The Speed of Sound

by Eric Bernt

  “Not if I have anything to say about it.”

  “You don’t.”

  “Then why are we talking, Senator?”

  “Because you could.” He proceeded to outline a scenario that had been carefully scripted for him. The plan put more than a slight smile across her face.

  CHAPTER 110

  Harmony House, Woodbury, New Jersey, May 29, 8:31 a.m.

  The senior and most respected doctor on the grounds of Harmony House, Dr. Marcus Fenton, glanced out his office window the next morning. After spending much of the previous day at what was left of Michael Barnes’s residence, answering a repetitive litany of questions from a battery of Homeland Security agents and a pesky New York City detective, Fenton had decided to arrive in the office bright and early. Harmony House was his home. His sanctuary.

  At least for the moment.

  He watched as a limousine pulled up to the security gate at the facility’s main entrance, which was now being manned by one of several temporary security personnel employed by a third party with the proper government clearance. The firm, Oak Ridge Security, was the smallest of several competitors, but had been given a particularly strong endorsement from Senator Corbin Davis, whom Fenton had wanted to appease. He had assumed Davis had personal knowledge of the firm. That assumption could not have been further from the truth, but Fenton would never know. Due to the death of Michael Barnes and the still-unexplained disappearance of the rest of his security staff, Oak Ridge had been hired on an emergency basis twenty-four hours ago to provide the security needs for Harmony House until a more permanent solution could be worked out.

  Fenton wasn’t expecting anyone that morning, so he pressed the intercom on his desk. “Stephen, are we expecting anyone?”

  His assistant had no idea of the weekend’s goings-on. “No, sir, not until eleven thirty.”

  Fenton glanced at his desk clock. It was only 8:47. “Then find out who the hell just pulled through our front gate.”

  Before his assistant could get a response from the new gate guard, Fenton watched the limousine proceed to the building’s entrance. The driver got out and opened a rear passenger’s door. Senator Corbin Davis stepped out. Fenton knew this couldn’t be good. He stood up to greet the senator without waiting to see if anyone else got out of the limo.

  Stephen Millard was on the phone with the front security gate as Fenton left his office and walked right by him. Millard quickly cupped the phone. “Sir, it’s Senator Davis and—”

  “I know who it is,” Fenton interrupted tersely, heading into the front lobby toward his approaching guest. Fenton assumed Davis had come out to check on their temporary security arrangements. “Senator, what brings you all the way out here to Woodbury?”

  It was only now that Fenton saw Skylar Drummond walking behind Davis, which stopped the older doctor dead in his tracks.

  The senator’s response was cold and direct. “Let’s talk in your office.”

  Fenton didn’t take his eyes off Skylar. “I thought she was in federal custody.”

  The senator answered matter-of-factly. “I ordered her release.”

  Fenton’s hands started to shake. “What the hell is going on?”

  “The same thing that happens when a major drug bust turns out to be a truckload of baking soda. Changes are made so that it never happens again.”

  “You’re being oblique, Senator,” the doctor sniped.

  “Not for long. Like I said, your office.”

  Fenton closed his office door and sat down behind his desk as if this was going to be a meeting like any other. He glanced with suspicion at Skylar, then turned to Davis. “Does she need to be here?”

  The senator nodded. “She does.”

  “You do know that whatever claims she’s made are lies.”

  “She hasn’t made any claims.” Davis glanced at Skylar. “I have.”

  Skylar sat directly across from Fenton in the uncomfortable folding metal chair, just as she had done during her job interview, which now seemed so very long ago.

  Davis chose a more comfortable armchair as he addressed Fenton. “I’ll get right to the point. Pack up your things, Marcus. You’re fired.”

  Fenton hung his head, but didn’t say a word.

  The senator continued. “Dr. Drummond is here because I have asked her to be your temporary replacement until we can find a permanent one. She has graciously accepted, which means that as of this moment, she has operational control of this facility.”

  Fenton shook his head in disbelief. “This is ludicrous.” He glanced up to the ceiling to see if his world was literally caving in.

  Skylar stared across the desk at Marcus. She spoke with all the restraint she could muster. “You have thirty minutes to clear out your belongings.”

  Fenton slowly raised his head to look at her. “You can’t do this to me.”

  Skylar remained stone-faced. “Oh, but I can.”

  Corbin Davis smiled ever so slightly. “With my full support.”

  She stood up slowly, obviously relishing the moment, then looked him directly in the eyes. “If you are not off the premises by the time I return, I will have you escorted out by security personnel.” Skylar exited without another word.

  Weakly, Fenton asked the senator, “Why?”

  The senator got up and moved slowly around the office, glancing at the framed photographs of Fenton with various presidents and other notables. “You have wasted a lot of people’s valuable time, energy, and resources for years with this nonsense. This weekend was the last straw. You led us on a wild-goose chase over nothing. And you nearly ruined that young lady’s life.”

  “What exactly do you mean, ‘over nothing’?”

  “The goddamn technology doesn’t work. The echo box. It never has, and it probably never will.”

