“Then we’ll have it at her place or your place or my place, but we’ve got to have it.”
“I don’t know, Pierce. She going to be tired after—”
“Make it happen, Katz. You can hypnotize her and take her anywhere you want to—ten years ago, ten thousand years ago. I don’t care anymore, just as long as Krogan’s there. I want to know everything about this guy—who he was, who he is, what turns him on, what turns him off, what he likes to do besides killing people… everything. I want to eat, drink, and sleep this psychopath until I know what he’s thinking, starting tonight. We’re out of time. And don’t let Karianne out of your sight. The last thing we want is for something to happen to her.”
“What if she refuses to do it tonight?”
Gavin looked at the smoldering plane wreck, then at the dead man in the smashed bucket. “Then I’ll talk to her. But I don’t think that’ll be necessary. I think I was wrong about her, Katz. I think she’s a good lady who had a bad day. I don’t know how any of this past-life connection stuff really works, but I do believe she wants him stopped as much as anyone. If she’s his enemy then she’s our friend. What’s your professional opinion?”
“Uh, ditto.”
Gavin managed a fleeting smile. “Thanks. That was exactly what I needed to hear right now. Oh, by the way. I want some kind of language expert there other than just your Uncle Hiram. I don’t want us guessing what she’s saying when she starts to speak Greek or Swahili.”
“But how am I going to get a language expert on such short notice?”
“You told me this was the find of a lifetime, Katz. I’m sure you can round up someone who wants to be in your book.”
Gavin put away his phone. He’d seen enough. He was about to turn and walk away when he noticed something curious about the wrist of the dead man. His left wrist looked the same as Gavin’s did when taking a shower… when he wasn’t wearing his watch. The wrist was tanned except for a watch-sized band. It was possible the guy had lost the thing in the crash, but it was also possible Krogan had stolen it. A souvenir? Or had Krogan needed to know what time it was?
Before he left, Gavin asked someone on the CSU to keep a lookout for the man’s watch. Walking briskly back to his car, he was intercepted by a man with a miniature tape recorder.
“Excuse me, sir. Are you Detective Pierce?”
“Yeah,” Gavin said without breaking stride.
“I’m Bennett Norel from the Post,” the man said, holding out a card. Gavin didn’t take it, so Norel continued. “Uh, according to the receptionist, Mr. Gasman was heard speaking to someone he called Pierce before he got on the jet.”
Gavin stopped and turned to look at the man.
“Look… Norel, did you say it was?”
“Yes, sir,” the young man said eagerly, his tape recorder at the ready.
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-three.”
“You want the big story?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Are you willing to do anything for it?”
“Absolutely.”
Gavin put his hand over the mike and spoke softly, motioning toward the smoldering remains of the jet. “So was he.”
He left the young man staring at the smoking pile of metal. Hopefully Gavin had impregnated him with the kind of wisdom that only hindsight can deliver to the blindly ambitious. The kid reminded Gavin of a young Gasman. If only he could have had such an opportunity to remind Gasman of the dangers of ambition, maybe then he wouldn’t have felt so invincible.
Pondering the clarity of hindsight, Gavin picked up his pace. He was anxious to see what Karianne’s distant past would reveal, but first he wanted to stop by headquarters to see if the fax from the Lighting Company had come in yet.
27
Krogan had just wolfed down his third helping of ham and sunny-side-up eggs with home fries, all drenched with Tabasco sauce. The waitress looked at him strangely as she replaced yet another empty plate, this time with a double cheeseburger deluxe and a fresh bottle of hot sauce. Tearing into a nearby plate of hot buttered toast, two at a time, he tapped his empty coffee cup with a dripping fork, then stabbed at the French fries.
“Honey, if you’re going for the house record, you’ve already blown it away. I’ve never seen anyone drink eight cups of coffee before,” the waitress said as she poured.
Krogan said nothing as he poured enough sugar in the coffee to make the waitress frown, then, without stirring the sugar, threw the steaming cupful down like it was a shot of whiskey. The waitress shivered at the sight, then turned to leave. She had only taken two steps before he tapped the coffee cup again.
