No iris. The white was shot through with capillaries.
The face around the orb was white, too.
The eyes lower than mine, set into an elliptical,
neckless head that rested on meager, sloping shoulders.
Misshapen and hairless except for three patches of
colorless down.
Ridges of skin in place of ears.
A mouth opened. Less than a dozen teeth, some of
them no more than yellow buds. Framing them was a pouchlike,
puckered aperture: no lower lip, the upper one thick,
cracked, liverish—a smile? Why wasn’t I screaming?
I smiled back. The hand so light on my
shoulder . . . an inch of downy skin separated the
mouth from a nose that was two black holes under a nub of pink-white
flesh, twisted like a pig’s tail.
Wens and scabs, keloid tracks, and crater scars danced
across the face, a moonscape in closeup. A sharp smell fumed
from the skin. Familiar smell . . . hospital
corridors—antibiotic ointment.
The hand on my shoulder sat so delicately, I barely felt
it.
I looked at it.
Four stumpy, broad-tipped fingers, the thumb clubbish
and spatulate, no nail on the index finger. More of that
soft, downy hair. Dimpled knuckles.
The wrist thin and frail, laced with baby-blue veins and
scabbed heavily, disappearing into the cuff of a white shirt.
Clean, white oxford button-down.
Khaki trousers cinched tight around a thin waist, the
cuffs rolled thick.
A man, I supposed . . . protruding from under
the cuffs, brown loafers that looked new.
A boy-sized man—five feet tall if that, maybe eighty
pounds.
“Hhh,” he said.
“Hhhii.”
Whispery rasp. I’d heard voices like that before: burn
victims, the larynx and vocal cords seared, learning to talk
from the gut.
The pouch-mouth stayed open, as if struggling for
speech. More medicinal smell—mouthwash. The single eye
watched my face. The pouch twisted upward in what might have
been a smile.
“Hi,” I said.
The eye studied me some more. Blinked—winked? No
eyebrows, but the skin above the sockets creased into deep
dual crescents that simulated brows.
Neckless, chinless, that congealed-fat complexion. But
soft . . . I thought of the baby
octopus in the lagoon.
The hand slid off my shoulder.
The mouth closed and pouted—sad?
Had I done something wrong?
I tried smiling again.
The arm hung loosely.
Very loosely. An invertebrate grace.
Fingers curling in ways that normal fingers couldn’t.
Serpentine—no, even a snake had more firmness.
White and flaccid—
Wormlike.
Chapter
35
He scratched a thigh, a cuff rode up, and I saw something
shiny atop a loafer. Brand-new penny.
He saw something behind me and his head lowered shyly.
“Hi,” I heard Robin say.
Then I saw something behind
him.
Another man emerging from the shadows, even smaller, so
severely hunchbacked his head seemed to protrude from his
chest.
Red-and-black plaid button-down, blue jeans, high-top
sneakers.
Two good eyes. One ear. The eyes soft.
Innocent.
Curling a finger, he turned his back on us and stepped
further into the cave.
The first man’s forehead creased again and he followed.
We tagged along, tripping and stumbling as our feet
snagged on bits of rock.
The little soft men had no trouble at all.
Gradually, the cave turned from black to charcoal to
dove-gray to gold as we stepped out into a huge, domed cavern
lit by several more of the caged fixtures.
Rock formations too blunt to be stalagmites rose from
the floor. A bank of refrigerators filled one wall. Ten of them,
smallish, a random assortment of colors and
brands. Avocado. Gold. Hues fashionable thirty years ago.
The wires met at a junction box attached to a thick black
cable that ran behind a crag and out of the room.
In the center of the cavern were two wooden picnic tables and a
dozen chairs. Shag area rugs were scattered over a spotless
stone floor. A whirring, humming noise came from behind the
junction box—a generator.
The rain slightly audible, now. A tinkle. But
everything was dry.
Moreland came in and sat at the head of the table,
behind a large bowl of fresh fruit. He wore his usual white
shirt and his bald head looked oiled. His hands took hold of
a grapefruit.
Four more small, soft people filed in and sat around
him. Two wore cotton dresses and had finer features. Women.
The others were dressed in plaid shirts and jeans or khakis.
One of the men had no eyes at all, just tight drums of
shiny skin stretched across the sockets. One of the women
was especially tiny, no larger than a seven-year-old.
They looked at us, then back at Moreland, their ruined
faces even whiter in the full light.
Place settings before each of them. Fruit and biscuits
and vitamin pills. Glasses of bright orange and green and
red liquid. Gatorade. Empty bottles were grouped in the
center of the table, along with plates full of rinds and pits
and cores.
The two men who’d brought us stood with their hands
folded.
Moreland said, “Thank you, Jimmy. Thank you, Eddie.”
Rolling the grapefruit away, he motioned. The men took
their places at the table.
