by Mark Alpert
The nurse glared at him, then turned to her partner, who was still staring at the cardiac monitor. “Go get the resident,” she ordered. “We need to intubate.”
Kleinman leaned against David, who put his arm around the old man to keep him from toppling. The gurgling in his chest seemed louder now and his eyes darted wildly. “I’m dying,” he rasped. “There’s not…much time.”
David’s eyes began to sting. “It’s all right, Professor. You’re going to be all—”
Kleinman raised his hand and gripped the collar of David’s shirt. “Listen…David. You must…be careful. Your paper…remember? The one we worked on…together? Remember?”
It took David a moment to realize what the professor was referring to. “You mean back in grad school? ‘General Relativity in a Two-Dimensional Spacetime’? That paper?”
He nodded. “Yes, yes…you were close…very close…to the truth. Once I’m gone…they might come after you.”
David felt an uneasy prickle in his stomach. “Who are you talking about?”
Kleinman tightened his grip on David’s collar. “I have…a key. Herr Doktor gave me…this gift. And now I give it…to you. Keep it…safe. Don’t let…them get it. Understand? No one!”
“A key? What—”
“No time…no time! Just listen!” With surprising strength, Kleinman pulled David close. The old man’s wet lips brushed his ear. “Remember…the numbers. Four, zero…two, six…three, six…seven, nine…five, six…four, four…seven, eight, zero, zero.”
As soon as he spoke the last digit, the professor let go of David’s collar and slumped against his chest. “Now repeat…the sequence.”
Despite his confusion, David did as he was told. He put his lips near Kleinman’s ear and repeated the sequence. Although David had never been able to master the equations of quantum physics, he had an aptitude for memorizing long strings of numbers. When he was done, the old man nodded.
“Good boy,” he murmured against David’s shirt. “Good boy.”
The nurse stood beside the crash cart, preparing for the intubation. David watched her pick up a silver, scythe-shaped instrument and a long plastic tube with black tick marks along its length. They’re going to slip that thing down the professor’s throat, he thought. And then David felt something warm against his stomach. He looked down and saw a rivulet of viscous pink fluid spilling out of Kleinman’s mouth and pouring down his chin. The old man’s eyes were closed and his chest had stopped gurgling.
WHEN THE EMERGENCY-ROOM RESIDENT finally arrived, he kicked David out of the Trauma Center and called for reinforcements. Soon half a dozen doctors and nurses surrounded Kleinman’s bed, trying to resuscitate the professor. But David knew it was hopeless. Hans Kleinman was gone.
Rodriguez and the two patrolmen intercepted him as he lurched down the corridor. The detective, still holding the Super Soaker, wore a sympathetic look. He handed the water gun back to David. “How did it go, Mr. Swift? Did he tell you anything?”
David shook his head. “I’m sorry. He was going in and out. It didn’t make a lot of sense.”
“Well, what did he say? Was it a robbery?”
“No. He said he was tortured.”
“Tortured? Why?”
Before David could answer, someone down the hallway shouted, “Hey, you! Hold it right there!”
It was a tall, ruddy, thick-necked man with a crew cut and wearing a gray suit. He was flanked by two more ex-linebackers who looked much the same. The three of them marched down the corridor at a brisk clip. When they reached the cops, the guy in the middle took his ID out of his jacket and flashed the badge. “Agent Hawley, FBI,” he announced. “Are you the officers working the Kleinman case?”
The fat sergeant and the rookie patrolman stepped forward so that they stood shoulder to shoulder with Rodriguez. They sneered in unison at the federal agents. “Yeah, that’s our case,” Rodriguez replied.
Agent Hawley gave a hand signal to one of his companions, who headed for the Trauma Center. Then Hawley reached into the pocket of his jacket again and pulled out a folded letter. “We’re taking over now,” he said, passing the letter to Rodriguez. “Here’s the authorization from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.”
Rodriguez unfolded the letter. He scowled as he read it. “This is bullshit. You don’t have jurisdiction here.”
Hawley’s face was expressionless. “If you have a complaint, you can take it up with the U.S. attorney.”
