by Mark Alpert
He and Brock soon reached the pickup truck and heaved Professor Gupta into the bench seat at the back of the cab. Then Brock collapsed in the passenger seat and Simon got behind the steering wheel. He knew he couldn’t turn on the truck’s headlights—the Blackhawk pilots would spot them immediately—so he put on his infrared goggles. On the device’s screen the dirt road was cold and black, but the tree trunks and branches on the roadside glowed warmly, retaining some of the day’s heat. The contrast was strong enough that he was able to drive quite fast, which was fortunate, because they didn’t have much time. When Simon glanced over his shoulder, he noticed that Gupta’s face was considerably cooler than Brock’s. The professor was going into shock.
They were about twenty kilometers south of the cabin, across the Virginia state line, when Simon saw a house at a bend in the road. It was a fairly unremarkable two-story home with a front porch and an attached garage. What caught Simon’s attention was the name on the mailbox. It was spelled in plastic letters that stood out clearly against the cold metal: DR. MILO JENKINS.
Simon skidded to a halt and turned into the doctor’s driveway.
THE HUNTERS MOVED LIKE GHOSTS through the forest. Under the canopy of foliage, they followed a twisting trail that ran up the slope of a narrow mountain valley. Although they walked so fast that David, Monique, and Michael could barely keep up, the hunters didn’t make a sound. David was able to follow them only because the light from a crescent moon glinted off the barrels of their shotguns.
For about half an hour they marched uphill, ascending a steep ridge studded with pine trees. Michael started to pant, but he didn’t stop walking; keeping his eyes on his Game Boy, he allowed David to steer him by the elbow. When they reached the crest, David turned around and peered through a gap in the trees at the landscape to the east. He could see the spotlights of all three helicopters prowling the hills and hollows below, but they were now so far away that the noise of their rotors was just a dull rumble.
The hunters continued along the ridgeline for a mile or so, then began to descend into a neighboring valley. After several minutes David saw a light on the hillside. The hunters moved toward it, quickening their pace, and soon came upon an unpainted plywood shack resting on cinder blocks. It was long and narrow and slumped against a tree like a decrepit boxcar abandoned in the woods. A pair of mangy dogs circled the shack, yipping and yowling, but they quieted down as the men approached. One of the dogs ran over to the boy with Down syndrome and danced around his feet. His father, the fat man in overalls, turned to David. “This is our home,” he said, offering his hand. “My name’s Caleb. That’s my pa and that’s my boy, Joshua.”
David shook his hand. He noticed that Caleb’s ring finger was missing. “I’m David. This is my wife, Monique.” The lie was effortless. Without any trouble at all, he’d created a new family. “And this is my son, Michael.”
Caleb nodded. “Y’all should know that we ain’t got any prejudices here. Black or white, it don’t make no difference up here in the mountains. We’re all brothers and sisters in God’s eyes.”
Monique forced a smile. “That’s very kind of you to say.”
Caleb stepped to the front end of the shack and opened the door, a rough-hewn board hanging askew in its frame. “Come in and set down. Y’all could use a rest, I bet.”
Everyone filed into the shack, which contained just one long room. There were no windows at all and the only light came from a single naked bulb suspended from the ceiling. Some plastic bowls and a hot plate sat on a table at the front of the room; behind it were a couple of kitchen chairs with torn seat covers. A gray army blanket lay on the floor beyond the chairs, which was obviously the sleeping area. And in the darkness at the very back of the room was a sprawling pile of cardboard boxes and disheveled clothing.
Without saying a word, Caleb’s father took off his John Deere cap and headed for the kitchen table. He turned on the hot plate and opened a can of Dinty Moore stew. Meanwhile, the boy raced to the back of the room and started playing tug-of-war with his dog. Caleb tousled his son’s black hair, which looked like it hadn’t been washed in some time. “Joshua’s my special gift from the Lord,” he said. “Mingo County Social Services has been trying to take him away from me ever since his ma died. That’s why I built this place up here in the holler. We’re a good two miles from the nearest road. Far enough that the sheriff ’s department usually leaves us alone.”
