Repairman Jack [08]-Crisscross (24 page)

Jamie shrugged. She knew what he was asking but couldn't help much.

"I tried to interview his folks but his father died in '96 of a stroke and his mother's in a nursing home with dementia. I tried to hunt down a few people who might have known him in college but you know what the class sizes are like in those state diploma mills. Found a couple of fellow accounting majors who remembered him but hadn't been friends with him. I don't think he had any friends. I get the feeling he still doesn't have any. For more than thirty years now, this so-called church has been the focus of his life. Eats, drinks, and sleeps Dementedism. Christ, he even lives there."

"Really? Where? On the twenty-second floor?"

"Yeah. I hear he's got quite a setup there."

Jack nodded. "The view is amazing."

Jamie stared at him. "You were up there?"

A smile. "Yep. Brady invited me up for a little chat this morning."

"You apply for membership on Monday and by Wednesday you're having a tete-a-te?te with the SO? Do you see a dunce cap on my head? Do you see a birth certificate with yesterday's date on it? What kind of hayseed do you take me for?"

"No kind. I worked il so lie thinks I'm someone else—someone he wants to be chummy with."

"Like who? And how did—?"

He shook his head. "Sorry. Trade secret."

"If that's true, then you are one amazing motherfucker."

He wagged his finger at her. "Now, now. No sweet talk." Another quaff of beer, then, "By the way, how many RCs does Brady handle personally?"

Jamie's turn to laugh. "Luther Brady? Doing the Reveille Tech thing?" She shook her head. "I'd have to say none. If you met him, you should know that."

Jack shrugged. "He's offered to take me through the Reveille process himself. Starting tomorrow."

Jamie felt a flare of anger. "That does it. You almost had me with the bit about meeting Luther Brady. You should have quit while you were ahead." She snorted. "Hardly anyone under Overseer rank—except maybe for the GP—even
sees
him with any sort of regularity. So the idea of him acting as your RT is…"

The words ran out as Jamie saw the matter-of-fact look on Jack's face. He didn't
care
if she believed him.

Could it be true?

John "Jack" Robertson was either the best undercover operator she'd ever met, or the biggest liar.

He cleared his throat. "What's with that big sphere hidden away in his office?"

"The globe?" she said, feeling her skin tighten. "How close are you two?"

"Well, I'm not number one on his speed dialer, but I get the feeling he'd like to be number one on mine."

"But he showed you the globe?"

"No. I caught just a glimpse of it as I walked into his office—before the sliding doors closed it off. So it's a globe?"

"That's what I've been told. I interviewed a DD—that's a Detached Dementedist—who used to work on the temple's cleaning crew. She got a good look at it once when Brady forgot to close the doors. Told me it's about eight feet high with all the seas and continents in relief, but dotted with all these red-and-white lightbulbs and crisscrossed with lines that aren't latitude and longitude. She figured Brady wanted it cleaned—why else would he leave the doors open?—so she started dusting it. Brady came in and threw a screaming fit. He pressed some button in his desk that closed the doors, then threw her out."

"Really." Jack's eyes narrowed. "You've got to figure the lights are temple locations. But they're no secret. Why would he throw a fit because she saw them?"

"Obviously it's more than just a map of the earth. And Brady did more than throw a fit. He had this poor girl declared a lapser and had her brought before FPRB. She was so upset she quit, which means an automatic DD situation."

She watched Jack as they sat and sipped in silence. He seemed to recede.

"You're figuring how you can get a look at that globe, aren't you."

He nodded. "My curiosity is, as they say, piqued."

"But you're there to find a missing member, right?"

"Yeah, but unanswered questions tend to nag me."

"Any luck finding him?"

Jack nodded. "Spotted him yesterday, but couldn't speak to him—he was in lapser mode."

Jamie laughed. "I wonder if he got caught looking at the globe too."

"Could be."

"At least you know where he is. He could have been one of the unaccounted for. There's a certain number of Dementedists who simply vanish every year."

"Missionaries, right?"

"So we're told. But nobody hears from them again. Ever."

"Ever is a long time. They could resurface in a few years."

"Yeah. So could the
Titanic
."

But someone
had
resurfaced—at least Jamie thought he might have. She was still trying to confirm his identity.

She rattled the ice in her glass. "I could use another DS. Another RR? I'm buying."

He shook his head. "I've got an errand to run."

"At this hour?"

"It's the only hour for this particular errand. A hot date with a hot plate."

"Pardon?"

"Just kidding." He rose. "I'll get you a cab."

Jamie hid her disappointment. She was pretty good at it. Plenty of practice.

"That's all right. I think I'll hang in here awhile." She didn't feel like heading down to the Parthenon. Her Dementedist shadows would be waiting. "I kind of like this place."

"Great."

As he slipped past her she gripped his arm. "You figure out what's going on with that globe situation, you'll tell me, won't you?"

"Sure. Least I can do for all the backgrounding you've given me."

She watched him go, and thought about the fellow she thought—hoped—she'd discovered. She was going to need help nailing down his identity. Maybe Jack…

No. She had to keep this to herself. Besides, she didn't know yet how far she could trust John "Jack" Robertson. For all she knew he might be a Dementedist plant, trying to lure her into a bad situation.

Listen to me, she thought. Completely and thoroughly paranoid.

But still, she didn't know enough about him to trust him with what might turn out to be a major coup. Not yet.

