Superstition (28 page)

“What I'd like to know,” he said, “is
why
this has happened. To
us. This
group.
This
experiment. Why didn't Adam just fade out when we wanted him to? What's made him
hang on
to his existence like this?”

“I get the feeling he's not just hanging on to it,” Joanna said quietly, “he's fighting back.” She turned to Ward. “Did Shahan think there was anything at all we can do?”

Ward pulled a long white envelope from inside his jacket. Even though he had stepped off an international flight only hours ago, he wore, as usual, an impeccable suit, silk shirt, and tie.

“In here,” he said, “I have a mantra. It's a very particular form of mantra, called a
partita:
a protective rite. They're used widely throughout Tibet and eastern Asia to ward off danger and disease, and exorcise evil spirits.”

Joanna watched Sam as he listened to Ward. She could see that he was torn between the belief he wanted to have and the doubts he instinctively felt toward formal ritual.

“
Paritta?
” he said. “It sounds like something you might get in a Mexican restaurant. Do you think it can work in New York?”“Why not?” Ward said. “New York is where Adam was created.”

Sam pursed his lips and shrugged. “I'm open to anything…”

The ghost of a smile passed over Ward's face. “Fortunately this isn't something you have to believe in to make work. You simply have to perform the ritual in the correct way at the appropriate time. But there must be no deviation from the form laid down.”

“So what
is
this mantra?” Sam asked, glancing at the envelope in Ward's hand.

“I can't tell you—yet. After he wrote it down, Shahan sealed this envelope himself. It must not be opened, and what is written down must not be spoken, until all five of us are gathered in the place where we created Adam. Otherwise,” he returned the envelope to his inside jacket pocket, “whatever force the
paritta
has will be lost, and with it quite possibly our struggle against Adam.”

Sam spread his hands in a way that implied he would go along with whatever Ward wanted, regardless of his personal reservations. Ward inclined his head in acknowledgment.

“I'm sorry if these restrictions seem irritating or even naive, but I'm afraid they're an important part of the ritual. I've taken the liberty of calling Roger. He can get in from Princeton by six. If it's agreeable to both of you, and of course Pete, I suggest we meet in Adam's room at the lab.”

The phone in Joanna's purse buzzed. She excused herself and answered it. It was Ghislaine.

“You said this was a rush job, so I thought you'd like to hear what I've come up with so far.”

Joanna covered the mouthpiece and whispered to the two men watching her. “It's my researcher. She's got something.”

Ghislaine's voice continued in her ear. “It's just what I've been able to pull from various sources, mainly ones I can access on the Net. I'll have something fuller in a couple of days.”

“It's okay, just give me what you have.”

“It's probably easier if I e-mail it. Where do you want me to send it?”

Five minutes later the three of them were gathered around the PC on the glass-topped desk in Ward's study. They watched as the words scrolled up the screen and were simultaneously printed out alongside.

ADAM WYATT—Colorful adventurer who won patronage of Marquis de Lafayette, commander of French troops assisting rebel colonies in American War of Independence. Returned to France with Lafayette, where he married into aristocratic family—his wife was a member of Queen Marie Antoinette's inner circle at court. Ultimately fell foul of the revolution, and he and his wife were sentenced to death. Wife apparently executed, but for reasons not entirely clear Wyatt given last-minute reprieve and went free. Settled in England, where he had a second marriage to wealthy heiress in 1795. After her death in 1799 he returned to America a rich man, made a further large fortune in banking, married a much younger girl (surprise, surprise!) who bore him five children and survived him by several years
.

That's the digest. Now here's the interesting part that I'm still following up. There were suggestions in various quarters that Adam Wyatt was not entirely what he appeared to be. Two men claimed he staged the incident that won him Lafayette's approval—something about a runaway horse that threatened to give away strategic positions the night before Yorktown. If true, that means he deliberately risked American and French lives, and maybe the battle, in order to get in solid with Lafayette. Apparent motive seems to have been, in part at least, usual one of pregnant girl back home and brothers with shotguns. Truth of allegations unknown. All that is known is that remaining accuser still alive on Wyatt's return in 1799 was murdered shortly after
.

