After a painfully long pause Nicolora finally said, “Let’s leave this dirty business behind us for the rest of evening, shall we?” Then, staring brazenly across the table at her stark cleavage framed by the plunging “V” neckline of her emerald-colored dress, he added, “Let’s talk about something more stimulating. You look ravishing. Is that a new dress?”
Chapter Forty-Three
Eyam, England
Four months later
JULIE WIPED A stream of tears from her cheeks. “I miss you, Will,” she whispered.
Huddled under her umbrella, she watched raindrops stream down the hewn granite headstone. Today was the third time she had come to Eyam to visit Will’s grave since his death. It was also the third time she had been unable to fight back the tears. Losing him had been harder on her than she ever imagined it would be. She was taking life one day at time.
She had moved to London and taken a new job with a small bio-technology consulting firm, hoping to make a fresh start. She had not tendered a written resignation to Wien Bioscience, nor did she receive a termination letter. Apparently, the terms of her departure were mutually implicit. Her final direct deposit payment was prorated to the date she had taken Will’s blood sample to the lab and had it analyzed by Bart Bennett. She wondered whatever became of Bart.
She had not heard from Meredith Morley again, although sometimes she had nightmares of picking up the phone to make a call, but instead of a dial tone being greeted by Meredith’s bone-chilling voice. Because of the dreams, she had changed her mobile number. Whether it was prudent or paranoid she didn’t care; it made her feel safer.
The enigmatic crew who had orchestrated her rescue at the Karlskirche had vanished from her life as suddenly and mysteriously as they had appeared. The events of that night were so surreal and disjointed; she still had trouble stitching her memories together into a cogent narrative. One minute she was cradling Will in her arms, surrounded by the American agents who had just risked their lives to save her. The next, she was alone, arguing with a cadre of Viennese police officers and paramedics. The officer in charge at the scene had refused to let her accompany Will on the life-flight helicopter that fateful night. Instead, he had ordered her taken to a nearby precinct for questioning. After twelve hours of intense interrogation at the hands of the Austrian police, she had been abruptly discharged, with no charges filed against her.
For the next three days, Julie had stormed the city, trying to learn what had become of Will. But no one could—or would—answer her questions. She had checked every hospital in a sixty kilometer radius from the Karlskirche, but found no record of a man matching Will’s description being admitted with a gunshot wound to the chest. Most upsetting, however, was when she was told by a senior official that there was no record of a life-flight helicopter pickup at the Karlskirche on the night Will was shot. At every turn, her crusade was stymied.
The final rebuke came four days later, when she returned to the police precinct where she had been interrogated, only to learn that the OIC from the scene had been transferred to another division in Strasbourg. When she asked to speak with the precinct chief, the reception attendant said the chief was “prohibited” from discussing the details of the case with anyone and that her request for an audience was denied.
Fourteen days passed, with no news about Will. Then, on the fifteenth day, she received a most unexpected visitor at her apartment: Xavier Pope. Her initial reaction had been to slam the door in his face. Through the closed door, he’d politely and persistently pressed her—saying repeatedly that he refused to leave until she gave him a chance to “say his piece.” But it was the urn he held that swayed her, not the begging. To her astonishment, they talked for over an hour. Pope freely corroborated certain elements of Will’s story and adamantly denied others. She had scrutinized Pope’s every word and asked him the tough questions, but he never balked. After they had dispensed with the past, she opened the door to the present. Where had the life-flight helicopter taken Will? Why could she find no record of his hospital admittance in all of Vienna? Why was nobody talking about the events of that night? Pope took all her questions in stride. He explained that because of the perceived biosafety risks associated with the case, the Austrian Armed Forces had been tasked with locating and securing Foster. From what he had learned, Will had not been loaded into a life-flight helicopter that night, but rather into an Austrian military helicopter. He had been transported to a military hospital for emergency medical care, but, regrettably, had died en route. Pope went on to say that the Austrian military unilaterally made the decision to cremate Will’s body … for biosafety reasons.
The details and emotion in Pope’s story seemed genuine, and this left her confounded. On the one hand, she wanted to hate Pope, hold him responsible for all the pain she was feeling, all the pain he had caused Will. But on the other hand, Pope was the only person from Vyrogen who had reached out to her, apologized, and offered her closure.
Before leaving that night, Pope made a last and final gesture of goodwill. He explained that even though he had resigned from Vyrogen, he felt personally accountable for Will’s death. As such, he insisted that he pay for all of Will’s funeral expenses. An act of contrition, he had called it. Catatonic with grief and shock, she had graciously accepted. She instructed that Will’s ashes be buried in Eyam, in the same cemetery as his ancestors. Something told her he would have wanted it that way. What remained of Will’s legacy she decided to leave in Professor Johansen’s capable hands. She informed Johansen of Will’s decision to publish his genome, and instructed him to post Will’s immunity mutation on the Internet as “open source code” so all the world could benefit from his gift. During their last conversation, Johansen had told Julie that Will’s dream was still very much alive, and that he had recently obtained grant money from the university to sequence Will’s entire genome. Will’s sacrifice would not be in vain, he had promised her.
