Cain's Blood (6 page)

Nature/Nurture.
At least two years’ worth of behavioral studies connected to carefully designed environments, according to the videos’ time stamps, have
been recorded and evaluated as part of ongoing research. hours and
hours of tiny Pogos. half being tortured in the name of science . . . or
national defense.
hours and hours of weeks and years.
Castillo watched as much as he could.

A coffin is lifted awkwardly from the ground by three men. In the
digital video, it is night—the best time for grave robbing. It is raining.
The men are dirty and soaked from digging all night, fresh mounds of
dirt completely surrounding the grave. One of the men Castillo knows
as Dr. Gregory Jacobson. filmed in night vision, the rainwater runs dark
as blood from the mounds into the gaping black hole beneath. When
they lift the coffin, its rotted bottom splits open from the weight of the
lead lining inside, and the casket’s contents spill free. Jacobson waves
the other men off and the coffin is laid back down. Tilted strangely, half
in the grave and half out. They open it from the top and the camera
zooms in as the casket is pried open. rain falls on the man inside for the
first time in what could be hundreds of years, the figure wrapped in a
decaying burial shroud. The video shows Jacobson’s fingers pulling the
cloth open, tearing it free. The shroud splits easily. Beneath, the corpse’s
chest. ribs. Neck bones. Jacobson rips the shroud open further to reveal
the skull. Teeth. Clumps of hair. Strips of wrinkled, rotted skin along the
skewed jawbone. The rain falls on everything. Jacobson runs his fingers
along the crown of its glistening skull. he looks up at the camera. The
rain splashes down on his face. he is laughing. And, though it could be
the rain, it also looks as if he is crying.

In the last video, a boy is drawing. The same blonde boy, maybe
ten, is playing piano. he looks twelve and is playing Guitar hero on his
PlayStation. he is surrounded by balloons and blowing out the candles
on a birthday cake. The camera is not hidden now. It’s handheld. A
home movie.

And the boy talks to the camera. And the man holding the camera
talks back. And the boy says, “Dad, give me a break.”
Castillo recognizes the boy in the video some. his features.
he recognizes the house in the video completely.
easy enough. It’s
this
house.
Jacobson’s house.

12 Oct— . . . psychopathic subjects rated ‘H’ or greater remain
among the lowest asymmetry scores for monitored offenders.
During interview, subject continues to illustrate classic
psychopath criteria: superficially charming, unmotivated,
manipulative, inadequate sense of shame, paucity of emotion. I
asked the subject how he would feel if I put a gun to his face
and robbed him. He said he’d find a way to escape, give me
the money, or fight me to take the gun. When I pressed him on
the issue of how he would “feel,” not what he would think or
do, subject had no response. None. MMPI scheduled for next
session. C-Subject’s custodian contacted to increase maternal
neglect by 2.0 degrees, fm abuse by 1.0.

9 Nov—Lunch with Dr. Carla Bayliff (Tulane), who is heading a
symposium next spring and asked if I would be interested in
being guest of honor. Perhaps. Reviewed impact of common
functional polymorphism in MAOA on brain structure and
function. Low expression variants found on subject’s MRIs.
Erdman maintains reservations on limited test group. Recorded
pronounced limbic volume reductions and hyperresponsive
amygdale during emotional arousal. Marked diminished reactivity
of regulatory prefrontal regions compared with the high
expression allele. The clearest link between genetic variation
and aggression is located on the chromosome XP11.23. This is the
true mark of Cain. XP11 is the new number of the beast.

22 Nov— . . . subject’s MAOA levels remain identical to DNA
patron. Latest blood tests confirm sustained low serotonin,
norepinephrine, and dopamine levels. Dogs bark as they are
bred. Note to visit John and Albert at secondary environments.
Voxel-based morphometry prescribed to canvass subject’s brain
for regional volume changes related to genotype.

He requested his room be painted tan. A genuine emotional
preference or mimicry of conventional exchange? He asked again
about his mother today. Falsehood has a perennial spring. Perhaps
I should never have brought him here.

6 April—Dreams should remain banished to the night. In the sun,
they become vile trespassers. The Triazolam shots abridge REM
sleep, but now they have somehow found me in the day. I could
not see her face again. The warmth spilling from her insides
was like a mother’s blanket enfolding me. I awoke at my desk,
drenched in sweat, my belly warm and wet with semen. I heard
from Rochester today and everything is now arranged. Mankind
remains ceaselessly motivated by genetic characteristics
inherited from ancestors long buried. Individual experiences of
childhood can modify, inhibit, or augment these, but can never
truly erase. I shall be there when he is lifted again from the
earth.

