Panacea

by F. Paul Wilson

  “What sort of things?”

  “Hurting them, maiming them in awful ways … this was how they would draw the Dark Man … kept the kids in a barn behind the farmhouse … I went…” He cleared his throat. “I went a little crazy, started tearing up the farmhouse. Some of the combustibles they had stored ignited. I managed to get out. They didn’t.”

  “The farmhouse fire that Fife’s text mentioned?”

  An absent nod. “And then the barn with the kids blew apart in a massive fireball. One second it was there, the next it was an inferno.”

  “Oh, no!”

  “The German crime-scene crew later reported that the barn had been rigged to explode, with the trigger in the house.”

  “But why?”

  “I’m just guessing, but I imagine they figured that if they were ever raided, they couldn’t allow anyone to see what they’d done to those kids. So they had some sort of switch they could throw that would incinerate the barn and everything in it. The damage to the house must have triggered the barn detonators. And that’s when I saw that thing, that hole in reality.”

  Laura tried to picture the scene … and failed.

  She looked up and saw him rubbing his sleeve across his reddened eyes. “Fifteen kids … and I killed them.”

  “But you didn’t set those charges, those monsters did.”

  “If I’d simply backed off and called the cops…”

  “But the children would still be dead, right? The arrival of the cops would have triggered the barn bombs, right?”

  “I suppose.”

  “Have you ever told anyone about this?”

  “No. You’re the first. Sorry to lay it on you.” He wiped his eyes on his sleeve again as he rose. “I don’t drink like I used to. Out of practice, I guess.”

  “You mean you’ve been carrying this around since…?”

  It explained so much about him, especially his reaction to the tortured little Mayan girl.

  He shrugged and looked uncomfortable. “I don’t know about carrying it around. I just … I should go.”

  Laura shot to her feet and found herself swaying. She was much more out of practice than Rick in the drinking department.

  “No, wait. You can’t leave like that.” On their own, her arms slipped around him and she squeezed against him. This man needed a hug. “You tried to do the right thing and it went horribly wrong. You’ve got to let it go.”

  His arms went around her back, but lightly. When was the last time a man had held her? Too long …

  “I thought I had. I’d convinced myself the dark shape I’d seen was just a hallucination, but then this panacea business popped up and brought it all back.”

  She lifted her head to look at him. “Then ‘too-perfect’ me came along and everything seemed ‘arranged.’”

  He smiled. “I’m glad you did. I’m glad I was along to help you out. But I’ve decided you’re not too perfect. You’re simply perfect.”

  Somehow their lips met, a touch as gentle as it was brief.

  “I probably should leave now.”

  The “probably” struck. Yeah, he was probably right, but she wanted to try that again.

  So instead of backing away she leaned into him and they kissed again. More firmly this time. Laura felt a sigh half escape. A sudden pounding on the door cut it off.

  “Laura! Laura!” Clotilde’s voice.

  “What the—?”

  “Laura, open up! Emergency!”

  She broke from Rick and yanked open the door. A distraught Clotilde stood there, hands clasped between her breasts.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Your daughter—she is in hospital. Very sick!”

  “What? What are you talking about?”

  “My people there have learned that she was hospitalized three days ago.”

  Three days? No way. The initial shock and fear began to fade.

  “No, that can’t be. If her last name is Fanning, you’ve got the wrong girl. Her name is Gaines. I’ve been in touch daily. She’s fine.”

  Clotilde’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve spoken to her?”

  “No, the phones won’t—oh, dear God.”

  “Fife?” Rick said.

  “We think so,” Clotilde said, nodding.

  Laura backed up a step, looking from one to the other. “Wait—what?”

  Clotilde held up a smartphone. “Brother Fife’s. You left the 536 phones with me. I found texts from him telling someone what texts to send you from your husband and to your husband from you.” She looked at Rick. “I even found a fascinating text concerning your companion.”

  The horror was seeping through.

