The Eldridge Roster Read online

  “So? Munroe has the full list. Recall what all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t do for a certain shattered egg.”

  “His real name’s not Munroe—perhaps I didn’t tell you. It’s Beauchamp.”

  “Beauchamp? Not James Beauchamp, surely?” he said, rising, suddenly agitated.

  “Yes,” said Whitsun, frowning. “What’s wrong?” he asked as Schmidla walked to the window and stood staring out into the darkness.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” he demanded, turning back to Whitsun. “Or had you forgotten, Terry?”

  “Forgotten what?” asked Whitsun, puzzled.

  “The name of Maria’s birth family!”

  “Was it Beauchamp?” said the Admiral. “So?” he shrugged. “What of it? And why should I remember? Or you? Maria was acquired through intermediaries—neither you nor I were directly involved. And so long ago. Your fire keeps dying,” he said, busying himself with the tongs and poker. “Why are you worried about Beauchamp, Richard? So what if Maria’s father knows you have her? It was years ago. Certainly you long since made her your own. Beauchamp poses no threat. I’ve seen his file. He’s a has-been. The Agency all but cashiered him.”

  “Terry,” said Schmidla carefully, coming to stand next to the American as he added another chunk of pine to the flames. “Terry, I’ve seen parents sacrifice everything trying to save their children. I saw it in Russia, I saw it in the camps. Their children threatened, the mildest of people become fearless, cunning, wanton—whatever desperation moves them to. It’s a biological imperative, the preservation of one’s genes. Beauchamp’s after us not for the sake of the Eldridge descendants, not to revenge his dead friends but to reclaim and protect his child—the child of he and his dead wife. A wife murdered to further the interests of our project.”

  “He’s a has-been,” repeated Whitsun, slipping the fireplace tools back in their holder.

  “He’s coming here Terry,” said Schmidla intently as Whitsun turned to face him. “We’ve imbued him with purpose and dedication. He’ll kill us and take Maria if he can. We’re very great fools if we’re unprepared.”

  “Maria’s mind belongs to you,” said Whitsun. “And we’re prepared,” he added dismissively. “We have Lokransky.”

  “Lokransky,” snorted Schmidla. “You chant his name like a mantra. Terry, the woods are coming to Castle Dunsinane.”

  “You’re a very strange man, Richard,” said Whitsun, listening for the sound of a helicopter.

  And you my dear Admiral, thought Schmidla, are a very great fool, standing at the center of a vortex you’ve helped unleash but will never comprehend.

  James Beauchamp, he thought, pouring himself a cognac. Yet someone other than Beauchamp or George Campbell is behind this. Someone or something very clever. And patient—very, very patient.

  He sipped his cognac and waited, staring into the reborn fire.

  The big Irish pub in Quincy center was crowded for a Wednesday evening, its long bar packed with a mix of workers from the Fore River Shipyard and the local office parks. Twenty-ish software geeks jostled with welders twice their age for the attention of the two overworked bartenders. Harried waiters wound their way through the crowd carrying shepherd’s pie, rabbit and broiled scrod to the tables. The noise level was awesome. The stereo might have been playing something from Riverdance—Maria could only make out an occasional snatch of a Celtic tune.

  “You come here often?” she said to Musashi.

  “Only when I don’t want to be overheard,” he grinned. They were leaning close over the table, the only way to carry on a conversation. “Friday nights you can’t even get in here.”

  Their drinks arrived. His a thick imperial pint of Guinness Stout, hers a Beefeater-and-tonic.

  “You’re the only Oriental in the place,” she said, looking around.

  “Asian,” he said. “Oriental’s passé and tends to offend. Brings to mind coolie labor, Hey Boy! Hop Sing, no-tickee-no-shirtee and of course all those concentration camps in Utah for the sneaky Japs. And you’re wrong. There are two people of Asian descent here—you and me.”

  “If I believe you,” she said, her face reddening nonetheless.

  Taking a brown envelope from his jacket he passed it to Maria. “Here’re the rest of those. I’m sorry that I don’t have more, but your father probably does.”

  She gave a curt nod and stuffed them into her purse. “What does Uncle Richard have to do with this?”