Monique caught David’s eye. She was probably thinking the same thing he was: it was a hell of a lucky coincidence that they found this guy. In that part of West Virginia, though, maybe it wasn’t so unlikely for one group of fugitives to run into another. Anyone who lived in that godforsaken place had to be running away from something.
Caleb stepped toward Michael and tried to get the teenager’s attention. “You’re a gift from the Lord, too,” he said. “Just like it says in the Bible, Book of Mark, chapter ten. ‘Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the Kingdom of God.’”
Michael ignored him, his thumbs stabbing the controls of the Game Boy. After a while Caleb turned to the heap of old clothes draped willy-nilly over the cardboard boxes. He picked out a T-shirt and handed it to David. “Here, put this on,” he said. “You folks are welcome to spend the night.”
David glanced at the gray blanket spread across the floor. He was so tired he would’ve gladly slept on the thing, no matter how uncomfortable, but he was still worried about the helicopters he’d seen on the other side of the ridge. “Thanks for the offer, Caleb, but I think we should keep moving.”
“Where are you headed, brother? If you don’t mind my asking.”
“Columbus, Georgia.” David pointed at Monique. “My wife’s got family down there. They can help us out.”
“How you gonna get there?”
“We left our car behind when the cops started chasing us. But we’ll get to Columbus somehow. We’ll walk if we have to.”
Caleb shook his head. “You don’t have to. I think I can help y’all. There’s a man in our church named Graddick? He’s supposed to drive to Florida tomorrow. Maybe he can drop you off along the way.”
“Does he live nearby?”
“No, but he’s gonna come by here around midnight to pick up the serpents. I’m sure he’ll give y’all a ride.”
“Serpents?” David thought he’d misheard.
“I caught a few timber rattlers on the ridge last week and Graddick’s gonna take ’em to a Holiness church in Tallahassee. It’s a serpent-handling church, just like ours here in Rockridge.” Caleb opened one of the cardboard boxes and removed a cedarwood crate about the size of a desk drawer. The crate had a Plexiglas lid with small circular holes. “We’re trying to help our brothers in Florida, you see, but it ain’t exactly legal. That’s why we move the serpents at night.”
David peered through the Plexiglas. A rust-colored snake, about as thick as a man’s forearm, coiled inside the crate. It shook its rattle and the noise was a harsh, scolding “Shhhhhh!”
Caleb set the crate on the floor and removed another from the cardboard box. “The Bible commands us to do it. Book of Mark, chapter sixteen. ‘These signs shall follow them that believe: They shall cast out devils, they shall speak with new tongues and they shall take up serpents.’” He pulled out a third crate and stacked it on top of the other two. Then he picked up the whole stack, holding it against his broad chest. “I’m gonna take these crates outside and clean ’em before Graddick gets here. You folks get some rest in the meantime. There’s some beef jerky in the cupboard if you’re hungry.”
Joshua and his dog followed Caleb out of the shack. Caleb’s father was still at the table, eating stew out of the can, and Michael was crouched on the army blanket. Monique sank to the floor next to him, her back against the plywood wall. Her face was grim, exhausted.
David sat beside her. “Hey, you all right?” he asked, keeping his voice low just in case the old man was listeni
ng.
She stared at Michael and shook her head. “Look at him,” she whispered. “Now he has nobody. Not even his grandfather.”
“Don’t worry about Amil, okay? He’ll be fine. The FBI will get him to a hospital.”
“It’s my fault. All I cared about was the theory. I didn’t give a shit about anything else.” She rested her elbows on her knees and clutched her forehead with both hands. “Mama was right. I’m a coldhearted bitch.”
“Listen, it’s not your fault. It’s the—”
“And you’re no better!” She raised her head and gave him a challenging look. “What are you gonna do once you find the unified theory? Have you even thought that far ahead yet?”
To be honest, David hadn’t. All he had for guidance were the vague instructions Dr. Kleinman had given him: Keep the theory safe. Don’t let them get it. “We’ll have to entrust the theory to some neutral party, I guess. Maybe some kind of international organization.”
