Nightrise (18 page)

Two days before, Mr. Simms, the New York executive, had plunged headfirst into the Hudson River. In fact his head had entered the water several minutes before his body. The two of them had later been found washed up, fifty feet apart.

"I believe I may have a solution to the problem, Mr. Chairman. As a matter of fact, it was something that Mr. Simms suggested himself…while he was still with us. He said that the only answer might be to assassinate Trelawny."

"I think he was joking."

"But I'm not, Mr. Chairman."

The chairman considered. Killing a presidential candidate was possible but it would not be easy. Quite apart from the fact that Trelawny was continually surrounded by Secret Service men and that nobody with a gun could come close, the real problem would come later, if the attempt succeeded. There would be a public outcry and the police investigation would be huge and never-ending. It might even lead them to Nightrise. You pay someone who pays someone who pays a madman to fire the fatal bullet, but still the line can be traced back. Assassination was messy and full of danger. It was always a last resort.

But Susan Mortlake was confident.

"Suppose Trelawny was shot by someone who was close to him," she said. "Someone who had absolutely no link with us. Suppose the killer was caught immediately and was unable to explain his actions but seemed to have suffered some sort of massive nervous breakdown. There would be no doubt about his guilt. He would be tried, sentenced, and executed. There would be no further investigation.

Trelawny would be dead and that would be the end of it. Of course, someone weaker would take his place, but it would be too late. He'd never catch up. Meanwhile, Charles Baker would look sad and somber. He might even attend the funeral. In fact, that would help his poll ratings. Nothing would stop him becoming the next president of the United States."

"Can you do this?" the chairman asked.

''Yes, Mr. Chairman. I can."

The chairman thought for a few seconds. But he knew Susan Mortlake well. He recognized the confidence in her voice.

"Then do it," he said. And hung up.

He reached out again and lifted up the precious brandy, contemplating its color, swirling it in the glass.

The Old Ones needed time. More than that, they needed a world that was ready to do things their way.

He had no doubt that Charles Baker would be the right man in the right job at the right time. He smiled to himself and lifted the glass to his lips. But at the last second he changed his mind and upended it, pouring the last inch into a potted plant.

Expensive fertilizer.

Then he got up and walked quietly out of the room.

***

York

The car carrying John Trelawny pulled up outside the great tower at the southern end of Broadway in Lower Manhattan. There were two men with him. The driver, as always, was a Secret Service man.

Trelawny knew that he was armed and in constant contact with his backup team in a second car, probably just a hundred yards behind. And Warren Cornfield was sitting next to him. His private head of security was such a large man that he barely left enough room for the senator, but over the past few months, Trelawny had gotten used to it. From the day that he'd started his run for president, there had been many things he'd had to get used to— and never being alone was the first of them.

"I'll be one hour," he said, and reached for the door handle.

"I'm coming in with you, sir," Cornfield announced.

Trelawny hesitated. This was an argument he'd had a hundred times. He appreciated what Cornfield was doing. Essentially, it was his job. He just wished he liked him more. "It's all right, Warren," he said.

"This apartment building has its own security and nobody knows I'm here. I'm having lunch with an old friend and you're not going to tell me she's a security risk."

In the end, they compromised. Cornfield came with him through the lobby but allowed him to enter the elevator on his own. There were times when Trelawny wondered if all this security was really necessary

— but he supposed it only took one crazy person with a gun to prove that it was. And of course, it was so easy to buy a gun in America. That was one thing he planned to look into one day, if…

He barely felt any motion as he was whisked up to the seventieth floor. The owner of the penthouse knew that he was coming and had programmed the elevator to take him there. Trelawny thought about the woman he had come to see. The two of them had known each other for most of their lives —

although he sometimes thought that what the two of them didn't know about each other probably outweighed what they did. She was very wealthy. She had made a fortune creating and selling low-cost computers to inner-city schools, hospitals, and youth clubs. She had supported his campaign from the start, holding a series of fund-raising dinners on both the East and West coasts. The strange thing was, he probably trusted Nathalie Johnson more than any woman on the planet, even including his own wife.