Some of the others began to murmur. Deformed hands
trembled.
Moreland said, “It’s all right. They’re good.”
Runny eyes settled upon us, once again. The blind man
waved his hands and clapped.
“Alex,” said Moreland. “Robin.”
“Bill,” I answered numbly.
“I’m sorry to put you through such a rigamarole, son—and I
didn’t know
you’d
be coming, dear. Are you all right?”
Robin nodded absently, but her eyes were elsewhere.
The tiny woman had engaged her visually. She had on a
child’s pink party dress with white lace trim. A white metal
bracelet circled a withered forearm. A child’s curious eyes.
Robin smiled at her and hugged herself.
The woman licked the place where her lips should have
been and kept staring.
The others noticed her concentration and trembled some
more. The generator kept up its song. I took in details:
framed travel posters on the walls—Antigua, Rome, London,
Madrid, the Vatican. The temples at Angkor Wat.
Jerusalem, Cairo.
More cartons of food lined up neatly across from the
refrigerators. Portable cabinets and closets, a couple of
dollies.
So many refrigerators because they had to be small
enough to fit down the hatch. I pictured Moreland wheeling
them through the tunnel. Now I knew where he’d gone that
night with his black bag. Where he’d gone so many nights,
all these years, barely sleeping, working to the point of
exhaustion. The fall in the lab . . .
A sink in the corner was hooked up to a tank of purified
water. Gallon bottles stood nearby.
No stove or oven—because of poor ventilation?
No, the air was cool and fresh, and the rain
sound was faint but clear, so there had to be some kind of
shaft leading up to the forest.
No fire because the smoke would be a giveaway.
No microwave, either—probably because Moreland had
doubts about the safety. Worries about people who’d already
been damaged.
His lie about being part of the nuclear coverup a
partial truth?
Lots of partial truths; right from the beginning he’d
swaddled the truth in falsehood.
Events that had happened but in other places, other
times.
Einstein would approve . . . it’s all
relative . . . time’s deceit.
Everything a symbol or metaphor.
The other quotes . . . all for the sake of
justice
?
Testing me.
I looked at the scarred faces huddled around him.
White, wormlike.
Joseph Cristobal, tying vines to the eastern walls,
hadn’t hallucinated thirty years ago.
Three decades of hiding punctuated by only one mishap?
One of them going stir-crazy, emerging aboveground and
heading toward the stone walls?
Cristobal sees, is gripped by fright.
Moreland diagnoses hallucinations.
Lying to Cristobal . . . for justice’s sake.
Soon after, Cristobal gives one last scream and dies.
Just like the catwoman . . . what had
she
seen?
“Please,” said Moreland. “Sit down. They’re gentle.
They’re the gentlest people I know.”
We squeezed out our soaked clothes and took our places
around the table as Moreland announced our names. Some of
them seemed to be paying attention. Others remained
impassive.
He cut fruit for them and reminded them to drink.
They obeyed.
No one spoke.
After a while, he said, “Finished? Good. Now please
wipe your faces—very good. Now please clear your plates
and go into the game room to have some fun.”
One by one they stood and filed out, slipping behind the
refrigerators and disappearing around a rock wall.
Moreland rubbed his eyes. “I knew you’d manage to find
me.”
“With Emma’s help,” I said.
“Yes, she’s a dear . . .”
“Time’s deceit. Including the deceit you used to bring
me over. You’ve been leading up to this since the first day I
got here, haven’t you?”
He blinked repeatedly.
“Why now?” I said.
“Because things have come to a head.”
“Pam’s up there looking for you, scared to death.”
“I know—I’ll tell her . . . soon. I’m
sick, probably dying. Nervous system deterioration. Neck and head
pain, things go blank . . . out of focus. I forget
more and more, lose equilibrium . . . remember my
tumble in the lab?”
“Maybe that was just lack of sleep.”
He shook his head. “No, no, even when I
want
to sleep
it rarely comes. My concentration . . . wanders. It
may be Alzheimer’s or something very similar. I refuse to put
myself through the indignities of diagnosis. Will you help
me before there’s nothing left of me?”
“Help you how?”
“Documentation—this must be recorded for perpetuity.
And taking care of them—we must figure out something so
they’ll be cared for after I’m gone.”
He stretched his arms out. “You’ve got the training,
son. And the character—commitment to justice.”
“Mr. Disraeli’s justice? Truth in action?”
“Exactly . . . there is
no
truth
without action.”
“The great thinkers,” I said.
His eyes dulled and he threw back his head and stared at
the cavern’s ceiling. “Once upon a time I thought
I
might
develop into a significant thinker—shameless youthful
arrogance. I loved music, science, literature, yearned to be
a Renaissance man.” He laughed. “
Medieval
man would be
more like it. Always mediocre, occasionally evil.”
