The Eldridge Roster Read online

“Why not just join up with them?”

  “Their mission’s to kill everyone on the island,” said Jim. “Including us, if we’re there.”

  “Oh, come on!” exclaimed Dee. “This isn’t a movie, it’s America! They can’t do that. I mean, right in Boston Harbor?”

  “They can do whatever they can get away with. They’ll probably say they were after terrorists who’d taken over the island. Plausible, given that terrorists have taken over the island. So you still want in?”

  “Of course.”

  “Thanks Dee,” he smiled. “You’re first class.”

  “I know,” she said, sipping her coffee. “Besides, I’m very much intrigued by the Man Who Wasn’t There, the amorphous Mr. Musashi.”

  “You’re wondering what he is?”

  “No. I’m wondering if he is.”

  Chapter 24

  The sound of a key in the lock brought Angie to her feet as the door swung open. Lokransky came in, followed by two of his men, a pale and unshaven Tim O’Malley between them.

  “Good morning, Commander,” said Lokransky. “You are needed. I trust you’re rested and ready for a challenging day? You’ll be working with Dr. Schmidla.”

  Full of hate, with everything in her, she willed him into the wall. Nothing happened.

  She’d seen no one all the previous day, other than the commandos who brought her meals. And though she’d slept fitfully, she did feel better. They set off down the corridor.

  Given what she knew of Schmidla’s work, she didn’t expect to survive the day.

  “How many men did Lokransky arrive with?” Schmidla asked Whitsun, as the two men ate lunch in the dining room of Hull House.

  “Nine,” said Whitsun, as Mrs. MacDonald refilled his coffee cup then left the room. “Why?”

  “I’ve counted twenty-three since we sat down,” said Schmidla, looking past Whitsun, out toward the hospital and the green earthen mound behind that formed the roof of Ft. Strong.

  “He’s been reinforced,” said Whitsun, reaching for another dinner roll. “About a hundred men, off a freighter.”

  “A hundred?” said Schmidla. “Why?”

  “As a precaution.”

  “Against what?” said Schmidla, his haddock forgotten. “Invasion?”

  Whitsun looked up from his mean, surprised. “It’s all right, Richard. Lokransky knows what he’s doing. He’s a very competent officer.”

  “Yes, and he’s very competently taken over my island,” said Schmidla. He needed to get away immediately after the experiment. It was crucial. But then, he reassured himself, cutting into his potato, there are contingencies—not even I am indispensable.

  “You’re being an alarmist, Richard,” said Whitsun.

  “Am I? Well, we’ll know soon enough, won’t we Terry?”

  Jim drove across the bridge to the island. It was an old bridge, rusting and in need of paint. The only thing new on it were the thin green wires threading along the sides—wires which disappeared, dropping down out of sight, at the end of the bridge: Lokransky preparing for a mini Stalingrad.

  Two men in heavy black woolen turtlenecks and jeans blocked the end of the bridge. One held an assault rifle, the other a machine pistol. The Spesnatsky wore small black radio headsets with a thin antenna projecting from a node over the right ear, a tiny microphone in front of their mouths. Best of everything, thought Jim.

  “Out!” ordered the commando with the assault rifle, leveling the weapon at him.

  “Tell Admiral Whitsun that Jim Beauchamp’s here,” he said in Russian, carefully exiting the car, hands in sight.

  They just stared at him. “You are Russian?” Jim asked.

  “Wait,” said the nearest commando as the other spoke a few quick words over his radio, then after a moment spoke again, giving a faint nod at whatever the unseen speaker had said. “Go to the hospital,” he ordered. “Park in front of the main entrance. Leave the road and you’ll be shot. Understood?”

  “Yes,” said Jim, getting back in the car and driving slowly ahead.

  “Mr. Beauchamp is on his way here,” Lokransky informed Whitsun and Schmidla. “I’ve cleared him through the bridge checkpoint.” The three men were walking toward the hospital entrance.

  “Beauchamp?” exclaimed Whitsun, halting. They all turned at the growing sound of tires crunching over gravel. A red SAAB came into sight.

  “He’s here to bargain,” said Schmidla. “We each have something the other wants.”

