Dantes' Inferno (46 page)

“On one level,” Sylvia began slowly. Her voice was weak. “It's also a journey through the unconscious mind.”

“Exactly.” M smiled. “Compared to Dantes, I'm a simple man. After my hero killed my sister and destroyed my illusions and my innocence, I reinvented myself. I eliminated my parents. And I joined any revolution I could find. I interned with the IRA, with the PLO, with Qaddafi's and bin Laden's soldiers—until I was master of my trade. Only then could I take the name of Ben Black—”

“Get on with it,” Dantes interrupted sharply.

“Dr. Strange,” M said. “Dantes has elected you to be his Beatrice. My friend believes he's in love. I can see it in his eyes. That's the good news. The bad news is, he loved my sister, Laura, too. And look what happened to her; he let her blow sky high. Why? Because he is a
coward
.” M paused, abruptly discomfited, as if his own words had penetrated his facade. “Why does a man become a fanatic, a revolutionary, Beatrice? Could it be to escape the truth—that he is a coward and a fraud? Could that be why?”

“It's possible,” Sylvia whispered.

“And could a man become a zealot of the faith to escape another truth—that he will betray his closest friend, his cause, his kin?”

“It's called projection—reaction formation,” Sylvia said deliberately.

“See, John, the doctor has a name for it.” M turned, moving toward Dantes. “A demon stole your soul the day you let my sister die.”

Dantes gazed up at him, eyes dull, face impassive. He shook his head. “Sorry to disappoint you, Simon. But I lost my soul long before I met you.”

“You always have to have the last word,” M said sharply, backing away. For an instant he resembled a peevish schoolboy; then his expression hardened. “We have two possible scenarios. The first belongs to the
demon
. You, Beatrice, remain with the bomb. Dantes and I leave. When the explosion occurs”—he glanced at his watch—“in three minutes, twenty-nine seconds, you're blown to shit and a series of secondary explosions at strategic locations are triggered.” He shrugged. “Basically, Los Angeles is crippled—possibly beyond recovery.”

M hadn't taken his eyes from Dantes, but now he checked his watch again. “Three minutes, four seconds. Almost time to skeedadle, but there is a second scenario—and this one belongs to the
fallen hero
.” He smiled. “It goes like this. I leave Dantes with you, Dr. Strange. He just has time to cut you free—in the process, he triggers a booby-trap, another switch on the bomb. Do you see that bright orange wire by your elbow? That's the one. LA is saved—the explosion is contained inside this bunker—and it's possible that Beatrice can escape—she has a good thirty seconds to make it out of here and up a ladder to the manhole. But that's only if Dantes keeps his finger on the little button. When the time is up—
boom!
John Dantes sacrifices himself—he
dies
a hero.”

M sighed. “Two minutes, thirteen seconds. Two minutes, ten seconds. Two minutes, seven seconds.” He paused, studying his audience, apparently puzzled by their lack of enthusiasm.

Finally, he turned to Dantes for corroboration. “She dies,
yes?
”

Dantes nodded.
Yes
.

“Yes.” M tipped his head toward Sylvia. “My fair Beatrice—where is your precious faith now? Don't deny it—you
believed
in John.”

M was moving, strolling close to the tanks of acetylene that were lined along the far wall. Sylvia saw the labels,
DANGER—PELIGROSO
, inscribed on metal. She remembered Dantes' words:
acetylene . . . unstable at twenty-five pounds . . . just a little bit lighter than air
 . . .

“Not that it matters,” M was saying. “But Dantes would like to kill me and escape. Unfortunately for you, that would be too much like the past.” He continued walking, covering space very slowly. When he was a few feet from Dantes, he bent forward quickly and sliced the small blade through the binding tape.

“‘Which way shall I fly, infinite wrath and infinite despair? Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell,'” M whispered.

Now that Dantes' hands were free, he massaged his wrists and forearms. He made no move to stand.

“This will interest you Dr. Strange,” M said, running his tongue across his lips. “Dantes believes his conversion disorder was all a sham. He conveniently forgets about UCLA—
that
was real. Although he tells himself he's confused things in his memory. But we know better, don't we?”

