The Enclave

by Karen Hancock

  “Are you listening to me, Doctor?”

  Gen’s words broke into his thoughts. “Yes, of course. You were speaking of Friday’s meeting.”

  She frowned and smoothed a curl of red hair behind one ear. “Do you have no idea of the power I hold over your advancement in this institution, Cameron? Can you possibly be that obtuse?”

  He blinked at her.

  “Parker would’ve brought you into his Inner Circle months ago if not for me. Do you know why?”

  Cam took her question as rhetorical, but when it seemed she’ d not go on unless he answered, he finally said, “No. I don’t.”

  “Because I don’t think you’re worthy of us. Because I don’t trust you. Because to be one with us, your highest allegiance must be to Parker and to his vision, as ours is. He doesn’t take your religious beliefs seriously. I do. He thinks you’ll abandon them in the end. I think you’ll abandon us first.”

  He said nothing, surprised by the depth and accuracy of her perception, but having no idea what to say.

  “You see, I don’t think you can reconcile your views with the vision we have here,” she went on. “But Parker believes you should be given the opportunity to explain yourself, so I’m giving it to you.”

  He cocked a brow at her, thinking surely she wasn’t serious.

  “Come now,” she prodded. “Doesn’t your Bible command you to be ready to answer anyone who asks why you believe? Doesn’t it order you to witness to the atheist evolutionists all around you? Isn’t it your duty to warn us? To save us from our sinful ways?”

  And now he saw that she was very serious, though not at all about understanding what he believed or why. This was not a chance for him to explain and be heard, but a chance for him to be humiliated. “Why not give me the podium one evening at dinner?” he asked dryly.

  She snorted. “As much as you detest the limelight? No. We wanted to offer you the chance to explain yourself in a safe environment.”

  Safe environment. Right.

  She tilted her head at him. “You know, if I only wanted to humiliate you, I could’ve blindsided you with this Friday. But I didn’t.”

  “Well, thank you for that.”

  “You want to know why?” And this time, when he looked at her without response, she answered anyway. “Because I don’t think you have the guts to stand up in front of people and face me! Because when it comes down to the last hour, I think you’ll get another titration going and ‘forget’ to come. Again.”

  “Maybe I should, given what you’ve told me.”

  “Maybe you should indeed. If you do, you can give up any hope of ever sitting on the Circle with us.”

  She shifted the shoulder strap of her bag again, then strode off, the click of her six-inch heels on the vinyl flooring echoing sharply in a corridor that finally stood empty.

  He watched her go, chagrinned, though he had no idea what he could have done or said differently. When she’d disappeared around the corner, he stepped away from the wall and headed in the opposite direction, threading the maze of corridors and open spaces that would take him to the Madrona Lounge and the service elevator accessing the animal facility.

  As he walked, he chewed on the implications of Gen’s challenge. He would have suspected it all her doing, except for the unmistakable marks of Swain’s hand in it. That quote from the Scriptures for one. The opportunity to speak of something so deeply important to him, for another, presented as if it would be something stimulating and pleasant when it would be anything but. Part of him did want to bow out. But the way she’d set him up, how could he? Besides, she was right about the command to be ready to give an answer, and if one of the reasons God had brought him here was to witness to these people, he could hardly bypass so obvious an opportunity to do so.

  The elevator doors opened into the animal facility, and he stepped into the quiet, a now-familiar uneasiness washing over him. With Manny’s disappearance and the Institute’s continued failure to find a replacement, the task of caring for the animals had ironically fallen to Cam—likely also Gen’s doing—and every time he set foot on the floor, he wondered if Frogeater would be waiting for him.

  The halls were empty, though, as was his small lab. With the door shut behind him, Cam laid the fork in its envelope atop a stack of similar envelopes, then set up a series of electrophoretic gels. On the last machine, he flipped an ancillary switch installed by one of Rudy’s team members. In two minutes it would start a video loop that would override the existing surveillance feed. The loop would run for half an hour before the normal feed resumed. In that interim, the janitor would come in to pick up the envelope.

