White Mountain

by Dinah McCall

  “But it didn’t work. Why not?” Jack asked.

  David glanced nervously at Jasper, who was in the act of turning the last tumbler on the lock.

  He squinted his eyes as he gazed into space.

  “Do you believe in God?”

  “Yes, but what does that have to do with—“

  David turned, fixing him with a hard, studied stare.

  “Samuel had a theory. We took everything into account when we created the clones…except for the fact that they would not have the same soul. Don’t you see? When someone dies…and if you believe in God…then you believe the soul, or the spirit, or whatever you call it…ascends into heaven or descends into hell, as the case may be. Right?”

  “Tight,” Jack said.

  “So almost every time we began a new project, we were cloning DNA from someone who had already passed on. In effect, their spirit was already gone. The babies were perfect replicas—except for the one thing that had made them great.”

  Jack’s breath slid out of his lungs in a whoosh, as if he’d been gut punched. Trying to explain this to the director—if, of course, he lived to tell the tale—would be impossible. Again something clicked.

  ”You said ‘almost.’ That isn’t the same as always.”

  David nodded. “I said you were a smart man. Yes, you’re right. We had twenty projects, and nineteen failures, the last of which we just learned of today.”

  Jack frowned. “Today? Who…?” Then it hit him. “John Running Horse?” When David didn’t deny it, Jack fired another question. “Who the hell did you clone?”

  “We had no idea that old memories would recur in some of the implants,” David said. “They didn’t in all of them, but John was an exception. It was good that people outside the reservation rarely saw his face. It would have started a riot, I think.”

  Jack frowned, his mind skimming back over everything he’d heard John Running Horse say. Memphis. Guitar. Singing. Suddenly his mouth dropped.

  “God almighty, you didn’t!”

  David shrugged.

  “How did you get his DNA?”

  David shrugged. “Samuel always handled that part. He paid someone at the funeral home, I think. It was usually fairly simple.”

  Jack shoved a hand through his hair in disbelief.

  “What in hell were you people thinking? The he would just up and reappear, the same old king of rock and roll? Didn’t you take his family’s feelings into consideration?”

  “It was all about science.”

  Jack felt himself coming unglued. The ramifications of what they’d been doing were like something out of a horror film.

  “Didn’t you see him? Couldn’t you tell how tormented he was? My God, man! I only saw him once, but I could feel his pain.”

  David’s chin trembled. It wasn’t anything he hadn’t thought before. If only he’d had the guts to call a halt years ago, before they’d destroyed so many lives.

  “One survived perfectly,” he mumbled, saying it more to assuage his own guilt than to explain himself to Jack.

  “One success out of twenty is damned poor odds,” Jack said. “Do you know where the baby is?”

  “Oh yes,” David said. “I know. I helped raise her.”

  Suddenly the skin crawled on Jack’s neck as he followed the path of David’s gaze to Isabella.

  “Sweet Jesus…not—“

  “Samuel couldn’t father children. It was his wife’s greatest sorrow and his cross to bear. She wanted to be the first test subject, but Samuel wouldn’t let her. Then she begged, and she cried, and he relented.”

  David’s shoulders slumped, and for the first time since Jack had met him, David Schultz looked every one of his seventy-eight years.

  “The pregnancy was perfect, and then she went into labor. She hemorrhaged and bled to death before we could stop it. We lifted the baby out of her belly as she took her last breath.”

  “I don’t understand,” Jack said. “If the others disintegrated mentally, then why hasn’t Isabella shown the same signs? What’s so different about her?”

  “Samuel believed that Isabella wanted the child so much that she somehow refused her place in heaven and sent her soul to the baby instead.”

  The look on Jack’s face was incredulous. David sighed.

  “I know. I know. It’s a lot to grasp, and frankly, as scientists, we rejected it soundly for years. However, there is no other explanation that we could fathom and have it make sense.” He gave jack a nervous glance. “Does this change your feeling for her?”

  “No,” Jack muttered. “Hell no.”

  “Then know this, too,” David said. “She must never know what we’ve been doing, or she will guess the rest about herself.”

  Jack nodded, knowing that he would lie to his death to protect her from the hell of what he’d learned.

  “And there’s something else you must remember. She is her mother, and her mother died from an aneurysm in the uterus. If she bears children, the same weakness will be hers, as well.”

  Jack looked at her in horror, wondering how he was going to live with this knowledge and not give himself away.

  “Are you saying she should never have children?”

  “No. Only that you must somehow get the doctor to examine her closely enough to discover it on his own. It can be corrected, and had we known earlier, we could have saved Isabella’s life.”

  “But if she had lived, what would have happened to the child?” Jack asked.

  David sighed. “Ah yes…ever the conundrum we have asked ourselves. At any rate, I have given you a great secret, and I’m trusting you with our beloved Isabella.” The he glanced at Jasper, who was in the act of opening the safe door. “Whatever happens in the next few minutes, you have to promise me that you will get Isabella out alive.”

  Startled, Jack’s gaze moved toward the wall where the others were standing.

  “What have you done?” he asked.

  “You will see.”

