The generator rumbled, the chain tightened again and then, slowly, began to pull.
“We’ve got something, that’s for sure,” the operator said, staring down at the now turbulent tar. Methane bubbles pocked the inky black surface.
Stepping around the other workers, Carter crossed to the section of the grid where Geronimo had gone down. The chain was still pulling something up, and Carter found himself thinking, to his own shame, that he was worried it might be a priceless fossil, now damaged beyond repair. Lucky, he thought, that the media could never guess what was going on in his head.
“Hold it a second,” the operator shouted. “We’ve got a snag.”
The guy up top signaled back, and the operator actually leaned out over the pit and shook the heavy chain, the old-fashioned way, before kicking up the generator again. A tiny plume of smoke, or steam, escaped from a valve on top.
“Should it be doing that?” Carter shouted over the whine.
“Does that all the time,” he said, before looking back into the pit.
Carter looked, too, as the chain, swathed in black asphalt, continued to rise. The fireman appeared pleased, like a fisherman who’s just caught a big one. Carter’s feelings were certainly more mixed—relief, if it came to that, and dread, at the grisly sight that was probably about to unfold.
“Okay, any time now,” the operator shouted as he watched the clanking chain. Coated in tar as it was, Carter could only guess how he knew they were about to reach the claw end at last. Across the pit, Carter could see Del, his white hair blowing loose now in the afternoon breeze, waiting expectantly.
And then something emerged from the mire. Something caught in the claws of the dredge.
A slender object, wedged between two of the prongs. Carter leaned closer. What was it?
The chain pulled up, slowly, another few inches, and now Carter could see that it was a foot. In some kind of shoe.
A moccasin.
The fireman looked at Carter, who said, “Keep on going.”
Another prong had apparently snagged the end of Geronimo’s trousers.
The body emerged gradually, the tar seeming to reach up and hold on to it until the last possible second before rolling back off and plopping into the pit. The corpse, hanging upside down like a slaughtered animal on a meat hook, was glistening black from head to toe, the arms hanging listlessly in the fringed buckskin jacket. It twirled languidly on the hook, until it had come around to face Carter at eye level.
The fireman quickly looped a nylon cord around its waist to keep it from slipping off the hook and into the pit again.
Geronimo’s long black braid had a knot at one end and hung straight down, like an exclamation point, all the way to the surface of the pit. His face was entirely covered in tar, which only now began to ooze and drip off the skin. As Carter watched, transfixed, the man’s features began slowly to emerge. The chin, the nose, the cheeks. The hot tar gleamed in the late-day sun.
Apart from the whine of the generator, there was no noise in the pit. Everyone was dumbstruck by the horror of the sight.
Then, just as the fireman reached out to pull the dangling corpse over the walkway, more of the tar seeped off the face—and the eyes, sealed tight, were slowly revealed.
Carter was reminded of the slitlike eyes of a mummy.
And then, perhaps due to the pull of the falling tar, or simply gravity, the eyelids opened.
In the blackened, slack, and silent face, the whites of the eyes were now like slivers of light. Carter looked directly into Geronimo’s eyes; he couldn’t stop himself—and it felt, in some strange way, as if he owed him that.
But as he stood there, in the stifling confines of the pit, a sudden chill coursed down his spine. He knew it was impossible—what could be more so?—but it seemed as if Geronimo, even now, was looking back at him.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“JESUS,” GREER SAID, “that hurts.”
Indira laid the leg down slowly onto the table. “You must not neglect your home exercises.”
How many times had he heard that? But it wasn’t as if the damn leg hadn’t been getting a workout lately.
“Maybe we should do some ultrasound,” she suggested.
“Yeah, ultrasound,” Greer said, “that’s always good.”
In honesty, he couldn’t say it ever accomplished a thing. But it didn’t hurt, which was one thing you could say for it, and it didn’t require any exertion on his part, which was another.
