Hybrid (24 page)

“Universal constant of balance,” said Pushkin playing with the black satchel. “How grandiose.”

“So now you’re reading minds,” Reisch answered. It was rare for Pushkin to appear twice in one day.

“It works for you.” He smiled at his protégé. “So, up is balanced by down, a positron is balanced by an electron, which would make you balanced by . . . Amanda? I can see that.”

Reisch was momentarily confused and hazarded a glance at the specter. “No patronizing tone? No obvious flaws in logic? I’m disappointed.”

“I can see your logic, but I didn’t say that there weren’t flaws in it.” Pushkin waited for a response, but Reisch continued driving. ”All right, since you asked, I’ll tell you. There will be survivors of this pandemic who, like the two of you, will evolve, correct?”

“Go on,” Reisch said.

“From these survivors you will create a society that is the embodiment of balance. Everyone will be the same abilities; there will be no lies, nothing hidden, no agendas, no jealousy, no hatred, etc., etc., etc.; a veritable communist utopia. I understand that, but what you fail to realize is that it can never work. Right now your ideal society is composed of two, you and Amanda, and you both are vying for control or planning to kill the other. This isn’t balance, it’s chaos.”

The plane landed with a bone-jarring bounce. Nathan Martin wondered if that had been planned for his benefit, or if it was just another training exercise for the two marines in the back. All his earlier excitement had faded with the realization that a genetically engineered virus was right now infecting untold numbers of Americans, and the military-style touchdown only served to darken his mood even further. He had tried to remember everything he could about Jaime Avanti, but it wasn’t much. Martin stared at the picture of Avanti as the plane taxied. He remembered the hair. Avanti was probably the hairiest man he had ever met. A shock of gray and black hair that would put Albert Einstein to shame was only the beginning. He had a beard that had crept up as far as his eyes and hung as low as his large abdomen. A mat of black fur escaped from below each of his sleeves and completely enveloped the back of Avanti’s hands. Nathan remembered thinking that Avanti was more of a health risk than the viruses he studied. They had met several times over the years, but their last meeting had been many years before Martin was named director of special pathogens at the CDC.
When we were both
young
, he thought. A lifetime ago, they had both been rising stars in the small world of public health, and now Avanti threatened that health.

The only constant in life is change. Someone famous once
said that
. Now he couldn’t remember whom.

The plane came to an abrupt halt, and Martin was thrown forward against his seat belt. A groan followed by a curse escaped his lips before he could suppress either of them. Simpson was already up and heading to the door, and Captain Winston was right behind, both demonstrating that U.S. Marines were not subject to the laws of gravity or momentum. Martin followed them out of the plane and down the flight of stairs, disappointed that he didn’t get to thank, or hit, the pilot. Two black Suburbans waited at the bottom of the steps, and a large, powerfully built man in full dress uniform was returning the salutes of Simpson and Winston. The three of them talked while Martin cautiously descended the steps.

“Welcome to Bolling Air Force Base, Doctor,” the large man said as Martin drew closer to the three.

“Where the hell are we?” he asked, his head swiveling to find something familiar.

“Washington.” Above his impressive array of ribbons and colorful insignias, the big man wore a nametag with
McDaniels
stamped across it.

“I take it you are the famous Lieutenant-General McDaniels that Colonel Simpson spoke so highly about.” As Martin was framing his next sarcastic remark, it dawned on him that he had seen McDaniels before, not in person, but on television, and recently. His tone changed markedly. “Aren’t you the General McDaniels that’s . . . what?” Martin couldn’t remember the exact context of his familiarity.

“I have just been confirmed as the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.”

“I’m honored,” said Martin, and he half meant it. “I’m glad to see that someone in this government is finally taking this threat a little more seriously. This morning, I spent an hour with the secretary of health trying to convince him that this was an urgent problem, and all I got for my trouble was ‘it’s your problem.’” He did a poor imitation of the small and somewhat effeminate secretary.

“The secretary is not involved with this, Doctor. In fact, less than half a dozen people know that you are here, and even fewer know why. It is important that we keep it that way.” He said this in a friendly tone, but his true meaning was clear. “Please come with me, we have a madman to see.” McDaniels turned back to the trailing vehicle and opened the door for Martin. Simpson and Winston climbed into the lead car.

They sped out through a series of gates without once pausing, and within minutes they were rocketing down the Beltway expressway.

“If all this is for my benefit, General, you can order the driver to slow down now, because I am suitably impressed with his driving abilities.”

“Relax, Doctor. You are perfectly safe.”

“I think that’s what the captain of the
Titanic
was saying just before he rammed an iceberg.” Martin had a death grip on the handhold mounted over his head as the two Suburbans weaved through traffic.

“Actually, I know for a fact that it was ‘Oh, shit!’” Both men laughed. “You don’t remember me, do you?” McDaniels asked, his tone very suddenly becoming serious with a touch of menace.

Martin glanced up at the officer, but aside from the recent press coverage, he would have sworn that he had never seen him before. “We’ve met?”

“It was a long time ago, and we were both very different people then. At least, I hope we are different people now.” McDaniels let the clue dangle between them a little longer.

“No, I still don’t recall us ever meeting before today.”

“January eighth, nineteen-seventy.”

Martin froze as a sea of bad memories flooded back into his head. “That was you?”

