Chronic Fear (8 page)

“Every four hours,” Roland said.

“What’s that, honey?” Wendy said. She sat curled on the window seat, between the maidenhair fern and the wax begonias, sketching in the midday sun. Her T-shirt was a Jackson Pollock mess of spilled paint and stains.

“Does that mean anything to you? Every four hours?”

“Sounds like a TV commercial.”

The cabin didn’t have a television. If they wanted to watch something, they had to rent a Redbox movie and huddle around the laptop. Not that Roland cared. That made movies a good excuse for snuggling and popcorn and then some dangerous erotic play.

What he did care about was Wendy’s memory of the Monkey House. As a long-time alcoholic, he understood obliterating chunks of consciousness. And he’d done it by choice, at least as far as drunks had any control in their own self-destruction.

Wendy, however, had been an innocent victim of Briggs’s drug experiments. Seethe had scrambled her senses and driven her into a confused, hedonistic hurricane. She hadn’t been herself when she’d fallen for Briggs’s sick seduction.

Yeah. Keep telling yourself that. Just like you only killed Briggs in self-defense, not because he was fucking your wife. So much for a twelve-step program built on honesty.

Roland tried to tell himself the Seethe had driven him to murder, but he remembered the pleasure he’d felt in pulling the trigger and watching Briggs leak. Sure, Seethe was designed to evoke such a reaction. But just like a drunk on a blackout was still acting from a core impulse, no drug could totally alter personality.

All Seethe had done was make him more like himself.

Wendy paused in her sketching, noticing he’d dropped the conversation. “Why are you talking about ‘every four hours’?”

“One of my clients is using it for a book title,” Roland said. “I have to wrap the words around a picture of a scantily clad woman.”

“Tough duty, huh?”

“Beats selling billboards.” He opened his e-mail program and looked again at the message he’d received that morning. Just like the first one, it had the subject line “Every four hrs or else” and was from the same National Clandestine Service address.

This one also had a message in the body of the e-mail. It said, “Surely you didn’t think we could let you live, after what happened.”

“Is she cuter than me?” Wendy said.

“Who?”

“The scantily clad woman.”

“It’s a cartoon. Old pulp-fiction style. Boobs the size of watermelons and a waist like Gandhi.”

“Blonde?”

“If I paint it that way.”

“Make her blonde so I don’t get jealous.”

“You never get jealous.”
Only me.

“Yeah, out here I guess there’s not much competition.” She tucked a leg under her rear in a motion of feline grace and continued with her work.

Roland studied the e-mail for clues, but he couldn’t read anything between the lines. First the “David Underwood” trick and now this new threat.

On a whim, he hit “Reply,” and when the message window opened, he typed, “Maybe we can help each other.” He paused, then typed “David Underwood” as a signature beneath the message and hit “Send.”

“What’s it about?” Wendy asked.

Roland jerked upright. “What?”

“The book.
Every Four Hours
. That sounds familiar.”

“It’s by a new mystery writer.” He waited. “David Underwood. You haven’t heard of him.”

“There are too many writers in the world. Who can keep track of them all?”

“Not like you artists. Supply perfectly matches demand.”

“Hey, smarty-pants.” Wendy perched her sketchbook on the ledge of the bay window. “Come over here and kiss me.”

“I’m working,” Roland said, watching his e-mail to see if a response was forthcoming. The message hadn’t bounced, so it must have been routed to someone’s inbox, although he doubted it went to the CIA.

Wendy curled up on the window seat and gave a fake pout. He grinned at her and went back to his laptop screen.

“Ro?” she whispered.

He ignored her. Work was work, and even pretending to work was work.

“Honey?” she said, louder.

He logged out of his e-mail program, annoyed. If somebody was playing cat and mouse, he wanted to be the cat. “What?”

“Something’s moving out there.”

“Is the fox back?” Roland had reloaded the pistol and returned it to the bedside table because he hadn’t expected the fox to return. The creatures were most active at dawn and dusk, and it was rare to see one in full daylight. That’s why he’d suspected the one he’d shot at that morning had been rabid.

He’d hated to kill it, because it was just trying to survive, and it might even have a pack of kits in a den somewhere. But he and Wendy had grown fond of their chickens, treating them like pets and also enjoying the fresh brown eggs. It was part of their new game of playing hillbilly homesteaders.

