I blushed, looking at the image. For all intents and purposes, it was a really great shot. A puffy white cloud had dimmed the sky moments ago, which made the light in the surroundings slightly foreboding. I looked wide-eyed and yet focused, as someone walking through an enchanted forest might. My dark eyes were at the very center of the frame and would pull an onlooker's eyes to them. I would say the picture spoke volumes about my being slightly anxious and slightly shy.
"You're a good subject," he said, nudging me playfully. "Come on. You want to shoot some water? Water always involves catching the light correctly."
I looked up at the numerous cotton puffs above us, thinking we would get a variety of lighting opportunities at the pond just by showing up. I halted when we got to the break in the trees.
Rain was sitting Indian-style on a large flat rock that hung over the water's edge, with her back to us. She was leaning off to the side, her head on one hand. Then I saw the tissue in her grip and figured she might be crying.
"Maybe I should leave you for now," Henry said, probably sensing my mood shift.
I waved in thanks and went slowly toward Rain, feeling my insides sway. I had not gotten Henry's phone number or made any further plans with him. I could get Mrs. Starn to put me in contact later.
I sat down slowly beside her while she blew her nose in a tissue she'd obviously used far too many times. I reached in my pocket for the stash Scott replenished daily in our jackets as part of his staying-busy routine. I handed her another.
"Thanks. I'm trying to keep my crying out of everyone's earshot. I know it's getting on all your nerves."
"Not mine," I lied, putting an arm around her shoulder. I had been very sympathetic to her crying at first, but into the second week of it, even I had felt drained. I didn't expect to have much to offer her in the way of comfort. "What's wrong?"
"Owen has another HH." Headache from Hell.
"Already?" I flinched. He'd never had one two days in a row. The rest of us could go as many as five days.
"I broke my ass making up some story about looking up dirty Internet purchases, which made him laugh and all. He was doing great. Then ... he got up very suddenly and left. He's in his room with the curtains drawn and the lights off. We know what that means." She wiped tears around on her face, not bothering with the soggy tissue. "I'm just starting to wonder if we've been given false hopes."
"By whom?"
"By the doctors and nurses at St. Ann's. They were always so cheerful. And what with the cards, and telegrams from royals, and calls from Hollywood, yadda yadda. It was a big, old mess, but sometimes I could feel..."
"Euphoric?"
"Yeah, with all that attention. Who wouldn't?"
"I loved the flowers," I said. The whole lobby at St. Ann's had been wall-to-wall flowers for several weeks.
"But we're down to maybe six cards a day. Dr. Godfrey is only coming up here twice a week, and those happy nurses are gone. They've been replaced by a nurse who's cheerful enough, but she's a hospice specialist. She's got death on the brain."
"What do you mean?"
"I had to listen to her speech early this morning about how we should fully understand things. Like if something goes wrong here—somebody spirals, has a terrible fall, catches something deadly, and starts to crash and bleed out—there will be no more exploratory diagnostics for a while. It would only give info that they couldn't do anything about. They're not doing any invasive surgeries until we improve. We would hemorrhage."
I didn't know what to say. I rubbed her back a little as the wind blew up a gust. "Well, don't panic about Owen" was all I could think of. "We all learned back at St. Ann's not to panic. It's a lesson I'd like to carry through life."
The wind rose through the trees and hissed a little. The leaves were still budding. She stayed silent, so I tried a change of subject.
"What dirty Internet purchases?"
Her smile spread a little finally, then she turned and bobbed me lightly on the nose with one knuckle. "You don't want to know."
All three of them assumed they had to hush their trash talk when I came into a room. Often, I entered to find any combination of them, and the talk would suddenly cease. It bothered me. I didn't mind hearing anything. It's just that when it came my turn to contribute, I couldn't think of a thing to say.
"You're still wigging out over Miss Haley," I guessed.
"You're not?"
I crinkled my nose, trying to remember how Dr. Hollis had taught me to tell the truth. Children of drug addicts are notoriously bad at truth telling. He'd told me to inhale slowly and release the truth on the exhale.
