Black (54 page)

“Then either way, we're all dead,” Tom said. “You can accept that?”

Gains lifted a hand to stall the exchange. “I think you see his point, Tom. There are complications. It may not be black and white. We can't run around yelling virus. Frankly, we don't have a virus yet, at least not one that we know will be used or even could be used. What do you propose?”

Tom pulled his chair out and sat. “I propose we take Svensson out before he can release the virus.”

“That's impossible,” the CIA director said. “He has rights. We're moving, but we can't just drop a bomb on his head. Doesn't work that way.”

“Assuming you're right about Svensson,” Gains said, “he would need a vaccine or an antivirus to trade, right? So that gives us some time.”

“Nothing says he has to wait until he has the antivirus before releasing the virus. As long as he's confident he can produce an antivirus within a couple of weeks, he could release the virus and call our bluff, claiming to have the antivirus. Right now the race is to stop Svensson before he can do any damage. Once he does his damage, our only hope will ride with an antivirus and a vaccine.”

“And how long would that take?” Gains asked, turning to Raison.

“Without Monique? Months. With her?” He shrugged. “Maybe sooner. Weeks.” He didn't mention the possible reversal of her genetic signature, as Peter had explained to Tom yesterday.

“Which is another reason why we have to go after Svensson and determine if he has Monique,” Tom said. “The world just may depend on Monique in the coming weeks.”

“And what suggestion do you have short of taking out Svensson?” Gains asked Tom.

“At this point? None. We should have taken out Svensson twenty-four hours ago. If we had, this would all be over now. But then what do I know? I'm just a wannabe novelist in cargo pants.”

“That's right, Mr. Hunter, you are,” the Frenchman said. “Keep that in mind. You're firing live bullets. I won't have you galloping around the world shooting your six-guns. I for one would like to pour a little water down your barrels.”

Grant's phone chirped, and he turned to answer it quietly.

“I would like to consider some contingency planning in the event we do end up with a problem,” Gains said. “What are your thoughts on containment, Mr. Raison?”

“It depends on how a virus would break out. But if Svensson is behind any of this, he will know how to eliminate any containment possibilities. That's the primary difference between natural occurrences of a virus and forced occurrences as in bioweapons. He could get the virus into a hundred major cities within a week.”

“Yes, but if—”

“Excuse me, Merton.” Grant snapped his cell shut. “This may all be moot. Our people have just finished a sweep of Svensson's facilities in the Swiss Alps. They found nothing.”

Tom sat up. “What do you mean, nothing? That's not—”

“I mean, no sign of anything unusual.”

“Was Svensson there?”

“No. But we spoke to his employees at some length. He's due back in two days for an interview with the Swiss Intelligence, which we will also attend. He's been at a meeting with suppliers in South America. We confirmed the meeting. There's no evidence that he's had anything to do with a kidnapping or any massive conspiracy to release a virus.”

Silence engulfed them.

“Well, that's good news, I would say,” Gains said.

“That's not news at all,” Tom said. “So he's not at his main lab. He could be anywhere. Wherever he is, he has both Monique and the Raison Strain. I'm telling you, you have to find him now!”

Gains put his hand out. “We will, Tom. One step at a time. This is encouraging; let's not pour water over it just yet.”

With those words Tom knew that he had lost them all. Except Kara. Merton Gains was as much of an advocate as he could expect. If Gains was expressing caution, the game was over.

Tom stood. “I really don't think you need me to discuss contingencies. I've told you what I know. I'll repeat it one more time for those of you who are slow tonight. History is about to take a plunge down a nasty course. You'll all know that soon, when unthinkable demands come from a man named Valborg Svensson, although I doubt he's working alone. For all I know, one of you works for him.”

That kept them in a state of mild shock.

“Good night. If for some inexplicable reason you need me, I'll be in my room, 913, hopefully sleeping. Heaven knows someone has to do something.”

Kara stood and lifted her chin evenly. They walked out side by side, brother and sister.

Exhaustion swamped Tom the moment the conference room door thumped shut behind him. He stopped and gazed down the empty hall, dazed. He'd been running through this madness for over a week without a break, and his body was starting to feel like it was filled with lead.

“Well, I guess you told them,” Kara said quietly.

“I have to get some rest. I feel like I'm going to drop.”

She slipped her arm through his and guided him down the hall. “I'm putting you to bed, and I'm not letting anyone wake you until You've caught up on your sleep. That's final.”

He didn't argue. There was nothing he could do at the moment anyway. There might not be anything more he could do. Ever.

“Don't worry, Thomas. I think you said what needed saying. They'll have a change of attitude soon enough. Right?”

“Maybe. I hope not.”

She
understood. The only thing that would change their attitudes would be an actual outbreak of the Raison Strain, and nobody could hope for that.

“I'm proud of you,” she said.

“I'm proud of you,” he said.

“For what? I'm not doing anything! You're the hero here.”

“Hero?” He scoffed. “Without you I would probably be in some fighting ring downtown trying to prove myself.”

“You have a point,” she said.

They entered the elevator and rode up alone.

“Since you seem agreeable to my suggestions, do you mind if I make another one?” Kara asked.

“Sure. I'm not sure if my tired mind is up to understanding anything more at the moment.”

“It's something I've been thinking about.” She paused. “If the virus is released, I don't see how anyone can physically stop it. At least not in twenty-one days.”

He nodded. “And?”

“Especially if it's already a matter of history, as You've learned in the green forest, which is where all this is coming from, right?”