  “But why?

  “To keep you on the trail of the ikhar.”

  “The son of a bitch,” Rick said. “I hope that lays to rest any lingering guilt about his passing.”

  Laura couldn’t care less about Fife.

  “Marissa … how bad?”

  “Gravely ill. An infection. Something called—”

  “Please don’t say CMV.”

  Clotilde nodded. “That is what we have heard. She is at a place called Stony Brook.”

  Laura knew what that meant. But even though she was in good hands …

  “I’m going to lose her.” She looked around for shoulder her bag, grabbed it, and began to push past Clotilde. “Gotta get back. Now.”

  Clotilde stepped aside and let her pass. Laura noticed Rick close behind her.

  “You don’t have to—”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  “I just quit Stahlman,” she said.

  “I didn’t. But that’s not the point. You’re gonna need me.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “Trust me. You’re gonna need me.”

  Right now all she needed was to get to Marissa.

  MARISSA

  1

  “Uh-oh,” Rick said as they stepped out into the midday sunlight—blinding after all those hours in terminals and on the plane. “I was afraid of this.”

  “What?” Laura said.

  She was running on fumes now. They’d abandoned their luggage at the hotel and rushed to the Kirkwall airport where someone made a few calls and found a pilot to fly them to Heathrow. They looked for the first flight to the New York metro area—JFK, Newark, no matter—and lucked out with a Virgin flight to JFK, landing just shy of noon.

  Laura had tried to call Steven while they waited at Heathrow but his phone was still playing games. So she called the medical center, got connected to the PICU, and learned the whole story: admitted early Wednesday followed by steady deterioration. CMV pneumonia complicated by cerebral edema secondary to CMV meningitis. Every relevant specialist and subspecialist on the pediatric staff had tried to halt her downhill course, all with no success. She’d slipped into a coma and the prognosis was grave. She didn’t have long.

  Rick had dozed off immediately after the first-class dinner Laura couldn’t eat and she’d wished she could do the same—the trip would have gone so much faster. But sleep was out of the question. He’d bullied them to be first off the plane but Customs and Immigration would not be rushed. She’d felt her control slipping with the delay. Once they were finally cleared they’d run through the cavernous Terminal Four to the public transportation area.

  Rick pointed to a familiar-looking van, idling in a no-idling zone. “Stahlman’s here. Shit.”

  Laura didn’t see the problem. “What’s wrong? He can drive us to Stony Brook.”

  “Yeah. Maybe. Let me do the talking here.”

  “I’m perfectly capable of—”

  “Just follow my lead, okay?”

  She wondered what had him so concerned as she matched him stride for stride toward the van.

  Stahlman’s driver—James, was it?—stepped forward. “Do you have luggage?”

  “The boss inside?” Rick said.

  James gestured toward the open side panel. “He awaits.”

  She followed Rick inside with James
close behind. The door slid shut behind them.

  “What the—?” Rick said, turning. “Where is he?”

  “Mister Stahlman awaits … at home. He is too sick to greet you in person. He sent me to bring you to him.”

  “Fine,” Rick said. “But we’ve got a stop to make first.”

  “That won’t be possible, I’m afraid. Mister Stahlman said I was to bring you both directly from the airport.”

  “We don’t have his panacea,” Laura said. “I’m sorry.”

  Rick touched Laura’s upper arm. “Come on, Doc. We’ll grab a cab.”

  James said, “Wait.” He had a gun in his hand.

  “Whoa-whoa!” Rick said

  Oh, God, this was insane. This couldn’t be happening. A gun at an airport. She glanced through the van’s windows, hoping for a cop, but they were too darkly tinted for anyone to see inside.

  “My daughter is dying!”

  James’s expression was tortured. “I’m sorry, but my boss is dying.”

  “I told you,” she said, “I don’t have it!”

  Rick stepped around Laura and put himself between her and the gun. “We’ve got a sick kid to visit. And anyway, you’re not crazy enough to start shooting at an airport, are you?”

