Crisscross rj-8

by F. Paul Wilson

  And the sand? Sand was a major ingredient in concrete, and just twenty-four hours ago the late Cooper Blascoe had spoken about Brady's life project, the one he'd been funneling church funds into, and how it involved burying concrete pillars in specific locations around the globe… in the same pattern as that on the skin from a dead woman's back.

  Connect the dots and form a picture. But only part of one. Most of the big picture remained obscured.

  Jack knew he wouldn't be part of this particular dot right now if another woman, the one on Beekman Place, hadn't involved him with the Dormen-talists.

  Manipulated at every turn…

  He saw his life becoming less and less his own, and loathed the idea. But despite his growing fury he couldn't seem to do a damn thing about it.

  He banked his burning frustration and focused on his mission: Was Jamie Grant here?

  Keeping an eye out for any security, Jack stayed in the shadows as he crept closer to the building. No sign of guards. Too bad. He would have liked to get his hands on one of Jensen's TPs and wring Jamie's whereabouts from him.

  When he reached the building he recognized Jensen's Town Car next to Brady's Mercedes; the cops obviously hadn't latched onto the GP yet—if they ever would. A big Infinity and a Saab he didn't recognize were also parked before the door. Jensen and Brady here but without a squad of TPs. Not what Jack would have expected.

  He found a dirt-caked window around the corner. Using the heel of his hand he cleaned a patch large enough to spy on the interior but too small to be noticed.

  His attention was drawn immediately to the metal column braced upright under a chute on the far side of the vaulted space. He spotted a group of people on a walkway ten feet off the floor. Jensen was the easiest to recognize. And here came Luther Brady walking toward them.

  If only he could hear what they were saying.

  19

  Luther nodded and greeted the four High Council members who had come along: Glenn Muti, Marissa Menendez, Dick Cunningham, and of course, Bill Blagden. Why did some of the HC feel they had to be present at every pouring? He still hadn't figured out whether they were motivated by a sense of duty or sheer morbidity.

  He pulled Jensen aside and lowered his voice.

  "Everything ready?"

  The big man nodded and rumbled, "All set."

  "What about the man? Any trace of him?"

  Jensen's already dark face darkened further. "It's like he's vanished off the face of the Earth."

  "Well we both know he didn't do that. He has to be somewhere."

  "But to find him I've got to know who he is. He's an onion. Every time I peel away one bogus identity, I find another."

  "Please keep it down. I don't want the HC to know about this."

  He could sense Jensen's frustration, but it was his rising volume that concerned Luther.

  Jensen lowered his voice. "Okay, but who is this guy? It's like he doesn't exist. How can I find a guy who doesn't exist?"

  "Stop obsessing. I have a feeling he'll come to us. Are you fully ready for him?"

  "Of course."

  Jensen opened his coat to reveal his omnipresent .44 Magnum in a shoulder holster. He had the size to carry the big weapon without showing a bulge.

  Luther wondered if he should have brought his Beretta. He was licensed to carry and was an excellent shot. But he doubted he'd have to call on that skill. Especially here. Jensen had wanted to bring along a few of his TPs as security, but Luther had vetoed that. The fewer people who knew the final disposition of Jamie Grant, the better.

  "Just be patient," Luther told him, "and it will all work out."

  "Let's hope so."

  Luther flicked a glance at the HC contingent, then at the cylindrical mold. "They don't know who's inside?"

  "No. They think it's just another Null."

  "And the original Null has been notified?"

  Another nod. "She was heartbroken."

  "She'll get over it."

  "I promised her next time for sure."

  The Compendium had been very specific: In order for a pillar to be valid, to be able to move Opus Omega closer to completion, someone had to die within it. A cadaver would not suffice. The person's life had to be extinguished within the pillar.

  In the old days the pillars were solid stone that had to be quarried from specific locations—from stone found near nexus points. In those times a chamber would be hollowed out and a living person sealed within it.

