Jacob's Trouble 666

by Terry James

  "We've got to get settled so I can figure it all out," he said, partially to change the subject within his own mind to force the guilt over his own insensitivity from his thoughts.

  Jacob's head burned where the sensor had been removed, as did the muscles of his mid-back, and his hip and thigh on the right side. It was a vicious consequence of nerve tautness that could be relieved only by time free from the constant pressure of having to avoid contact with his pursuers.

  It was, at the same time, foolish and logical that he came back to the place of his first time away from home, when at 18 he had left the safe womb of Stone Oaks to enter Harvard. Foolish, because if they had a comprehensive dossier on him, and surely they must, they knew that McLean and Stone Oaks, Boston, and Cambridge were the places he felt closest to and therefore might expect him to return. Logical, because it was home, and here he could find friends he could depend on for help, like Francis Lodierman. His tormentors' biographical file marked “Jacob Zen” might not go back so far as to include Francis, he convinced himself while trying to find the old brownstone home among the newer, unfamiliar structures near Kendall Square.

  His inverse logic in coming here was that, they knew he was aware that they expected him to come to the Boston-Cambridge area and so, he would not; therefore he did. It just might work to thwart their own devious plottings. Still, they might scan the area for the limited-range biosensor just in case.

  His reverse psychology might work on normal minds, in normal times; however, he was faced with the abnormal in both cases. No. His pursuers would kick over any and all rocks where their prey might hide.

  "Francis was fun, not demanding, like the people I was used to," Jacob said without being prompted by Melissa, who, like he instructed, looked over the building-cluttered block for the house he had described.

  "She always listened when you had a problem. Gave you the right answers and made you believe it was the easiest way out of whatever mess you'd gotten yourself into, whether it was or not. I met her my second year at Harvard. She was 35 and married to a man 15 years older who died not long after I met her. He was in bed with some guy. Died of a heart attack. I was living in a dorm on campus, but talked Uncle Conrad into letting me move to the house Francis' husband left her. She was the first woman I'd been around to any extent since my mother died. Uncle Conrad gave his permission to move off campus, but was too busy to supervise my selection of an apartment. When he finally did find out I'd moved not just into the house, but into Francis' apartment with her, he really raised the devil, I can tell you. But, you know when he met Francis, within 10 minutes he was loving her as much as I did. She's like that. Something about her you love the second you meet her.

  "A 19-year-old boy or a world-acclaimed diplomat, it made no difference. She never changed her way of treating people. There was never anything intimate between us. Never. Something as good, though. Maybe better, more fulfilling. I became a man during those two school years spent with Francis. I learned that people aren't merely things you use to achieve your profits in life, but are to hold, and comfort, and to take comfort from. I needed that learning time with her."

  "When did you last see her?" Melissa saw softness in his eyes for the first time since she had removed the biosensor, and heard gentleness in his voice.

  "More than five years ago, I'm sorry to say. And it's my loss."

  "Is that the house?"

  He stopped the wagon in the middle of the deserted street and they both strained to see through the darkness. While lights could be seen as nearby as MIT to the west and the buildings between First Street and Commercial Avenue to the east, the immediate area surrounding Francis Lodierman's home was apparently without power. A yellow glow, created by the lights of downtown Boston to the south, gave meager and diffractive illumination to the old house.

  The time it took to drive the remaining yards of broken concrete leading up to the house brought quite different thoughts. A closer look presented a badly deteriorating structure, which seemed in a death struggle with its own disrepair to stand straight and strong like it once did when life pulsed and flowed in abundance through its many living places. What about Francis? The house so grossly neglected, not at all like the woman who was Victorian in devotion to appearance. "Looks like it's vacant, Jacob."

  Had the cataclysm claimed her, too? Not Francis, too.

