Weston nodded. His chest was heaving in a desperate attempt for air.
“When I take my hand away you can call out if you want to, but before they get that door half open I’ll have crushed both temples and severed the spinal cord in your neck. Here goes.”
Helman lifted his hand and forearm away from Weston. Weston slapped both his own hands to his mouth and wheezed gratingly. He pointed to a suitcase sitting by the door to the room. He gasped the word “Oxygen”.
Helman looked suspiciously from Weston to the suitcase.
“Or I’ll start to cough,” Weston whispered hoarsely. He squeezed both his hands tightly over his mouth and nose. His body convulsed and sweat sprung out over his face,
Helman risked it. It’s too good an act. He got the suitcase and removed the small oxygen tank and soft plastic mask connected to it. Weston held it to his face like a drowning man. He coughed into the mask once or twice, but he seemed to have whatever it was under control.
Helman watched impassively. “Hurry up and start talking,” he said.
Weston gestured for Helman to help him up from the floor where he had been thrown when Helman had burst into a frenzy. One surprised agent had been kicked in the head while the other got a slashing elbow across the fax. There was blood dripping out of that agent’s nose as he lay spread-eagled across the bed. Neither had had a chance to draw their weapons.
Helman pushed Weston into a fake colonial chair by a writing desk. Weston seemed to be breathing easier. If he hadn’t gotten the oxygen and a coughing spell had begun, the agents waiting outside would have rushed in and splattered Helman against all four walls. He couldn’t let this end in a cheap Santa Barbara motel.
He took the mask from his face. Helman was tying up and gagging the two unconscious agents with their belts and ripped bed sheets.
“How do you know?” Weston asked.
“That the Conclave know where we are?”
“Yes.”
“After I left the Father’s estate, a car started following me. I thought it was you. Or at least your men. It was one of the Conclave. A vampire. He said something about my nephews and then told me that Diego would meet with us all tonight.”
“What exactly did he say about your nephews?”
Helman felt chilled. Weston’s message to him had been a lie.
“He said I wouldn’t like the way they looked. What’s happened to them? Why didn’t you send your men?”
Helman trembled with rage. The horrible fear he had fought against, despite everything he had done to prevent it, was coming true.
“I did send men. They were too late. I’m sorry.”
“What’s happened to them?”
“Your sister is dead. Your nephews are gone.”
“Miriam,” Helman choked. “How? They didn’t drink…”
Weston shook his head. “No, Granger. None of that. It was quick. She was asleep from the looks of it. Didn’t know anything. Feel anything.” The lies were easy for Weston. He had seen the photographs of what had been done to Miriam Helman. He couldn’t bring himself to use the words that would describe it to Helman. She had been trussed like an animal, gutted and bled. But there had been no blood splattered on the floor. The blood had been taken along with her children. But he had to spare Helman something.
Helman was quaking. The one thing he had cherished in his life had been taken from him. His family was gone. And he had tried so hard, undergone such hell, to save them.
“We’re still searching for the boys, Granger. There was no evidence that they were harmed,”
Helman bordered on the hysterical. “Of course they weren’t harmed. They wouldn’t be harmed. They’re being given to Diego because their blood is so sweet…”
“I’m sorry.” It was all Weston could say. It was useless. It was inane. But it was true.
Helman talked as if no one were there.
“I have nothing left now. I did everything for her. I even killed for her. When we were kids. She looked after me.”
Weston got up slowly and moved toward Helman.
“And then this bastard she worked for raped her. She told me about it. She didn’t want to tell me but I made her. And then I went after him and I killed him.”
“It’s all right, Granger,” Weston said. He put his arm out to take Helman’s shoulder. “It’s all right.”
“I didn’t mean to kill him. Just hurt him. But he was scared and he wouldn’t stay quiet. And then I found out that he was being a bastard to everyone and that Mr. Dorsey wanted him dead. Mr. Dorsey looked after everyone on the streets. Numbers and protection and girls. And he found out I did it and he thanked me and paid me and said if I ever wanted to make more money I just had to tell him and he’d give me more work to do. And I did. For me then. And then when her husband died, for Miriam.”
Weston put one hand on Helman’s shoulder, still talking softly to him. He couldn’t afford to lose him. Slowly he moved Helman around so his back was to the door. Weston was going to throw the oxygen cylinder against the door to attract the attention of his men sitting in the car in the parking lot in front of the motel room door. He swung his arm back slowly to lob it.
He felt Helman’s fingers squeezing painfully in on the pressure points beneath his ears.
“Throw that and I’ll break your neck,” Helman whispered to him. His voice sounded distant and hollow. It was changed.
Weston lowered the cylinder gently to the floor.
“Can we get in there, get her, and get out before sunset?” Helman asked. His eyes were narrowed and cold. “I don’t care about the Conclave releasing the evidence they have on all the murders I’ve committed. I can hide well enough from the government.” He relaxed his grip on Weston’s neck.
“You have nothing to be afraid of from the government, Granger.”
“You put the fix in, did you?” Helman rubbed violently at his face, wiping away the tears and bringing back sensation.
