He didn’t say anything, but the general, who had a hand protectively on the gurney though he did nothing to propel it, smirked. We traveled the rest of the way in silence but for the buzz of the fluorescent overheads and the squeal of his oxygen tank’s wheels.
Chapter 38
For the second time I was in Purgatory on the cot that had seen the death of Charlie and Morph. The rubber mattress cover squeaked whenever I moved.
The general wore his smarmiest grin. “Welcome home and congratulations.”
“Too many kids died for congratulations.”
“That’s not what I meant.” He held a brown folder at his side, which he now let fall in my lap. A photo of a woman was paper-clipped to its edge. Long, near black hair swept down her shoulders and her complexion suggested the Mediterranean.
“This woman killed herself after making a discovery,” he said.
“Maybe she had good reason,” I replied. The woman’s face was a bit too pinched to be pretty.
“Imagine if Einstein had killed himself upon developing E=mc2?”
“Yeah, imagine no Manhattan Project, no bomb,” I replied, but I knew I was being argumentative. The general didn’t take the bait, just waited, watching me. “So it’s a scientific discovery,” I continued.
“And America needs innovation now more than ever,” the general agreed.
“And you want me to be handler to some poor Euth.” It appeared the scope of the Terminals’ duties continued to expand. We didn’t just retrieve information vital to national security, we fostered innovation, too.
He snorted, and Deeth cleared his throat from where he set up his kit.
“The woman was Scottish,” the general said, and I looked back at the picture. “But she had emigrated from Egypt. A scientist, one of their brightest in the field of bioethics. She was conducting research into Alzheimer’s and, more particularly, the area of cloning brain cells.” I waited for the mystery. “She figured something out. Something important enough that she took her own life in order to hide it.”
“Why didn’t she just not tell anyone?”
“The British secret service wasn’t making that an option.”
I leaned forward in the bed, but quickly fell back as the walls of the room closed in; my recovery had a ways to go.
“The Brits deported her family to Egypt, where a U.S. informant brought the matter to our attention.”
“What interest would—?”
“Don’t be naive,” the general scoffed. “What interest would the U.S. government have in cloning brain cells?”
I really didn’t know, or at least my brain didn’t have enough oxygen to figure it out, and my face must have shown my confusion.
“A pound of DNA has as much computer storage as a football field full of mainframe computers,” the general said. “If only we could access it.”
“Are you saying the U.S. government can’t access a brain?”
He regarded me sourly, but Deeth chuckled.
“Being able to create an organic computer to use that storage would vault America’s productivity ahead of the rest of the world’s,” the general continued. “Don’t you understand how a computer processes information versus a brain?”
I shook my head.
“With a computer processor, it works on one query at a time. Synchronously. But …” He tapped his temple. “This. This can process asynchronously. It can answer all questions at once rather than one at a time. Combine a better processing engine with unlimited storage and you’ve got quite the—”
“Bioethical dilemma.”
“What?”
“Creating a human brain to process anything is a dilemma.”
“Why’s that?”
“The brain is life. It’s one thing to create organs, or harvest organs, but—”
“The brain is just an organ,” he snapped. “And her research was through public grant money.”
“British money.”
“Notwithstanding.”
“The Brits don’t have an Attila. So we’re on loan to them?” I asked.
I’d meant it as a joke, but the general’s pallor went from florid red to pale, like a shadow passing a window, then his bluster and anger was back. “No, as far as we know, we’re not in competition.”
“Do they have an Attila?” I propped myself back up, surprised by the sudden burst of energy. “Is this some sort of race?”
“Go in, retrieve the information.” The general looked around. “Where the fuck is the gypsy?”
“Maybe you want this information so that you can clone his brain,” I said, but I didn’t get a rise out of him; in fact a quizzical smile passed over his face as if he had a secret he desperately wished to share. He looked back toward his office.
My heart beat in my throat when I caught that smile. It was at that moment that I remembered where I’d seen the evidence kit on the general’s desk.
“There are easier ways of making more Attilas aren’t there?” I whispered, and his smile didn’t disappear. “That’s a rape kit in your office.” I remembered where I’d seen one, on base when a soldier had filed a sexual assault complaint and wanted to speak to a female officer. I had sat and watched while a nurse treated her. They’d caught the guy and jailed him. “You sick fuck!”
At his side, the general switched on the oxygen tank.
“He heard us having sex,” I told Deeth. “Attila and I.” Deeth didn’t seem to understand. “What would be worse than losing Attila’s skills to commercial interests or another country?” I asked, but he just shook his head. “Attila dying without an heir.”
“So the rape kit?” Deeth asked.
“Was for me,” I pointed at the row of syringes. “After I was dead, he was going to extract Attila’s sperm.”
Deeth looked close to vomiting. He stood and advanced on the general, but the general held his ground with the oxygen mask over his mouth. The mask gave his voice a suitably evil sound.
