Prophet of Bones (32 page)

“Two tickets to Ogden Dunes.”

“Sixteen dollars.”

Paul paid in cash. The conductor handed over the change and the stubs and moved on.

“What about your car back there?” she asked.

“It’s the least of my worries.”

“Van Buren,” announced a catenated male voice.

The train slowed to a stop. Paul and Lilli stared out the windows. No black trucks. No athletic men in dark suits.

The train doors opened. People got on, but nobody suspicious. After a minute, the doors closed again.

Paul felt Lilli release a long breath. The train started moving again.

“They didn’t get here in time,” Paul said. “Now they won’t know if we’ve gotten off already or not. After this, it gets harder for them.”

They took the train through two more stops.

They watched the buildings through the windows. Tall beige skyscrapers, fire escapes zigzagging up the side. Lake Michigan visible in stolen glimpses through the buildings, until the tracks veered and the neighborhood changed. The tall buildings gave way to smaller structures, brick apartment buildings and houses. The train rolled past a landfill, parklike, covered in green grass, but rising steeply as no park would.

Paul saw liquor stores and gas stations and, later, on the north side of the tracks, power lines and the rise of industrial buildings. The train passed a church, its twin steeples piercing the sky to the south—a huge dark structure with stained-glass windows, beautiful in the slant of the sun.

“Next stop Hegewisch,” a voice called out over the intercom.

Paul and Lilli stayed in their seats.

Sometime after that, the train passed into Indiana, making stops in Hammond and Gary. Through the window, Paul saw enormous pipes and white smoke—huge metal structures that dwarfed all the buildings he’d seen outside of Chicago, like rusting metal skyscrapers laid on their sides. On the roof of one were the words
USS GARY WORKS
. The great sprawl of the mill rolled by for miles.

Paul looked around at the other travelers. The South Shore was a commuter train. People coming from and going to work. Men and women going about their daily lives.

“Who died?” Lilli asked.

Paul looked at her. Her face was somber. “What?”

“You said the last guy who helped you is dead.” Her voice went low, almost a whisper, so the other passengers couldn’t hear her. “Who was he?”

“His name was Charles. A coworker of mine.”

“How did it happen?”

“Badly.”

“How bad?”

“Bad enough you wouldn’t want to hear about it.”

Outside the window, the landscape was changing from urban to rural. Like a line had been drawn. Paul watched the brown cattails flash by, a small wetland hugging the tracks. On the other side of the wetlands, woods spread away in the distance.

“You said you tested the bone,” Paul said.

“Yeah,” Lilli said.

“What did you find?”

“They had a ten percent fish diet. Twenty percent small rodents. Thirty percent large mammal.”

“They were hunters?”

“Hunter-gatherers. Same profile you see everywhere. Their remaining percentages were plants. Nothing out of the ordinary for ancient bones. Just the typical human pattern.”

“Just like us,” Paul whispered. He rested his face against the cool glass.

*   *   *

They got off the train in Ogden Dunes. The station was a narrow parking lot that looked out across the road at a long white picket fence bordering a newer upscale housing development. A short walk to a nearby Marathon gas station produced the phone number for a local cab company. The cab dropped them at the nearest hotel, a Days Inn, where Paul paid in cash.

They showered together, and Paul picked glass from her hair. Afterward they made love on the sheets, and for a while Paul could lose himself in that. He could pretend none of the rest of it was happening.

Paul got dressed and scouted the neighborhood. He bought chicken dinners from the local Denny’s and brought them back to the hotel. A strange déjà vu overcame him as he returned. It was the second time he’d been holed up, hiding. Waiting out the worst of it. The last time hadn’t ended so well. There was nothing like running for your life to put things in perspective.

Lying in bed the next morning, coming out of an anxiety dream, he ran through their choices in his mind.

She must have guessed his thoughts, because she said, “We should go to the police.”

“What?” He hadn’t known she was awake yet.

“The cops. We could go to the cops and tell them what we know.”

“What do we know?”

“Your coworker is dead. We know that. And we know we’re being hunted.”

