Killing Time (10 page)

"Mine?" I
said,
trying to get into the coveralls. "But why?" "Their leader is a
particularly neurotic and unpredictable fellow who seems genuinely prepared to
make a martyr of himself, which would be perfectly acceptable to all of us, if
only he had not convinced his wives and children to remain with him by offering
assurances of favored places in Paradise. Malcolm seems to think that you may
be able to persuade him to change his mind." Watching me struggle
half-wittedly with the coveralls, Fouché began to help me into them
impatiently. "
Tonnerre,
Gideon, one would think you had never
dressed yourself!"

I made a more concerted effort to
focus, and as I did, a question occurred to me: "Say, Julien, there's one
thing I don't understand. It was the Chinese, not the Afghans, who killed
President Forrester, right? And that's why we're here. But what made the
Chinese do it?"

"Your Madame President had
something resembling scruples," Fouché answered, "though they were
well hidden. When shown pictures of the final massacre of the Falun Gong cult
in 2018, she told her cabinet that she intended to bring Beijing's trade status
up for congressional review."

"Her cabinet? So how'd the
Chinese security forces find out?"

"Gideon," Fouché
scolded, hustling me down the corridor, "are you really so naïve? Since
the turn of the century the Chinese have made a point of having at least one
American cabinet minister in their pockets—further proof, of course, that
increased trade with the outside world has done nothing to change the way the
Chinese do
real
business. No amount of money, however, would have
prevented a crisis if the truth about the assassination had become known. And
war between America and China would have been—"

"Catastrophic," I said
with a nod. "So that's why Malcolm doctored the footage."

Fouché smiled. "Righteous
mischief
is
irresistible to him."

We arrived amidships, and Fouché
reached up next to one of the golden-framed paintings that hung on the corridor
wall to touch a concealed control panel. "The others have gone on ahead to
clear a path, and Larissa will cover us all from the turret." Suddenly a
section of the deck below me began to rise, revealing a hatchway that contained
a retractable flight of steps extending down to a few feet above the ground.
Echoing up through the hatchway, I could hear voices shouting and the sounds of
helicopter and diesel automotive engines.

But what I noticed most was the
fantastic heat that was radiating up from the ground: it was far in excess of
anything I'd expected or could explain.

"Yes," Fouché said,
catching my consternation. "The apparatus has engaged. We have less than
an hour."

"Until what?" I queried
nervously as he started down the steps.

"Until any human foolish
enough to remain in this area burns up like so much paper," Fouché
answered, jumping to the ground and then waving me down. "Come! Time
presses!"

The landscape surrounding the
ship was not unlike that of many other countries in the "analog
archipelago," that patchwork of countries that had fallen so far behind
in the digital technology race that they'd given up the struggle. But the chaos
that was enveloping this stretch of the valley of the Amu Darya was alarming
even for one of the most backward of nations. Emerging from large tunnel
entrances supported by enormous timbers and fortified with sandbags was a host
of people, some dressed in military fatigues and some in traditional Islamic
garb, all rushing toward a great collection of buses, helicopters, and jeeps.
Many of the women bore small children who were, for the most part, screaming,
and small wonder: the noise and the heat, combined with the looming silhouette
of Tressalian's ship, would have been enough to terrify much older and more
comprehending souls. Me, for instance.

Looking ahead and through the
dust whipped up by the chopper blades, I could see Slayton, Tarbell, and the
Kupermans fanned out with weapons drawn. They were moving toward one tunnel
entrance in particular, using their own stun guns to incapacitate the
occasional confused man who, apparently mistaking our team for members of the
approaching American task force, stepped forward to try to stop us. As Fouché
and I followed the others to the tunnel, I called out:

"Julien! Just what «this
'apparatus,' anyway?"

"A euphemistic label,
eh?" Fouché answered with a laugh. "It is a weapon that your
country's air force began to research in the late twentieth century—but they
were never able to build a successful prototype. Colonel Slayton brought us the
plans, Malcolm and Larissa refined them, and observe—a small glimpse of
Hell!"