It also seems that Wyatt forfeited the support of Lafayette sometime after reaching Paris. Having married into a family with which Lafayette was connected, he proceeded to have many affairs and get into very questionable company—hints of black magic among other things. His name is coupled in a number of references with the Marquis de Sade, the mysterious and almost equally weird Count de Saint-Germain, and in particular with an old swindler called Cagliostro, supposedly an alchemist and magician, who got thrown into jail over a famous scam called the “Diamond Necklace Affair.”

The bones of that affair are that Wyatt and Cagliostro persuaded a certain Cardinal Rohan, who needed a political alliance with the queen, that they could arrange it for him. All he, the cardinal, had to do was purchase a very expensive diamond necklace on behalf of the queen that she thought it would be indiscreet to purchase herself—on account of such extravagance being bad PR with people starving in the streets, etc. The cardinal fell for it, and handed the necklace over to some mistress of Wyatt's who impersonated the queen in a secret meeting. There is a suggestion that Rohan might have been either drugged or hypnotized by Cagliostro to fall for this imposture. Needless to say, the necklace was never seen again
.

The idea had been that the cardinal, who was thought to be wealthy, would write off the money rather than look like a fool. But it turned out he was broke and couldn't pay the jeweler. When the shit hit the fan, Wyatt somehow got away scot free, while Cagliostro took the fall and went to jail. It may be they made some deal, with Wyatt using his (or his wife's) influence at court to get Cagliostro's sentence commuted to banishment. Thereafter Cagliostro went to Italy, and Wyatt stayed on in Paris with his long-suffering wife, until the revolution and her death
.

There is a suggestion, which I'm looking into, that he might have murdered his English wife, and possibly her brother, before returning to America. But nothing was ever proven
.

This guy sounds like the original all-American hero—right? Incidentally, if you're planning to write about him, it might be interesting to find out where his descendants are now and what they're called—and whether any of that fortune still exists. I'm having Jenny Sterns, who sometimes helps me out, do genealogical checks—assuming you're not going to nickel and dime me on this as you're in a hurry. Will keep you informed
.

Love
,

G
.

40

W
ard had his manservant prepare a lunch of omelettes and salad. Sam talked about the work of a researcher called Helmut Schmidt, who had used prerecorded random events in the kind of experiments that Joanna had seen demonstrated in the lab when Sam first showed her around. According to Schmidt's results it appeared that subjects were able to influence those random events retroactively: patterns generated months earlier appeared to correspond to an influence exerted only after, sometimes long after, they had been recorded. If true, Sam argued, such results mirrored in a small way what seemed to have happened with Adam.

“There's an essay on time by the Buddhist writer Alan Watts that reflects what you're saying. He says that we tend to think of everything, including ourselves, as creations of the past, driven along by events that have already happened. But that's an illusion. It's not the present that comes out of the past, but the past that comes out of the present. We see it every day. For example, if I say, ‘The bark of a tree,’ you don't know what ‘bark’ means until I get to ‘tree.’ It could have been the ‘bark of a dog.’ Or take a line of poetry: ‘They went and told the sexton, and the sexton tolled the bell.’ You don't know what the first ‘told’ means, or even how it's spelled, until you get to ‘sexton.’ And you don't know that the second ‘tolled’ is any different until you get to ‘bell.’”

“But the Adam we created in the
present
was a decent man,” Joanna protested, “so it was the
past
that changed him.”

“We created someone who had to survive in the time and place we put him in,” Ward replied, “and we showed him how to do it.”

“We didn't exactly teach him how to steal and kill,” she said.

Sam put down his fork and leaned back, obviously having little appetite. “Don't you remember Maggie's unease about involving our nice, clean-living young Adam with undesirables like de Sade and Cagliostro? It looks like she had a point.”

“My fault, I'm afraid,” Ward said. “I was the one who brought their names up.”

“But that's just it,” Joanna said impatiently. “They were
only
names. How can names have that kind of power?”

