A Heartbeat Away

CHAPTER 56

Battered and aching as much in his heart as his body, Griff kept a vigilant lookout for police on his four-and-a-half hour drive east to Wichita. It was doubtful his disappearance from Kalvesta had been discovered yet, but as a precaution he drove the speed limit, used his turn signals, and adhered to all the rules of the road. Getting stopped for even a minor traffic transgression could lead to questions. And questions, especially the way he was looking, would lead to problems.

After cleaning up the scene of two violent deaths at the Cahill Ranch, Griff drove through the night, stopping at a twenty-four-hour truck store for some clothes, and to clean up. The trip was lonely and anguished. Angie was in a New York hospital, and now, his dearest friend was dead—gone from his life forever. Who was the man who had ambushed them and killed Melvin? How had he known of their plan? Was there anything Griff could have done to anticipate and prevent it? Mile after mile passed, and still the questions remained unanswered.

Making the tragedy of Melvin’s terrible death even more painful was what Griff had done with his friend’s body. When he returned from the barn to Melvin’s side, he futilely checked him for any hint of life. Then, utterly worn out, he sank onto the frozen, windswept ground and wept.

Finally, he changed into the parka and jeans that Melvin had brought for him. Patrols around the lab would be more frequent with Rappaport on base. As quickly as he could manage, he emptied Melvin’s pockets and as reverently as he could, lowered the body over the edge of the steep ventilation shaft. Then, with a silent prayer, he let go.

Next he drove Melvin’s Taurus around until he found the killer’s car—a nondescript rental with an agreement in the glove compartment that almost certainly was obtained using forged papers. The keys were on the floor. A trip back to the barn to stuff the giant’s body into the trunk, and he left the car hidden in a secluded grove of cypress trees. It would be found at some point, and an all points bulletin would probably be issued, but hopefully not until long after he and Brother Xavier Bartholomew had done their business.

As Griff used the winch to resettle the heavy grate—the tombstone for his closest friend—he was thinking vengeance. The death of Melvin’s killer wasn’t nearly enough. He wanted Genesis. He wanted them badly. He would hunt them as intensely as he had hunted outbreaks of Marburg virus, and he would do whatever was necessary to bring them down.

Highway KS-156 was largely deserted. Griff drove with the car radio off, preferring silence and memories of his quirky assistant to news about the Capitol. Eventually, the lights of downtown Wichita came into view. He imagined Sylvia Chen driving along this same road two years before. Her research at the time, he knew, was foundering, and the rug of secret federal financing was about to be pulled out from beneath her. It was hardly a stretch to envision the scientist, frantic to keep her research afloat, arranging a meeting with a bogus saver of souls that would lead to desperate decisions and horrific choices. She was going to accelerate solving the problems of her troubled but potentially remarkable virus by testing it on humans.

Once again, at least to the extent described in her “Recipes from the Kitchen,” Chen had failed to control her creation. All of her human subjects had died—all, that was, except possibly for one. It would have been disaster for her. It was hardly a stretch to imagine that soon after her failure, she had entered into a deal with the devil calling itself Genesis—a deal that would lead to the theft of her virus, the frame-up and jailing of one of her scientists, and finally to her violent death and the impending deaths of hundreds more.

Now it was time to learn exactly what she had done here in Wichita, whom she had done it to, and perhaps most important, what, if anything, she had learned.

Seething, Griff followed directions to the Certain Path Mission that Melvin had printed out and left on the front seat of the Taurus. Streetlamps shimmered like disco balls in the night, reflecting off the still water of the Arkansas River. The height of most of the office towers in the sleepy downtown would have been lost in other metropolises, but Griff’s impression of the city, as announced on several signs, was that this was a nice place to live. A nice place to live unless you happened to stumble into the Certain Path Mission looking for help.

He drove past a tall highway billboard offering prayers for the government, and all the victims of the Capitol tragedy.

The Certain Path Mission was a square, two-story stone building, tucked away in a quiet neighborhood on the outskirts of Wichita. A sign on the front lawn, lit by two spots and fenced by a circle of neatly trimmed shrubs bore the ministry’s name. Beside the sign stood a small, stone statue of a Native American woman whose bronze eyes gazed reverently skyward.

It was just after midnight.

Griff worked his way around the building perimeter and tried to peer through the evenly spaced windows. It was hard to imagine the self-proclaimed cleric living anywhere other than in the mission. There were no interior lights on that he could see, so after a moderately calming breath, he shrugged and rang the front doorbell. Above him and to his right, a security camera looked down impassively. He had no qualms whatever about waking the brother. From all he could tell, this was a bad man who had done some very bad things.

After a minute, he rang a second time. The heavy oak door creaked open. Xavier Bartholomew, rubbing sleepily at his eyes, peered out from the blackness. Griff had no doubt that the gesture belied the fact that the man had checked his security screen before opening the door.

“You look worn and weary, my brother,” Bartholomew said, his voice a rich bass. “Have you come to purge yourself of the poison festering in your soul?”

“I have,” Griff said. “Are you Brother Bartholomew?”

“I am he—the beacon to the Certain Path.”

