Wet Work: The Definitive Edition (19 page)

He refused to give a statement, citing national security. The patrolman argued until Del Valle persuaded him that any interference in official Government business would insure the cop beat duty in Anaconda or some other undesirable section of the city.

Once the ambulance had left the rest area, he drove to the nearest pay phone.

Hershman was livid , but not, it seemed, unduly surprised.

Del Valle was the one who was caught off-guard by the news of Lang’s reappearance.

The President and his aide entered the room, and the men around the conference table stood up. Del Valle followed suit. The questions plaguing him would have to wait.

“
Gentlemen, thank you for attending at such short notice,” said the President. “Please be seated.”

Everyone did so and picked up their copies of Special National Intelligence Estimates—short, formal evaluations that had been compiled earlier that day.

“
I had to call this meeting because we’re suddenly faced with a major crisis of unprecedented proportions,” the President stated, his gaze circling the table to insure that every eye was on him.

“
It appears we have an epidemic on our hands.” He paused for effect. “An epidemic of irrational violence is sweeping the country. Normally law-abiding citizens are attacking their loved ones, their neighbors.”

A murmur of disbelief rippled around the room. The President raised his hands for silence. “Seemingly isolated incidents started to take place on Sunday. They began to escalate on Monday, and have reached a frightening level today. No less than one hundred twenty-seven reported murders have taken place in the D.C. area in the last seventy-two hours, nearly surpassing the total for the last five months. We’ve managed to compile statistics for New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, Miami and Dallas, and you’ll see the same is true in every one of those cities.”

The committee members looked at the President in stony silence.

“
We don’t know what’s triggered this plague of civil unrest,” he continued, “but intelligence reports indicate the situation is the same in every country in the Northern Hemisphere. Every location, in fact, that came into contact with the tail of Comet Saracen. All over Europe, in Russia and the Ukraine, the story is apparently the same—civil unrest. Civil unrest, gentlemen, that cannot be rationally explained, although one theory has been put forward.”

He hesitated. The theory was absurd, like the plot of some ridiculous science-fiction movie.

“
Scientists here in Washington have suggested that these acts have been triggered as a direct result of some kind of radiation from the comet that passed close to the Earth two days ago. But at this point we have no conclusive evidence.”

“
Incredible—preposterous,” the DCI said.

“
I know, it’s beyond belief,” the President replied. “But I recommend we mobilize the National Guard this evening, and I suggest we put the armed forces on standby. We’re fast approaching at state of emergency.”

A wave of questions swept across the room. It took nearly five minutes to call the meeting to order. Then the President told them about the living dead, and the committee meeting exploded into a shouting match.

ALEXANDRIA.

11.00 P.M.

Nick slammed the front door behind him and ran to the ringing phone.

“
Hello?”

“
Where have you been? I’ve been calling for hours.” Sandy sounded tearful.

“
On duty.” He unbuckled his bullet-proof vest as he spoke. “I had to work a double shift,” he explained, sitting down on the couch. He was exhausted.

“
Why? What’s going on?”

“
There’s been rioting in some of the black neighborhoods. They’ve called a state of emergency.”

“
Are you okay?”

“
Yeah, I’m fine. How’re you doing.”

She was silent for a moment, and he thought he heard her stifle a sob. “Hon?”

“
Not…not good. Mom’s dead.”

So it was over.

“
When?”

“
This afternoon.”

Sandy told him everything. About Mom going into a coma. The decision to switch off the life support. About not being able to see their mother that morning because of the police blockade.

“
What happened at the hospital?” he asked.

The word going around the precinct was the crazy shit wasn’t just happening in Washington, that violence was on the increase everywhere.

She explained the hospital staff had said a patient had gone berserk, killing a nurse, but that she and Liz hadn’t really taken any notice because of Mom. He let the matter drop

“
How’s Liz taking it?”

“
Not very well,” she replied. “She collapsed when we got home, and now she’s coming down with a fever. I think it’s the stress. Roger says she hasn’t been sleeping properly for weeks. I know what that’s like. But she’s been pushing herself too hard. She seems like she’s coming down with flu.”

Sandy continued talking, words tumbling forth in a stuttering torrent as she cried. He mainly listened, periodically breaking in to reassure her.

She talked about the funeral arrangements. Mom was to be buried on Friday. Was there any chance he could come to New York? No. He explained all leave had been canceled until further notice. There was nothing he could do. Sandy was disappointed, worried. She wanted to know what was going on. Nick avoided details. Every man on the force had been ordered not to alarm their families any more than necessary. The situation sucked.

Ten minutes became twenty. Sandy continued to talk, crying intermittently. He listened, tried to respond the best he could, feeling nothing. His mind was numb from the horrors of the day.

He needed a drink.

Twenty minutes became forty, and he knew he couldn’t last much longer. He had to get some sleep. He was due back on duty at 8 A.M., and the hands of the clock were nearing midnight.

He told her not to worry about him, to get some rest, that she wouldn’t feel so bad after a good night’s sleep. It was bullshit, but it was the best he could offer.

They finally said goodnight, and he promised to call her tomorrow at the first opportunity.

He hung up feeling shitty because he’d been plunged into a hell beyond imagining and he couldn’t be with her.

Nick went to the kitchen and poured himself a large shot of Jack. He downed it in one, then poured another.

He sat back on the couch, sipped his drink, then put the glass down, and laid his head on the back of the cushion.

He was asleep within seconds.

WASHINGTON, D.C.

STATE MORGUE.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 31.

4:33 A.M.

Pain.

Whitelightwhiteheat

what?

…

Corvino is dead.

Alive.

And like Lazarus coming back from the beyond, opening his eyes and staring with confusion into the face of Christ, Corvino is not aware of what is happening to him.

