Twelve Days

by Steven Barnes

  And that was when anger failed, when all the fear and grief and guilt descended on her with crushing force, and she collapsed against him, sobbing.

  * * *

  The Pirates muttered and slumped in their SUV, morose and somehow inert. “Let’s hear that again.” Geek replayed the sound of the struggle. Christ, it was awful. And the sound of the family sobbing was even worse.

  “What in the hell is going on?” Geek said.

  “The kid?” Even Pat seemed disturbed, like a man who has peered around the corner and glimpsed something unspeakable.

  “The kid has something to do with this, that’s for sure,” Geek said.

  “But what?” Mark said.

  “Hell if I know. I’m betting that the mom works for CNS, right? She has a source that knows something about the killings, something that connects these people, and they’re using her family to force her to talk.”

  Mark grunted. “That really makes sense to you?”

  “No,” Geek said, “but it’s all I’ve got.”

  “What do we do?”

  Mark cursed under his breath. “Let’s check out this Salvation Sanctuary place.”

  “Already have.” He spun around his laptop. “It was originally the Baskins gold mine. Approximately a hundred thousand kilos of gold were removed from the ground before it petered out in about 1908. Afterward, it was owned by a succession of rich kooks, purchased in 1999 by the current group.”

  “And who are they?” Mark asked.

  “The ‘Salvation Sanctuary’ is a bunch of New Agey types. Meditation, yoga, martial arts, Eastern philosophical stuff. And they follow a woman named Madame Gupta, who is supposed to be a very unusual person, physically. Same person we heard Terry talk about, and she doesn’t sound very friendly. The vehicle we thought was a plainclothes cop or DHS—it was registered to the Sanctuary and the cops just gave up an armed suspect to them. That was weird, but not as weird as Gupta.”

  “Gupta is weird how?” Mark asked.

  Geek could hardly believe he was about to say this. “They say she can lift over five thousand pounds. With one arm.”

  Mark drew back. “What the fuck?”

  “Special rig, so we’re talking overhead bone support. But still, the implication is rather frightening. She’s a freak.”

  “How is this our business?”

  Geek smiled for the first time all day. “And they also say that the center houses the most expensive esoteric book collection in the world.”

  That caught Lee’s attention. “How rare?”

  “Valued at … fifty million dollars.”

  “Fifty…?” Mark said, and for the first time, he smiled, too. “Well, hey, now!”

  “Let’s take a look.”

  They pulled out.

  * * *

  In a perfectly spaced chain, the convoy pulled through the gates of the Salvation Sanctuary. Save for the core security detail, the entire encampment was deserted now, and in desertion possessed a flavor vaguely reminiscent of a prison camp.

  “Where’s Marty?” the gate guard asked Tony Killinger.

  He’d wondered that himself. Why hadn’t Marty called? “Back at the house, cleaning up. Why?” He knew why. They needed to know if they’d left anything that could identify them. Could bitch-slap them before their plans were complete. The wrong interference could make things a little chancy.

  “Give him a call,” Tony said.

  The cars pulled through, and the gate closed behind them.

  The guard picked up his phone. Dialed it. “Come on, bro.”

  * * *

  The ringing phone echoed around a cabin that no longer held a living human being. Marty was sprawled on his back, eyes frozen open. The blood oozed now, no longer pumping from his torn throat. The pump, the beating heart, was stilled. Pax paced the floor in ovals, limping a bit. Whining. The roar in her head was gone, the big red-black thing that had swept her away when she saw the man who had hurt her was gone. But …

  She had done a bad thing, a very bad thing. Would the girl still love her? Still feed her? She hoped so. Pax had bitten a man before, when he had been trying to hurt the girl, and the girl had still loved Pax. She had to find the girl and see if she was angry. See if Pax was still a good dog.

  Where was the girl? She couldn’t find her.

  She trotted out the front door, into the snow. Pax barked. Nothing. Traveled in larger circles, following footprints. Nothing. The fire in her blood, roused by the kill, only slowly began to recede.

