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Panacea

Page 33

by Brad Murray


  Stern nodded, marched to the switch panel and dimmed the lights. He retreated into the darkness in a corner of the room where Andy heard him pick up the handset of a phone and whisper hushed instructions to someone on the other end.

  “Thanks,” muttered Andy. Though the return of the relative darkness was an improvement, he felt as though he’d been clubbed over the head by a baseball bat. Actually, a bat might have been preferential to Ram’s fist, Andy thought.

  The man had moved between the sofa and the fireplace, and now his voice and opaque silhouette were all Andy had to talk to.

  “Who are you?” Andy asked of the faceless form. “Sheriff’s Department?”

  The man chuckled. “No, Andrew. We’re not from the Sheriff’s Department, nor the Police Department. Might I ask why you would think that?”

  “Well…because Ram – I mean Roger Ramstein – knocked me out when I … wait, if you aren’t the cops, then who are you?”

  The man cleared his throat. “I would have preferred to have had more time to prepare for this moment, but as it happened, your being here is completely unexpected. So please forgive me Andrew, I don’t know how else to approach this. Therefore, I will just get right to the point. My name is Benoit Brumeux. The man you know as Roger Ramstein is one of my employees. His real name is Traugott, and he has been assigned to watch over and protect your family for the past several years.”

  Andy laughed skeptically but caught himself as laughter only made the pounding in his head worse. Stern’s heavy footsteps approached. He planted himself at Brumeux’s side, his girth swallowing up the beams of firelight like a black hole.

  “Unfortunately,” Brumeux continued, “you stumbled onto this truth today.”

  “What are you talking about?” breathed Andy.

  “Regrettably, Traugott neglected to lock the observation room. And you discovered it.”

  Andy’s mind traced back to the room of televisions, of the camera filming his front porch, and of the image of Emma and the boys in the kitchen. His head was spinning and he began to feel woozy.

  “Why has he been watching us?” he asked softly.

  “Because of your son.”

  “My son? What are you talking about?”

  “I’m referring to James. He is quite unique, Andrew. He has a gift; a gift that must be protected at all costs. Therefore, I must underscore the fact we will stop at nothing to ensure his protection. Even, most regrettably, if it means removing you from the equation.”

  Andy shot up onto his feet. Stern promptly moved forward a step, placing himself in front of Brumeux.

  “Remove me from the equation?” cried Andy. “What does that mean?”

  From the extreme end of the spacious room, a tortured voice cried out.

  “I’m sorry Andy.”

  Ram.

  “I screwed up. I was reckless. I didn’t know what to do,” he said, his shadow coming into view as it slowly crossed the streams of flickering light.

  Andy wobbled; the anguish in Ram’s voice was sobering.

  “If only I had kept the room locked,” he sobbed. “If only you hadn’t walked in at that moment.”

  As he narrowed to within a few feet, Ram’s face came into view. His eyes were puffy. His expression was drawn; forlorn. His shoulders slumped and his head drooped.

  “Agent Traugott,” said Brumeux, “This is quite inappropriate.”

  “I’ll fix it,” Ram said, facing Brumeux. “Please give me a chance. I’ll talk to Andy, make him understand. He won’t run. We can let him go home. Everything can go back to normal and…”

  “Impossible!” snapped Brumeux. “There is no going back, and you know it! This is your fault, Joerg. And yours alone.”

  “Just hear me out, Mr. Brumeux,” Ram pleaded. “Andy and I are close. I can make him understand that we’re here to help. We don’t have to do this. There’s a better solution, if you just let me talk to him.”

  Brumeux turned away and, facing the fireplace, spoke over his shoulder. “No, there is only one solution. You will return home at once. The Porters will need you now more than ever. You must atone for your mistake, Agent Traugott. You must become the family’s protector. You must fill in the void you’ve created.”

  “But I can’t,” Ram implored. “The boys need their father. Emma needs her husband. We’ll all fall apart without Andy. I can’t replace him! Please, reconsider. I beg of you. Let me make this right.”

  Brumeux turned to face him and sighed. “My patience is wearing thin, Traugott. My decision is final. You will leave at once.”

