Off The Grid (18 page)

Chapter 37

Nevis Island

Present Day

Estevan
led Luke down the same worn path that Kirkhorn had followed to State Street so many years before. They walked slowly round the cove and up to Columbus Pointe.

“This entire campus is my responsibility,”
Estevan said, motioning to the campus below. “Its maintenance, cleaning, construction. A lot of work for a man my age, but this is where I belong. This school and hospital are my family.”

“So your family is on the island?” asked Luke, keeping pace with the elderly man’s measured strides.

“No wife, but I had a daughter. Ann was a beautiful girl, so happy. She-“

He stopped at the railing and leaned on the heavy steel guardrail.

“Ann was 12 years old in 1982. Her mother is an American. I met her while I was at a medical conference in Atlanta. She stayed on the island with us for a few years, but she wanted other things. She left when Ann was five. Didn’t want the burden of a child, so she left us. Ann had a hard time in school, being of mixed race. She still had dark skin, like me, but lighter. It was a small difference that meant the world back then. She stood out and was teased by the other kids in her class whose families were only from Saint Kitts and Nevis. They tormented her for being half of a white American.”

“That’s awful for a child to go through that,” Luke said.

“I can’t blame them really, the island was 95 percent West Indian in the early 1980s. White folks were an anomaly. They didn’t know any better and we didn’t do a good enough job with them, showing them different cultures and understanding like today. Their world view was based on the borders of these islands.”

Estevan
placed both hands on the large railing and shook it with all his might. There was a slight waver at one of the posts bolted into the stone path. He took out a crescent wrench from his tool belt, knelt beside the loose post and methodically tightened the bolts at each railing juncture.

“She used to take this path home after visiting me at the hospital. A couple of times a week, she’d stop in after school, just to say hello before heading home. Sometimes she’d do homework in my office while I tended to patients.

“She was on her way home, right here at the pointe when she came across a group of her classmates headed to the beach. Three boys, all much older than her, blocked the path. They shoved her down to the ground. She managed to get up, but one of the boys grabbed a hold of her backpack, knocking her off balance and into the railing. It was made of wood back then. It was weak. The top plank gave way and she went over the cliff. She landed on that outcropping.”

Clear as day, Luke could see the image of Elliot Cosgrove tossing his sister to the ground that terrible night. The rolling video was looped in his brain.
A bully and a rapist making a woman subservient to him. He didn’t like to recall those thoughts.

Estevan
continued. He pointed to the only shallow piece of the rock face that jutted out. Below it was a straight drop to the Atlantic Ocean.

“Two of the boys just ran off. Cowards. But the third had the sense to get help. He sprinted to the hospital and told the first people he saw what had happened. When the medical rescue team arrived with the ropes and backboard, she still wasn’t moving. There wasn’t any other way to get her off that outcropping but to lower someone down to strap her into the board.

“One of the nurses recognized Ann and came and got me. I got up here just as they brought her back onto the level part of the path. I checked her pulse. It was weak, but I could feel it. She had a gash above her left eye with significant bleeding. I applied pressure, but couldn’t wrap it up because she was strapped into the backboard to immobilize her head.”

Estevan
stared intently out at the ocean waves, both hands on the thick steel rail. His voice was failing him.

“They did everything right getting her up here and we gave her the best medical treatment we had.“

His voice trailed off, buried by the roar of the ocean waves.

“I’m sorry. I can’t imagine losing a child like that.”

“No, the good Lord didn’t take my baby that day, but the fall permanently damaged her spine. She was paralyzed from the waist down.”

“Paralyzed?”

“At C5 and C4.”

Luke thought of Loretta sitting in that motorized wheelchair, unable to move anything but her fingers and finally recognized what
Kirkhorn had been researching.

“You and Professor
Kirkhorn were trying to heal spinal injuries,” Luke said.

“For more than 30 years.”

***

“That’s why he divorced Loretta,” Luke told Kathryn later when he called her for an update on the port security. “To focus all of his attention on finding a cure for her injury.”

“Sure, but the least he could have done was to tell her that,” Kathryn said. “She’s been under the impression that he’d just had enough and just wanted to end it.”

“As cold as it was, he did it for her,” he said.

“That’s not enough, you can’t put your wife through that. It’s just unforgivable.”