  Then … she picked up a familiar scent. Pax had cut across the original path of footprints Olympia and Hannibal had left fleeing from the Salvation Sanctuary.

  Not the girl, but the boy! And … the woman! This was almost as good. Almost. Heartened, Pax backtracked along the trail, seeking its origin. Following it backward, yes. But following nonetheless.

  * * *

  Numbed to silence, Olympia observed their return to Salvation Sanctuary as through a sheet of ice.

  The world was dead. Library, amphitheater, dorms, maze.… all deserted.

  “Yes, deserted,” Tony said. “You have it all to yourself now. Feel honored?”

  The security car pulled up to the main admin building, three o’clock on the nose. Terry had roused himself to wakefulness, somehow emerging from sleep to waking without any apparent trace of grogginess …

  * * *

  For an odd instant she wondered if he had ever been unconscious at all. Tony pulled his stun gun and held it to Nicki’s head. “Now … this stun dart is designed to send fifty thousand volts at low amperage, sufficient to disable a grown man when directed into the center of his body. They promise that it will cause no permanent harm. If you want to find out if that holds true for a thirteen-year-old girl when she’s shot in the head at close range, just make a move.”

  “I won’t cause any trouble,” Terry swore.

  “No, you won’t. I heard you have clever feet. Is that right?”

  “I’m trained,” Terry said. Indeed he was, Olympia thought. And he was … special now. She could sense it. Feel it. Something deep and pervasive had shifted within Terry. And with that growing realization came a spark of hope. If these monsters made one mistake, just one …

  They had a chance. Terry would find a way, she knew it.

  “Well, isn’t that special?” Killinger said. “You’re going to let my man put the shackles on your ankles. And remember the little girl pays for it if you make a mistake.”

  “I won’t,” Terry said.

  “That’s good. Keep it that way.” Maureen Skotak attached the chains to Terry’s ankles.

  “Good,” Tony said. “Now move.”

  The family left the car. They walked to the administration building, and there waited … Madame Gupta. This time, the first thing that Olympia noticed were the gloves she wore half-way down her forearms.

  “Greetings,” she said. “Welcome back.”

  “So it’s true,” Terry said, his face a mask of pain and betrayal. But not merely those negative emotions. Something else smoldered in there as well.

  Fury. Barely leashed.

  “What is true? That I seek to free the world from an illusion? To awaken it from a dream?”

  “You’re just another monster.” His words contained more pain than venom.

  “The world itself is monstrous. No great thing has ever been accomplished without monstrosity.”

  “That’s pretty fucked-up.”

  She approached closer, smiled. “Even as we speak, rabbits are being torn apart in the woods by wolves … and all is well. I did not make this world, God did. But I will live in it.”

  She came to Hannibal, who would not look at her. “Little one. I know you can hear me. See me. As none of these others can.”

  “Leave my boy alone,” Olympia said.

  Gupta brought her gaze upon Olympia, and the impact was like a punch between the eyes. Olympia felt her knees buckle, but fought her way upright again. “Do not t
hink me merely the frail flesh standing before you. Do not think that because we once honored your relationship with Hannibal, you will receive the same treatment now. Our research suggests that he loves this man. And that he is closer to your daughter than he is to you. Do you understand the implications?”

  Olympia grew very still. “What?”

  Gupta came closer, and whispered. “It means that I can destroy one of you. Even two. Merely to prove that I am serious. And that, then, I believe that Hannibal will know I am serious, and do as I ask to save the one who remains.”

  Hannibal’s head lolled like a rag doll’s. He seemed barely aware of anything around him.

  “He doesn’t know what you want!” Olympia begged. “Don’t you see him?”

  “As you do not. When you listen to the radio, do you mistake the static for the signal?”

  “She listens to FM,” Nicki said.