  “But –“

  “Traugott,” barked Brumeux. “You are only making things worse. If you do not return to your post, I will assign someone in your place.”

  Ram staggered backwards; Brumeux had dealt him a heavy blow. He reluctantly moved to the door, stopping just before opening it.

  “Andy,” he said softly, pleading with his eyes. “I’m sorry. I’ll keep them safe. You have my word.”

  Ram stood in the shadows for a final moment, as if thinking of something else to say, something to change Brumeux’s mind. Andy watched, completely bewildered as Ram slowly pulled open the door. The upbeat, jovial Ram he’d always known wasn’t there. He was a despondent, dishearted shell of himself. His normally erect shoulders slumped as he exited the shadows of the room and crossed into the white light of the hallway.

  “Look,” Andy said, turning cautiously to Brumeux. “I just want to get home to my family. Now if you’ll just let me use the phone, I’ll call my wife to come get me.”

  “I’m afraid that won’t be possible Mr. Porter. I cannot allow you to return to your family – it simply wouldn’t be prudent. There are dangerous people in the world who, if they discovered the truth about young James, would hunt him down and kill him without hesitation. He must be safeguarded at all costs.”

  “What are you talking about? Why would someone want to kill Jimmy?”

  “The simple truth is that within Jimmy’s cells lay the cure-all - the panacea - to human affliction. I’m sorry to say that you do not possess such traits. And neither does Cooper. The human genome is an unpredictable thing. Your son carries within him the answers to questions as old as man. These answers, as you can imagine, are invaluable. And most certainly worth killing for.”

  Andy’s light-headedness was worsening; between Ram’s knockout blow and the incomprehensible threat from the faceless stranger, Andy began to feel nauseous.

  “I’m sorry,” said Andy, “nothing you’re saying makes any sense. My goddamn head is pounding. I’m going to ask you nicely to show me the way out. I’ll be on my way and…”

  “Please, Andrew, sit down. There’s much more to discuss.”

  “Like what? I just want to go home.”

  “Andrew,” said Brumeux, leaning forward and placing a hand on Andy’s shoulder. “I’m going to make you a promise. I swear to you we will do everything in our power to take care of James; to keep him out of harm’s way. And one day, when the time is right, the two of you will be reunited.”

  Andy stared at Brumeux for a moment, and then at Stern.

  “You’re out of your minds. All of you,” he said, starting for the door. Brumeux reached out and snagged him by the arm, turning Andy towards him.

  “I knew your father,” said Brumeux.

  Andy froze. “Sorry?”

  “He was a prisoner during the war, at a camp run by my father. We were the same age, your father and me. And in that Nazi camp, just before it was captured by the Americans, it was discovered that your father, Benjamin, possessed the very same traits passed down to your son. But with the chaos of the end of the war, Benjamin was able to slip away into the abyss. He became just one face in an endless sea of faces; a proverbial needle in a mountain of needles. We didn’t even know his name.”

  A chill ran through Andy’s body. There was a nagging sensation that the man’s story was true, a truth he had never known. His mother had never told him m
uch of anything about his father’s background. Perhaps she didn’t know much about his upbringing herself. All that was left of his father were graying recollections; blurred snapshots from Andy’s youth. He yearned to know more about the man - always had for as long as he could remember. And now, as the faceless stranger spun his tale, Andy found himself wanting more.

  He ached to know more.

  “Fortunately, we were able to retain a vial of his blood, taken just before the chaos at the camp ensued. That preserved vial was the key - the key to identifying the tell-tale signs of his exceptionality. Through testing of the precious drops of blood in that vial, we discovered his chromosomal calling card. We set out across the globe in hopes of detecting that calling card. We spent decades looking for abnormally high levels of a particular enzyme, but found nothing.”

  “Our group became discouraged,” Brumeux continued. “But then one day in 1970, everything changed. We received word from a doctor in Montreal that one Benjamin Porges matched the profile. Your father was the man we had been looking for.”

  Brumeux paused for a second, his opaque form turned toward Stern’s.

  “Get the lights, would you?” he asked. “But don’t turn them up too high, Stern. Andrew needs more time to recover.”

