The Deep Zone: A Novel (38 page)

“The science, yes. Forgive me if I point out that such fine sentiments are easier to entertain in your thirties than in your fifties. Truthfully, Hallie, when I was your age, I said the same kinds of things you did just now.”

“And I know you still feel them. We spent too much time together for me not to believe that.”

He inhaled, let out a long breath. There was genuine pain in his voice when he spoke. “I will always cherish that time. I need for you to believe that. Even if it wasn’t exactly … what I thought it was.”

“I
do
believe you. And for that very reason, I need for you to tell me exactly what is going on, Al. You owe us that. This is not how friends treat each other.”

He hesitated, and Hallie could see the struggle.
A tormented man
, she thought.
All those years. Needing so much, having so little. Like a thirst with no way to slake it
.

Finally he said, in a voice that sounded more exhausted than exultant, “I don’t suppose there’s any harm in it now.”

“In what?”

“Telling you what was really going on.” He paused, and she watched his expression change again. It was like seeing the tumblers move in a lock after the key had been inserted and turned. “It began not long after you came back with that first sample of moonmilk. Do you remember?”

“Sort of.”

“At first it was no big deal. Then your work with moonmilk began to attract a lot of attention.”

She waited for him to go on.

“I’d been unhappy with … call it a lack of proper recognition at BARDA, for some time. Did I mention that they passed me over for promotion three times?”

He had mentioned it fairly often, actually, but she thought better of saying so.

“At some point I put out feelers to private enterprise. I was thinking about making a move, but in my fifties, I wasn’t the most marketable prospect. I needed something special, a bargaining chip. And then the moonmilk came along.”

They had been conversing casually for a while now, so Hallie decided to test the water. “These ropes are really hurting my wrists. Do you think you could take them off? Or maybe just loosen them. It’s not like there’s any place for me to run to.”

“No, I’m afraid that’s not going to happen. We’ve gone beyond such niceties, unfortunately.”

His answer infuriated her, but she knew it was important not to show it.
Build rapport in every way possible
. “Okay, I can understand that. I just thought I’d ask.”

“So the moonmilk was my bargaining chip. Not just for a job, though. A job, they can take away from you. No, this was for a future. Something no one could ever take away.”

“What did you do, Al?”

He reddened. At first she thought it was anger. Then, as he spoke, she understood that it was something else:
shame
. He was almost whispering. “I had to get you out of the way, first. You were leading the research. I needed to get closer to it myself.”

“What did you
do
?”

“I hacked into your home computer and made it send messages to a man from BioChem. Offering to sell certain proprietary information related to moonmilk.”

“That was
you
?”

“I know—amazing, isn’t it? Nobody suspected shy, quirky old Al Cahner.”

“But … they must have investigated your BioChem connection. Why didn’t they blow your cover?”

“They couldn’t find him because he didn’t exist. He was an avatar.
BioChem, of course, denied everything. They really were as mystified as BARDA. Neither side wanted scandal, so they just let it drop. Well, that’s not entirely right. They got rid of you.”

He hesitated, then went on: “It’s amazing how easy computer systems are to manipulate, Hallie. Pimply high school dropouts compromise Department of Defense computers all the time. It’s no big thing, if you have a certain level of knowledge and sufficient interest.”

“So you got me fired?” She was still having trouble believing it.

“Well, technically it was BARDA’s doing, but I maneuvered them into a position where they had no choice. They weren’t very nice about it, were they?”

“How could you
do
that?”

“It wasn’t the easiest decision, believe me, given how I felt about you. Of course, I had no way of knowing we would come together again. When I learned that Barnard was planning this expedition, I made sure that he put me on the team. I would get the moonmilk. And you. Or so I thought.”

Hallie had been exaggerating before about the discomfort of her bonds, but now they really were becoming painful. She shifted, pushed herself to a standing position, where she could move her arms just enough to relieve some of the pressure.

“Sit down!”
Suddenly he had the Taser in his hand. She lowered herself quickly to the cave floor, the boulder’s rough surface cutting into her back. Cahner said, “Do you know, that’s the first time I’ve ever seen you look really afraid, Hallie.”

“So you got me fired. Thinking you would take over the research work.”

“Exactly right. And so I did. But watching you do it was one thing. Tackling it myself turned out to be quite another.”

“It was some of the most complex work I’d ever done.”

“Indeed. At first I tried using your initial hypothesis. But that turned out to be a dead end, I’m sorry to report. I had to come up
with new experimental directions, and I did. Some were more promising than others. But they all failed in the end. Every single one.”

“And you ran out of moonmilk.”

“Yes. And Barnard didn’t think I’d showed enough progress to justify another expedition to retrieve more moonmilk. Goddamn him. If he had had the vision to see how close I was, all of this could have been avoided.”

“But then the ACE emergency came along.”

“Thank God for small favors.” He put his hands together in mock prayer, the Taser pressed between them. “Not that an ACE pandemic will be a small thing. But the bacteria that cause it certainly are.”

She understood that the ACE mutation, wherever it had come from, antigenic shift or enemy biowar, had given him exactly the opportunity he’d needed.

“What did you mean when you said ‘all of this could have been avoided’?”

For several seconds he hesitated. Then, finally: “Well, those men would still be alive, for one thing.”

“Would still be—did you have something to do with their deaths?”

He nodded absently. “Honestly, I didn’t know if I could do such things. But they turned out to be easier than I’d expected. I think it has something to do with the darkness, and being so isolated from everything else on earth. As you said back at the river camp, anything is possible in a cave like this.”

“How?”

