Mirrors (30 page)

“At a lab Grainger set up outside
BioVironics
.”

“Who else knew about what you did?”

“No one.”

“Not even Bhanjee?”

“Hell, no!”

Flagstaff leaned over the ditch. “What other water treatment plants has Grainger targeted?”

“I don’t know.”

Flagstaff lowered himself into the depression. Squeezing past me, he pressed the muzzle to Chandrapur’s jaw.

“The metal is cold now but it can turn real hot if I fire this. But, then again, you won’t feel it because you’ll be dead!”

“Honestly, I don’t know!” Chandrapur insisted. “All he said was that he picked another plant, but he didn’t tell me which it was.”

“Was it in Dallas?” Flagstaff asked.

“Take the gun away! I don’t know!”

“How much XK59 does he have?”

Chandrapur pointed to the cylinder. “Multiply that many-fold.”

“How could he possibly have produced that much?” I asked.

“That was my job,” Chandrapur replied. “He had me producing it for weeks.”

I started for the ladder.

“Where are you going?” Flagstaff asked.

“After Grainger.”

“The hell you are! He may be armed.”

“I don’t care.” I climbed the ladder.

“Get back here!” Flagstaff ordered.

“I wouldn’t go if I were you!” Chandrapur warned. “Grainger’s after you!”

10:51 p.m.

In the darkness of the woods, I felt every bush or tree was an ambush point from which Grainger might attack, so I zigzagged to seek the least dense portions. When I reached the gravel road, I sprinted until my throat burned from breathlessness. I felt like vomiting by the time I reached the SUV.

After shutting the door, I saw parking lights appear on a van parked along the paved road ahead. It had a ladder strapped to its roof and a cloud of silver exhaust fumed from its tailpipe. I suspected it was Grainger waiting for me.

I inched forward only to see the van make a U-turn and start down the road. It slowed and then stopped beside me. The driver lowered his window. His cheek was swollen and his nose bloodied. He dabbed a gash on his lip.

“Your buddy is a brute,” Grainger said. “He’s got the biggest fists I’ve ever taken.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t shoot him as you did with Muñoz. Aren’t you armed?”

“Should I be?” he asked.

“Not on my account.”

“What about you? Did Flagstaff or Bird issue you a weapon?”

I drew back. “You
know
them?”

“I know
of
them, just as I know about that childish
Distamus ab aliis
and
Proprius orbis
.”

“Who’s your mole in the UNIT?” I asked.

“
I’ll
ask the questions.” He glanced into the mirror. “What other water plants do you think I’ve targeted?”

“Were you concerned we’d abort this one?”

“I’ve covered my bases.” He held up his phone. “I’ve programmed this to release the beads unless a command is entered to stop them. That way, even if you confiscate my phone, the default is for beads to flow. Unless, of course, you meet the deadline.”

“I need more time.”

“Not going to happen; I have a schedule to keep.” He revved the engine. “And you’re coming with me for the first part of it.” He nodded over his shoulder. “I’m going to make an about-turn, and then we’ll head back up the road together.”

“Where to?”

“Somewhere to reflect on things.”

I watched Grainger turn and approach from behind. He waved as he passed, and I followed him, close enough to read the bumper stickers on the back of his van …

Global warming—anti-oil conspiracy

Charter schools: keep the government out!

Guns are my civil right

We came to the parkway and followed it away from town before turning onto smaller roads that traversed horse farms and mansions with prim entry gates and white picket fences. The rolling hills gave way to cornfields and wooded lots, and I dropped further back, although never enough to lose sight of the van. After passing a golf course, a field with canvas tents came into view, the domes resembling toadstools in the moonlight. Behind them, a Ferris wheel and roller-coaster stood idle, their frames ghostly white. A billboard announced the complex as a traveling amusement park.

I followed Grainger along a dirt road to a vacant parking lot where the van paused to allow me to catch up. As I approached it, the van took off again, scaling a curb at the end of the lot to enter a field holding the tents. Cautiously, I followed suit, taking care to maneuver between tents, food stands, and trash bins. Here and there, the ground was littered with remnants from the previous day’s activities: ticket stubs, spilled food, and empty soda cans. Ahead, the van’s brake lights flashed as it stopped before the largest tent in the complex, one with red and white stripes that made me think of a Dr. Seuss book. As with the other tents, it was tethered to the ground, only its ropes were the most massive ones on the facility. A sign before the tent read,
House of Mirrors
.

I shut off the engine, opened the door, and sat still for a moment, dangling a leg from the vehicle. A breeze caught the side of the tent and sent it flapping with the sound of wind whipping a sail. Craning my neck, I peered into the side view mirror of Grainger’s van to find the driver’s seat empty. Curious to learn where he had gone, I left the SUV but refrained from closing the door to remain as quiet as possible. Although Grainger was nowhere to be seen, I suspected he was watching everything I did.

I walked to his van. A peek through the window confirmed his absence. The interior was cluttered with tools, crumpled newspapers, and empty liquor bottles. Above, on the roof, clumps of mud clung to the rungs of a ladder. I started toward the back to look through the rear window, but before I could do so, my phone vibrated.

“What is it?” I asked Flagstaff.

“Where are you?”

“At an amusement park in the country.”

“Oh, the one visiting for the summer. Why are you there?”

