The Resurrector (The Dominic Grey Series)

by Layton Green

  Hours later, hovering over stale coffees, Grey and Hannah found themselves alone in a conference room at the Dekalb County police station. Dr. Varela’s head was bandaged, and Grey had accepted an ice pack for his hand. Nothing was broken but it hurt like hell.

  Hannah looked shell-shocked. Grey was still annoyed that the Chevy Tahoe had managed to elude the police. He shook it off and focused on the present. “What’d they get from your car?”

  “A few notes and papers,” she said. “Nothing important. It’s all at the lab.”

  He thought about what had happened. No one had followed him to the restaurant, he was sure of it. “How often do you eat there?”

  “Three to four nights a week.”

  “Time to find a new restaurant. And your pager? Who called you?”

  “When I called back, it rang and rang.”

  Grey grimaced. “Do you live alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is your house secure?”

  “I have an alarm and live in a gated community.”

  “That’s probably why they jumped you at the restaurant.”

  Dr. Varela drew her arms across her chest and rubbed her arms. “What does this mean?”

  “It means your instincts were right.”

  She swallowed as the implication of that knowledge set in. “What do I do now?”

  “Tell the police and your boss everything you know, and let them sort it out. You’ve been doing the right thing by being cautious. Just keep your head down and focus on your work.”

  “What if those men come back?”

  “I think they’re after the research, not you. Be careful and tell your coworkers to stay aware. Can the CDC assign a security detail?”

  “It’s not unprecedented. I’ll ask.” She pressed her lips together, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly through her nose. “I’m not cut out for the James Bond stuff,” she said, then surprised him by laying a hand over his.

  At first he thought she was hitting on him, and it made him resentful because she wasn’t Nya. Then he remembered how beautiful Hannah was and how strung out he looked, and realized that it was pity, not attraction, he saw swimming in her eyes.

  “Thank you for saving me,” she said.

  “Yeah.”

  She withdrew her hand. “I know I barely know you, and we just got assaulted, but . . . is everything okay?”

  “Of course not,” he snapped, jumping to his feet and pacing. “You just got attacked, I’ve barely slept in three days, and we’ve got three dead bodies and a virus no one understands.”

  Barely slept in three months, he corrected silently.

  After Grey and Hannah gave their statements, a lean officer with short gray hair and a gold bar on his sleeve entered the conference room. He identified himself as Lieutenant Palmer, and asked Grey to stick around.

  No surprise. Eyebrows had lifted when Grey handed over his Interpol ID. It was a liaison badge, nothing more—Interpol didn’t put agents in the field—but it did what it was designed to do. Command respect and open doors.

  Grey agreed to stay after making sure the police gave Dr. Varela an escort home. Soon after she left, an African American man with two gold bars on his sleeve entered the room. He looked about the same age as the lieutenant. “I’m Captain Gregory. We appreciate your statement.” After Grey tipped his head in response, the captain said, “Now why don’t you tell us what the hell really went down?”

  “Who are you with, son?” the lieutenant added, as they both took a seat. “DEA? FBI?”

  “You’d know by now if I was.”

  “He’s right,” said Captain Gregory. “I called Interpol, and they said the guy we need to speak with, Jacques Bertrand, should be in soon. I guess it’s four a.m. or something in Paris.” He leaned forward, causing his stomach to push over his belt. He had white hair at the temples, thick hands, and the shoulders of a bison. “So do you want to tell us what’s going on, or do we sit here until Jacques calls us back?”

  Grey saw no reason to hide his assignment from the local police, but that wasn’t his call. He told them as much, and they didn’t protest. Cops understood chain of command. Grey also told them he didn’t care if they held him for four minutes or four hours or four weeks, which caused them to look at him blankly.

  While they decided what to do, Grey ran through the database with them and found three of the four men who had tried to snatch Dr. Varela. Everyone except the kid. The others belonged to the League of Dixie.

  “A Neo-Confederate hate group,” the captain explained to Grey. “You said you’re from New York? Before you get all high and mighty about the South, the NSM—outta Detroit—just held a membership rally in Rome, Georgia.”