David studied Agent Hawley, who was turning his blank face from left to right, surveying the hallway. Judging by his accent, he definitely wasn’t from New York. He sounded like an Oklahoma farm boy who’d picked up his conversational skills in the Marine Corps. David wondered why this no-nonsense FBI man was so interested in the murder of a retired physicist. He felt the prickle in his stomach again.
As if sensing David’s discomfort, Agent Hawley pointed at him. “Who’s this guy?” he asked Rodriguez. “What’s he doing here?”
The detective shrugged. “Kleinman asked for him. His name’s David Swift. They just finished talking and he—”
“Son of a bitch! You let this guy talk to Kleinman?”
David frowned. This agent was a real asshole. “I was trying to help,” he said. “If you’d shut up for a minute, the detective would explain it to you.”
Hawley abruptly turned away from Rodriguez. He narrowed his eyes and stepped toward David. “Are you a physicist, Mr. Swift?”
The agent loomed over him, but David kept his voice steady. “No, I’m a historian. And it’s Dr. Swift, if you don’t mind.”
While Hawley tried to stare him down, the agent who’d gone to the Trauma Center returned. He sidled up to Hawley and whispered something in his ear. For a fraction of a second Hawley tightened his lips into a grimace. Then his face turned blank and hard again. “Kleinman’s dead, Mr. Swift. That means you’re coming with us.”
David almost laughed. “Coming with you? I don’t think so.”
But before the last words were out of his mouth, the third FBI agent had slipped behind him, yanked back his arms, and snapped a pair of handcuffs around his wrists. The Super Soaker clattered to the floor.
“What the hell are you doing?” David yelled. “Am I under arrest?”
Hawley didn’t bother to reply. He grabbed David’s arm just above the elbow and turned him around. The agent who’d handcuffed him picked up the Super Soaker, holding it at arm’s length as if it were a real weapon. Then all three FBI men escorted David down the corridor, moving swiftly past the dumbfounded doctors and nurses. David looked over his shoulder at Detective Rodriguez and the patrolmen, but the officers just stood there.
One of the agents marched ahead and opened the door to a stairway. David was too scared to protest. As they hurried down the stairs toward the emergency exit, he remembered something Professor Kleinman had said just a few minutes before. It was part of a famous quote from J. Robert Oppenheimer, another great physicist who’d worked with Einstein. The words had run through Oppenheimer’s mind when he witnessed the first test of the atomic bomb.
Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.
Chapter Three
SIMON WAS PLAYING TETRIS IN THE DRIVER’S SEAT OF HIS Mercedes, keeping one eye on the electronic game that was running on his cell phone and the other on the entrance to St. Luke’s Hospital. Tetris was the perfect game for situations like this. It entertained you without taking your mind off the job. Jabbing the cell phone’s buttons, Simon could easily maneuver the Tetris blocks into place while observing the cars and taxis that pulled up to the emergency room. Relaxed yet watchful, he started looking at the vehicles on Amsterdam Avenue as if they were oversized Tetris blocks—squares and T-bars and zigzags and L-shapes—cruising down the darkening street.
It’s all about flexibility, Simon thought. No matter what game you’re playing, you have to be willing to adjust your strategy. Just look at what happened with Hans Kleinman tonight. At first the job
had seemed simple enough, but Kleinman’s mind went soft before Simon could get anything useful out of him. Then, to make matters worse, a pair of patrol cars pulled up in front of the professor’s apartment building. Simon was surprised, but he didn’t panic—he simply adjusted his strategy. First he evaded the police by climbing the fire escape to the roof and jumping to the warehouse next door. Then he got into his Mercedes and followed the ambulance taking Kleinman to St. Luke’s. He had a new plan: Wait until the police officers leave the emergency room, and then—if Kleinman was still alive—take another crack at getting the Einheitliche Feldtheorie out of him.
Simon admired the professor, actually. He was a tough little bastard. He reminded Simon of his old commander in the Spetsnaz, Colonel Alexi Latypov. Alexi had been an officer in the Russian special forces for almost three decades. Quick, smart, and ruthless, he’d led Simon’s unit through the worst years of the war in Chechnya, teaching his men how to outwit and outfight the insurgents. And then, during a raid on one of the Chechen camps, a sniper shot Alexi’s brains out. A terrible thing, but not unexpected. Simon recalled something his commander had once said: Life is nothing but shit, and whatever comes afterward is probably worse.
