Any Minute Now (37 page)

It was rape, no doubt—of her mind as well as her body, which was far worse. The body held no secrets, but the mind was composed of secrets and intimacies humiliating for a lover to know, let alone a stranger.

And there was another thing—a memory that Lucy could scarcely force herself to touch. During this process she was certain she felt another presence, a shadow crouched beside Preach, perhaps part of him, perhaps not, because it was an animal thing, certainly not human, its breath hot with the stench of an abattoir. First she thought she glimpsed the vertical pupils of a goat, then the bared teeth of a lion, then the sinuous coils of a huge snake, sliding over her flesh like an icy wind.

“I will not have that—
thing
—here.”

Luther's voice drew her back from the brink of her bayou memories.

“Too late. He'll be here in seven or eight hours.”

Oh, yes. Oh, yes, Lucy chanted silently. There was a fire in her eyes now, and in her mind a sense of fate drawing her and Preach together again, for the last time.

“You've got to stop this,” Luther said.

“Can't. You know his rules.”

“
His
rules! Why are we under his thumb?”

“He made us, Luther. He created the Alchemists.”

“You know firsthand what Preach is capable of; you're one of the few people who've seen it and lived to tell about it,” St. Vincent pressed on. “Imagine what he could do if we gave him access to the triptyne.”

“I am imagining it. It's something Hartwell proposed some time ago.”

“Hartwell,” Luther scoffed. “He has no firsthand knowledge … Giving Preach access to triptyne is too dangerous.”

“That's your assessment,” Albin said. “It's time to come clean, Luther. We both knew Lindstrom wasn't going to cut it—no pure scientist could. We're off the map here, in a place where it takes more than theory, equations, and patient titration. Mobius was in Preach's territory from the get-go. Now, at last, we'll get what we want.”

“You mean what
he
wants.”

“Same thing.”

“Is it? What if the outcome isn't what we imagined it to be?”

“No one can predict the future, Luther. We can only summon it.”

There ensued a very long silence, while out in the corridor Lucy continued her private prayer.

“This is madness,” Luther said at last. “Once you let the genie out of the bottle there's no stuffing him back in.”

“Your fear of Preach is elemental, Luther. It isn't rational; it's personal. And it isn't really about Preach at all. It's about Gregory Whitman.” Albin grunted. “You and Whitman have a score to settle. This confrontation has been a long time coming.

“Now that Preach has been summoned, the end, as they say, is nigh. One of you—you or Gregory—is going to make his last stand.”

 

41

Julie sat beside Hemingway as he drove along the interstate.

“I'll drive you home,” he said.

“No. When we get back to D.C. I'll give you directions to where I want to go and you can drop me off.”

He shot her a glance. “You sure?” Then, seeing the determination in her face, he shrugged. “Suit yourself. Just don't disappear off the grid, okay?”

She nodded, but there was a desire inside her to stay on the road all the way to Santa Monica or Portland. She felt as if nothing could reach her if only she kept on the move, following the now tarnished American dream that led west, always west. As far from D.C. as she could get without boarding a plane or a ship.

“As for St. Vincent,” Julie said, just for the hell of it, and because she was coming to like taking control of her conversations with Hemingway, “I've had an unofficial investigation opened on him at the attorney general's office.”

This pronouncement almost caused Hemingway to drive off the road. “You did what?” A squeal of protesting rubber, a blaring bouquet of horns brought the car back in lane. He risked a sideways glance. “How could you possibly?”

She told him about Orrin.

“Dear god,” he breathed. “I don't even know who you are anymore.”

“You never did,” Julie said.

A sober, almost depressed silence ensued, during which Hemingway continued to drive at such an accelerated pace that Julie blurted out, “Slow down, for heaven's sake. I'd like to live long enough to have a kid someday.”

Hemingway contrived to ignore her, probably out of spite, Julie thought. After what seemed a long time, his speed decreased slowly to an acceptable level.

“So this is what it's like to grow old,” he muttered.

