Mirrors (17 page)

I started in the salon and, seeing the genres
Astronomy
and
History
, moved to the guest cabins where I found
Tragedy
and
Comedy
. I fretted that if the master suite left me empty-handed, I would be forced to restart the search and comb through books individually in the event
Theogony
had been misplaced. I entered the final cabin and raked my eyes across its voluminous titles, ones housed in sections labeled
Philosophy
,
Medicine,
and, to my relief,
Poetry
. In the final section, I discovered two works by Hesiod,
Shield of Heracles
and
Works and Days
, but my heart sank when I noticed a gap between them, one I suspected belonged to
Theogony
.

I headed for the galley because, strangely, while traversing it earlier, I noticed what appeared to be a book propped along the counter. It appeared in the form of a reflection in a mirror beside the toaster. I rushed to the spot now and, sliding the toaster aside, discovered a paperback with a weathered cover and pages littered with sticky notes. Its title:
Theogony
.

I opened it to the first sticky on the copyright page. In typed letters, it read …

Dr. Krispix,

Distamus ab aliis.

Follow the mirrors.

I grimaced at the sight of my name alongside a Latin code designed to guard my secrecy. The juxtaposition reinforced my conviction that someone on the Congressional Task Force, or perhaps in the UNIT itself, had played a role in sending the missives. But it flummoxed me that someone knew
I
would be the one to discover the book in its elusive position behind the toaster. Was Flagstaff to be trusted, I wondered. After all, it was he who had sent me here. I took a photo of the sticky to preserve the evidence.

My attention turned to the third line. What “mirrors” was I to follow other than this one? I picked up the small rectangular glass and peered at its chipped edges, flipping it over to see if it held another message. It didn’t.

I returned my attention to the book. It was 50 pages long and little larger than my palm. I leafed through the
Table of Contents
,
Introduction
, and a brief
Note on the Translation
. The text of
Theogony
followed, its length 33 pages. I read the first line of text,
From the Muses of Helicon let us begin our singing,
but my eyes drifted to handwritten notes in the margin. I was startled to see they displayed the same penmanship from Kosta’s logbook prior to the deterioration of the writing. Like
CliffsNotes
, they explained the text and added perspective and definitions. Regarding
Hera of Argos
, for example, a note stated,
goddess of marriage as well as a wife and older sister of Zeus
; for
Phoebus Apollo
:
god of the sun
; and for
Poseidon
:
ruler of the sea
.

I flipped to the next sticky …

Byron Rudolf

8672 Mason Avenue, Seattle, WA 98106

Start VP35—3,129

The name rang a bell. Extracting a list of victims’ names, I saw it belonged to the first person poisoned, a 36-year-old software engineer in Seattle. I presumed the address was one to which the missive had been sent, but the third line, a cryptic code of some sort, left me baffled.

I turned to the text immediately beside the sticky where three words were underlined:
your father’s cruelty
. I recognized them as the first missive. Mentally, I applauded Squills for identifying
Theogony
as the missives’ source.

I lifted my eyes to a header on the page which read
Lines 163-191
. Similar headers appeared on other pages, and when I turned to the final page, I saw 1,026 lines comprised the text of
Theogony
. The words,
your father’s cruelty.
, fell on line 169.

I examined the remaining sticky notes dispersed through the text and a final one occupying the inside of the back cover. Each sticky within the text listed a victim’s name, address, and cryptic code, and each was attached to the page where the words forming the missive had been underlined. One sticky, in particular, gave me great distress; it had the name
Danny Rogers
typed across it along with his address in Marinero, CA and a cryptic code,
Start VP30—8,509
. The page to which it was attached contained the words,
… who lives under the earth,
. The final sticky on the inside of the back cover listed a victim’s name, address, and a missive,
… not that rich chimaera.
, but no cryptic code. I recalled Squills identifying its source as
The Sound and the Fury
by William Faulkner.

To visualize in one place the missives, line numbers, and cryptic codes, I copied them on a sheet of paper …

… your father’s cruelty. Line 169. Start VP35—3,129

… of the lovely cheeks, Line 242. Start VP40—4,479

But she, surrendering to … Line 326. Start GP—6,039

But she, surrendering to … Line 326. Start GP—6,039

… Power and Strength, Line 385. Stop GP—7,133

… who lives under the earth, Line 460. Start VP30—8,509

… not that rich chimaera.

The cryptic codes intrigued me because the presence of the initials,
VP,
in three of them fortified my belief that
Vibrio parahaemolyticus
played some role in the poisonings. Less clear were the numbers attached to the initials, as in
VP35
,
VP40
, and
VP30
, or for that matter, the subsequent larger numbers in the cryptic codes—
3,129
,
4,479
,
6,039, 7133,
and
8,509
. I entertained the notion that
Vibrio parahaemolyticus
had been genetically engineered to produce XK59 in the victims, and if that were true, then perhaps the large numbers in the cryptic codes referred to specific regions of the bacterium’s DNA that had been altered.