Indira first went to get some hot packs and wrapped the leg in them, while Greer lay flat on the table. He knew he should say something, there was a lot of stuff hanging in the air, but he just didn’t know where to start. Indira’s feelings were hurt, he could see that without even asking. She’d probably been wondering why, after their first “date”—if you wanted to call it that—he had never suggested they go out again.
But Christ, hadn’t she been there, too? It had been a mistake, right from the start, and Indira had acted like it wasn’t a date at all. And then there’d been that humiliation at the restaurant, when the girl tripped over his leg and Indira flew to his defense . . . well, shit, did she really think any man was going to want to relive an experience like that?
“Thanks again,” he said as she bent over the leg, tucking in the hot towels.
“For what?”
“Having dinner with me, you know, the other night.”
Even under her coppery skin, he thought he saw a slight reddening. Shit, maybe he should have just let it go. It wasn’t as if she’d thrown herself at him or anything. God, he could not read women.
“I was happy to do it,” she said, still not looking him in the eye. “Now, I will be back in ten minutes for the ultrasound.” She set the egg timer, and he turned his head to see where she was going so abruptly. Mariani, in his wheelchair, was having some trouble navigating out of a tight spot.
He adjusted the neck rest, closed his eyes, and tuned out the rest of the noise in the room—the clanking of the machines, the moans and curses of the other vets as they suffered through their various therapy routines. What he wanted to do was sleep; he reminded himself to hit up Indira for some more sleeping pills before he left. But if he thought he’d been having trouble before, it was nothing compared to what went on in his head ever since that night on the al-Kalli estate.
Now, every time he closed his eyes, he saw that guy, that prisoner who was coated in blood, running for his life in the huge animal pen.
And the creature that had hunted him down and dragged him, screaming, out of the tree.
Now he knew what had lived in the empty, broken cages of Iraq . . . now he knew what he’d glimpsed in the headlights the night Lopez had been snatched.
And now he knew what kind of man he was up against.
Which still didn’t tell him what to do about it.
After al-Kalli and Jakob had left in the golf cart, Greer had slunk out from his hiding place, behind a pile of feed crates, and with shaking legs stumbled to the doors. He had tried not to look into the other cages lining the west wall of the facility—he’d seen enough already—but he could hear an occasional grunt or growl, and once something had lunged at the bars and its spittle had hit his neck like hot oil. He didn’t have the remote control that he’d watched al-Kalli use to open the doors, but after a few frantic seconds, he’d found a mounted panel with a door release handle built into it.
Once outside, he’d hauled ass, as best he could, for the back entrance; he found it by following the rear service road that ran along the northern perimeter of the estate.
Sadowski, thank God, was parked across the road in a patch of deep shadow. Greer looked both ways to make sure nobody was coming, then sprinted, his leg blazing, to the car and climbed in.
“You’re late,” Sadowski said. Then, “And you’re sweating like a pig.”
“Just get out of here.”
Sadowski started the car. “What’s that shit on your neck?”
&
nbsp; Greer felt where he’d been spat on; it was thick as mucus and when he glanced at his fingertips, he saw it was pale green, too.
“It stinks.”
“Will you just shut the fuck up and drive!” Greer snarled.
Sadowski knew enough to do that, though he kept glancing over in Greer’s direction. Greer knew what he was looking for—some sign of booty. Some indication that the night hadn’t been a complete bust.
Greer didn’t feel like relieving his curiosity just yet.
They’d made it all the way down to Sunset Boulevard before Sadowski dared to break the silence. “So,” he said as they waited for the light under the Bel-Air gate, “what happened?”
What happened. Greer still hadn’t decided that for himself. His eyes could not believe what they’d seen. His brain couldn’t process it. His hands couldn’t stop trembling. He reached up and took off the Silver Bear Security cap, which peeled away from his sweaty temples like a strip of adhesive, and tossed it onto the floor.
“Hey, I’ve got to return that.”
