Prophet of Bones (22 page)

Martial and Gavin crossed the overgrown expanse of the central courtyard, their own security detail following at subtle remove. Gavin was careful to walk an important half step behind the old man as they approached. Even from a distance, Gavin could see the beads of sweat on the congressman’s brow. He was a tall man, dark hair graying slightly at the temples. Large and ruggedly handsome, he seemed the perfect physical embodiment of a certain breed of modern politician. As if the physical appearance of elected officials were constrained by some selective process. If he’d been an actor, they would have cast him as president or CEO. Regardless of what his other qualifications might be, he
looked
the part, which was perhaps the most important qualification of all, when you came down to it. Now he stood in the ninety-degree shade, waiting for his tardy host to provide some excuse for keeping him waiting.

Martial offered none. Instead, he smiled and stuck out his hand. “I trust your flight went well?”

The congressman shook Martial’s hand but ignored the question. “You never responded to my invitation.” His voice was flat and hard.

“The summons, you mean? Washington. Yes, well, we’re in the middle of something important. I’m afraid we’ve been very busy of late.”

“Do you think I’m not?”

Martial gestured to Gavin. “Allow me to introduce my associate Gavin McMaster. He’s one of our researchers here, until recently an outside asset but now brought more fully into the fold. Gavin, Congressman Peter Salinder, our friend in Washington.”

Gavin extended his hand, but the congressman didn’t even look at him.

“I don’t like my invitations being ignored,” the congressman said. His face was stone, but his eyes smoldered with barely controlled anger. More than just a rugged face after all, Gavin decided.

Gavin lowered his hand.

Martial didn’t react immediately. He let the silence grow between them, meeting the congressman’s stare with his own. Behind each of the two men, their guards eyed one another with wariness across the gap of undeclared hostility. It was the Korean Peninsula, the demilitarized zone.

“Anything you wanted so urgently, Mr. Congressman, we could have discussed over the phone.”

The congressman glared at him. “You’re joking, of course.”

Martial smiled. “Or, if the phone is unacceptable, and you really needed to see me, well, here I am.” He opened his arms. “I’m always amenable to meeting here, at our facility.”

“Thus making me complicit.”

“Congressman, now who’s joking?” Martial asked. “You’ve been complicit all along. Come, let’s get out of this heat.”

Martial turned and led them back through the courtyard and into the building. Their respective security retinues followed a dozen steps behind.

“To what do I owe the honor of your distinguished company?” Martial asked. The air-conditioning stood like an invisible membrane as they crossed the threshold into the building. Martial veered them immediately left, toward the eastern wing of the complex. This was the part of the facility Gavin was least familiar with. The research staff mostly used the west side of the complex.

“There’s been chatter,” the congressman said.

“What kind of chatter?”

“The ugly kind. The kind that can get out of hand.”

“There will always be whispers in the halls.”

“But this talk has a body behind it. Where there is a body, the talk isn’t so easily dismissed.”

“A body?” They continued down the corridor, dress shoes making clicking noises on the tile.

“Skeletal remains, actually. Found in a shallow grave in a rural area a few hundred miles from here. Decomposed for more than a decade.”

“I don’t see what that has to do with us.”

“Dental records match the body to an old missing person’s report, and suddenly this body has a name. That name has a paper trail that leads him back here.”

“Here?”

“An employee of Axiom, according to tax records dating to the time of his disappearance. Do I need to tell you his name?”

“Manuel.”

“Yes.”

“An unfortunate accident,” Martial said. The old man led them toward a corridor that Gavin had never explored before, a hall down which Gavin had occasionally seen the old man disappear for hours at a time.

“A bullet in the face is an accident?” the congressman said.

“It can be.”

“Who was he?”

“One of our workers here. A deranged lad. A tragedy, really, and a mess not cleaned up as well as I’d hoped, apparently.”

“There are people asking questions.”

“Then make them stop asking questions. That’s what you do, right?”