He didn't seem to be kidding so she didn't laugh. She tried to summon up some feeling for him, without success. She had worked for him for more than five years without making any sort of meaningful connection. She realized that if she decided to quit, just walk away today, it would be with absolutely no regrets. Hemingway might be feeling what it's like to grow old, but she felt as if she were waking from a medically induced coma.

Hemingway glanced her way again. “How d'you imagine St. Vincent knew about the connection between Whitman and Sydny?”

Julie shrugged. “There could be any number of ways.”

“But in light of what you told me, his interest must only have been very recently piqued.”

Julie instantly picked up on his meaningful look. “Our briefings.”

Hemingway pounded the steering wheel with his fist. “Oh, the stones on him. The fucker's had my office bugged.”

*   *   *

“Eddy. Do you mind if I call you Eddy?” Without waiting for an answer, Whitman took Dante by the elbow, steered him past the wrecked helo, still smoking, its half-melted, contorted metal fuselage creaking like an old man's bones as it cooled.

“Before you talk to us, there's something I'd like you to see.”

At the site of the three graves he stopped, positioning Dante at the foot of the one grave still uncovered. Down at the bottom lay Seiran el-Habib, bound hand and foot, his mouth stuffed with a filthy cloth. He stared up at the two men with deadened eyes.

“Looks like he's had a bad time of it, doesn't it?” Whitman said.

“That's because he has,” Flix said. He bumped into Dante, causing him to stagger forward, teeter on the edge while Whitman held him tight by the back of his collar. “Not a pretty sight, is he?”

Charlie came up beside him. “And there but for the grace of God go you.”

“She's right.” Whitman dragged Dante back from the brink, let go of his collar. “Now you have some serious talking to do.”

“You've got the wrong person,” Dante said.

“That's the bullshit el-Habib tried to feed us,” Flix said. “Now look at the poor fucker, lying in his own grave.” He bumped Dante again. “That what you want?”

“No, of course not. Listen, I'm just a middleman. The poppies get shipped here from China. I pick them up and send them on.”

Felix leaned in. “Poppies?”

Behind Dante's back, Whitman placed his forefinger across his lips. Then he said, “Send them on where?”

“To the States.”

“Where, exactly?”

Dante gave them an address in rural Virginia. Whitman indicated to Flix that he keep an eye on their new guest, while he and Charlie stepped away. The stink of heated metal mingled with the greasy animal stench of roasted flesh. They had to move upwind of the helo's carcass in order not to gag.

“That address sound familiar?” Whitman said in a low voice. When Charlie shook her head, he told her. “It's the manor house of the old Mirabelle Hunt Club. Not a thousand yards away is the entrance to the Well.”

“So Seiran told us the truth.”

Whitman nodded. “This has nothing to do with Dr. Lindstrom and everything to do with the Alchemists. That's why St. Vincent engaged with Flix; he wanted him for a guinea pig in the field.”

“But poppies? What the fuck?”

“Excellent question,” he said. “Let's ask Edmond Dantès, shall we?”

Within minutes, he'd told them all he knew about
Papaver laciniatum,
which, admittedly, wasn't much. But it was enough for Whitman to make some basic assumptions, helped along by what he had observed and experienced in Flix.

“An alkaloid—or alkaloids,” he said, “distilled from this particular poppy.”

“What about them?” Charlie asked.

They all had crowded around; even Dante appeared interested.

“That's what they injected into you,
compadre
.” He looked into his friend's face. “You remember how you felt by the time you got here?”

“Don't remind me,” Flix said.

“But that's just what I'm doing. You need to remember everything, and tell us, Flix. It's vital.”

Flix closed his eyes for a moment, trying hard to block out the memories, but there were too many, they were too powerful. They crowded out everything else. He told them how he had felt detached from himself. The first sign was that his shoulder had ceased to ache. The next thing he knew he was mowing down everyone who stood in his way, just as if he had each one on a line. “I couldn't miss,” he said on an indrawn breath, “even if I'd wanted to.” But that was the thing: he hadn't wanted to. On the contrary, the bloodlust was running so high inside him he could think of nothing but dealing death and more death. Nothing else in the world existed. The more people he killed the better he felt. He was connected to his weapon as if it were an extension of his arms, body, mind, and heart. “I felt no hesitation, no pity, no remorse, nothing,” he said.