  “He gets nothing from us,” said Whitsun. “But I will have that list.”

  “Or at least the pleasure of trying to extract it from him, Terry.”

  They looked up at the sound of a helicopter, coming in low and from the south. A small white Bell, it circled once, and then landed next to Lokransky’s much larger aircraft. “It’s Budd,” said Whitsun. “I called him at his hotel this morning, told him today’s the day. I’ll meet him. Colonel, see that Mr. Beauchamp joins us, please.”

  “I must get started,” said Schmidla, turning to enter the building as Jim’s car pulled up.

  You will be cool, calm, rational, Jim had told himself, during the drive from Boston, and now across the small distance from bridge to hospital. Anger is a weakness and serves only your enemies. Yet, slowing to a stop in front of the old brick building, seeing the face of the man he knew from George’s files to be Schmidla turning into the hospital, Jim was all but overcome by rage. Watching helplessly, a small part of his mind kept shouting at him to stop as he threw the car door open and bounded toward the retreating German. He saw but didn’t care about the scar-faced man with the machine pistol, standing at the base of the stairs.

  A steel grip on his arm stopped Jim, spinning him half around to find that thin, scarred face inches from his own, cornflower blue eyes looking into his as Schmidla disappeared into the hospital. “Another time,” said Lokransky. Seeing the anger leave Jim’s face, the Russian released him and stepped back. “He is a pig, though.”

  “You’re Lokransky,” said Jim, taking a deep breath.

  The colonel nodded. “Mr. Beauchamp,” he said. “So, you’ve come to the end of your crusade?”

  “Did you kill Henry Watts?” demanded Jim. “Torture him, kill him?”

  “Henry Watts?” said the Russian blankly.

  “The hotel manager in New Hampshire. He was my friend.”

  “It’s very dangerous to be your friend. Your trail here is littered with your friends, dead or taken.”

  “Did you kill Henry?”

  Lokransky shrugged. “During an operation, you do what you have to do—you know that. He had information I needed.”

  “I owe you,” said Jim flatly.

  Lokransky chuckled. “Many people owe me. I have yet to be paid. This,” he touched his scar, “was the best anyone’s ever done. Gift of a distraught Afghani mother.”

  “Jim Beauchamp,” called a familiar voice. “Why am I not surprised?”

  Jim turned to see Billy Budd walking across the driveway, accompanied by Admiral Whitsun. “Not exactly on the side of the angels, are you Billy?” he said.

  “Just doing my job,” said the CIA officer. “Rourke won’t let me put in my pension papers until my report’s on his desk.”

  “The pack of you should be hung,” said Jim. He turned to Whitsun. “I want to see my daughter, Commander Milano and Mr. O’Malley. Right now.”

  “Certainly,” said Whitsun. “Why don’t we go inside and discuss this civilly?”

  Maria lay nestled in the lightless cocoon of her crèche, swathed in perfect silence as the sweet languor of the Ethinamate stole through her. Soon the sound would come, freeing her to play again in half-remembered places. And with new friends—always new friends, never any old ones.

  It began—two high-pitched tones flowing into her, one through the left of her headset, the other, slightly higher, through the right. Maria’s mind resolved the conflict by outputting the small difference between them as a new, low harmonic. Entra
ining the pattern, her brainwaves slipped down into the theta range, her mind hovering on the twilight border of sleep.

  Reaching out, she felt them: the woman to her right, now giving up her fight as her mind responded to the beat deep within her, brainwaves slipping down into the same low frequency as Maria’s.

  The man, to Maria’s left, was a bit behind the two of them, his brain still functioning above the range in which it would allow him to entwine with his Potential. Frightened but curious, lightly sedated like Angie, he was trying to understand what was happening to him. Another moment, though, and the beat would sweep him down into the theta range and then all three of them together would go, Maria guiding them.

  Opening what she called her inner eye, Maria could see their Potential, wild and primal, a cold white radiance. Soon the three of them would be gone. They were almost ready.

  Schmidla ignored the door opening behind him, intent on the readouts. All three EEGs were dropping into the correct range, O’Malley and Milano’s oscillation patterns falling into line with Maria’s.

