Book of Cures (A Thomas McAlister Adventure 2)

by Hunt Kingsbury

  “Would it be okay if I took a look at your page? That way I’ll recognize the book if I ever find it.”

  “I memorized the formula and no longer need to refer to the page, though I do look at it from time to time to admire its beauty. Come back in four hours, at six o’clock. That is when I close the clinic, and I’ll show it to you.”

  “I can’t tell you how much we appreciate this, Dr. Li.”

  Dr. Li added, “I imagine they would have records at the temple. However, I would think the best place to look would be the Archive of Tibetan History at the Central Library in Lhasa. They have an excellent archive related to the history of medicine in Tibet. You’ll be surprised. Some of the data has even been digitized using grants from wealthy supporters. It’s very good. I’ve used it myself.”

  This was McAlister’s third trip to Tibet, and he’d already spent countless hours at the Archive. He nodded. “I’ve spent a lot of time there.”

  “Ah, you started this quest some time ago, then.”

  “Yes, only now a friend is very sick and it’s become urgent.”

  After shaking hands, Thomas and Dr. Bertram exited the tent, squinting in the hot midday sun.

  “How do you think he does it?” McAlister asked distractedly as they walked back to the jeep.

  “I don’t know. Could be one of any number of ways, if any real healing is even happening.”

  McAlister said, “The person who told me about Li said he’d recently read about something called neuroplasticity--a vision replacement therapy done by rewiring or rezoning neurons to help out when other are destroyed. They claimed the brain is not centrally wired, but rather exists in zones. These zones could be repurposed, rerouted.”

  “We still know relatively little about how the brain works. I guess anything’s possible. We should know a lot more in a few hours.”

  Chapter 19

  McAlister and Bertram stopped at a nearby food cart and ate rice, warm Tibetan yogurt, and tsamba--a mix of ground and roasted barley, tea, and other spices. Afterwards, they drove back down the path to a spot where they could pull off the road and catch up on a few hours of sleep before going back to meet Dr. Li at 6 p.m.

  Having had almost no sleep on the flight, McAlister slept like a rock until his watch alarm sounded at 5:45. He woke with a sense of dread, instinctively aware that something was catastrophically wrong.

  Clouds of black smoke drifted across the field in which they rested--far too much smoke to be coming from the neighboring campfires. McAlister smelled the putrid odor of burning paint and rubber. He’d smelled the same smell one time when he’d passed a burning car on a highway. It was the smell of something that was not designed to burn, and McAlister feared the worst.

  “Dr. Bertram, wake up. There’s a fire.”

  Bertram sat straight up. The breeze freshened, and as McAlister ran for the jeep, he noticed the hood was covered with thousands of small pieces of cinder that were floating down from the sky like delicate black snowflakes.

  As they started up the road toward the clinic, McAlister’s worst fear was confirmed. Smoke was pouring upward from the plateau where Dr. Li’s clinic was located. It looked like the mouth of a large, active volcano.

  As they neared the clinic, they could see patients running in all directions, like ants after their mound had been disturbed. They were running wildly with little pattern or purpose; the only uniting feature was the fanning out in all directions, away from the clinic.

  In minutes, McAlister pulled up to where they’d originally parked the jeep. It appeared that all was lost. The intense heat of the fire had melted the clinic’s corrugated metal walls, causing them to collapse inward. The roof had fallen in long ago. There were no public utilities, no fire department, no one to put out the fire.

  McAlister jumped from the jeep and ran to a small crowd of people who were throwing water on the fire.

  Surely Dr. Li hadn’t been inside.

  He ran to a man standing in front. “Was the doctor inside when the fire started? Was the doctor inside?” The man’s face was blank, clearly not comprehending English.

  McAlister turned and saw Dr. Bertram talking to a man standing away from the intense heat, a man who’d been watching, not helping like the others. After a few minutes Bertram walked over.