A clicking sound from outside startled me. Tucking my notes away, I returned
Theogony
to its place behind the toaster and reset the mirror to its original position. To hide from the doorway, I ducked behind a chair and waited for the intruder to enter. In the sweltering heat, sweat beads formed along my brows before dropping to the floor. Hearing only silence, I peered around the chair through the salon doorway to see dark clouds gathering in an angry sky, and it was then I realized the clicking came from a wooden chime blowing in the gusts. Beyond the stern, the once docile inlet churned now in frothy whitecaps.

I left the boat and rushed into a forest of howling trees. When I reached the garden behind the house, a lightning bolt made me dive to the ground. As I lay there, cheek-to-soil, I listened to the rumble of thunder as the scent of wetted earth wafted up. I remained still until the thunder ceased only to see a tall blonde woman enter the house and close the door behind her.

I kept my position until I was confident she had moved into the interior of the house. Upon standing, I stepped over a stream that had formed in the garden and raced to my car without looking back. When I got in, I turned the key and sped away, sending a shower of gravel toward a red Ferrari parked behind me.

I fled Kosta’s
house with one eye on the road and the other on the rear view mirror, expecting a red Ferrari to pull up at any moment. Only when I reached a bustling thoroughfare did I feel sufficiently anonymous to pull aside to place a call. It took me several attempts with trembling fingers to hit the numerical sequence.

“Krispix, what’s happening?” Randy Flagstaff said.

“You guys are rotten to the core!” I shouted.

“What bent you out of shape?”

I told him about the copy of
Theogony
on Kosta’s boat and the first sticky note that read …

Dr. Krispix,

Distamus ab aliis.

Follow the mirrors.

“Kosta poisoned the victims!” I exclaimed.

“Too early to conclude that; no proof Kosta wrote that sticky.”

“If it wasn’t Kosta, it was someone on the Task Force or in the UNIT.”

“It’s troubling,” he acknowledged, “and we’ll get to the bottom of this, but I want you to keep your eye on XK59. We’ll deal with Kosta.”

“Tell me this, then: Does Kosta own a red Ferrari?”

“Yup, that’s his baby.”

Although I never
became a merchant marine, my fondness for the sea remained strong, and the visit to Kosta’s boat rekindled the bond. Even though the vessel was moored when I boarded it, it made me reminisce an experience I had years earlier while ferrying across Lake Michigan during middle school. Each deck on the ferry imbued a different outlook on life: On lower levels, with the water almost in reach, I appreciated the need—metaphorically speaking—to roll with the waves whereas on higher decks with horizon vistas, I saw the value of long-term living.

Tense as the visit to Kosta’s boat had been, the breeze from the bay had a relaxing effect, enough so to make me long for the sea. Bypassing an onramp for Washington, D.C., I steered the SUV onto another that led me out of Annapolis toward the eastern shore of Maryland. With beach-going throngs diminished, I crossed the Chesapeake Bay Bridge with ease before stopping at a mall-side ATM to withdraw two thousand dollars. The wad of cash pressed against my thigh as I drove on.

At the seaside town of Lewes, Delaware, I joined a queue waiting for a car ferry to cross the Delaware Bay to Cape May, New Jersey. With vessels departing every ninety minutes, it wasn’t long before I drove onto a sleek ship with a tinted-window observation salon poised three decks above the sea. The mood aboard was festive, similar to that on ocean liners before they set off to sea. I abandoned the SUV to take a place beside a rail on the main deck where I called Eve as the last of the passengers boarded.

“Everything fine?” I asked her.

“The contractions are getting more organized,” she replied.

“Should I come home?” I held my breath.

“Not yet, but stay close.”

Below me, the hatch to the stern closed.

“Will do. Love you.”

“Love you, too,” she replied.

A breeze whipped up as we left port. Sweetness tinged the air, as if the wind had picked up strands of cotton candy from beachside vendors and carried them to sea. I remained outside until we approached Cape May, only then leaving the rail for the SUV. After mooring, I drove north, relieved to have the sea as a partner in travel. Here and there, I passed carefree towns that beckoned me to visit their sand and waves.

A call interrupted my soirée with serenity.

“How come you didn’t answer an hour ago?” Alistair Brubeck asked.

“Busy,” I replied. The call registered as the ferry left port but I ignored it to savor my freedom.

“News,” he said.

“What sort?”

“I heard from CDC and Bangladesh. Our strain of
Vibrio parahaemolyticus
has never been seen in the U.S. but it was recovered in Bangladesh a few years ago.”

“The
same
strain?”

“Yes, isolated from a patient who developed diarrhea while visiting India.”

“What part of India?”

“Southern—a town called Vellore.”

“
No!
”

“Heard of it?” he asked.

I told him about Minal Chandrapur, who hailed from Vellore.

“Do you think he supplied the strain that tainted the shrimp?” Brubeck asked.

“Possibly.”

Switching topics, I told Brubeck about the copy of
Theogony
with its cryptic codes.

“Got them handy?” he asked.

I retrieved my list and read aloud the codes containing the initials
VP
: “
VP35–3,129
;
VP40–4,479
; and
VP30–8,509
. What else could
VP
stand for other than
Vibrio parahaemolyticus
?” I asked.

He said nothing.