  Fenton sputtered. His world was spinning. “What the hell are you talking about? It does work. That’s why she fled. Look, whatever she told you—”

  Davis cut him off. “She didn’t tell me a damn thing, Marcus. I told her.” The senator moved to the door, where he paused to glance out the windows at several Homeland Security vehicles arriving at the facility. Fenton was about to speak, but Davis had no intention of listening to another word. “Homeland is arriving to take possession of all your computer records, both here and in your residence, so I wouldn’t plan on taking any with you. What you should consider is hiring the best lawyer you can find. Because if you or Michael Barnes were dumb enough to leave any kind of a trail, you’re going to need all the help you can get.”

  Corbin Davis glanced at the security guard manning the front gate as his limousine exited Harmony House grounds. The senator took out his encrypted phone and dialed Bob Stenson to report that Marcus Fenton had been relieved of his duties.

  Skylar had been suspicious from the moment Senator Davis had offered her Fenton’s job. Anything that sounds too good to be true always is. But how could she have said no? She would be getting revenge on the man who’d ordered her lover’s death, and would have unlimited access to Eddie, at least for the time being. Just over twenty-four hours ago, she’d been informed by an overly zealous Homeland Security agent that she would never see her patient again and was losing her rights as an American citizen. Now she had her dream job, which should have taken her another twenty years to achieve. Skylar guessed that the government was desperate to keep the situation contained. The last thing they wanted was her going public with her story and suing Homeland Security for false imprisonment. If they kept her happy, she’d remain quiet. That was the deal. In fact, she’d signed a confidentiality agreement to that effect.

  Skylar was certain there was more to the story, but realized she would most likely never know it. What she did know was that people changed their minds all the time. There was no guarantee how long she’d have free rein within Harmony House, so she was not about to waste time. She had to act while she had the opportunity.

  The moment she stepped inside her office, she wen
t right to the stack of storage boxes labeled Parks, Edward. She opened the first box, which contained his earliest records, and pulled out the first couple inches of folders. She riffled through them, looking for something specific. A phone number. Which she found in short order. And dialed.

  CHAPTER 111

  Dr. Marcus Fenton’s House, Pine Hill, New Jersey, May 29, 9:19 a.m.

  Federal agents had already been searching Marcus Fenton’s home for over thirty minutes by the time he pulled into his driveway. He parked directly behind their vehicles and got out, carrying with him the few keepsakes he had taken from Harmony House. These included several framed photographs of his deceased wife, Ruthie.

  To no one in particular, Fenton said he was going to hire the best lawyer he knew, who would readily put a stop to all this. He went inside to his home office, where he sat down behind his desk. His computer and all his technology had been removed. How dare they? Fenton placed the photographs on his empty desktop, then opened a drawer, which was not a drawer at all but the cover of a small safe with a combination lock. He turned the dial two rotations to the right, one to the left, and one to the right. He opened the safe and removed several notebooks. Behind them was a small jewelry box. Inside the box were two plain white pills. Each was 500 milligrams of a lethal, untraceable compound known only as KT-186. It was going to look like Marcus Fenton had a heart attack, which would be completely believable given the circumstances.

  Michael Barnes had had his escape plan. Marcus Fenton had his.

  He poured himself a glass of water and swallowed the pills. Both went down smoothly. Nothing happened immediately. He didn’t expect it to. He calmly closed the small jewelry box and placed it and the notebooks back inside the safe, which he then locked. He closed the small drawer, concealing the safe, and looked at one of the photographs of his wife. “See you soon.”

  Fenton’s heart stopped beating twenty seconds later. Agents would find him on the floor behind his desk several minutes afterward, in a puddle of his own bodily fluids. Paramedics arrived eleven minutes later. They would reach Jefferson Hospital in Stratford twenty-seven minutes after that. The once senior and most respected doctor on the grounds of Harmony House was pronounced dead at 10:07 a.m.

  CHAPTER 112

  Harmony House, Woodbury, New Jersey, May 29, 12:22 p.m.

  Skylar wouldn’t learn of Fenton’s death until later that night, by which time she wouldn’t be able to give the news the attention it deserved. She was too focused on Eddie’s return to Harmony House to give much focus to anything else. She was joined by Nurse Gloria in front of the facility’s main entrance as they waited for his arrival. Gloria was still suffering the effects of too much alcohol over the weekend. “Doctor, is it true?”

  Skylar played dumb. “Is what true?”

  The nurse appreciated the young doctor’s humility. “That you got Fenton’s job?”

  She nodded modestly. “It’s only temporary until they can find a more suitable replacement.”

  “Well, congratulations, anyway. It’s still a hell of a thing.” Gloria was already trying to figure out how to condense all this information into a brief text to her other employer later that day.

  The ambulance arrived with little fanfare. Lying on the gurney, Eddie remained comatose as the paramedics wheeled him back to his room. He stared blankly upward at nothing in particular. Concern was evident in Nurse Gloria’s face. She had never seen him like this. “How long has he been this way?”

  “Roughly thirty-six hours.”

  “Do you know what happened?”

  “I do,” was all Skylar replied.

  What bothered Gloria most was that the doctor now in charge of Harmony House showed such little concern for Eddie. Apparently now that she had the big job, the young doctor didn’t care about her patients like she used to. At least Fenton had pretended to care.