Greer gave him a withering glare.
The light changed, and Sadowski took a left. “You get into the house?”
“No.”
Sadowski smacked the steering wheel in irritation. “So you didn’t actually get anything?”
“That wasn’t the purpose.” Greer had told him that this was simply a reconnaissance mission, but he knew Sadowski hadn’t understood that. Maybe he’d thought it was just Greer’s way of cheating him, of pocketing some cash or jewelry and then claiming he’d come away empty-handed.
“So what did you do?”
“What I did was, I watched a guy get eaten by a creature out of your worst nightmare.”
Sadowski just glanced at him, not knowing how to take this. “Yeah, right,” he said, returning his eyes to the road. “What did you really see up there?”
Greer wondered whether he should even bother to try. Whether he could ever make what he’d seen believable to someone who hadn’t seen it with his own eyes. He still hardly believed it himself.
“What I really saw up there,” Greer repeated, in a deliberate manner, “was a zoo out of The Twilight Zone.”
“I love that show,” Sadowski said, hanging a left. “I’ve got the whole thing on DVD.”
Greer gave up. What was the point of trying to convince Sadowski of something he’d never understand?
“Mind if we stop at the Blue Bayou?” Sadowski said. “I gotta check on Ginger.”
Greer nodded that it was okay.
“You can give me the real 411 when we get there.”
But Greer had already decided to keep his own counsel. In the meantime, the idea of a noisy strip club, with lots of people, and naked girls, and a fully stocked bar, was a very good one right now.
“In the meantime, you better take off that Silver Bear jacket, too.”
Greer wrestled the jacket off his arms and shoulders.
“Man, I hope none of that crap on your neck got on the jacket.”
Greer would have liked to deck him. But he held himself in check, not saying another thing, until they got to the club, and he had the first of several Jack Daniel’s doubles in front of him. He drank the first one as if it were water.
“Burt Pitt was asking about you,” Sadowski said, as they huddled over a small table not far from the runway. A topless girl in a pair of bicycle shorts and skates was rolling around the stage to the tune of Avril Lavigne’s “Skater Boy.”
“Let him ask.”
“We’re getting close,” Sadowski confided, leaning in conspiratorially, though there was no chance of their being overheard. Between the blaring music and the fact that the drunks at the nearby tables were firmly fixed on the skating girl, their privacy was pretty much complete.
“Close to what?”
“I can’t exactly tell you that,” Sadowski said. “Not until you join up.”
Greer threw down the rest of his drink and didn’t answer, which drove Sadowski crazy—as Greer knew it would.
“Okay,” Sadowski said, “and you’ve got to promise that you won’t say a word about any of this to anybody, because if you do, my ass is grass, and I mean that seriously. I will be dead meat if word of this gets out.”
Greer just waited.
“You know how a lot of people like to set off fireworks on the Fourth of July?”
“Yeah,” Greer said, “I’ve heard a rumor to that effect.”
“Well, this year there’s going to be some really major fireworks in L.A., if you know what I’m saying. We’re going to really start something up.”
Greer looked at him, while signaling for another round. “Why?”
“So everybody’ll finally get pissed off about what’s happening in this country, so they’ll finally get off their fat asses and help us do something about it. Before it’s too late.”
Greer had been hearing this vague, apocalyptic shit from Sadowski forever, and tuned him out now. Fortunately, the next girl on the runway was his lady love, Ginger Lee, and Sadowski had soon lost himself in admiration.
Which allowed Greer to go back to ruminating on the horrors he had seen that night. A few more shots of Jack Daniel’s and it had all begun to take on a weird, surreal glow . . .
A timer went off behind his head now, and Greer realized he’d been dozing on the therapy table. Indira’s hands were quickly removing the no-longer-hot towels, then coating the leg from thigh to calf with a lubricant designed to make the ultrasound wand move more smoothly over the skin. The thing looked like vibrators Greer had seen in exgirlfriends’ apartments, but it didn’t make that loud humming noise. It was fairly quiet, and all Greer had to do was lie back and let Indira move it around over the trouble spots. Supposedly, though Greer thought the whole thing was bullshit, the ultrasound helped to break up the scar tissue.