  Luther had modernized the process. Instead of stone he'd switched to concrete, but made with sand taken from areas close to nexus points. The sand in tonight's mixture had been taken from an Everglades cenote that housed a nexus point; it was particularly rich in Hokano influence.

  He'd fashioned a mold of the proper size that would imprint the symbols in the surface of each pillar. All he had to do was fill it with the special mix Bill Blagden whipped up for him on demand and—voild—a new pillar.

  Well, not quite. He needed that final, critical ingredient for each.

  When he'd assumed the task of completing Opus Omega, he'd thought to look outside the Church among human flotsam and jetsam for lives to extinguish within the pillars, but that struck him as wrong. He would not sully Opus Omega with worthless lives.

  To that end he had created the concept of the Null—the FA whose personal xelton had died. Without a viable PX within, fusion with the Hokano counterpart would be impossible.

  Of course, Null status was never identified until the FA had invested a good amount of cash in climbing the FL. Luther made a point of selecting Nulls from the most devoted, most vulnerable—as determined from the interviews conducted after the completion of each rung—most cash-strapped FAs. Invariably they were crushed by the news and devastated by the realization that they would not survive the Great Fusion when this world joined with the Hokano world.

  But wait… all was not lost. The Church had found a way to reanimate a dead PX. But Xelton Resurrection would require boundless faith, devotion, and courage. XR was being offered only to a few select Nulls deemed worthy of salvation. The XR process would not only revive their PX, but bestow immediate Fusion. They'd achieve FF status without climbing the FL, and be ready to face the GF with heads held high.

  Every Null approached over the years had jumped at the chance.

  Jensen was always the bearer of this good news. The chosen Null was not told the specifics of the XR process, just that he or she would be traveling to a secret destination for a special kind of missionary work, and would be absent for an indefinite period.

  The members of the religion Luther had invented rarely failed to amaze him. A startling number of the XR Nulls climbed right into the cylinder and allowed themselves to be strapped in as if they were going on an amusement park ride. Not all, of course. The ones who developed cold feet when the moment arrived had to be drugged before they were placed in the mold.

  Jamie Grant would have the honor of being the first non-Dormentalist to give up her life for the cause since Luther had taken over the Opus. He didn't want the HC members to know that, though. He didn't want to be bothered with their questions or have them start second-guessing him.

  "I suppose it's time," he told Jensen. He nodded toward Bill Blagden, the owner of the plant. "I hope Bill remembered to add the accelerator. It's cold in here."

  "All taken care of. He told me he added enough calcium chloride to cut set time by two-thirds."

  "Excellent. Let's get it done then. But I want to pull the lever this time."

  "Any special reason? You know Bill sees the lever as his duty."

  "I know. But this woman insulted the Church in print—called us 'De-mentedists,' remember?—and was trying to destroy all that we've worked for. Decades of struggle would be negated if she'd been allowed to go public with what she'd learned. She has been a thorn in my side since she first darkened the temple's doorway. I claim the honor of sending this dangerous WA to her destiny."

  Jensen nodded. "I'
ll tell Bill."

  Luther had tried not to take Grant's ravings too personally. He didn't need to pull the lever himself. He could let Blagden have his usual fun. After all, the important thing was knowing that the bitch would never write or utter another critical word about the Church. That should have been enough.

  But it wasn't.

  20

  Jamie heard a noise above as a shadow fell over her. She craned her neck and saw that a large chute had swung over the opening of the cylinder. She screamed through her gag and ducked her head as she saw the thick, wet, gray concrete begin to sluice toward her.

  The pasty, lumpy stream missed her by inches, splattering and clattering instead against the cylinder wall before sliding to the floor.

  As she watched it begin to collect just a few feet below her and rise like a riptide, she knew she had only seconds to live. A part of her had accepted the inevitable, but another part refused to give up. So she struggled against the ropes that bound her to the reinforcing rods, trying to slip one of the loops, but they'd been expertly tied… by someone who knew what he was doing… someone who'd done it before… and more than once…

  Frantic, she looked around. On either side she saw a vertical seam. This cylinder wasn't a single piece, it was two half cylinders bound together. If she could push the side of one of those seams outward, bulge it just a little, maybe the rising concrete would seep through it, and maybe the increasing weight behind would further bulge the cylinder wall, maybe split the seam wider until the cement flowed out rather than up.