  “Charming.” Madame Gupta smiled. And lowered her voice. “Hannibal is in there, make no mistake. The difficulty is in reaching him, or in drawing his communications to the surface. You have failed him. I have not. I will not. Do not force me to replace his mother. Or his sister.”

  Olympia trembled, clamped her teeth down to prevent them from chattering. Gupta had them all now. Heaven only knew what plans she might have, how far she was willing to go. “What is all this about?” she asked. Please. Information. Please.

  “You need not know,” Gupta said. “Know only that my purpose will not be denied. I have waited all my life for this moment. My mother and father died before they could see it. And you, and your family, can die here, now, and my purpose will go forward. It is up to you.”

  “You’re insane.”

  “I understand your perspective. Will you yield?”

  Olympia looked at Hannibal. He was muttering to himself, eyes staring, but what he saw, or imagined he saw, she could not imagine. Terry. Nicki. Olivia dropped her eyes in defeat.

  “Good. Good,” Gupta said. “You have saved your family a great deal of pain.” A moment’s consideration and then: “Take the family to confinement,” she said. “Keep them under constant observation.”

  For once, the lanky head of security seemed uncertain. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Free his hands,” she said, indicating Terry.

  Tony looked dubious. “I … mean no disrespect, ma’am. Ah mean, ah know what you’re capable of…”

  “No,” she said. “You don’t.”

  He nodded. “That might be true. But this man is extremely dangerous. Based on police reports I recommend that the chains be kept on.” An odd mixture of emotions warred in his eyes. “Unless you think that might get in the way.”

  Gupta smiled thinly. “Take them off. If there is misbehavior, the family will suffer for it.”

  “Where are you taking him?” Terry asked.

  “It is safer if you don’t know.” Gupta again motioned for her men to release Terry to her.

  She led him clockwise around the garden, all the way to the castle. There, she invited him to step into the elevator.

  They rode up to the top level, and exited through a narrow hallway. Gupta punched a four-digit code into a diamond-shaped key pad and the door slid open. The apartment within was like a wealthy gloater’s private museum. Or an artist’s private studio, hung with the fruits of an untrammeled imagination she dared share with no one, ever. Anywhere. He wondered how many people … how many men had ever been here.

  “Why am I here?”

  She ignored the question. “Do you take wine?” Without awaiting an answer she pulled two stainless steel wine glasses from a cooler and poured from a carafe. Something about her mood and aspect had changed. She seemed so small, the top of her head barely reaching his chin. Softer. More feminine. Almost as if she were presenting him with different angles on her psyche.

  He took an offered glass, but waited until she sipped to join her. “I spend much time alone,” she said. “Having followers is intoxicating. It is also isolating.”

  “I can understand that,” Terry said. He drank.

  “When this is all over, I will be one of the wealthiest women in the world.”

  “When what is over? What exactly are you doing?”

  She smiled. “Beauty is mysterious as well as terrible,” she said. “A lady must have her secrets.”

  “The full quote is: ‘Beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and devil are fighting there, and the battlefield is the heart of man.’ That’s from The Brothers Karamazov. Read it.”

  “I myself have not,” she said, pleased. “You have things to teach me. That is wonderful.”

  “Peachy,” he said. Damn it, he’d pulled that quote out of a college lit class, and had hoped to … he didn’t know. Impress her? Get a rise? She’d just rolled with it.

  “But know,” she continued, “that this is the beginning of an era. A great teacher must have flair, a touch of the dramatist’s art.”

  “And you are a great teacher?”

  “The greatest since Gandhi,” she said, as if reciting an article of faith. “When this act is over, there will be a pause, a chance for the audience to take a breath. And then the next sequence will begin, and it will be … magnificent. I will change the world.”

  She came closer. “I will take the greatest dreams of conquerors, and shame them.”

  “How?”

  Another smile. “Think of it. Wave after wave of deaths, and much of the world now believing that the end is coming. What will result in the financial markets?”

  “Devastation,” Terry said.