  “Let’s see now, where was I?” Brumeux muttered absently. “Oh yes. We had finally found your father, but he didn’t wish to be found. Before we had the opportunity to talk to him, to convey to him the importance of our undertaking and impress upon him the danger he was in…well, he ran. He packed you up along with your mother and tore off through the streets of the Montreal suburbs.”

  Hazy, jumbled, dream-like memories swirled in a devastatingly dreadful cloud.

  Of locomotive whistles and plastic army men.

  Of twisted metal and broken glass.

  Of his mother’s tears.

  For Andy, what happened the night his father died in the car accident had always blurred the lines of a toddler’s nightmare and reality. He had never really known whether it had actually happened or not – his mother would never speak about it.

  Andy dropped involuntarily to the leather sofa. His woozy head sank into the inviting cushions as Stern gradually raised the room lights. Soft, dim light filled the room and slowly Brumeux came into view.

  “You,” Andy whispered in recognition.

  He stared, horrified, at the thick scar that extended from brow to cheekbone and sliced diagonally across a cloudy, blind eye. Andy’s mind traced back to yet another recollection from the night of the accident - the “man with one eye.” The one his mother had nightmares about. How the man had crawled from the smoldering wreckage towards them; begging, pleading for help as blood gushed from his eye.

  It was like meeting the Boogeyman in person; a child’s nightmare come to life. Horrorstruck, at that moment Andy comprehended - the man who had caused his father’s death had returned to haunt him once again.

  Only this time he wanted his son.

  24

  Today - May 29, 2011

  Jenny cursed under her breath as the turbulent air violently shook the airplane. The sun’s last rays stretched out across the horizon behind them, giving way to the deep purple storm clouds lying just ahead. It was as if the sun had decided to go into hiding for fear of the tempest to come. On the ground below, TV meteorologists scurried about their newsrooms, desperately issuing warning after warning to their viewers. Those in the storm’s path would be seeking shelter in basements and cellars; taking cover from the wrath of the coming monster. But for the four souls being battered about inside the tiny airplane, they had done the unthinkable. They had entered the belly of the beast - their determination to reach Emma overshadowing their instinct for their own safety.

  La’Roi held his head in his hands, his eyes sealed shut. Jenny reached over and smacked him on the shoulder.

  “Hey La’Roi, you sick?” Jenny asked.

  La’Roi didn’t budge.

  “I ain’t sick’,” he said. “I’m prayin’.”

  “Well pray with your eyes open! I might need your help.”

  In the back, Andy finished reliving the day the Order took him from his family. Jimmy hung on every word, soaking it up like a sponge, oblivious to the crashing and thrashing of the storm outside. As his father’s story came to a close, he was overwrought by a series of emotions. First, relief that his father hadn’t abandoned him after all. Then, profound sadness in the realization they had missed out on so many years together.

  Finally, and most palpably of all, he felt anger.

  Anger towards Brumeux for having robbed him of a father and his mother of a husband. Anger towards Brumeux for having killed his grandfather, robbing his dad of his own father. Anger towards Brumeux for having manipulated his life; installing a bogus family physician and barring him from the military, leaving Cooper to go it alone.

  And then there was Ram.

  Jimmy had difficulty reconciling just who exactly the man was. On one hand, he was the man who had taught him about life’s truths; on the other, he was a man whose life was built on lies. On one hand, he was the man whose loyalty to the family seemed to know no bounds; on the other, he was a man who had devastated the family with the ultimate betrayal. On one hand, he was Uncle Ram; on the other, he was Joerg Traugott.

  Jimmy wondered if any of his Ram persona were real – his fatherly advice, his pats on the back, his ass chewings when Jimmy had done wrong. He wondered if it were all for show; just a part of Brumeux’s manipulative plan. Most of all, he wondered if Ram only pretended to care because he was paid to do so.

  He glanced down at the silver watch; the one Ram had given him for Christmas.

  “It was my dad’s before it was mine,” Ram had told him.