  A faint light shone in the distance where the hallway reached its narrowest point in perspective. It was probably emerging from the room he remembered as being the dining area. There was no sign of life while he stood with his face close to the tiny rectangles of thick, beveled glass in the door. When he knocked for the third time with the tarnished corrosion-pitted knocker, the light spilling into the hallway brightened and someone appeared from the opening in the wall where the dining room should be. It was a thin female figure in a floor-length robe or gown, carrying a lamp whose flame silhouetted rather than fully illuminated the woman moving slowly toward them. She hesitated before opening the door only a few inches, peering at them through the crack with pale gray eyes, their irises an unhealthy yellow in the flickering light. She said nothing.

  "We're looking for a lady who lives here, or who once lived here. Her name is..."

  The face! Gaunt and wrinkled. Jaundiced, like the eyes. Her hair more gray than brown, and brittle. It was! "Francis?!"

  "What do you want here?" The voice gravelly, like one that had spent a lifetime enduring cigarette smoke, or was the victim of a severe hormonal change that had robbed it of its youthfulness. Her words were slurred and issued in a tone that evidenced extreme fatigue.

  "I'm Jacob, Francis."

  "Jacob?... Jake?!" The skin of the woman's forehead wrinkled in puzzlement, the lines running across its yellowed expanse becoming deep creases. "Is that you, Jake?" Her eyes filled with tears that refused to spill from their bottom lids.

  "Oh, Francis... What in the name of..." Unable to complete his expression of saddened disbelief, he embraced her; she spoke in a sing-song, child-like way.

  "I'm supposed to tell them you are here. They will stop hurting me if I tell them you are here."

  He felt her going limp and snatched the oil lamp from her hand, at the same time supporting her weight. Melissa took the lamp from him and he scooped Francis up and carried her to a sofa just off the foyer.

  "She's in bad shape," he said, running his fingers caringly over her face, not knowing what else to do. "She's only 46 or 47... I can't believe she's aged like this!" He felt Francis stiffen.

  "Jacob... My dearest Jake..." The words were nearly inaudible; she reached feebly to take his hand, then pulled it to her withered lips and kissed it. She began crying in a convulsive, high-pitched whine like a distraught child might make.

  "Shssh... I'm here, Francis. I'm here. Don't talk just yet."

  Straining to speak, despite his admonishment, her eyes grew large; she shook her head vigorously, indicating no. "I must! I must! They want me to tell them when you come to me... or they said they would..."

  "Who? Who wants you to tell them?"

  She again shook her head negatively, her deeply creased lips moving but saying nothing. Her eyes seemed to clear when she regained a degree of sensibility; the words came more easily to her. "You must leave... Now!" She squeezed his arm.

  "They think they've taken over my will. They think I will help them find you."

  "What have they done to you?"

  "All kinds of machinery... Makes me do things I don't want to do," she whispered, her eyes bugging wildly, her head and shoulders rising involuntarily then relaxing. "Oh, Jake!... Can't let them do this to you... to..."

  "She's fainted again, Jacob. I've seen this kind of seizure before. It might be drug-induced," Melissa said, holding back the woman's eyelids to check her pupils.

  "I've got to get her out of here. They'll be coming for her again. You think it's okay to move her?"

  "She was walking, and still recognized you. She'll be better off than she w
ould if she stayed here, that's for sure."

  Such was his conclusion already, and his mind raced ahead to other matters. He nodded approval although not really hearing Melissa's words.

  "I'll find some of her things as quickly as I can, and bring a wet towel for her face."

  Dawn was breaking while he guided the station wagon down State 28, the route he chose because there was less traffic on the road at this entrance point than on State 24 a mile farther west. That he had been so careful in the selection of this road, and yet so stupid as to not get rid of the biosensor by planting it in a vehicle heading in some other direction, was the paradox pre-eminently stabbing his mind. That, and the question: Why had he chosen Brockton to, he hoped, find a place where he could plan how to best use the biosensor against his enemy — which, he decided silently, explained the paradox.

