The Pressure of Darkness (34 page)

And the clattering continues.

The noise is coming from behind him. Doc gasps. Someone else is with him in the darkened room—someone else who has been busily typing on a different computer.

Oh, shit!

Doc tries to turn the wheelchair, but his hand is shaking and damp and his fingers slip off the small red knob. Meanwhile, footsteps rapidly cross the floor. Someone turns the desk lamp off and the room plunges into shadow. Something round and cool presses against the back of his neck.

"Just stay quiet," a male voice says. Doc begins to hyperventilate; his nostrils catch an odd odor. The stranger stinks of unwashed flesh and decay. "Unless you want the rest of you to get paralyzed, too."

Doc swallows, remains still. His muscles twitch from adrenaline and opiate withdrawal. The stranger is quick as a panther. Small plastic bands rapidly encircle Doc's arms and the battery is removed from his wheelchair. A gag is inserted into his mouth. It's a rag with a golf-sized ball in it. He is helpless.

"Now, I have turned out the lights for a reason," the man says. "If I planned to kill you, why would I bother?"

Doc finds his voice, tries to speak around the gag. "I don't know what you want."

"We'll see."

The gun is withdrawn from his neck. Doc hears a rustle of clothing as the intruder shifts position. That repulsive odor comes again, making Doc gag. The man moves a high intensity lamp and bends the neck so that it shines directly down on the laminated desktop in a concentrated beam. He places a stack of rolled fabric on the desk, opens it. Several polished, shiny medical tools are revealed: scalpels of various sizes, some scissors, and wicked-looking metal probes.

"Please," Doc mumbles. It sounds like a faint
pleeth
because of the gag. A shudder passes through him as a combination of death anxiety and continuing opiate withdrawal racks his body.

The man is wearing gloves. He will leave no prints. He removes something else and puts it near the medical tools. It is a long barbeque lighter with a wide mouth. Doc's eyes widen comically above the gag. Images from the grotesque Peter Stryker death scene are flooding his mind.

"I need to know what you have done," the man whispers. "And what you know." His voice is low, gentle, and obscenely intimate; he is like a sadistic lover coaxing a woman into trying something humiliating and painful. "If you try to lie this will be a very difficult experience for you, but then I'm sure you realize that."

"What?" Doc asks, thinking:
Jesus Christ I'll tell you anything, what is it, what do you want from me?
"What?"

"Who knows?"

Doc shakes his head, does not understand the question. The man strokes Doc's left hand in that sensual way. He plays with the little finger, bending it back and forth in a teasing fashion. He pulls it up and then rapidly slices it off.

The drug withdrawal makes the pain unbearable. Doc shakes and writhes, tries to scream. The gag blunts the sound. He struggles to beg for mercy, but only hoarse gargling noises emerge from his strained vocal cords.

"
Shhhhh
." The man who smells like shit soothes, comforts like an amused parent. Doc looks at his violated hand. Blood fountains, an arc of crimson beneath the high intensity lamp.

The man flicks the lighter on and cauterizes the mutilated finger.

Doc shrieks; his body jerks and convulses, then finally comes to rest. He hovers on the edge of consciousness, his head pounding and his hand in flared agony. Meanwhile, the man waits patiently, his breathing calm, even, and undisturbed; such complete indifference is almost as horrifying as the sadism.

Again: "Who knows?"

Doc feigns unconsciousness, stalls for time. The man selects another finger. It hits Doc then that he will say anything, do anything, to avoid what is to come. He will give up Red Burke and Gina and make up stories about other people, anything to avoid the horror of being dismembered alive. The man who stinks of excrement is a demon, and he will patiently do what he has come to do without regard for time or truth or the slightest hint of compassion.

Doc imagines the e-mail and the file flying through cyberspace. He wills them to be sent on time, offers up a short prayer. Then begs: "Wait!"

The man ignores him. The torturer slices off his second finger. Doc bellows a sound he would not have believed possible for a human to make. His upper body snaps back and forth like a passenger in a car crash. He begins to babble nonsense.

"Tell me what you have done."