  Leaving his lab well before the two minutes was up, Cam headed for the prep room, where he washed his hands, then decided to go for broke and investigate the stairwell down which he’d chased Frogeater. He’ d been considering it as a diversion from events that would be taking place in his lab but feared jeopardizing his standing with Swain should he be caught. After Gen’s talk of how gutless he was, though, he felt the need to act in opposition to that label. Besides, the chance was great no one would even notice unless they were actively watching him 24/7. Normally places of infrequent use went unmonitored, the recording devices triggered by a motion detector, their stored images reviewed only in the event of some abnormal occurrence.

  If Swain did call him on this, he figured he had a reasonably believable excuse for his curiosity and then he’ d know for sure the level of surveillance they had him under.

  Entering the stairwell, he descended to the locked pump room door, where he was not surprised to find the thumb pad gone and an electrical socket installed in its place. The card-key reader remained, and he debated trying his master keycard but decided against it.

  Overhead the fluorescent light flickered, pulling him from his thoughts. Realizing he’ d seen pretty much what he’ d come to see, he started back up the stairs. Behind him the light flickered again. It went out altogether as he rounded the first turn and started up the second flight of stairs, his way now lit by the landing light in front of the AnFac door. He picked up his pace, was rounding the third turn, when movement down between the railings in the darkness below caught his eye. He stopped to look more closely, but whatever it was had stopped, as well. Listening hard, he thought he heard the sough of someone breathing. Nape prickling, he started upward again, more rapidly.

  Still the sense of another presence coming up the stairs behind ate at him. He started to sweat. The edges of his vision began to flicker. He quickened his pace yet again, rounded the fifth and final turn, and stepped into the full illumination of the landing light, the AnFac door still propped ajar as he’d left it. He continued upward . . .

  And found himself striding across the barren, sunbaked yard of a dusty mud-and-rock-walled compound on the other side of the world. Rudy walked at his side as they followed a man wearing bone-colored robes and a rolled-wool Massoud hat, a trio of barking mongrels dancing at their heels in protest of their passage. A few dirty sheep huddled in the lee of the building ahead: a one-story, flat-roofed structure also made of mud and stone, with a raised porch on which sat several men in robes similar to those of their guide. Beyond the building and the compound walls loomed the barren, rocky slopes of the Hindu Kush, shearing skyward at a breathtaking angle. From this vantage he was too close to see the snowy peaks of Mt. Noshaq, the landmark that had served as the orientation point for the last five days of their journey.

  Rudy took the lead as they followed the man up the stair and across the porch, where the others lounged in the sun, soaking up the heat that the thin, cold air could not hold. They watched the Americans with dark, hostile eyes glazed from drug use. “Christian devils” he heard one of them murmur in Farsi as their guide pushed open the wooden door.

  Then he stepped after Rudy into the building’s warm, dark interior, rank with the stench of body odor, urine, and the smoke of opium. The robed men who lay there were hardly conscious, and though a few glazed
eyes watched them pass through, none said a word. At the back of the room their guide led them into a narrow stone corridor, the beam of his flashlight probing the darkness ahead.

  Soon the corridor opened into a small chamber, where together they descended numerous flights of concrete steps to a heavy, steel door. Their guide turned a key in the door’s ancient lock mechanism and pulled it open. As it swung back with a squeal, Cam gasped at the sense of another mind brushing his own, at the voices murmuring on the moving air, welcoming him, praising him, demanding he come now and free them.

  “Where’s the girl?!” one grated.

  This one was so different from the others, so grating and loud it dissolved the images around him. He stood once more in the stairwell, midway up the final flight of stairs below the AnFac landing, his hand on the railing.

  “I want the girl!” the voice rasped again from somewhere in the shadows below him.