  Musashi thought it interesting that she said “Uncle Richard” and not “my uncle.” “Schmidla’s your kidnapper and the architect of the murder of your mother. She was in his way. There are thousands of people dead who were in his way or with whom he was through. His real name is von Kemnitz—Martin von Kemnitz. He’s a physician and former SS officer, a colleague and contemporary of Mengele. He would have been tried for war crimes but was presumed dead. Whitsun arranged his escape from Occupied Germany.”

  What had he been expecting? Shock, incredulity, derision? The last, he supposed. Or perhaps just a hearty laugh as she shook her head?

  “He’s not old enough,” she said. “He was born in 1932.”

  “He was born in 1891,” said Musashi. “He was in both world wars.”

  “If so, he’s remarkably well-preserved.”

  “He was involved in an experiment aboard a German Naval vessel, the von Blücher. It didn’t affect him the way it did most others, many of whom died horribly or went mad. Schmidla merely ages much slower and grows slowly shorter.”

  “He grows shorter?” she said. Now she was incredulous.

  “About an inch every ten years.” He laughed, then had a sip of Guinness. “It adds up if you’re almost immortal. Or rather, subtracts down, though too slowly for it to help the rest of us. By the time he’s two hundred years old he’ll be about four feet tall. Perhaps he can play a Munchkin.”

  “Why was I kidnapped?”

  “Because both your maternal grandparents were on a Japanese destroyer, the Kikuzuki, that was used in the same type of experiment as the Blücher and an American ship, the Eldridge.” He went on to tell her about the ship invisibility project and its offshoot, Project Telemachus. It took him some time and required another pint of stout. “Schmidla’s been using you for years,” he concluded.

  “No he hasn’t,” she said, shaking her head. “Except for the lack of parents, I had a normal childhood. And I’ve spent a lot of time away at school.” Her gin and tonic sat in front of her, untouched, ice melted.

  “Do you remember your parents at all?”

  “I was five when they died.”

  “Begs the question, Professor.”

  “Just fragments,” she said. “I remember a woman painting in a room bright with color. I remember woods, a field—a park maybe, and a man carrying me on his shoulders and singing to me—always the same song. He was funny. I guess those were my parents.” She tossed her head back, throwing her hair over her shoulder, the light catching her eyes just so. Her grandmother’s eyes. “Fragments,” she repeated.

  “You were five when Schmidla stole you,” said Musashi. “You were raised in comparative isolation on his island. And as for schools, you attended day schools. You spent thirteen years at the John Adams Academy. Very prestigious and only four miles from the island. As for Harvard—you commuted, didn’t you?”

  “I lived in the dorms!” she protested, amazed at how much this comparative stranger knew about her cloistered life.

  “You kept a room in the dorms. But you were home almost every night.”

  Her only response was to poke her lime twist to the bottom of her glass with short, deliberate stabs of the stirrer.

  “Schmidla’s conditioned you through posthypnotic suggestion since you were a little girl. He may have used drugs to help that along. He can put you under like that.” He snapped his fingers. “You’ve been the core of his experiments. If he succeeds in acquiring a few more of the third-generation, like you, descendan
ts with very pronounced special talents, then...”

  “Then what?” she said, looking up. Musashi felt as though he was being watched by a small wary animal from just inside its burrow.

  “Then he becomes a grave threat to a lot of people in many different places,” he said. Still, no protest, not a word in defense of Uncle Richard, nothing about not having special talents.

  “You’re not telling me anything.”

  “That’s all I can tell you, at least for now,” he said, spreading his hands.

  Maria appeared to reach a decision. “Okay, so, yes, I have some special abilities. But I keep them in check.”

  “Totally?”

  She looked uneasy. “As best I can. Sometimes things just spring into my mind. Like the other day, that creep Erik, Whitsun’s grandson, was entertaining prurient thoughts about me. Those came right into my head.”

  “Do you usually pick up lustful thoughts?”

  “Only when they’re bubbling with testosterone,” she smiled. Faint, but a smile.

  “Got a boyfriend?”

  “No. Too busy,” she shrugged.