The cauterizing follows. Doc's intact right hand locates the homemade device that monitors his hidden Oxycontin supply. He shrieks in pain again, bangs his head against the top of the wheelchair, but his shaking fingers still somehow manage to deactivate the small timer.

When the flame hits the bleeding socket of the second finger, the world whirls into a tornado of rippling darkness and Doc passes out . . .

Everything is red and black when it returns. The left side of his body is in agony and behind the body odor of the assassin, Doc locates a smell like something left too long on the grill: his own scorched flesh. Someone dabs the sweat away from his forehead. The melancholy voice comes again, by his right ear. "Would you like to tell me something now?"

Doc nods rapidly. The sound of his own coughing sob shames him. His body arches involuntarily. Small, white tendrils of smoke are rising lazily from the scorched flesh of his left hand. Doc's two severed fingers lay side by side like little brown fish, mocking him.

Doc's right hand searches. The man who stinks carefully removes the gag and tucks it under Doc's chin like a child's bib.

"Umph." Doc mumbles, incoherently. His tongue feels like an emery board.

The man dabs Doc's sweat-soaked face again, leans closer to listen carefully. "Yes?"

"Go fuck yourself."

Doc taps the plunger with his right hand. The entire two-day dosage of powerful Oxycontin enters his bloodstream in one immense wave. A warm rush of pleasure hits his brain. Almost simultaneously Doc feels his heart begin to labor, already failing. His lungs forget to breath and his chest seizes up, but he does not care.

Someone screams something. "No!"

But now Doc Washington is young and tall, he has his legs back and he is standing on top of a gigantic metal elevator as it descends deep into the bowels of the earth. See you soon, my brothers. Some old Marvin Gaye music is playing. Above him is a tiny square of light and an angry man who is thumping his chest and shaking him, someone who'd been terrifying seconds before, but as the loving night overtakes him, Doc can't remember for the life of him why he ever felt so afraid . . .

FORTY-SEVEN

"Excuse me, Buey."

"I asked you not to bother me, Esteban."

"But . . ."

"Can you not see I am busy?"

"This is urgent. We must speak alone."

"
Alone?
"

"My apologies to this young lady if I have embarrassed her in any way,
Jefe,
but I know you will understand when I tell you the content of the message we have just received."

"Blanca, leave us."

"But what shall I do?"

"After this? Go and brush your teeth! Take a bath or something and leave the men to talk of business."

"Ahem."

"Do not stare at her if you value your
cojones
, Esteban."

"Sir . . ."

"Wait. Okay, now what was so important it required you to stomp into the room like an angry bull?"

"The strange American, Buey. He is coming again."

"And so? You fucking idiot! I already knew he was coming."

"But did you know
why?
"

FORTY-EIGHT

"I know he came to speak with you."

Indira Pal was standing on the sidewalk, beneath the harsh white of the street lamp, hugging herself against the evening chill. Burke could see goose bumps rippling along the beige flesh of her arms. She wore smart brown pants, an Oriental patterned beige blouse, and had her black hair up in a bun that was tied with golden cord.

"I can't talk to you." Burke turned away, faced a parked car. He watched a stream of milky white light from the street lamp as it pooled in neat rows down the long, silent residential street. He could smell night-blooming jasmine, the crisp odor of a nearby fireplace, and the faint scent of her warm, perfumed skin. His shoulders ached; they were hunched beneath his denim jacket and it felt like roofing nails had been pounded into his flesh.

Somewhere to the north a dog barked. Burke felt his eyes sting, and his sad pulse sang opera. "You need to leave."

"I'm begging."

"Indira, don't. I can't."

"I love you."

He closed his eyes and stood rigid and trembling, a race horse in the starting gate. Indira closed the gap, stood behind him and stroked his waist with her delicate hands. Her bracelets jangled. More dogs barked in alarm.

"He said he's dying."

"It is true, Jack. He has months, a year at most."

"You didn't mention that."

"No."

"I think I had the right to know."

Her hands trembled. "I was afraid you would send me away if I told you. I was afraid you would not be there for me. And I needed you to be there for me."