  “Between my poor Tibetan and his poor English, I was able to learn a little. It’s not good, Thomas. Dr. Li was still in the clinic when the fire broke out. As you might have suspected, the fire didn’t seem to originate in one place. It formed quickly around the perimeter, leaving no way in and no way out. He said they could hear screams inside, but couldn’t get through the wall of fire at the entrance.”

  “Dr. Li and his assistant were burned alive?”

  Bertram nodded. “Most likely the page from the Blue Beryl too.”

  The last bit of hope on McAlister’s face was hardening into a mask of cold objectivity. His presence at the clinic had set this in motion. Someone had burned this clinic down because he had visited it.

  “This was no accident,” McAlister whispered.

  Wanting to know more about the man he’d be working with, Dr. Bertram had learned as much as he could about McAlister’s background and temperament before agreeing to assist him with the project. He’d discovered that McAlister was a bright, accomplished, stubborn archeologist. Prior to this moment, he would not have thought McAlister capable of the animalistic rage contorting his features. It reminded Bertram of his own boss.

  Dr. Bertram was leaning over to ask a question but McAlister turned quickly and began surveying the crowd.

  “The arsonist, and murderer, couldn’t have gotten far.”

  He ran toward the people watching the remains of the blaze and began racing from one to the next, looking hard into each person’s eyes and asking them what had happened, asking if they’d seen anyone start a fire, or if anyone spoke English. No one did.

  Dr. Bertram watched for a minute, and then walked around to the rear of the building to see if he could find any clues as to what might have happened. There were hundreds of footprints in the dirt that led in and out of the back door, but none remarkable or distinct from the others.

  McAlister, his sweaty face flecked with tiny pieces of black cinder, came jogging around the corner and almost ran over the much smaller man. “Find anything back here?”

  “Nothing of interest. Any luck in front?”

  “No. No one speaks English.”

  McAlister looked at what remained of the rear of the building. The tin was black and had fallen inward. The chests of gifts and bales of plants and herbs that had lined the rear walls of the clinic had burned to ash.

  “With no water and no precipitation, it could be at least a day before we can get into this building to try some sort of post-fire analysis. Even then, after this extreme heat, I don’t think we’ll find much.”

  “I’m afraid you’re right,” Bertram answered.

  The building had fallen so low McAlister could see over the top of it. There were still people on the other side watching the still-burning fire and the smoke. Their faces morphed and twisted as the heat bent the air molecules. Many stood palms forward, absorbing the heat.

  The onlookers stood waiting, as if Dr. Li would magically emerge from the flames to continue his healing. They’d live forever knowing they’d missed being treated, missed being cured, by only a few hours. Now it was likely they’d be blind for the rest of their earthly lives.

  As McAlister surveyed the crowd, he knew that the person who had started this fire, committed two murders, and stolen the healing page from the Blue Beryl was watching from somewhere out there.

  McAlister and Bertram walked slowly back to the front of the clinic. This was McAlister’s wake-up call, his shot across the bow. In one swift motion, someone had killed the healer and taken the cure, ensuring that he or she alone would hold the power to heal.

  It couldn’t have been anyone of European descent. In Tibet, among this crowd,
a European would’ve stood out like an albino. It had to be someone indigenous to this area --someone with a dark complexion and dark hair. Whoever it was had been ruthless and cunning, and up to this point had known exactly what McAlister’s next move would be.

  McAlister trudged back to the jeep. He leaned against the roll bar, thinking about the timing. He’d led whoever had done this directly to Dr. Li. He was to blame. he hadn’t even known he was being followed.

  He turned to Dr. Bertram to ask how anyone could have traced them out of New York, when suddenly he heard a metallic clanking noise behind him.

  He felt something hit his left wrist, the wrist closest to the jeep, and then heard an ominous click.

  Instinctively, while spinning, he pulled his hand away from the roll bar, but it wouldn’t budge.

  He saw a shiny chrome-plated handcuff digging into his wrist, one side around his wrist, the other attached to the jeep’s roll-bar.

  Shocked, he turned to see who’d just handcuffed him to his jeep.

