The color was just coming back into Ely’s face. “That is very realistic,” he said. “I’ve never seen one like it.”
“No? I have them made special. For those who depart alive. Here. A memento of your visit.” He tossed the derringer-lighter to Ely.
They puffed in silence for a while. A heavy cigarette smoker, Ely had never tasted a genuine long-leaf, hand-rolled Havana. It was like drinking thick hot chocolate after a lifetime of weak tea.
“You were saying about a straw man,” Villanueva said.
“Nothing bad, señor. It means only that she lied about you.”
“Big mistake. Al-Harani was old, infirm, far away. Powerless. Me, I am young, healthy, close, and very powerful.”
Speaking of his power pleased Villanueva. He took a long, loving pull and sighed out a blue cloud. At length, he spoke again.
“Let us share a toast.” Villanueva snapped his fingers, and a beauty approached. She removed the top from a brass urn on the table between them, put a tablespoon of cocaine on a mirror, and cut six perfect lines. The woman started to leave, but Villanueva said, “Wait. Come here.”
The woman was tall, with chocolate skin and shining black hair. She stood by Villanueva’s lounge. He grasped one of her breasts and squeezed until she gasped. He pinched her nipple between his thumbnail and forefinger until blood seeped out. The woman stood, trembling, silent. Villanueva let go of her breast, waved her away, and looked at his guest.
“You are wondering, Why did he do that?”
Fearing the result of any response, Ely only shrugged.
Villanueva smiled, turned toward the lines. “My finest brown. Ninety percent pure,” he said. “Any stronger would ruin our noses.” He leaned over, snorted two lines, offered a clean glass straw. The guest indulged. The cocaine hit before he settled back into his chair. He went completely away for an instant, then came back to something in his brain like an orgasm without end. His skull felt like a stretching balloon. When he laughed, it was hard to stop.
“Very, very fine,” Ely said, afraid he was floating off the lounge.
“Before you go, I have something to show you. Come along.”
Flanked by bodyguards, they followed a curving forest path to a white cottage with green shutters and a veranda laced with purple vines. Inside, a guard opened the door to the back room. The guest followed Villanueva in, then gasped and jumped back.
A naked man lay on a brass bed, his wrists and ankles lashed to its frame. He had black eyes with no sanity left in them and not an inch of skin on his body. His mouth was open and chest heaving, but only animal moans came out.
“I could hear the screams from my house,” Villanueva said irritably. “So we had to remove his tongue. His name is Poblado. A banker who stole from me.” He flicked ash from his cigar. “The stench is offensive, no? Señor Poblado will die soon, thankfully.”
“The gift did this?” Ely had heard its potential described. Hearing it and seeing it were different things.
“The Russians at Biopreparat did good work. The Pakistanis paid some of their former scientists handsomely for the gift, and I paid better to obtain it from them. They had videos, of course, but who can trust Pakistanis? So I try it on Señor Poblado here.” He snickered. “It works.”
“How long did it take?”
“Twenty-four hours, más o menos.”
“Very impressive.” In the hot, small room, the smell was unspeakable; Ely was trying hard not to vomit. “What is it?”
“I will try to say it right. Streptoleprae pyogene. A leprosy and streptococcus hybrid. Leprosy loves to eat skin and flesh, but slowly. Streptococcus is less voracious but much faster. But who can remember such a name? We call it El Desollador.”
“I’m sorry. What does that mean?”
“The Skinner.”
“I’m assuming it’s not aerosol-transmissible.”
“By contact only. A beautiful thing. I told you I could obtain this. You see that I am a man of my word.”
“I never doubted.”
“Now you must prove to be a man of your word.”
“You will not be disappointed.”
“Reassure me.”
“The woman in the cave will bring your gift back to Washington, where I will deliver it to my friend.”
“And that person can use this to kill Laning?”
“Oh yes.”
“And he will do this because …”
“Because, Señor Villanueva, he hates Laning even more than we do.”
Villanueva nodded slowly, then more quickly.
Suddenly there was a flash, making Ely jump. One of the guards had taken a picture of Poblado with an old-fashioned Polaroid camera. It rolled out a print, which Villanueva examined briefly before handing to Ely.
“Another memento,” he said. “To help you keep your word.”
3
The high altar in Washington, D.C.’s National Cathedral was carved of stone from Solomon’s Quarry near Jerusalem. Hence the creation’s official name, “Jerusalem Altar.” It was ivory-colored, 30 feet tall, 105 feet wide, and its 110 sculpted figures surrounded the radiant face of Christ.
Every weekend, thousands of visitors kicked up storms of dust. By Monday morning, the altar’s pale saints and icons wore dark cloaks of dirt. Cathedral vergers took turns cleaning the altar, and it was not a popular job, requiring them to teeter atop a twenty-five-foot stepladder with feather duster and polishing cloth. Today was Head Verger Henry Backer’s turn. Backer had started as a lowly apprentice sexton—a janitor, really—in 1967 and never left. He could have delegated the chore to an underverger, but the idea had never occurred to him. The cathedral was God’s house, and it was also Backer’s. Medieval vergers lived in their cathedrals, and so did Backer, down on the crypt level in a neat, clean room with bed, table, chair, and bookcase.