04 May—Tumblety’s DNA is a match, and I am filled with
abundant joy. It is, as I’d always hoped it would be,
comforting to find our basest traits in our forebears. It
absolves us.

Castillo tossed Jacobson’s journal back inside a box with the rest.
Mostly technical jargon and arbitrary fortune-cookieish dictums on
violence and heredity.

A stack of clinical studies on various known serial killers (Castillo
hadn’t heard of any of them). A partial aerial shot of Afghanistan (likely)
he had marked with a series of colored circles growing out from the small
village at its center, and the word “SharDhara” scrawled across the top
(familiar almost, but not enough). Papers on Supermale Syndrome, Xyy
children, and something called klinefelter’s syndrome. PCr printouts
from a machine Jacobson kept in the same room, which mapped double
helix pairings Castillo couldn’t understand in the slightest, though he
remembered the significance of “MAOA levels” from erdman. Some
graphs comparing oxytocin and vasopressin levels for several subjects
made even less sense. But there were also color photos of mutilated victims. Sliced and broken. These Castillo understood perfectly. Crimes,
from the clothing and photo qualities, from the early 1900s through
present day. There were maps of east London from the nineteenth century. Old photos of someone named francis Tumblety, and an old pamphlet written by this same guy entitled
The Kidnapping of Dr. Tumblety
.

he’d gathered from Jacobson’s journals that francis Tumblety was
the withered stiff he’d spent the bulk of the night with. A quick Google
search revealed Tumblety was a Jack the ripper suspect who’d died in
1903. Jacobson, according to the journals and film, had collected this
guy’s DNA six months ago.

But a match with what?
Castillo wondered. The journals were vague.
With Jacobson? With some other clone?
Castillo didn’t think on it too long,
because the dead guy wasn’t the most puzzling, most twisted part.

Children being beaten and worse. Jacobson’s journals and reports
confirming that the various forms of abuse had been methodically ordered,
prescribed,
in the name of science.

Castillo leaned into his hands and rested against the desk. It had
been a long day. he’d grown too numb to think. The whole thing was
fucking insane. he thought of prayer, but his only thoughts for God
right now were angry thoughts. The colonel had been right. There was
no going back.

“If any god has marked me out again for shipwreck, my tough heart can
undergo it.”
Another favorite homeric passage came to mind. “
What
hardship have I not long since endured at sea, in battle! Let the trail come.”

he checked his cellphone. 0614 hours. he called the number they’d
given.
Who am I trying to convince?
“It’s Castillo,” he said and could hear the anger in his own voice.
knew already it had been stupid to call.
“yes?” Dr. erdman replied at the other end. his voice sounded
strained. It’d been a long day and night for everyone. Castillo wondered
how the cleanup was coming along. “I was informed by Stanforth you’d
found something and instructed to leave you alone until you were finished. Are you?” erdman tried to sound bored, but Castillo could tell
the bioengineer was terrified about what Castillo might have discovered.
With good cause.
“
Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft,
” Castillo replied.
“Go on.”
“Something Nietzsche pointed out. ‘Who fights with monsters
should—’ ”
“‘—beware that he, himself, does not become a monster.’” erdman
finished the quote. “Profound. Cliché. how does it relate to the immediate matter at hand?”
Castillo’s laughter was harsh. “What do you see when you look
in the mirror, erdman?”
I shouldn’t have called.
It was confrontational,
unnecessary. The kind of call he would have made a year ago. Merely
spoiling for a fight.
Any
fight. Wanting to lash out at someone for the
shit he’d been forced to watch all night. An emotional reaction that had
no place in the operation.
Damn it. Why did I call him?

“What most men see, I imagine.” erdman’s reply brought Castillo
back. “I hope you’ve acquired meaningful information of some kind to
assist in the prompt resolution of this matter. Stanforth assured us you
would.”

“Meaningful information.” Castillo stopped any impending threats
from bursting forth. Slowed his speech. “One, Dr. Gregory Jacobson—your boss—is undeniably insane. his personal journals are filled
with violent disjointed fantasies and a connection to some Victorian
murderer named francis Tumblety, an englishman who died a hundred
years ago. There’s video of Jacobson and some other folk digging up
this man’s grave. In fact, I’m standing over, I believe, what’s left of Mr.
Tumblety’s corpse.”

