Sepulchre

by James Herbert

  They were in yet another elevator, the access to which had been in a small antechamber next door to the chairman's office, and were rising toward the twenty-second floor. Quinn-Reece was no longer with them, having excused himself to attend another meeting elsewhere.

  "Two floor buttons only," remarked Mather, looking at the panel set by the doors.

  "This is a private elevator and only travels between the eighteenth and twenty-second," Sir Victor explained. "A limited number of employees are allowed to use it."

  "And the twenty-third and -fourth?"

  "Living quarters and machinery rooms, the latter being at the very top."

  What price a sky-high penthouse in the heart of the city? Halloran silently mused. And whose penthouse? The chairman's? Maybe the target's, if he really was that important to the corporation. There were a lot of questions still hanging in the air.

  The elevator walls were a glossy black, the occupants' reflected figures like shadowy ghosts around them. The overhead light was subdued, and it would have been easy to imagine they were traveling below the earth's surface rather than up toward the clouds.

  Movement stopped, a subtle sensation, and the doors parted. The corridor beyond was as gloomy as the elevator's interior.

  A heavyset man stood opposite, close to the wall, as if he had been awaiting their arrival. His arms were folded across a broad chest and they dropped to his sides in a token gesture of attention when he saw the chairman.

  "He's ready for us?" asked Sir Victor, stepping from the elevator first with no deference to Cora's gender or courtesy toward his guests.

  The man nodded. "He's waiting." There was just a hint of civility in his voice, his accent American.

  From his thick-set stature and uncomfortable appearance in his business suit, it was easy for Mather and Halloran to surmise that this man was one of the bodyguards. His hair was long, incongruously (considering the staid suit) tied into a tail behind. Sullen eyes set in a pudgy face flicked over the visitors. At first, Halloran had thought the man's cheeks were unusually ruddy, but when he moved closer he realised that a patchwork of thin, livid scars emblazoned both sides of his face. Without further words the bodyguard led the way along the corridor, keeping at least six feet ahead of the entourage. The walls on either side were bare and dark, and Halloran brushed fingers against one side, feeling a coarse material: the covering was black hessian. It was unusually cold in that corridor, yet the gloom was beginning to feel stifling.

  They turned to the right, a large double-door facing them. Its surface, like the elevator walls, was glossy black, and for one startling moment Halloran had the impression of apparitions approaching them. As the bodyguard leaned forward, extending both hands to grip the separate door handles, his spectral reflection leaned closer as if to snatch him. Both sides of the double-door were pushed open, the bodyguard standing aside to allow the party through.

  The room was huge and almost blindingly white.

  "Welcome to limbo," a voice said.

  6

  FELIX KLINE

  The man who had spoken wasn't what Mather or Halloran expected at all.

  He didn't look worth fifty million pounds. He didn't seem like someone whom a multinational, first-league corporation could possibly be dependent upon. He looked nothing like a genius, and nothing like a wizard.

  He was something of a disappointment.

  At first their eyes had been stung by the unexpected dazzle, the abrupt contrast between gloom and astonishing brightness. But as they blinked away the irritation, they were gradually able to take in their new surroundings. There were no windows, and there was no furniture apart from a low, moderate-sized dais in the center of the luminously white floor. If there were other exits around the room, they could not be discerned against the white walls, at least not until their eyes had become accustomed to the glare. Even the high ceiling was of white light. The whole effect was of vast and empty space that served to make the figure sitting on the edge of the dais seem even more insignificant.

  He was wearing jeans and a blue sweatshirt chopped off at the elbows, his legs stretched out before him, ankles crossed, his hands behind him and flat against the surface of the small platform. He grinned at the group standing in the doorway.

  "The sudden change wipes your mind clean, doesn't it?" he said. Then he laughed a peculiar high-pitched giggle. "That's the idea, y'see. A blank mind, a clean slate; a white sheet, waiting to be filled with images. I can make everything black if you prefer?" He looked at them with eager expectancy.