  Though distorted by the roughness, it was so sharply familiar, Cam’s heart nearly stopped in recognition.

  “Does he have her?” the croak continued.

  “Who are you?” Cam demanded.

  “Does Father have her?”

  “Who’s Father?” Cam turned to the speaker behind him but found no one there. Through the space between the railings, he glimpsed a flicker of movement along the bottom flight of stairs. The rattle of the pump room door closing told him not to bother giving chase. As the silence flowed back around him, he stood in shocked replay of what he’d heard.

  The words still made no sense. But the voice had unquestionably belonged to Parker Swain.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  On Thursday, Lacey arose before dawn, put on shorts, T-shirt, and walking shoes, and set out around the asphalt path that encircled the Kendall-Jakes campus. Since this was her third day of the new walking regimen, she trusted her intent this morning of waylaying Cameron Reinhardt on his way back from his run wouldn’t be totally obvious to anyone who might be watching.

  With the sun still below the horizon, the morning air was cool enough to be comfortable, fresh with the smell of the damp grass. Birds chirped and twittered in the oak and mesquite trees around her, and on the quiet, deserted walkway—except for the two black-uniformed security guards patrolling some distance behind her—she relished the time to move and to reflect. She still couldn’t believe what they’d done to Cameron Reinhardt.

  After three days of working like a maniac on her proposal, due this morning in Swain’s office at 10:30, she’ d deemed it close to where she wanted it to be and had broken her self-imposed exile to go down to the dining hall for dinner last night. There, for the first time, she’ d heard how the Sunday rumors of Cameron Reinhardt’s alleged Saturday night murder of Manuel Espinosa had blossomed into a suspicion strong enough that the police had come out to question him. Even now, though there was still no body, the fact that no resignation letter had yet arrived prompted talk of implementing an air search of the surrounding desert.

  She’d listened to Jade’s recounting of the tale with mounting horror. For Lacey had seen Frogeater, seen the mutilated frogs, the overturned tank, the weird words scrawled across the wall. His eyes are over all his creation. She had heard from his own mouth that he had done it all for her, and knew he would be very unhappy she’ d been replaced by Manny.

  Of course, right now the tales were just tales. The only real fact was that Manny was missing. It would be just like Espinosa to walk off in a snit and refuse to send word of his whereabouts or intent. It was also possible he’ d been injured or, like Lacey herself, merely been in the wrong place at the wrong time and seen what K-J officials didn’t want him to see. Maybe they were holding him somewhere under sedation until such time as they could work out an appropriate story.

  She hated the ease with which the last notion had come to her, and tried to put it aside. Better to believe that Espinosa had quit like a spoiled child and the rumor mill had eagerly seized on Reinhardt as a target for scandal. Jade had confided that many didn’t like K-J’s only Christian researcher and would be delighted to see him fall.

  Lacey believed it. She well recalled them last weekend after Friday’s unity meeting, pecking away at Reinhardt’s lack of response to Gen’s question regarding his problems with PTSD. Jade said that once Manny disappeared, rumors erupted about Reinhardt’s “checkered past,” which included not only his divorce and failure in the military, but drug addiction, black market ties, and even doing jail time for assault. When Lacey expressed strong doubt that he was guilty of any of those crimes, Jade assured her they were quite reasonable.

  But then, Jade knew nothing of what had been going on in the AnFac recently, nor of the eagerness of Institute authorities to cover up things they didn’t want others to know about at the expense of their employees’ reputations.

  Lacey was particularly troubled by the realization that at the same time Reinhardt’s reputation was being ground into dust, she’ d been pulled out of circulation, held captive in her little office by her deadline, and sedated by visions of earning her doctorate. Visions whose potential still exerted their influence—even now it was nearly unbearable to consider the possibility her grand opportunity was nothing but a ploy to ensure her silence about what might truly be going on with Espinosa and Reinhardt.

