The Terminals (6 page)

“I've lived in this community for my adult life. If I admitted that I was not simply a Gnostic researcher, but a practicing Gnostic, I'd be thrown out. I love these people.” He heaved a sigh, fingers rubbing at his scalp again. “I've wanted to tell them. I've told myself I would eventually. Now it's too late.”

“Not too late to be true to yourself.”

He paused and looked up at me. “You may feel comfortable in the jacket of your cold rationale, that I am dying and this will help children who have long lives ahead of them. But it is still wrong, and it will blacken both your soul and mine.”

I caught my breath; it's not every day that you are cursed by a monk, and a mystic monk at that. Then I set my jaw. “Blackened Cajun-style,” I said and smiled grimly.

“One stipulation to all this …” As he spoke, his hand went to the IV as if it were an electrical switch. “You live.”

I waved him off. “It's a secret organization, Brother Harkman. It stays secret because its agents die.” A flush of heat went through me, and I regretted sending the general the missive regarding Sister Angelica.

He shrugged. “As you said, I'm dying anyway—you're not. If I do this for you, you must agree to live.”

“You're doing this for the kids, not me.”

“I'm dying based on a three-day-old diagnosis and the slim chance that I can redeem myself in death—you're my insurance policy. There's no guarantee that I'll be successful or that the children are still alive, or even if you're telling the truth. I save you now, it's a good start.”

So it all came back to insurance. “Why care about me?”

“It's a trade. An eye for an eye. How else can I rationalize this?” He leaned forward and the timbre to his voice deepened, giving another glimpse of the man inside. “No suicide.”

I shrugged and lifted a mocking eyebrow. “No suicide.” What did I care? Discover what he wants and give it to him.

Charlie ripped the IV from his arm as if I'd written an oath in blood. “In all my life, I couldn't be certain I'd ever
saved
anyone.” He smiled. “To get the chance now,” he shrugged, “perhaps it makes sense.”

I ignored his remark and tried to shake off the lethargy that flooded through me. “Let's go.”

“Give me half an hour.”

“You don't need to pack for this trip.”

“Christine.” His annoyance slackened and the kind, calm countenance I'd first encountered upon my arrival faced me. “I need a moment to say goodbye.”

“You can't tell anyone.” I held back the word
else
.

He tucked his feet into sandals that lay beside his bed and eased upright. He stood half-a-head shorter than me and brushed past.

Once through the door, I hung back, but followed as he made for an alcove deep set into the garden border. In the gloom, it was filled with shadow. Singing—Evensong, I guessed—filtered into the quad. Offering Charlie privacy, I dwelled in my own darkness, sitting on the cold stone of a bench. I'd texted the pilot, Pat, to ready for the flight and thought I could hear the distant whine of helicopter engines.

When Charlie returned, his face was wet. I sensed his tears were not for himself, rather for the pain he'd caused another, and I wondered how far Sister Angelica's and Charlie's relationship extended beyond the fraternal.

Chapter 9

“Is your name Charles Harkman?”
Doctor Deeth asked.

I watched through the one-way pane as Deeth administered the lie detector test. The baseline questions had droned on, but now he neared the end. Charlie sat forward on the bed, a black strap around his stomach and chest, electrodes taped to his hands, and blood-pressure cuff over his slender arm. It was his second time through the questions, surprise not being allowed in a polygraph, and the clock indicated they'd eaten into another hour. I couldn't help thinking that, somewhere in Iowa, kids hadn't been fed for a day or more.

“Were you born in Los Angeles, California?”

“Yes,” Charlie replied tonelessly. Through the questions I'd learned that Charlie had had a younger brother killed in a traffic accident. He'd lost his father to Alzheimer's and his mother to a heart attack. He was a dissatisfied, guilt-ridden man, the admission of which the general suspected had succeeded in landing him here. I didn't like being congratulated by the general, and certainly not for killing a man.

“You understand the doctrine of Gnosticism?” Through the intercom Deeth's words sounded distant. The indicators of heart rate, blood pressure, respiration and electro-dermal activity zigzagged on Deeth's laptop screen.

“Yes, and I believe in it, Doctor,” Charlie said. On the white bed, in his dark robe, he wrung his hands and then looked apologetically at Deeth.

“You passed,” Deeth replied.

“Not sure I want to pass.”

Deeth snapped the laptop closed and gave the thumbs up to the general and me.

“‘Bout fucking time.” The general pushed the intercom. “Listen, if you guys want to wax philosophical, I'll bring Padre Arthur and his gang in here and we can talk theology.”

Despite his cynical tone, I had to laugh. Arthur, Francis, and Sundarshan still waited their turn in the palliative unit beyond the retinal-scan locked door. Walking past them, I felt like an insect trying to slip past a spider's web. Inevitably they snared me in conversation. If Arthur and Francis in particular were given the chance to speak to Charlie, the kids would be long dead before he shut up.

