Mystery: Satan's Road - Suspense Thriller Mystery (Mystery, Suspense, Thriller, Suspense Crime Thriller) (4 page)

CHAPTER SIX

Kam O'Brien had been in the Royal York Hotel in Toronto only once before – when he was eighteen, attending a wedding for a cousin whose name completely escaped him, someone he had never seen again. He had fallen hard for one of the bridesmaids. They had stumbled drunkenly to her room after the wedding, and they were just about to make love when her boyfriend started banging on the door. Kam spent two chilly hours on a windswept balcony that was only two feet wide listening to the sounds of the couple making-up on the other side of the glass. He couldn't remember the bridesmaid's name either, but he recalled how pretty the city looked from up there on the tenth floor, refusing to give up hope that the boyfriend would eventually leave. Finally he tapped on the glass. No one was happy that night.

The hotel's main foyer hadn't changed in a quarter century – three stories of ornate gold filigree and carvings – a warehouse full of antique furniture. Kam crossed the main lobby, passed the stairs that spiraled up to the mezzanine, and found a long bank of brass-plated elevators.

Chapertah had called him late last night, sounding drunk and sleepy. He had heard that Kam was in town for a doctor’s appointment on Wednesday and asked if he'd come and see him. Kam had only met him once before years ago. He couldn't recall having made any kind of impression on a man who was world-renowned as a cosmologist, but otherwise cool and withdrawn and a little bit loopy. An egghead. Kam had to admit though that he felt honored by the invitation. After all, Chapertah was the Pavarotti of the Cosmology world. But something about the call, or Chapertah's inflection or tone, made Kam uneasy. After all, he was just a retired History Professor. He had no claim to fame, had never published anything of significance. What the hell did this guy want from him?

He got off on the eighth floor and followed the room arrows past a stairwell, a noisy ice machine, and finally to room 10-242 at the end of a short corridor. The hallways seemed so narrow, much narrower than he remembered. He knocked lightly and waited. Then he knocked again. The door clicked and moved aside slightly.

Chapertah peeked around the opening, his hair unkempt, and his eyes puffy, like he had just been woken up from a drugged sleep. He squinted at Kam for a few seconds as if he had decided he was the wrong person.

"Chapertah. It's O'Brien. You . . . "

"Come . . . " waved the scientist, in a hurry to close the door. "Were you followed?" Before Kam could answer the odd question, Chapertah chained the door. He had his face pressed up against the peephole, up on the tips of his toes in his stocking feet. He was short, about five foot two. His white shirt had come out of the back of his pants.

"Indra. Is everything alright?"

"Oh yes. Life is wonderful." He pushed the thick black hair out of his eyes. "Sit down." He took Kam by the elbow and led him past the bed to two chairs around a small round table. The only light in the room was the glow from the TV set to some News channel, the sound muted. The curtains were closed tight.

Chapertah pushed Kam into a chair. "No, I am not alright and I thank you for asking. But that should not be your concern." Chapertah sat on the edge of his unmade bed, his hair sticking up, several days’ growth of beard visible on his unlined face.

Kam waited for more, but his host seemed pre-occupied. "How is your health? You look like you haven't slept," Kam asked.

Chapertah smoothed the bedcovers down, looking distracted. His eyes were darting around in his head like flies trapped in a bottle.

"Sleep is over rated. At least when one is awake, there are no dreams."

"Dreams?" asked Kam.

He answered slowly. "You American's have an interesting term for certain dreaming.
Nightmares
. Like horses racing through one’s head. Very poetic for people with no souls."

The man was on the edge, but still trying to make a joke. "Chapertah, does any of this have to do with your e-mail?"

Chapertah exploded. "My God! I had forgotten I had sent that to you as well. How could I be so foolish?” He was up now, worrying the carpet. "What am I thinking of lately? Now you are in danger too."

"From what? A silly translation of an apocalyptic text? Something that belongs in the Enquirer?"