Forget the Resurrection and the Life. Dispel all notions of Heaven and Hell. Biblical metaphors for the human condition were two thousand years out of date. This was physical entropy and mental atrophy all rolled up into one mind-scream of secular purgatory. Jimmy Swaggart could howl all he wanted on TV about God smiting the wicked and sending cosmic wrath down to purge the planet of His Diseased Children, that space in the Heavenly Elevator had been reserved for The Elect. Bible bashing didn’t mean shit in the face of what was happening. The old ways were gone and a New Order coming, a Reich of rotting flesh
—
the New Flesh.

The first electrochemical impulses dance between decaying synapses. Then, wrapped in total darkness, his body spasms as the second collision of thoughts and memory clips slamdance him into consciousness.

I am awake, asleep.

Swimming.

(drowning)

Dreaming…

The MacDonald DC-3 drops to the tarmac

(voice)

muzzleflash

pain

pain

PAIN!!!!

Dan Rather on the TV. Comet Saracen. Unusual phenomena. Eclipse orbit. Rare tail debris no radiation
—

Saigon I love you she says Suki smiling on the bed welcoming stoned immaculate Doors, Hendrix, paint it black…

Memories collide, skip, melt. Sound bites of ‘60s songs
—
the soundtrack of Vietnam
—
ricochet as he relives the day she died. But Suki becomes Mitra. Not tied to the bed, peeled, but Mitra taking his hand in hers over dinner in a Panamanian restaurant. “I want you,” she says, part of his mind recoiling at the offer of intimacy from a woman he respects.

Asleep.

Awake.

Swimming.

Drowning!

(No!)

—
reach for the…

…
surface

(float)

Sensory awareness kicks in.

It’s cold

(so cold)

His body shivers in the blackness as Corvino is reborn from a life founded on death
—
the death of other
—
-to an un-life forged out of his own death.

Corvino has died twice in his painful life. First in Angola in 1977, shot in the face by a member of the Rebel forces, his body supposedly identified by another mercenary who subsequently died under mysterious circumstances in a Massachusetts rooming house the following year. The second time in a rest area opposite Washington National Airport.

The first resurrection was painless.

The second is pure whit-heat agony.

He opens his eyes.

Blackness.

(I’m blind…)

Panic surges through stiff muscles, his cold body jerking against cold metal.

(I’M BLIND!!)

Get a grip. Control the fear. Keep it together. Old habits die hard. In this case they haven’t died, have just been in hibernation for a short taste of eternity.

Where am I? What?

Why does he think of the
—

—
airport. I was near the airport.

What happened?

Where am I?

He lifts his arms and feels icy metal. Pushing, he realizes he is in a confined space. Obviously a box of some kind.

A coffin?

He pushes downward and there is slight movement, the faint murmur of oiled runners sliding outwards loud in his buzzing ears.
He pushes again. Bright fluorescent light explodes, eyes squeezing shut as the shelf slides open. His eyes burning from the sudden brilliance.

So. At least he isn’t blind. He counts to twenty, trying to clear his mind as he allows his tortured eyes to adjust beneath the lids, then slowly opens them a crack.

The world comes into relief. He makes out the vague outlines of squared paneling behind the lights and guesses he is in some kind of institution, a hospital maybe. He pushes again and this time the filing shelf moves easily.

For the second time in his life, Corvino is alive.

He struggled free of the shelf, suddenly aware he was naked except for a white sheet.
A morgue, I’m in a fucking morgue.

There was blood on the floor. A lot of blood. Three bodies. One in a white doctor’s coat, bullet holes across the chest. A naked man, his head gone, lying across the corpse’s legs. And the blasted body of an E.M.S. cop who looked like he’d blown his brains out with his M-16 judging by the position of the automatic rifle lying beside him. It looked like the cop had been attacked after he was dead. Someone had eviscerated the corpse; torn entrails were bulging from a large tear in the man’s uniform.

Corvino’s mind recoiled. He stumbled, grabbing the lip of the shelf for support. What was going on?

Where am I?

His thoughts were sluggish, as if he was drugged or concussed.

Washington National.

(what?)

A dark night shattered by the flash of a silenced gun.

Looking down at this chest, he saw three quarter-sized holes, two around the heart, a third puncturing his stomach. Each neat hole had a black corona fringing the raised flesh.

Shot.

I’ve been shot.

(what?)

His legs gave as he collapsed in disbelief, slid down the wall of morgue shelves.

Dead.

I’m dead.

No. Not…dead.

He saw a DC-10 coming into land, his ears deafened by the roar of the engines, recalled the warmth of the slipstream—

(Corvino)

Someone said his name, and
—

Shot. Someone shot me.

(dead)

How can I be dead if I’m
—

WHAT’S GOING ON???!

Vietnam. The evacuation of Saigon.

Billy Katz going out the orphanage window, his scream a symphony to Corvino’s ears.

Looking at the photo of his mother
—
the mother he hardly remembered
—
by torchlight under the bed sheets in the orphanage.

Making love to Suki, she on top, riding him, calling out his name as she orgasmed, her hair a long, black fan spreading out behind her as she moved, the sounds of Saigon nightlife spilling in through the open window.

The airport approach. The DC-10 coming in low.

(pain)

The sound of gunfire.

(pain)

The last time he’d seen Mitra alive…

She touched his cheek as he moved to leave. “Be careful,” she said. “I always am,” he replied. “When will I see you again? I have some leave coming up. What about dinner in Georgetown?” He smiled. “Sure,” he said, not meaning it. He didn’t want to get close to her. Mitra reminded him of Suki, opened old wounds…

(pain)

And confusion.

Total, utter confusion, his mind whiplashing with memories.

“
I am not dead.”