  Or too conditioned, thought Musashi. Probably never had a boyfriend. Too bad.

  “And sometimes,” Maria continued, looking down at her drink again, “I wake up with scattered memories of having been someplace else—sometime else, maybe.” She met his gaze. “All that really lingers is a sense of light and music entwining, permeating everything. So, who are you?”

  “Told you that,” he said, finishing his drink.

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I’m here to prevent Schmidla from doing any more damage. Huge damage. I work within severe limitations, meaning I have to work mostly through others.”

  “Look,” she said. “I don’t disbelieve you—understand? But this is all just a little overwhelming. Maybe Uncle Richard isn’t my uncle. Maybe he is what you say he is. Maybe he has been using me.” She leaned forward intently. “The only reason I’m lending your story any credence is because I know I’m different. But I need proof. And not just a few photos and tales of ghost ships.”

  “How much proof can you handle?”

  “How much proof do you have?”

  “Do you know about the special ward, inside Ft. Strong?”

  “The drug rehab ward? Sure. There are always a few patients there, usually just for evaluation. At least there were before today. After evaluation, the right rehab facility is selected for them and they’re sent on.”

  “There’s still a patient there and he’s not a drug addict. Other than you, he’s the last living victim of Schmidla’s experiments.” Other than you, he thought. “He’s kept as a sort of freak show to impress visitors from Washington.” Musashi passed her a slip of paper. “That’s the access code to the entrance door to the ward.”

  She gave it a quick glance then put it in her pocket.

  “Check it out,” said Musashi. “Tonight would be good. Lokransky and his men are away. And when you see this person, remember that he’s kept alive only because he’s useful. Like so many of the rest, his ashes will eventually be consigned to the ocean. Never forget that anyone Schmidla can no longer use he disposes of. Anyone.”

  “Drive me back, please. I’ve had enough for one night.”

  Jim’s cellphone chirped. “Yo,” he said, awake. He hadn’t been deeply asleep, just tossing, half-dreaming of Angie: Angie laughing, Angie talking particle theory and dead sailors; Angie being a bitch; Angie curled up against him, naked, flesh damp from lovemaking; Angie dead, eyes wide and staring at nothing, a hole through her head, lying in a pool of her blood.

  It was D’Artangan. “What’d they say?” Jim asked. .

  “Lokransky tried to slip them out of the hotel,” Jim told Dee a half-hour later as he sat watching her eat breakfast at McDonalds. “According to witnesses, he spotted Angie and O’Malley as they were leaving the lobby of the inn. There was a firefight. The whole Town of Dorset police department was wiped out, along with my friend Henry, who owned the place, and one of Lokransky’s men. Angie and O’Malley were captured, taken away in a stolen hotel van, later found abandoned at the county airport. Lokransky took them aboard a helicopter that headed north.”

  “North?” said Dee. She was wearing blue jeans and a matching cotton denim shirt, her hair tied back with a wide green ribbon. She had the half-drugged look of someone who hadn’t slept well.

  Jim shrugged, sipped more of his coffee. “Transparent ruse. He’s in Boston by now.”

  “You should eat something.”

  “Not hungry, thanks. Look, Dee,” he continued, “you know you can’t go back to Portsmouth—they’ll be waiting for you. There’s a city in Mexico, on the Yucatan—Meirda. I spoke with a friend of mine there this morning, someone from the old days. He runs a travel agency. He can put you up in one of his properties until this is over. I’ll see that you get money to tide you over.”

  Leaving Washington, Jim and Angie had cleaned out there bank accounts, stuffing it all into a money belt Angie had made Jim buy. “No one wears these anymore,” he’d groused, hating the itchy miserable nylon thing around his waist. “Think of yourself as a cash heavy entity, Jimbo,” she’d said.

  Dee took a big bite out of her hash browns. “No thank you,” she said. “That Russian will figure it out, eventually. Or don’t you think so?”

  “Lokransky? Can’t say that he won’t.

  “And then I’d be on the run in Mexico, and me with not a word of Spanish. And that’s if I’m lucky.”

  “Ok, so, what do you want do?”

