The Reviver (39 page)

‘Yes,’ Jonah said. ‘There was something unusual, something different.’

‘You were right. The paperwork was fake because there
was
no corpse.’ He reached out and gripped Jonah’s arm tight enough to hurt, ignoring the chill they could both feel. The man’s face became urgent, desperate. Jonah wanted to pull away, but he couldn’t take his eyes off Eldridge’s own. ‘She wasn’t dead, Miller.
She wasn’t dead.
’

Silence. Jonah stepped away, staring at Eldridge. ‘What?’ he said at last, barely audible. He looked at Never, but his friend was pale, and was staring at Eldridge as well.

‘Please,’ Eldridge said to Never, ‘could you pass me those pills? Behind you?’ Eldridge took two, closing his eyes for a few seconds, his breathing ragged.

Jonah waited for his own shock to settle before speaking. ‘What
exactly
was Kendrick doing?’

‘How dead is dead? That was Barlow’s question, the one that started it all. The human body can be shut down, cooled until lifeless. People have survived drowning in frozen waters, pulled out after an hour or longer. Surgery using body-cooling techniques has been routine for years. You can stop somebody’s heart, do what you need to do and start it up again. In that state, it’s effectively a corpse. So, how dead is dead? How dead does someone have to be before you can bring in a reviver?’

‘They have to be
dead,
’ said Jonah.

‘Easy to say, Miller, and I felt the same when Rob Durmey told me. But it seems Barlow was very persuasive. Everyone had a reason to want it to work. Kendrick hoped it’d allow an interrogation to go ahead without the need to kill. Not that he was squeamish; it would just have made everything less
complicated.
Their lead researcher was called Gideon, one of Andreas Biotech’s best, and Gideon found the idea fascinating, hoping he could pinpoint the precise moment when revival became possible. Michael Andreas’s interest in cryogenics had led to some of the technologies used in low-body-temperature surgery. They took the equipment and tried it with living subjects. It didn’t work, but Barlow thought it was close. They kept failing, until they realized what the problem was.’

Jonah knew where Eldridge was going. ‘They felt too fresh.’

‘If anyone was going to be able to do it, you were their best chance. You were the only reviver who’d ever brought anyone back so fast. The only case. You were unique.’

‘My mother.’

Eldridge nodded. ‘They said she’d been dead less than ten minutes, possibly as little as three. So in you came. And you started it all.’

‘This is bullshit,’ said Never, bewildered and dismissive. ‘What the hell does it mean to
revive
someone who’s alive? How can that
work
?’

Eldridge sighed. ‘Oh, it didn’t work.’

Jonah glared at him. ‘But you said Underwood –’

‘It didn’t
work.
Think about the answers you got to your questions, Miller. They didn’t make sense. Think about what she said.’

The cities are burning. The shadow has come.
‘What are you telling me?’

‘It wasn’t
her.
It was something else. Revival opens a door, and on the other side of that door you find the soul of the person you revived. But
this
 … You open that door when the soul is still in the body. The door’s open, but there’s nothing to come through it.
It’s an invitation.
’

‘For what?’

Eldridge’s eyes were manic and frightened. His breathing was growing ragged again. ‘Something long dead. Waiting for a way out. After you stirred up trouble, Kendrick’s team went elsewhere. Rob went with him. They gave up on live revivals soon enough. The results were useless. Kendrick thought it was simply not working, that the words that came were nonsense, end of story. Gideon and Barlow left. Rob spent the following years being very well paid to do things he didn’t want to tell me about. Shameful things he didn’t have the decency to be ashamed
of.
’

‘And then, two years ago, Rob heard that right after parting company with Kendrick, Gideon and Barlow had gone to Michael Andreas for funding. They’d been working on it ever since and were ready to do it. Bring something ancient and evil into the world. They’d worked it out. They called the act
Unity.
It was something very few revivers could have pulled off, something that needed the BPV variant researched so long before. That had struck a chord with Rob. He’d told people about it, then sought me out. For so long I’d known there was something out there, and finally someone believed me.

‘I don’t know if Rob’s death was to silence him. Kendrick may not have believed any of this, but Rob was talking out of turn and he knew what Kendrick had been doing all these years.

‘I told Yarrow everything Rob had told me. I didn’t hear any more until Hannerman came to see me. He said they’d managed to stop them, for a while; Andreas had found only one reviver capable of creating Unity, and Hannerman’s people killed her. Andreas had problems finding a replacement. Hannerman had been trying to discover who the replacement was.’