  A clean-cut man in standard-issue khaki CIA field pants and a blue denim safari shirt was standing behind him. The man was white and completely out of place here in the valley outside of Lhasa.

  McAlister considered a front-kick to the groin. The man would fall forward, enabling McAlister to reach the key to the handcuffs. However, as he turned, the guy read him and took a smooth step backwards, out of range.

  To his right, Bertram already had his hands on the hood of the jeep, while another agent frisked him. When finished, he neatly handcuffed Bertram to the jeep’s roll-bar on the other side. Within twenty seconds they were both immobilized. Secured.

  “Thomas McAlister?”

  McAlister had never seen the man before, but the voice was familiar. “Yes.”

  “I’m Detective O’Brian, New York Police Department. That man is Agent McMannis, CIA field operative, Asia. You’re under arrest for breaking into and stealing hazardous materials from the New York Biomedical Research Center. I’ll be escorting you back to New York on the next plane to the States, right after we have a talk about where you hid the virus and why that building over there just burned to the ground.”

  McAlister covertly pulled the handcuff. O’Brian had left no slack; the more pressure he applied, the more it cut into his skin. He looked down, shook his head and then glanced back up at the detective.

  O’Brian raised a satellite phone, depressed a button on the side of the phone, and said, “McAlister is in custody.”

  Chapter 20

  With a degree of calm and confidence only a sociopath can possess, the Clone stood perfectly still as he watched McAlister and Bertram inspect the rubble on the other side of the burning clinic. They would find nothing.

  He could feel the warmth from the fire on his face and hands and it reminded him not to stand too close, lest his makeup melt and run.

  He stood with the others, people indigenous to the Yalong Valley. He was wearing carefully selected garments guaranteed to ensure perfect integration. He wore a traditional chuba--a large robe-like garment made of wool with silk lining in the sleeves--with an old pair of rai-som boots, normally worn by monks or people of a slightly higher social station.

  All of his garments had been purchased earlier that day and were exactly what a Tibetan man his age would wear. The tan head wrap that covered his left eye was wrapped and folded precisely as if it had been put on by a blind man who’d lived in Tibet all of his life. He’d seen another one-eyed man in the plaza wearing a head wrap the same way, and he’d deemed it more authentic than an eye patch.

  Though the assemblage and preparation of his disguise was skillful and artistic, it amounted to nothing--less than nothing. Anyone could purchase any of the garments on the street, just as he had done, each at a separate shop so he wouldn’t be remembered, and most anyone could put them on correctly after observing locals. The accomplishment that made him feel warm inside, the feat that made him proud of his disguise, was his makeup.

  After his youth spent in the circus, Uri became an actor in an Eastern European theater group. He became a master of face sculpture and theatrical makeup. On nights when he had nowhere else to go, he’d often stay in the barren, rat-infested backstage dressing closets, mixing cornstarch, cold cream, water, and food coloring to concoct his own makeup. He became an expert at obtaining just the right consistency, blending the colors perfectly, and applying them to his face with precision.

  Back then, he’d use anything he could find as prosthetics to change the contours of his face, including pieces of Styrofoam or clay he dug from the ground. Eventually, the other members of the group had recognized his talent and began coming to him for help with their stage makeup. After a time, so many asked for his help that it became overwhelming, and he began to charge money. That was the beginning of how he’d gotten out.

  His proficiency as a self-trained acrobat, combined with his costume and makeup artistry, had gotten him noticed by a Spetsnaz recruiter. Spetznaz was Russia’s Special Forces program. Equivalent to the US Delta Force, Spetznaz operators were some of the most well-trained and feared operators on the planet. Uri had specialized in close-quarter spying, infiltration, and assassination.

  He’d learned much at Spetznaz and had stayed longer than most of the other operatives. He considered it an easy life, compared to the homelessness and abuse of his youth. Eventually, however, he realized that the real money was in America. In America he’d make more money doing corporate espionage and government contracting--black ops--in one year than he could’ve earned in a lifetime at Spetznaz.