“Right.”

“But why you? Why did this information just happen to be dumped in your lap? Why are you flipping between these realities?”

“Because I'm connected somehow.”

“Because you're the only one who can ultimately make a difference. You started it. The virus exists because of you. Maybe only you can stop it.”

The elevator stopped on the ninth floor and they headed for their suite.

“If that's true,” he said, “then God help us all because, believe me, I don't have a clue what to do. Except sleep. Even then, we've been abandoned. Three days ago my entire understanding of God was flipped on its end, at least in my dreams. Now it's been flipped again.”

“Then sleep.”

“Sleep. Dream.”

“Dream,” she said. “But not just dream. I mean
really
dream.”

He led her into the room. “You're forgetting something.”

“What?”

“The green forest is gone. The world's changed.” He sighed and plopped into a chair by the table. “I'm in a desert, half-dead. No water, no fruit, no Roush. I get shot now, and I really do die. If anything, the information will have to flow the other way to keep me alive there.” He cocked his head. “Now there's an idea.”

“You don't know that. I'm not saying you should go out and get shot and see what happens, mind you. But there's a reason why you're there. In that world. And there's a reason you're here.”

“So what exactly are you suggesting?”

She dropped her purse on the bed and faced him. “That you go on an all-out search for something in that reality that will help us here. Take your time. There's no correlation between time there and time here, right?”

“As soon as I fall asleep there, I'm here.”

“Then find a way not to be here every time you sleep. Spend a few days in that reality, a week, a month, however much time you need. Find something. Learn new skills. Whoever you become there, you will be here, right? So become somebody.”

“I am somebody.”

“You are, and I love you the way you are. But for the sake of this world, become someone more. Someone who can save this world. Go to sleep, dream, and come back a new man.”

He looked at his sister. So full of optimism. But she didn't understand the extent of the devastation in the other reality.

“I have to get some sleep,” he said, walking toward his room.

“Dream, Thomas. Dream long. Dream big.”

“I will.”

36

T
om's mind flooded with images of a young boy standing innocently at the center of a brightly colored room, chin raised to the ceiling, eyes wide, mouth gaping.

Johan. And his skin was as smooth as a pool of chocolate milk. His deep-throated song suddenly thundered in the room, startling Tom.

He rolled over in his sleep.

For a moment the night lay quiet. Then the boy began to sing again. Quietly this time, with closed eyes and raised hands. The sweet refrains drifted to the heavens like birdsong. They ascended the scale and began to distort.

Distort? No. Johan always spun a flawless song to the last note. But the sound climbed the scale and grew to more of a wail than a song. Johan was wailing.

Tom's eyes sprang open. The morning's soft light flooded his vision. His ears filled with the sound of a child singing in broken tones.

He pushed himself to an elbow, gazed about, and rested his eyes on the boulder twenty paces from where he and Rachelle lay. There, facing the forest they had left behind, sitting cross-legged on the boulder with his back turned to them, Johan lifted his chin in song. A weak, halting song to be sure. Strained and off key. But a song nonetheless.

Rachelle raised to a sitting position next to him and stared at her brother. Her skin was dry and flaking. As was his own. Tom swallowed and turned back to Johan, who wailed with his arms spread wide.

“Elyon, help us,” he sang. “Elyon, help us.”

Tom stood up. Johan's whole body trembled as he struggled for notes. The boy sounded as though he might be crying. Crying under the waning power of his own notes, or perhaps because he could not sing as he once did.

Beside Tom, Rachelle rose slowly to her feet without removing her eyes from the scene. Tears wet her parched cheeks. Tom felt his chest constrict. Johan raised his small fists in the air and wailed with greater intensity—a heartbreaking rendering of sorrow and yearning and anger and pleading for love.

For long minutes they stood facing Johan, who lamented for all who would hear. Grieving for all who would take the time to listen to the cries of an abandoned, tortured child slowly dying far from home. But who could possibly hear such a song in this desert?

If only Michal or Gabil would come and tell them what to do. If only he could speak one more time, just one last time, to the boy from the upper lake.

If only he could close his eyes and open them again to the sight of a boy standing on the rise of sand to their left. Like the boy standing there now. Like—

Tom froze.

The boy stood there, on the rise beside the boulders, staring directly at Johan. The boy from the upper lake!

As though conducted by an unseen hand, both Johan and Rachelle ceased their sobbing. The boy took three small steps toward the boulder and stopped. His arms hung limply by his sides. His eyes were wide and green. Brilliant, breathtaking green.

The boy's delicate lips parted slightly, as if he were about to speak, but he just stood, staring. A loose curl of hair hung between the boy's eyes, lifting gently in the morning breeze.

The two boys gazed directly at each other, as if held by an invisible bond. Johan's eyes were as round as saucers, and his face was wet from tears. To Tom's right, Rachelle took a single step toward Johan and stopped.

And then the little boy opened his mouth.

A pure, sweet tone, crystal-clear in the morning stillness, pierced Tom's ears and stabbed at his heart like a razor-tipped arrow. He caught his
breath at the very first note. Images of a world far removed flooded his mind. Memories of an emerald resin floor, of a thundering waterfall, of a lake. The notes tumbled into a melody.

Tom dropped to his knees and began to cry again.

The child took a step toward Johan, closed his eyes, and lifted his chin. His song drifted through the air, dancing on their heads like a teasing angel. Rachelle sat hard.