And she knew things. She had connections all over the world and seemed to be in tune with the stories that never made the news. He thought of her as a keeper of mysteries. That was why he had come to see her now.

The elevator doors opened directly into a fan-shaped living room with windows giving extraordinary views over the Hudson River on one side and the East River with the Brooklyn Bridge cutting across on the other. His eye was instantly drawn to the panorama. There was the Statue of Liberty, looking very small and distant at the entrance to New York Harbor. And there was Ellis Island, where the great waves of immigrants in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries had first arrived. The floor-to-ceiling windows were like a picture postcard on a gigantic scale and captured one of the most famous views in the world.

"John! How are you?"

Nathalie Johnson had come out of the kitchen, carrying a tray with two glasses and a bottle of wine. She set the tray down and the two of them embraced. She was about fifty years old, slim and serious-looking with dark, reddish-brown hair that came down to her shoulders. She was wearing a simple black dress.

In all the time that Trelawny had known her, he had never seen her in jeans.

"It's good to see you," she went on. "How long are you in New York?"

"Just a few days." Trelawny sighed. He was never in one place for very long. "I have to go back to Washington, then Virginia, and then next month I'm heading back to California. My hometown is giving me a parade."

"Auburn?"

"It's my birthday. They're closing the whole place in my honor."

"That's very sweet! Maybe I should come."

''You'd be very welcome."

The two of them sat down. Nathalie poured the wine and for a few minutes they talked about the campaign, the speech in Los Angeles, the latest negative advertisements that had been playing on TV.

But after a while, Trelawny fell silent.

"There was something you wanted to ask me about," Nathalie said.

'Yes." He rubbed a hand over his mouth, trying to work out where to begin. "Something happened when I was in Los Angeles," he explained. "It's like nothing I've ever experienced and I can't get it out of my mind. I have to talk about it with someone and you're the only person I could think of who wouldn't think I was going mad."

"I'll take that as a compliment."

"Well, I had a visit from an old assistant of mine, Alicia McGuire. You remember her?"

"Wasn't she the one who lost her child?"

"Her son, Daniel. Yes. He vanished into thin air at the end of last year."

"How awful for her." Nathalie Johnson had never married and had no children of her own. She couldn't imagine what the other woman must have been through.

"When I was in L.A., Alicia turned up at my hotel. She hadn't found Daniel but she had another kid with her, a fourteen-year-old boy. A Native American from the look of him. And she told me this incredible story. I wouldn't have believed a word of it. I'd have thought she was out of her mind. But then she showed me something that was completely impossible and which could only have happened if everything she had been saying was true."

"Tell me…"

Choosing his words carefully, Trelawny described everything that had taken place at the Carlton Hotel, his meeting with Jamie Tyler, and the business with the little wooden box. If he had expected Nathalie to react with amazement or disbelief, he was disappointed. She showed no emotion when he talked, but she flinched at the mention of Nightrise and nodded in understanding when Trelawny mentioned their interest in children with paranormal abilities.

"Where is Jamie Tyler now?" she asked when Trelawny had finished speaking.

"Maybe I acted against my better judgment," Trelawny replied. "But he was so desperate to find his brother. And I believed it was the right thing to do." He made a gesture with his hands. "I arranged for him to be sent to Silent Creek."

"He's in jail?"

"Not under his own name. We changed his appearance too. Don't forget, the Nevada authorities are still looking for him for the death of his two guardians."

"Let me just ask. Did this boy ever mention anything about England or Peru?" There was no answer, so she went on. "Did he say anything about the Old Ones? Or the Gatekeepers?"

"No." Trelawny shook his head. "I don't know what you're talking about, Nathalie. The Old Ones? What are they? What have they got to do with a bunch of disappearing kids?"

"If I'm not mistaken, they have everything to do with it," Nathalie replied. "And these two boys — Scott and Jamie Tyler — you have no idea how important they may be. They're both at Silent Creek?"

