"Why do you say that? You must have had some reason for transferring to Preston this year."
Paul was deciding whether he should launch into his story.
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He really liked Shan, so he did. "Well, you asked for it. I transferred here to Preston from Duke."
Shari was taken aback. "Wow, not a lot of students give up Duke to come here."
"No, and I didn't really do it the easy way. You see, my dad was pretty hard-driving. He never went to college; he built up the family business, a printing business, the hard-knocks, old-fashioned way. He drove away my mom when I was pretty young by working day and night, and pretty much all the time he ever had for me was to tell me how I had to go to college and learn business the 'fancy way,' as he called it. He made enough money so he could send me to boarding school, which is where I got in the habit of dressing up for school, plus there were always servants around our house who really raised me, and they were pretty strict. I went to Duke to study business because that's where my dad always dreamed of going. Then, last winter, my father died of a heart attack--bam!--no warning."
Now Shari instinctively reached across the table for Paul's hand. "Paul, I'm so sorry. That had to be rough."
Paul was trying hard to concentrate on talking and not on how nice it felt to have his hand touched by Shari. "You know, I never really knew my father much, so as lousy as it sounds, I didn't really miss him when he died. The rough part came when the accountants and attorneys started going over his business and discovered that he had been drowning in debt. I took a leave from Duke to try to help sort things out, but it was hopeless. By selling the business and our house at a fire sale, I could pay off the debt, but I couldn't afford to go back to Duke even if I wanted to. I liked the area, though, and I realized
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it's as close to a home base as I have now, and I thought I could afford Preston. Or at least I will if I can get a job."
"And why did you register for business administration courses here if you hated them at Duke?"
"All those years of having it drummed into my head by my dad, it's still what seems like my destiny. I want to finish college, I'm trying hard not to just fall apart, and business is as close to a plan as I ever had. I did promise myself I would try to audit a few other courses just to try them out, and Professor Murphy's seemed interesting."
Shari smiled. "I know. I felt the same way. I certainly never dreamed about being an archaeologist."
Paul looked again, inadvertently, at the cross around her neck. "Well, you at least had some religious background. I don't even have that. Religion was on the long list of things my dad never had time--or use--for."
"Neither did my parents while they were alive, but the great thing about our church is, you can start anytime."
"I guess so. But first I think I'll worry about my business major. I feel like an athlete who's been training, then doesn't get to go to the Olympics. It's all my dad had me concentrate on, but I really hate it."
Shari looked at her watch. "I have to run to my next class, but I bet that being pretty new to campus, you could use a home-cooked meal. Why don't you come over for dinner one night this week and we can talk some more?"
Paul did not hesitate. "You don't have to ask me twice."
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NINE
UNLIKE SO MANY big-city high-rise luxury-apartment dwellers who pay a kingly fortune for a terrace but seldom take the time to go out to admire the view, Shane Barrington made a point each morning of studying the dazzling urban skyline that surrounded his penthouse. Much like the lords of the manors of old, Barrington felt that he would one day own everything in his sight.
Most mornings, Barrington was lost in his own plans for short-term and long-term business conquests and was left undistracted by any street noises from sixty-two stories below. On this particular morning, he was disturbed from his scheming by a repetitive sound that he could not place at first. It sounded as if something were being pumped.
As a shadow momentarily fell across the front of the terrace wall, Barrington turned to see what was coming up
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behind him, which led to the surprising sight of a large peregrine falcon swooping out of the sky and landing not more than five feet from him on a wrought-iron table on the penthouse deck.
The bird was majestic and haughty in its bearing, much like Barrington himself. The two predatory beings eyed each other with a chilling respect.
Barrington's stare broke away first as he became aware of something in the forward claw of the falcon. He realized the bird was clutching a pair of very compact, ultrasophisticated-looking binoculars. Now, having noticed that the binoculars had registered with Barrington, the bird dropped them and they clattered lightly onto the table. Barrington waited until the falcon stirred its wings again and flew away over the rooftops before he reached over and picked up the binoculars.
As the falcon slowly began to soar majestically into the sky just above his head, Barrington was further surprised to see a small banner unfurl from the bird's other claw. Barrington quickly trained the binoculars on the cloth to read the words that were written there:
ENDICOTT ARMS 14TH FLOOR 12 MINUTES
Curious now, Barrington sought out the Endicott Arms apartment building diagonally across from his own building and counted up fourteen stories from the street, then put the binoculars to his eyes. The meticulously crafted lenses chipped but did not crack when Barrington dropped the binoculars, so shocked was he by what he saw through those lenses.
For through the windows on the fourteenth floor of the
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Endicott Arms was a face he instantly recognized. It was not exactly the face of an acquaintance he saw regularly; in fact, he had not seen the individual for some three years. But the face bore many similarities to a face Barrington had seen as recently as that very morning, and every morning of his life--his own.