Chapertah's head swiveled on its narrow stalk. "Mr. O'Brien! Don't mock that text. I too thought it was a joke. You see the idiot box? The TV?" He pointed to the set mounted in a chest high shelf unit. "A cable links it from somewhere miles away, from  . . . well, we just don't know, do we. And the phone?" He spread out his spindly arms. "You think you are safe in a locked room, but there are many avenues for them. Many, many avenues. Many dark roads." He ended his tirade staring at the phone at his side. Even Kam stared at it with a newfound fascination.

"Chapertah. You need rest. Why don't I . . . "

Chapertah was angry now and appeared less confused. "Be quiet and hear me out." He went again to the window, touching the glass." I am sorry. But you were the only one I could think of. I had hoped you might have an open mind. I am not so sure now. Do you want to understand?"

"I’d like to help you if I could."

Chapertah shook his head. "You cannot help me. You can only listen." Kam sat back and raised his hands, signaling he was ready to hear the story out. "Had you ever met a Kaufmann from Stanford?" Kam shrugged. "No, I thought not. He was a Jesuit priest who taught History. An agnostic eventually, of course. Everyone who studies the Bible long enough becomes a non-believer, they say. But Kaufmann was a very . . . gentle atheist. Not like me at all. We met at a conference on Ethics. Very bright. One night over Amaretto’s several of us had a revelation, pardon the pun."

"You're rambling."

Chapertah set O'Brien with a fierce look of concentration. "No. I am not rambling.
Revelations
. The Apocalypse text. Over drinks we solved it."

"Over drinks you solved
Revelations
?”

"A puzzle that has stymied philosophers for 2000 years. Yes, we solved it. Or at least cracked open the problem. It took a few more weeks to finesse the details, using some very expensive University resources – the new super-computer at Cornell. But in the end, we had the solution."

"And that was what you sent me?"

"The outline basically, but yes."

"I'm certainly no biblical scholar. Why send it to me?"

"I sent it to you because I suspected I was insane. I needed another point of view. And it does not need, as you say, a Biblical scholar. It needs a historian. And perhaps a computer expert."

"I'd like to help . . . "

"What you would really like is to leave this room and forget about the ravings of Professor Indra. But that will not happen. You have passed a fork in the road, a very dark road, one you may never see again." He collected himself, sat again. "I know I am not crazy now. Believe me, but I soon will be."

In Vietnam, Kam had once seen a soldier with the same wild look in his eyes. He was shell-shocked; had seen a buddy blown to bits only a few feet away, his partner's right hand landing in his lap. When he saw the hand, and recognized it by the bandaged thumb, he snapped. It was like something came violently unhinged inside – something that was instantly irreparable. Everyone knew who examined him, that he would never smile the same way again, like the Arkansas farm boy he once was. Chapertah looked like this now – his eyes out-of-control, all the guide wires snapped. His lips seemed to quiver. When he forced himself to relax, it only made it worse. Kam was becoming afraid of the man.

"They've found me, O'Brien." He smiled this nervously. "In a way, it is a relief." He swallowed hard, tapping his knee with his open hand. "And in another way, it is like your hell."

"My hell?"

"Your Christian hell."

"Oh," said O'Brien, waiting for it. Chapertah was working up to something. Like a runner ready for the firing of the starting pistol. "Who are
they
?" he finally asked.

Chapertah's head snapped around. "Excellent question. Excellent question. Well?" He cocked his head, as if listening. "Are you ready? Once I tell you, you can never turn back, you understand."

"I'm here, Chapertah! Tell me why."

"I'm not sure. I thought once you might be able to help me."

"I'll do what I can."

"You can do nothing." Kam slapped his hands on his knees. "I should never have invited you here. You should go."

Kam chewed his lip. He had said something wrong. Maybe he had missed a cue. "Do you need money?"             

Chapertah laughed aloud at this. "Did you know Nates?" He meant Esther Nates from Berkeley, a world-class theoretician. Before Kam could answer Chapertah continued. "She had all the money in the world and it didn’t help her for a nanosecond. And Bugsy? Who teaches Engineering at Columbia? They got to both of them."