  “That’s a thing now, see,” the lieutenant said. “Used to be the hate groups spent more time fighting amongst themselves than burning crosses, but that’s changing. ISIS and immigration and the economy, the world’s a powder keg for white supremacists right now. Activity is through the roof. There’s even a new group from Europe recruiting around here.”

  “Christ,” the captain muttered, “even the neo-Nazis are globalizing.”

  “This new group,” Grey said. “What’s it called?”

  “W.A.R. The Wodan Aryan Republic.”

  “Wodan?”

  “German version of Odin. You know, chief of the old Norse Gods? King Whitey himself?”

  “What do you know about them?” Grey asked.

  “They seem smarter and better organized than the klukkers. But that ain’t saying much, to be honest.”

  “Your typical Confederate flag wavers don’t give us much trouble,” the captain said. “The worst of the bunch are the Aryan Brotherhood and the profit-driven gangs, but that’s different. Dollar bills are colorblind.”

  “Are they?” Grey asked.

  “I’m not saying they’re not a bunch of racist assholes. But their agenda’s more about getting paid than saluting a flag.”

  They might be under new leadership, Grey thought. He hadn’t seen either the redheaded Viking or his dapper companion’s photos in the mug shots, and he described them.

  The two cops exchanged a glance. “The big guy with the accent doesn’t sound familiar,” the captain said slowly, as the lieutenant shook his head, “but the other guy—describe him again?”

  Grey did. The captain opened a laptop, started typing, and waved Grey over. He found himself staring at a photo of the same well-groomed man he had seen at the Peach Shack rally, suntanned and sharp-featured, waving from the back of a yacht like a Kennedy. “That’s him. Who is he?”

  The captain grimaced. “Eric Winter. The new face of hate in America, though you won’t catch him dead with a hate tattoo or burning a cross.”

  “Wait—Winter, as in Nate Winter?”

  Nathan Lowell Winter III was a former congressman from Alabama, as well as a Holocaust denier and a reputed Imperial Wizard of the KKK.

  “His son. Ivy League educated, trust fund baby, real well-spoken. Just announced a Senate run. Claims he’s a white nationalist but not a racist. Huh. Those domestic abusers always love their wives, too.”

  Lieutenant Palmer added, “The apple never falls far from the tree.”

  Grey had always hated that saying, because it whispered in every kid’s ear with a terrible father that, no matter how much he thought otherwise, he was destined for the same fate.

  “Is he involved with W.A.R.?” Grey asked.

  “Not that we know of.”

  Grey made a mental note to have Jacques coordinate with the feds and immigration. “Did you know Winter was in Atlanta?”

  “No, but he’s probably stumping. Plenty of wallets around here who’d like to see him elected, even if it’s in another state.”

  “What about the other guy? Is it possible he’s been seen with him before?”

  The captain looked annoyed, as if just realizing he’d let Grey take the lead in the interrogation. “Like I said, he doesn’t sound familiar. And
a guy like that, I’d remember. See the sketch artist before you leave and we’ll look into it.”

  The captain afforded Grey a long stare and crossed his arms. “Listen, I’ve seen enough of your background to know you’re probably pissed about what happened tonight, and might decide to do something about it. You got a conceal/carry permit valid in Georgia?”

  “No.”

  “Keep it that way. No Lone Ranger stunts, you hear?”

  Grey took a sip of coffee.

  -12-

  According to Sergeant Linde, Jans van Draker lived alone. Still, accustomed to the habits of the wealthy, Viktor expected to find a domestic helper or a younger relative greeting them as the door to the ancestral manor opened.

  But he was wrong. Dressed in loafers and clean-pressed slacks and a beige sweater, well-preserved for a man in his mid-sixties, Jans van Draker answered the door himself.

  Viktor recognized him from the photos. A short man of unassuming build, barely reaching Viktor’s chest, he had a puckish mouth and the same trim, rust-colored beard he had sported twenty-five years before. A purple birthmark splotched his forehead above his left eye. Viktor thought he looked a bit like, well, the family physician.