  Jimmy huffed, thinking about him delivering that line at the kitchen table. It had seemed heartfelt at the moment. Now, as he gazed down at the watch’s face, it seemed like it had been nothing more than a very good actor giving a very good performance - Joerg Traugott playing the part of Uncle Ram.

  Traugott - the name seemed familiar. He’d seen the name before. In fact, he’d seen it many times.

  The watch.

  He unclasped it from his wrist and flipped it over. Narrowing his eyes in the dim light of the airplane, he made out the inscription on the watch’s backside:

  Martin Traugott

  Jimmy had never thought twice about the name inscribed on the back of his watch, always assuming it to be the name of the watch’s designer. But now, as he eyed its letters, he realized Ram had been telling the truth; the watch really had been his father’s. At that moment, he realized the Ram he knew had been no actor. The Ram he knew had been an understudy; trying his best to be an acceptable stand-in for Jimmy’s father.

  A bright flash of lightning followed closely by the majestic clap of thunder rattled the airplane and brought Andy and Jimmy back to the present.

  “While you two have been catching up,” said Jenny, “I’ve been going over the maps. Your house is well east of Springfield, right?”

  “Yeah,” said Jimmy and Andy in unison.

  “The airport is northwest of the city,” said Jenny. “By the time we find transportation and navigate the roads through this storm…it could take an hour or more.”

  “We don’t have that kind of time,” Jimmy said.

  “I agree,” said Andy emphatically. “We need to get to Emma as quickly as we can.”

  “Well,” said Jenny, ”there’s a downtown airport but that doesn’t buy us much. We’d still have to find a car and make our way through this storm. When I was looking at the maps I noticed a few small airfields east of Springfield, but they’re also miles away from the farmhouse. Walking a couple of miles in the black of night and in the pounding wind and rain isn’t going to work.”

  “Are there any flat roads close by?” she continued. “A dirt road would be great. But it needs to be flat.”

  “No, the road that runs by the house isn’t flat at
all,” said Jimmy somberly.

  “Jimmy, the field we used to shoot clay pigeons in,” said Andy. “Is it still wide open? Nobody has built anything in it or –“

  “No, its exactly the same as the last time you saw it – nothing but open field,” said Jimmy.

  “How long is it?” asked Jenny. “We need a half mile or so.”

  “It’s a mile long,” said Andy. “That field extends the whole length of the mile section and –“

  “What about the surface?” interrupted Jenny. “If its soft farmland, landing in the mud from this rain wouldn’t be pretty.”

  “Its clay,” replied Jimmy. “Hard as a rock. And it hasn’t rained in weeks, so this storm won’t have made a dent in softening it yet. Only thing in that field is wild grass. No cattle or anything.”

  “Alright,” thought Jenny aloud. “It’s as good a plan as any. We’re going to have one shot at this. We’ve got maybe 15 minutes of sunlight left. And not much more than that in fuel. If I can’t land us safely in that field, we’re going to have to find another place to land. And quickly.”

  “Oh sweet Jesus,” muttered La’Roi. “Can you even land in a field? Don’t you need a runway?”

  “I’ve landed in fields before,” said Jenny. “Not optimal but definitely doable.”

  “Okay,” said La’Roi reluctantly. “But just to make a point, what they want is Jimmy, not his mom. They’ll wait. We can land at the airport without taking the risk and…”

  “No,” said Jimmy. “I don’t want to take that chance. They gave me a deadline and made pretty clear threats they’d hurt Mom. They already hit her once – I heard it during the call.”

  “Alright,” said Jenny. “I think we’ve got a consensus. James, Andy – help me find your house. I need you to guide me to this field you’re talking about.”

  She nodded to the maze of fields and trees below; a quilted patchwork in deep shades of green. But they were becoming grey in the dying light, as shadows from the ever-powerful storm clouds only aided in obscuring their vision. Jimmy spotted the eastern edge of Springfield and I-44 to the north - the very interstate he’d been on this morning when the day began. A flash of lightning briefly blinded him, but his eyes adjusted and acclimated to the muted light. His eyes followed highway 125 to the south and he began narrowing in on the farmhouse’s location. Another flash of lightning forced him to start over and just as he began to get frustrated, he found it.

 

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