The Terminals (24 page)

Alphonso pulled out a long necklace and dropped the envelope with a clank. Christine's note fluttered to the floor and the boy caught it between his palms. The man frowned at the diamond pendant.

“The diamonds are real,” Attila explained in a hush. “Colonel Kurzow is … she's … she's presumed dead.” Attila held enough superstition that to say so was enough to make it so. “It's inheritance.”

Alphonso glanced at the For Rent sign as if trying to make a split decision. The boy squinted at the note.

“My wife hated the colonel,” Alphonso said, letting the diamonds blaze as the chain swung from his fingers.

“On behalf of the U.S. Army, I hereby …” the boy trailed off and dove for the envelope and dumped its contents into his hand. At the end of a pale blue ribbon was the Army's highest tribute, the Medal of Honor. Attila grunted in surprise.

“Mommy's a hero,” the boy whispered and dug into his pocket and pulled out a cell phone. His father went to his knee and held the phone as his son began to text.

“No, son,” he turned and looked at Attila. “I think this is just for us.”

The boy swallowed and nodded. Tears of pride hung in his eyes, and Attila saw how right Christine was, and his chest tightened.

“Bless you,” the man said. For a moment, his eyes brightened and their focus returned. “We needed this.”

Attila shut the door behind him and walked out, still bothered by his having pronounced Christine dead.

“Classified,” I said.

An interview where you can consistently say, “That's classified,” and have nothing invested in the interviewer is worth everyone trying once. I owed Leica an interview, but clearly I wasn't meeting her expectations.

“I saved your life!” Leica's hands jutted out toward the IV line and the various monitors that beeped. It was a private room, and the deal had been no cameras and no recording equipment.

“I am an Army officer, Leica,” I replied. “I have a duty.”

Over the course of the questioning, Leica's complexion had steadily darkened.

“Who commands this,” her hand fluttered, “whatever it is?”

“The unit commander is a general,” I gave her.

“I know that,” she snapped. “But who does he take orders from?”

“The president.”

She brightened, perhaps thinking she was getting somewhere, but then her shoulders hunched and her eyes narrowed. “But we all take orders from him, don't we?”

I smiled. “One way or another.”

“How many people are in the unit?”

I wasn't really sure. Did one include even those who didn't know what the unit was, the Euths? Everyone terminally ill? “Millions,” I said.

She didn't answer; she only regarded me coolly, with a smile on her face. “And what is the unit's prime directive?”

“To retrieve information vital to the nation's security.”

“How?” Leica demanded. “How do you do this?”

“That's classified.” A second blood transfusion had restored much of my energy.

“Riddle me this,” Leica said while writing on a legal pad. “What does a unit, under the direct command of a president, with millions of soldiers, do in order to retrieve information? And let's assume you don't overlap with Homeland, the FBI, or the CIA, right?”

I realized that I was disclosing to her more than I had thought and bit my lip.

“Are your methods legal?” she asked.

“Interview over,” the general said, looming in the doorway with one hand gripping his oxygen tank.

“I have ten more minutes!” Leica said.

“Says who?” the general replied.

Leica paused, eyes drifting to the oxygen tank, back to my wrists. I could see the wheels turning in her brain. She nodded slowly, revenge flashing in her eyes. After brushing past the general, she turned.

“Oh, and General?” she asked, tapping her cheek with her pen.

“What is it?” he demanded.

“Thank you,” she replied, and I knew she'd made him. “Nice to put a face to a name.”

Doctor Deeth arrived with a male nurse, together moving me onto the gurney under the glare of the attending doctor. I had already been moved once out of intensive care to a step-down unit, and now I was heading to Purgatory, although the doctor had only been told it was a secure floor.

They wheeled me out of the room and down the hall.

“So what is it?” I asked Deeth. “Worried I'm talking too much?”

He didn't say anything, but the general, who had a hand protectively on the gurney though he did nothing to propel it, smirked. We traveled the rest of the way in silence but for the buzz of the fluorescent overheads and the squeal of his oxygen tank's wheels.

Chapter 38

For the second time I
was in Purgatory on the cot that had seen the death of Charlie and Morph. The rubber mattress cover squeaked whenever I moved.

The general wore his smarmiest grin. “Welcome home and congratulations.”

“Too many kids died for congratulations.”

“That's not what I meant.” He held a brown folder at his side, which he now let fall in my lap. A photo of a woman was paper-clipped to its edge. Long, near black hair swept down her shoulders and her complexion suggested the Mediterranean.

“This woman killed herself after making a discovery,” he said.

“Maybe she had good reason,” I replied. The woman's face was a bit too pinched to be pretty.

“Imagine if Einstein had killed himself upon developing E=mc2?”

“Yeah, imagine no Manhattan Project, no bomb,” I replied, but I knew I was being argumentative. The general didn't take the bait, just waited, watching me. “So it's a scientific discovery,” I continued.

“And America needs innovation now more than ever,” the general agreed.

“And you want me to be handler to some poor Euth.” It appeared the scope of the Terminals' duties continued to expand. We didn't just retrieve information vital to national security, we fostered innovation, too.