“We give you latitude to do your work, but our indulgence isn’t endless.”

They came to a wide set of double doors at the end of the hall. Martial pushed through the doors, and Gavin paused in the entryway. He stuck his head through the open doorway and looked at what lay beyond.

Gavin blinked. It was a place of worship. A church. Here, in the middle of the research center. Like a chapel in a hospital.

A dozen pews lined up in neat rows before an altar that stood upon a raised dais. Behind that, a simple cross graced the far wall. The room was dark and silent. White walls and small, rectangular stained-glass windows.

“Come into my cathedral, gentlemen.”

Gavin and the congressman followed the old man inside. An electronic scanner above the door flashed green as they entered. Martial got a few steps down the aisle before he turned. “A necessary precaution against unwanted ears,” he said, gesturing toward the scanner. “Green means there are none.” The old man smiled. “In here, none should hear us but God.”

Martial cast a look at the guards, then at the congressman. The congressman hesitated, considering. He moved his head almost imperceptibly toward Martial’s guards, a complex conversation without a single word. Martial nodded. “Please wait outside,” he said to his security.

“Keep them company,” the congressman told his own contingent.

The security teams backed away from the doorway, and the door closed with a loud click.

Martial walked down the aisle of the little church. He took a seat on the left side, third pew from the front.

Gavin and the congressman followed. Gavin sat in the row behind Martial, while the congressman took a seat directly beside the old man. Gavin knew his place. He was to remain silent until needed. Martial had made that very clear. “You’re to watch and listen,” the old man had told him earlier, when they’d discussed the congressman’s impending meeting. “Unless I lose my patience with the fool. Then feel free to jump in and try to defuse the situation.”

But looking at him now, Gavin didn’t see a fool. The congressman was right to be concerned.

Gavin watched the two men, sitting side by side in the bizarre little church. What made a church a church? It wasn’t the size. It wasn’t the pews, or the altar. It was the quiet, he decided. A special kind of quiet that happened only in churches. He thought of Liang Bua.

“The man who died, what did he do here?” the congressman asked, breaking the moment.

“It has been some years,” Martial said.

“Then to the best of your recollection.”

“He was a handler.”

“Of what?”

“Of animals. He was a low-level worker, back when our hiring practice was less carefully tuned.”

“He was killed in Miami.”

“Yes.”

“There was also a dead woman.”

“He was deranged, as I said. We had no part in that.”

The congressman sighed. “This is bad business.”

“It’s a hiccup. Nothing more.”

The congressman’s mouth became a line. “Congressman Lacefield is looking into it.”

“Lacefield? Should I know that name?”

“You know it well enough.”

Martial glanced up at the white cross hanging on the wall. “A simple, unfortunate death is a little beneath his pay grade, isn’t it?”

“Normally, I’d expect you’d be right. But it seems that for you he will make an exception.”

“Why is that?”

The congressman laughed—a sound without any mirth at all. “Perhaps you imagine yourself to be a man without enemies?”

“Truth always has enemies. Lacefield is just the latest.”

“Is that what you tell yourself this place is? Some kind of truth?”

“One path to it.”

Martial reached down between his legs and lowered the padded kneeler to the floor. He slid to his knees and folded his hands on the pew before him.

“Lacefield’s supporters might see it differently,” the congressman said. “And they are as numerous as our own.”

“If not as influential.”

“Yet. But remember that our supporters are not the only religious organizations to seek a voice in Washington. Lacefield has his hand in a different offering tray. There are those who predict a complete reshuffling in the next election.”

“Then you’ll have to make sure we don’t give them a cause.”

“We can’t sweep this under the rug,” the congressman said. “This is a tricky time right now. You are being watched.”

“I have nothing to hide,” Martial said.

The congressman’s face flashed anger again. “There are times when I can’t tell if you’re mocking me or just insane. Your jokes won’t go over so well back in Washington.”

Martial said nothing, but instead closed his eyes in prayer.

