Fires of Midnight

by Jon Land

  “I might,” he said. “Now what about my question?”

  Belamo started leafing through a thick book of bound computer printouts. “I don’t know. It wasn’t on the original specs list for Brookhaven and Group Six never had a need for it, so …”

  “Can you get me into Brookhaven, Sal?”

  Belamo shrugged. “I can throw some shit, see if it sticks on the right walls. Thing is, you gotta have a way out, too.”

  “A two-man job, then.”

  “For sure, boss.”

  “Johnny’s already on his way.”

  Belamo chuckled at the prospects of that. “Need one big fucking wall now, but what the hell? Be nice if you told me what you’re looking at ’fore I start throwing.”

  McCracken smiled. “Glad you asked … .”

  TWENTY-TWO

  “They’re just passing through Brookhaven’s main security gate, sir,” Larsen reported, when Colonel Lester Fuchs reached Group Six’s communications and security center.

  One of the two dozen monitor screens built into a huge console on the floor’s center showed a convoy of three cars snailing past the individual research buildings lining the front of Brookhaven en route to Group Six. Another trio of monitors, equipped with substantially more sophisticated pictures and imaging, picked up the convoy as it continued on a journey that would take seven minutes.

  “I’m heading down,” Fuchs announced, tightening a miniature earpiece in place so he could keep in touch with the communications center.

  En route to the garage, Fuchs again considered the best strategy for dealing with Joshua Wolfe. Four hours earlier he had met with Haslanger after the doctor had completed his inspection of a fax machine recovered from Harry Lime’s Key West apartment and flown straight to Group Six.

  “Brilliant,” Haslanger had muttered in his private lab, leaning over a table littered with tools. Centered on the table was the fax machine with its back removed. “Positively brilliant, and just as I expected.” He turned his gaze on Fuchs. “It’s gone.”

  “What is?”

  “The chip. Understand, Colonel, that a fax machine operates on the same principles as a computer. The machine doing the sending digitizes the material and transfers it over line where it is reassembled and printed by the receiving machine. In this case Joshua Wolfe has removed the chip responsible for that reassembly.”

  “Why?”

  “What did I tell you as soon as I removed this machine’s back?”

  “That it was out of paper.”

  “Precisely. And since the received information could not therefore be printed, it remained stored on the chip inside the machine. When the boy removed it, he was effectively removing all fax communications that had come in since the paper ran out. So if he faxed the entire formula for CLAIR to himself, he would have had to venture to Key West to retrieve it.”

  “Quite a risk.”

  “Well worth it, I would suspect.”

  But thorough searches by Sinclair had not turned up the fax chip either among the boy’s possessions or in the hotel room he had appropriated for himself in Orlando. Fuchs wasn’t worried, fully expecting Joshua Wolfe would be ready to tell him where the chip could be found shortly after arriving at Group Six.

  “Standing down security, sir,” Fuchs heard Larsen’s voice report through his earpiece as the elevator slid down to the third sublevel. “Opening gate now.”

  A pause.

  “Lighting approach route.”

  The standing down of security applied only to the narrow, two-lane stretch from Group Six’s security fence to the entrance to the ramp that permitted access to the underground garage. For the rest of the grounds, all normal procedures and safeguards remained in effect. Understandably, then, the approaching convoy would be careful to stay between the lights and not stray from the road.

  “Tell Dr. Haslanger that it’s time,” Fuchs ordered as the elevator doors slid open on the garage level.

  Haslanger had been watching the convoy approach on the single monitor in his office and rose from his chair at almost the same time Fuchs started for the garage. He had reached for the remote control to turn the monitor off when a voice from the rear of his office stopped him.

  “I’d like to watch, if you don’t mind.”

  Krill … In the quiet of the room and the excitement Haslanger was feeling, he’d actually forgotten Krill was with him.

  “No,” he said, uneasily. “Of course not.”

  “A first, I should think.”