  “We’re all here, Richard,” said Whitsun, entering the room with Budd, Jimbo and Lokransky.

  Schmidla turned. “Ah, Mr. Beauchamp,” he said meeting Jim’s gaze. “The persistent, meddlesome Mr. Beauchamp, keeper of the holy list.”

  There was no more than ten feet between him and Schmidla. Lokransky was back near the door, a good five yards away. Jim figured he could probably break Schmidla’s neck before the Russian could stop him. And then what? “Where’s my daughter?” he said.

  “Your daughter?” smiled Schmidla. “Your daughter is down below.” He nodded toward the glass wall fronting the instrument consoles. “In her crèche. As are your friends. Please—go and look.”

  Jim walked to the window. Staring down, he saw Kaeko lying corpselike within her crèche, a thick black headset over her head and ears, the white tabs of EEG sensors attached to her temples, sniffing out the changes within her cortex. She was dressed as he’d last seen her, in blouse and jeans, but that was the only similarity. Gone was the vivacious, sophisticated, gifted young woman, in her place was what? Kaeko’s eyes were wide, staring at the ceiling, her face composed and serene, almost beatific—the face of someone embracing a strange and powerful vision, one that her father, watching her, knew he could never comprehend. Standing there, closer to her than he’d been since she was little, Jim felt further from her than ever.

  Angie lay to one side of Kaeko, O’Malley on the other, thin blue sensor cables and fat red oxygen hoses snaking from their crèches into the wall receptacles. Unlike Kaeko’s, their faces were devoid of expression, their gazes blank and unseeing, people gripped not by a vision but lost in a coma. Kaeko embraced her Potential—Angie and Tim were being driven toward theirs.

  Seeing that the entire left side of Angie’s face was bruised and swollen, he turned toward Schmidla, anger all but consuming him. “What the hell did you do to Milano?!” he demanded.

  “Nothing,” said Schmidla, shaking his head. “Other than preparing her for this experiment. Colonel?”

  “You refer to her face?” asked Lokransky.

  “Yes, I refer to her face!” he snapped, hands held carefully at his sides.

  The Russian shrugged. “What would you expect? She killed one of my men. She’s fortunate to be alive and wouldn’t be, had I not been asked to bring her here intact.”

  “That’s another one I owe,” said Jim.

  “You are tedious,” said Lokransky, turning his gaze back to the Chamber and the Potentials.

  Guilt and sorrow welled up inside Jim as he turned back to Kaeko. Did I somehow do this to you, let these monsters loose on you? I’ll get you out of here, I swear. All of you. His eyes went back to Angie. “Why is Milano a part of this?” he asked. “She’s not third-generation.”

  “But powerful nonetheless, or so we’ve heard,” said Schmidla. “Serendipitous, her being here.”

  “Now what?” asked Budd.

  “Now we wait,” said Schmidla. “It shouldn’t be long. Maria’s brainwaves must first entrain those of the other subjects. When all three patterns,” he indicated the three EEG monitors set in the console, green-and-red lines weaving across them, “are indistinguishable from one another, that’s when they’ll transition. In a moment you should see an ambient glow, a nimbus, grow to surround first Maria, then the others. Then they’ll vanish.”

  “I’m willing to trade the Eldridge roster for the three of them,” said Jim, masking his desperation. “But you have to stop this right now and release them.”

  Whitsun exchanged glances with Schmidla. Both men laughed.

  “Anything you know, we can extract from you,” said Schmidla. “Such as the location of the roster.”

  “The only copy is in the hands of a friend who will destroy it if I’m not back by tonight.”

  “Even if true,” said Lokransky, “it’s unlikely you’ve told whomever it is to destroy it. Besides, we know who all your friends are.”

  “Billy,” said Jim.

  Budd turned from the instrument console. He’d been watching the three EEG monitors, how displaying almost identical theta waves.

  “That’s Kaeko down there, Billy,” said Jim. “Remember Kaeko? She used to sit on your lap when you came over to our place in Shinjuku. Remember how we’d all hang out watching sumo wrestling on TV while she shared your beer—Kirin, as I recall—and usually, what? Yakitori with steamed rice and teriyaki sauce, wasn’t it? You even tucked her in once or twice and read her a story until she went to sleep. And what was the name of that weird kid down the hall—Japanese, with too much money?”