Of this fact, she was certain.
Meandering out of her daydream, she became aware that she was gently running her hand along her stomach, feeling the bump beneath the fabric of her raincoat. She was showing now. She’d already completed her first trimester and had her first ultrasound. Everything was normal. The baby was perfect. Beautiful. Watching the monitor that day had been the saddest, happiest moment of her life.
When she asked about the gender, the doctor had said it was too soon to tell. No matter, she knew it was a boy. She would call him Will … just as she had his father.
Epilogue
United States Army Medical Research Institute
of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID)
Fort Detrick, Maryland
“IS HE BRAIN-DEAD?”
“No. He’s in a medically sustained coma, but that’s technically not the same as brain-dead,” Xavier Pope replied, staring down at the gray body lying on a lone hospital bed.
An orchestra of automated commotion set an unnerving cadence in the room. Machines whirred, and monitors beeped. IVs dripped, and fluids pumped. Pope frowned.
There would be no miraculous escape this time.
He looked apprehensively at the figure standing next to him. Given the cloak-and-dagger communication protocols the Curator had insisted on over the past several months, Pope had imagined a very different character. His preconceptions were of the “Men in Black” variety: hyper-masculine, dark glasses, dark suit, and a humorless face chiseled from stone. He had been wrong about everything, except for the face chiseled from stone bit. First of all, the Curator was not a he. The woman beside him bore no resemblance to the stereotypical agency spook. To the contrary, she looked like the poster child for a World War II Nazi Aryan eugenics program. Her mane of shoulder length hair was the color of the midday Nordic sun. The white business dress she wore was fitted and tailored just above the knee, showing off her tight, sinewy calf muscles. She stood perfectly erect, and her square shoulders and taut stomach added an aura of military bearing. What struck him most w
ere her eyes, so pale and cold they seemed carved from a glacier, shimmering, and arctic blue.
“Have you resumed the work you were conducting for Vyrogen?” the woman asked.
“Yes.”
“Good.” She reached in to her handbag and retrieved a mobile phone. She pressed a button on the touch screen. “The Curator would like to speak with you,” she said plainly, handing him the phone.
Pope raised an eyebrow. “I thought you were the Curator?”
She smirked, seemingly pleased by his misconception. “No. I am his right hand.”
Pope took her mobile phone and raised it to his ear. “This is Xavier Pope.”
A coarse and curious voice said, “Dr. Pope, I understand from Myrh that your transition into the new position at USAMRIID has been seamless?”
“Yes, it has. Thank you for asking. And thank you for rescuing my career. I know I left a trail of red tape in my wake … complicating things.”
“Red tape is easy to cut, if you have a sharp pair of scissors,” said the voice. “Now, I want to make sure that going forward, we are on the proverbial same page. Understood?”
Pope shifted his weight nervously from leg to leg.
“I’m listening, sir.”
“Do you understand that the test subject is the property of the United States Army now?”
“Yes.”
“And that even though you are a civilian, you work for the United States Army?”
“Yes, of course.”
“And that you also work for me.”
“Um, no, I was not aware of that.”
“I was afraid that detail might not have been made clear to you. No matter, I will explain. Until your debt to me is paid, you serve two masters: the United States of America, and me. Is that clear, Dr. Pope?”
“Yes,” Pope replied.
“Good. These are my instructions, so listen very carefully. You will finish your research on the mutation within eighteen months. You will turn over the findings to your USAMRIID department head at that time. However, you will deliver a viable product, your methods, and all of your research data to me within nine months time.”
“I don’t understand. How am I supposed to finish the work in eighteen months, but …”
The Curator interrupted him. “The room you presently occupy is under surveillance Doctor, so choose your words more carefully.”
“I’m sorry. What you said doesn’t make any sense.”
“It makes perfect sense. My deadline is nine months. The USAMRIID deadline will be set at eighteen months. You answer to me, first and foremost. I gave you your life back, and I am the one keeping the wolves at bay, but I can just as easily take away that which I have given. Cross me, and the pain and humiliation you’ll suffer will be terrible. Is that clear?”
Pope nodded and answered, “Yes.”
“Good,” the voice said, satisfied. “One last thing, Dr. Pope. A storm is coming. When it does, if you’ve paid your debt to me, I will give you shelter.”
“Thank you,” Pope replied, confused. Then he added, awkwardly, “I won’t let you down.”
The line was already dead. He glanced at the phone’s LCD screen, hoping to catch a glimpse of the caller ID, but the text displayed read “BLOCKED.” He handed the phone back to the woman the Curator had called Myrh. Her glacier eyes sent an unnerving chill down his spine. He took a step back, increasing the space between them.
She held her stare, overtly passing judgment, before returning her gaze to the subject of her visit.
“What is his name?” she asked, staring at the comatose patient.
