A Dark Perfection

by James, Mark

  The killer leaned forwards. Lucien thought he recognized himself in the voice, and then realized that it came from an even more distant place, a place so dark he couldn’t see.

  “Tell me, dear Viscount,” the killer whispered, now close to his ear and behind him, “When Perry Smith died, in his last moment, when the electricity ran through him, do you think he felt her stain?”

  With the word, stain, the tip of the ice pick penetrated the skin at the base of Lucien’s skull. The killer held it there as the tips of Lucien’s fingers quivered on the chair rests.

  The killer whispered, reveling in the tension, “Is it true what the Tibetans say? You know, those crazy lamas spending all of their precious time meditating on the tops of mountains? They say that death is just another dream…”

  With the word, dream, Lucien felt the metal slowly enter as the killer tilted his head forwards, affording the correct entry path. It went in an inch below the hairline, entered the spinal cord and followed the center of the cord as it entered the cerebellum, a trickle running down the killer’s hand and onto the hilt, into the stain.

  Lucien’s hands shook involuntarily, violently, as life rushed out of him. In his last moments, with the ice pick up to its hilt, the killer pulled his head up so that he was forced to look straight ahead. There, he could only find the portrait of Lucien Freud staring back, an accusation from the world.

  Lucien suddenly had the feeling of floating down a dark corridor, spirally backwards. In his mind the only feeling was the combined pain of all of his past acts, to all of the creatures he had ever known, condensed into one singular moment.

  That moment of infinite pain, it felt like…Hell.

  The killer slowly withdrew the pick, like Excalibur from a stone. He walked to the front of the desk and placed it into its case, closing the lid. He looked at his watch.

  Before he killed the president, he had one last thing to do.

  42

  The killer watched as the magnolia warbler flitted through the topmost branches, fleeing a late winter chasing it southwards.

  He liked birds, the remnants of dinosaurs. Archaeopteryx – what a spectacular word.

  The migration patterns of the birds and butterflies were now dislocated, eroding, in distress. And still, the people still did not see. Focusing only on the steps before them – the next gold bauble, the next illusion of power – they walked over the Earth without knowing where they were. He, the killer, did not cause their impotence; it was their own lack of will that quickened the Cascade.

  They believed that their Bible had told them that mankind had been “driven” from Eden. But no one had actually been driven from this paradise; it was all in their self-deluded minds.

  Eden was still here.

  Their ancient, crucified Messiah had once told them, The Kingdom of Heaven is within and all around, but men do not see.

  Last week, a sea tornado, a waterspout, arose fully formed in Tokyo harbor. Yesterday, scientists announced that the Alaskan tundra had finally melted, the thaw flowing into the sea. Today, he spied a Painted Lady butterfly skirting along a rock wall, the first he’d seen in two decades.

  As it had been before, he was merely another shepherd – a cultivator of threads, of patterns, falling down towards a Scylla.

  He was a vanguard.

  He was the catalyst towards the Oscillation.

  He was the Dark Star.

  The killer, himself, did not know his true nature. It was not required.

  Like the warbler or the polar bear, or the snake or the serpent, he only needed to be.

  †

  It was a secret place, bored into the Earth.

  Six stories deep through granite substrata, it existed in only the most Top Secret files.

  The National Biological Warfare Center at Dahlgren, Virginia was a fortress underground, containing the most lethal agents that evolution had ever seen, yet never conceived. The four upper floors were occupied by scientists in various laboratories, existing at various levels of security. The bottom floors were refrigerated units, where the scientists wore Class 5 positive displacement suits, and where there were stored the lethal government-created biological weapons – mutated Ebola, distilled anthrax, the Manger virus, unknown strains of smallpox.

  The “Apache” strain of anthrax was created through twenty-six separate iterations; each population exposed to extreme conditions – heat, various chemicals, radiation, predator bacteria – with only the last surviving bacterium for each test population kept. The process was then repeated, over and over until only the strongest agent survived – the most lethal application of Darwinism in the history of our species, of any species.

  The active agents were stored in pen-shaped, clear vials, each inserted into a medium frozen at a temperature maintained right above absolute zero.

  If the facility were ever compromised, the bottom two floors would be flooded with fiery napalm and the employees who escaped, if any, flung to the surface in rapid-rise elevators.

  The background dossier for the Dahlgren facility, the classified memorandum issued to each new administration, read, in relevant part:

  In circumstances of gross, open-air

  contamination, the president should

  consider the institution of Marshall

  Law and the evacuation of major

  population centers. Also under

  consideration should be the dividing

  of the surviving population into

  ‘innoculation zones,’ as the active

  agent may…

  Throughout our evolution, civilizations have been destroyed in many different ways, at many different times, for many different reasons.

  †

  “I’ll get some ice,” Jack said. “Be right back.”