  “Yes. And what do you think a person who anticipated this, and knew that the world was not ending, and that those markets would recover fully once the pattern of deaths ended … what do you imagine such a person could do with, say, fifty million dollars to invest in various stock futures? I can tell you: reap over twelve billion dollars. And that is a conservative estimation.”

  He blinked. “You mean … all of this, and you’re just another scam artist?”

  “Hardly ‘just another.’” She smiled. “I would think you’d agree that there is an impressive elegance to it all. I will emerge fabulously wealthy. Were I to do the same thing again … and I assure you I could … I could be the wealthiest human being who has ever lived. And after I have rocked the world until it cowers in the shadows of their antediluvian belief systems, mumbling prayers to their fathers in the sky, seeking salvation … I will sally forth, a golden creature representing every value human beings treasure, be they spiritual, physical, or financial.”

  Or sensual, he thought. Everything about her stimulated him, on almost every level. Fear, rage, desire, all in a toxic tangle. God damn, this woman is amazing.

  “There has never been a teacher like me, Terry. Can you deny it?” The impact of her will was like a velvet hammer. She paused, as if she herself was overwhelmed by the strength of her vision. “The West will suffer for rejecting the East. India will suffer for what it did to my people.”

  A pause, then she leaned closer. “You love this country. This ‘America’ of yours. And … it has been good to me, as well. But can you tell me there is no part of you that wishes vengeance for what it did to your people? Our people.”

  Terry chose his words carefully. “You mean, if there was a button, and I could push it, would I reverse the history? Sure I would. In a heartbeat. Be fun to watch the squawking, especially from the assholes who think white people would have done better. But do you mean do I want to hurt millions of people I swore to defend? Hell, no.”

  “But why did you feel compelled to defend people who deny you your humanity?”

  Terry felt his neck getting warm, but calmed himself. “Life is shitty, princess. But anger is poison if you can’t use it as fuel. And it’s just fear, wearing a mask. My daddy taught me that. And taught me to surround myself with people who didn’t give as much of a shit about my skin as they do about theirs, and the fact that I can save it. That’s something fairly rare i
n human history, and I think it’s worth protecting.” He paused. “Let me put it another way. There’s a line from an old John Wayne movie: ‘I won’t be wronged, I won’t be insulted, I won’t be laid a hand on. I don’t do these things to other men, and I require the same of them.’” A wan smile. “That’s me. My daddy said that if everyone took care of his family and the families to either side, the whole world would work. Well, I found a little world where we trust each other to do just that. There are still problems, but it’s with the people. The machine cares more about how strong a cog is, and if it can handle the job, than what color it is. I can deal with that.”

  She shook her head in wonderment. “I never had eyes to see America as you have. Perhaps I see its failings more clearly than its strengths. But with your eyes, your voice … I might understand more. I wonder … do you love this country enough to help it? What is a warrior? What a shame if it is someone who must continually search for war.”

  “What do you want from me?” he asked. He was solid in his beliefs. He had thought through every link in his argument. But although she could not rebut him, he felt as if he was falling through a fog.

  She was very, very close now. “All I have ever dreamed will come to me. Power. Money. Fame. The worshipping crowd. And they will swallow me whole, unless I have one thing.”

  “What is that?”

  Her hand was a smooth warmth along the inside of his thigh. “Something to keep me human. I will be an empress. I will need … an emperor.”

  Her eyes locked with his as she backed away, and stood beside a golden statue of the gods Shiva and Shakti, their limbs intertwined. Her robe shimmered in the light. Her body within it was perfection. She was … had to be … at least fifty years old … perhaps sixty. Impossible. Wasn’t it?

  “And such a man would need not fear for the family he already loves. And would help me to create a new family.” He felt intoxicated, barely able to stand … except for one part of his anatomy, which was experiencing its own very localized epiphany. He felt some force or power radiating from her he could not name: not a scent, not a sensation, not a sound. Something that communicated with him on a different, more primal level. Something against which he had no defense.