  Haslanger looked back at the Krill’s massive, misshapen silhouette, illuminated by the meager light shed by the monitor screen. “What do you mean?”

  “Two of your creations so close together at the same time. I should have thought it was obvious.”

  Haslanger wished he’d been closer to the door. Krill was his creation as well, yes, but a poor comparison to Joshua Wolfe. After all, the boy could function in everyday society. Krill’s appearance, of course, made this impossible. Haslanger had nearly terminated him as he had the vast majority of the others shortly after delivery from the womb. Only on second glance did he see enough reasonable features to provide hope. Krill wasn’t the first to avoid swift termination, just the first whose life was not claimed by a myriad of physical problems during infancy. He held on stubbornly, showing a persistent will to live from that first day.

  What surprised Haslanger most, though, was his brain capacity. He showed tremendous aptitude for reading and gained an appreciation for music at a very early age. Standard education was never meant to be part of his training, but Krill educated himself during the long hours of isolation that had come to define his existence. He was the product of an experiment that doomed him to life in a lab even after the research was over. Haslanger had set up quarters for him here at Group Six where he read in the dark and usually emerged only when the doctor called for him.

  “And interesting, too,” Krill continued. “After all, the boy and I represent the sum total of your life’s work. I should like to meet him, discuss all we have in common. But that is not why you have taken me from my books.”

  Haslanger opened the door but blocked most of the light from the hall with his frame. “I’ve been looking into the man you identified from your visit to the New York Public Library, this McCracken.”

  “So have I.”

  “He’s dangerous.”

  “I know.”

  “But we have no way of being certain his meeting with Gloria Wilkins-Tate concerned me.”

  “If it did, he will find you.”

  “I don’t exist anymore.”

  “Neither did Gloria Wilkins-Tate.”

  “You think he’ll trace me to Group Six, then.”

  “I think he’ll be coming. Inevitably.”

  Haslanger could feel Krill’s eyes bearing down on him.

  “This is the first time I’ve ever failed in my work, Father. So I intend to be here when he does.”

  Dr. Susan Lyle was escorted to the garage level by one of Fuchs’s plainclothes security men.

  “Ah, thank you for joining us, Doctor,” the colonel greeted ebulliently, relaxed in his full-dress uniform. “I hope you didn’t mind me sending someone with you, but I wasn’t sure if you knew the way.”

  “I appreciate the thoughtfulness.”

  Haslanger arrived just after her and Susan tried to avoid looking at him. “I will introduce both of you to the boy straightaway,” the colonel continued, and then looked at Susan alone. “It would be most helpful if you at least made an effort to seem a part of us. Further confusion can only upset this boy’s already unsettled mental state. He needs to see structure, order, so he may choose to embrace what we can offer him.”

  “He won’t hear otherwise from me,” Susan said, trying hard to disguise the edge in her voice.

  A door that was actually a huge segment of the front wall rose suddenly, allowing the headlights of the lead car in the convoy to burn into the primary receiving area. It pulled i
n far enough to allow easy access for the two that followed it down the ramp into the garage that was located three levels below ground. None of the occupants of the middle car exited until the ones on either side of it climbed out and took up rigid stances, as if at post. Then its back doors opened, allowing another of the security men to emerge, followed by Joshua Wolfe.

  The jeans and shirt he wore would have made him fit in anywhere with kids his own age. Add the fashionably long hair and the white bead necklace worn loose around his neck, and he could have been any fifteen-year-old boy.

  But the eyes were not those of a teenager. That, Susan figured, was where everything changed. Those deep blue eyes were almost menacing in their intensity, missing nothing in their sweep. Susan wanted to say that the stare was cocky or even arrogant, but she knew it merely held one of the means by which this boy with an IQ in excess of two hundred processed input to his wondrous brain. Swallowed everything he could see, especially when confronted by new surroundings. In familiarity could be found comfort, and that was what Joshua Wolfe sought now.