"But what does it do?"
I asked, realizing that although the sun had only just come over the eastern
horizon, the temperature was climbing fantastically from one minute to the
next.

"Destruction of the ozone
layer over a confined area!" Fouché shouted back. "The Americans were
never able to keep the hole stable or to close it when they wished!"

"And you can," I said,
astonished. "But where
is
the damned thing?"

"The projecting unit is on
Malcolm's island in the North Sea! It operates through a series of
satellites—Tressalian satellites!"

Suddenly and from all too close
came the sharp report of small-arms fire. With a speed that shocked me, Fouché
almost flew in my direction, enveloping me in his big arms and then gracefully
rolling with me behind some nearby rocks. When we looked up, we saw that the
shots had been fired by a man who was trying to keep any more people from
boarding his already overloaded helicopter, which in a few seconds took off and
began a flight toward the southeast.

"Do not stand," Fouché
said, "until we have received the all clear from the colonel."

Breathing hard and shaking my
head, I studied my companion for a moment. "Julien," I gasped,
"what the
hell
are you doing here, anyway?"

He smiled again. "Saving
your skin, just at the moment, Gideon."

"You know what I mean,"
I said. "What are you doing out here with this bunch? You were one of the
most renowned and respected scholars in your field."

"Yes," he said with a
nod. "And one of the unhappiest." Then, catching sight of a signal
from Colonel Slayton, he pulled me up. His voice softened somewhat as we
continued to move forward through the dust and the heat toward the target
tunnel's entrance. "You see, Gideon, my wife was one of the first victims
of the staphylococcus epidemic." I tried to express my sympathy, but he
quickly waved me off. "There were many millions who shared my tragedy. But
what troubled me most was that she had predicted the manner of her own death
years earlier. She was a surgeon, you see. And she had repeatedly told me that
economic pressures were causing her colleagues and their nursing staffs to
attend to so many patients that they had begun to ignore fundamental practices
that took up precious minutes—such as washing their hands. Did you know,
Gideon, that the breakdown of hospital hygiene was the single greatest cause of
the '06 plague? And why? Why should people like doctors and nurses, people with
lives dependent on them, feel such pressure?"

He spat at the ground, anger
mixing with his sorrow. "Because our world had sanctified the goal not of
success but of wealth. Not of sufficiency but of excess. And nothing has
embodied and propagated that philosophy more than the Internet and all that
has followed in its wake. All that mindless, endless marketing of useless
goods to those who do not need them, who cannot afford them— until one day
compassion is utterly destroyed by avarice gone mad. Politicians, insurance
companies, and, yes, even doctors and nurses become so madly bound up in the
desire for profit and acquisition that they forget that their first duty is to
serve and to heal. They neglect every fundamental principle and practice—even
something so simple as
washing their hands
..."

So there it was. Of all the
people on the ship, Fouché was the one whose reasons for participation I hadn't
yet been able to fathom, simply because molecular biology didn't seem to have
any obvious connection to the business of revising history and combating the information
society. And, as it turned out, it was less a professional imperative than a
personal one that had driven him into this active exile.

"At any rate," he went
on, "when I was a teacher to Malcolm and
les frères Kuperman,
I at
first thought them simply an amusing collection of university pranksters. But
when I later learned how deep their convictions ran, I decided I would cast my
lot with them. And perhaps if we succeed—perhaps if Malcolm is right and the
great body of the world's people can be shown the dangers of this age— then
perhaps also the deaths of the millions in such nightmares as the epidemic will
mean
something.''''

His eyes went narrow as he
continued to watch the others, and then his voice picked up strength: "Ah!
We are cleared to enter the tunnel, I see. Time for you to make your first
appearance on the grand stage, Gideon!"