“I don’t think it’s the fox,” Wendy said. “It’s bigger.”

What could be bigger than a fox? A stray dog? A deer? A bear?

Roland set his laptop on the sofa and went to the window. He peered into the woods, scowling. Wendy leapt up and grabbed him around the neck, pulling him down.

“Gotcha!” she squealed with a laugh. They wrestled as she giggled, and Roland finally pinned her against the window seat and kissed her.

“Who got who?” he whispered, running his hands over her hips.

He glanced out the window again, glad they were out in the country and didn’t have to worry about Peeping Toms and—

Shit. Was that a reflection?

The light flashed again in the woods, its distance difficult to gauge. Hunting season was long past, but hikers might be exploring the Blue Ridge trails, wandering away from the nearby national park.

“Come on, zookeeper,” Wendy said, unaware of his unease. “Tame your tiger.”

“Shh,” he said, still on top of her but no longer pressing his weight against her.

“What’s wrong?”

He moved toward the glass, peering out. “Something’s out there.”

“I already used that trick,” she said. “You have to come up with your own.”

“No, really. I saw a glint of light, like the sun bouncing off of metal.”

Wendy rolled up beside him, leaning on the ledge. “I can’t see the forest for the trees.”

Roland glanced down at her sketchbook.
What the fuck?

It was a slightly surrealistic treatment, with distorted and oversized eyes, but the portrait was unmistakable. David Underwood. The older, psychotic David, as they’d found him in the Monkey House, hollowed out from Briggs’s deranged experiments, not the teen David from the original clinical trials.

The sketch caused Roland to realize just how much they’d all changed since the first trials. But some had changed more than others.

“Who is this?” Roland asked, tapping the pad.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Just a face.”

“Not bad.” He studied her dark eyes, looking for any sign of confusion or suspicion. “He looks familiar, though.”

“Maybe it’s like your book title. Everything’s been done before.”

Roland gazed into the forest. Nothing there.

Don’t tell me I’m cracking up. I thought peace and quiet was supposed to calm your nerves.

He moved away from the window, shrugging off Wendy’s half-hearted attempt to lull him into a kiss. “By the way, honey, have you been using the computer?”

“Not since yesterday.” Her tone barely hid the hurt of rejection. “Why?”

Because I wonder if you’ve been sending me e-mails. The enemy within. That’s how they get you. That’s how it always goes bad.

“Nothing,” he said. “It’s just been a little glitchy.”

“You’ve been acting a little glitchy yourself. Where are you going?”

“To get the gun, just in case that fox comes back.”

Burchfield made a campaign stop in Charlotte, speaking to a women’s group about the importance of funding early-childhood education, addressing a Rotary Club crowd at breakfast, stopping by the city library for a photo op, and giving a short interview to a
Charlotte Observer
beat reporter.

Wallace Forsyth admired the way the man slightly adjusted his personality to fit each situation while maintaining the polished veneer of the career politician. Forsyth was no political slouch, but playing folksy, down-home politics in East Kentucky was a much simpler game than prepping for the national stage.

Now, as they drove northeast toward Raleigh on I-85, Burchfield studied the morning edition of the
Observer
.

“Only down six points,” Burchfield said. “Thank the Lord for Tea Party wackos fracturing the base.”

“Now, Daniel, they’re a vital part of your constituency,” Forsyth said. “Besides, you’ve got plenty of time to make a push. The Iowa caucus is still seven months away. Lots can happen between now and then.”

“Yeah. Like some goddamned TV celebrity could enter the race.”

“You got ’em all beat on looks,” Forsyth drawled. “And you got most of ’em beat on money. Just keep beating that donkey with a stick and it will start braying like a jackass.”

Burchfield softened slightly at the compliments. He flapped the newspaper, folded it, and tossed it on the back ledge. The driver, a Secret Service agent named Abernethy, was separated from them by a layer of soundproof glass. The back of the limousine had become an informal Command Central for the campaign, although the official headquarters were in Burchfield’s hometown of Winston-Salem.

They’d be setting up satellite offices around the country, but North Carolina was one of the few Southern Red states that occasionally swung Democratic. It was important for Burchfield to make a stand on his home turf, even if he had to fend off a pack of well-heeled conservative challengers in his own party first.