“There’s always been a fix in. You’re Phoenix, remember?”
“I don’t now anything about that.” Helman’s voice was flat. There was no anger in his denial.
“That was the idea, Granger. You don’t have to worry about any evidence the Conclave has reaching the government. The government already has more information on you than any judge or jury would need to convict you. I’ve seen the files on you. On Phoenix. CIA. FBI. NSA. You’re known to them all.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You only went after criminals, Granger. The Justice Department couldn’t get them. They looked upon you as doing them a favour. As long as you stayed away from politicians and businessmen, the government was going to look after you. It looks after dozens of people like you as long as your closings serve the need of the government. That’s why your ‘broker’s’ operation was wiped out by the FBI. They had an agent in place in Telford’s operation. When they found out that Telford had been murdered by the Jesuits, they knew his insurance was going to hit the street. You’d be named in it and any investigation would show that the government was linked with you. Why do you think the FBI didn’t have a pursuit vehicle ready the day you forced Roselynne Delvecchio out of her house to meet you in the parking lot? Word had gone out: ‘No pursuit.’ The government has always been there behind the scenes helping you do the things they couldn’t. One of them told you that. ‘Mr. Helman? Nothing to worry about on this end.’ ”
Helman looked around the room without seeing.
“It’s all been a lie? No skill? No intelligence? I’ve been watched over since day one?”
“Since the beginning,” Weston agreed.
“So I had nothing to worry about when that package arrived at the farm? I could have told the thing on the phone to get lost and they would have sent the evidence to the authorities and the FBI or someone would have buried it?”
“You were protected.”
“None of this had to happen at all?” The two shocks Helman had been faced with were t
aking their toll. Weston could see signs of hysteria building in Helman.
“It has happened, Granger. And there’s still a chance we can beat it. Beat them.”
“Why should I help?”
“Because of Adrienne.” Helman had just said he wanted to get her out of the Father’s estate before the Conclave arrived. Weston sensed that something was building between them. He played on it. But Helman’s mind was elsewhere.
“She’s a vampire. Never met her. None of this happened.”
“Think of your nephews. We might still be able to save them.”
“Didn’t happen. They’re back in West Heparton.”
“How about saving millions, maybe billions of other lives?”
“Bullshit.”
“You wanted to know all about the Nevada Project the last time we talked. Still do?”
Helman smiled. It was a sneer. “Sure, Major. None of it’s ever going to happen. Why don’t you tell me all about the end of the world.” And Major Weston did.
It began with cats.
In 1961 a new breed of cat was discovered in a farmyard in Scotland. Its ears were limp and flopped forward on its head. The single kitten was spotted by a man with an interest in cats who recognised its uniqueness. The cat bred true. The man obtained one of its kittens, and the breed known as Scottish Fold began.
In 1962, the breed showed up in a subdivision outside of Indianapolis. Research, conducted after the importance of this finding was realised, indicated that the Scottish Fold mutation responsible for the new breed had turned up in more than sixteen separate locations around the world. In only one instance were two of the locations close enough for there to be the possibility that the mutation was caused by the same tomcat fathering two litters. In the other fourteen cases it was apparent that the mutation had arisen spontaneously and in no way were the litters in question related to each other. Later researchers were certain that the mutation had turned up in even more locations. But with only a small percentage of the world’s population of cats coming under the careful scrutiny of trained breeders and fanciers, they had gone unnoticed. Except for the one kitten in Scotland that had started a breed, and the one kitten in Indianapolis who had revealed to the world a horrifying future.
The kitten in Indianapolis had been noticed by a geneticist at Indiana University. In 1965 he read a report on the new Scottish Fold bred of cats from Scotland. He recalled his daughter’s friend also having a kitten similar to the one described three years earlier. The little girl still had the cat. The geneticist began to work on the problem of two seemingly identical mutations arising simultaneously over great distances. At first he kept his work to himself. He felt he might be on the verge of making a significant contribution to the study of genetics. He didn’t want another, better-equipped university to beat him in the rush to publish.
What he was looking for was the mechanism of evolution. He found it. The truth of it terrified him so much that he bypassed his university and went directly to the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. It took him three months to arrange a brief meeting with an official he considered high enough in rank to deal with his findings. His research and conclusions were elegant. The official was sceptical but could not ignore them. It took nine months for the government to confirm the geneticist’s findings. The Nevada Project was formed in the next five days.
Evolution was an accepted scientific fact. What was not accepted was an explanation for how it actually occurred. Many different theories had been constructed. Some described how small, individually unrecognisable changes would gradually build up over the generations until an apparent change slowly manifested itself. Others detailed how catastrophic mutations would dramatically result in a new species within one or two generations. No one theory seemed correct. And no one theory could explain how one change in one individual could so drastically affect the future of an entire species as the fossil records of the past showed.
That is what attracted the geneticist’s interest when he learned of the two mutations in Scotland and Indianapolis. Was there a means whereby a mutation was transmitted outside an individual’s body enabling it to arise within many members of a particular species in the course of only one generation? The answer was yes.