Dantes looked straight into Sylvia's eyes; there might have been the slightest tinge of regret in the gray-green pupils. “M's right. Bombing is a coward's crime,” he said softly. “I lost my faith too long ago to be worthy of yours.”

Sylvia stared at him, refusing to let him go, thoughts racing through her mind—Dantes' rigid ideals, his obsession with his mother and his parallel obsession with Los Angeles, his relationship with Simon Mole; a story complete with all the elements of love and revenge.

Except Sylvia still didn't know the story's ending—she couldn't quite believe Dantes would condemn himself to hell. She looked straight into his eyes; he met her gaze, and the energy was still there, still alive.

Sylvia shook her head. “You're not a coward, Dantes.”

She saw Dantes react—M saw it, too, and at that same moment shifted, as if to break the connection between Sylvia and Dantes.

M's foot caught the edge of a metal canister; it rolled, raising a clatter. The noise, the movement, was enough to distract his focus.

Dantes lunged forward, and both men went down, cursing. They were on top of each other, hands at each other's throats.

M forced Dantes toward the wall, where acetylene cans tumbled to the floor.

Dantes reached out blindly, grasping a piece of metal pipe. He brought it down hard. There was a dull cracking noise, and M went limp. He lay on his back, eyes wide open in surprise.

“You . . . broke my back,” he whispered. “That was never part of the plan.”

But Dantes was already beside Sylvia. He ripped through tape with the sharp edge of pipe. Clasping the hot orange wire between his fingers, he whispered, “You knew I'd never let her down—not LA, not you.”

“Dantes—”

He wrenched a wire back; there was a sharp clicking sound. “Now get the hell out of here.”

She turned, stumbling, facing darkness.

“Go!” Dantes bellowed.

She ran down the tunnel stealing one quick look back. She caught a glimpse of Dantes as he hovered over the bomb.

Sylvia found the metal ladder, climbed—half heaved herself upward to hit solid metal. The cover gave—breaking open—and sunlight warmed her face.

Then she was out, slamming down the manhole cover,
diving across the hood of a parked car, hitting the ground hard.

When the bunker exploded, flames shot skyward through the manhole, the earth shivered, and a roar reverberated through the City of Angels like the echo of winds racing across the desert ruins of Babylon.

Seigen jikan ippai!

Referee (Time's up!)

June 30—two months later . . 
.
Neon bruised the street, pulsing red, blue, orange against slick asphalt. The night was quiet, sounds of traffic muffled by light rain, and the only other pedestrian was a slender woman in a black slicker poised gracefully beneath a white umbrella. Sylvia wiped mist from her eyes; when she looked up again, the woman had disappeared.

She glanced down to see Serena smile, eyes bright with excitement.

The club was located at the intersection of a bitumen trail, Chunking Alley, running west to east. Luke moved casually, in the lead, through a low, narrow doorway that Sylvia would have missed. Just below the sleeve of his T-shirt, and signaling the way, the tattoed flying fish hovered against pale flesh. Purcell and Pete (who was now a hero at county flood control) were meeting them later. Gretchen followed Sylvia and Serena through the doorway to ascend a long flight of stairs.

Sylvia was startled when they emerged onto a long balcony overlooking a small sports arena fifty feet below.

Luke whispered in Sylvia's ear, “It's called the
dohyo
 . . . the ring.”

Quiet and expectant, an audience of more than a hundred people waited, backed by rainbow-colored flags. “Those are nobori banners, Serena,” Luke explained. “They list the names of the
rikishi
 . . . the ‘strong men' . . . those who compete.”

Sylvia was looking around curiously. “Where's Sweetheart?” she asked, slightly puzzled and touching the empty seat to her left.

“He's here somewhere,” Luke said vaguely. “There's going to be an overload of ritual . . . such as . . .” He proceeded to overwhelm Serena and Sylvia with vocabulary. He said, “This isn't
honbasho
—a major tournament. There are only six of those a year, all in Japan. This is
jungyo
—a ritual exhibition. Even these are extremely rare outside Japan. We're lucky to be here.” He smiled. “It's great you two could fly out from New Mexico.”