All the work involved in killing Gasman had given Krogan a ferocious appetite. He didn’t even notice, through the diner’s window at his right, that the orange glow in the distant sky had finally been extinguished, leaving only wisps of gray smoke. After dressing his burger with the appropriate drowning of ketchup and Tabasco, he took a healthy bite, the hot juices running over the egg yolk on his chin. Two bites later the burger was gone. He was about to tap for more when a throaty motorcycle rolled into a parking space outside the window. The bike was a Harley and it was saddled with some leathered-up guy and his chick.
The guy turned the key to shut off the engine, but hadn’t removed it when the bottom of Krogan’s boot slammed into his helmet, sending the guy onto the hood of the car in the next space. The guy fell motionless. The girl screamed as Krogan quickly mounted the bike, started the engine, and took off with her still hanging on. Krogan laughed as the girl cursed him and beat on his back as he sped down the road. Finally he leaned back and yelled to her, “Your place or mine?”
28
By the time Gavin got to Karianne’s apartment everyone had already been there for hours.
“Are you okay?” Amy asked, giving him a warm embrace and, after an uncharacteristically shy moment, a quick kiss on the cheek. Gavin hid his surprise, enjoying the moment.
“Fine,” he lied. “I had to stop at headquarters and get this fax. It’s a list from the Lighting Company of the stops the truck was supposed to make. I need to check these locations ASAP.”
“Pierce,” Katz called, looking relieved. “We were getting a little worried and wondering if we should start without you. This is Doctor Paul Steinman. He’s the language expert you requested. Uncle Hiram had to pass on tonight. Your… our pace is a bit too demanding for him.”
“Detective Pierce,” Steinman said with a big smile, offering his hand. The man was in his late forties, heavyset with big cheeks and a full reddish-blond beard. His merry, Santa Claus-like face was a contrast to Katz’s perpetually sad one.
Gavin nodded and shook the man’s outstretched hand, but was in no mood to return the smile. “Where’s Karianne?” he asked Amy.
Amy motioned toward the living room through an arched opening a few feet away. Gavin immediately left the foyer to see her. Karianne was laying on a comfortable-looking couch with a southwestern design, her broken leg propped up on a pillow. She smiled briefly, but said nothing.
The living room was not big, but had a very cozy feel to it. Neat but well lived in. To his left the wall was full of photos, most of them of Karianne posing with friends in various outdoor scenes. Mountain backgrounds, beach shots, both snow- and water-skiing. All probably the result of the perks of her job. The other walls were full of small watercolor paintings, wall hangings, and other likely souvenirs. A long table in front of a window behind the couch she was on held a collection of live plants. Everything pointed to a healthy, active life. In other words, there was no obvious evidence of alcoholism or partying. If indeed she hadn’t had a drink in five years, she had helped her cause by not even allowing a bottle in the photos or paintings. It was hard for Gavin to easily connect the woman’s immediate situation with the one represented in the room.
He knelt down before her on one knee so he would be more or less at eye level. “Thank you,” he said as sincerely as he could. “Y
ou’re quite a trooper. The courage you’ve shown in allowing us to pursue the killer through you is, at this point, heroic.”
She laughed. “Heroic. I’m scared to death. I don’t know what I’m doing, how I’m doing it, or what will come next. The only thing I understand is real people in this time are dying. If there’s any way I can help, tell me and I’ll do it. Everyone else around here is jumping through hoops and giving their 110 percent.”
Gavin was comforted by her willingness. It didn’t make sense to him that she could have been in the car with Krogan, much less that she had been traveling from one lifetime to another as his sometime sidekick. He wondered if the others that had died as Krogan’s passengers were also reincarnated shadahd dates. Time-traveling party souls that had an occasional irresistible impulse to destroy.