Ward gave another of his faint smiles. “It's been said that the heart of all magic is knowing the true names of things. If you know the true name of your enemy, you have power over him. And if you know the true names of the gods, they must lend you their power.”

Joanna had placed her phone on the table next to her. Now it rang and she reached for it. Ghislaine's familiar, rapid-fire voice launched straight into the subject without preliminaries.

“Okay, that family tree we talked about—Jenny's come up with some interesting names. One in particular. Very respectable, very old money.”

Both men saw the color drain from Joanna's face as she listened, barely saying a word. When the conversation ended, she put the phone down and sat in silence, staring at her half-eaten omelette, saying nothing.

“Joanna…? Darling…?”

When she didn't respond, Sam reached out for her hand. She jumped at his touch.

“What is it?” he asked, concerned.

“I'm sorry…I'm all right…it's just…”

She turned her face to him. He could see shock in her eyes. And fear.

“Tell me.”

“Adam's granddaughter—one of them—married into a family called Cazaubon. It cemented the merging of two very powerful banking families.”

“Cazaubon,” Ward murmured. “I know that family—well, one branch of it anyway. Huguenots originally, fled from France in the late seventeenth century to escape persecution by the Catholics.”

She turned her head and focused on him. “Do you know a
Ralph
Cazaubon?”

“Ralph Cazaubon?” Ward thought for a moment, then shook his head. “No, I don't believe I do.”

“In his thirties, obviously has money—it must be the same family.”

“Who is this Ralph Cazaubon?” Sam asked, a note of suspicion in his voice now.

Joanna turned back to him, oblivious of anything except the chilling sense of unease that had been creeping over her since Ghislaine spoke the name.

“He was at the grave,” she said. “I'd met him the day before, by accident. But the next day, Sunday morning, he was there when I found Adam's grave.”

She continued to stare at Sam, though no longer really focusing on him as the implications of what she was saying compounded in her mind. “He even phoned me this morning.”

“Phoned you?” Sam echoed. “What for?”

“He wanted to…say hello.” She made a vague gesture, feeling guilty suddenly, as though she was hiding something. “He asked if we could have lunch…”

She was going to say that she'd refused, but Sam spoke before she could get the words out.

“Do you have his number?” he asked.

“No, I…it's in my apartment.”

“He must be listed.” He reached for her phone. “May I?”

“Go ahead.”

He dialed information, gave the name and the street and the number of the house, which Joanna found she could remember. There was nobody of that name listed at that address. He put the phone down.

“Maybe it's listed under a different name,” she said. “He's only just moved in.”

Sam thought a moment, then got abruptly to his feet. “I'm going over there.”

“I'll come with you.”

They gathered up their things quickly, thanked Ward for lunch, then asked almost as an afterthought if he'd like to accompany them. Sensing perhaps that it would be better if they did this alone, he said he needed to get some rest before the evening. They confirmed that they would all meet at the lab at six.

Fifteen minutes later they got out of a cab on Park Avenue, preferring to walk the last few yards rather than make a slow crawl around two blocks in the one-way system. They looked for numbers to work out which side of the street the house must be on. Having determined that it must be on the south side, they moved to the edge of the sidewalk and waited for a break in the traffic. Just as they were about to step off the curb, Joanna grabbed Sam's arm hard enough to make him almost lose his balance.

“What on earth…?” he started to say, but then saw she had a hand to her mouth as though to stifle a gasp and was staring at something across the street.

He followed her gaze, and saw an elderly couple getting into a smart black town car while a driver held open the door for them. They were both short, the woman wearing the kind of expensive fur coat that would draw stares of disapproval and even open hostility in many places these days, and the man a camel-hair coat and black fur hat. They were glimpsed for only a second before they disappeared into the car's interior.

Perplexed by Joanna's reaction, Sam turned to her, intending to ask again what was wrong. But her gaze was so strangely intense that he remained silent, watching with her as the car drove off. As it passed them, he discerned two vague silhouettes gazing impassively ahead; then it was swallowed up into the flow of traffic going west toward the park.