‘Do you know why Hannerman’s group was planning some kind of bombing campaign?’

‘He didn’t tell me the details, but I know they wanted to cover every eventuality. He came to me after his friends died. He was alone, and needed to be sure he was doing the right thing. I told him he had to stop them, whatever it took.’

‘Whatever it took? They killed an innocent man, seriously wounded another.’

‘I meant what I said. Because I felt it. For
years,
I felt what was out there. It had managed to use me to prey on Ruby Fleming, but I could tell it was trapped somehow. The whispers I heard were eager but distant. When you came to see me before, you talked of Ruby. You said the same thing happened to you.’

‘It did. A woman called Alice Decker.’

‘Did you … did you hear the whispers?’

‘It didn’t whisper, Victor. It spoke. It spoke to me through Alice.’

Eldridge closed his eyes, shaking his head. ‘Dear God. Does that mean it’s closer now?’ He opened his eyes and met Jonah’s. ‘God help us if they succeed. Whatever Andreas wants to bring into our world, there’s no one to stop him anymore.’

*   *   *

They drove in silence in Never’s car. Twenty minutes of putting distance between themselves and the hospice, before Never finally spoke.

‘You believe him?’

‘Yes. I saw it too, Never. I saw what was out there. And everyone told me it was in my mind.’

‘What the hell can he even mean, Jonah? What can be out there?’

‘I don’t know. Problem is, what do we do? Who the hell do we try and convince?’

They were silent for a minute before Never spoke again. ‘Hang on. You heard what Eldridge said. Andreas needed a replacement reviver. Maybe Hannerman had discovered who it was. And Hannerman attacked Jason Shepperton.’

‘Eager to get out of the hospital. Getting ready for a long holiday. You think he’s taking Andreas’s money?’

‘Not after we talk to him.’

Jonah took out his phone and dialled Annabel’s cell number.

‘Jonah,’ she said, sounding surprised but pleased.

‘We found something, Annabel. I saw Eldridge again. He told me what Unity is. Andreas is behind it. Where are you?’

‘At home.’

‘Me and Never are on our way there. They needed to hire a reviver. We know who they got.’

*   *   *

It was close to midnight when they arrived at Annabel’s. Her Porsche was in the drive, the garage doors closed, outside light off.

‘Nice car,’ Never said, hanging around the Porsche.

‘Come in when you finish drooling,’ said Jonah, going on ahead to Annabel’s door. It was open, just a crack. He put his hand on it, a warning sounding in his head.

‘Annabel?’ He pushed the door open and stepped into the unlit hallway. The closed door to the living room was on his left, light coming through the gap at its base. He opened it. ‘Annab—’

There was barely enough time to register Annabel, wide-eyed and gagged, sitting in her father’s favourite chair with her hands bound. On either side of her were two huge men, dark jackets and black jeans, sunglasses and stony faces. Annabel jerked her head and he was suddenly aware of movement behind him. He was grabbed as he turned, but outside he could see Never, still by the Porsche as he saw what had happened and froze.

‘Jonah! What the—’

The man holding Jonah called to the others, ‘There’s another one outside. Get him.’

Jonah yelled, ‘Run, Never!’

As Never started to move, the man to Annabel’s right strode past Jonah to the front door, reaching in to his pocket. Jonah saw the weapon and swore.

In one smooth movement, the man’s arm came up to aim at Never.

And then, without warning, he fired.

30

They were searched – hurried and rough, their phones taken – then bundled into the windowless rear of a black unmarked van.

‘We’re not going to hurt you,’ they were told as the van doors slid shut. Jonah was unconvinced.

They drove for hours. Jonah brought Annabel up to speed on exactly what had happened with Eldridge. Their requests for a break were shouted down from the front. There was a dim light above them, and Never’s complaints were growing louder by the minute. Being hit by a Taser was bad enough, but it had made him empty his bladder. Every time he moved, he squelched.

‘I can’t believe they fucking
shot
me,’ he said, trying to rub the impact site of the Taser, low on his back. ‘I didn’t realize how much those things hurt.’

‘Not as much as a bullet,’ said Annabel.

‘I can’t believe I pissed myself,’ he said, sounding defeated and scared. ‘I can’t believe we’re even here at all. What are they going to do with us?’