“yes?”
“Not surprised yet, I see. Two, for the sake of marketable pharmaceuticals, bioengineering prospects, and potential military applications—otherwise why would I be involved?—DSTI, a highly financed
but little-known genetics lab, purposely breeds monsters. Testing clones
of humans known to possess violent behavior. Sponsors the abuse of
children . . . No wait, my bad, sponsors the abuse of only
half
of them
for the sake of nature/nurture environmental testing.”
“Those tests were discontinued years ago and, officially, never happened.”
Deny. Deny.
The videos
had
been time stamped years ago and
so might have been discontinued. And the public disavowal of some
wrongdoing was not unfamiliar to Castillo. It sometimes went with the
job. however, this . . .
“understood,” Castillo pressed. “how familiar are you with the full
environmental testings, ‘subject insertions,’ of Phase Three, Doctor?”
erdman paused on the other end. “Jacobson had plans, but we
never . . . DSTI rejected his proposal. If anything was done, he did it on
his own.”
Deny. Deny.
“Well.” Castillo rubbed his eyes. “his notes indicate that’s exactly
what he did. Adopting out infant genetic psychopaths to unknowing
parents to see how the ‘killer gene’ would play out. Paid for it himself
when you wouldn’t.”
“DSTI rejected the proposal, as it tendered virtually zero benefit to
our primary objectives.”
“So you’ve now noted twice. Guess he had motive to become disgruntled after all, huh? his records also indicate that he, himself, was
one of the adoptive parents.”
“Did you find . . . ?”
“A stolen clone? Nope. Not yet, doctor.”
There was a long pause on the other end of the phone. Then erdman spoke again. “Jacobson practically launched DSTI himself and is
one of the preeminent bioengineers in the world. he was permitted
many freedoms.”
“Clearly. Did you know he had a son?”
“Of course.”
“And that the boy is a clone from your lab?”
“yes.”
“how many more could there be then? how many families have
these children been placed with? Jacobson’s notes are iffy. Coded.”
“We don’t know for sure. A dozen, perhaps. All other embryos have
been accounted for. We’ll need to see his notes.”
“Good, he wanted you to see them. he left the key for a reason. I’ve
made my copies and will leave the originals for you. Pick ’em up here
in an hour. you can send me e-copies of what, if anything, you found
earlier when you tried to clear this place out. But it looks like I’ve got
what I really need here already. your six missing students was barely the
beginning. Jacobson’s going to find these other adopted kids, and then
he’s going to set
them
free, too.”
“Why do you think so?”
“It’s in the journals. he clearly wants the cages emptied. So, if I have
this right, by week’s end, there could be as many as eighteen of these
kids loose in the world?”
erdman returned absolute silence.
“Perfect,” Castillo said. “you guys need to start understanding I’m
on your team and I can’t do my job when I’m being lied to. On that
note, any idea what ‘SharDhara’ is? Person? Place? Something to do
with Afghanistan?”
“No.”
“No? he’s got a map of a region
in
Afghanistan, a blast radius and
what look like mortality numbers here. estimates. figures. readings of
some kind I can’t make heads or tails of.”
“Doesn’t mean a thing to me. how did you find the room?”
“I’ll be in touch.” Castillo hung up and tapped his chin with the
phone, thinking. The fight with erdman had already become one more
reason to call her. Practically as if he’d done it for that purpose.
So many reasons to call. A dozen more
not
to
.
“Damn it,” he cursed quietly in the empty room.
he tapped in the number from memory.
0630. Might not even be at work yet.
Would I call back if she wasn’t?
She answered on the first ring, “kristin romano.”
her name alone, or even the sound of her voice, would have been
enough. Combined, it felt like he’d been shoved out the back of an hC130 into a six-mile hALO-style free fall.
Kristin Romano.
When he’d returned from Iran, he’d spent another year recovering
at the Walter reed Medical Center in D.C. There, Colonel Stanforth
made sure he’d gotten the very best treatment available for the physical
damage he’d endured. Psychological healing had come harder. The biggest hindrance, he’d always known, had been himself. But the assemblyline treatment of Veterans Affairs hadn’t helped much either. The first
two psychologists he’d worked with kept piling on the pills. had figured
if they’d kept him a zombie another forty years, he’d get over the torture and the fact that the army had decided he should be pinned with a
bouquet of shiny medals and then retired at age thirty-three as swiftly
and quietly as possible. It hadn’t gone well. he’d even punched out one
of the guys during a session.
Then came Doctor kristin romano. Captain romano.
Kristin.
She’d stopped his prescriptions immediately, her methods more
connected to activities like journaling, art therapy, meditation and even,
eventually, more woo-woo exercises in things like astral projection and
channeling.