“In the sump I waited around that sharp turn. When Haight came along, I smashed his faceplate with a rock. Arguello was easier. I pretended to be frozen with fear on that ledge above the acid lake. I reached out a hand and asked for help, and he responded like the good man he was. I just gave a little yank and off he went.”

“My God.”

“And as for your big friend …”

“Bowman?”

“I knew that when the two of you had finished … doing what you were doing … he would go to the river. He was far too proper a man to piss right there at the sleeping spots. There was so much noise from the river it was easy to follow him. I went right down to where he was. He said, ‘You too, eh?’ And I said, ‘Yes, me, too,’ and moved off as though finding a little privacy. One quick shove from behind was all it took.”

Hallie’s mind shuddered. For a moment, she could form no response. Then, her voice steady: “I’m alive, Al.”

He remained silent for a while, then said, “Do those ropes still hurt?”

“A lot.”

“Stand up and I’ll take them off. But please do remember the Taser.”

“I’ll never forget that thing.”

“All right. Stand up and don’t move.”

She struggled to her feet, saw him holding the Taser in his right hand. He came very close to her then, so close that she could feel his breath on her face.

“You understand that I could do anything I want with you now, don’t you?”

He stared into her eyes and she held his gaze, saying nothing. The moment stretched.

“You’re not that kind of man,” Hallie said.

Cahner inhaled, let out a long breath. “No,” he said. “I’m not.”

Then, in one swift motion, he bent over, wrapped his arms around Hallie’s thighs, and picked her up in a fireman’s carry. With her draped over his shoulder like a sack of grain, he walked forward. Bent over his back, she could not see where they were going. She managed to sink her teeth into his flesh and bite hard enough to
make him yell in pain. He swung an elbow around and hit her in the face.

She was about to bite him again when he stopped.

He pitched her over the edge of the bottomless pit.

“I loved you, Hallie” were the last words she heard, and she could not tell if he was laughing or crying.

KATHAN AND STIKES WERE SITTING IN THE DARK. KATHAN
had just come back from the hide. It was Stikes’s turn, but he had a question first.

“Hey. I been thinking. If all of them come out, what do we do with five bodies?”

“I’ve been thinking about that, too. What if we weighed them down with rocks and put them right here in this lake?” Kathan scratched the side of his face. Something, Stikes saw, some vicious bug or plant, was giving him a bad rash.

“They’re going to bloat and float sooner or later, though,” Stikes said. “Unless we do a lot of cutting. You know how messy that gets.”

“Okay. But I think burning is out of the question, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Yeah. Slow, messy, leaves identifiable residue. Plus which, we don’t want to be advertising our presence here with a big barbecue.”

“I don’t like dismemberment much, either,” Kathan said. “Animals will take care of the meat, but there’ll be bones and that’s too many loose ends.” He frowned, considering. The details were always messy. People like Gray never worried about the details.

“Agree again. We could blow them up with grenades.”

“We have six, with the two we took off Dempsey. But way too much noise.”

“Yeah. What about dropping them into a pit somewhere?” Stikes so far had escaped the facial rash, but his groin had become a playground for bugs that were no less vicious for being invisible.

“Probably the easiest,” Kathan said. “But not if we have to haul them far. That big one’s gonna be heavy. Another thing: you know how long it takes a body to decompose.
Really
decompose.”

“For the bones, you’re talking years.”

“Centuries. Especially when you don’t have the usual insects and bacteria and such. Hey, maybe we could make them eat each other.”

It was hard to tell from the tone of his voice whether Kathan was making a joke. But they were having a serious discussion, so Stikes gave a serious answer. “Do you know how long that would take?”

“I’m just tossing out options here.”

“
You
should eat something.” Stikes had been growing concerned.

“Not really hungry.” Kathan showed an eerie little smile.

“You go too long on that stuff without eating, it’ll drop you right in your tracks.”

Kathan snorted. “Not me, it won’t.”

“Suit yourself.” Stikes knew that Kathan had been taking micro-doses of the blue meth to keep his edge. Stikes stayed away from the stuff. He was eating his second chocolate and peanut butter bar, washing it down with the coca-laced water. They were sitting side by side with their backs against the rock face.

“I guess I’m leaning toward putting them in the lake here after all.” Kathan sounded resigned.

“It does seem like the best option, all things considered. Lot of cutting, though. Can’t have them floating back up.”

“Concur.”

“Suppose they find another way out of the cave?” Stikes asked.

“Then we’re screwed. But they won’t.”

“How can you say that for sure?”

“We were told there was only one way into this cave. That means there’s only one way out. Gray’s intel has never been bad before.”

“Yeah, but how would he really know? And what about those GPS coordinates?”

“There is that, you’re right. But it doesn’t change anything. What else can we do?”

“We could go in after them.”

“Knock yourself out, Stikes. You ever been in a cave? Like this, I mean.”

“No. You?”

“One time and one time only. Caves are very weird places, man. There’s no way I’m going in that thing.”

Stikes thought,
If it was bad enough to make a man like Kathan afraid …
It was hard for him to imagine
anything
that could frighten Kathan. But clearly a cave had. “Okay, I hear you,” he said.

Kathan, obviously wanting to change the subject, said, “Where do you think we should start first? With the blonde, I mean.” It was as though he had forgotten their earlier conversation about Hallie’s fate and Stikes’s plans to get out. Keyana’s image came to Stikes, as if conjured by Kathan’s words. She seemed to be frowning.
Don’t you worry, girl
, Stikes thought.
Your man doesn’t do those things
. “I hadn’t really thought about it,” he said indifferently.