‘Depends who they are,’ said Annabel. ‘Maybe they’re going to warn us off and let us go.’ Jonah looked at her, then away. She didn’t really believe it would be that easy, he thought. She’d said it for Never’s sake. He figured they were either from Andreas or from Kendrick. Whichever it was, engineering an accident would have been the simple way to get rid of them; they wanted to talk, at least, and find out what they knew. He hoped that was all.

‘Jonah,’ Annabel said. ‘What do you honestly believe? Do you think Eldridge
isn’t
crazy?’

‘He’s crazy, all right. But not wrong. Since Alice Decker I’ve been trying to convince myself it was all in my head, but Eldridge can’t have been far off the mark. He said reviving a living subject was like opening a door. How can we possibly know what’s out there?’

When they finally stopped, they had to wait for a long time before the van door was opened. They were in a large basement garage. Six security guards hustled them through a door and a tangle of corridors before leaving them in a small office, which seemed to be a general dumping ground for unused furniture. Along the far wall were three desks, each with a second desk inverted on top, half a dozen office chairs in front. To their left were five empty bookshelves. A clock on the wall showed just shy of six in the morning. Two sides of the office had large windows, the blinds on them closed. Jonah opened one set up, just as one of the guards appeared on the other side and held what looked like a large piece of cardboard over it. Another guard ripped tape off a roll in his hand and fixed the cardboard in place.

Jonah closed the blind again, the sound of ripping tape continuing as the rest of the windows were sealed. Only the small window in the office door was left uncovered, presumably to make it easier for the guards outside to check on them.

‘Hasty measures,’ said Annabel. ‘They did this on short notice.’ She looked at Jonah, and he thought he knew what was on her mind. They’d been grabbed by people unprepared for it. Just as her father had been.

‘Do you know where we might be?’ he asked her.

Annabel walked to the desks and began to methodically open drawers. At last, she found a single crumpled Post-it. She unfolded it and looked, then held it up. It was printed with a company name and a logo that seemed like a stylized DNA double helix.

‘Reese-Farthing Medical. One of Andreas’s companies. A biotech firm that deals with virus and gene therapy work. That puts us a little outside Pittsburgh. For what it’s worth.’

Ten minutes later the office door opened again. Two of the men who’d been at Annabel’s entered and took position on either side of the door. Then Jonah’s mouth fell open as Will Barlow walked in.

‘Shit,’ Jonah said.

‘Now, Jonah . . I didn’t expect a cheer, but things like that can hurt a guy’s feelings.’ Barlow’s smile looked about as genuine as it always did.

‘You know him?’ Never asked.

‘We go way back. This is Will Barlow.’

Then Michael Andreas entered as well. He was wearing a cap with the Andreas Biotech logo; Jonah could see that part of his scalp had been shaved. The cap covered most of it, the white edge of surgical dressing just visible near his left temple.

‘Mr Andreas,’ Jonah said, deadpan. ‘How’s the health?’

‘It’s excellent, Jonah,’ Andreas said. ‘I admit I overstated my condition, but it’s good of you to ask.’ He was wearing the impossibly sincere smile he’d had on his face when Jonah and Annabel had last seen him. ‘My apologies to you all. Jonah, Annabel. And especially to you, Mr Geary.’ He looked Never up and down. ‘The rough-housing was uncalled for.’

‘Fuck off,’ said Never. He scowled. Like his grin, it took up most of his face. ‘Any chance of a change of fucking trousers? It seems I pissed myself when your apes electrocuted me.’ He glared at the apes, but they didn’t twitch.

Andreas’s smile didn’t waver. He looked at Will Barlow. ‘Will? Please, arrange for Mr Geary to shower and organize a change of clothing.’ Barlow acknowledged the request and left.

‘What is this, Michael?’ Annabel asked.

‘Please, believe me, Annabel. We’re not going to hurt you.’ He turned to the guards. ‘Wait outside,’ he said. The guards went without a word. Andreas closed the door and took a seat, indicating for Annabel to join him. She did; Jonah and Never both remained standing. ‘We’ve been taking an interest in your activities. I’m afraid that’s included tapping your phone, but it’s lucky for us we did. The moment it became clear that you were too close to our interests, I decided it was time to intervene. Our plans have been delayed for too long already. We couldn’t risk more disruptions, and we didn’t know how much you knew. It was safer to have you here, as my guests. You’ll be allowed to leave when we’re finished.’