  Under their false surnames of Mr. and Ms. Patterson – because Mac thought it was appropriate – they’d ordered morning coffee from the hotel room service. Lani was sitting up in the bed pouring cream when Jack looked down and spied the bottle sticking out from his bag. It was the same wine that had bounced with them all over the world – their little good luck charm, they’d laughed halfway over the Atlantic – and he wanted to cool it down for later that day, when they could celebrate after the president’s address.

  A taste of deliverance, when they would finally be free.

  Jack hit the button and the hotel icemaker jammed again. He leaned over to look up into the ice shoot, reaching up to dislodge whatever had decided to get stuck this time.

  He didn’t see the dark shadow within the shadow around the corner. He didn’t see the cloth in its hand, didn’t smell the chemical within the cloth. He didn’t know that the killer had a van waiting downstairs at the rear loading dock. He didn’t know that the killer had been arranging for the van to make deliveries to the White House for the last year, building a pattern. He didn’t know that the van had a false bottom in its cargo bay that the killer had used to smuggle objects into the White House, testing security response. He didn’t know that the killer plans for everything.

  He didn’t know that the killer sees these things.

  †

  “I looked, and behold, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth, the moon like blood…”

  –Revelation, 6:12:1

  43

  The killer had directed the van to the west entrance of the White House. It was quieter than usual this Saturday morning, as most were taking a rare chance to be with their families before the president’s memorial service at Arlington National Cemetery. No one had such rare times anymore; the world all moved so fast. This morning was different. The country was in collective morning, as disarmed as they were when the Japanese Zeros had crested a horizon and spied Pearl Harbor. For the killer, history was a great wave, always leading back into itself, the same patterns repeating into different colors: life and death, light and dark, predator on prey.

  Today was the day when the newest dead would be honored, the d
ead from the theater bombings together with even more dead – from the 9/11 twin towers, from the Yucca Mountain attacks, from the Oscar night shootings, all rolled into one nice, shiny package of a commemoration day, the government ever-so-efficient. What were they calling this new national holiday? Oh yes, the killer recalled, Hero’s Day. Everyone was a hero these days. What the killer knew – and that others, evidently, did not – was that those endless caskets now only contained the rotted remnants of something that was not here anymore; the remainders of rended bodies from the theater bombings, of the bones from the exhumed Yucca Mountain attack graves, from the twisted metal of the Trade Towers. It was all only old flesh to him, the souls gone somewhere else. Sometimes, he mused, Homo sapiens could be such a self-indulgent, scared little species. Sometimes, when he glanced down at his own hand, trapped in its own eroding flesh, he could almost feel…ashamed.

  The killer stood behind Jack and grabbed the front of his hair and yanked his head up, ripping away the blindfold.

  Jack could feel the tight bindings at his wrists, upper arms and legs as he sat in the chair, trying to focus with the sudden light and through a swirling haze of drugs.

  In front of him was a large picture window, the sun streaming in, the Washington Monument in the distance coming into focus.

  In front of the window was a computer screen set up on a desk, turned towards him.

  On the screen was a woman. She was on a bed, sleeping.

  The realization came over him like a flood.

  Lani…

  †

  Jack watched as the man moved from behind him, around the desk and sat in the chair opposite. He moved like a cheetah – cold, calm, self-assured in the world.

  Jack’s blood raced as he stared at the screen and the image of Lani, then back to the killer.

  He knew this man, his face somehow familiar.

  Jack glared, “Who the fuck are you?”

  The killer smiled, “What do they say, just another lonely traveler? Much like yourself – Maryland, Scotland, Paris, Croatia, you’ve been a busy man.”

  The killer leaned back and stared at the ceiling, as if daydreaming, “Although we travel different paths…”

  Jack continued to glare, testing the nylon tape at his hands and ankles. It was professionally applied in a crisscrossed pattern. Perhaps reinforced metalized tape, he considered. He searched his memories for the face. He’d seen it somewhere, perhaps in a newspaper photo, or at a celebrity party in one of those magazines. It was hard to remember, the face always at the edge of the frame, the camera never quite catching it. As a blur, the face seemed always to be turning away.

  The killer returned the glare, all of his darkness focused on Jack in that moment. “I am Mikhael Présage. I will be the next President of the United States.”

  44

  “I’m not sure if you’ve looked at the U.S. Constitution lately, but here’s a newsflash: you’re not in line,” Jack said, continuing to hold the killer’s gaze.

  He perceived the hot intensity in Présage’s eyes. He’d seen it in other serial killers; as an utmost detachment from their victims, the bottomless well of a shark’s eye.

  Présage leaned forward, “Whether history calls one a president, a dictator, a Caesar, or a king, it’s all the same, all variations on a theme. How power is applied determines what you are. What title the unknown masses then give you is irrelevant. And besides, haven’t you heard, the victors write the history.”

  “Just another messianic psychopath, eh?” Jack said, refusing to break the intense thread growing between them. “Here’s another newsflash: history has seen plenty of those. Dime a dozen.”