  "Not just now, Felix," said Sir Victor quickly. "Not if you don't mind. I want to introduce you to Mr. Mather and Mr.

  Halloran from Achilles' Shield, the company I discussed with you."

  The man addressed as Felix stood and ambled over to them, hands tucked into the back pockets of his jeans. He was well below average height, about five-three, his shoulders slightly rounded so that he appeared to stoop. His age could have been anywhere from twenty-five to thirty-five. His curly hair was dark and unkempt, his complexion swarthy, almost yellowish. And his eyes, above a hooked nose, were large and pitchy, as deep and shiny as oil pools.

  "Let me guess," he said, grinning again, and looking over their heads.

  There was something odd about his eyes, and Halloran couldn't quite figure out what.

  He stepped before them, lowered his gaze. "You," he said, stabbing a finger at Mather. "You're Mather. You're the Organizer—no, no, the Planner, that's what you're called, right? Am I right? Course I'm right. Damn right. And you . . ." He faced Halloran.

  His grin dropped away for an instant.

  The grin was back, but humor was lacking. "And you are Halloran," he said more slowly, less excitedly. "The Muscle. No, no, not just that. A bit more than that. Shit, you're a cold bastard."

  Halloran returned his stare and realized what was bothering him about the smaller man's eyes. The pupils were unusually enlarged. With all the dazzling brightness around them, they should have been almost pinpoints. Smack? Could be. He seemed hyped up.

  "This is Felix Kline," Sir Victor interposed. "The person you've been engaged to protect."

  If Mather was surprised he didn't show it. "I'm very pleased to meet you, Mr. Kline."

  "That you are," agreed Kline. "How about you, Halloran? You pleased to meet me?"

  "You might grow on me," replied Halloran.

  The girl stepped in quickly. "There are lots of arrangements to make, Felix. These gentlemen will have to know your day-to-day movements, your plans in advance, how best their people can cover you twenty-four hours a day."

  "People?" snapped Kline. "We agreed only one. Halloran's it."

  "He'll need backup," said Mather, beginning to get annoyed with this volatile young man. "He can't keep his eyes on you every minute of the day and night. There has to be outside protection."

  Kline was still watching Halloran. "All right. You take care of that, Cora—you know my movements better than I do. Give the details to Mather, he's the brains. I want to be alone with Halloran for a while. If he's going to be my constant companion we'd better get to know each other a little. What d'you say, Halloran? D'you have a first name?"

  "Liam."

  "Yeah? I'll call you Halloran. It's okay for you to call me Felix." He smiled then, and suddenly looked like an innocent. He turned to the chairman of Magma. "Listen, Victor, I need to see you later about Bougainville."

  "Copper?" asked Sir Victor.

  "Uh-huh. Think so. A source we haven't tapped yet."

  "That's good news if you're sure."

  Kline was irritated. "I can't be sure. You know I can't be sure!"

  "No, I'm sorry, of course not," the chairman appeased. "We'll discuss it later. When you're ready."

  "Okay, okay. Now leave me alone with Halloran. We've got things to discuss. You come back when you're through, Cora."

  They left, only the bodyguard lingering by the door. Kline snapped his fingers, then pointed, and the heavy
set man followed the others, closing the double-doors behind him.

  "Mystified, Halloran?" said Kline, walking backward, away from him, toward the low dais at the center of the room, his white sneakers squeaking against the shiny floor. "Yeah, I bet you are. How come a little creep like me can tell a big wheel like Sir Victor what or what not to do?" He hopped onto the platform and stood with legs apart, thin arms folded across his chest.

  "I'd be interested to find out," said Halloran, remaining where he was. His voice sounded hollow in the empty space around them.

  "Yeah, and I'd be interested to find out about you. You bother me, Halloran, and I don't like that."

  Halloran shrugged. "You can always ask for someone else. There are plenty of good operatives at Shield who could take my place. But if I bother you, you might be more prepared to do as I say. It's your life I'll be protecting, remember."