  A distracted smile creased the former doctor’s lips. “Welcome.” His eyes took in Sergeant Linde with a curious glance, then lingered on Viktor.

  “Thank you,” Sergeant Linde said. Her voice was calm and businesslike, a cop performing a routine duty. Though as soon as van Draker’s gaze left her face, Viktor noticed her eyes darting towards the interior of the house.

  Jans stepped aside and held the door. “Please, come in.”

  Viktor noticed that he walked with a limp as they stepped into a towering stone foyer decorated with hanging rugs, heraldic emblems, and medieval weaponry. High above the floor, a knight in full armor stood at attention in a nook recessed into the wall. A stone staircase curved upward to the second story.

  “German, if I’m not mistaken,” Viktor said, staring at a pair of gryphons facing each other on a coat of arms.

  “Very astute. My father’s side of the family is Dutch, my mother’s German. Not uncommon among Afrikaners. Come.”

  He led them down a hallway and into a sitting room overlooking a slope of the hill covered in a tangle of untended grapevines. The lounge was a cozy medley of wood and polished granite that stretched towards a hearth at the far end. A collection of old war memorabilia adorned the walls, Viktor guessed from the Boer Wars. Vintage field maps, rifles, medals, binoculars, framed black and white photos of soldiers.

  Jans chuckled. “Not as grand as your own familial estate, I’m sure,” he said to Viktor.

  Interesting, Viktor thought. It would take some digging to uncover that his family still owned a castle in southern Bohemia. Sergeant Linde looked surprised at the comment.

  “Grandness is a relative term,” Viktor replied. “Quite unrelated to wealth.”

  “Bah,” Jans scoffed. “We must have objective standards. Otherwise all is nonsense.”

  “A hermit’s cave of solitude is grand to him or her, a child’s tree house more opulent than the Taj Majal,” Viktor countered.

  “Perhaps, but those are not apt comparisons. Does even the hermit not seek a cave with a superior view, the better to ponder the questions of existence? And what child would not prefer a tree house with a trap door, a slide, sugar-coated walls?” He flashed a shrewd smile. “It is a fact, professor, that some things in life are superior to others.”

  “Some people, too?” Viktor asked.

  “But of course. Would you argue otherwise? The saint over the sinner, the murderer beneath the nun?”

  “I would argue that applying objective standards to people is a very dangerous thing.”

  Sergeant Linde had grown increasingly stiff during the innuendo. “Doctor van Draker,” she interrupted, “we appreciate your time, and I apologize for the intrusion. As I informed you yesterday, we’re investigating the death of Akhona Mzotho, and would like to ask you a few questions.”

  Jans took a seat in a high-backed armchair. After waving his guests into similar seats, he said, “You mean the professor would like my medical opinion on how the boy returned from the grave.”

  Naomi’s chuckle sounded hollow. “We don’t think Akhona returned from the grave.”

  Jans blinked. “Did he not? From where, then, did he return?”

  “I believe you know what I mean.”

  “I believe that I do not.”

  Naomi looked flustered, and Viktor said, “Why would we seek your medical opinion? I was under the impression that you no longer practiced. Or am I mistaken?”

  “Oh,” Jans said with a nonchalant wave, “I like to keep abreast of the journals, poke my nose into the research now and again. In fact, I have a particular area of interest these days. Something which has grown into quite the hobby.”

  “Oh?” Viktor said. “What might that be?”

  The corners of his lips curled upward. “Resurrection. Life after death. A preservation of species.”

  Tension thickened like swamp humidity around the two men. After a prolonged stare during which neither Viktor nor van Draker turned away, the physician blinked and crossed his legs. “I’m speaking of taxidermy, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “What else did you think, professor? Dear God, what a morbid mind you must have, after all the dark places to which your cases must have taken you. If you have time after the interview, I’d love to show you the game room. I have a recent acquisition, a single-horned gerenuk. A deformity to some, a quite literal unicorn to a collector like myself.”

  Naomi had grown still during the exchange, and Viktor wondered why she allowed it to go on. Perhaps she was afraid of interrupting van Draker.