“You don’t think dedicating your life to curing your spouse from a crippling injury is enough?” Luke asked.

“Well, it didn’t work did it? Now he’s dead and she’s stuck in that chair thinking her husband wanted nothing to do with her.”

Chapter 38

Estevan and Luke talked over dinner on the outside patio of a bar on the beach. Luke couldn’t help but be curious about Estevan and Kirkhorn’s longstanding relationship, even if it didn’t concern the transmission of energy. The fact that they were conducting medical experiments was so out of character from the man he knew.

“Blaine and I have been friends since we first met in the mid-60s,”
Estevan said. “He was continually fascinated with the viberock on the island and I was his source for the material. He even used the medical school as his adopted research headquarters for a few months over the years.”

“Is that why he is in that class picture on the wall?” Luke asked.

“Yes, he was working out of the school then, but that particular year, he was working for me.”

“You employed him?”

“I found a way to pay his expenses, yes. You see, Blaine contended that the viberock had properties that he’d never seen before. Brother Kirkhorn’s theory supposed that when you held the rock in your hand, under your arm or between your knees – wherever the body would naturally join, it helped pass your body’s natural electrical impulses. The vibration of the rock was just a manifestation of that impulse. It served as a conduit. The trouble with proving the theory was the impure nature of the material.”

“Because your family manipulated the rock before forming it into shapes for sale?” Luke asked.

“Yes. Our process was extremely impure. We were doing it to sell trinkets to tourists, not conduct a scientific experiment. He was able to extract the exact material from the rocks that he claimed was a yet-to-be published rare earth element.”

“Some rare earth elements are used inside high-capacity computers and hybrid cars,” Luke said. “But there are only 17 on the periodic table.”

“He thought this was the 18th element,” Estevan said. 

“Maybe he just misidentified it. Isn’t the periodic table pretty well set by now?”

“Recently, yes, but there were countless times in the last century that new ideas were proven or discoveries were made about our world,” Estevan said. “The scientific community will always question new evidence, but will only accept it if it clears a burden of proof and the test of time.”

“Was he able to isolate it and definitively prove it was the 18th rare earth element though?” Luke asked.

“That was not his goal, although it would have been quite a scientific achievement. An achievement that would have gotten him in the history books forever.”

“What was his goal then?”

“In the beginning it was to identify the material, yes. I can’t argue with that. But over time it became clear that this wasn’t something he could do on his own – we needed financial backing that we just didn’t have. But I also couldn’t let him publish his findings to find investors.”

“Why not? Wouldn’t that have provided a better opportunity to receive funding and isolate the material?”

“Yes, but I didn’t care about identifying the material. I needed it isolated and pure so I could do my own testing.”

“On spinal injury patients.”

“On my daughter.”

“So, there’s no way that
Kirkhorn was trying to develop a synthetic or replacement for ARC?” Luke asked.

“I know exactly what he was working on and can tell you definitively that the only electricity he and I ever discussed was what is pulsing inside the human body. Besides, he knew of this material decades before the world knew about ARC.”

Kathryn now joined them, setting three beers on the table.

“So, we’ve wasted three days down here,”
Kathryn said.

Luke didn’t know how much of the conversation she’d heard.

“Hold on a minute,” Luke said. “It may be true that his focus was medicinal, but that doesn’t mean you weren’t researching the same material that MassEnergy is interested in. Kathryn, you told me that MassEnergy has not been able to identify, with any certainty, what ARC is made of. Isn’t it at least possible that this is the same material?”

“But how could an academic and industry expert of
Kirkhorn’s status not see the potential? Why didn’t he make the leap like Warren Evans did?” Kathryn asked.

“Love, my dear,”
Estevan offered. “He wasn’t trying to save the world. He was trying to help a friend’s crippled daughter and then, his own wife.”

Kathryn turned away to avoid saying something she might regret later. Her normally stoic exterior was no match for her clear disdain for what
Kirkhorn did to his wife. Her face couldn’t hide it.

“
Estevan, if we can get a sample of the original rocks that you and Kirkhorn used, we can take them back to MassEnergy and get them tested,” Luke said.

“What will that tell you?”

“It will tell us if your rocks contain the same elements as ARC. Meaning, you would know of another location where ARC can be harvested. It would be a goldmine of information.”