  Now that he was certain his pursuers were in the Boston area, it was imperative to do something with the device. The thing to be done was clear; but how to do it, when time to learn so much that must be learned, and time to make crucial decisions that must be made, was so limited. It remained as murky as the red-orange haze that hung angrily between the wagon and the rising sun on their left. Through the mind-fog of how it was to be done, the thought of what to do remained clear: Put them off the scent and, at the same time, infiltrate.

  "I think she's sick, Jacob. Can't we stop and let her get some air?"

  He looked in the rearview mirror, seeing the chalky-white face of the woman whose head bobbed about with the bumping of the station wagon on the poorly maintained road. "Did she tell you she's sick?"

  "She hasn't said anything. Nothing that's coherent. But stopping might help her. I think she might have motion sickness."

  He guided the car onto the narrow shoulder and brought it to a stop. "You think she can stand for a minute?"

  "I believe so, but she's awfully weak."

  "Let's get her out." He half-lifted, half-dragged the limp woman from the rear of the wagon, then supported her while encouraging her to stand. Francis seemed to grow stronger.

  "Take a deep breath, sweetheart. Try to stand on your own and walk a bit. Can you do that?"

  Francis nodded affirmatively and her eyes shown with increased coherence. Jacob's attention snapped to the eastern sky, hearing the faint thump of what could only be a helicopter's engine. Its landing lights came on almost in the same instant he recognized the sound. The chopper swooped quickly to within 100 feet of them and sat down easily in the yellow-brown grass. Its engine calming and its blades slowing to idling speed.

  His inclination was to push Francis into the back of the station wagon and try to get away from the machine, which sat glaringly--a gigantic bird of prey waiting for its intended victim to flush.

  "They've found us, Jacob! What can we do?" Melissa stood between him and the helicopter's beam, looking to him for the answer. But the terrain afforded no chance of escape from the predator squatting in the heavy grass, staring at them with its three painfully brilliant eyes and growling, its cold breath whipping about their legs.

  "There's nothing we can do! It will be okay!" Jacob shouted above the growl.

  Through the whirlwind of debris, a man, holding his cap to his head with one hand, hurried toward them. No guns. Only one man. Reason for hope.

  "Need some help?" the man said when he reached them, looking quickly at each face. His expression brightened at the same moment his eyes met Jacob's. "Is that you, Jake?... Jacob Zen!"

  "Kerry?"

  "The same!" The tall man grabbed Jacob's hand and pumped it vigorously.

  "What are you doing out here?"

  "Headed for Brockton. My friend here got sick, so we stopped. How about you? You find your family? Are they okay?"

  The pilot said nothing, his eyes taking on a far-away look.

  After introducing Melissa, Jacob left her with Francis and walked with the man until the helicopter's noise no longer hampered their conversation.

  "I haven't rested since I let you off... Been looking all over New England. All the relatives... they're gone... Like the rest, I guess." Kerry Vinchey's moist eyes had a look that only inconsolable inner pain could elicit. Jacob put a hand on Vinchey's shoulder.

  "Kerry, there's nothing I can say, I know. Like I told you on the way from D.C., I've been crazy with worry about Karen."

  For some reason he felt it right to let his new friend in on what his own life had been like since the disaster. Maybe that would help Kerry Vinchey cope; perhaps sharing with another man would generate new energy within himself to carry on. Nothing he could divulge would make things worse. Even in the event that Vinchey was somehow tied to the Naxos enemy — and that was a possibility, because twice this man with the helicopter had crossed his path at a crucial juncture — a release from his nightmare existence might ultimately be preferable to his agonizing struggle through it.

  "The only good thing in this mess is the FAA can't control flying. I've been able to go just about anywhere I want to without filing flight plans. The Feds have too many other things going on right now to worry with one lousy helicopter. That won't last long, though. They're moving fast on this 'Executive Order' thing. We're in a state of martial law."