"What do you mean . . . "

"Dead. They're dead."

"Abraham must be in his late eighties . . . "

"This wasn't natural causes."

Kam felt dizzy. None of this made any sense. He was answering only to keep the conversation going. "Have you gone to the police?"

"The police have phones. The police have data networks and radios and computers. What would be the point?" He froze then for a moment. If Kam didn't know better he'd guess that Chapertah had just received an electric shock. He guessed it was the scientist’s mind; now moving in fits and starts.

"They know you're here,” said Chapertah.

"The police?"

"No. Abaddon."

"Abaddon?"

"They're old. Very old, those words." Then he laughed, an instant of humor and sanity. "My father used to say that fifteen minutes as a God was better than a thousand lifetimes as a man. Is it too late to trade?"

Kam took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. A headache was beginning to boil up from somewhere in the back of his head. Indra’s body seemed less rigid now. "What do they want?"

"They want me. I've been called."

"Indra? Come with me. We'll go to my place by the lake. It's secluded . . ."

"You have phones?"

"We won't use them."

"Computers?"

"We'll unplug them."

He smiled. "It doesn't matter." He shook his head slowly. "I can run, but they can't."

"And that's good."

"You don't understand. I mean my children? Can we hide them too?"

"Sure. Lots of room."

The weight of his decision seemed to bear down on him. He slumped. "No. I'm a practical man. A deal has been made. If Bugsy can live by it, then too can I?" He looked at his watch. "It is time. It is not a good idea to be late." When the phone rang on the side table, Chapertah jumped, and then clutched his chest. He had broken into a liberal sweat.

He picked up the phone and said nothing. As he listened, his body sagged inward even more. Finally he said, "I understand." He put the phone back on the hook very carefully. He stood, bent his knees, his eyes clamped shut. His body was shaking.              

"The Book of
Revelations
speaks of a terrible future, Mr. O'Brien. A time when one man will have the power to rule all humans, but he will be like a beast. I have seen his face."

Despite his skepticism Kam felt like the air in the room had suddenly dropped ten degrees.

"The key to
Revelations
, the key to this horrible future, the missing piece for all these decades – is the dark road."

Kam repeated it, his lips dry. "The dark road."

"Yes." Chapertah swallowed and a shiver ran through his body.

"Or as we know it, the Internet." Then he picked up a straight back chair in unsteady hands, opened his red-rimmed eyes and threw it and himself against the drapes and the wide expanse of window, tumbling out of O'Brien's sight over the eighth floor balcony railing in a hail of glass.

CHAPTER SEVEN

After the police accompanied Kam to the hotel lobby, and asked him to keep himself available, he sat down heavily on one of the wide period couches. He was running the image of Chapertah, as he threw himself against the window, over and over in his mind.
What an incredible way to die
, he thought.

Kam had rushed to the edge of the room just in time to catch an image of Chapertah's dark form plunging into the roof of a waiting limousine eight floors below. The chair Chapertah used to break the glass, shattered in the middle of the street. The driver of the black limo leapt out of the driver’s door and rolled on the pavement, his hands still clinging to a newspaper. Another cab screeched to a halt, only inches from the driver's head. Kam imagined it must have sounded like a bomb going off inside the waiting limousine.

Within seconds the street was full of anxious people circling the scene like nervous ants. At the center, Chapertah lay in the impression he had made in the car roof, his arms and his head at impossible angles.

Kam had felt his knees give out, and for a second feared he might tumble out into the street as well. He hobbled back to the bed and picked up the desk phone. There was a tinny double click, then a friendly voice had answered. He almost expected something else. Somehow he was able to explain to the astonished desk clerk what had happened.

Exactly seven minutes later, two police officers arrived. Kam sat on the bed, unable to move, that picture still playing over and over again. The Internet? Chapertah in all his brilliance had somehow drawn the insane conclusion that the Internet was the devil’s invention. Maybe it was all chemical.