15

Jensen stepped out onto Tenth Avenue and headed for his car, leaving John Jay College behind. He'd had trouble focusing on tonight's
Police Science 207
lecture. His thoughts kept veering toward Jason Amurri. Something off-kilter about that guy. Maybe he should have listened more closely to the lecturer—the subject had been Investigative Function, and he sensed this Amurri needed some investigating.

Jensen climbed in behind the wheel of his Hummer and sat there without starting the engine.

Nothing seemed right in his life lately. Shalla, the woman who'd been living with him for eight years, had walked out last summer, saying he spent too much time at the temple. Well, maybe he did. Still, he missed her.

Lately, without her to come home to, he'd been spending more time than ever on the job. He felt he owed it to the Church and to Brady, and not just for the nice salary they were paying him.

He owed them because he was a fraud.

When he'd reached the top of the Fusion Ladder, Jensen had had to face the devastating realization that he was a Null. Somewhere along the way his xelton had fallen into a coma from which it would never awaken, and so Jensen hadn't achieved
any
sort of fusion, let alone Full. Everything he'd experienced climbing the FL had been Sham Fusion, a form of Null self-delusion: He'd wanted fusion so badly he'd imagined it happening.

But he couldn't tell anyone. It would pull the rug out from under his status in the Church. The HC might let him go back to being an ordinary TP, but no Null could be Grand Paladin.

He found it hard to hide his pain with Brady and the High Council members as they sat around and traded stories about their Full Fusion powers. Jensen couldn't remain silent—they'd wonder why—so he was forced to make up tales of levitating or leaving his body.

Fortunately no one was required to demonstrate their powers. Luther Brady had made it clear from the outset that exhibitionism would not be tolerated. But that didn't lessen the deep ache Jensen felt as he listened to them.

He'd even gone through a period of doubt where he'd questioned the whole Fusion process. What if he wasn't the only Null hiding his Sham Fusion? What if some members of the HC were also Nulls and not admitting it? What if, just like Jensen, they were concocting far-out tales to cover the truth.

Those had been dark days. He'd even gone so far as to suggest at a meeting with Brady and the HC that they all levitate together. The shocked looks from the HC—every one of them—had worsened his suspicions.

Brady had abruptly adjourned the meeting and taken Jensen to his private quarters. He'd pulled a book from a special cabinet and placed it before him. To Jensen's astonishment, the title,
The Compendium of Srem
, was in Yoruba, his native tongue. He opened the cover and flipped through.

And then another shock as Brady began translating one of the passages.

"You speak Yoruba?" Jensen remembered saying.

Brady shook his head and smiled. "Not a word. When I look at these pages I see English. If I'd been born and raised in France, I'd see French. Whatever your native tongue, that is what you see."

Jensen had wondered about that. He'd learned English young—an almost-native tongue in his case. He squeezed his eyes shut and concentrated on memories of his early English classes, forcing that language to the front of his brain, pushing the Yoruba back, then opened his eyes.

For an instant the text swam before him in English, then transformed into Yoruba.

It wasn't a trick. But how—?

"Look here."

Brady directed him to the end, to a strange illustration of Earth crisscrossed with lines and dots.

The drawing rotated on the page.

Jensen had stared in wonder, trying not to believe, but the look and feel of this book, its uncanny lightness, the odd textures of its binding were all so strange, so unlike anything he had ever encountered in his life, that he'd had no choice but to believe.

Brady then explained what the drawing meant, told him about Opus Omega. And in that great project Jensen had seen a possibility of salvation. All who aided in the completion of Opus Omega would be saved when the Hokano world fused with this one. More than saved, they would be like gods in the new world.

Perhaps if he helped Luther Brady with this project, his Null status wouldn't matter. When the worlds merged, he might be transformed along with all the Fully Fused members of the Church. In the end, when it was over, he could join them as a godlike being in the remade world.

And so he'd become a partner in Opus Omega, doing whatever necessary to speed it along.

Jensen sighed and turned the ignition key.

But he was still a Null, with no guarantee of a future. He would go on living the lie, but he would make up for it by continuing to be the most devoted GP the Church had ever known.

Part of that effort meant keeping a close watch on Jason Amurri.

16

Richie Cordova sliced into the thick filet mignon still sizzling on the platter. He smiled as he inspected the purplish meat inside: black and blue, just the way he liked it.

He took a bite: as good as it looked.

He'd heard this place grilled a mean steak, and they weren't kidding.

Kind of upscale for the neighborhood—which meant downscale for just about everywhere else—but it seemed to be doing okay. Just down the street from his office all these years and he'd never tried it.

Richie refilled his glass from the bottle of Merlot he'd ordered and toasted himself.

He had a couple of reasons to celebrate tonight. First off, his horoscope had told him to, even if he had to make up an occasion. Fortunately that hadn't been necessary. He'd received a cool thou in the mail today from a new cow. The first of many, if he had anything to say about it. Next was the successful restoration of his computer files.

He'd had a few sweaty moments there in the office. Sure, he'd had a backup CD. He burned a new one every time he added new material and broke the old one into half a dozen pieces—too many copies lying around could only lead to trouble—but he'd never checked to see if the files had been properly recorded. What if something had been wrong with his disk burner? What if he'd only
thought
he'd copied the files, and when he tried to restore them, they'd all turn out blank?

So he'd chewed a fingernail while waiting for the contents of the CD to pop up on the screen. But when they did, and when they proved to be perfect copies of all his lost files, he'd almost got up and danced. Almost.