Gretchen touched Sylvia's leg and said, “The wrestlers join a
heya
, a stable, usually when they're just out of college. They work their way up through divisions . . .”

“Serena?” Sylvia said, smiling.

“I love this,” Serena said.

Luke's voice asked, “When you going back to Santa Fe?”

“Tomorrow morning, early.” Sylvia gave the map man a smile. “Unless we can convince Matt to fly out.”

“We can,” Serena said, quickly.

A murmur of excitement went through the crowd. Sylvia looked down to see several men enter the ring. The two wrestlers were wearing traditional sumo belts.

One looked familiar . . .

“It's very rare that non-Japanese ever become sumo,” Luke said. “They're tossing salt, an offering for the gods. . . .” He looked up, over Sylvia's head, and smiled.

She turned, expecting to see the professor. It was Molly Redding who took the seat to her left. Sylvia reached out,
clasping Molly's hand. Molly gently squeezed her fingers in return. She caught Sylvia's eye—
I'm okay
. She smiled at Serena and leaned down to give the child a quick hug.

A cry went up from the crowd. Sylvia, Molly, and the entire audience glued their eyes on the ring. The match had begun.

It was at the moment of first contact that Sylvia thought she recognized the smaller wrestler: something in the posture, the stature, the grace. Her eyes went wide, she turned toward Luke—but he kept his gaze straight ahead.

Sarah Lovett worked as a legal researcher for the New Mexico Office of the Attorney General and at the Penitentiary of New Mexico. A former resident of Los Angeles and a native Californian, she now lives in Santa Fe with her husband Michael and assorted dogs. Her Web site address is:
http://www.sarahlovett.com/

ALSO BY SARAH LOVETT

A DESPERATE SILENCE

ACQUIRED MOTIVES

DANGEROUS ATTACHMENTS

SIMON & SCHUSTER PROUDLY PRESENTS

DARK ALCHEMY

SARAH LOVETT

Available in hardcover March 2003
from Simon & Schuster

Read on for a preview of
Dark Alchemy . . .

Doug Thomas fed the cat, walked the dog, and left for work in his two-year-old Subaru Outback. It was business as usual for the thirty-six-year-old molecular-toxicologist except for the headache. A doozy. Gene Krupa playing sticks on his gray matter.

Doug popped two extra-strength Tylenol and donned his sunglasses. Must be his sinuses acting up again; he'd been having trouble lately. His fingers had been tingling and now his field of vision was blurry around the edges. Bad headaches could do that. When his ex-wife called about the child support check, she always had the same three complaints: men, money, migraines.

Headache or no, Doug couldn't afford to stay home. No rest for the wicked, he thought to himself with a tight smile. Stay on schedule, business as usual, no break with routine. Nothing to tip them to the fact he'd pulled off another extracurricular assignment. Ten minutes work—only moderately risky—and this time he'd bought himself the chance to erase his debts once and for all.

Keep up appearances—that's all I have to do. Can't afford to miss a minute at the lab
.

This was a crucial “window” for Project Mithradates. The “Mith Squad” had made a major breakthrough—“Building a better biotoxin,” he whispered—they'd developed an entirely new manufacturing process (not to mention quantum improvements in the delivery system) using their quarry.

And a fascinating quarry it was—a relative (third cousin twice removed) of
Gymnodinium breve
, the dinoflagellate responsible for Red Tides, and
Pfiesteria pisicida
. Lethal little bastard. Still, you couldn't help but admire its chameleon nature: opportunistic, unpredictable, changeable.

Got to hand it to their project head, the Ice Queen—for all her bitchiness, she is truly amazing—come to think of it, not unlike their killer tox: opportunistic, unpredictable, lethal
.

What was a headache compared to everything he'd been through over the past months, he wondered bitterly. He'd vowed he wouldn't let the petty personality differences affect his concentration. Territorial disputes were part of every research project, federal, state, private—just like they were part of every family. In a field as narrowly focused as his, fellow researchers interacted like some extended clan complete with feuds and alliances. He'd been down this road before. He told himself it would go no farther than disputes over territory; in the end it would all work out. The bastards were always on his case anyway—he'd yet to see eye-to-eye with his supervisors on any project.