  Suddenly Jasper slammed the door to the safe shut and turned a knob.

  “It’s done!” he shouted, and dived straight into Rostov’s gun. The gun went off, and the bullet tore through Jasper’s heart, but it didn’t matter. Rufus and Thomas had already ripped Isabella from Rostov’s grasp and shoved her away.

  “Take her and run.” David said.

  Jack pulled the gun from his boot and started toward the melee, only to be yanked back.

  “Get Isabella and run, I say!” David shouted. “You don’t have much time.”

  Isabella bolted as Rostov spun, his gun aimed at her back.

  Jack fired instinctively as he ran, then fired again, watching as both bullets hit Rostov square in the chest, while Isabella ran screaming into his arms.

  “It’s over,” he said, holding her close against his chest. “It’s finally over.”

  David shoved them toward the door. Thinking the old men were following, Jack and Isabella were outside the lab before they realized the others were still inside.

  “We have started the countdown to demolition. The bomb will go off in fifteen minutes, and it takes eight to get from here to the elevator,” David said. “Remember you promise.”

  Then he slammed the door before Jack could react.

  Isabella screamed in disbelief and started pounding on the door, but to no avail. It was ten inches of solid steel, and the sound of her hands against the metal could not even be heard inside the lab.

  “No! Uncle David! No! Please don’t do this!” she begged, then frantically turned to Jack. “Make them open the door,” she screamed. “Don’t let them do this to me!”

  Jack picked her up in his arms and carried her to the nearest cart, dropped her on the seat, then vaulted the hood. When she tried to climb out, he grabbed her by the arm.

  “They aren’t doing this to you, Isabella. They’re doing it for you. Now stay where you are or their deaths will be in vain.”

  “Oh my God,” she moaned, and covered her face
with her hands as Jack turned the cart around and headed back up the tunnel.

  His heart was pounding as he pressed the accelerator all the way to the floor, but it didn’t go any faster on the return than it had on arrival. He kept glancing at his watch with every passing second, imagining a blast at their backs that would destroy them all.

  Isabella was silent beside him, her head bowed, her hands covering her face. Every so often Jack saw her shoulders shake as she swallowed a sob. He feared for her sanity even more than her safety. She’d gone through hell and still didn’t know the half of it. All he could do was pray to get them out alive and deal with emotions later.

  By his best guess, they were about halfway there when the car suddenly stopped. One minute it was moving, and the next it had rolled to a halt.

  “Shit,” he muttered, and tried to restart it. He heard nothing but a click.

  “What’s wrong?” Isabella asked.

  “Batteries are dead,” he said, and grabbed her by the hand. “Can you run?”

  “I think so,” she said, and then glanced back behind them as Jack pulled her out.

  He grabbed her by the shoulders, making her look him in the eye.

  “You can’t think so. You have to do it.”

  She moaned with fright.

  “Do you love me?” he yelled.

  Her eyes welled. “Yes.”

  “Well that’s damned good, because I love you more than life, and if you don’t run, we’re both going to die.”

  He pulled as he ran, almost yanking her off her feet, and then the reality of what he’d just said sank in. He loved her! Dear God, he loved her! And there was a time bomb ticking at their heels.

  Ignoring the pain in her head and the fear in her heart, she lengthened her stride to match his and ran with everything she had.

  One minute passed, and then another. No matter how hard or how far they ran, all she could see was more lights and more tunnel.

  “Jack?”

  He heard the fear in her voice, but there was no time to reassure her.

  “Don’t talk,” he said, as her shoes pounded the floor. “Run.”

  Once she stumbled and fell flat, momentarily knocking the breath from her body. Jack jerked her up and slid his arm around her waist, all but dragging her until she could maneuver on her own.

  One precious minute passed, and then another and another, until Isabella’s muscles were burning and her lungs tortured and heaving from lack of air. She had no sense of anything but the pain.

  Suddenly they turned a corner and saw the end in sight.

  “We’re almost there,” Jack yelled. “Just a few more yards.”

  Isabella choked back a sob as her legs gave way.

  Jack picked her up again and slid an arm beneath her shoulders, carrying her the rest of the way.

  Within seconds they had reached the elevator car. Jack shoved her inside, then closed the door and punched the button. Immediately, the car began to rise. He glanced at this watch. Thirteen minutes had passed. They were almost home.

  The car shuddered, then stopped. But the door didn’t open.

  “What?” Isabella cried. “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know,” Jack said, as he frantically punched the emergency button.

  As suddenly as it had stopped, the car began to move, only it wasn’t going up, it was going back down.

  “No!” Isabella screamed. “What’s happening?”

  Jack drew his gun, expecting the worst.

  Seconds later the car stopped and the door opened. There was no one in sight.

  Jack punched the up button again. Once again the door closed and the car started up.

  Isabella grabbed Jack by the shoulders. Her cheekbone was bloody and swollen, her face streaked with dust. Her clothes were bloodstained and filthy, and Jack thought she’d never been more beautiful.

  “I love you madly, Jack Dolan. Make this damn thing work.”

  He wanted to cry at the waste of it all and made himself laugh instead.