In Purgatory, Attila sipped from a black coffee cup and concentrated on Charlie as if trying to memorize him. In his hand, he fondled the crystal bulb of his doorknob. It was smooth rather than faceted, the only imperfection a small bubble of air in the glass where it met the silver fitting. He leaned against a counter half-filled by an espresso machine. He drank so much I began to wonder if the general paid him in espresso beans.

“You're going to pull the trigger on him,” the general told me.

My lingering smile vanished. The general's teeth were twisted and yellow, and even at this distance I could peer into the pores of his nose. “Pardon me?”

“You're the one to kill the monk. Learn what you should have done in the sand.”

Again, his eagerness sent a chill through me, as if he were a teenaged boy poised to get his dick wet for the first time. Blood rushed to my face and my fingers balled into fists.

He shifted to the desk, putting it between us. Strewn across its surface amongst the case files and photos and Styrofoam takeout were pills for pain, blood thinning, hypertension, enough to give anyone the ability to reverse diagnose the man with heart disease. As he sat in the chair, his silver cross swung forward, knocked off the cherry veneer and then settled at his sternum. Right where I'd like to punch him.

“You bastard.” I glared, knowing that he tested me, knowing that I wasn't passing.

“Ironic, eh? Killing this monk will save eleven kids, when killing that kid in the sands would have saved eleven men. You catch that?”

What I hated most was my creeping belief that this decrepit man was right. That he was my font of redemption … my savior, however undesired and undesirable. I strode around the desk, my jaw clenched too tight for speech. I pressed closer to him than I wanted, gripping his shoulder with one hand and cocking my other arm back. He tilted his grizzled jaw out in offering and swallowed hard. I wondered if the general cared even less about life than I did. I hesitated.

“
Fine.
I'll do it.” What did it matter if it was Deeth at the plunger, or me?

Before I turned away, I tapped him on the cheek with my hand and he expelled a long breath.

I marched through the door, out of the stink of the general's disease, and into a pungent cloud of paraffin, incense, and coffee grounds.

Attila's sharp nose pointed at me. Above its slant, his eyes were as dark as his espresso. Gold hoops winked out from beneath the black wave of his hair.

I greeted him with a nod, but he simply cracked his neck.

“Christine!” Charlie held out a hand to me, and I let him have mine. He clasped it warmly. Then he sucked in a deep breath, released, and yawned.

Deeth removed the last of the sensors, took Charlie's arm and strapped his wrist in the leather.

“Scared?” I asked, delivering a final squeeze before I figured it was okay to let go. The contact felt awkward, embarrassing, like I was a surrogate spiritual guide. But I could never be a real one and was woefully under-qualified to plan this sort of attack.

“Nope, and I sure feel better off the chemo.” And Charlie looked better, too. In only six hours, color had returned to his face.

“Not even a little scared?”

“Would that make it easier for you?” he asked. “When did death become so sacred and scary?” He seemed to think about his own question. “Do you know why death is feared?” I produced the bottom of my lip in response—I didn't see death as sacred or scary. In my experience, it was the dying part people feared. “It's because the afterlife is not guaranteed. That it's an ending rather than a new beginning.”

But it's still an ending, I wanted to say, but I decided to give the soon-to-be-dead the last word.

“Hold still.” Deeth gripped his arm tight and slid a large needle into the forearm. Connected to the needle was a saline lock that would allow me to inject the drugs.

Charlie frowned, but it wasn't due to the needle. “My only worry is that we're too late.”

“By most estimates, the children will still be alive,” I replied. I wished I could be so sure.

“No, don't you remember what I said, why Valentinus bound his spirit to Seth's in the first place?”

I nodded my head slowly, but couldn't find the connection.

“The first dose is sodium thiopental,” Deeth explained. “It'll put you into a coma.”

“Borborites believe in reincarnation. If Hillar has found gnosis, he won't be in the afterlife long.”

Cold slipped down my spine, and I looked back to the mirrored window. “So it's a race. How much time do we have?”

“The second injection is pancuronium bromide; it'll stop your heart and respiration.” Deeth held up a bottle with another syringe poked into it.

Charlie just nodded at it, like he was approving a wine selection. “That requires a bit more knowledge.”

“That's the sort of info that helps me track you down,” Attila said, moving close enough that I could smell the earth beneath the coffee aroma, as if his clothing was just unpacked from a trunk after many years.

“Illuminate us.” I thought I could hear the tick of a wall clock, but there wasn't any clock in the room.

Charlie glanced again at the needle in his vein, drew another deep breath, and then cleared his throat.

“Buddhists conceptualize this
in between
place as the Bardo, and its manifestation depends on the karma of the particular soul. The Gnostic realm is more fixed. We believe that the Earth is just one of the
deeps
that we need to pass through to reach the Pleroma, what Christians call heaven. Different sects have different beliefs. Before most Gnostics can enter the Pleroma they need knowledge, or gnosis, of all seven gates. Archons—somewhere between an angel and a demon—guard these gates. To pass, you need to know their names. The Demiurge, whom you'd call the Devil, doesn't want any of the divine sparks—souls, let's say—to reach the Pleroma. He's going to use these gatekeepers and their deeps to try to stop you. Stop me, I guess.”