There through the binoculars, Barrington stared at the face of his twenty-five-year-old son, Arthur. The only offspring of his short-lived marriage, the son had grown to be a good-looking, younger version of his father. Barrington had had little interest beyond child support and perfunctory holiday visits through most of Arthur's childhood, especially once his ex-wife moved to California with her new husband.
Barrington did have his secretaries keep tabs on both his ex-wife and Arthur over the years as a defense against their coming to him for financial support. So he was not surprised when Arthur was thrown out of his fourth art school and relocated to downtown Manhattan with every intention of having his wealthy father set him up as a sculptor.
The elder Barrington was therefore prepared when his son showed up in his office with purple hair, ripped leather pants, and a pierced tongue to demand money to open a sculpture gallery. Arthur Barrington got a one-minute-thirty-second angry lecture from his father about there being no money forthcoming for "a loser freak freeloader," and those were the last words that had passed between them as security guards hustled him from the offices of Barrington Communications.
Now Barrington was able to recognize his son instantly through the binoculars, but his son could not see him from across the street and many floors below. However, his head was
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turned in Barrington's direction. He was held forcibly to face his father, by a figure standing next to him in the window.
That figure was clearly squeezing the young man's head very hard with one gloved hand, while the other gloved hand held a very long, very menacing knife blade to the young man's throat. The final image that registered with the elder Barrington before the binoculars slipped from his shocked hands and crashed to the deck was the handwritten sign hanging around his son's neck:
FATHER, YOU HAVE 11 MINUTES, 30 SECONDS TO GET OVER HERE TO APT. 14C OR THIS MAN WILL KILL ME
"Are you people homicidal maniacs?" Shane Barrington was screaming with what breath he could muster after his race out of his penthouse and across Park Avenue to the fourteenth floor
of the Endicott Arms, as instructed. It had taken him only eight minutes to arrive, and in just the three minutes since, his world was once again collapsing in on him, much as it had in the castle in Switzerland.
The Seven.
He was yelling at the man who had been holding the knife to his son's throat just minutes before. The knife was no longer in sight, but Arthur Barrington was now stretched out on a bed, seemingly unconscious, his face attached to a breathing
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mask which in turn was hooked to a rather complicated machine that was lit up and beeping.
"Mr. Barrington, I'm honored that you accepted my invitation. But no warm welcome for your long-lost son?" The man's voice seemed to have a hint of a South African accent, but there was no trace of human emotion in it.
"Who are you and what are you doing with Arthur?"
"I am the man the Seven told you would be contacting you, Mr. Barrington. I don't believe they mentioned my name, however. I go by many different identities, as my work requires, but you can call me what the Seven call me: Talon."
Barrington's anger, and now fear, would not subside. "Talon? What kind of name is that, a first name or a last name?"
"It makes no difference. I use it because it is a tribute to the one serious wound I have ever gotten in my life as a warrior. The first falcon I raised and trained as a boy in South Africa, the last thing I allowed myself to grow attached to, turned on me one day and ripped my index finger right out of my hand."
He removed the glove from his right hand, and it took a moment for Barrington to realize what he was being shown. At initial glance, Talon's hand looked perfectly normal, but he noted that the index finger had been replaced by some kind of hard flesh-colored material shaped to look like a finger, except where the fingertip should have a nail, the whole tip was honed to what was certain to be a deadly sharp point. "I killed the falcon, and carry this to remind me of what happens when you get soft or careless. And it comes in very handy in situations where a weapon is not convenient. Which, you can appreciate,
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being a man of the world, happens more often now that we live in such nervous-making times."
"So, am I to believe that the Seven want me taking orders from you?"
"Correct, Mr. Barrington."
"But what does my son have to do with any of this? I haven't seen him in years."
"Three years and two months, to be exact. He's just a little exercise we need to go through, to satisfy the Seven and to convince me that you are truly ready to do what will be asked of you. No matter what. So although you are not the picture-postcard family, I figure you must have some baseline feelings for him, even if it's just as one human being to another."
"Feelings for him in what way? What have you done to Arthur?"
"It's a little late for fatherly concern now, isn't it, Barrington? But actually, that's a reasonably convincing act. And I say that as one heartless man to another." Talon moved to the plastic tubing attached to the breathing mask covering Arthur Barrington's face.
"I don't get it. Why is he lying there unconscious? Is he sick? Did you do something to him?" In spite of himself, there was desperation in Barrington's voice.
Talon gripped the plastic tubing in his right hand. "You see, Barrington, I'm going to be giving you your marching orders for occasional, very specific actions the Seven will need you to undertake. Some may be illegal, some may be unpleasant, all of them will come when I decide to give them to you directly, and you will act upon them instantly, without asking for explanation, without making excuses, and without fail."
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"I know. I already agreed to all that in that castle in Switzerland."
Talon's eyes cut right through Barrington as sharply as his index finger now cut into the tubing, causing a sudden hiss of air to shoot out. The bedside machine started bleating a high-pitched alarm, and four different red lights flashed urgently. "Yes, it's easy to pay lip service to your pledge when there is nothing immediately at stake, Barrington. But show me you have what it really takes."