“That's why they're importing the poppies,” Whitman said. “For an alkaloid with which they're trying to make the perfect killing machine.”

“If not for you,
compadre
, they would have succeeded.”

“Maybe not,” Whitman said. “Remember when I got to you, you were about to rip your face off.”

“About those poppies you're supposed to pick up,” Charlie said to Dante. “Where are they?”

Dante stared down at el-Habib. “Didn't he tell you?”

“Not a word,” Charlie said. She was fed up with the Saudi's fabrications and lies of omission. She jumped down into the grave, grabbed el-Habib, hauled him roughly to his feet. He bounced off the soft wall in a shower of sandy soil as she shook him like a plaything. Then she pulled the rag out of his mouth.

“How about it, Saudi?”

He glared at her, his face a mask of naked hatred. “In the kitchen. Under the floorboards.”

“Flix,” Charlie said.

Flix bent over, hoisted el-Habib out of the grave. Charlie climbed out without help from anyone.

They trooped inside. The kitchen floorboards were stained with Alice's blood, dried to a shiny mahogany. El-Habib, on his knees, found the hidden latch, and the trapdoor opened onto a shallow space dug out of the ground. He pushed aside the plastic flaps of a container. At once, the sickly sweet scent of opium poppies filled the room.

“Christ,” Flix said.

“What's the next step?” Whitman said to Dante.

“I make contact with the States, tell them the package is ready for shipment.”

“And then?”

“I drive back to the airstrip, where a refueled plane is waiting.”

“Make the call, just as if you never met us.”

“My sat phone is back in the truck.”

Charlie and Whitman exchanged a look. Each knew precisely what the other was thinking.

“Saudi, you and Dante bring the poppies.”

Dante worked with el-Habib to maneuver the payload out of its lair. The plastic container made their work easy. It was like carrying a coffin, only lighter. Flix backed away as the poppies passed him. Charlie couldn't blame him; she was sure she would have done the same had she been injected with their alkaloid.

Back outside, Charlie directed them to shove the payload into the rear of the truck. Then Whitman monitored Dante as he placed the call. Afterward, he destroyed the sat phone.

“None of this will do you any good. You think you're escaping, but you're not. There is no escape.” A peculiar calm had come over Dante, as if he had entered a kind of meditative state.

The short hairs on the nape of Whitman's neck stirred and there was a ball of ice forming in his belly. He'd seen that kind of meditative state before, had even, for a time, entered into it himself.

He shook Dante like a ragdoll. “Explain yourself, shitbird.”

Dante's eyes rolled toward him, but they were slightly out of focus. “It's so simple. You don't understand. You've misunderstood everything. This isn't about running poppies from China to the States, it's not about the movement of capital from one place to another. It's about the manipulation of everyone and everything.”

The ball of ice in Whitman's stomach was spinning, growing, threatening to move up into his lungs, block the inhalation of oxygen. “It's about the creation of a newer, better world.”

Dante's eyes snapped into focus. “Yes! That's it exactly!”

Whitman felt the ball of ice uncurl, enter his bones, chilling him to the core. Preach. Those were Preach's words. Dante was one of Preach's acolytes.

Dante threw his arms out wide. “This is about the entire world. A shift of monumental proportions never seen before. The fall of one superpower, the rise of another, creating conflict, war, chaos. America falling, China rising. Why? Because then we'll take Iraq's oil fields with our enhanced soldiers, we'll take them away from China, and China will have no choice. They're energy-hungry. They can't afford to lose a source of oil. And out of that conflagration will come the creation of a newer, better world.”

“With Preach at its head.”

Dante's lips pulled back from his teeth and he laughed like a hyena over a dead body until Flix came up behind him and swung the butt of his rifle into his head, and he collapsed, his head canted at an unnatural angle.