Monique grimaced. “What? You’re gonna hand it over to the United Nations for safekeeping?”
“Maybe that’s not such a crazy idea. Einstein was a strong supporter of the UN.”
“Oh, screw Einstein!”
She’d raised her voice enough to get the attention of Caleb’s father. He stopped eating for a moment and looked over his shoulder. David smiled at him reassuringly, then turned back to Monique. “Calm down,” he whispered. “The old man can hear you.”
Monique leaned toward him, bringing her lips to his ear. “Einstein should’ve destroyed the theory as soon as he realized how dangerous it was. But the equations were too damn important to him. He was a coldhearted bastard, too.”
She stared at him hard, itching for a fight. But David didn’t respond, and after a while she seemed to lose interest. Yawning, she moved a few feet away and lay down on the gray blanket. “Ah, fuck it,” she said. “Wake me up when the snake man gets here.”
Within thirty seconds she was snoring. She lay curled on her side, her knees drawn to her chest. Her hands were clasped together under her chin as if she were praying. David grasped the edge of the blanket and folded it over her. Then he sat down beside Michael, the other member of his new family.
The teenager was still engrossed in Warfighter, so David contented himself with watching the action on the Game Boy’s screen. An animated soldier in a khaki uniform was racing down a dark hallway. Another soldier appeared at the end of the hall but Michael immediately shot him down. His soldier leaped over the facedown corpse, then rushed into a small room where half a dozen figures were huddled. Michael jabbed a button and his soldier went into a crouch, spraying his M-16 at the enemy. Soon all six of the opposing soldiers lay on the floor, with simulated blood streaming from their wounds. Michael’s soldier then opened a door at the other end of the room. The screen went black and a message appeared in flashing letters: CONGRATULATIONS! YOU’VE REACHED LEVEL SVIA/4! David guessed this must be an incredibly high expertise level in Warfighter, but Michael didn’t show even a hint of satisfaction. His face remained as expressionless as ever.
David felt a sudden urge to make contact with the boy. He bent close to Michael and pointed at the screen. “What happens now?”
“It goes back to Level A1.”
Michael’s voice was monotone and his eyes stayed on the Game Boy, but it was an answer, an intelligible response. David smiled. “So you won the game, huh? That’s great.”
“No, I didn’t win. It goes back to Level A1.”
David nodded. Okay, whatever. He pointed again at the screen, which now showed the khaki soldier in an open field. “But it’s a fun game anyway, right?”
Michael didn’t reply this time. His full attention had returned to Warfighter. David sensed that the window of opportunity had closed, so instead of talking he simply sat next to the teenager and watched him play. He knew from his experience as a father that he didn’t need words to communicate. During the afternoons he spent with Jonah, he always sat next to the boy while he was doing his homework. The proximity alone was comforting.
After ten minutes Michael had advanced to Level B3. Caleb’s father finished his dinner and fell asleep in his chair. Then David heard voices outside, agitated voices. Alarmed, he rushed to the shack’s door and opened it an inch. Through the crack he saw Caleb talking with another fat man. This one wore baggy jeans and a ratty gray sweatshirt. Like Caleb, he had a thick brown beard and carried a double-barreled shotgun. That must be Graddick, David thought with relief. He opened the door all the way and stepped outside.
Caleb spun around. “Go get your wife and your boy! You gotta leave right now!”
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
Graddick stepped forward. His eyes, set in cavernous sockets, were an unearthly shade of blue. “Satan’s army is on the move. There’s a convoy of Humvees coming down Route 83. And the black helicopters are landing on the ridge.”
“Armageddon’s coming, brother!” Caleb shouted. “You better get going before they close the roads!”