"I just ... put it on the back burner. It's no tragic loss. My last conquest? I think dinosaurs were still roaming around Trinity Falls."
"Who?" she asked, suddenly interested.
Three breaths, and on the exhale: "Danny Daggett. Seventh grade closet game."
"Oh ... damn!" Her horror echoed through the trees as it rightfully should have. I giggled. "How'd you get stuck with him?"
"Luck of the draw."
"Ole rooster legs. He still looks like he's nine—"
"To answer your question, I'm not troubled by my losses. But would you mind, please, not sharing that with the boys?"
"Why? They don't care."
I cared. I was growing more comfortable with them every day, and sometimes I could even forget the canyons that had separated them from me in high school. But most of that was because I always tried to pass myself off as mysterious rather than naive. What I just told Rain would truly blow my cover, I decided.
Rain continued to gripe. "And I would love to know how Scott goes around acting so cool, when his past is so much about being Joe Romance. Did you know that in December of freshman year, he was the girls' pinup in the Slut of the Month Club?"
My eyes flew to her. "What's that?"
"Slut of the Month Club. It was some gag going on inside Sarah Shoemaker's softball locker, but anyone on the team could vote on the guy. And there's some truth in all jokes. Someone had scrawled across his chest in the picture, 'Beware of Mr. Bag 'n' Bolt.'"
I covered my smile with my hand.
She kept laughing, throwing in a cough now and again, but it was good to hear. I had missed hearing her laugh as much lately. And yet, it was becoming plain that most of our laughter had to do with the past, while our future was a dark and very serious matter.
"Do you think we've seen the end of terror attacks?" she asked uneasily. I sensed her quandary. Surely, we wouldn't want anyone else to be in our shoes, but we hated feeling so freakishly alone.
I just went with the truth. "Only some of those men were arrested. There's more of them out there. But maybe they'll lie dormant for years."
"I wish I'd been attacked by a serial killer instead of those guys." She folded her hands in her lap, restlessly letting her left fingers bend back her right, and then the opposite. "That way, I would have had a chance at scratching someone's eyes out."
I understood her feeling. Nonetheless..."You wouldn't want to wake up and see a terrorist at your bedside," I said.
She watched me, her fingers relaxing. The only people to bring up my having been attacked in the ICU by a ShadowStrike assassin were Dr. Hollis and Mr. Steckerman. And it was a vague, brief mention each time. I was supposed to bring up "whatever I remembered and wanted to discuss," as Dr. Hollis had put it.
I went on, "They're more like demons. Oma always used to say she suspected that the devil personified would be very well spoken and wear an expensive suit."
"You ... thought you were finally meeting your dad," she stumbled.
"Please. Don't tell Scott I remember this," I begged her.
She nodded, shifting around uncomfortably. "It would be cool if he knew you remembered him saving your life."
"I wouldn't forget that. He almost killed himself trying. I just haven't said anything because ... it gets him all hyped up to talk your dad into a USIC job so he could go find those guys. I don
't want..." I trailed off, feeling selfish, but Rain finished my sentence.
"What? You don't want to wake up to find one beside your bed again, if he comes looking for Scott and gets lost in the dark?"
I laughed uncomfortably. It definitely sounded stupid.
"I don't think that's so dumb. I mean, if he's helping USIC, that makes him a target. Though the part about waking up to see another one, that's a lot of what-ifs all strung together," Rain said.
"Still, I'm paranoid."
"You have reason to be." She rubbed my knee and assured me flatly, "Scott will never get a USIC job. USIC policies are etched in blood. Intelligence will take some clerks at eighteen, but he's in bad health. They simply won't have it ... unless he recovers, and then we won't be living with him, and you've got nothing to worry about. Maybe Marg will give Scott medical things to do. Maybe he can draw our blood and do the chart thing..."
She was done crying, it seemed, but I felt uneasy over all this speak about Scott becoming a target. I don't know which bothered me more—him becoming a potential target or me having been one for reasons never made clear. I supposed I had been the easiest hit; I'd been in a coma, utterly helpless.