"Got what it takes for what? What's happening to my son?"
"Don't pretend some great sudden love for this kid. Granted, he's a life, but he's not much of a life. No real friends, no purpose, nobody will miss him when he's dead."
"Dead? What are you talking about? Why should he die?"
"Because I say so. Right here, right now. That's our test. It's completely arbitrary, senseless, brutal. Just like many things the Seven will make you do. That I will make you do. Things you will either do--or you will die."
Barrington lunged toward Talon. "Why, you're--" Talon grabbed his arm, stopping him instantly.
"Don't even think about it, Barrington. Not for one second. Oh, I'm not completely heartless. If you tell me to save your boy, I will." With his index finger he covered the spouting airhole cut into the tubing. The hissing stopped immediately; the alarms ceased. After a few seconds, he lifted his finger and the air shot out and the alarms restarted. "Yes, I will stop for a few seconds. Just long enough for me to slash your throat." He held up his razor-sharp finger just an inch from Barrington's eye. "Then I'll kill the boy."
Barrington collapsed on the bedroom floor but could not
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stop his eyes from moving from his son to Talon. After two minutes, the machine emitted a long, continuous beep and the graph on its monitor flatlined.
"Congratulations, Mr. Barrington. The Seven would be proud of you. I'm proud of you. You did the right thing when it counted. Now, just keep doing the right thing every time I contact you and you will be successful and powerful beyond even your wildest dreams." He threw a sheet of paper down at Barrington. "Here are your first instructions. Some information I need."
"What will happen to my son?"
"I assumed you wouldn't feel some belated familial tugging of your heartstrings to bury him in the family plot, so I will take care of disposing of him and no one will ever know. Actually, that's only partly true. People will actually know quite a bit about Arthur Barrington and his death. There is, as always, a plan. You do not have to know the next parts of the plan for now. That will all be revealed to you when I am ready. For now, just get that information. Show yourself out."
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TEN
LAURA MURPHY WATCHED the young man with the shaved head and the baggy jeans loping down the hallway, and shook her head, smiling. She remembered enough about her own student days to feel a rush of sympathy whenever a student turned up at her door with red eyes and chewed nails, looking as if they hadn't slept or eaten for a week, and while today's young men and women seemed to find it harder than her generation had adjusting to the big, bad world, she didn't judge them harshly.
Negotiating that tricky no-man's-land between childhood and adulthood had never been easy, and there were certainly more temptations and distractions nowadays for them to deal with. When you considered all the disturbing images and messages being pumped out daily on TV and in the music they listened
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to, she sometimes felt it was a wonder any of them turned out as well as they did.
Even if their taste in clothes was still occasionally beyond her.
And if she could play a small part in helping their transition to adulthood, she was more than happy. She had been the university's student counselor for two years now. While some people close to her--notably her father--had berated her for throwing away a potentially glittering career as a field archaeologist just so she could listen to some acned teenagers "whining about their grades," she had no regrets. She knew few professional triumphs that could match the sense of achievement she felt when a formerly suicidal English major she had helped was able to get a book of her poetry published and then start her own creative writing seminars, helping others channel their inner emotional turmoil into something positive.
Besides, Laura was still able to find time to work on her own book on lost cities. It might not hit the best-seller lists or spawn a hi
t movie, but when she proudly handed a copy to her dad, she would at least have created an archaeology artifact of sorts of her very own.
She also shared fully in her husband's work, not just acting as an unpaid diplomat in his frequent brushes with authority, but adding her considerable expertise to his in the quest to search out and authenticate Biblical artifacts.
Which, she realized with a keen shiver of anticipation, was what she was supposed to be doing just then. She had missed Murphy's day-after initial scroll investigation because of a
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typically jammed office of students, but now it was time to see if the rehydrated scroll was ready to reveal some wonderful secret about Daniel.
She closed her office door behind her, adjusted the sign that read I KNOW I SAID MY DOOR IS ALWAYS OPEN--BUT I'LL BE BACK SOON, I PROMISE! and walked briskly down the corridor and out of the building. After a few minutes, she arrived at Murphy's door, knocked smartly, and walked in.
Murphy was seated at a workbench, denim sleeves rolled up, hair awry, peering at something through a magnifying lens, and seemingly lost in thought. That's the Murphy I think I like best , she thought with a smile, the so-absorbed-in-his-work-he-wouldn't-notice-the-building-is-on-fire Murphy . The Murphy who had called her with such buzzing excitement a few minutes before to shout that the scroll was ready.
She gave his hand a squeeze, said hello to Shan, and turned her attention to the hyperbaric chamber. "So, you think the scroll's properly rehydrated?"
"I reckon it's as plump and juicy as one of your mother's Thanksgiving turkeys," Murphy declared. "Actually," he added, "it may even be slightly juicier."
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