  "Could I forget?" He dropped to the floor again and sat on the edge of the dais, elbows on knees, his body hunched. "You got questions you want to ask?"

  Halloran walked over and sat next to him. "Tell me exactly what you do for Magma. That'll be useful for starters."

  Kline laughed, a quick explosive sound. "You mean the old boy hasn't told you? Probably wanted to lead you into it gently. Okay, Halloran, sit there and listen—you're about to be educated."

  He was on his feet again, skittishly pacing up and down before his one-man audience.

  "I welcomed you to limbo, right? Well, that's what this room represents. Nothingness. A void. Nothing to distract, nothing at all to interest. Not unless I do this!"

  He darted toward the dais, reached for something behind Halloran. He held the rectangular object in one hand, and Halloran saw it was a plain white remote-control unit, even the buttons colorless and unmarked so that it had been almost invisible against its resting place. Kline aimed the sensor cells and thumbed a button.

  The room was instantly plunged into total darkness.

  Halloran moved instinctively, changing his position on the dais, going to his left. He heard a dry chuckle from somewhere in the inkiness, an eerie scratching sound that stiffened the muscles of his back.

  "A different kind of void, isn't it?" came Kline's voice.

  Halloran twisted his head, hopelessly trying to locate the source in the pitch black.

  "It's full of things," Kline said, and this time he sounded close, almost by Halloran's shoulder.

  "Bad things," Kline whispered in his ear.

  Halloran rose, reached out. Touched nothing.

  "And now we do this," said the voice.

  Halloran squeezed his eyes shut against the burst of light from one of the walls. He opened them cautiously, giving his pupils time to adjust. Some distance away an unmarked relief map of South America glowed.

  Light reflected off Kline, who stood six feet away to Hal-loran's right. His hand, holding the remote, was extended toward the brightly lit map. He shifted his aim.

  "Now this," he said. Click. Another map. North America by the side of South.

  "This. This. This." Kline used his arm as a pointer, turning slowly, maps of different countries appearing one after the other, lining the upper halves of the walls, all the way around. India, Africa, Spain, Australia, Indonesia, Alaska, many more, plus sections of land or islands he didn't immediately recognize. They illuminated the room, large, detailed murals in greens and browns, with seas unnaturally blue.

  Kline was grinning at him, his face and body a kaleidoscope of soft colors.

  "Satellite photographs," Kline told him. "We're looking down at Mother Earth from outer space. Now look at this." He carelessly aimed the remote at one of the relief maps. A button clicked. The map became an incredibly detailed flat study, exactly in scale to the one it overlaid, but with towns, villages, rivers, and mountains clearly marked. "Something else, right, Halloran? I can tell you're impressed."

  Click.

  The pictures around the wall disappeared, shut off together save for one. An island.

  "Know this place, Halloran? New Guinea." The relief zoomed up, the left side growing out of frame. The map froze again. "Papua New Guinea, a steamy hellhole. But rich in certain things."

  He watched Kline return to the dais, a shadowy, back-lit figure that somehow exuded electric energy. The small man squatted in the middle of the low rostrum, ankles crossed, crouching forward toward the screen.

  "Copper, for one," Kline said, his eyes intent on the bright picture. His voice became dulled as he concentrated. "My deed for the day as far as Magma's concerned. It already has a copper mine down there, but it's running low. Did you know the demand for copper is up ten percent after the long recession? No, guess you didn't. Why should you? Shit, I hardly care myself. But old Sir Vic does, him and his cronies. Big money to them, y'see. Well, looks like I found 'em a new source, quite a ways from the established mine. Did that this morning, Halloran, before you arrived."

  Halloran stared. "You found them copper? I don't understand."

  Kline laughed gleefully, smacking the platform beneath him with his free hand. "And who can blame you? You're like the rest: no concept of the mind's real power. Reason is mankind's disease, did you know that? A wasting away of senses. So what do you care? A dumb bodyguard is all you are."

  "So educate me a little more."