PROFESSOR GUPTA LAY ON A mahogany table in Dr. Milo Jenkins’s dining room. Several cushions from the living-room sofa had been propped under Gupta’s legs to elevate them, and Dr. Jenkins had jammed a surgical clamp into the thigh wound to stop the bleeding. Simon had been lucky indeed to find Jenkins; he was an old-fashioned country doctor who worked out of his home and had some experience treating the gunshot injuries of his hillbilly neighbors. Using the supplies from his medical cabinet, he’d cleverly fashioned an intravenous line that hung from the chandelier. But Jenkins shook his head as he leaned over the blood-slicked table, pressing his fingers into the side of Gupta’s neck. Simon, who was pointing his Uzi at the doctor, sensed that something had gone awry.
Jenkins turned around to face him. The doctor wore a plaid nightshirt that was now streaked with dark red stains. “It’s like I told you,” he drawled. “If you want to save this man’s life, you gotta get him to the hospital. I can’t do anything more for him here.”
Simon frowned. “And, as I told you, I don’t care about saving his life. I just need him to regain consciousness for a few minutes. Just long enough for us to have a little talk.”
“Well, that ain’t gonna happen either. He’s in the final stages of hypovolemic shock. If he don’t get to a hospital soon, the only person he’s gonna be talking to is his Maker.”
“What exactly is the problem? You stopped the bleeding and you gave him fluids. He should be recovering by now.”
“He’s lost too much blood. He don’t have enough red blood cells to deliver oxygen to his organs.”
“So do a transfusion.”
“You think I got a blood bank in my refrigerator? He’s gonna need at least three pints!”
Keeping the Uzi trained on Jenkins, Simon rolled up the sleeve on his right arm. “My blood type is O negative. Universal donor.”
“Are you nuts? If I take that much blood out of you, you’ll go into shock!”
“I don’t think so. I’ve done field transfusions before. Go get another IV kit.”
But Jenkins didn’t budge. He folded his arms across his chest. Curling his lip, the doctor gave him a look of pure hillbilly stubbornness. “No, I’m through with this. I ain’t helping you no more. You can go ahead and shoot me if you want.”
Simon let out an exasperated sigh. He was reminded of his stint with the Spetsnaz in Chechnya, and all the trouble he’d had with the reluctant soldiers under his command. The threat of execution was clearly not compelling enough to keep Dr. Jenkins in line. Simon needed to give him a stronger motivation. “Brock!” he called out. “Please bring Mrs. Jenkins in here.”
AT 5 A.M., JUST AS THE sun was rising over Washington, D.C., the vice president stepped out of his limousine and headed for the side entrance to the West Wing. He wasn’t an early riser by nature; given his druthers, he would’ve preferred sleeping until seven o’clock and getting into the office by eight. But the president was a fanatic about starting his workda
y at dawn, so the veep did likewise. He needed to be on hand at all times to prevent the commander in chief from doing anything stupid.
As soon as he walked into the building he saw the secretary of defense sitting in one of the wingback chairs in the lobby. The SecDef had a pen in his hand and a copy of the New York Times in his lap. He’d scribbled some notes in the newspaper’s margins. The man never sleeps, the veep thought. He spends the whole night roaming the corridors of the White House.
The SecDef jumped to his feet once he spotted the vice president. He held up the front section of the Times and shook it angrily. “Did you see this?” he barked. “We got a problem. One of the New York cops spilled the beans.”
“What do you—”
“Here, read it yourself.” He shoved the paper into the veep’s hands.
The story was in the upper left corner of the front page:
* * *
FBI ALLEGATIONS QUESTIONED
by Gloria Mitchell
A New York City police detective has challenged the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s claim that a Columbia University professor was involved in the brutal slaying of six FBI agents on Thursday evening.
The FBI has launched a nationwide search for David Swift in the aftermath of the murders, which allegedly occurred during an undercover drug-buying operation in West Harlem. The Bureau claims that Swift, a history professor known for his biographies of Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein, was the leader of the cocaine-selling ring and ordered the killing of the undercover agents once their identities were revealed.
Yesterday, however, a detective in the Manhattan North Homicide Task Force stated that FBI agents took Swift into custody at about 8 P.M. on Thursday, three hours before the Bureau claims the killings took place.