Zig Zag (60 page)

27

"SERGIO
Marini
planned everything. We were both fully aware of the risks, but he
was..." Blanes paused for a moment, searching for the right
word. "Well, maybe he was just more curious. I think I once told
you, Elisa, that Eagle wanted us to experiment with the recent past,
and I refused. Sergio never agreed with me about that, but when he
realized he couldn't change my mind, he seemed to capitulate. I
suppose I was vital to the project, so he had to fake it around me,
but he spoke to Colin behind my back. He was an amazing young
physicist; he'd designed SUSAN and he wanted to make a name for
himself. Marini was probably saying, 'This is our chance, Colin.'
They started talking about how to go about it without my finding out,
and they had a brilliant idea. Why not use one of the students? They
chose Ric Valente. He was the ideal candidate: a brilliant student,
ambitious. Colin knew him from Oxford. At first, I'm sure they just
asked him to do little things: learn how to run the accelerator and
the computers, that sort of thing. Then they gave him more explicit
instructions. He worked almost every night. Carter and his men knew
that; they protected him."

"Those
noises I heard in the hall..." Elisa murmured. "And the
shadow..."

"That
was Ric. In fact, he took things a step further, surprising even
Marini and Craig. He had an affair with Rosalyn Reiter so that if he
ever got caught lurking around the barracks at night, people would
think it was because he was going to her room."

Elisa's
memory returned to that bedroom on New Nelson. She heard footsteps
and saw the shadow slipping by the peephole in her door. And there
was Ric, again, staring down at her with that haughty, condescending
smile. What she had just learned fit right in with the Ric she knew:
the ambition, the need to shine even brighter than Blanes. It was all
Ric to a T, especially the way he'd used Rosalyn so callously. But
what kind of
thing
had
he made during those nocturnal trials? What explained those dreams
and those visions? How had Ric been able to devastate their lives to
such a degree?

Jacqueline
seemed to be reading her mind. Raising her head, she asked, "But
what did Ric
do
to
unleash all of this..."

"All
in good time, Jacqueline," Blanes replied. "We still don't
know exactly what he did, but I'll tell you what Reinhard and I think
happened the night of Saturday, October 1, 2005. The night Rosalyn
died and Ric disappeared."

They
all sat around the table again, the reading lamp their island of
light in the center. Everyone was exhausted and hungry (the only
thing they'd had in the past several hours was water), but all Elisa
wanted to do was hear what Blanes had to say. She knew her adrenaline
was surging, and guessed everyone else's was, too, including
Victor's. Meanwhile, Carter came and went, sending messages and
receiving phone calls. He'd asked Victor for his ID, explaining that
he'd need a fake passport if he wanted to accompany them. Now he
spoke to someone in the hall. Elisa couldn't hear what they were
saying.

"As
you recall," Blanes continued, "that night they forbade us
to use electrical appliances due to the storm. No one could go to the
control room or turn on any equipment or computers. Ric must have
thought he'd never have a better opportunity to experiment on his
own, since no one would bother him. He didn't even tell Marini or
Craig. He just got up and stuffed a backpack and pillow under his
covers to make it look like he was in bed. But something unexpected
happened. Actually, two things. First—well, at least this is
what we
think
—Rosalyn
went to his room to speak to him. He'd tired of the pretending, and
she was desperate. When she tried to wake him up, she realized what
he'd done and searched the whole station for him. Maybe they met in
the control room, or maybe she didn't get there until he'd already
left. Regardless, that's when the second thing happened, the one we
want to prove, which is that Ric did something unusual (or maybe
Rosalyn did, but it's unlikely; she probably just suffered the
consequences), or did something wrong. The rest of this is just
conjecture. Zig Zag appeared and killed Rosalyn, and Ric
disappeared." After a pause, he went on. "Marini and Craig
later erased any sign that the accelerator had been used so we
wouldn't suspect anything, or maybe the blackout did that by itself,
I don't know. What I do know is that Marini kept a secret copy of
Ric's experiments as well as his own. Not even Eagle knew about them.
The specialists used drugs to interrogate us, but Carter confirmed
that no drug can make you confess something you're trying to hide if
the questions asked are not specific enough. They never found out
about those files. Sergio hid them, probably because he began to
suspect that what had happened was related to Ric's experiments,
although maybe he wasn't really sure until Colin died. He was the
first one of us to find out, which proves he was paying extra-close
attention. And remember how nervous he was on the Eagle base,
demanding protection?"

"That
bastard," Jacqueline said. Her chest and bare stomach heaved in
fury. "That
bas-
tard.
.."

"I'm
not trying to excuse him," Blanes murmured after a pregnant
pause. "But I suspect that what Sergio went through was worse
than what we've had to suffer, because he thought he knew how it all
started."

"Don't
you
dare
feel
sorry for him," Jacqueline's voice was hard, icy. "Don't
even try it, David."