His temper on a knife’s edge, and his patience nearly gone, Griff forced open the door with his knee, and moved quickly past the man, who made an unsuccessful attempt to block his entrance. Brother Bartholomew staggered back a step, his sleepy expression now one of alarm. He was in his early fifties, and had on a heavy, hooded wool cassock cinched at the waist with a tasseled cord, and well-worn Birkenstock sandals. His oily hair was streaked with gray and pulled back into a tight ponytail, which was tucked inside his robe. His eyes were dark and narrow, and he reeked of stale cigarette smoke and cheap cologne. The tawdry furnishings in the foyer and the adjacent living room reflected the man perfectly. Through the dining room Griff could see the chapel—rows of mixed folding and kitchen chairs beneath a chandelier that had probably come from a yard sale.

“You are blessed, my friend, for you have found the Certain Path,” Bartholomew said, quickly regaining his composure. “I will be happy to counsel you, but to begin your journey, a sacrifice is required.”

He pointed to a large wooden bucket, dangling from a frayed rope that was knotted around a ceiling support beam. A whitewashed placard, lettered not that meticulously with a Sharpie, was nailed to the side of the bucket.

Cast your bread upon the water, and your return shall be manyfold.

It’s always about the bread, Griff thought.

“I have come a long way to see you,” he said, solidifying his position with several steps toward the living room. “I have questions that need answering.”

Bartholomew’s wariness returned.

“I see that life has dealt you some cruel blows,” he said, gesturing toward Griff’s fresh bruises and scabs. “For now, whatever you have in your pocket will suffice to start you on your journey of healing. Later we will determine how much of an additional sacrifice is required for your cure.”

“I am prepared to make a donation to the mission, Brother Bartholomew, but only if the answers to my questions are satisfactory.”

Now, the cleric was on all-out red alert.

“Exactly what sort of questions are you talking about?” he asked.

“Questions about a scientist named Sylvia Chen.”

Bartholomew paled.

“You a cop?”

“Nope.”

“Private dick?”

“Nope.”

“Then get the hell out of here!”

Brother Bartholomew grasped a vase from the top of a small credenza and swung it at Griff’s head.

Griff erupted.

Ignoring the heavy ache in his chest, he blocked the attack, sending the vase to the flagstone floor, where it shattered. Bartholomew turned to run, but Griff snatched ahold of his hood. He had not fought anyone since high school, but he hadn’t felt such fury in at least that long. He twisted Bartholomew’s arm behind his back and lifted it toward his shoulderblade. Then he used his knee to propel the man with force against the stone wall at the rear of the foyer. He had never had any martial arts training, but every anger-driven move seemed natural.

With Bartholomew’s arm still pinned to his back, Griff applied his forearm to the nape of the man’s neck, pressing his face flush against the wall. Then, leaning in close so he could be heard at a whisper, Griff growled into Bartholomew’s ear.

“Is there anybody else here?”

“Yes … yes, there is,” Bartholomew managed.

The self-proclaimed minister was breathless and shaking. With thoughts of Melvin, Griff lifted the man’s arm even higher up his back. Numbed by adrenaline, the pain in his own damaged ribs was barely noticeable.

Bartholomew’s arm was reaching the snapping point.

“No … more,” he cried. “I’m alone! I’m alone! Please, let go of my arm! It’s going to break!”

Griff relaxed his grip slightly. The letup in pressure was enough for Bartholomew, who countered with surprising quickness and unexpected strength. He twisted his body hard to the right, breaking free of Griff’s hold on his wrist. Then he ducked and turned, separating himself from Griff entirely. Without hesitating, he dashed through a set of French doors into the chapel, and headed toward the back of the mission.

Griff, now short of breath, but hardly short of determination, cursed his stupidity and drove on after the man. There was a fire door on the far side of the chapel, and Bartholomew was now just a few feet away from it. But there was no way Griff was going to let him get there. He left his feet and dove at the back of Bartholomew’s legs, buckling the man’s knees and sending him skidding across the hardwood floor, knocking the chairs about like bowling pins.

Air exploded from the brother’s lungs, but in seconds he was on his feet again, charging toward the fire door. On all fours, Griff caught him by the ankles, pulled him to the floor, and wrestled him to his back. Then, straddling his chest, Griff punched him in the face—once, then again. Blood burst from Bartholomew’s nose, and his body went limp.

Painfully, Griff worked himself to his feet, then grabbed a box of tissues off a windowsill and tossed it down to the man.

“Tell me about Sylvia Chen,” he said, breathing heavily.

“I don’t know who that is.”

“Bartholomew, my best friend was just murdered because of her. Mess with me about this, and I swear I’ll punch your teeth in. I’m that angry.”

Griff cocked his arm again, and his adversary flinched.

“Okay … I knew her.”

Bartholomew remained on his back.

“What did she want with you?”

“She … she promised she could help me cure drug addiction. She told me her system would work. And … and she said she’d pay me to cooperate with her.”

“What exactly did you do?” Griff said, as he hoisted Bartholomew off the floor by the shoulders of his robe. “I said, what did you do?”

“We tested something she was working on,” he said. Tears began to stream down his red, swollen face. “I’m not a bad person. I wanted to help. She was a scientist and she said that she had a treatment she wanted to try out on … on some of my tougher clients. She said that together we could save many addicts from their misery.”

The man was weeping piteously now, but Griff would not make the same mistake by lowering his guard.

“Did you supply her with people?”

Griff was shaking with anger.

“I … I did.”

“Where did she conduct these experiments? Tell me, dammit!”

“Let me go,” Bartholomew said in a shaky voice, “and I’ll do better than tell you.”

“How’s that?”

“I’ll show you,” he said.