He was perched atop that spindly ladder, dusting Saint Benedict’s head, when someone called up, “Henry, may I speak with you, please?”
If it had been anyone else, he would have snapped at them to wait until he was finished. But the Most Reverend Bishop could not be ignored. He climbed down, brushed dust from his gray hair and black suit, and stood before Suzanne Newberry.
“How may I help you, Bishop?”
“There have been complaints about the Resurrection Chapel downstairs.”
“What kind of complaints?”
“Reverend Chase can give you specifics.”
“You asked me to climb down off that ladder for this? I have my hands very full preparing for the president’s visit.”
People did not speak to the Most Reverend Bishop that way. She resisted the urge to snap back and instead thanked God for testing her patience. “I was passing and didn’t want to shout. The chapel will open for visitors soon.”
“I’ve been taking care of it for forty-five years. I know when it opens. It will be ready for visitors, rest assured. Is there anything else?”
“No, that’s all. Thank you.”
He started back up, and Newberry was alarmed by the old ladder’s creaks and shakes. “Henry, would you like me to steady this thing?”
Without looking down, he said, “No need. I’m quite used to it.”
“Well, please requisition a new one. I don’t think this is safe.”
Newberry sighed and walked on. She had come to preside over the cathedral just this year, and was still learning about her people there. Despite his long service, Backer’s file was one of the thinnest, revealing that he was an orphan, had some kind of learning disability, was a high school dropout, and had worked at the cathedral forever.
They were so different. Backer was old, and she was young. He was uneducated; she held a Princeton doctorate. He took his Bible literally, and she believed that God bestowed brains for thinking. Probably most important, though: he was a man, and she was not. He did not—or could not—conceal his dislike. At first, she thought it might have been just her as a woman bishop, but in the passing month
s she had seen that it was women, period.
As long as he did his job well, she could accept Backer’s manner. But recently she had seen him talking to himself while working. Perhaps he was praying—Backer was the most obsessively devout man she had ever met. He would have made a good flagellant, when that was still allowed. Sometimes, though, he also made strange faces and gestures. Or perhaps it was early Alzheimer’s, though he was a bit young for that.
Still, she could not fault his work, and the undervergers seemed happy enough, though she suspected they might be too afraid to complain about him. Ultimately, she decided, patience was the lesson here. Time and death would purge women haters like Henry Backer from the church. Until then, she could only pray for them and goad gently when they strayed from the Path.
4
“Next item on the agenda,” President Justine Laning said. “National Cathedral, Easter Sunday service. In at eight, out by nine-fifteen.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said press secretary Blair Lee. “The Service assures a smooth visit. In and out under two hours, guaranteed.” Laning looked up from her chair at the Oval Office coffee table. Journalists called her striking and severe. She had been an All-American lacrosse player for Stanford before taking her JD degree from Columbia, and at fifty-two she retained a spare and athletic beauty. Like a diamond, Justine Laning was arresting to behold but had edges that could cut clean and deep. She rarely raised her voice, but when she spoke in a certain tone every brain in the room snapped to attention.
“Not two, Blair. One and a quarter, tell them. The eggs roll at eleven, and we will not be late for the children of dead soldiers, clear?”
“Clear, Madame President,” Lee said. Tall, powerfully built, he had been CNN’s White House reporter before joining the president’s team.
“I’m looking forward to this,” Laning said. “It will be a very special day. Thanks to, of all people, Speaker Deroche.”
“For a conservative, the man has a good head and a good heart,” said Vice President Rand Marshall. His own head was shaved and laced with red scars, and his voice would always sound like gravel being shoveled—both compliments of Desert Storm shrapnel.
“Right on both counts,” Laning said. “And good ideas as well.”
“Even I have to agree,” said the rabidly partisan Lee. “It’s simple, but brilliant. ‘Get people of different faiths and political stripes together and’ … how did he put it?”
“ ‘Gather the divided under God’s roof and let Him join them together,’ ” Laning said. “You know what surprised me most about Deroche’s invitation?” Lee asked.
“That it came from a Republican,” Marshall said.
“That I could find no ulterior motive. I did try, believe me.”
“I’m sure you did. Always on the lookout for those, Blair?” Laning said.
“With all due respect, ma’am, is there any other kind?”
She smiled. Behind closed doors, Laning was not loath to shed the mask of command. “Once in a great while, apparently. And do you know what else? Amica and Leanna love singing hymns at the cathedral.” She was referring to her daughters, fourteen and sixteen. “Me, too, for that matter.”
Marshall coughed and examined his Mont Blanc. He and Lee exchanged glances. Laning watched them over the rim of her cup. She was a damn good president, but cursed with one of the worst singing voices ever to haunt the White House. She let the moment linger, then laughed. “Don’t worry, I’ll restrain myself at the proper time. I’ve become very good at lip-synching.”
“Thank you, Madame President!”
Day Five: Tuesday
5
A pale, heavy-set man with curly black hair came into Hallie’s hospital room. Pressed khakis, white shirt, blue blazer, a red-and-gold striped tie. “Hello, Dr. Leland. I’m Agent Luciano, with the FBI. The doctors told you I would be coming?”