To start, however, she’d simply invited him to spend the week
camping with nine other vets somewhere in the Adirondacks for a
bunch of touchy-feely Oprah bullshit. Sit around the campfire and talk
about your feelings like a gaggle of pussies. he’d said six words the first
two days, and none of the other guys had been much better. The third
night, she’d set up an actual sweat lodge miles from their cabins and left
the ten men completely alone for the rest of the night. he couldn’t remember who’d started it, but they’d started. Talking. first one guy, then
the next. Things they’d seen, done. Most of it was things they
should
have done. They took turns crying and screaming and laughing. It had
been midmorning the next day before anyone realized they’d been cold
and there had been no more firewood. Ten brothers now. Ten singular
experiences had become only one. Group talks continued the rest of the
week. At the end, she’d given each man a copy of
The Odyssey
and said,
“It took Greece’s greatest soldier ten years to finally make his way home
after the Trojan War. Give yourselves a fucking break.”
he’d read the book religiously ever since, meditated on and memorized passages each night, Odysseus’s adventures suddenly a very real
allegory for
every
returning soldier. each week, he and Dr. romano
had discussed what he’d read. They’d discussed more easily than ever
before what he’d done and witnessed in the army. his kills. his capture.
The torture. Some of the boy, of Shaya. They’d eventually gotten to
his childhood and future plans. Then
hers
. And then love. Or lust. Or
both. But it had happened. And the fact that she’d been married and
had a young daughter made the eventual ending even worse. When he’d
vanished on her, it had been quick and clean. Like an execution, as if
the whole affair had been nothing but ten months of fucking to pass the
time. hell, he half remembered implying that. Maybe to make her hate
him, make it easier. But in the end, he’d left for one reason: he loved
her.
Worse: She knew it.
“It’s Castillo,” he said.
Silence.
“Been awhile, I know.” he could feel himself scrambling, like a man
desperate to deploy a parachute in the last few thousand feet. “how . . .
how are things?”
“What can I do for you, Captain?”
It was the voice of a total stranger.
Fine.
That’s what he needed
to hear. he was safely on the ground again.
Almost
. “Not a captain
anymore,” he said. Doubtless, she’d already heard that. As far as he
knew, her notes on him had been applied as part of the procedure. “Discharged ten months ago. I need your help.”
her voice changed. “have you had—”
“No, no. Nothing like that. I’m fine. you cured me, remember?”
She laughed softly. It sounded forced but was still familiar enough.
he thought he’d somehow already forgotten it. “you were never ‘sick,’”
she said, and he heard a more genuine smile. “What can I do for you?”
The stranger’s voice returning some.
“Nothing,” he said. Waited. Thought again of hanging up. “I don’t
know.”
“Articulate as always.”
Castillo absently straightened some of the papers on Jacobson’s
desk. Thinking. Thinking,
Why the hell did I call her?
Saying, “I need
your help, kristin.”
“‘kristin?’ Wow . . . what’s the—”
“I’m in something now that’s  .  .  .” Castillo breathed more deeply,
memories clouting him. “Ok, here’s the thing: I’ve got a couple psychological reports to figure out for a case I’m working on. But it’s all just a
bunch of numbers and bullshit shrink jargon I can’t decipher.”
“Ok . . .”
“I’m gonna need a little help figuring some of this shit out. And
maybe, I guess, I also need someone I can trust.”
And maybe someone who
can help hold me together through this first assignment back. Just once . . .
“you were never a ‘maybe’ guy.” her end of the line grew muffled.
Probably shutting her office door. “Not a minute ago, you told me you
were finally out. What the hell they got you working on now?”
“I can’t tell you. you know that.”
“yes,” she said, her turn to sigh. “I know that.”
“Will you help me?”
Pause.
“kris?”
“yes,” she said.
“I’d just need you to look at the files and maybe give me personality profiles. Who these guys are, how they think. Six subjects. you have
time?”
“Do I have . . . you know, this is fucking nuts. Whatever. Send me
the files. I’ll get to them as soon as I can.”
“Also, if you could, any generic profile data you can pull together on
sociopaths would be good. It’ll all arrive by courier later today.”
“Ok.” More confusion in her voice. “Not a problem.”
“Thanks. Means a lot.”
“Was there anything else?”
Castillo thought. Maybe he’d try something like
I’m sorry I left the
way I did. What the hell have you been up to the last ten months? How’s Allie?
How’s that damned husband of yours doing?
Or maybe . . . “No,” he said. “I
better go anyway. Whenever you can get to it . . .”
“I’ll look at it today.”
“Thanks. I, ah . . . Talk soon.”
he shut the phone and put it away. Drew his 9mm pistol in its place.
he’d replay the call in his mind many times again later. he’d think
of her. Later.
Now it was time to find the clone.