  “I don’t want to, Rick, but Mister—”

  Laura didn’t see what happened then. All she could see was Rick’s back, but there seemed to be an instant of struggle and the next thing she knew, Rick had shifted to the side and had a pistol muzzle jammed up under James’s chin.

  Somehow, she wasn’t surprised.

  “Didn’t think so,” Rick said. “But you know I’m crazy enough, right?”

  James looked frightened. “Look, this wasn’t—”

  “Your idea? I know that. That’s why you’re going to turn around and put your hands behind your back.”

  James hesitated, then complied. Rick fished something from his pocket—a zip tie—and bound James’s wrists, then sat him down.

  “Thousand and three uses,” he said as he secured his ankles.

  She remembered what he’d said back in the Orkneys: You’re gonna need me …

  “How did you—?”

  “SEAL stuff.”

  “But how did Stahlman know to be here?”

  “I booked our flights with his credit card. I’m sure he’s been tracking every transaction.”

  “But why would he send someone to … to kidnap us?”

  He rose. “If I’m gonna put myself in his head, I think it’s a good bet he knows about your daughter—known about her all along.”

  “And didn’t tell me?”

  “The last thing he wanted you to do was call off the hunt and rush back to the States. Now he thinks you’re back to give the panacea to your daughter instead of him.”

  “If I had any, the bastard could have it all!”

  “We need to talk about that. But right now let’s get moving. I’ll get us out of the airport, you navigate from there. Never been to Stony Brook so you’ll have to point the way.”

  She estimated the distance as about the same as to her home—around fifty miles. An hour at least.

  “Get us to the LIE,” she said. “And hurry.”

  2

  As Rick steered them out of JFK, she called the PICU.

  After introducing herself as Marissa’s mother and clearing the confusion over the difference in last names, she said, “How’s her coma?”

  “Level seven—that’s counting a two on eye responses, a one on verbal, and four on motor responses but slipping there. Her condition is deteriorating quickly. Are you nearby? Your husband has been frantic.”

  Laura didn’t bother adding ex. She was running through what she remembered about the Glasgow classification of coma levels. A one meant no verbal responses; a two on eyes meant they opened in response to pain. She didn’t recall much about the motor scale. Too long away from live patients.

  “Doctor Lerner, the pulmonologist, has ordered a respirator for her.”

  Her heart sank. “Aw, no.”

  “Her O-two sat has been dropping steadily and he says it’s time.”

  She ended the call and Rick said, “Worse news?”

  A sob blocked her throat, then broke free. “I’m going to lose her!”

  He said nothing as he reached over and squeezed her hand.

  They headed up the Cross Island Parkway and finally onto the LIE. The speed limit was fifty-five and the speedometer read sixty-eight as they raced east, but it felt like they were crawling.

  “Can’t we go faster?” she said.

  “I’m pushing it as much as I dare. We get stopped, it’ll waste lots more time, especially with a guy tied up in back.”

  Oh, right. She’d already forgotten about James. All she could think about was Marissa.

  Hold on, honeybunch. Mommy’s coming.

  Midday traffic wasn’t bad and they made good time to the Northern State Parkway, but still had a ways to go.

  “Here,” Rick said.

  She tore her gaze from the road and saw that he was holding out three vials.

  “What?”

  “The panacea. Clotilde slipped them to me as we left the hotel.”

  “But—”

  “Just listen to me for one fucking minute, okay?”

  He sounded angry. He’d always used a euphemism for “fucking” until now. Okay, she’d listen.

  “Go ahead.”

  “I know you think you’ve got to be all scientificky and always ask the next question and all that, but you’ve been doing more denying than questioning. You’ve closed your eyes to firsthand evidence. You knew that kid with arthritis, you knew how bad he was, and you autopsied him yourself and found no trace of it. Then there’s Chaim’s medical records versus what you found on autopsy. You can’t explain it but you can’t deny it’s fucking there. So accept it.”