Pope paused before answering. Certainly, she knew the answer to her question. That meant the question had to be a test, the first of many tests in his new life. He chose his words carefully.
“His name … is Patient-65.”
Acknowledgments
FIRST, I WOULD like to recognize Morgan Soutter, whose assistance brainstorming and editing early chapters of Calypso was invaluable. Morgan is a great friend and gifted writer; I can’t wait to see his novels on the shelf in the coming days. Second, I would like to thank friends and family who encouraged me and critiqued early drafts of the manuscript: Brandon, Chris, Colleen, Dana, John, Erika, Jennifer, Mom and Dad … your support and advice kept me writing. Third, I would like to thank my agent, Kristin, and my editor, Lilly, for believing in the story and patiently shepherding me through the harrowing process of selling and publishing my first novel. Last and most importantly, I would like to thank my wife to whom this book is dedicated. Not only did she read every sentence in this book a least a hundred times, but her attention to detail, keen editorial eye, and insightful advice made this story ten times the work it would have been had I been left to my own devices.
Bonus feature:
Ring of Flowers, the untold prologue to The Calypso Directive
Copyright © 2012 by Brian Hittle
This is a work of fiction. The scientific, legal, and medical references contained herein were extensively researched and are based on fact. However, the names, characters, businesses, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Arcade Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.
ISBN:978-1-61145-745-2
CHAPTER 1
Eyam, England
August, 1665
ETHAN CROMWELL WALKED with purpose, like men with testosterone-laden agendas typically do. In three days’ time, he would propose to Kathryn Vicars, the most beautiful girl in the Derbyshire village of Eyam. No matter that she was the seventeen-year-old daughter of a lowly tailor, with no dowry to speak of. For Cromwell, she was desire incarnate. If he could combine all of the most delightful experiences from each of his five senses, and flood his brain with that pleasure in a single instant, the cumulative bliss would still fall short of how he imagined it would be to ravage her.
Cromwell rapped vigorously with gloved knuckles on the wooden door of George Vicars’ modest stone cottage. Inside, he heard the unmistakable cacophony of a stack of pots and pans accidentally knocked to the floor. This calamity was followed by an unholy expletive, and then the sound of shuffling boots.
“I’ll be right there … just a second.”
“Vicars! What on Earth are you doing in there? I don’t have time to wait for your fumbling and bumbling,” Cromwell barked. He raised his fist to pound again, but the door flew open instead. George Vicars, Eyam’s only tailor, stood in the doorway with a flushed face and eyeglasses sliding down the bridge of his nose. He pushed the spectacles back up to their rightful perch with a long, delicate index finger. Although he was thirty-nine years of age, his wrinkle-free, freckled complexion and full head of reddish-brown hair made him look like a man ten years younger.
“Good afternoon, Mister Cromwell. Please do come in,” said Vicars.
Cromwell stepped across the threshold and surveyed the tailor’s shop with smug disinterest. The expression, when combined with Cromwell’s meaty jowls and broad flat nose, made him look to Vicars like a bipedal Bull Mastiff, in expensive clothes.
<
br /> “Vicars, have you finished with my breeches?”
“Yes, of course. I finished them in the Rhinegraves style as you requested, very loose in the thighs with both black ribbon and white lace at the knee. Let me fetch them for you.”
Vicars scurried around Cromwell, who was blocking the main walking path through the tailor’s shop with his considerable girth, and hurried over to a simple wardrobe constructed of unfinished English pine. He opened the right-hand door and retrieved a pair of breeches.
Cromwell rolled his eyes. “Vicars, those are not my breeches. Look at the tag, for heavens’ sake.”
A paper note fixed to the waistline seam read “Earl of Devonshire” in black ink. Vicars mumbled an apology and hurried back to the wardrobe.
“Here you go, sir. These are your proper breeches. Would you like to try them for fit?”
“I don’t have time. I’m a very busy man, you know. Besides, if you did your job right, tailor, then there should be no need,” Cromwell said, taking the breeches in hand. He paused for a moment to eye the tailor. After reaching some unspoken conclusion, he turned up his nose and continued. “I’m off to London this afternoon to buy an engagement ring for Kathryn. I will propose to her when I return, on Friday evening. I will send my carriage to fetch her at four o’clock sharp. Make sure that she is ready and dressed her finest.”
“Yes, Mr. Cromwell, you can count on me. Oh, before you go, I have something special I want to show you.”
Vicars was a man of modest means. As a tailor, he would never be anything but a man of modest means. When Cromwell had asked for his daughter’s hand, Vicars had no money or land to give as a dowry. Cromwell was of noble birthright and did not need either of these things, but that didn’t change the fact that a dowry was expected. So Vicars had offered the only thing he could, his services as a tailor. In place of a traditional dowry, Vicars had extended to Cromwell a lifetime of free tailoring. Cromwell had snickered at this gift, but accepted it. While he would never admit it, Cromwell quite liked the idea of this gift. His ever-increasing waistline required the frequent loosening of nearly all of his garments.
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