“It’s about time that this arms race proliferated,” he said to Deeth. “You understand, Major. You have to know what this man means. And could mean to the future of our country.”
“General,” Deeth said as he backed away. “Your ambition will destroy the unit. I won’t stand for it and neither will Attila.”
“He goes, and I’ll track him down in a nanosecond,” the general said. “And next will be his mother.” He took the mask off so we could see his yellow smile. “Matters of national security, of course—and you, Doctor, are nothing more than a glorified bartender of poisonous cocktails.”
I considered what Deeth had told me. That he was a part of all this to ensure it was done right. The doctor was far more than his syringe. But he could be replaced. Had the general called Deeth, Major? My head hurt.
“I—”
But the general cut me off: “And you, Colonel. You will finally have your wish of a full court martial.”
“Where I will tell everyone that—”
“Unfortunately that will be sensitive information cloaked by the States Secrets Doctrine.”
First and foremost, I struggled with the general’s rape kit. I’d never felt so violated, even though nothing had happened. If I had gone terminal, he would have searched around inside of me with a Q-tip? Projectile strength nausea built in my stomach. How dare he?
The general pushed past Deeth, closing the distance between us. I was still so tired that I couldn’t easily move away, only turn my head from the gamey smell of the general’s breath and cross my legs. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught the passage of a shadow in the hallway. The general reached down and flipped the folder open, and I was cognizant of the pressure of his hand against my groin as he pressed his fingers down where he wanted me to read.
“Our scientist was a strident atheist.” He exhaled heavily through his nose. �
�You’re the unit’s only atheist. So, like I said. Congratulations. You’re going terminal.”
I checked over at Deeth, but he wasn’t making eye contact—back at his stool, working as efficiently as ever—but I could tell his shoulders were tense and ready for action. I understood his previous speech now about euthanasia and considering the doctors. I’d broken this man. I’d driven him to the point he was willing to reconsider his position on what constituted terminal and he didn’t like it.
“You can take the mission,” the general added and he strapped my arm to the side of the bed. “Or we can find a room for you here to finish the job you started earlier. The obit would say that you died of trauma sustained during duty. You’ll be a hero again, MoH.”
“Fuck off,” I told him. “How about neither?” I challenged, knowing where I was headed. “How about I quit?”
“No one leaves once they’re told. No one.” His icy eyes regarded me. Spittle sat on his lip like a gargoyle on a buttress.
“So you’ll kill Charlie’s friend, Angelica?”
“No one,” he said.
“Is she dead already?” My stomach churned.
Deeth reached about my waist to strap on the respiration belt, but he stopped, one eyebrow raised and staring at me in question. Was he offering support? Or simply saying the decision to go terminal was still mine?
“You killed Angelica long ago,” the general continued, “when you let Charlie tell her about the unit. And you,” the general said, pointing at the syringes, “you wanted this, deserve this.”
I was so drained that I couldn’t think; I was barely following his explanations, and the thought of really dying left me numb, without any sense of relief. Going terminal was different than suicide. This took death out of my hands. The rat poison hadn’t worked, but Deeth’s needles would kill me as surely as a drop from the Empire State Building. I did want this; I just didn’t want the general to win.
“How do I track an atheist into oblivion?” I caught the waver in my voice even if no one else did. Deeth snapped the buckle on the strap and it was a minute before I realized he’d loosened it.
“We’re not sure, but we are glad you’re the first here to try.” The general turned to Deeth, who had moved on to the blood pressure cuff. “Do we really need to go through the charade of the lie detector test?”
Deeth paused with the cuff halfway up my bicep and slowly turned to stare at the general. “It’s no charade.”
The general stiffened. “I suppose we need to wait for Attila anyways,” he said and disappeared into the office and behind the wall of mirrors.
Deeth went about preparing his equipment in silence. He was stone-faced and didn’t look me in the eye again. With measured movements, he jabbed the needles into vials of fluid and drew the syringes back until they were full. Seeing the means of my death laid out, I drew a shuddering breath. I wanted the general back. He was a distraction, at least another living person. I glanced back toward the hallway, but it was empty.
Deeth booted his computer and checked the connection to his apparatus. A small microphone crouched between us.
“Is your name Christine Kurzow?” he asked suddenly.
I nodded, and he rolled his eyes, pointing toward the microphone.
“Yes, sorry, yes.”
“Are you a Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Army?”
“No.” Deeth’s head swung like a clock’s pendulum. “What? I don’t see myself as a colonel anymore. This isn’t the Army.”
His eyelids drooped, and he clasped and unclasped his hands for a moment before formulating another question: “Have you ever held the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Army?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Did you receive the Medal of Honor?”
I smiled, imagining the reaction of Alphonso’s husband when he opened that package. But the medal was really for the kid. Alphonso’s son now had something positive to cling to. His mother was a MoH.
“Yes,” I replied.
“And are you currently in the New York Veteran’s Hospital?”