He snorted, and Deeth cleared his throat from where he set up his kit.

“The woman was Scottish,” the general said, and I looked back at the picture. “But she had emigrated from Egypt. A scientist, one of their brightest in the field of bioethics. She was conducting research into Alzheimer's and, more particularly, the area of cloning brain cells.” I waited for the mystery. “She figured something out. Something important enough that she took her own life in order to hide it.”

“Why didn't she just not tell anyone?”

“The British secret service wasn't making that an option.”

I leaned forward in the bed, but quickly fell back as the walls of the room closed in; my recovery had a ways to go.

“The Brits deported her family to Egypt, where a U.S. informant brought the matter to our attention.”

“What interest would—?”

“Don't be naive,” the general scoffed. “What interest would the U.S. government have in cloning brain cells?”

I really didn't know, or at least my brain didn't have enough oxygen to figure it out, and my face must have shown my confusion.

“A pound of DNA has as much computer storage as a football field full of mainframe computers,” the general said. “If only we could access it.”

“Are you saying the U.S. government can't access a brain?”

He regarded me sourly, but Deeth chuckled.

“Being able to create an organic computer to use that storage would vault America's productivity ahead of the rest of the world's,” the general continued. “Don't you understand how a computer processes information versus a brain?”

I shook my head.

“With a computer processor, it works on one query at a time. Synchronously. But …” He tapped his temple. “This. This can process asynchronously. It can answer all questions at once rather than one at a time. Combine a better processing engine with unlimited storage and you've got quite the—”

“Bioethical dilemma.”

“What?”

“Creating a human brain to process anything is a dilemma.”

“Why's that?”

“The brain is life. It's one thing to create organs, or harvest organs, but—”

“The brain is just an organ,” he snapped. “And her research was through public grant money.”

“British money.”

“Notwithstanding.”

“The Brits don't have an Attila. So we're on loan to them?” I asked.

I'd meant it as a joke, but the general's pallor went from florid red to pale, like a shadow passing a window, then his bluster and anger was back. “No, as far as we know, we're not in competition.”

“Do they have an Attila?” I propped myself back up, surprised by the sudden burst of energy. “Is this some sort of race?”

“Go in, retrieve the information.” The general looked around. “Where the fuck is the gypsy?”

“Maybe you want this information so that you can clone his brain,” I said, but I didn't get a rise out of him; in fact a quizzical smile passed over his face as if he had a secret he desperately wished to share. He looked back toward his office.

My heart beat in my throat when I caught that smile. It was at that moment that I remembered where I'd seen the evidence kit on the general's desk.

“There are easier ways of making more Attilas aren't there?” I whispered, and his smile didn't disappear. “That's a rape kit in your office.” I remembered where I'd seen one, on base when a soldier had filed a sexual assault complaint and wanted to speak to a female officer. I had sat and watched while a nurse treated her. They'd caught the guy and jailed him. “You sick fuck!”

At his side, the general switched on the oxygen tank.

“He heard us having sex,” I told Deeth. “Attila and I.” Deeth didn't seem to understand. “What would be worse than losing Attila's skills to commercial interests or another country?” I asked, but he just shook his head. “Attila dying without an heir.”

“So the rape kit?” Deeth asked.

“Was for me,” I pointed at the row of syringes. “After I was dead, he was going to extract Attila's sperm.”

Deeth looked close to vomiting. He stood and advanced on the general, but the general held his ground with the oxygen mask over his mouth. The mask gave his voice a suitably evil sound.

“It's about time that this arms race proliferated,” he said to Deeth. “You understand, Major. You have to know what this man means. And could mean to the future of our country.”

“General,” Deeth said as he backed away. “Your ambition will destroy the unit. I won't stand for it and neither will Attila.”

“He goes, and I'll track him down in a nanosecond,” the general said. “And next will be his mother.” He took the mask off so we could see his yellow smile. “Matters of national security, of course—and you, Doctor, are nothing more than a glorified bartender of poisonous cocktails.”

I considered what Deeth had told me. That he was a part of all this to ensure it was done right. The doctor was far more than his syringe. But he could be replaced. Had the general called Deeth, Major? My head hurt.

“I—”

But the general cut me off: “And you, Colonel. You will finally have your wish of a full court martial.”

“Where I will tell everyone that—”

“Unfortunately that will be sensitive information cloaked by the States Secrets Doctrine.”

First and foremost, I struggled with the general's rape kit. I'd never felt so violated, even though nothing had happened. If I had gone terminal, he would have searched around inside of me with a Q-tip? Projectile strength nausea built in my stomach. How dare he?

The general pushed past Deeth, closing the distance between us. I was still so tired that I couldn't easily move away, only turn my head from the gamey smell of the general's breath and cross my legs. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught the passage of a shadow in the hallway. The general reached down and flipped the folder open, and I was cognizant of the pressure of his hand against my groin as he pressed his fingers down where he wanted me to read.

“Our scientist was a strident atheist.” He exhaled heavily through his nose. “You're the unit's only atheist. So, like I said. Congratulations. You're going terminal.”