The
physicist turned to her, eyes narrowed.

"If
Zig Zag is the result of human error, Jacqueline, then we all deserve
a little compassion. Regardless, Sergio kept those files on a USB
flash disk that he hid at his house in Milan. Carter has been
suspicious of him for three years. He sent several pros to search his
apartment, but they never turned anything up. And he didn't dare go
back again. That would have risked Eagle catching on. But yesterday,
when he learned that Marini had been murdered, he took advantage of
the situation by combing the place with a team of his own men. He
found the flash disk in a false-bottomed box Marini had from one of
his magic tricks, and sent the files to Reinhard. I had to come to
Madrid to prepare for this meeting, since that was how we'd arranged
it. Silberg is the only one who's seen the files, and he spent all
night and day going through them. He's got the findings of his study
with him now. That's why it's so important that we speak with him."

"But
Harrison knows," Elisa pointed out.

"We
had to tell him so that he wouldn't get suspicious. In fact, Carter
told him himself, but he blamed Marini, saying he'd gotten scared and
sent us the files on his own. Silberg knows Harrison is going to
confiscate them, but Carter can get them back."

"And
then what?"

"Then
we'll run. Carter has an escape plan. First, we'll go to Zurich, and
from there to wherever he says. We'll stay underground until we ...
we find a way to solve the Zig Zag problem."

Elisa
pursed her lips.
Yes,
it is a problem. Look at us. Look at what we've done to ourselves,
what Jacqueline and I have become: scared little rats shaking in our
boots and dolling ourselves up so that the "problem" will
let us live one more night.
She
couldn't help but think that Blanes, Silberg, and Carter might have
been just as scared or more so, but there was no way they'd gone
through half the shit that she and Jacqueline had to deal with every
damn day.

She
sat up straight in her chair and spoke with the conviction she always
had after making a firm decision.

"No,
David. We can't run away, and you know it. We have to
go
back."
Their
reaction was that of a table of stuffed dolls that suddenly sprang to
life. Heads bobbed, bodies jerked, arms waved. "To New Nelson,"
she added. "This is our only chance. If Ric started all this
from there, then that's the only place we're going to be able to
'solve the Zig Zag problem,' as you put it."

"Go
back to the island?" Blanes frowned.

"No!"
Jacqueline Clissot had been whispering the syllable for some time,
slowly increasing in volume until it became a scream. Then she stood.
Jacqueline was already a tall woman, and those black heels made her
even taller. Her heavily made-up eyes flashed painfully in the dimly
lit room. "I will never go back to that island. Never! Don't
even talk about it."

"Well,
then, what do you suggest?" Elisa implored.

"Hiding!
Running away and hiding."

"And
in the meantime, we just let Zig Zag pick his next victim?"

"There
is nothing that could make me go back there, Elisa. Nothing and no
one." Beneath her mane of wild hair and white makeup, Jacqueline
looked threatening. "That place is where I turned into what I am
now! That's where ... where
he
came
into my life! I will never go back. Not even if
he
wants
me to..."

She
brusquely stopped, as if she'd just realized what she said.

"Jacqueline..."
Blanes said soothingly.

"I'm
not a person!" With a horrifying expression on her face, the
paleontologist began pulling her hair as though she wanted to rip it
out. "This isn't life! I'm not alive! I'm sick! Contaminated!
And that's where I got contaminated! There's nothing that can make me
go back there. Nothing!" She raised her hands like claws, as if
to defend herself against some physical attack. Her pants hung low on
her hips, provocatively low. It was both a sensual and a depressing
picture.

Hearing
her scream, rage rose like steam in Elisa's head. She stood and faced
Jacqueline.

"You
know something, Jacqueline? I'm sick and tired of hearing you talk
like you're the only one suffering here! You think you've had a hard
time over the past ten years? Join the club. You used to have a
profession, a husband and child?

Well
let me tell you what I had: my youth, my dreams, my future, my whole
life ahead of me ... You lost your self-respect? I lost my stability,
my sanity ... I still live on that damn island every single night."
Her eyes were brimming with tears. "Even now, even tonight, with
everything I know, something inside me feels guilty for not being at
home, in my room, dressed like a slut, waiting for him, waiting to
obey his disgusting orders, scared sick when I feel him approach and
disgusted with myself for not being able to fight him off. I swear I
want to get off that island forever, Jacqueline. But if we don't go
back there, we'll never be able to leave. Don't you see?" she
asked. And then, without warning, she nastily shrieked,
"Can't
you fucking see that, Jacqueline?"

"Jacqueline,
Elisa," Blanes whispered. "We shouldn't..."

His
attempt at reconciliation was aborted when the door opened.

"He
got Silberg. Hunted him down."

Moments
later, when she thought about it rationally, it occurred to her that
Carter couldn't have expressed it better.
Zig
Zag is hunting us. We're his prey.