  Click.

  Total darkness once again.

  Halloran softly walked to a new position.

  Kline's disembodied voice came to him. "All this black worry you, Halloran?"

  He didn't answer.

  "Make you wonder what it's concealing? You know you're in an empty room, you saw that when the lights were on. But now you're not so sure. Because you can't see anything. So your own mind invents for you."

  A chuckle in the dark.

  "You can hear me, so you know I'm here, right, Halloran? 'Bout six or seven feet away? But if I touch you . . ."

  A cold finger scraped Halloran's cheek.

  " . . . now that scares you. Because reason tells you it doesn't make sense."

  Halloran had instinctively gone into a crouch. He shifted position again, heard his own feet scuff the floor.

  "Scares the shit out of you, right?"

  A finger prodded his back.

  Halloran moved again and kept moving, reaching out for a wall, something solid on which to get his bearings. His stretched fingers touched a face.

  Then brilliant light forced his eyes shut.

  "You were helpless. I had you cold."

  They were on the platform once more, Halloran steadily forcing his jarred nerves to settle, Kline sitting beside him, grinning, his oil-slick eyes watching. Halloran could smell the other man's sweat, could see the damp patches beneath his armpits.

  "Sure, you had me cold," he agreed. "What was the point though?"

  "A tiny lesson about the unreality of reality. You asked me to educate you some more."

  "That wasn't what I had in mind."

  Kline giggled. "Fear was something I put into you. And you did feel fear."

  "Maybe."

  "Yet you knew it was only me and you in here. A little guy like me up against a trained heavy like you. Unreasonable, wouldn't you say? The darkness overcame your reason, don't you see? Made you vulnerable."

  "I admit I was disoriented."

  "Much more, I think."

  "It hasn't helped me understand anything. I don't see what it had to do with finding copper on a map."

  "Perhaps it was a demonstration and a test at the same time." The coarseness had left Kline's voice and his manner had subtly changed, the banter all but gone to be replaced by a cool mocking. "A silly game, yes, but I wanted to gauge your reaction to, as you put it yourself, disorientation. My life appears to be in your hands, after all."

  "Let's get on to that later. Talk to me about copper in New Guinea. How did you locate this new source?"

  "Through my mind, of course. Intuition, second sight, sixth sense, extrasensory perception—call it what you
will. I look at maps and I perceive hidden minerals and ores. Even stores of raw energy. I can tell where they can be found beneath the earth's crust. Oh, I don't mean to boast—I'm not always right. Seventy-five percent of the time I am, though, and that's good enough for Magma. Oh yes, that's more than good enough for Sir Victor Penlock and his board of directors."

  Halloran slowly shook his head. "You find these . . . these deposits with your mind? Like a diviner locates underground springs?"

  "Huh! Finding water beneath the soil is the easiest thing in the world. Even you could do that. No, it's a bit more involved. Let's say scientific geological studies and even carefully calculated estimations point me in the right direction. I'm given an area to look at—it could cover thousands upon thousands of square miles—and I totally shed irrelevant matters from my thoughts. This room helps me do that: its emptiness cleanses my mind."

  He waved a hand around at the room. By using the remote control a few moments before, Kline had dimmed the light considerably, rendering the walls and floor a pale, cheerless gray. Halloran could now see faint lines where the screens were imbedded. He also noticed tiny sensors strategically and discreetly positioned to pick up commands from the console held loosely in the other man's hand. The room was ingenious in structure and design.

  "Can you understand why I'm so valuable to the corporation?" asked Kline, gazing down at the floor and massaging his temples with stiffened fingers as though easing a headache. "Have you any idea how fast the developed countries are using up our resources—fossil fuels, minerals, metals, timber, even soils? We're rapidly running them down. Worldwide we're searching and digging and consuming. We've gotten greedy. The big corporations don't believe in restraint: they've always done their utmost to supply the demand, with no cautions, no warnings, nothing to upset the flow of cash into their silk-lined pockets."