"So what you needed was more important than the truth?"

"Hasn't it always been that way for us?"

"Indira, I feel ashamed."

"And so do I."

He turned and she melted into him, body sculpted to his own. He leaned back against the car and looked down into almond eyes wide, crying and clearly free of guile. He pondered how someone could appear so innocent yet perpetrate an act as unconscionable as infidelity to a dying man. He wondered if he would ever be able to trust her again. Indira pressed her face into his chest. His shirt was damp. "You should have told me."

Her voice, muffled and hoarse. "Yes. I should have told you. But then I would have had to tell you the rest of it."

Burke grabbed her shoulders, forced her away. "The rest of it?"

"He will not go alone, my love."

"Excuse me?"

"I must go with him. He believes that this is his right."

"Indira, what are you talking about?"

"
Sati
."

"What?" Yet Burke knows the meaning of the word. It is that barbaric Indian custom, now outlawed in virtually all provinces, that holds that when a man dies, his wife is expected to follow him onto the funeral pyre. "Indira, what the hell are you talking about? He can't possibly mean that."

Her voice, still muffled. "Mo paid my family's debts and bought me from my father when I was still a girl. He dressed me, educated me, and brought me here to America."

"And that means he owns you?"

"Mo has very deep spiritual beliefs. He leads a group of sorts, a collection of old friends and business acquaintances. They believe anything he tells them, they feed his ego. For a long time I believed him, too."

"Not anymore?"

"No. He frightens me, Jack. He brings the group designer drugs and leads them in deep meditation. They are all devout followers of the left-hand path of Tantra, but in the extreme. And they also all believe in
Sati
, even in the idea of sacrificing their own lives to follow their guru into death, if asked."

"This is craziness."

"It is real enough to them. And so I am to follow Mo when he dies, and nothing will persuade him—or his followers—otherwise."

Burke angered. "Why didn't you ask someone for help? Why not go to the law?"

"He owns my life."

"
You
own your life."

"You don't understand."

Burke slipped fingers under her chin, lifted her face, kissed her; soon was drinking her in, savoring even the salt of her tears. "Then tell me more. I want to understand."

Indira broken, body wracked with silent sobs. "I am going to do it. I have to. I must go into the void with him."

He rocked her for a moment. He looked around. At the west end of his block, a large Taurus quietly turned the corner, splashed through a pool of water, run off from overworked lawn sprinklers. The headlights were off, surely a red flag, and then the driver stopped. A miniscule orange glow announced he was lighting a cigar. After a long moment the car began moving again, rolling closer. Burke spun Indira and placed his body between her and the approaching vehicle. He urged her along the sidewalk, up the steps, into his house. The car drove on.

"Sit down. I'll make some tea."

She crumpled onto the couch, then curled up as if feverish and disoriented. Meanwhile, Burke busied himself in the kitchen; teapot, chamomile tea, a spoon of honey. He was in overdrive and a tight band compressed his skull, causing white dots with red trim. He knew the feeling well, had never been able to escape it for long. His heart was black with rage.

Burke leaned against the sink and concentrated as intently as he could on the stream of water coming from the faucet. He took a deep breath, held it for several seconds and released it through his nose, first one nostril and then the other. Then he turned off the water, brought sweetened tea back to the living room. Indira was sitting up. She could not meet his eyes. When he put the saucer down his hands were steady.

Hers were shaking so wildly she had trouble bringing the cup to her lips. Burke gave her time to compose herself. He sat cross-legged on the arm chair, across from her, loving her presence.

Indira replaced the cup. She studied it, and her vibrating hands. Her cheeks seemed to burn with small pilot lights of shame. "I should not have told you."

Burke contained his anger, spoke soothingly. "But you did. So you may as well tell me the details."

Indira looked up. She set her jaw and jumped directly to the truth. "He calls the group Shahr-e-Khamosh," she says quietly.

"The City of Silence."

"Yes."

"Like a graveyard."

"More or less. The
smashan
. This is the charnel ground, where bodies are taken to be buried or perhaps burned. That word is taken from
ashmashana
, the ground where rocks are found."