  “Good evening, Mr. Sinclair,” Fuchs greeted the man who had preceded the boy out the backseat. “I trust your trip went well.”

  “Uneventful,” Sinclair returned, reluctant to take his eyes off Joshua Wolfe.

  The boy had stopped between the colonel and the car, seeming to register Fuchs as he took in the rest of these new surroundings. Fuchs moved to the boy and extended his hand.

  “Colonel Lester Fuchs. Director of Group Six.”

  Joshua Wolfe accepted the hand in a weak grip, eyes still absorbed in processing what lay around him. The boy looked the colonel up and down, obviously not impressed.

  “I remember your name from the personnel files I accessed.”

  “I trust you found that and the others interesting, Josh. May I call you Josh?”

  “Sure. I couldn’t access some of the most interesting stuff, though …” Josh waited the length of a breath. “ … Lester.”

  Fuchs cleared his throat uneasily. “We can change that if you like, provide access to any file, system or laboratory you wish.” He turned back toward Susan and Dr. Haslanger. “On that subject, there are two other people here I’d like you to meet.” The boy’s eyes veered their way and narrowed. “This is Dr. Erich Haslanger, and this is Dr. Susan Lyle.”

  Haslanger nodded, fascinated at meeting this creature of his own devising, and yet wary. Susan forced a smile, remembering the picture Blaine McCracken had found in the boy’s dorm room. Though it had been taken only a year or so before, Joshua Wolfe looked considerably older standing before her now. It must be the eyes again, she thought. Whatever innocence had been present in that picture was long gone, far more than a year’s worth lost. Susan remembered the smiling man standing next to the boy in the picture, the one whose disappearance accounted for McCracken’s involvement. She wondered how Fuchs would handle that if Joshua Wolfe brought it up.

  “Dr. Haslanger is in charge of research and development,” Joshua Wolfe announced matter-of-factly. “I could find nothing in his file that predates his assignment to Group Six.” The boy looked at Susan a little curiously. “And your name wasn’t listed at all.”

  “I was just transferred,” Susan said, quite comfortably. She could almost feel Colonel Fuchs seething.

  “From?”

  “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”

  “Oh,” the boy said, and his head dropped a little. His face came back up enough to shyly meet her eyes. “I know why you’re here. The file wasn’t in the system yet, but you must have thought what happened, what … I did, was a disease at first.”

  “It was the first option we had to rule out,” Susan affirmed.

  “You were the one who figured out it was me, weren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “How? It must have been the backpack. If I hadn’t dropped it, I wouldn’t be here now, would I?”

  Susan looked at Lester Fuchs, who had gone red from the collar to the roots of his hair. “Neither of us would be.”

  “But you tracked me down from it. I should have gone back after I dropped it. I thought about it but, well, I didn’t.” Those intense, almost omniscient eyes softened and looked like a child’s for the first time. “Then again, it was a big day for mistakes.”

  Fuchs edged forward to join Susan. “We know what you were trying to do, Josh,” he said, and she noticed how the hollow confines of the garage gave his words a twanging echo. “Admirable, commendable.”

  The boy’s eyes flashed back to their normal liquidy brilliance. “But it’s not what you do here at Group Six, is it, Lester?”

  “As you know full well, it is not.”

  “So what was commendable about Cambridge? What I tried to do, or what I ended up doing?”

  “I would never purport to rejoice in the deaths of innocent persons, but neither would I advocate letting those deaths go for nothing.” Fuchs tightened his stare. “Especially, young man, when those deaths could actually prevent thousands and thousands more.”

  “Is that the business you’re in?”

  “You read our files. You should know.”

  “That’s why I figured I’d better ask.”

  Fuchs remained stoic. “Yes, that’s the business we are in.”

  “So what do you want with me? What is it you think I can do?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?”

  “No.”

  “For starters, we want CLAIR in its original form, the one released in the Cambridgeside Galleria.”