  She stretched her arms wide, to their limits, straining her weight back and forth against the coils around her torso, inching her fingers toward the seams.

  The concrete lapped against her feet, oddly warm, almost comforting.

  She pushed harder. Somewhere a knot slipped along one of the reinforcing rods. Not much, but enough to allow her to touch the seams on either side. Her left hand was still exquisitely tender but she pushed through the pain, forcing every fiber of her strength and will into the effort.

  The warm cement tide rose to her thighs, her waist.

  She moaned behind her gag as the stub of her left pinkie began to spurt blood again. She ignored the agony and pushed hard left and right and—it gave! A small section of the right seam bulged outward, letting in a thin shaft of light.

  The concrete was caressing her bare breasts now and moving toward her throat.

  Push! Push!

  Jamie was still pushing when the lumpy tide swirled to her chin, then engulfed her head, filling her nostrils and sealing her eyes.

  21

  Not much of interest going on in the plant, at least not that Jack could see. Brady and Jensen had had a little tete-a-tete apart from the rest, then rejoined the other four. A little discussion—more like an argument—and then Brady had stepped over to a wall and pulled a lever. A few seconds later, cement started running down the chute and pouring into the tube.

  No, not cement—concrete. A landscaper Jack worked for in his younger days had always corrected him whenever he made the mistake: cement was only part of concrete, the binding compound. When you added sand and gravel to cement, you ended up with concrete.

  Looked like there might be a little defect in the tube. Jack spotted a trickle of thick gray fluid leaking through one of the seams, like brains through a bullet hole. But the trickle never graduated to anything more, and soon it stopped.

  Still no sign of Jamie Grant.

  While all inside were intent on their pillar manufacture, Jack went over to the cars. He flashed his light into each, front and back—empty—then tried the doors. Jensen's Town Car and the Infinity were unlocked. He popped the trunks on those, but no Jamie.

  He thumped on the trunks of Brady's Mercedes and the Saab, saying, "Jamie? It's Jack. If you're in there, kick something, make any noise you can."

  Not a sound.

  Jamie could be inside the plant, but Jack doubted it. The place looked like a going concern. She'd been gone all day and he couldn't see them stashing her here all that time. Too high a risk of someone seeing her and recognizing her. Her face was all over the news.

  No, they'd have brought her somewhere else, someplace isolated.

  He just hoped they hadn't hurt her.

  He headed back up the hill to the road and his car. When the Dormen-talists left, he'd follow Jensen this time. If anyone knew where Jamie was, and if anyone was going to lead Jack to her, it was the GP.

  He reached his car, then sat in the dark and waited.

  SATURDAY

  1

  "Jack, could you please sit down," Gia said. "You're making me nervous."

  "Sorry." Jack forced himself to perch on one of the chairs at her kitchen table.

  "Have a donut. You haven't touched one."

  When their schedules permitted, Jack liked to stop by Gia's early on a Saturday or Sunday with a box of donuts.

  He picked up a brown-sugar cruller, crispy on the outside, soft and white within, and nibbled. He wasn't hungry.

  "You're looking good this morning, mama," he told Gia.

  And she was. Her color was better and she seemed to have more energy.

  She smiled. "Thanks. I'm feeling better. I run out of gas sooner than usual, but I should do better as my blood count gets back to normal."

  He heard Vicky laugh and looked up. She sat on the far side of the table, reading a book Jack had bought her last month. The sugared creme donut she'd just finished—her favorite—had left her with a snowy mustache. Appropriately she was reading, for the umpteenth time, Ogden Nash's The Tale of Custard the Dragon.

  "What's so funny, Vicks?"