Gavin turned to see Amy, Katz, and his language expert all standing behind him, waiting to start. The video camera was set up across the room and an additional tape recorder, probably Steinman’s, was on a small chair.
Katz brought in another chair and placed it next to the couch by Karianne’s feet so he could face her straight on. Steinman took a seat in an overstuffed beige chair close enough to the recorder that any of his comments could be easily picked up by its small internal microphone. Katz also provided Gavin and Amy with a small dry-erase board on a stand so they could communicate with him without speaking.
“Dr. Katz,” Karianne said, halting the psychologist just before he was about to go to work. “Do you think while you have me hypnotized you could ask me what I did with my opening-day football ticket? I haven’t seen it since… since that night. The game is two days away and the ticket was a gift from one of the players. It’s a great location, too—second tier, right on the fifty yard line.”
Katz smiled. “We’ll see what we can do,” he said, then continued.
Karianne slipped into her hypnotic state almost automatically. Gavin wondered if Katz had ever really brought her completely out from the last time.
Steinman was at the edge of his seat. He’d probably never seen anything like this, Gavin thought.
“Now, Karianne, I want you to think about Krogan. Do you see him?”
“Yes.”
“I want you to see him smile, see him happy—the happiest you’ve ever seen him. Are you there?”
Karianne’s eyes flickered. Her head moved slowly, as if there was an unseen thickness about her. “Sic. Krogan,” she said.
“Krogan is sick?” Katz asked.
“Haud!” she yelled. “Delectatio. Krogan delecto,” she continued. Her tone was almost scary. Gavin thought she might be angry she had to repeat herself.
All eyes fell upon Steinman.
Steinman was obviously stunned. “She’s speaking Latin! Ancient Latin. Haud means ‘no.’ She said Krogan is not sick but very happy, delighted, enjoying himself.”
Katz smiled at everyone, then turned back to Karianne. “Good! And why is he happy?”
“Congrego.”
“Gathering,” Steinman said.
“Hmm. Who is gathering together that Krogan is so happy?”
“Refragatio.”
“Resistance,” Steinman said.
“Revolutionaries?” Katz asked.
“Sic.”
“Yes,” Steinman said.
“Are you a member of the resistance?”
“Sic.”
“Are you happy, too?”
Karianne laughed. “Sic, sic, sic.”
“Are there any others from the resistance that are from another time—another life?”
“Sic.”
Katz looked around the room. He had the same expression someone would have if they had just found a recipe for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich written in Martian. He was probably imagining his name next to Freud’s… Da Vinci’s. Gavin gave him a warning look, and he turned back to Karianne.
“How many of the resistance do you know from other lives?”
“Plurimus,” she said.
“Most or all,” Steinman translated.
What she said was startling, even to Gavin. Amy put her hand on his hand, but continued to look at Karianne.
Katz frowned. “Was that why you gathered? Because you all knew each other in other lives?”
“Haud. Celebritas.”
“No. Celebration,” Steinman said.
“What are you all celebrating?”
“Neco. Leto ensis… nex. Shadahd,” she said with a snarl.
Steinman frowned, then shook his head slightly before he said, “Put to death. Kill the sword. Violent death. The last word sounds like Hebrew.”
“We know what the last word means,” Katz said quietly. “Is this an execution?”
“Sic.”
“Someone is going to be killed with a sword?”
“Haud. Neco ensis.”
“No. Kill the sword,” Steinman said.
Katz frowned and tapped his finger on his knee. “You’re going to kill a sword?”
“Sic.”
“Is the sword a person?”
“Sic.”
Katz smiled and nodded at everyone, obviously proud of his perceptiveness. “What country are you in?”
“Y’hudah.”
Katz’s eyebrows raised and he mouthed Israel to Steinman, who nodded in agreement. “What city are you in?”
“Yerushalayim.”
Katz paused. “What are you wearing on your feet?”
“Auarca.”
“A leather sandal,” Steinman said. “The kind usually worn by a peasant. She’s probably visiting from Rome. That would be in keeping with the dialect.”