  The killer laughed, “Dime a dozen? Why, you’re just full of pithy, worn out sayings. Just another dumb gumshoe…”

  Jack looked closer. “Hold it, I know you…”

  “You do?” the killer said, bemused.

  “Yeah, aren’t you that gopher for VP Palmer? The Raft-Boy. They say you’re a real asshole.”

  Jack knew he was taunting Présage, wanted to do so. The first principal of combat: never look like prey.

  Présage looked at his watch. “I suppose…”

  Présage had grown tired of the glaring and the taunting and looked over at the screen, smiling, “Haven’t you forgotten something? Yes, our dear Lani, the beautiful and fragile Detective Keno, a real sleeping beauty…”

  Jack noticed something strange about Lani: she was in the same position as before, the exact position. Jack knew that she stirred at night, one of those happy people in her dreams. And she always awoke when he rose early, sensing him get up.

  She never laid still.

  His forearms tensed against the chair. “What have you done to her? And what’s with the cameras?”

  Présage laughed. “My, aren’t we the inquisitive sort, even tied up like an animal. You know, O’Neill, that’s why I didn’t kill you right away – you make such good sport.”

  As he said the last words he nearly hissed, as if something were escaping him.

  “The cameras? Well, easy enough. I mean, we’re just one happy family, right? You know, a White House under siege and set against the world? Here’s a newsflash then for you: when one lives behind a moat, one easily gains access to the castle. A virus here, a burrowing program there and suddenly you’ve gained open access to the White House surveillance apparatus. It’s not as sophisticated as one might assume.”

  Présage motioned to the screen. “This camera here, at the hotel, it’s a safe house of sorts – the administration offers it up to diplomats, then uses it to spy on them. Same old dance.”

  While Présage rambled on about how wonderful he was, Jack ticked through his options. He wanted the killer to talk, allowing him more time.

  Présage glanced at his watch again. He was waiting for something.

  “You look nervous,” Jack said. “What’s the matter, waiting for someone?”

  Présage smiled, “Well, no and yes and no. No, I never become nervous; yes, we are waiting; and, no, not for someone.”

  Waiting for something.

  “You said, Maryland, Scotland, Paris – you were behind it all. Why?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then say it, why?”

  “I told you – good sport. Something to do…”

  Jack studied him. “Not true – you’re not the type to get bored. You only do something if there’s a reason. Same question: why?”

  This was better than Présage could have imagined: O’Neill caged like a leopard lashing out through the bars, a worthy adversary. The man spitting in the face of death, in the face of his possible torture, in the face of Nothingness, it was charming – and actually, a trait he could respect.

  Présage leaned back, looking up at the ceiling. “Yes, always a reason…”

  “Well, enough,” he finally said, leaning down and returning the glare. “It’s simple – you were getting too close, like when a gnat gets too close while one is eating.”

  He hissed again at the word, eating, then tapped at the edge of the screen, attempting to draw Jack’s attention back to Lani. “You were both getting too close. I used a rook to take out two pawns. Another domino in place.”

  Présage spun slowly in his chair to stare out the window.

  Jack searched the space between himself and the desk, gauging the distance, scanning the room for any potential weapons if he found a way to get loose. Présage suddenly spun back.

  “She’s drugged,” he said. “Delivery system? An aerosol propellant under the hotel door – simple is always better. I needed her to stay still…so you could watch.”

  Waiting for him to watch.

  “Wait for what?” Jack asked, squinting.

  Présage smiled, again pleased with himself. “Ah, what are we waiting for? A star, a promise forgotten, a promise fulfilled…”

  He seemed to drift into another place and Jack began to wonder about his mental stability, as he seemed to enter lucidity and, just as q
uickly, leave it.

  Suddenly, Présage snapped out of his musings, his eyes locked down on Jack again.

  “The answer? It is the same answer. Why you must wait and how I will become the next President, it is the same answer.”

  Jack said nothing. He decided not to rise to the bait. Make him say it.

  Présage stared, appreciating this small mind’s perseverance. He said nothing, instead slowly turning the laptop screen around. On the screen was a beautiful image: the curve of the Earth from space.

  “Let me introduce you to Project Odin. Or rather, its twin.”

  The gold and silver skin of the satellite and its solar wings glistened in the sun that rose off the Earth’s horizon, a real-time transmission from over a hundred miles above their heads.

  “A gleaming piece of art…” Présage whispered.

  “Project Odin,” he continued, a dream-like intensity now fully in his eyes, “is a platform for the most lethal weapon the world has yet seen – a burrowing, self-terminating laser. As the satellite rushes around the Earth at 20,000 miles per hour, its needle can reach down to anyone at any time, enter a bedroom without a sound, penetrate the skin without touching, literally phasing through, reaching only the depth that it is told, bleeding out the matter, liquefying the mind…”

  Inside, Présage was in a ‘different place,’ his evolution having merged his waking and dream states, no longer separate, no longer limiting the other. It was a dark gift from the Dark Father of the world, from the shadows.