He explained as well as he could to the two uniformed officers, then to a plain clothed detective, why he was in the suite. He had a sudden chilling realization that they would automatically suspect he was involved; that they thought he might have pushed the man. They asked questions about how they knew each other, where they met. Somehow it didn't make sense that Chapertah would call on a stranger to witness a suicide.

Kam could see that there was some doubt in the detectives eyes. Kam couldn't answer that question. Chapertah had said that the answer lay in History. He didn't think the police would buy that. They couldn't hold him, they said, disappointment in their voices.
Just stay close to home. We may need a further statement.

Kam pulled his cell from his inside jacket pocket and selected his home number. Tamara answered from the den. "Tamara, Chapertah killed himself". He heard her suck in her breath. She could have asked a dozen different questions then, but the first thing she wanted to know was how he was.
Was he all right?
He must have sounded terrible. "I'm still shaking. Why in God's name did he pick me as his witness?"

"It had to be a cry for help, Kam. Maybe he thought you could save him, poor man."

"A lot of good I did him." They were both silent for a few seconds, the waste of this mans' death weighing on their thoughts. "He was almost delirious. He was raving about
Revelations
again. I didn't know what to tell him."

 "I read some of it," Tamara said, almost distantly. Kam knew her moods well - she was trying to put something together, trying to discern the pattern. Kam didn't respond, some new sense of dread flooding in.

"Did he say what his theory was?" she asked.

"You mean, the
Information Highway
being Satan's road or some such garbage?" Kam couldn't believe he was even willing to repeat that nonsense. But he couldn't erase from his memory the look of fear the man had etched into his face. What was scaring him so badly?

She had the document in her hand – he could hear the pages rustling over the phone line. She had been reading it when he called. "It was co-written with a number of other professors, but this Kaufmann from Stanford seems to be leading the charge. Maybe he would know something."

"Tamara, I'm not staying tonight. I'm coming home, but I have that doctor’s appointment in two hours so I’m stuck here. Do me a favor. Kaufmann's email address is on the front page of Chapertah's manuscript. Please write him and get a phone number so that I can call him. I'm not going to get this out of my head until I understand why he was so upset. If you don’t get a reply, maybe you can track down contact information on the Internet."

:

Tamara hung up the phone and walked over to their computer, the manuscript still in her hand. It seemed heavier now, more significant in the light of Indra's death.

The message she sent to Dr. Kaufmann, through his assistant, was as straightforward as he could make it without revealing too much about the madness of the past hours.

I am a friend of Dr. Chapertah's. He has left me a document, which he has indicated you may be willing to help me with. Anxious to hear from you. Please send a number I can contact you at immediately.

She sent the e-mail as "Private", although she couldn't imagine how confidential the message could stay considering the labyrinth of systems it would wind through to get to its final destination. Kaufmann obviously stayed close to his computer. He answered four minutes later under his own address.
 

I will need Chapertah's permission to discuss this matter with you. Awaiting his reply.

He had copied Indra on the message. Tamara was shocked by the response. If Kaufmann contacted Chapertah's family, he may be connecting before the police were able to contact next of kin. She wanted him to understand, but she didn't want to expose Chapertah's family to a debriefing at a time like this. She also didn't feel she had the luxury of waiting until it was public knowledge.
 

Chapertah has sadly committed suicide. Please leave his family out of this for now. We need to talk. Could you give me your voice phone number?

His reply came back, the terseness of it radiating from the words on the screen.
 

I have taken the liberty of checking your personal records. Ronald Sylvan of Boston University speaks quite highly of both you and Professor Koblaski.
 

Due to his personal recommendation only, I have agreed to reply to your scandalous assertion about Indra. I don't know where you get your information, but there is certainly no one here who has heard any negative news. His wife is unavailable, but I have left a message for Chapertah at his hotel, where they insist that there is nothing to be concerned about. The manager confirmed for me that Indra was still checked in for several days, and that he would personally give him my message.