I suggested we go back to the house, as it had been a while since we'd taken any pills, and we were sure to be due for something. But that was the small reason covering what could become a big compulsion if I let it. I was finding my peaceful spot on the property, and it happened to be wherever Scott Eberman was. It had been like that at St. Ann's, too. He'd go down to help out in the phone station in the ER, and our ward became an anxious place. He'd come back to the ward, and I would relax.
I was not relaxed now. I found myself drawn back to the house—back to where he was. As I stood up and glanced across the pond, I was met with a pair of eyes. They peered between a six-inch space in the bramble of vines and leaves between three trees. I froze, watching, trying to be reasonable, wondering if I were hallucinating again. But I decided I definitely was swapping gazes with someone ... or something...
"Rain?"
When I sensed her looking up at me, I could neither move nor explain. She peered across the water, too.
"What do you see?" she asked.
My hand rose to my throat, but the scream wouldn't come. I waited for the person to blink. I told myself that if it didn't blink, it was surely a hallucination.
"What is it?" she demanded, nudging my leg hard. It spun my gaze, and when I found the small hole in the bramble again, no one was there.
I pointed and said, "Someone was back there—staring at us."
She stood up slowly. "It's probably one of those damn photographers."
We'd been warned about straggling journalists at St. Ann's. They'd been told not to come here, not to photograph us. I'd rather it be a snooping photographer than a hallucination ... or someone in ShadowStrike.
Rain moved forward, squinting slightly. "I didn't see anything, but I believe you. I'm gonna kick some butt."
"No, you're not..." I grabbed her arm.
But she actually stood on the rock and shouted. "Hey, pervert! I got an STD from a WMD! Why don't you come over here and catch it?"
"Don't," I whispered, my hair standing. "It could be some local drunk who got lost walking home last night."
She jumped down off the rock and followed the sandy beach around toward the other side of the pond, and I followed. Where it ended, we picked up the trail that led around to the other side.
"Please." I took her arm, planting my feet.
"I hate being afraid of things. I really hate that worse than anything..." She pulled away and kept going. I could suddenly see why she was a great sports player, and why her father was reluctant to let her have her car out here. She had a reckless streak. Someone could punch her and knock her down, or she could spiral into a bad mood while driving and crash the car into a tree.
But no one was behind the bramble. There was a trail back there, though I hadn't heard any sneaker tread running or any twigs cracking. Aleese? Mrs. Kellerton?
"Let's just go back to the house," I said.
"Whatever." Rain took my arm and walked beside me. I resisted the urge to look back. I resisted the urge to run, too, though my instincts told me to get inside to safety.
FOURTEEN
SHAHZAD HAMDANI
SATURDAY, MAY 4, 2002
NOON
HIS BEDROOM
I HAVE ASKED TYLER to surf for "tularemia" again and see if he comes up with any more suspicious deaths. But he lacks my experience in looking past horrific news for what information bits might be helpful. He grows distracted easily. He copes by reading Cora Holman's blog for the umpteenth time.
He finally comes away from his own terminals and into my room only when he hears the rooster crowing from my dog-leash program. We see that VaporStrike is online, but he idles, waiting for someone else.
Tyler spouts impatiently, "Cora hasn't written in her blog in a couple of days. Think she's okay?"
"I can find out from Hodji ... if you wish. He told you not to get obsessed. We did our best to save them. Now we don't need heartbreak if one of them doesn't make it. We have to think of us, he says."
"Yeah, but ... we're geeks and totally boring," he complains.
Even now, I do not understand his obsession with Cora Holman. I am prone to the other, as we do not see many yellow-haired women in Pakistan, and I find her so interesting to gaze at pictorially. As well, I shook Miss Rain's hand once, and her charm and charisma ran up my arm like electricity. Miss Cora had been too ill to meet me.
"Maybe we are not so boring these days," I say as Omar logs on. "Though I am confused. They should not be meeting so soon."