  “Shunichi something,” said Budd. “His folks owned that big kabuki restaurant over on the river in Asakusa. That was a lot of years ago, Jim,” he added, walking to the window and the view of the three crèches below. “And a lot of girls—most of them older—have sat on my lap since then. My first obligation’s always been to America.”

  “Your first obligation’s always been to your pension, you weasel,” said Jim.

  “It begins,” said Schmidla, standing beside Budd. Everyone not at the window joined them.

  It was as Schmidla had said it would be: a faint white glow surrounding Maria, growing quickly more intense until painful to look upon. As Jim watched, fascinated despite himself, the same glow could be seen separately encasing Maria and O’Malley. Suddenly the white nimbus expanded, enfolding the three of them, even as the observation room glass polarized into a deep obsidian black. When it cleared a moment later, the crèches were empty. Jim stared at them, disbelieving.

  “You’ve no idea where they go?” asked Budd after a moment.

  “The question you really should ask, Mr. Budd,” said Schmidla “is how did they go? Where isn’t so important. Where is something we allowed to distract us for many years. Where is something for later research. For now, that they went is what’s important—important in that it demonstrates their innate ability to channel if not yet control energy and matter. Then comes How and how will give us Where.”

  “How did they go?” said the CIA officer. “And when are they coming back?”

  “How, we’re not yet certain, you understand,” said Schmidla, “but we believe they’ve negotiated a flop-transition—created a wormhole to somewhere. And as to when... it could be hours, if experience holds true. Or just moments. It’s never been more than a day, though. Also, time may be very different where they are.

  “Assuming they come back at all,” said Budd.

  Clambering into the Zodiac, Eddy Murphy looked at Tennu Musashi and the katana, the long samurai sword tied to the latter’s back. “What are you gonna do with the katana?” he asked.

  “Kill people,” answered the Japanese cheerfully, giving Dee a hand into the rolling boat. Dressed all in black, Musashi looked like a ninja.

  “Works for me,” said Eddy.

  “Let’s shove off,” said Musashi.

  At twilight they’d once again sailed
the doughty Merri-Lee from Quincy, a yellow Zodiac lashed to her deck, Eddy, Dee and but one other person on deck: Enrique, or Ricky, recruited by Eddy and vouched for by him to Jim as “smart, fast, good with a gun and a great sailor.” It’d been decided that given the number of Spesnatz now on the islands, if Tim, Angie and Kaeko couldn’t be extracted by five people they couldn’t be extracted by nine or ten, either.

  They left the harbor behind, the setting sun turning the western sky red. Dee felt an unexpected calm come over her, banishing the uncertainty and deep unease she’d felt since Jim Beauchamp and his friends had broken into her orderly, cloistered life.

  “A penny for your thoughts.” She turned to find Tennu Musashi standing beside her. They both gripped the rail as the Merri-Lee pushed into the wind, slapping through four-foot swells.

  “Who’s driving?” she asked, looking toward the pilothouse. Ricky was at the wheel. Short, dark, whipcord thin with quick movements and darting black eyes, Ricky said little. He seemed intelligent, did exactly what Eddy told him to, usually acknowledging with just a curt nod. Dee’s one attempt to get him to speak had been ignored.

  “Eddy says he can pilot a boat,” said Musashi, following her gaze. “And he seems to know port from starboard.” He turned back to Dee. “So, do you want that penny?”

  “I was just thinking how everything has changed, knowing I’m not alone and being able to accept what I am—maybe finally reconcile myself to what? To life, I guess. To myself.”

  “There’s no surety we’ll make it through the night,” said Musashi.

  “I know. But I’d rather go out standing up than strapped to a table. So,” she said, grasping the rail hard as a sudden swell threw her off-balance, “what are you?”

  Throwing his head back, Musashi filled his lungs. “It’s so good to smell the cold sea air. We lived up north on Hokkaido until I was twelve. I love the cold and the snow.” He looked at Dee. “Me? What am I? I propose a small exchange.”

  “And what would that be?” she asked carefully.