Greer remembered what he needed and what he’d come for. “Say, Indira, I’m still having a lot of trouble sleeping, and I was wondering if you could get me—”
“No, Captain. You have already exceeded the dispensary limits.”
“But all I need is—”
“I cannot get it for you,” she said. “I strongly suggest that when we are done with the ultrasound, you use your time to do some stretching exercises on one of the machines.”
Greer realized that he had broken one of the cardinal rules of the drug user—he had alienated his supplier.
“And I do not believe that you are doing your home exercises at all.”
She had him there, too.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“THAT’S A G,” her assistant said.
“It’s a q.”
“No way.”
“Way,” Beth said wearily. “Just put it in the Q file.”
Beth pushed the chair back from her desk and rubbed her eyes with her fingertips. How long, she wondered, had they been at it? She glanced at the clock, nestled between the framed photos of Carter and Joey, and realized it had only been an hour. But such close work made the time crawl by.
Not that Elvis seemed to mind. He was twenty-three, she’d been told, but he looked like he was about twelve. And he also looked like he had never been out in the daylight. His skin was dead white and smooth as marble, his hair was jet black, and he had long, narrow sideburns running halfway down his cheeks. She suspected that Elvis was a name he had adopted on his own.
“That makes three variations in the Q file,” he said.
“It wasn’t uncommon for medieval scribes to do slightly different, more or less ornate versions of each letter, often in the same manuscript. One might be used as a large initial to signal the beginning of a chapter or section, one might be simply a capital, one might be in the lowercase. And sometimes they just got fancy.”
“Must have made it tough to read,” Elvis said, entering the letter in question into his database.
“Now you see the problem.”
For days they had been hunched in front of the computer screen, goi
ng over scanned pages of The Beasts of Eden and laboriously picking out and entering each variation they could find of each letter or numeral—each grapheme—and then cataloguing it in the master concordance. The idea was, once they had a solid and broad enough selection of the letters and numbers, the computer program would be able to immediately identify all the characters; after that, all you had to do was let the program run and it would translate the entire manuscript in a lot less time than it would take Beth, armed with a magnifying glass and a Latin dictionary, to do the same.
But before you got there, you had to stay here for at least a few more days.
“You want a caffè latte?” Elvis asked. “I’m going to get one.”
For a second, she wondered if he should risk it; it meant going outside, in the sunlight.
“Sounds great. Charge it to the conservation department.”
“In that case,” Elvis said, “can I get some other stuff, too?”
“Go to town.” She hoped he’d get something healthy. He looked like he lived on candy bars and soda.
While he was gone, she stood up, did some stretches, then phoned home. The nanny picked up, and in the background she could hear Champ barking.
“Anything wrong?” Beth said.
“No, no,” Robin said with a laugh. “I think a bird had the nerve to land on Joey’s windowsill.”
“Guess we don’t need a security service after all.”
“Long as you’ve got Champ, you don’t.”
Joey, it turned out, was upstairs in his crib for nap time. But would he be sleeping? Beth wondered. Sometimes she had the feeling he just lay there, thinking deep thoughts he wasn’t yet able to express. But with all quiet on the home front, she could turn her attention back to the work at hand.
Which was coming along. At first she’d debated how to go about it, then decided that the best way might be to focus on what were known in medieval manuscripts as the catchwords—words that were written at the bottom of each gathering, or quire, and then repeated as the first words at the top of the page in the next quire. It was a technique used to make sure that the separate sections, when they were all illuminated and ready to be bound together into the actual book, were placed in the right order. It was also a convenient handwriting test, a good way for her to see the scribe writing the same words twice, in close proximity.
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