  “But—”

  “No buts! You have got to put all that aside and give Marissa a dose of this worm juice.”

  Worm juice … seriously?

  “Can I get a sentence in?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “My ‘but’ was to say that I was just thinking that I’m so desperate, if I had a dose of Clotilde’s tea, I’d give it to Marissa.”

  He blinked. “You would?”

  “Damn right!”

  Worm juice … Marissa’s immune system had already crashed. To add a dose of that bacteria- and mold-laden soup would be—

  Stop it.

  Not my life—Marissa’s.

  And so acceptance had passed beyond permissible to obligatory. If Marissa’s condition was anywhere near as hopeless as the PICU nurse had described, nothing could make her worse. And if the chances of the ikhar working were one in a million—in a billion—how could she not give it to her?

  “Desperate times,” she said. “Marissa’s got nothing to lose.”

  “And everything to gain.”

  She took one of Clotilde’s little tubes from him and held it up to the light.

  How many had 536 killed and burned because of this … what? What did she call this cloudy goop? She was reminded of that famous line from The Maltese Falcon: the stuff dreams are made of.

  “All the preposterous and unimaginable noise around this stuff. Fife’s god made me a guide to Clotilde—called me a human pillar of fire—while Clotilde’s All-Mother led me to her, and your vast, unsympathetic intelligences arranged my participation. It all comes down to Laura Fanning: tool.”

  “One way of looking at it.”

  She wrapped her fingers around the vial, forbidding herself to hope. Hope was a trap, an empty promise, a surrender. She could not allow herself to hope. Not even a little. But she would give Marissa the worm juice.

  And then a thought struck like a bullet. “Oh, shit!”

  Rick jumped in his seat and jerked the wheel. “What?”

  “The respirator! They’re going to intubate her!”

  “That’ll keep her alive, righ
t?”

  “But she won’t be able to swallow.”

  “Fuck it!” Rick said and floored the accelerator.

  Laura grabbed her phone and called the PICU again.

  “Has Marissa been intubated yet?”

  “No, but the team is on its way.”

  “Don’t let them do that!”

  “I’m sorry, Doctor Fanning. Your husband signed the consent and her O-sat just dropped below ninety.”

  Oh, hell … below ninety. Still …

  “Let me speak to my husband!”

  A pause, then, “He seems to have stepped out. Perhaps to wash up. He’s been at her bedside all night.”

  “Damn-damn-damn!” She ended the call and pointed ahead. “Here’s our exit.”

  She directed Rick onto Nicolls Road and northward to the medical center.

  As they approached the front entrance, Rick called back over his shoulder. “If I cut you loose, James, can I count on your best behavior?”

  “It’s a little late for anything else, don’t you think?”

  “That’s my man.” He turned to Laura and handed her a second tube. “I’m keeping one for Stahlman. I’ll get it to him as soon as you finish inside.”

  “I’m not a fan of Stahlman’s right now.”

  He may not have blocked her from learning of Marissa’s condition, but he’d withheld what he knew.

  “Neither am I. But I hired on to get you back safe with a dose of that stuff for him. I’m only half done.”

  Duty … staying true to his word … finishing the job. Instilled or inherent? She suspected the latter.

  “And let’s face it,” he added. “You’d have zero options right now without him.”

  Good point. But if Marissa was intubated, she’d be back to zero.

  As soon as Rick pulled to a stop just short of the entrance, he jumped out of his seat and went back to snip James’s ties.

  “Wait one second.”

  But Laura couldn’t wait—not while Marissa was somewhere within those walls.

  As she opened her door and hopped out, she heard him say to James, “Hang here for a bit and maybe we’ll both come through this smelling rosy.”

  Then she was racing inside. She wasn’t familiar with Stony Brook’s layout and had to ask directions to the PICU. When she reached it, she skidded to a stop before the doors. She didn’t want to see this.