Omar and VaporStrike exchange in Spanish, with which I am familiar, and we can almost translate aloud.
OmarLoggi: I have only one location left before I will become recognizable in one of these cafés. What on earth is it?
VaporStrike: I have been on the phone with Chancellor. I think you will be unhappy with him, though he is quite pleased with himself. He said to tell you he created ten thousand milligrams of FireFall. With one milligram, he was able to kill your remaining three monkeys.
Tyler adds quickly, "At least they haven't killed any people. Yet. Can I throw up anyway? I like monkeys."
I am more taken by this player, Chancellor, who must be a fellow scientist as well as a financial backer. So far, Omar is the only scientist we have ever known of in ShadowStrike. Hodji will be pleased with us when we send this.
OmarLoggi: You idiots. What of the monkey corpses? How do you plan to dispose of them? Didn't your mother teach you never to play with fire? I wish you had waited until I could cross over and come to you.
"Whoa!" Our voices clatter with more exclamations, and I bang my fists victoriously on the desk. Tyler makes the victory dance in the middle of my bed. Cross over and come to you.
He puts truths together aloud. "VaporStrike is in America. How the fuck did he get back in? Did he swim?"
"He is with this Chancellor person..." I watch carefully, thinking he will spill his whereabouts. He does, but in such an indirect way it only creates more frustration.
VaporStrike: I took care of the corpse disposal.
OmarLoggi: I can't wait to hear.
VaporStrike: I double bagged all three. Two I buried by the water's edge. However, it created an odor that permeates many miles. For the other, I decided to contact you to see what you wanted me to do.
"They're near water," Tyler murmurs. "Lake? River? Ocean? C'mon..."
OmarLoggi: Keep to your job, my little assassin, and let me keep to mine. I told you this fire will cook a man from the inside out. Do you think it will not eat through garbage bags? Where is your mind?
VaporStrike: What's done is done. Chancellor is not concerned. He said if anyone finds the remains and is stupid enough to handle them much, we will have another test subject. There. It has started.
OmarLoggi: Do you really think a babe in arms like
Chancellor will force my hand? Don't let him play with fire again. You need to put the remaining corpse inside a steel drum. Do not bury it. The ground will smoke orange. You need to find a dumpster where the trash men are coming tomorrow.
VaporStrike: All of this nonsense I will do for you. In return, I expect you will give a go-ahead on Colony Two. The germ is fully operative.
They idle long. I search the chatter for any details of where VaporStrike may be. I wonder if my word "water" is a bad translation. VaporStrike has used the word marea, and the normal word for water is agua. Marea is more often associated with coasts and tides.
I explain this to Tyler, who gets a jolt of revelation that causes him to clamp on to my scabby shoulder. "Lab monkeys? Don't you have to have a lab? Didn't Roger tell us while we were in Beth Israel that they hadn't found Omar's local Trinity Falls lab after the raid? Aren't there all sorts of barrier islands down that way?"
I will look on a map directly, but chatter appears.
OmarLoggi: Do not pressure me. If you want to assassinate, go find me some v-spies instead of killing my lab monkeys.
He exits, and Tyler makes some "bring it on" banter, reminding me of the USIC agents' belief that he had a death wish and suicidal tendencies. That was all before he turned in his mother as a spy, which seemed to calm him somewhat. I think now he has only a reckless streak, which could also get us killed if we are not careful.
He settles down finally and asks, "So ... you're thinking that VaporStrike is on an island in New Jersey?" Before I can answer, he makes a stinging point. "We're on an island, buddy. Long Island. New York is not that far away. And Long Island was the home-away-from-home for VaporStrike back in March, back when he was using the Trinitron Internet café to launch his dirty secrets."
When I was brought here from Pakistan, it was to v-spy on VaporStrike and other operatives from inside Trinitron, where I could use the café's intranet system to quickly cache their screens and translate. VaporStrike and others had launched their experiment on Trinity Falls from less than a mile from here. They scattered to the winds or were captured down at Trinity.