The Tetris blocks piled up at the bottom of the cell phone’s screen, forming a craggy mountain with a deep hole at the far left. Then a straight I-bar began to descend. Simon whipped it to the left and four rows of blocks vanished with a software-generated sigh. Very satisfying. Like slipping the knife in.
A moment later Simon saw a black Chevrolet Suburban with tinted windows come down Amsterdam Avenue. The car slowed as it approached the hospital, then parked by the loading dock. Three large men in identical gray suits jumped out of the car and marched in formation toward the hospital’s service entrance, flashing their badges at the startled security guard. Even though they were almost thirty meters away, Simon recognized the men from their gait: ex-Marines and ex-Rangers assigned to headquarters duty, most likely with the FBI. American intelligence was apparently interested in Professor Kleinman, too. That explained why the police had arrived so quickly at his apartment. The federal agents must have planted a few listening devices in Kleinman’s walls, which would’ve picked up Simon’s conversation with the professor.
The agents went inside the hospital, presumably to interview Kleinman before the old man expired. Simon wasn’t pleased by this development, but he wasn’t overly perturbed either. Although he had a healthy respect for American agents—they had good training, good discipline—he knew he could eliminate all three of them without much trouble. Simon had an edge: because he worked on his own, his instincts were keener. That was one of the two great advantages of a freelance career.
The other advantage was the money. Since he’d left the Spetsnaz, Simon could earn more cash in one day than a whole platoon of Russian paratroopers could earn in a year. The trick was to find clients who were wealthy but desperate. A surprising number of people, corporations, and governments fell into this category. Some were desperate for power, others for respect. Some wanted missiles, others plutonium. Whatever the assignment, Simon had no qualms. It was all the same to him.
As he waited for the FBI agents to return, Simon thought about contacting his current client. The mission had deviated quite a bit from the original plan, and his clients usually liked to be informed of such changes. But in the end he decided it wasn’t necessary. This client was perhaps more desperate than any he’d ever dealt with. The first time the man called, Simon had thought it was a joke; it seemed ridiculous, paying good money for a scientific theory. But as Simon learned more about the mission, he began to see the potential applications of this theory, both military and otherwise. And it dawned on him that this particular job could give him something infinitely better than money.
Before he expected it to happen, the three agents emerged from one of the hospital’s emergency exits. They had a prisoner in tow. He was a bit shorter than the FBI men but trim and athletic, dressed in sneakers and jeans and one of those baseball-team T-shirts that Americans are so fond of. His hands were cuffed behind his back and he turned his head this way and that, like a frightened bird, as two of the agents pushed him toward the Suburban. The third agent was carrying a brightly colored toy gun. Simon chuckled—was the FBI field-testing water guns now? The whole scene was quite odd, and for a moment Simon wondered whether this arrest was related to Kleinman at all. Perhaps the prisoner was merely some eccentric New Yorker who’d threatened the doctors with his Super Soaker. But just before the agents shoved the prisoner into the car, they slipped a black hood over his head and cinched it below his chin. Okay, Simon thought. The prisoner isn’t a random madman. He’s someone the agents want to interrogate.
The driver of the Suburban switched on his headlights and pulled away from the curb. Simon slunk low in his seat as the car passed by. He was going to let the FBI men get a couple of blocks ahead before following them. There was no point in sticking around the hospital any longer—the fact that the agents had left without Kleinman was a strong indication that the old man was dead. Luckily, though, the professor appeared to have shared some of his secrets with a younger colleague.
Simon pressed the off button on his cell phone, ending the game of Tetris, but before the device shut down, it flashed a photograph on the screen, a photo that was programmed to appear whenever he turned the phone on or off. It was a stupid thing to do, saving a personal photo on a phone he used for business, yet he did it anyway. He didn’t want to forget their faces. Sergei with his corn-silk hair and bright blue eyes. Larissa in her blond curls, just a few weeks shy of her fourth birthday.