  Her uncertainty had disturbed her sleep last night, and she’d awakened early, tossed, turned, fretted, and finally arose to meet the day. It put her out for her walk a little earlier than usual, and thus introduced the possibility of waylaying Reinhardt at the end of his morning run. If Manny had walked off in a snit, and the rest was all rumor, Reinhardt would have nothing to say and she could put her doubts to rest.

  By the time she’d completed her three circuits of the path, a passel of workers had arrived and begun setting up booths for the open house around the park, the erratic pounding of hammers and the whine and growl of various drills and screwdrivers having shattered the morning’s quiet. With so many people around, she was seriously considering abandoning her plan of meeting with Reinhardt when she spied a runner in a red baseball cap, black shorts, and white muscle T-shirt jog up over the crest of the south berm and head down into the basin following a service road.

  Though she lost sight of him behind the service buildings and trees, by her estimate of his rate of speed and her own, she figured she’ d reach his point of emergence onto the outer walking path about the same time he did. Torn between continuing on, and turning around to avoid him—what if he didn’t tell her what she wanted to hear?—she compromised by slowing her pace. Eventually he emerged from the oaks onto the asphalt path just about where and when she’ d thought he would. He turned to jog toward her, white iPod earphone cords dangling from his ears, and even though Lacey knew it was Reinhardt, it took her a moment to recognize him.

  He was in considerably better physical condition—and far more muscled in the arms and chest—than she’ d have guessed. Even more out of character, he sported a tattoo on his left shoulder: A scimitar above a word in . . . Arabic? Hebrew? She wasn’t used to seeing him without his glasses, either, nor sheened with sweat, which inexplicably added to his appeal.

  Seeing her, he moved to the side of the asphalt, nodding as he approached. I can let him go by and keep myself in ignorance. . . . She almost did. Then, at the last second, she stepped into his path and asked if he had a minute.

  He stopped in surprise, looking down at her with an expression that did not make her eager to continue.

  “I, um . . .” She trailed off, heart suddenly pounding. With a gulp she tried again. “I wanted to talk to you about . . . last weekend.”

  His stony look turned scowly.

  “You said the walls have ears,” she added, “so I thought . . .”

  “Yes. And the windows have eyes. Very long, keen eyes which are no doubt fixed upon us right now.” He glanced up at the ziggurat behind her. She resisted the impulse to turn and look, as well. “And if you don’t mind,” he added, “I’ve had q
uite enough talk of last weekend.”

  He started around her.

  “I know you didn’t kill Manny,” she said softly, stopping his motion. “I think what they’re doing to you is unconscionable.”

  He glanced at her sidelong. “Well, if the payout is at all proportionate to what you’re experiencing, it might turn out to be worth it,” he said.

  That stung. For a moment she could hardly believe he’ d said it. Then her face flamed, and she had to look away. It was only as he started to move on that she recalled her objective and blurted, “I was also wondering if Manny is really dead.”

  He froze. “Perhaps you should ask your mentor.”

  “I may. But right now I’m asking you.” She stepped closer to him and lowered her voice. “You might actually tell me the truth.”

  He cocked a brow at her, and again turned his gaze down the path at her back. She recalled the guards who had been following her, who should have caught up by now and hadn’t.

  “You shouldn’t be out here,” he said.

  “Even with my entourage back there?”

  “They’re probably hoping you’ll bait him out.”

  Him. Frogeater, she realized.

  Reinhardt turned to face her and pulled the iPod cords from his ears. His expression was deadly serious, his voice low but intense. “I know everything looks bright for you right now, Ms. McHenry, but . . . believe me, it’s not as bright as it seems.”

  His words knocked the wind out of her. She wanted to call him a liar and run away, but something made her stand her ground and say, “That’s why I stopped you.” She gestured up the path. “Will you walk with me a bit?”

  He frowned, glanced up at the ziggurat behind her yet again, then at the guards. Finally he shrugged and turned to walk at her side.