  “I’m sure it’s a professional job,” Viktor said. “Though taxidermy is not to my taste.”

  “Perhaps I can change your mind. My work is . . . quite extraordinary. Now, where were we? My medical opinion on the boy’s return? A miracle or a hoax, of course. I don’t believe there’s a middle ground to be had.”

  “I do,” Viktor said. “Pharmaceuticals that lower respiration to an undetectable degree, autosuggestion, nerve agents. There are multiple ways to feign a death. As for his physical condition, I suppose a poisoned well or radioactive waste could be the culprit, but I believe a human hand is to blame. Experiments of an unknown nature.”

  Van Draker looked amused. “Why would anyone do such a thing?”

  “That’s what I came here to ask you.”

  Jans’s smile was more forced.

  “From your past experience with illicit experiments,” Viktor said, “would you care to hypothesize why someone might have snatched Akhona from the grave and altered his physicality in such a way? An insight into motive?”

  Jans turned towards Sergeant Linde with an accusing stare.

  “We came,” Naomi said, glaring at Viktor before turning back to van Draker, “because Akhona was seen walking from the direction of your manor. We just wanted to know whether you’d seen or heard anything unusual that night.”

  Jans smoothed his shirt and folded his hands in his lap. “I’m afraid not.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “And my apologies.”

  “No no,” Jans said. “History is history, after all. I was indeed once accused. Tell me though, sergeant, why bring a religious phenomenologist with you today? You could have asked these questions yourself.”

  Viktor thought the question would catch her off-guard, but Naomi was quick to answer.

  “Professor Radek is an expert in many types of bizarre occurrences. Due to the strange nature of the case, we’ve requested his assistance. He’s here to observe and provide input on the investigation, nothing more.”

  “Ah,” van Draker murmured, with a lift of his head. “But of course.”

  She said, “I’m afraid I have to ask: was anyone else here that evening?”

  “Just Kristof. My butler.�
�

  Naomi looked stunned. “I thought . . .”

  Jans blinked. “You thought what?”

  “Nothing,” she mumbled.

  “I’m quite certain he saw no one either, but shall I call him?”

  She swallowed. “If you don’t mind.”

  Jans rose to pull a cord inside a nook by the arched entranceway. A bell chimed in the distance, and Viktor felt as if they had traveled back to the seventeenth century. Everything about the manor felt archaic, from the decor in the foyer to the ash-stained hearth to the thick, gnarled grapevines tangled like snakes in the overgrown vineyard.

  Curious as to what had spooked Naomi, Viktor waited in silence until an elderly white man entered the room who made a chill inch down the professor’s spine. Dressed in woolen pants and a well-worn tuxedo jacket that sagged off his spindly frame, Kristof ignored the guests and looked to van Draker for instruction. His movements looked oddly jerky, though that could have been due to his age or a medical condition. What caused Viktor’s unease was the pallor of the butler’s face and hands, skin so gray and lifeless it looked more akin to the flesh of a corpse than a human being. Viktor could tell that heavy makeup had been applied in various places on his cheeks and neck and ears, smooth patches that almost, but not quite, matched his skin tone.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Viktor saw Sergeant Linde’s fingers tighten at her side. She asked Kristof if he had seen anything unusual the night of Akhona’s return.

  “Not a thing,” he said, in guttural Afrikaans. His voice had a roughness to it beyond that of a smoker’s rasp, as if his vocal cords had once been damaged.

  “Doctor van Draker was present with you in the manor?”

  “The entire night.”

  “Do you live here?” she asked.

  “Of course,” the butler said, as if the question had surprised him.

  Naomi asked a few more questions that provided no further insight.

  “Would that be all, then?” van Draker said.

  Sergeant Linde glanced at Viktor, and the professor let his stare linger on the owner of the ancestral estate. “I believe we’ve satisfied our inquiries,” Viktor said. “For today.”

  Van Draker gave an amused smile and spread his hands. Before he could see his visitors to the front door, a scream erupted from deep inside the house.