  "Listen," Vicky said, grinning at him. " 'Meowch!' cried Ink, and 'Ooh!' cried Belinda, for there was a pirate, climbing in the winda.'" She laughed again. "Winda! I love that part!"

  Vicky loved wordplay, which was why Nash was perfect for her.

  "I'll get you the sequel. Something about Custard and a Wicked Knight."

  "Another Custard book? When are you getting it?"

  "Soon as I can find a copy."

  As Vicky went back to reading, Jack looked up and found Gia staring at him.

  "She's on your mind, isn't she." She spoke in a low tone with a glance across the table. "And I don't mean Miss Big Ears."

  Jack had told her about Jamie Grant.

  "Yeah. Not only do I not have a clue where she is, I don't even know if she's still, um, with us." He pounded a fist on his knee. "I shouldn't have let her go back to her office."

  "And just how were you going to stop her? She's a grown woman who's got a right to make her own decisions. You of all people—"

  "I know, I know. It's just… I can't help it, I feel… responsible."

  Jack knew he shouldn't. What could he have done? Abducted her and tied her up in his trunk?—which was probably just what Jensen had done. But if he had done it first she'd be safe right now.

  Gia was staring at him. "I thought we agreed that you were going to avoid rough stuff."

  "This started off as a missing person thing and I—"

  "Missing?" Vicky said. "Who's missing?"

  "It's okay," Jack said. "No one you know. And he's been found."

  "Oh, good." She went back to her book.

  "But the problem," Gia said, speaking barely above a whisper, "is that you've traded one missing person for another. And she may be more than missing, she may be… like that poor security guard at the paper. This is not what I call avoiding rough stuff."

  "Wasn't supposed to be like this." He sighed. "At least that blackmail fix-it's over with. No rough stuff there."

  Clocking a mook over the head with a hot plate didn't really fit Jack's definition of no rough stuff, but he decided not to mention it.

  He stifled a yawn. He hadn't gotten much sleep last night. Following Jensen had turned out to be a waste of time. He'd looked for a chance to get in the GP's face—like maybe at a rest stop—and pull a little carjack action. Force Jensen to dr
ive him to Jamie.

  But the opportunity had never presented itself. Jensen drove nonstop to a garage on East Eighty-seventh, disappeared inside. He reappeared a few minutes later and entered the apartment building next door.

  Home? Probably. Holding Jamie there? No way.

  So he'd driven over to the West Side where he spotted the Dormentalist surveillance team still on the job.

  Again the question: Watching for her or him?

  "Where is she?" he said, thinking aloud.

  Gia sipped her tea. "Kind of hard for me to speculate about someone I've never met, but from what you've told me about her, she doesn't sound like a person who'd slink away in silence."

  "You've got that right. Even if she was hiding in some kind of foxhole, she'd still be sending dispatches from the front." He balled a fist. "They've got her, damn it. They've got her and I don't know where."

  Gia covered his fist with her hand. "You've done all you can. The police are on it, and you pointed them in the right direction. It's out of your hands."

  "I suppose it is." Easier to say than accept. "But I've got a bad feeling that this story is not headed for a happy ending."

  Gia gave his fist a squeeze but said nothing.

  "And on the subject of missing women," Jack said, digging his Tracfone out of his pocket, "I still haven't been able to touch base with the lady who got me involved in this mess in the first place."

  He punched in the number for Maria Roselli—the only name he had for her—and listened to her phone ring and ring.

  "Still not answering." He stabbed the END button. "I'm going to take a quick walk down to Beekman." A ten-block trip; wouldn't take him long. "She may be there and just not answering."

  Jack had told Gia that he'd been hired by a mother to locate her Dor-mentalist son. It had always been his practice never to mention names, even to her. Gia understood that. He'd felt free to discuss Jamie Grant with her, though, because she hadn't hired him.

  But names weren't all he kept from Gia. He never mentioned details that he knew might upset her. Like the flap of Anya's skin, for instance. That was a little too gruesome to share.