The events of the next hour or so
were a strange but exhilarating combination of a visit to a hospital for the
criminally insane and some boyhood adventure tale brought to life. Leaving the
Kupermans to stand guard at the tunnel's entrance, Slayton, Tarbell, Fouché,
and I made our way down through the Islamic terrorists' labyrinthine
underground lair to an enormous chamber that was hung with silk banners.
Against the walls of the chamber sat a collection of young women who appeared,
through their veils, to be extremely beautiful, along with a dozen children.
And atop some cushions placed on a plush carpet in the center of the space
reclined its sole male occupant, that internationally infamous character who
went by the rather ambitious name Suleyman ibn Muhammed. From the look of
things in the chamber I guessed that ibn Muhammed was a firm believer in
polygamy; and from the look in his eyes, I could see that he was also quite a
disciple of opium, the sickly sweet smell of which mingled with the strong
scent of earth to produce an oppressive atmosphere around us.

It was obvious that ibn Muhammed
was in a deranged state, so I focused my attention on his women. Speaking
through Tarbell— who turned out to be a master linguist, in keeping with his
work as a consummate forger—I described what was about to happen to the
countryside around them, using what imagery concerning divine fire I could
remember from a college reading of the Koran. As I was speaking, the
temperature, even that far underground, continued to rise at an alarming rate,
and I pointed out that this had nothing to do with the Americans, which meant
that if the women and children died, they would not enter Paradise as martyrs.
Ibn Muhammed tried to voice protests but could make no sense; and so eventually
the women took their children and followed us out, boarding one of the last
vehicles to depart the area and leaving their leader behind to bake in what
would shortly become an underground oven.

Our team got quickly and safely
back aboard our vessel, to be greeted by Malcolm, whose condition was much
improved. As the ship began to withdraw to the. north, he asked a flood of
questions about the mission, but I for one was utterly spent and told him that
I couldn't possibly talk without getting some more substantial rest than I'd
had that morning. Stumbling back through the corridors and into my quarters, I
found them darkened, save for the glow of a lone candle that was sitting on an
antique night table—

And by the light of that
singularly low-tech implement, I could see Larissa waiting in my bed, naked
under a comforter and smiling her most charming smile. Ordinarily this would
hardly have been an unwelcome sight; but given all I'd heard that morning,
there was nothing ordinary about the situation.

Larissa instantly read the
trepidation in my face. "Oh, dear," she sighed, the silver hair
wafting around her face and the dark eyes glittering. "The boys have been
talking, I see."

"Yes," I said.

She studied me carefully, and
behind the coyness I thought I could see genuine disappointment. "Scared
you off, did they?"

I shook my head. "Not
necessarily. But I'm curious, Larissa. You see, they
didn't
tell
me
the only story I really need to hear."

"Oh?" She dipped a
finger in the candle's pooling wax. "And which one might that be?"

I took a tentative step inside
the doorway. "What drove you and your brother to do all these things?
Originally, I mean. I'm sorry, but I am a psychiatrist—you must've known that
I'd ask. Surely Malcolm knew."

Larissa just kept smiling.
"Yes. We both did. Well ..." She lifted the comforter that covered
her. "You'd better come to bed, Doctor, and let me explain."

I stepped fully inside and closed
the door to my quarters just as, in the distance behind us, the first of the
pilotless American fighter-bombers began to release their payloads, raining
cataclysmic destruction down on the now-burning Afghan plain.

That man's brutality conceals
itself behind a respectable face more often than an evil one should come as
news to no one, though I've never found it any less sad or infuriating for
being so apparent. Having passed my own childhood among socially admired but
covertly violent adults, I've always felt a particular kinship with those who
have not only suffered abuse but suffered it at the hands of people who are
deemed in some way estimable by society at large. Which is why, I'm sure, my
comradeship with Larissa and Malcolm Tressalian was cemented so firmly during
our journey north that morning. Among the many cases of childhood horror that
I've investigated, theirs remains the only one I can call truly unique; and if
ever there were a story guaranteed to rouse the familiar pangs of sorrow and
outrage in my heart, the one that I listened to Larissa tell in the candlelit
stillness of my quarters was it.