The screen went black. Simon put the phone back in his pocket and shifted the Mercedes into gear.
IT WAS A WOMAN’S VOICE with a thick southern accent. “All right, Hawley, you can take it off now.”
David gasped for air as the hood came off. He felt nauseous from breathing for so long through the black cloth, which was damp with his own sweat. He squinted at first, his eyes painfully adjusting to the fluorescent light.
He was seated at a gray table in a bare, windowless room. Standing beside his chair was Agent Hawley, who rolled up the black hood and stuffed it into his pocket. Hawley’s two partners were inspecting the Super Soaker, methodically opening the water gun’s reservoirs and peering into each hole. And sitting across the table was someone new, a broad-shouldered, big-bosomed, sixtyish woman with an impressive helmet of platinum-blond hair. “You all right, Mr. Swift?” she asked. “You look a little ragged.”
David was not all right. He was scared and disoriented and still handcuffed. And now, to top things off, he was thoroughly confused. This woman didn’t look like an FBI agent. In her bright red jacket and loose-fitting white blouse, she looked like a grandmother dressed up for a bingo game. “Who are you?” he asked.
“I’m Lucille, honey, Lucille Parker. But you can call me Lucy. Everyone does.” She reached for a pitcher of water and a couple of Dixie cups that were sitting on the table. “Hawley, take them cuffs off Mr. Swift.”
Agent Hawley grudgingly unlocked the handcuffs. David rubbed his sore wrists and studied Lucille, who was pouring water into the paper cups. Her lipstick was the exact same color as her jacket. Her face was pleasantly creased, with plenty of laughter lines around the eyes, and she had a pair of reading glasses hanging from a beaded chain around her neck. But she also had a coiled wire running behind her left ear, the same radio headset that all the government agents used. “Am I under arrest?” David asked. “Because if I am, I want to speak to a lawyer.”
Lucille smiled. “No, you ain’t under arrest. Sorry if we gave you that impression.”
“Impression? Your agents handcuffed me and put a goddamn bag over my head!”
“Let me try to explain, honey. This building is what we call a secure facility. And we have a standard procedure for bringing people inside. We can’t divulge the exact location, so we have to use the hood.”
David stoo
d up. “Well, if I’m not under arrest, I’m free to leave, right?”
Agent Hawley gripped David’s shoulder. Still smiling, Lucille shook her head. “I’m afraid it’s a little more complicated than that.” She slid one of the Dixie cups toward him. “Sit down, Mr. Swift. Have a drink of water.”
The hand on David’s shoulder grew heavier. He took the hint and sat down. “It’s Dr. Swift,” he said. “And I’m not thirsty.”
“You want something stronger, maybe?” She winked at him in a disturbingly flirtatious way, then reached into her jacket and pulled a silver flask out of the inside pocket. “This here is genuine Texas white lightning, a hundred and eighty proof. A friend of mine down in Lubbock has a still. He got a special license from the ATF so he can do it legally. Care for a snort?”
“No, thank you.”
“That’s right, I forgot.” She put the flask back in her jacket. “You never touch the stuff, do you? Because of your daddy, right?”
David stiffened in his chair. Some of his friends and colleagues knew that he’d sworn off drinking long ago, but only his ex-wife and a few of his oldest buddies knew why. And now Lucille had casually tossed it out. “What’s going on?” he demanded.
“Calm down, honey. It’s in your file.” She reached into a bulky purse hanging from the back of her chair and pulled out two folders, one thick and one thin. She put on her reading glasses and opened the thin folder. “Let’s see, family history. Father’s name, John Swift. Professional boxer, 1968 to 1974. Nickname, the Two-fisted Terror. Hey, that’s a good one.”
David didn’t respond. His father had never lived up to his nickname in the ring. The only people he’d ever successfully terrorized were the members of his own family.
Lucille skimmed to the bottom of the page. “Overall record, four wins, sixteen losses. Hired as a bus driver for the Metropolitan Transit Authority, 1975. Terminated after arrest for driving while intoxicated, 1979. Sentenced to three years at Ossining after conviction for assault, 1981.” She closed the folder and looked David in the eye. “I’m sorry. It must’ve been awful.”