  “Tinkerbell, I’ve done everything I know how to do. The rest is up to God.” Then he kissed her hard and fast.

  Just as suddenly as it had stopped before, they were at the top. The door slid open, and they found themselves staring at the inside of David’s closet.

  Jack grabbed her by the hand and out they went. As he passed the shelf, he pressed down hard. The wall of the closet slid back into place.

  Isabella shook her head in disbelief.

  “I can’t believe I lived in this house all this time and never knew this was here.”

  But Jack wasn’t convinced that they’d gotten far enough away. Something told him that the bomb the old men had set off wasn’t going to just cave in a lab. They must have had the failsafe in place from the start. They’d been willing to die for what they’d believed in once and were not the type to leave anything to chance.

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” he said.

  “But I thought—“

  “Are there any guests in the hotel?”

  “My God! Are you saying that this might—“

  “I don’t know what to expect,” Jack said. “But I promised your Uncle David I would make sure you lived, and I intend to keep my word.”

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “We’ll have to check the register.”

  Seconds later they were out of the room and running down the stairs, then across the lobby to the registration desk.

  “Everyone’s gone,” she said. “Including the Silvias. They checked out at six.”

  Jack grabbed her again, this time pulling her through the dining room to the terrace beyond.

  “Look!” Jack said, pointing in the distance at the row of bobbing lights moving their way. “It’s the search tem. They’re off the mountain, and none too soon.”

  Before Isabella could answer, the earth beneath her feet began to shake.

  “Jack! What—“

  Then they heard it coming, ripping through rock and metal, tearing through the earth.

  “No,” Isabella moaned. “Oh no.”

  “I’m sorry, sweetheart. As sorry as I can be.”

  She lifted her face to the mountain, as if by watching she could somehow pay homage to five passing souls.

  And then Isabella suddenly gasped and pointed.

  “Jack! Look!”

  He turned just as the top of the mountain split apart at the seams. Fire blew up and out, spitting rock and smoke into the air and spilling it out onto the snow.

  “That wasn’t a bomb,” he muttered. It was a holocaust.”

  “Are we all right?” she asked, thinking of radioactive fallout.

  Jack frowned for a moment, considering what she’d asked, and then finally nodded.

  “If I were a betting man, I would say yes. Despite everything, they cared too much about life to set off anything that would harm it.”

  Her eyes were welling, her mind shuttered against everything but the flames on White Mountain.

  “We’ll never know the whole truth, will we, Jack?”

  He looked down, marking the reflection of the fire in her eyes and the silhouette of her face against the night. He inhaled slowly, thinking as he touched her that now he knew what it meant to be willing to die for love.

  “No, baby, I guess we won’t Does it matter to you?”

  She sighed and leaned against him.

  “As long as I have you, nothing matters anymore.”

  Epilogue

  Isabella laid the keys on the desk and looked back one last time across the lobby. Everything was polished and ready for the new owners of Abbott House.

  Jack watched without speaking as she walked to the middle of the lobby and then looked up at the painting on the wall. She looked so lost, he couldn’t bear for her to be there alone. He walked up behind her and then took her by the hand.

  “We can still take it if you want to.”

  She looked at it for a moment, then shook her head.

&nb
sp; “No. It belongs here, I think.”

  “The new owners agree,” Jack said. “They seemed quite taken with it.”

  Isabella looked at him then and smiled.

  “Maybe they’ll see ghosts, too.”

  Jack put his hand against her face, loving the feel of her skin against his palm.

  “No, I don’t think her spirit wanders restlessly. I think she’s all right.”

  “Yes, of course. Now she’s with Daddy again.”

  Jack searched the features of her face, looking for someone who felt out of place. But all he could see was the peace in her eyes and the joy on her face.

  “Yes, I’m sure she’s with the man she loves.”

  She turned to him and smiled.

  “just like me.”

  “Yes, sweetheart, just like you.”

  Queens, New York—Eleven Months Later

  Maria Silvia stood at the altar, wearing a soft gray dress and a Madonna-like smile as Leonardo held their son in his arms. The priest was talking to the godparents, admonishing them about their duties, but she already knew all that by heart. Her focus was on the baby…on the perfect, angelic expression on his face.

  You hear my prayer, Oh Lord…and now I hear You.

  “And what is the name to be give this child?” the priest asked.

  Leonardo’s heart was in his throat as he looked down at his son.

  “David Bartholomew Silvia,” he said. “For the doctor who helped us have him, and for my grandfather who never knew the joy of living in a country that was free.”

  Maria slipped her hand beneath Leonardo’s arm as the priest dipped his hand in holy water and then made the sign of the cross on David’s forehead.

  “I christen thee David Bartholomew Silvia, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”

  Maria’s pulse leaped, drowning out the sounds of everything except the small squeak her son made as the water touched his face.

  “Shh,” she whispered, and kissed the place where the holy water had been.

  The baby smile at the sound of his mother’s voice and quickly settle.

  All too soon the ceremony was over and the guests were moving toward the exit to attend the celebration of food and wine Maria had prepared at their home.