  When they got to Eddie’s room, Gloria was surprised to see that the echo box was already there. Which meant that it had arrived separately from Eddie. In the entire time she had known this very special patient, he had been separated from it on only a handful of occasions. “That’s strange.”

  Skylar asked innocently, “What?”

  “He took his box with him. I wonder how it got back here before him?”

  Skylar shrugged. “Homeland Security must have delivered it.”

  “Homeland Security? What were they doing with it?”

  “I don’t know. You’ll have to ask them.” She eyeballed the nurse for a moment, and then asked, “Would you mind excusing us? I’d like some privacy with him.”

  The nurse nodded and left the room, realizing that she might have to break her other employer’s rules and send two messages that day. Gloria just didn’t see any way she was going to fit all this new information into one brief message.

  Inside Eddie’s room, Skylar sat on the edge of Eddie’s bed as he continued staring vacantly at the ceiling. “You can stop acting now.”

  He continued staring at the ceiling. His eyes didn’t move.

  “Eddie?” A hint of concern crept into her voice just as his gaze turned slowly toward the echo box, which was positioned exactly where it had been the last time it was in his room.

  “I am becoming a good actor, don’t you think?”

  She smiled. “Yes, Eddie, I do. A very good one.”

  He closed his eyes. “Doesn’t it sound wonderful?” He was referring to the silence.

  “What’s wonderful is seeing you smile again.”

  He opened his eyes and looked around his room, feeling more comfortable than he had in days. He SIGHED with relief. “I’m glad to be back in my room.”

  “I’m glad you are, too.”

  “I don’t like the outside world.”

  “I can understand why.”

  Eddie sat up, staring at the echo box. He was wondering the same thing Nurse Gloria had. He got up and moved toward it, gently running his hands around the device and then the laptop supercomputer. He noticed the scratches where he had dropped them. “Somebody scratched them.”

  Skylar said, “You did.”

  “When did I scratch them?”

  “You dropped them outside your childhood home in Philadelphia when the agents pointed their guns at us.”

  Eddie kept looking around his room, anywhere but at Skylar. “I don’t remember dropping them.”

  “You were going into shock.”

  He thought for a moment, trying to remember. “I did not like going into shock.”

  She motioned to the two machines. “Were they damaged when they were dropped?”

  “I will check.” He popped open the laptop’s chassis and carefully inspected each component, as well as those in the echo box. Both devices appeared fine, and both started right up. He ran a brief series of diagnostics, which revealed all machine functions were operating normally. “They were not damaged, which is good because it means I won’t have to perform any repairs.”

  She paused a moment and carefully asked, “Eddie, do you know if the echo box is still working properly?” She knew it wasn’t, but was curious how he’d answer.

  “Yes, I do know.” He looked out the windows, wondering which of his bird friends would visit him first.

  She rephrased her question. “Is the echo box working properly?”

  He shook his head. “No.”

  She pretended to be confused. “But you just said neither device was damaged.”

  “That is correct. Neither device was damaged.”

  “Then why aren’t they working properly?”

  Eddie looked down at the floor as if he had done something wrong. “Because I made them not work properly.”

  She had already come to this conclusion on her own, but was still amazed to hear him confirm it. “Is that what you were doing on the train to Philadelphia?”

  He nodded.

  “Why did you do that?”

  “I did not want anyone taking the echo box away from me.”


  “But what about hearing your mother’s voice? What if we had gotten to your old address and your house was still there?”

  “The echo box is in here.” He pointed to his own forehead. “If my old house was still there, and the people who lived there had let us inside, I would have made the echo box work again.”

  “Just like that?”

  Eddie nodded. “Just like what?”

  “How long would it have taken you to make the echo box work again?”

  “Approximately as long as it took me on the train to Philadelphia when you fell asleep. Seventy-three minutes.” He looked at her briefly before turning back toward the windows, hoping to hear a chickadee or a bluebird or a grebe or even a starling. He was desperate to sing with the birds. And rate his next meal. And fill another notebook with questions and observations. “If I cannot hear my mother’s voice, I have no reason to make the echo box work again.”

  She inched closer to him because she wanted to whisper what she had to say next. It was a secret. A great big secret. And she wanted it to have all the impact this secret deserved. “There is still a way you can hear your mother’s voice.”

  Eddie perked up immediately. All of his sadness and melancholy suddenly seemed to disappear. He could barely contain himself. “How?” Skylar smiled in a very particular way. By now, he knew exactly what this expression meant. It was an easy one to memorize. “You’re going to ask me to trust you on this one, aren’t you?”

  Eddie sat in the wheelchair with utterly no expression on his face, just as Skylar had instructed, while she wheeled him briskly toward the Harmony House main entrance. The echo box and laptop supercomputer were both in his lap. They were ten feet from the door when a uniformed man in his late forties intercepted them. He spoke with a slow Tennessee drawl. “Excuse me, Dr. Drummond, may I be of some assistance?”

  “It would be great if you could hold the door open for us, thanks.”

  The guard did so, asking ever so politely, “May I ask where you’re going?”

  “I’m taking the patient off campus for some location therapy.”