Lines of worry had formed at the edges of her mouth. She picked up the phone and called Kam's cell again.

"Kam, I just got a message from this Kaufmann fellow. He insists that Chapertah is fine. Says he called the Royal York."

Kam started to protest, but she cut him off. "Either the Hotel is confused or . . . who's crazy here, Kam? Kaufmann? Chapertah? Or us?"

"You're beginning to doubt me?"

"No."

"Yes you are – I heard it. I can hardly blame you. I'm beginning to doubt myself."

"How do you explain Kaufmann?" asked Tamara

"He's putting me on. Or Chapertah was right."

"About
Revelations
?"

"About the
phone
." She cocked her head. "Kaufmann would have phoned the hotel and asked for the manager. Only problem is, what if he didn't talk to the manager? Maybe he didn't even get through to the hotel and doesn't know it."

Kam felt a sliver of cold run through him. He had no answer so Tamara continued. "If this whole unfortunate situation was over a couple of million dollars or a new scientific breakthrough or even a miracle wrinkle cream, I could understand. But what could this be over? Who would go to all this trouble? Who would try to drive a man like Chapertah crazy? And then try to make it sound like it didn't happen?"

Kam scratched his thinning hair. "Maybe you're right? Maybe this whole
Revelations
business is just a screen for something else. Was Chapertah working on anything with military applications?"

She sighed. "Worm holes."

"Worm holes?"

"Poor Indra spent the last decade of his life searching for worm holes out in the cosmos. The only government application I can think of, would be to use them as places to hide the national debt. Chapertah's research was very theoretical. And very benign."

"That was what they said about cloning.” Tamara failed to see the humor in this comment, so he continued. “That brings us back to the Biblical texts. You really think that was the point?"

"What did he say to you before he died?"

Kam sunk his head. "He was obsessed by his translation. He really thought there was something to it."

"Well, you haven't really explained his theory. Did you read the full text of his translation?"

"I've gone through it a couple of times."

"Well?"

"In a nutshell. Are you ready for this? Chapertah and his egghead posse have a theory that the Satan of the Bible has come back, as predicted, and is presently plotting the destruction of civilization as we know it."

"You're pulling my leg."

"I wish I was, as well as other favored parts of your anatomy."

"Chapertah actually believes that?"

"It gets better."

"Oh really!"

"Well, the Devil of today is a much more dangerous creature than the one of history. In fact, he has taken on the disguise of something else, has become something that we can't recognize until it's too late."

"What?

"The Internet."

Kam had his face in his hands. He was feeling dizzy again. He had been watching news feeds for the past month covering a story called J-Day. J-Day was a wild rumor that hackers all over the planet were conspiring to attack together at noon this coming Monday. Their goal was to shut down commerce globally: Internet shopping sites, game sites, online banks, travel sites, everything Net related.

Hackers, or more precisely, booters – experts on system attacks – were impossible to herd. So most pundits were ignoring the claims, but Kam wasn’t so sure anymore. Could there be a connection with this end-of-days theory?

Kam heard a soft beep in the background. He could hear Tamara clicking on her computer keyboard. “It’s Professor Kaufmann. He sounds spooked, I don’t know why. Now he wants to talk.”

“What’s his number?”

“He has another suggestion. He wants to connect by smart phone on video. He says he has something he needs to show you visually.”

“What could that be?”

“He says that he needs to insure that it’s you he’s actually talking to. I’ll text you his cell phone number.” Kam shook his head.
The Internet was the dark road?
This didn’t make sense, but he wanted to talk to Kaufmann, even if he was a nut.

Kam knew he had to end the call and speak to Kaufmann, but he was reluctant to let Tamara go. Something had spooked him. “You know, Tamara, sometimes I wish I had never met some of your crazy friends.”

Tamara sighed unhappily. “I’ve said this before, Kam. Be very careful what you wish. Sometimes you get what you ask for.”