“So if the Pleroma is the Christian equivalent to heaven, then these deeps are …” I was surprised by the excitement that surged in me with his explanation. This was an ancient religion's most sacred knowledge. Knowledge that once required years of indoctrination and study before it was bequeathed.

“The deeps would be equivalent to hells,” he said.

“You know the passwords?” I asked.

“Tough to know for sure, isn't it?” He checked the needle in his arm and bobbed his head in readiness. It reminded me of the scenes in movies where the actor gives a sharp nod, eyes looking distant, before the helmet is fitted to the astronaut's suit.

“And Hillar the Killer?” I asked. “Does he know the passwords?”

Charlie shrugged. “Hilllar's one old, twisted spark. Theudas had once been the Keeper of Secrets, but that was a long time ago. And we don't remember anything from one lifetime to the next. I'd guess that the only thing keeping Hillar from the Pleroma is true gnosis. Passwords are one thing, but gnosis is more than that. Without gnosis, he can't reincarnate again. But that's what the deeps are for. They're a training ground of a sort. If I can somehow stop him from entering the Pleroma …” his eyes lit and his hand clenched, “I may yet end the cycle of his rebirth.”

“And if he does make it through to the Pleroma?”

My hand rested on the bed near his, and he had just enough mobility to reach out and clutch it. “It'll be the next generation here on Earth who's going to have to deal with him. Valentinus's and Pius's sixtieth or so lifetimes.”

“How long have we got?” I stared at the small curl of tube sticking out from his hand.

“Only one way to find out,” he said. Without the use of his arms, Charlie indicated Attila with his lips.

Now I fully understood why Charlie lay on the bed. He wasn't just looking for my soul to save, or the lives of kids, this was bigger. This was stopping Attila the Hun before he was born again. This was about freeing himself from an eternal cycle of hell on Earth.

“All set for execution, then.”

The coldness of Attila's words made me look up from Charlie.

“Hey, the general only pays me to communicate with the dead.” He pointed at the syringes. “Call it what you like, but that's the same shit they use for capital punishment, and that makes you an executioner.”

“Yeah, just do your job then,” I replied, suddenly feeling protective of Charlie. “And no more.”

He sniffed, tossed the doorknob in the air once, and caught it. It gave a little smack as it landed in his palm. “Here we go.” He wrenched his mouth left and right like he needed to stretch it out and began. “Remember my face, it is your trace.”

“Do you always speak in verse?” Charlie interrupted.

“Of course not, just helps clients remember.” Attila's accent had a touch of Brooklyn, despite his Hungarian Rom heritage. “Now listen well.”

He leaned in. “Know my smell as you traipse through hell.” He breathed his heavy coffee breath over Charlie who blinked. “The hell you know is the hell you'll see. What you feel is what you'll be.”

Charlie's eyes narrowed, and his jaw set. His demeanor shifted from one of vague annoyance to extreme focus. Feet in the blocks and ready to start the race. In his lap was a photo of Hillar the Killer. Hillar stared up at him with a malicious smile and washed out blue eyes that seemed to look at me, too.

“The one you seek, you will know. Listen to the spirit ebb and flow.”

“I'll feel him,” Charlie whispered.

My heart pounded.

“In a moment, Brother Harkman, you will fall asleep,” Deeth said. “There will be no pain.”

I looked at Charlie, trying to stop my eyes from tearing. The tears weren't for the kids. Or for Charlie. It was this nagging sense that all I'd done in digging Charlie's grave was to shovel another mound of guilt on my already large pile of wrong. I was buried so deep.

“Now, Colonel,” Deeth said.

And if the Doctor hadn't called me Colonel, I'm not sure I could have completed the order.

I heard the door open behind me and knew the general loomed in the doorframe. While Deeth loaded the second syringe with fluid, I depressed the first plunger.

“Godspeed,” I told Charlie.

I chased the medication with saline to push the drugs into Charlie's veins.

Immediately the pulse on the heart rate monitor arced lower, and Charlie's breathing grew shallow as he tumbled into a coma, into the deep.

Deeth stepped back from where he'd slid the second needle into Charlie's saline lock, and I gulped. It was already too late. Still, my hand trembled as I completed the second injection, killing a man who wasn't an enemy, wasn't a soldier. Somehow not believing in God didn't help me play Him. My hands formed fists, and I turned to the door, but instead of a gloating general, the doorway was empty. I felt jilted. I needed to direct my anger at something. The only face I saw was my own reflected in the glass, tears streaking my cheeks. Deeth packed up his equipment. I jerked around when Attila's hand fell on my shoulder.

I looked at him.

“He's gone, right?” He waited, but I had nothing to say. “Let's make it worth his while.”

I let him take my hand, realizing that his earlier anger wasn't directed at me, it was the same bitterness I now felt due to the job, and together we moved slowly over to the white side of room. Charlie flat-lined.

“Time of death, 3:32 A.M,” Deeth said to the mirrored glass, and walked out.