  Now he used only the best products, many originally developed for the Star Wars movies by George Lucas’ company Industrial Light and Magic. For prosthetics and sculpting, he used a state-of-the-art quick-drying gelatin of his own design, which was made with highest-grade commercial solvents. If he had to improvise, he’d use liquid or foam latex; both were easy to come by.

  In his luggage he always carried small bags of clay, plasters, slip casting latex, and ultraCal 130, a tooling gypsum excellent for making molds. He also carried a wide assortment of horsehair, all the same length, held tightly together with large rubber bands, perfect for crafting beards such as the one he was wearing today.

  The need to blend perfectly, immediately after committing two murders, made today’s disguise especially important. He’d referred to a photo he’d taken of a local man as he transformed himself. While McAlister and Bertram napped, he was preparing today’s disguise--and he was happy with it. He’d chosen the name Wanddue, which he’d learned meant conqueror.

  He’d started with his face, using a dark skin tone and long black eyebrows and lashes. He’d used the clay to widen his nose, making it look flat, like a Mongol’s. Then the mustache. It had to be perfect, and it was. He’d put it on hair by hair, relishing each one, knowing how good it would look and anticipating how well he could deceive everyone. After his face was complete, he had worked on the head wrap.

  After adding dark brown contact lenses, he’d rented a scooter. A car would have attracted far too much attention. Then, he loitered among the potential patients, eventually moving to the rear of the clinic to crouch in the shadows and wait for the doctor and his assistant to finish and move to the back of the building.

  Uri was an expert in pressure-point striking, and his sharp, glancing blows across Dr. Li’s jugular (known as the ”stomach nine” point among martial artists) had sent a wave of blood crashing toward Li’s brain, tricking it into thinking his blood pressure was spiking. In response, the brain immediately caused Li to faint--the typical response when the body urgently needs to lower its own blood pressure.

  As Dr. Li collapsed, his assistant turned to run, and Uri struck her on the back of the skull, low, where it connected to the neck. She fell like a bag of potatoes.

  Uri quickly located the page from the Blue Beryl, which Dr. Li had inserted in between pages of a book inside a small case he carried. Uri then arranged the bodies in the
middle of the room and liberally poured heating oil around the perimeter of the room, concentrating on the doorways and the bodies. Then he set it all on fire.

  He was careful not to let any of the activity damage his disguise in any way. His disguise was his escape, plus it would enable him to watch from the crowd after it was all over. And he urgently wanted to watch.

  Now he stood doing just that, basking in the glow of success he felt around and inside himself. Minutes earlier, McAlister had walked up to him and looked into his eyes and asked if he spoke English, or if he’d seen anything. He’d wanted to kiss McAlister. The thrill of the interaction was still with him, lightly reverberating through his central nervous system, concentrating in his pelvis.

  It had been orgasmic, that infinitesimal moment when McAlister had looked at him--only him and no one else--and still not realized or even suspected he was an Eastern European in disguise. He would cherish that moment forever.

  The feeling was close--not the same, but close--to the feeling he’d have when he buried his newly-poured steel fangs deep into McAlister’s throat. At the thought of that, a rush of sweet adrenaline swept through his body and his penis became erect under the robe. That would have to wait. He forced himself back to the moment, reminding himself to cherish it. He always needed to remind himself not to be so forward-looking.

  It was at that moment that he saw the trouble.

  Behind the crowd, Uri saw McAlister and his assistant Bertram handcuffed to McAlister’s jeep.

  Uri took a few steps toward them, studying the two Anglos who had apprehended them.

  He instantly knew it involved the virus theft in New York. Uri had no idea how they’d caught up with McAlister so quickly, and in such a faraway locale, but one thing was certain: he could not let McAlister be captured.

  McAlister alone could find the book his employer wanted so badly; he must not be detained. Hadn’t he warned Mortimar that the frame had been too good? Hadn’t he explained to them that international manhunts were easier than ever, and that they should give McAlister more of a head start?