  “The question is, what are you going to do?” she said, wiping the grease from her fingers with a thin paper napkin. “I’m going with you.”

  “I’m going to Boston,” he said, “to visit an island.”

  Maria sat at the desk in her room, looking at the framed photo of herself, Baby Maria, with her late parents, John and Greta Nelson. It was four a.m. and she hadn’t been to bed. It was a nice shot, the three of them standing in front of their house, her mother holding her. It must have been a cold day. Her dad was wearing an overcoat and gloves, her mother a ski parka. Maria was bundled up in a powder-blue snow suit, the white fur-trimmed hood pulled back to expose her chubby, smiling face.

  Opening the envelope Musashi had given her, she looked again at the photo that had so captured her attention. It was another Baby Maria shot, same snow suit, same expression, different parents, this time the young couple from the photo Musashi had first shown her. The trio stood smiling before a broad stretch of water filled with regal white swans, a tall stone wall sloping up and out of sight on the opposite bank, a light dusting of snow all around. She’d already read the back: Kaeko, 18 months, Imperial Palace.

  “One of you is lying,” she said, looking between the two photos.

  Feeling faintly melodramatic, she slipped out of the house just before dawn, stopping in the kitchen to take one of the well-honed fish filleting knives from a drawer, carefully easing it down between her hiking boot and thick woolen sock until the haft touched the boot top. If what Musashi said was true, she was important and no one was going to intentionally harm her. That didn’t mean she wanted to be caught. And it didn’t mean she wouldn’t use the knife. The worn bone handle gave her a feeling of security, pressing against her skin as she walked.

  It was a clear, cold night. The crisp wind off the water cut through Maria’s leather jacket, chilling her as she moved away from the house. Hurrying across the meadow toward the hospital, she was grateful for the luminous full moon bathing the island, easing her way.

  The moon that brightened the night also threw deep shadows among the boulders from which she fed the seals. There was no reason for her to look there. Even had she looked, she probably wouldn’t have seen the dark figure that lay hidden among the rocks, eyes following her.

  Using her security card to open the hospital’s main door, Maria moved quickly along the deserted corridors then into the elevator and down i
nto Ft. Strong. Gray and implacable, the vault door stood before her. To the left the status light over the entry touchpad was a solid red.

  Following Musashi’s instructions, she entered the access code, holding her breath until the light winked green and the door slid silently open. Only as she passed through did she realize how thick the door was: a foot at least and solid steel. As she turned left, following the ancient To The Batteries sign, she heard the clank of the door bolts sliding home behind her. Mastering her fears, she pressed on down the empty corridor.

  “Don’t suppose you want to go with me?” she asked Musashi as he’d driven her home from the pub. She immediately regretted it. She hadn’t meant to say it, it just came out.

  “Some things we have to do alone,” he said. “We’re born alone, we die alone. In a way, this is the beginning of your rebirth—if you want it to be. It’s something you need to do by yourself.”

  “Any other platitudes for me?” she’d asked, hiding her hurt.

  “‘And the truth shall set you free.’”

  Okay, truth, she thought pushing through a set of double swinging doors into the last century, here I come.

  Darkness enveloped her as the doors swung shut behind her. She clicked on the big flashlight she’d brought from the house.

  Maria swept the powerful beam in front and around her. Cold, damp and bleak, smelling of rotted wood and mold, the cavernous gallery held no surprises—it was the same place she’d played as girl. Eight wide gun embrasures breached the thick gray wall to her left, the openings in the blocks of dressed granite neatly angling out to give best vantage to the long gone rifled Dahlgren cannon. The huge retaining rings remained, designed to limit the big guns recoil: thick, corroded loops of iron, pounded far into the floor.

  A barrel arch, high and deep, supported the great domed roof. Stretching the thirty feet to the ceiling, much of its brick badly chipped and in need of repointing, the arch lay in the center of the gallery, an opening the width of five men.

  Further along, against the far wall, beyond the last gun position, Maria’s light picked out the remains of a small fireplace, its mantel long gone. A sudden sharp gust came whistling down the chimney, startling her. From outside she could hear the surf breaking against the rocks below the fort.