He nodded. He wondered if Charles’s body had been found yet. He wondered about the computer guy, if he was still alive. Most of all, he wondered how Axiom planned to cover up what had happened. They weren’t stupid. Some plan must be in place. But the plan, whatever it was, had included Paul being dead. So maybe there was a chance.

“And then what?” Paul asked. “After we go to the police.”

“And then what, what?” Lilli responded.

“We go down, we make our report at a police station. And then what? We go home while they investigate? We live our regular lives?”

“Why not?”

“Because they’ll kill us.”

“Then there’s witness protection.”

“Something tells me it wouldn’t be as simple as that.”

“What other choice do we have?”

The complete and utter hopelessness of the situation came crashing down on him.

At that moment, his phone rang, the sound coming from his pants on the floor. It startled him; he’d completely forgotten about it. He slipped out of bed and fished it from his pocket. He looked at the display: a number he didn’t recognize. He considered answering but let it go to voice mail. Twenty seconds later, the phone chirped, letting him know a message had been saved to his box.

He logged into voice mail.

“You have one new message. First message.”

The voice that spoke next was familiar. Deep and gravelly, with a faint Australian accent.

“We need to talk, Paul. I know what’s happening to you, and I can help. You can trust me. I’m here in the U.S.; we need to meet, alone.”

Paul listened to the message three times.

*   *   *

He switched the phone off and flipped it onto the other bed. He pulled his shirt on and told Lilli he was going to go snag them breakfast. It was only a short walk, so he kept walking, going where his feet took him, exploring the local restaurant scene. Scouting locations again. He gave himself a few minutes to think. By eight o’clock, he’d given up on that. He knew he’d meet Gavin. What else could he do?

He’d trusted Gavin once. Maybe he could trust him still.

Paul walked back to the motel, a bag of doughnuts in hand.

He dialed the number.

“Hello.” It was Gavin’s voice.

“There’s a town outside Chicago called Portage,” Paul said. “Can you be here by tomorrow?”

“Consider me on the next flight.”

“Write this down.”

There was a pause. Then: “Go ahead.”

“A restaurant called the Lure, not far from the South Shore train line in Portage, Indiana.”

“All right.”

“Tomorrow night around six?”

“I’ll be there. Paul—”

Paul hit End and turned his phone off.

36

The Lure was busy with the Wednesday dinner rush. Waitresses glided past, arms full of drinks. Paul knew this kind of place. During the day, it would tend toward business lunches. In the evening, it would be more of a mixed crowd—part bring-a-date-to-dinner, part college hangout, part family diner. Usually, Paul liked restaurants like this one for their burger specials. Tonight he liked it for this: it was crowded, which meant it provided a lot of witnesses.

He got a table in the corner. A booth of dark brown wood under a moose head. It felt good to be back in a real restaurant with a real menu you could hold in your hand, instead of picking combo meals from an overhead display. He hadn’t been at a sit-down restaurant since before Flores. It felt like it had happened in a different life.

The waitress came by and Paul ordered a Corona. A beer would help calm his nerves. She returned with his drink a few minutes later.

“You ready to order?”

Paul tried to imagine eating, but his stomach was tied in knots. “Cheeseburger,” he said out of force of habit.

“We’ll fix you right up,” she said.

Paul sipped his drink and eyed the front door. A few minutes later, at six on the nose, Gavin walked in.

He stood near the entrance, scanning the room. For a moment, Paul sat perfectly still, hidden among the crowd. Gavin looked thinner. Older somehow, as if the intervening months had aged him as many years. Paul waved his arm.

Gavin caught the motion and crossed the room.

“Paul,” Gavin said. He extended his hand. Paul shook it.

Gavin sat.

The older man was silent for a moment, as if gathering his thoughts for what he was about to say.

Paul sipped his drink.

“I work for the people who are looking for you,” Gavin said. “I want to be clear about that right from the beginning.”

Paul nodded, accepting this. It had always been a possibility. The fact that Gavin had told him was a good sign.

“How bad is it?” Paul asked. He wasn’t even sure what he meant by that. It just felt like a true question.