The geneticist had discovered a biological manifestation which he termed a mutation or m-virus.
Mutations were constantly occurring in the sex cells of all creatures on earth. The vast majority of them were meaningless because the genetic message was so scrambled it was ignored. Of the mutations that did carry recognisable genetic messages, the majority of them were fatal. Only one in many millions of mutations would actually be beneficial to a species.
And the way in which this one beneficial change in the genetic message could arise in one individual and go on to affect an entire species was by becoming an m-virus.
The body responded to the creation of a recognisable mutation, either beneficial or harmful, and manufactured duplicates of the tiny strands of DNA that the mutation affected. Like viruses, the bits of DNA were encased in protective protein shells and expelled from the body.
The m-viruses would then be quickly contracted by the entire population of a species.
When a beneficial m-virus travelled to a proper site in the host body, it would be incorporated into the genetic code of that body’s cells. The mutation would manifest itself in that individual and be passed on to the next generation. By allowing the identical mutation to be present in several individuals at once, the chances of its survival were appreciably increased.
The geneticist was excited with his findings. Similar theories had been proposed from time to time but there had never been a case of an observable mutation arising to confirm or deny the theories.
There was only one problem facing the geneticist before he could announce his discoveries: why wasn’t the world’s population of cats suddenly overrun with kittens of the Scottish Fold variety? When he had answered that question, he went immediately to the government.
When an m-virus was contracted by a host body of the proper species, it had to locate itself at the proper site within the body in order to be viable. If a genetic message attempted to transmit itself to improper receptor cells, the genetic material of the host cell was thrown into confusion. The resulting damage caused by the improper and accelerated reproduction of cells was almost inevitably fatal.
Thus the mechanism—the m-virus—which developed a beneficial mutation also ensured that the mutation would only be passed on by breeding with other individuals carrying the same altered genes, because it caused the extinction of all non-mutation carrying individuals who had contracted it.
The geneticist obtained biological samples from around the world to test for the presence of m-viruses. He even obtained fossil samples to test for the distinctive beta-tracings that would indicate that m-viruses had once existed within long-dead animals. He discovered that the m-virus mechanism of evolution was always occurring in some form or another in almost every species that existed, or had existed on earth. Sometimes it involved a random, simple mutation like the one which caused cats’ ears to flop forward.
But at certain times in a species’ history, the mechanism accelerated as though a built-in biological ‘clock’ was forcing a build-up in evolutionary pressure. M-viruses were produced at a staggering rate by virtually every individual in a given population. Mutations abounded, as did the incidence of m-viruses confusing genetic messages.
At such a time, dinosaurs died out within a generation. But beneficial m-viruses allowed some dinosaur species to rapidly evolve into birds. Other species which experienced this acceleration without developing a viable beneficial m-virus were completely wiped out of existence.
The human species was now in that accelerated stage of mutation.
The scientists knew this as evolution.
The public knew it as cancer.
The bottom line was that cancer was contagious and, over the next generation, 100% fatal.<
br />
The only survivors of the coming cancer plague would be those individuals who contracted an m-virus which located itself at a proper site and passed on its beneficial mutation characteristics.
The Nevada Project was able to determine that that proper mutation had already occurred, slightly more than two thousand years ago, probably in Greece.
The individuals who carried that altered genetic material called themselves yber.
In twenty years, they would be the only human species left alive.
Except for a world of vampires, the rest of humanity would be extinct.
***
The room was silent.
Soft sunlight glowed through the heavy orange and brown curtains that shut off the view of the parking lot. The two bound and gagged agents who had been surprised by Helman still lay unmoving. The blood had stopped trickling from the nose of one of them. Either the injury had not been serious or he was dead.
Weston and Helman stared into each other’s eyes in what seemed to be a duel of wills. Helman broke first.
“That’s insane,” he said and looked away from Weston. He got up and paced.
“Incredibly insane,” he continued. “It makes no sense. Doesn’t fit in with anything. Ridiculous.” He ran out of words.
“I agree with you,” said Weston. “It’s all of those things. And it’s also true.”
“Everything causes cancer. Sunlight. Headache pills. Cars. Asbestos. You name it. It’s all in black and white. Has been for years. How can you say it’s a contagious disease?”
“What you’re saying means that the Nevada Project has been doing its job well. What you believe about the nature of the disease is what we’ve made you believe.”
“That can’t be true.”
“It is, Granger. Almost twenty years ago this terrified little university researcher came cowering into the Department of Health. He told the same story. No one believed him but his research checked out. Cat mutations were springing up like weeds in the early sixties. Wire-hairs. No-hairs. Extra claws. No claws. And cats were dropping like flies from leukaemia. Feline leukaemia. Biggest killer of cats. And it’s infectious. Any vet in the world will tell you. And if it’s infectious in cats, why not humans? Incidence of it more than quadrupled when the mutations started. That’s what the Nevada Project was all about. Downplay it. Keep gathering the information. Assemble a scientific team that would continue discreet research. But keep it quiet from the public until we had an explanation and a cure.”
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