She nodded. Two days before, she had emerged from Talisto Cave exhausted, dehydrated, possibly concussed. A Mexican search-and-rescue team medevacked her to Oaxaca’s capital, and the next day a government jet flew her back to Washington, where doctors admitted her to Bethesda Naval Hospital for observation.
Luciano was opening his briefcase, fumbling for tape recorder and legal pad, but his eyes kept darting to Hallie. Tall, slim, and square-shouldered, she had fine hair cut very short, so blond it looked almost white in certain lights. An angular face in which dark-turquoise eyes were not perfectly aligned, the left just slightly higher than the right. The left eyebrow was arched higher, too, which made her default expression quizzical. Her philtrum—the space between her upper lip and nose—was slightly shorter than average, so that when her face was completely relaxed, her lips remained parted by a tiny, crescent-shaped space.
Hallie put Luciano in the middle of his thirties and his career. He had a cop’s hard, unyielding eyes, but his tone was kind enough as he apologized for interviewing Hallie here.
“People I work for got a call from State,” Luciano said.
“Is that unusual?” she asked.
“Not when two federal employees die under suspicious circumstances doing government business in a foreign country.”
Hallie didn’t like the sound of that, and she had never been awed by authority, even the vaunted FBI. “What do you mean, ‘suspicious’? One had an accident; the other took his own life.”
Luciano was unruffled. “Three elements constitute ‘suspicious’ in relation to a death. Involvement of crime or accident; absence of prior medical prognosis; and death caused by trauma. Here we appear to have all three. Like I said, I’m just here to gather facts. Somebody else will do the sorting out.”
With the machine recording, Luciano identified himself, noted the time, date, and location, and asked his first question: “Please state the origin and purpose of the Talisto Cave expedition.”
“It was my understanding that it originated with a research proposal from Dr. Ely. Aquifers were his area, and he thought Talisto Cave might connect with one. His proposal included a virologist—Dr. Halsted—and a microbiologist.”
“Why were you picked?”
“Talisto is a supercave thousands of feet deep, with miles of passages. There aren’t many microbiologists in the world qualified to work in a cave like that. Fewer still in the U.S.”
“How many such expeditions have you been on, Dr. Leland?”
“This was number nineteen. Or maybe twenty. In China, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, the Czech Republic, Mexico, and all over the U.S.”
“What were you looking for, specifically?”
“Extremophiles—organisms that thrive in ultrahostile environments.”
“And why?”
“We need new antibiotics, and they might be a good source.”
“Did you find any?”
“I retrieved viable samples of one.”
“When did you start back out?”
“We had been in the cave five days by then. I don’t know the date.”
“What was the condition of your party?”
“Devan Halsted was having trouble with the vertical pitches. And he had severe diarrhea, which weakened him.”
“What happened to Dr. Halsted?”
“He fell trying to rappel a cliff face.”
“How far?”
“A hundred and fifty feet.”
Luciano’s expression changed for the first time. “In a cave?”
“A supercave,” Hallie corrected. “That’s not really big for such a cave. Five-hundred-foot walls are common.”
“Do you know what caused his death?”
“The landing.”
He looked up, but her expression remained serious. “Sorry. Let me rephrase. What caused his fall?”
“It appeared that he set up his rappel rack incorrectly. It’s called the death rig.” He gave her a yellow pad and she sketched. “We buried Devan and climbed up until we couldn’t go any farther. We had to rest.”
“How well did you know Dr. Halste
d?”
“I hadn’t met either of them until just before the expedition. They knew each other. I’m not sure if it was work or personal. But whichever, Kurt did not deal well with Devan’s death.”
“Is that common? For strangers to undertake an expedition like this?”
“Yes. Often you need scientists in specific disciplines with unusual skills, like diving or climbing. In this case, it was caving. You get used to working with new people.”
“You said Dr. Ely wasn’t dealing well with the other man’s death?”
“He felt responsible.”
Luciano’s head came up again. “Really? Why?”
She explained.
Luciano said, “Did you agree with him?”
“I didn’t tell him that. It could have sent him over the edge, and I needed him stable enough to get out. But he was right, technically. Protocol requires a senior caver to check gear of the less experienced.”
“Please go on.”
“I went to sleep, and when I woke up Kurt was gone. He left a note, which I believe you have.”
“I do,” Luciano answered. “What do you think happened to Dr. Ely?”
“I think the note says it. He was overcome with grief and guilt.”
“That hardly seems reason enough to take his own life.”
“Have you ever been in a big cave?”
“I’m claustrophobic. I can’t even think about it.”
“They affect you in strange ways.”
“I’m not following.”
“It’s hard to explain. But one thing they do is amplify emotions.”
“So Dr. Ely’s guilt might have been exaggerated?”
“His grief, too.”
“Why didn’t you go after Dr. Ely?”
She explained about the twenty-four-hour wait.
“Was a rescue operation mounted at any point?” Luciano asked.
“I understand they requested one when we were overdue. That Mexican team arrived at base camp about when I came out. Good thing, too.”
Lethal Expedition (Short Story) Page 2