“Yes.”
“Have you ever stolen money?”
“No.” I knew what this was, a probable lie measurement, and I wondered if my knowledge of the test would impact my ability to take it.
“Are you in a relationship with Attila?”
I nearly choked and he allowed himself a grin. What was he doing? Was it his clever way of showing me what I still had to live for?
“No, we are not in a relationship.”
He lifted an eyebrow at the result on his screen and I wanted to see; I didn’t even know if I was telling the truth anymore.
“Good.” He handed me a sheet of paper. “On this is a list of questions I’m going to ask you. Read the list first and let me know when you’re done.”
There were ten, most of which I’d expected.
“Done,” I said.
“Would you describe yourself as an atheist?” His expression had grown impassive once more.
“Yes.”
“Do you believe in God?” Deeth kept his eyes on the screen, where my respiration, heart rate, and blood pressure squiggled about.
“No,” I replied without hesitation.
“Do you believe in a higher power?”
“No.”
“Do you believe in the concept of the soul or spirit?”
“No.”
Deeth looked up from the monitor and then back. He cracked his neck.
“Do you believe in an afterlife?”
“No.”
I saw the beginnings of a grin return to his face, like the breaking of sun through the clouds.
“Do you believe in an afterlife?” he whispered.
And I could understand the smile. How does anyone maintain an atheistic stance in the face of Attila? I realized what the man meant to me. He challenged everything I believed in, but also was a source of hope. This somewhat grimy man was my real savior. More than the general, Attila gave me faith in something, in what—I didn’t know, and perhaps that was for the better. The job required me to accept all of these faiths and see them as the same but different. That all religions were right. And maybe there was some room for atheism, too. But we’d have to wait to find out.
“You know what I’m about to tell you,” Deeth said.
The general stepped into Purgatory. The silver cross swung wildly around his neck.
“I’m sorry, Colonel,” Deeth said, but I could tell that he wasn’t sorry at all. “I cannot release you on this mission.”
“We’ve been here before. You’re going in,” the general said, and to Deeth he added: “She was prepared to go after the monk.”
“You need to find another atheist,” Deeth said, standing between the general and me.
Staring at the general with his oversized cross, realization flooded through me. I felt an elation I hadn’t experienced for some years.
“Do we?” I asked.
Deeth turned to me, but I lifted my hand. I was so weak that my finger danced across the air like I painted with it, but I was trying to point at the general.
Chapter 39
My finger finally managed to steady on the general.
“Before I went after Charlie, why did you say: I’ll see you soon, I bet?” I asked. The general pushed out his lips, and his brow bent under a snarl. “You thought I was headed for oblivion. Isn’t that right?” I squinted at him. “The same place you expect to go. That thing around your neck might as well be a ripped-off Audi hood ornament.”
“Is this true, General?” Deeth demanded. “Have you lost your faith?”
“No, it’s not true.” He blustered and looked back into his office.
“Please take a seat, General.” Deeth motioned to the side of the bed and eagerly pulled the cuff off my arm t
o hold it out. “Take the test.”
The general stepped backward toward the office.
“Hold, General. As you are aware, I, too, am under orders from the president.”
And it fell into place. I couldn’t imagine there not being a check and a balance to the kind of power wielded by the general. It was Deeth, a doctor, and an Army major, ordered to ensure it was done right.
The general reached behind his back and pulled a revolver. Its silver finish glowed in Purgatory’s light.
“And my orders are to follow orders and to keep this unit a state secret,” the general said.
I further loosened the buckle that held my arm.
“I don’t think manufacturing terminal diseases falls under that prerogative, General,” I challenged. “Or violating the dead.”
He had begun to wheeze at the end of each breath but still held an expression of smug superiority. “Without Attila, or someone like him, the lives of thousands of Americans are at risk. Our terminals want to serve their country, and we are dependent on one man.”
Deeth hadn’t moved and stood between me and the gun. At this range, the .45 caliber bullets would shatter his ribs and heart.
“Are you really ready to retire, Doctor?” the general asked, and he pointed his gun to indicate the syringes. “I don’t recall your being a particularly religious person. If you want to play the gentleman, go ahead and lie down in Christine’s place.”
I managed the clasp and my arm popped free.
“This isn’t about a mission, this is about killing me,” I said. “You shoot me when I’m not ready to die and Attila isn’t here with his crystals, then I’m not going to help find any scientist. Much less tell you about the discovery.” The pages of the folder went flying as I tossed them from the bed. I wished that I hadn’t taken the rat poison, so that I could stand up and choke the bastard to death.
“I disagree,” the general replied. “If you discover something that will help America, I believe there’s enough Army in you that you’ll still deliver.”
“Do I represent that much guilt to you?” I asked. “Do you regret telling me about how you shot my father? Or is this something else?” He looked at me and then his eyes flicked back to Deeth. “Something else then,” I answered for him.
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