The congressman leaned forward and knelt close to the old man. He leaned into him, whispering softly, so that Gavin could barely hear: “We’ve known about the shallow grave for years. We’ve even known about your little beasts. But the thing that has me out here are the rumors. Rumors you would not want your enemies to hear.”

The old man’s head stayed lowered in prayer.

“There are rumors about a place called Flores, Martial. There are rumors that something bad happened there. There are rumors that you got your hands on strange bones.”

“Bad things happen all the time. As for the bones, they were stolen.”

“Stolen.”

“By the Indonesian authorities.”

“That’s not what the Indonesians say.”

“Nonetheless.”

“There are also rumors of new experiments.”

“Would you like me to show you, Congressman?”

The congressman looked up at the cross hanging on the wall. He bowed his head briefly.

“Congressman?”

“No,” he said. “You fucking bastard. You know I don’t want to see.”

Martial nodded.

“This
project
you have here,” the congressman hissed, “it has grown over the years.”

“Like a flower.”

“It was never envisioned like this.”

“It is like any flower: the perfect expression of God’s will.”

“With all due respect, there are those who say you have too much freedom here. There are those who feel we should leash you in.”

“Then I say, with all due respect, Congressman, just fucking try it.”

“That’s a dangerous attitude.”

The old man turned toward him, face reddening, on the edge of saying something. He opened his mouth to speak.

Gavin chose this moment to intervene. “There are dangers for all involved,” he said. “Care should be taken.”

The two men glanced at him briefly, then turned their attention back to each other.

The congressman smiled. “You’re toying with the wrong man,” he said to Martial.

“Toys are for children. I don’t play games.”

“Neither do I.”

The congressman rose to his feet and stepped into the aisle. He faced the altar and crossed himself; then he turned and left without another word.

The door slammed behind him.

Gavin lowered the kneeler in his own row and dropped to his knees. He let the silence envelop him.

“You agree with him, don’t you?” Martial asked Gavin without turning to look at him.

“I think it’s dangerous to anger him.”

“He came today. He was here. That means he can do nothing.”

“He’s a congressman.”

“They are less powerful than gnats. No, that’s not true,” Martial said. “That’s the wrong way to look at it.” He considered for a moment before speaking. “You’re right, they
are
powerful, but they are also fragile. It is a fragile power, so vulnerable to attack. It is in this way they are like gnats. They realize their vulnerability, and this is what makes them weak.”

Gavin watched the back of the old man’s head.

“What vulnerability?”

“To public opinion. To the withdrawal of support. To exposure.” Martial turned to look at him. “You don’t yet understand how it all works,” he continued. “Running for office requires money. Lots and lots of money. Campaigns are expensive, after all.”

Martial rose to his feet. “Come,” he said.

They left the church room and took the corridor back toward the main part of the complex. The security detail fell in behind them again, until Martial waved them off. They melted away like butter. “To get the money to run for office, the politicians need the churches. The people in the pews. The special-interest groups. The churches fund the politicians, who use their votes to fund government programs—which outsource certain things to outside contractor groups like Axiom.”

“I see.”

“Not yet, you don’t.” They arrived at another set of doors.
A-17
was stenciled on a nameplate on the wall. Martial pushed through, and they moved into a deeper, older part of the facility. They came to another room that Gavin had never seen before. As they crossed the room, Gavin glanced around in wonder. It was enormous. If the other room had held the silence of a church, this room had the size. Endless rows of cages climbed the walls, floor to ceiling. Chrome bars. Tiny, empty cubicles, six feet high, stacked one on top of another, cage upon cage, extending to the ceiling. As they passed the cages, Gavin tried to imagine what they might be expected to contain someday.

Martial continued: “We’re funded by the votes of politicians, who are funded by the churches, who have a vested interest in the status quo. Knowledge is power, after all. We’re the funnel here. We release too much information, or the wrong kind of information, and the politicians suddenly have a lot to answer for. They have screaming donors. Midnight phone calls.”