“Any news on the Morgans?” Burchfield asked.

Forsyth fished his cell from the inside of his jacket. It was some fancy BlackBerry and did all kinds of tricks that scared him half to death. Burchfield had forced him to learn to text and operate the pager system, but that was about all Forsyth could handle. He was afraid he’d hit the wrong button and send out some top-secret memo or one of those slips of the tongue that the media would twist out of shape.

But since it wasn’t government-owned, Burchfield had assured him, nobody could file a public-records request on his messages.

“Why don’t we just check up on them, if I can figure this thing out,” he said.

“Careful you don’t trigger the Star Wars missile defense system,” Burchfield teased.

“Maybe I could send a bomb into San Francisco and make the world a better place.”

“Now, Wallace, they’re American citizens just like the rest of us. If there’s any killing to be done, let’s keep it in the Middle East where it belongs.”

“California’s a lost cause, anyway. Unless you hog-tied Schwarzenegger as your running mate.”

Burchfield smirked. “You know the rules, Wallace. Never pick a sidekick who’s more macho than you are.”

“If I was younger, Daniel, I’d be mighty offended.”

“Don’t worry. The ‘elder statesman’ thing is in. Cheney, Biden, people kind of like a VP who stays in the background.”

Forsyth laboriously punched in the numbers. The limousine ride was smooth, but Wallace hadn’t eaten since the Rotary Club ham biscuits, and his blood sugar was a little low. When he thought he had the numbers right, he waited for the ring and the terse response: “Scagnelli.”

“It’s Wallace. What you got going on?”

“Doing my job.”

“That’s reassuring. And what exactly do you imagine that is today?”

“One thing I need to know. Do you have other agents on this job?”

“Just the CIA agents were brought into play.” Which was true, if Wallace considered the “job” to be keeping the Morgans under surveillance. “How did she react?”

“The doctor’s just going about her business. Well, she
was.
Then hubby went a little over the top.”

“Damn,” Wallace hissed, drawing a cocked eyebrow from Burchfield, who rarely heard him cuss. “Is he violent?”

“Well, not quite. He’s apparently stolen a car belonging to the Durham Technical Institute where he’s taking his cop classes.”

“That’s all we need, for the local police to get in on this.”

“No problem. Just call up the head of the program, tell him it’s a matter of national security, the whole bit. They won’t be too anxious for the media to get hold of the story. Talk about a black eye for your cop program.”

“Where are you now?”

“The Morgans are together, traveling away from town in the stolen car. No stops since he picked her up in Chapel Hill. I’m tailing them, but it’s not high-speed.”

“Good. Keep it below the radar as long as you can.”

“Let me handle it solo, and I can guarantee it. Bring in any others and it’s not my problem.”

“Do you know where they’re headed?”

“They’re heading north out of Chapel Hill.”

“Stay with them and call me when you find out the destination. Is he armed?”

“Wouldn’t you be?”

“That means Dr. Morgan’s at risk. She must be protected at any cost.”

“Yesterday you wanted her dead at any cost.”

“That was yesterday. Those records the CIA hacked suggest she may be onto something. I want to know what it is.”

“Yes, sir.”

“
Any
cost.”

“I heard you the first time.” A pause. “Sir.”

Forsyth rang off and prepared his response, wondering how much he wanted to tell his friend and political ally.

“That didn’t sound so good,” Burchfield said.

“Dr. Morgan probably has Seethe. Her husband’s as addled as a frog in a butter churn.”

“Goddamn it.” Burchfield punched the back of the seat with the bottom of his fist, causing Abernethy to slow and check the rearview. Burchfield gave an impatient wave forward and the driver accelerated again. “I didn’t trust them to destroy it, but I didn’t think they’d start playing with it.”

“Maybe this is a good thing, Daniel. If she’s cooked some of it up, then it didn’t die with Sebastian Briggs.”

“But we’ve searched her labs and her house and her office, checked up on all her associates, and tracked down every web search she’s made and every journal article she’s checked out. Lots of pieces, but no goddamned puzzle.”

You don’t know about the piece named Darrell Silver.