“I was the one in the wheelchair. You and your merry band didn’t expect a wounded marine, did you?”

“No, we didn’t, and we didn’t expect the reporter, either.” Martin’s voice was down to a whisper. He had been seventeen and a freshman in college, with all the answers to all the questions anyone would ever need to ask. He and his friends were intellectuals, blessed with an intelligence that others could only dream about. But more than that, they had a singular understanding of the world, and from their lofty perch, they could see all the evils that enslaved man, the worst of which was war. And because they were uniquely in tune with the cosmic force that governs all life, they knew exactly how to exorcise that evil from society. It had been Martin’s idea to meet the returning soldiers at the airport gate wrapped in body bags with the words
Baby Killer
painted across the front. It had been someone else’s idea to bring along a gallon of pig’s blood. “We were so stupid, so immature,” he said.

“You deserved everything that you got. If I’d been capable, I would have joined in.” McDaniels’s voice was flat and even, which made Martin’s shame all the more sharp.

“I have never regretted anything more than that . . . day, in my life,” he said, his voice a little louder. “I don’t think I ever got to apologize, at least publicly.” Martin had been a minor at the time, and despite having been one of the instigators, he was never prosecuted. He was expelled from college, though. The dean visited him in his hospital room and delivered the official notification personally, along with his scathing opinion of Nathan and his fine friends.

They rode in silence for a while. “I still have the
Time
magazine cover,” McDaniels said, and Martin wanted to crawl away. “I framed it. It was the first time I had ever been in a national magazine. I don’t remember if you were in it, though.”

“They couldn’t print pictures of me or give my name because I was a minor at the time.” Martin was starting to think that maybe they weren’t driving fast enough.

“That’s right, I remember now. They wouldn’t even let you testify. Whatever happened to the other ones, the ones who were old enough to be held responsible for their actions?”

“Why don’t we talk about Jaime Avanti instead?” Martin was having one of the worst days of his life. First, Amanda had resurfaced and dredged up all his shortcomings as a physician; the virus that he had hoped had disappeared turned up in the brain of a dead man; and now McDaniels appeared to remind him of how thoroughly irresponsible and reckless he had been when he was younger. All that was missing was for an old girlfriend to appear on the nightly news describing in detail every one of his physical inadequacies.

“Life certainly takes some strange twists, doesn’t it, Nathan? Can I call you Nathan? For nearly forty years, I have wanted to confront you, and now here you are, a captive audience, and suddenly I no longer have the desire to tell you what I think of you or your well-bred, well-educated friends. I want to thank you for that.”

McDaniels paused, but Martin didn’t have a response. The silence between them grew, and then the moment passed.

McDaniels continued, “Jaime Avanti walked into the Pentagon thirty-seven days ago. Before that, he was the subject of a worldwide search. He is, or as he would have us believe, was a member of Al-Qaeda. We know that at one time, he was a close confident of bin Laden, but now he insists that he is no longer in contact with anyone within the Al-Qaeda network. Our intelligence believes him to be a founding member of a group that calls itself Jeser. It’s Arabic for “bridge.” It is our belief that Avanti and a few other non-Arabs parted ways with bin Laden before 9/11 and that they have been exploring other means to inflict harm upon the U.S. and its interests; beyond the use of airliners.

“I have had two conversations with Avanti, and I will tell you this—he scares the hell out of me. He is cold, calculating, and very, very smart. He is not the type of man to simply turn himself in, or to sacrifice himself for the cause. I am certain that he is executing a well-thought-out plan, one that does not end with his death or incarceration. He gives me the impression that he is holding four aces, and I need you to tell me if he’s bluffing.”

“I really don’t know him well enough to tell if he is bluffing you or not. What I can tell you now is that if he is responsible for the virus in Colorado, he may very well be holding five aces.”

“If that’s the case, then why is he here?” McDaniels asked rhetorically.

“Obviously, he wants something, and he thinks I can either give it to him or get it for him.” Martin couldn’t think of a single thing Avanti could want from him. Even illegal viral pathogens were seemingly available to him.

The two Suburbans took an exit into an enclave of large, gated homes and continued their breakneck pace down the two-lane roads. Puzzled, Martin looked around at the surroundings. “You’ve got him out here?”

“It’s safer, more secure, and private,” McDaniels said. “Besides, he insisted.”

Patton stormed through the detectives’ bullpen enveloped in a cloud of confusion and frustration that discouraged any of the half dozen detectives from asking questions. He closed the door to his office and lowered the blinds. He needed time to think.

He took a pen and legal pad and drew a line down the middle of the page. On the left side, he wrote in block letters
Van Der
, and on the right,
Yaeger
. For the next few minutes, he wrote short notes about each case. Both columns started with
Tall, Dark Man
, but the Yaeger column had
Klaus Reisch
written next to it. Witnesses came next: Phil Rucker on the left and James Michener on the right. Then,
murder?
under Van Der, and
attempted murder?
under Yaeger.
No wounds
for the Van Der column, and
no contact
for the Yaeger column. Finally,
Taurus—Rental
on the left, and
BMW—Stolen
, on the right. He wrote two more entries under the Yaeger column:
Amanda
and
injured
. He drew a box around the last two entries, and then after a moment added another question mark.