He ruminated some more, snapped back to the present,
licking his lips and staring at us.
Robin hadn’t stopped glancing around the room. Her eyes
were huge.
“Truth
is
relative, Alex. A truth that hurts
innocents and causes injustice is no truth at all, and an evasive
action that’s rooted in compassion and leads to mercy can be
justified—can you see that?”
“Did the second nuclear tests take place near Aruk?
Because I know you lied about Bikini. If so, how was the
government able to conceal them?”
“No,” he said. “That’s not it at all.”
Standing, he walked around the table. Stared at the
boxes against the wall.
“Nothing you do is accidental,” I said. “You told me
about the nuclear blast and Samuel H. for a reason. You held
on to Samuel’s file for a reason. “Guilt’s a great
motivator.’ What are you atoning for, Bill?”
Putting his hands behind his back, he laced his fingers.
Long arms. Spidery arms.
“I
was
in the Marshalls during the blast,” he said.
“Perhaps that’s why I’m dying.” Looking down. “How have I lied?”
“You didn’t participate in the payoffs. I know. I
spoke to a man who did.”
“True,” he said.
“So what’s the point? What were the blasts a metaphor
for?”
“Yes,” he said. “Exactly. A metaphor.”
He sat back down. Retrieved the grapefruit. Rolled it.
“Injections, son.”
“Medical injections?”
Long slow nod. “We’ll never know exactly what they
used, but my guess is some combination of toxic mutagens,
radioactive isotopes, perhaps cytotoxic viruses. Things the
military was experimenting with for decades.”
“Who’s
they
?”
He jerked forward, bony chest pressing against the
table edge.
“
Me. I
put the needle in their arms. When I was chief
medical officer at Stanton. I was told it was a vaccination
research program—confidential, voluntary—and that as
chief medical officer, I was responsible for carrying it out.
Trial doses of live and killed viruses and bacteria and
spirochetes developed in Washington for civil defense in the
event of nuclear war. The ostensible goal was to develop a
single supervaccine against virtually every infectious
disease. The “paradise needle’ they called it. They claimed
to have gotten it down to a series of four shots. Provided
me experimental data. Pilot studies done at other bases.
All false.”
He took hold of the white puffs over his ears. Compared
to the soft people, his hair was luxuriant.
“Hoffman,” he said. “He gave me the data. Brought the
vials and the hypodermics to my office, personally. The
patient list. Seventy-eight people—twenty families from
the base. Sailors, their wives and children. He told me
they’d agreed to participate secretly in return for special
pay and privileges. Safe study, but classified because of
the strategic value of such a powerful medical tool. It was
imperative the Russians never get hold of it. Military
people could be trusted to be obedient. And they were.
Showing up for their injections right on time, rolling up
their sleeves without complaint. The children were afraid,
of course, but their parents held them still and told them it
was for their own good.”
He pulled at his hair again and strands came loose.
“When exactly did this happen?” I said.
“The winter of sixty-three. I was six months from
discharge, had fallen in love with Aruk. Barbara and I
decided to buy some property and build a house on the water.
She wanted to paint the sea. She told Hoffman, and he
informed us the Navy was planning to sell the estate. It
wasn’t waterfront, but it was magnificent. He’d make sure we
got priority, a bargain price.”
“In return for conducting the vaccination program
secretly.”
“He never stated it as a quid pro quo, but he got the
message across and I was eager to receive it. Blissful,
stupid ignorance until a month after the injections, when one
of the women who’d been pregnant gave birth prematurely to a
limbless, anencephalic stillborn baby. At that point, I
really didn’t suspect anything. Those things happen. But I
felt we should be doing some monitoring.”
“Pregnant women were included in the experiment?”
He looked down at the table. “I had doubts about that
from the beginning, was reassured by Hoffman. When I reported
the stillbirth, he insisted the paradise needle was
safe—the data proved it was.”
He bent low, talking to the table: “That
baby . . . no brain, limp as a jellyfish. It reminded
me of things I’d seen on the Marshalls. Then one of the children got
sick. A four-year-old. Lymphoma. From perfect health to terminally
ill nearly overnight.”
He raised his head. His eyes had filled with tears.
“Next came a sailor. Grossly enlarged thyroid and
neurofibromas, then rapid conversion to anaplastic
carcinoma—it’s a rare tumor, you generally only see it in old
people. A week later he had myelogenous leukemia as well. The
rapidity was astonishing. I started to think more about the
nuclear tests in the Marshalls. I knew the symptoms of poisoning.”
“Why’d you tell me you were part of the payoff?”
“Couching my own guilt . . . actually, I was
asked
by my superior to participate, but managed to get out
of it. The idea of placing a monetary value on human life was
repulsive. In the end, the people who did participate were
clerks and such. I’m not sure they had a clear notion of the
damage.”