occurred—a woman had been found frozen in the ice, that Danzig had been killed by one of his dogs, or that, after murdering Ackerley, he had returned once more to attack Darryl in the dive hut. The only advantage was that Murphy had by then become so accustomed to these strange conferences that he had stopped questioning Michael’s veracity, or his sanity. Sitting behind his desk now, he simply combed his fingers through his thick salt-and-pepper hair—more salt, Michael thought, by the day—and asked his questions in a resigned, almost perfunctory manner.
“But you’re sure you got him this time, with the speargun?” he asked Michael.
“Yes,” Michael said. “He’s gone, for good.” But was he really as sure as he’d just sounded?
“Either way,” Murphy said, “nobody goes to the dive hut until further notice. Make sure Mr. Hirsch gets that message loud and clear.”
There was a burst of static from the radio behind his chair. “Wind speed, one hundred twenty, north, northeast,” a faint voice reported. “Temperatures ranging from forty to sixty below, Fahrenheit, anticipated to rise to…” There was further interference, then the voice returned, saying, “…high-pressure front, moving southwest, from Chilean peninsula toward Ross Sea.”
“Sounds like we might get a break tomorrow,” he said, swiveling in his chair and flicking it off. “About fucking time.” Then he turned back toward Michael with a printout in his hand. “Dr. Barnes’s report,” he said, slipping on a pair of glasses to read aloud. “‘The patient, Ms. Eleanor Ames, by her own declaration an English citizen, of approximately twenty years of age’”—he stopped, glancing at Michael over the rim of his glasses—“‘is in stable condition, with all vital signs now holding steady. There are still signs of recurring hypotension and heart arrhythmias, coupled with extreme anemia, which we will aggressively address once the blood work is complete.’” He lowered the paper and asked, “Got any idea when Hirsch will be done with that?”
“Nope.”
“Don’t be too obvious, but give him a nudge.”
“Wouldn’t it be better coming from you?”
“I don’t want to arouse his suspicions any more than they might be already,” Murphy said. “For all he knows, he’s just got another ordinary blood sample—let’s keep it that way. And in case you hadn’t noticed, he doesn’t do well with authority figures.” He sat back, still brandishing the paper. “So this paper is the first official document, date-and time-stamped, confirming the existence of Sleeping Beauty.”
“Eleanor Ames,” Michael corrected him.
“Yeah, you’re right. She’s real enough now.” He conspicuously slipped the sheet into a blue plastic folder. “And as a result, everything from now on either has to go by the book,” he said, “or else it has to be left temporarily undocumented—and absolutely uncirculated. No paper trail, in other words, or loose lips. You do catch my drift?”
Michael nodded.
“The last thing we need here—the last thing in the whole fucking world—is any more scrutiny than we’re already going to get, from the NSF and just about every other agency we deal with. I’ve got two years until I qualify for a full pension. I don’t want to spend them filling out forms and giving depositions.” He gestured at a teetering stack of official-looking papers and forms in a desk tray. “See that? That’s just the routine shit. Imagine if the latest headlines get out.”
Michael could well imagine. Already he was wondering what he would say—or not say—to Gillespie the next time they talked.
“So that’s why I’m going to ask you, for the time being, to keep whatever you can under your hat. And while you’re at it, do me one more favor.”
“I’ll do whatever I can.”
“I want you to be the liaison, or whatever you want to call it, to Ms. Ames. Help Charlotte out, and keep me informed of what’s up—how the patient’s doing, what she’s doing, what you think we need to address. I don’t need to tell you, nothing that looks like this has ever happened before—anyplace or anytime—and I don’t particularly want to broadcast that she’s here to anybody who doesn’t already know about it. I want to take that nice and slow.”
“But do you plan to keep her completely confined to the infirmary?” Michael asked. “Because she could go stir-crazy in there. I know I would.”
“We’ll figure that out as we go, and as we get the info back from Darryl and Charlotte.”