“Grainger brought me here. I’m about to meet him in a tent.”

“Don’t do it! Wait until we send help.”

I glanced at my watch—11:09 pm. “No time! Midnight’s approaching.”

“Then go, but before you do, there’s something you need to know: I just heard from Spilbat at the Smithsonian. He shared results from an experiment he ran. He put one of those spiders you collected into a cage with a mouse and watched what happened. It was brutal!”

“What happened?”

“The spider attacked the mouse and then drew back to watch it from a corner. Within a couple hours, the mouse crumpled, at which point the spider began ripping it apart. Before the spider consumed the entire meal, however, Spilbat examined the remnants. He found evidence of massive muscle destruction.”

I heard a switch flip, and the tent beside me burst into light. “Gotta go,” I said.

“Be careful!”

I approached a curtain at the tent entrance, its fabric wavering in the breeze. Slipping a hand through a gap, I pulled it aside. A small recess came into view with its perimeter lined by rectangular mirrors standing on end like dominos. A mirror omitted directly across the space allowed room for a second curtain to lead deeper into the tent. Above, steel beams held a contingent of lights so bright they warmed the tent.

“Grainger!” I shouted.

“Find me!” he called back.

His voice came from the center of the tent so I started across the recess yet as I walked, I felt cloned by mirrors that multiplied my image. At one point, I swept my arm before me to clear a path but met only air. When I reached the second curtain, I stepped behind the nearest mirror to vanquish the menacing reflections. Reassured I was alone, I pulled the curtain aside to find a space larger than the previous that harbored a strikingly different array of mirrors, ones of varying sizes, shapes, and contours arranged to form tunnels leading in disparate directions. I felt lost as to which to follow.

“Where are you?” I called.

“Over here!”

I entered a tunnel which greeted me with grotesque reflections—a morbidly obese figure; a rail-thin counterpart; and a wiry, waving apparition so distorted I didn’t think it could be mine. I stooped to verify the movements belonged to me.

“Are you coming?” Grainger called.

“As I said before, I’m not going to play your games,” I answered.

“This isn’t a game!”

I passed mirrors that shrank, enlarged, narrowed, and widened me, contorting my form in every conceivable way, even transforming me into folds like the undulating surface of a corrugated tin roof.

“You can’t run forever!” I declared.

“Won’t need to,” he shouted, his voice closer than before.

The tunnel I followed morphed into one lined by tiny mirrors. With lights buried into the floor shining up, hundreds of reflections of my passing form flickered as I moved, making me feel as if I were running rather than walking.

“I kept your bark to advance the field of medicine,” I shouted.

“No, you kept it out of greed—to enhance your reputation.”

“I wanted to serve the greater good.”

“You can’t serve by stealing.”

Because the tunnel wound back on itself, it seemed to be endless, and I began to feel claustrophobic. I quickened my pace, but as I did, I felt increasingly trapped. I slapped the mirrors and shrieked for a way out. Racing ahead, I saw an opening yet when I reached it, a set of arms threw me to the floor.

11:18 p.m.

“Calm down, Krispix!” the voice said. “And stop hyper-ventilating.”

The beams bore down like tanning salon lights. Glancing at my watch, I realized I had been in the tunnel less than a minute yet it seemed as if years had passed before I reached its exit.

As I clambered to my feet, I found myself surrounded by circular rows of mirrors arranged in amphitheater-style, and from the dome above, I knew I had reached the tent’s central arena. A body appeared at my side.

“I threw you down to stop your panic attack,” Grainger said. “I want you to be lucid to answer the questions I posed.”

I took a deep breath. It served to slow my pounding pulse.

“Follow me,” Grainger said.

He led me to a small stage in the center of the tent where, after opening a cardboard box, he removed a model of a tree, a plastic rendition of the sort one sees in architectural designs on public display.

“Show and tell?” I asked.

“Of sorts.”

“About what?”

“XK59,” he replied.

“I know the story.”

“You
don’t
.” He retrieved a ball of mesh and wrapped it around the trunk. “What do you think this represents?”

“Gift wrap?”

He drew a gun. “Are you going to take this seriously?”

I remained silent.

He tucked the gun into his waist and stroked the mesh. “Imagine this as a spider web on the tree that injured my colleague in Madagascar.” He extracted a rubber spider from the suitcase and attached it to the mesh.

“No real ones?” I asked.

“They’re available if I need them.” He lifted the tree, mesh, and spider. “You see, after you stole my bark, I returned to Madagascar. I went there for two reasons, foremost to retrieve a necklace I’d removed from my colleague after he bled to death in the forest. I’d removed the necklace because I knew it was an heirloom and that his mother would value having it back as a memory of her son. Unfortunately, after removing it, I left it beside a spring where I stopped to wash myself on the hike back to civilization. So I returned to retrieve it.”

“And the second reason?” I asked.

“To get more bark since you stole the piece I loaned you. While there that second time, I discovered the tree that grew the bark had webs encircling its trunk with large spiders on them.”

“Of the sort you turned on Zot and Bhanjee?”

“Yes.”

“Our expert at the Smithsonian didn’t recognize them.”

“Because they have never been described before. I discovered them!”

“What do you call them?”

“
Aimofilikos
—Greek for ‘bleeders.’ ”

“Because their venom contains XK59.”