  His friend had changed the subject, probably to keep from breaking down in front of Jacob. But the subject the pilot chose to extricate himself would have seemed, if Jacob believed in such things, supernaturally predestined to enter their conversation at this moment. Jacob's simmering plan suddenly gelled when the pilot, himself floundering without direction, was added to the ingredients, and the helicopter.

  "You asked what I'm doing here, Kerry. Once I tell you, I think we might be able to help each other."

  "Sure."

  "Do you have access to fuel for the copter?"

  "There are deserted stations, and some small airports that've been abandoned, from here all the way to the coast. And it's probably like that all over the country. Only problem is, the radios have been abandoned, too. But I have some charts that can help me locate quite a few places, and I can set the chopper down just about anywhere. I do most of my own maintenance. Getting parts is a problem, though."

  Vinchey appeared to know instinctively that the things Jacob was talking about went much deeper than their casual conversational tone suggested. Despite the pilot's calm words, it was obvious he very much wanted the help a mutual effort might bring. Still, Jacob's cautious side kept prodding his thoughts. The pilot's fortuitous crossing of his path at critical junctures. A Naxos ploy?

  Yet the very fact that the coincidences were so improbable made it unlikely. Vinchey could be a part of any Naxos deception. And, there was no reason, at least no reason he could fathom, why the Naxos group would string him along, when they could capture him and wring out of him anything they wished, at any moment they chose, if the pilot was their agent. Something in Kerry Vinchey's eyes, reflections of Jacob's own hurting, of pain, the depths to which only a father's love for his missing children could descend. Little to lose by trusting this man.

  "Give me a chance to finish before you decide I'm out of my mind. Or maybe I am... But hear me anyway."

  The pilot's expression did not change while he was told all that Jacob knew, all he suspected. Like when he emptied his emotions on Melissa's ears, retelling it now soothed his own nerves. The burden shared, its weight redistributed across yet another set of shoulders. Even if Vinchey did not accept Jacob's fears as credible, the telling of them felt good while they stood near the helicopter, watching the occasional traffic move along the highway.

  The sun was fully up now, and despite the haze, they could make out the structures across the field. "You really believe the disappearance thing has something to do with that preacher's idea about Biblical prophecy?" Vinchey's tone said he wanted to accept Jacob's view. Said the pilot had struggled with his own rationalizations, but after bumping into many dead-ends, he was ready to explore the less rational.

  "Is the biblical prophecy a
ngle any more unbelievable than the fact that it happened, than the garbage they're trying to feed everybody? An evolutionary leap into some higher cosmic realm for the worthy. A punishment for others. All determined by some Great Universal Mind..."

  "There are other theories about what caused it."

  "And the official explanation is as unbelievable as any of them. I've got to get inside, Kerry, and find out what's going on. I'm limited now, but your helicopter can give me, give us, the ability to put distance between them and us, quickly. That's important to the first part of my plan."

  "But why single you out? Look, I believe you when you tell me somebody tried to kill you. That they've taken Karen. But why you?"

  "It's all tied up somehow with Hugo Marchek and the prophecies. At first, I thought it was because of my ties to Conrad Wilson and the government, their need to do away with all nationalism, and to get control of our nuclear forces. But they've got all that. When the President disappeared and the fabric of society in the United States disintegrated, the European States — this Naxos group, usurped, absorbed this country's essence with the blessings of Grant Halifax. And they still want me. What can I, one person, possibly do to threaten them? They wouldn't go to all the trouble they've gone to just to get revenge."

  Vinchey toed the pebbles on the barren spot where the men stood, then knelt to pick up a few of the stones while deeply in thought. "What about that tracking device? They'll be able to follow you as long as you have it. And why haven't they already been drawn to it, if it's still operating?"

  "When I flew with you, we took the thing out of their range so quickly, they lost contact. For some reason, they have trouble relocating its signal when it moves rapidly. That's one reason your copter can be of use... to move out of their range quickly. It forces them to guess, rather than know in advance where I'm going next. You saw what they did to Francis. That was one of their guesses.