“A goldmine to you maybe, but not me,”
Estevan said. “To be quite frank, I don’t see how helping you and MassEnergy access the material would do any of us any good. It’s not like this stuff is just lying around. Other than vibrating in your hand, we could never get it to . . . well, let’s just say it was a lost cause. And you think it’ll transmit electricity? That’s a big leap.”

“With our resources and Kathryn’s connections to drug companies and research facilities, there’s a chance we can help your paralysis research by further refining the minerals. It could be the answers that you weren’t able to find on your own.”

“I wish it were so simple,” Estevan said. “I wish this was an option 30 years ago.”

“There’s no reason why we can’t make this happen,” Luke said. “We just need the raw material.”

More to herself than anyone at the table, Kathryn said, ”Imagine what our cut would be.”

If
Estevan heard Kathryn’s remark, he didn’t acknowledge it. He took a few moments before saying anything more, choosing his words carefully. It was obvious that this short visit had already put him through the emotional wringer.

“I have no one left to heal,”
Estevan said. “My Ann has been gone for many years now. I’m sorry. I thought I could deal with this. I should never have let you come here. I didn’t mean to bring this up again.”

He stood up to leave.

Luke could see sorrow in the man’s eyes. He knew the viberock was unique in some way, but wasn’t able to control it. What was his hesitation to sharing it with them? What’s the harm? And then it hit him. Estevan had yet to say what happened to his daughter, but it was obvious that his efforts to get her to walk again had failed. Nearly 30 years of his life had been spent trying to solve one very complex problem – human paralysis. One problem he couldn’t solve.

“You’re afraid to get your hopes up again, aren’t you?” Luke said, standing to look him in the eye.

“Yes I am,” Estevan said, ashamed. “I can’t do it again.”

“You did everything you could to help your daughter, that’s obvious.”

“You don’t know what I did.”

“Then tell me,” Luke said. He sat back down and
Estevan did the same.

“It’s not something I’m going to talk about.”

“Estevan, you know that my interest in this material is only to deliver wireless electricity, but this is a huge business and I can promise you that if we find something of value in this material, we might be able to help fund more extensive medical research tests or trials.”

Kathryn raised her eyebrows. Luke could tell she was questioning him giving away profits they’d yet to make.

“You really believe our little trinket stones can transmit electricity?” Estevan asked.

“You know something is there.
Its more than just a vibrating rock. Kirkhorn knew it too, but there’s only one way to test it.”

“If I help you procure some samples, I can’t put myself through the pain of doing the research. You’re on your own for that. I’ll share my rudimentary findings, but that’s it.”

“That’s more than generous,” Kathryn said. “We’ll make sure you’re compensated for that.”

“Compensation isn’t my concern.”

“I just meant you should get something for your work.”

“Continuing this research is enough payment for me,” he said. “I have to warn you, it won’t be simple to get the samples. Like I said, this stuff isn’t just lying around. And if you really want this, then you have to do the heavy lifting.”

“We’re in, no matter what,” Luke said.

“We’ll have to wait until tomorrow night.”

“Why’s that? Is it on the mountain?”

“Quite the opposite, actually. We have to wait until tomorrow, because that’s when the patrolling gunboats are less likely to see us. Oh, and we have to get our scuba gear ready too. Hopefully you can dive.”

“Gunboats? Scuba gear?”

“The samples are at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean and are guarded night and day by patrols,”
Estevan said casually as if it was no big deal. “You said you were up for anything.”

“I thought only you and your family knew where you got the rock from. It was your island secret. Who’s guarding the rocks?”

“The location is still a secret as far as I can tell, but it’s precariously close to an offshore oil rig and they don’t like visitors. You two do know how to scuba dive, right?”

“I took a hotel certification in Mexico during spring break once,” Kathryn said. “Does that count?”

Luke was a certified scuba diver and had logged over 60 dives in open water. He served as a volunteer instructor during the summer.

“I’m comfortable in the water,” he said.

“Hold up a second,” Kathryn asked. “I don’t care how good of a diver you are. Why are we even talking about this? Didn’t he just say ‘gunboats’?”

“Yeah, sounds exciting.”

“Sounds insane,” she said.