"I can't tell you. Jamie's there…probably. He was sent there a week ago. As for his brother, he was going to find out when he got there. That was the plan."

Nathalie put down her glass and leaned forward.

"Listen to me," she said. 'You came to me for advice. You chose me because I'm an old friend. But —

don't deny it — you also came here because you know that I'm a member…of an organization."

"The Nexus." Trelawny spoke the two words and smiled as Nathalie sat back, alarmed. "I've heard that name," he admitted. "I know it's some sort of secret society, and I've always suspected it might have something to do with you."

Nathalie nodded slowly. "You've been touched by something you know nothing about," she said. "But I know a great deal about it. For half my life I've been involved with it. So you must believe me when I say that it is absolutely vital that we find Jamie Tyler and get him out of Silent Creek immediately…and his brother too, if he's still there."

"That may not be so easy."

"John, you could be the next president of this country. But there may not even be a country to be president of—unless you do what I say."

"What are you talking about? Who are these two boys?"

Nathalie Johnson took a deep breath. "This is what you have to do…"

***

Angeles

Colton Banes was sitting at his desk when the telephone rang.

He didn't like being in the office. It felt too much like the prison where he had spent the eleven years before the Nightrise Corporation had employed him. True, he could leave when he wanted to. He was well paid. But being stuck indoors, dressed in a suit, waiting to be told what to do…it made him uneasy.

And yet he had to admit that he'd never had a better job. In fact no job could possibly exist that was better suited to his talents. Colton Banes liked hurting people. He liked killing them too — but hurting them was better because they were still around to talk about it afterward, to tell him how it felt. From school bully to delinquent to armed robber to prisoner and finally to this…his whole life had been leading him in only one direction. He knew that one day he would slip up and Mrs. Mortlake would get rid of him with the same carelessness that she had gotten rid of Kyle Hovey. But he didn't really think about it. People like him never had long lives. It went with the territory.

He picked up the telephone on the third ring. 'Yes?" He didn't have to announce his name. The receptionist wouldn't have put the call through unless the caller had asked for him.

"This is Max Koring."

"What is it?" Banes recognized the name of the senior supervisor at Silent Creek. He was calling from there now. It was easy to tell. There were no landlines in that part of the Mojave Desert and the satellite reception was poor. The prison had been built in a dead zone, in the middle of a natural magnetic field, making communication almost impossible. The field had other side effects too. The location had been chosen with great care.

"There's something you should know," Koring continued. "We had something weird happen last night.

One of the kids — a new arrival — tried to get me to take him over to the Block."

"What do you mean?"

"He asked me to take him to the other side of the wall. In fact he didn't ask — he told me, like he expected me to do what he wanted. And he said he wanted to see his brother."

Banes's eyes narrowed. "What is the boy's name?"

"The name on his face sheet is Jeremy Rabb." That meant nothing to Banes. "Tell me what he looks like," he said.

"I don't need to. I thought the moment I saw him that he looked familiar. He's cut his hair short and he's got these thick spectacles, but thinking about it, I figured out who he is."

"Jamie Tyler?"

"No doubt about it. I checked with the guy on Intake. He has the same tattoo on his shoulder. A sort of swirly thing with a line through. It's the twin. No doubt about it."

Colton Banes smiled. First the news last night from Peru…now this. Things couldn't be going better. So Jamie Tyler had decided to track down his brother. And he'd gone to the right place. The trouble was, he'd chosen the wrong time. "Where is he now?" he asked.

"I've got him in solitary. Do you want me to move him across to the Block?"

"No." Banes thought for a moment. Once the boy arrived at the Block, he would know he was too late. It would be more fun to keep his hopes alive for the moment. And Jamie Tyler had escaped from him twice. Banes had a personal score to settle. He would let the boy sit there and stew for a few hours and then he would walk in and see the look on his face when he knew that he had failed, that pain and death were all that remained. "Turn off the air-conditioning in his cell," he said.