“This?” Gavin asked, spreading his hands as if to encompass the entire situation that hung between them. “It’s the end of the world.”

Paul nodded again. Because of course it was. “Well, you don’t sugarcoat things, do you,” he said.

“All out of sugar,” Gavin continued. “This is going to go badly.”

“For me?”

“For both of us.”

“Did they send you here to talk to me?” The important question.

“Yes.”

“You should know that I don’t have the DNA or bone samples on me. They’re someplace safe. If something happens to me, you’ll never find them.”

“I’m not here for that. I’m just here to talk to you. To reason with you.”

“What do they plan to do?”

“That’s up to you.”

“I get to decide? Okay, then I vote they leave me alone.”

“Well, it’s not that simple.”

“It never is. What do they want from me?”

“Cooperation,” Gavin said. “Just cooperation.”

“What kind?”

“You know too much about things nobody is supposed to know about. That makes you a liability. People like Martial don’t like liabilities.”

“Martial?”

“The owner of Axiom.”

“I’ve never heard of him.”

“You wouldn’t have.”

“You work for him?”

“We all do. You included. Half of certain universities. Various politicians. Though the politicians might think it’s the other way around.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You’re not supposed to. Who do you think owns Westing?”

“What? Axiom?”

“Through an umbrella corporation. How do you think I got your employer to cooperate so easily to release you to go to Flores?”

“If you work for him, and you’re here, then this is a trap.” Paul studied Gavin’s face for a reaction.

“What I said on the phone was real. I can help you.”

It wasn’t a denial, exactly. “How?”

“By bringing you in.”

Paul laughed. “You must be joking.”

“No.”

“In where, exactly?”

“
In
in. Inside. Into the fold. The things you’ve seen are nothing compared to what’s on the other side of the pay wall. Things beyond your wildest dreams. Things not exactly ethical. Things that can’t be risked.”

“You sound like a true believer.”

“No,” Gavin said. “Never confuse me with that.”

“Then what are you?”

“The Inquisition created many a convert, make no mistake.”

“And if I say no?”

“You can’t say no.”

“That’s not much of an offer then.”

“It’s the best you’ll get from the old man. I had to argue your case to make it happen. This could have gone the other way. You have no idea how lucky you are.”

“It did go the other way. You know about Charles?”

“I’ve never heard that name. I don’t know anything about him. Regardless of what’s happened, there’s still a chance to take this in another direction. For you, at least.”

At that moment, the food came. It seemed obscene to eat. Paul’s stomach was clenched into a tight ball. He pushed his fries around the plate but couldn’t bring himself to take a bite. Gavin pulled out his wallet and put a fifty on the table.

“Not hungry?”

“No.”

“Come on then,” Gavin said, tapping the cash on the table. “There’s someone you have to meet.”

Paul followed him out the door.

*   *   *

Gavin drove them to a river. A place behind chain-link gates. They’d ridden in silence, Paul’s apprehension growing as they left the main road. Dusk had stripped away the colors, rendering everything in charcoal—the trees, the winding asphalt path, the rusting metal railing. The place might have been a boat launch once, but now it was just a crumbling concrete ramp, overgrown with weeds. Even the river seemed used up and old. A dark flow of brown water maybe thirty feet wide, winding its way inexorably toward Lake Michigan, still some miles distant. Gavin pulled the car to the side of the ramp and stepped out.

A woman stood facing out at the water.

Paul and Gavin approached, and the woman turned around.

“Hello, Paul.” It was Margaret.

Paul was careful to control his emotions. He didn’t let his face change.

“Margaret,” he said. “So you made it out of Flores after all.”

“It’s good to see you, too.” She smiled. Her hair was tied back tightly. Dark business suit. She looked like a different person.

Paul looked her in the face and said the only word he had to say to her: “James.”

Her smile faltered for the slightest millisecond before rising up again. “It wasn’t an easy choice I made, Paul.”

“When you left the hotel room, where did you go?”

“To the people in charge.”

“Why?”

“It was the smart thing to do.”