“Dr. Morgan learned a lot from Sebastian Briggs,” Forsyth said. “And she learned that you can’t trust nobody, especially when you’re in the business of scrambling people’s brains.”

“I want it,” Burchfield said. “And I want them buried.” He stared out the window. “I should have dealt with all this last year. That industrial accident could have just as easily claimed half a dozen more lives.”

“‘The quality of mercy ain’t strained, it drops like the gentle rain from heaven.’”

“Shakespeare? I didn’t know you could quote from anything but the Bible.”

Forsyth actually was quoting Barney Fife from an episode of
The Andy Griffith Show
, but he let it go. Someone like Burchfield valued book smarts over real-world wisdom, and it was one of his weaknesses. But Forsyth was cunning enough to exaggerate his slow drawl and backwoods upbringing, because it always led people to underestimate him, especially his opponents.

And Burchfield might be one of them soon enough.

“Scagnelli’s one of the best,” Forsyth said. “And he won’t talk once it’s over.”

“How can you be so sure?”

He couldn’t. But he’d given the consultant enough amphetamines from the labs of Darrell Silver that Scagnelli would gobble just about anything Forsyth handed him.

“I’ve known Scagnelli since his DEA days,” Forsyth said. “He can play both sides of the fence as good as anybody.”

“Okay. Keep him close. Everybody who gets near this stuff seems to want a piece of it.”

“Heaven forbid.”

“And if this new Seethe works as good as the stuff Briggs made…” Burchfield trailed off, apparently casting about for dim memories of the Monkey House calamity. Forsyth’s own memories of that night were of a lurid encounter with Satan, a vision that fully convinced Forsyth that the final days were upon them. Satan not only walked the Earth, but he was drawing ever closer to the nation’s capital.

“Dr. Morgan is quite talented, Daniel,” Forsyth said. “And she’s also smart enough to know we’re watching. That’s why she’s kept her guinea pig close to home.”

“Mark?”

“That would explain a lot. He used to have a lot of sense. We had high hopes for that boy, despite him having an uppity liberal for a wife. But if she’s been feeding him that monkey juice, it’s no wonder he cracked.”

“You don’t think she’d do that to the man she loves, do you?”

“No. Only the one she married.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Seethe. If ever the devil was put into a pill, that’s what he would look like. There ain’t no morals with that stuff, and that’s why the world better not get a hold of it.”

“Wallace, I respect the hell out of you, but sometimes you’re just a little too holier than thou. You don’t have to frame everything as a moral issue.”

“Well, somebody better. The only place the government’s able to use the word
God
anymore is on money.”

Forsyth was loyal enough to deliver Burchfield a powerful weapon for his Oval Office arsenal, but he wanted to ensure his own place in the administration first. And he wanted collateral in case Burchfield backed off his plan to start a war in Pakistan, igniting the tinderbox of Afghanistan and Iran, opening the door to massive U.S. military involvement and God’s final battle. That’s why he’d triggered the CIA investigation into the Morgans while making it appear Burchfield had started the inquiry.

“If Dr. Morgan has Seethe, how do we get it without killing everybody in sight?” Burchfield asked. “And what do we do with her afterwards?”

“There won’t be any ‘afterwards’ this time,” Forsyth said. “Scagnelli will make sure of that.”

Alexis Morgan had been his philosophical adversary on the president’s bioethics council, defending the benefits of what she considered “humane neurochemistry” to treat mental conditions. Forsyth saw the brain as God’s domain, the seat of reason and choice, and its sole purpose was in making the decision to believe in that which had created it.

Intelligence existed to manifest temptation. Logic existed to lead humans to faith.

And God had shaped Wallace, guided him toward this destiny, and the president’s council seemed like a distant dream on a long-forgotten night. Wallace had a role to serve, and he’d been placed in the perfect position to fulfill the prophecies.

After all, revelations weren’t an option if God put them right into your head.

Which is where Dr. Morgan had it all wrong. Believing in God was not only natural, it was the highest purpose of brain function, whether that brain had evolved from monkeys or whether it had sprung full-blown into the world.

But she’d answer for that, for she’d never repent of her sorceries.

“You’ve got a campaign to worry about,” Forsyth said to Burchfield. “Leave Seethe and Halcyon to me.”