“What is your name?”
“Glaucus Tertius.”
“Are you Roman?” Katz asked.
“Sic.”
“Who is the emperor?”
“Tiberius.”
Steinman leaned so far forward he almost fell out of his seat. Katz ran his fingers through his hair. His hand was shaking as he dragged his fingers across his lips. Gavin didn’t know too much about history, but he knew plenty about shock, and Katz was shocked. Which emperor was Tiberius? What was Katz thinking?
Katz cleared his throat. “The one you call ‘Sword’… is there any other name you call him?”
“Filius.”
Steinman exhaled heavily before he spoke. “The Son.”
Now Gavin knew what was freaking Katz out. He didn’t need to know much about history to know whom Karianne was talking about. But who was this Glaucus character and who was Krogan that he would gather with a band of people who had been meeting each other through the centuries and were now all in one place, celebrating the execution of the one they all knew as The Sword?
He tapped on the dry-erase board until he got Katz’s attention, then wrote Krogan. Katz nodded.
“What is Krogan doing?”
“Crapula. Derideo. Accendo.”
“She says he’s drinking wine, laughing and mocking someone, and trying to get others to do the same,” Steinman said.
“Who is he mocking?”
“Deludo deus filius,” she yelled, then laughed. “Deludo deus filius,” she repeated again and again in an eerie chant as if she too were drunk.
Gavin snapped his fingers several times at Steinman, who was staring straight ahead with his eyes wide open, as though he was afraid to interpret. He looked at Gavin, nodded quickly, and exhaled. “She says he’s… mocking God’s Son.”
Amy’s hand, already on Gavin’s knee, squeezed tightly, intensifying the shiver traveling through his veins.
After a long silence, Katz pulled out a handkerchief and wiped the sweat off his forehead. “What do the people who are not in your resistance call the one who you call The Sword?”
“Haud,” she yelled.
“No?” Katz asked, apparently surprised by either her sudden anger or her refusal to answer him.
“Haud,” she repeated loudly.
Katz frowned, looked at Gavin, and shrugged his sho
ulders. “Maybe Karianne can tell us what Glaucus won’t,” he said in a hushed version of his deep voice. “You are now moving forward through the centuries until you are Karianne again. You will be able to recall all you have seen while being Glaucus Tertius.”
Karianne’s head began moving slowly from side to side again, like it had before.
“Who are you?” Katz asked.
“Karianne,” she said.
“Very good. Now I want you to—”
Suddenly, unexpectedly, Karianne’s eyes stopped fluttering and then opened. She looked around the room at each of the faces in it, then screamed and cried convulsively.
29
This is a joke, right?” Katz said in disbelief. “You can’t be serious, Pierce. She saw Jesus Christ! How many other sons of God were crucified in Jerusalem two thousand years ago?” he said through clenched teeth.
Both he and Gavin quickly looked into the living room to see if their elevating discussion from the foyer had disturbed Karianne. Fortunately, she was still under, with her right hand raised like a flag. “There is nothing bigger than this, Pierce,” Katz said in a desperate whisper. “She was actually there. At the crucifixion. Her report is the most… most…”
“Sorry, Katz,” Gavin whispered. “We have to move on.”
“Move on? Move on? I’m scheduling you for a CAT scan, Pierce. You definitely need your head examined. No one in their right mind would move on from this. For heaven’s sake, I’m Jewish and even I want to know more!”
“Katz, we almost lost her. She cried hysterically for more than a half hour and didn’t respond to any of those little tricks of the trade you’re so hot on. Thank God you finally did get her back under.”
“I screwed up. What can I say?” Katz said. “I never expected her to pop out of the trance like that. Very uncharacteristic. She’s been the perfect patient up until then. But now I know better,” he pleaded. “I won’t take anything for granted.”
“Neither will I,” Gavin shot back. “Whoever or whatever she saw almost drove her out of her mind. If we lose her, we lose our best shot at Krogan. I can’t—won’t take that chance.”
Driven Page 17