  “Doesn’t seem to do much for your mandate.”

  “That depends on one’s perspective,” Fuchs responded, “especially considering our mandate is the development of weapons for use in limited arenas.”

  “To kill.”

  “Only if necessary.”

  “Isn’t it always?”

  Fuchs took a step forward. “Not necessarily, which is why I want you to give us a chance to show you some of the discoveries we’ve developed here.”

  “Give you a chance? You mean I have a choice?”

  “You’re not a prisoner, Josh. Say the word, and I’ll have Mr. Sinclair arrange for you to return to Cambridge.” Fuchs frowned. “Of course, by now I would expect we aren’t the only ones interested in finding you, but we may be the most understanding.”

  “What if I didn’t want to go back to Harvard? What if I wanted to go to wherever you took Harry Lime?”

  “I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about.”

  “You know my file, Lester, just like I know yours.”

  Susan waited for Fuchs’s answer as expectantly as Josh.

  “Oh, I know about Harry Lime’s role in your upbringing,” he replied. “But I’m afraid I know nothing of his current absence. Inquiries are being made. He could be off on an assignment. With no formal records, such work is difficult to access, even for us.”

  “Those were your men in his apartment today.”

  “Yes.”

  “They never saw him?”

  “No.”

  “It would mean a lot to me if you could find him, Lester.”

  “As I said, we’re trying.”

  “I’d like it if you could bring him here, so we could be together.”

  “A good idea. Definitely something to consider. In the meantime, why don’t we let Dr. Haslanger show you around? Any problem with that, Doctor?”

  The old man shook his head nervously. “No.”

  Joshua Wolfe’s eyes shifted to Susan. “What about Dr. Lyle?”

  “She’ll catch up to you, young man. After we’ve spoken.”

  “Your assessment, Doctor,” Fuchs requested, after a nervous Haslanger had led the boy off.

  “Assessment?” Susan asked.

  “Of the boy.”

  “We’ve been through this before, Colonel. I’m an infectious disease specialist, not a psychologist.”

  “What about your assessment of him as a person?” Fuchs asked her
.

  “And a woman.”

  Susan raised her eyebrows at his final query. “You’re not used to working with women, are you, Colonel?”

  Fuchs shrugged. “When you’ve been in the military as long as I have …” “I suppose you’re even less used to being around children.”

  “Then you see Joshua Wolfe as a child.”

  “Albeit an exceptional one. But emotionally he’s prone to suffer the same maladies and upheavals all children do.”

  “Do you see that as a problem?”

  “I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

  Fuchs’s eyes scolded her. “Dr. Lyle, I wanted to speak with you alone to reiterate the primary issues here. Joshua Wolfe has something that we at Group Six want. We have chosen not to interrogate him or force him to do anything against his will. We want him to cooperate of his own volition, and we are relying on you to help convince him that course is in his best interest.”

  “And how do you expect me to go about that, exactly?”

  Fuchs smiled. His voice lowered and became almost amicable. “Dr. Lyle, I understand the reasons for your ambition, your pursuits, as well as the desperation that drives them. But how far away are you from the kind of appropriate leadership research position you seek? Group Six has rather powerful friends in Washington. Should you assist us in this matter, we would certainly be moved to intervene on your behalf in any capacity you desire.”

  “I never said I was unhappy where I was.”

  “You didn’t have to. It’s clear to me the CDC was just a stepping stone for you, as was Firewatch Command. Both worthy endeavors but hardly meeting your goals or skills. Why not regard your visit here as yet another stepping stone, and an extremely fortuitous one at that?” He drew uncomfortably close to her, making Susan want to shrink away. “I understand your ambition. You and I are not that much different in terms of what drives us. Our motivations are distinct, true enough. But we both seek positions from which we can better our efficacy. Joshua Wolfe can help both of us in that regard, Doctor, and we can help Joshua Wolfe.”