I checked over at Deeth, but he wasn't making eye contact—back at his stool, working as efficiently as ever—but I could tell his shoulders were tense and ready for action. I understood his previous speech now about euthanasia and considering the doctors. I'd broken this man. I'd driven him to the point he was willing to reconsider his position on what constituted terminal and he didn't like it.

“You can take the mission,” the general added and he strapped my arm to the side of the bed. “Or we can find a room for you here to finish the job you started earlier. The obit would say that you died of trauma sustained during duty. You'll be a hero again, MoH.”

“Fuck off,” I told him. “How about neither?” I challenged, knowing where I was headed. “How about I quit?”

“No one leaves once they're told. No one.” His icy eyes regarded me. Spittle sat on his lip like a gargoyle on a buttress.

“So you'll kill Charlie's friend, Angelica?”

“No one,” he said.

“Is she dead already?” My stomach churned.

Deeth reached about my waist to strap on the respiration belt, but he stopped, one eyebrow raised and staring at me in question. Was he offering support? Or simply saying the decision to go terminal was still mine?

“You killed Angelica long ago,” the general continued, “when you let Charlie tell her about the unit. And you,” the general said, pointing at the syringes, “you wanted this, deserve this.”

I was so drained that I couldn't think; I was barely following his explanations, and the thought of really dying left me numb, without any sense of relief. Going terminal was different than suicide. This took death out of my hands. The rat poison hadn't worked, but Deeth's needles would kill me as surely as a drop from the Empire State Building. I did want this; I just didn't want the general to win.

“How do I track an atheist into oblivion?” I caught the waver in my voice even if no one else did. Deeth snapped the buckle on the strap and it was a minute before I realized he'd loosened it.

“We're not sure, but we are glad you're the first here to try.” The general turned to Deeth, who had moved on to the blood pressure cuff. “Do we really need to go through the charade of the lie detector test?”

Deeth paused with the cuff halfway up my bicep and slowly turned to stare at the general. “It's no charade.”

The general stiffened. “I suppose we need to wait for Attila anyways,” he said and disappeared into the office and behind the wall of mirrors.

Deeth went about preparing his equipment in silence. He was stone-faced and didn't look me in the eye again. With measured movements, he jabbed the needles into vials of fluid and drew the syringes back until they were full. Seeing the means of my death laid out, I drew a shuddering breath. I wanted the general back. He was a distraction, at least another living person. I glanced back toward the hallway, but it was empty.

Deeth booted his computer and checked the connection to his apparatus. A small microphone crouched between us.

“Is your name Christine Kurzow?” he asked suddenly.

I nodded, and he rolled his eyes, pointing toward the microphone.

“Yes, sorry, yes.”

“Are you a Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Army?”

“No.” Deeth's head swung like a clock's pendulum. “What? I don't see myself as a colonel anymore. This isn't the Army.”

His eyelids drooped, and he clasped and unclasped his hands for a moment before formulating another question: “Have you ever held the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Army?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Did you receive the Medal of Honor?”

I smiled, imagining the reaction of Alphonso's husband when he opened that package. But the medal was really for the kid. Alphonso's son now had something positive to cling to. His mother was a MoH.

“Yes,” I replied.

“And are you currently in the New York Veteran's Hospital?”

“Yes.”

“Have you ever stolen money?”

“No.” I knew what this was, a probable lie measurement, and I wondered if my knowledge of the test would impact my ability to take it.

“Are you in a relationship with Attila?”

I nearly choked and he allowed himself a grin. What was he doing? Was it his clever way of showing me what I still had to live for?

“No, we are not in a relationship.”

He lifted an eyebrow at the result on his screen and I wanted to see; I didn't even know if I was telling the truth anymore.

“Good.” He handed me a sheet of paper. “On this is a list of questions I'm going to ask you. Read the list first and let me know when you're done.”

There were ten, most of which I'd expected.

“Done,” I said.

“Would you describe yourself as an atheist?” His expression had grown impassive once more.

“Yes.”

“Do you believe in God?” Deeth kept his eyes on the screen, where my respiration, heart rate, and blood pressure squiggled about.

“No,” I replied without hesitation.

“Do you believe in a higher power?”

“No.”

“Do you believe in the concept of the soul or spirit?”

“No.”

Deeth looked up from the monitor and then back. He cracked his neck.

“Do you believe in an afterlife?”

“No.”

I saw the beginnings of a grin return to his face, like the breaking of sun through the clouds.

“Do you believe in an afterlife?” he whispered.

And I could understand the smile. How does anyone maintain an atheistic stance in the face of Attila? I realized what the man meant to me. He challenged everything I believed in, but also was a source of hope. This somewhat grimy man was my real savior. More than the general, Attila gave me faith in something, in what—I didn't know, and perhaps that was for the better. The job required me to accept all of these faiths and see them as the same but different. That all religions were right. And maybe there was some room for atheism, too. But we'd have to wait to find out.

“You know what I'm about to tell you,” Deeth said.

The general stepped into Purgatory. The silver cross swung wildly around his neck.

“I'm sorry, Colonel,” Deeth said, but I could tell that he wasn't sorry at all. “I cannot release you on this mission.”