Grim Reaper: End of Days

July

Somewhere in the cul-de-sac, the grayness of morning is violated by the hydraulics of a garbage truck. A dog responds from a screened-in patio. A school bus negotiates the loop with an emissions-belching growl, transporting campers to the local YMCA.

In the house with no kids at the end of the block, the woman with the candy-apple red hair snores softly against a down pillow. Her subconscious refuses to be disturbed by the awakening neighborhood. Her bladder tingles, still she lingers in sleep.

Mary Klipot clings to the dream the way a non-swimmer clings to a capsized boat in tempest seas.

In her dream, the emptiness is gone. In her dream, her father is not a nameless John, and her drug-addicted mother feels the remorse of abandonment. In her dream, there is a home and a warm bed. Chocolate chip cookies and good night kisses that do not taste of tobacco. The air is lilac-sweet and the walls a cheery white. There are private bathrooms and showers and teachers who are not nuns. There is no soundproof room on Wednesday and Saturday mornings, no leather straps and holy water splashes, and certainly no Father Santaromita.

In her dream, Mary is not special.

Special Mary. The orphan with the high I.Q. Smart, yet dangerous. Satan is the tiny voice in your head that says torch the cat, it’ll be fun. Jump off the ledge, you can survive. God is missing in these moments. The brakes on a runaway truck. The doctor with the cold stethoscope gives it a name — temporal lobe epilepsy, and offers a prescription.

Father Santaromita knows better. The weekly exorcisms last until her eighth birthday.

She takes the medication. The bridled I.Q. pays dividends. Parochial-school honors. A college scholarship. Degrees in microbiology from Emory and Johns Hopkins. The future looks golden.

Of course, there are “other” challenges. Parties and coeds. Beer and drugs. The introverted redhead with the steely hazel eyes might be trailer-trash cute, but she doesn’t put out. Special Mary is branded Virgin Mary. Abstinence labels her an outcast. Come on, Mary. Only the good die young. Mary dies a hundred deaths. She works two jobs so she can afford her own apartment.

Isolation is easier.

Straight A’s open doors, lab work offers salvation. Mary has talent. The Defense Department sets up an interview. Fort Detrick needs her. Good pay and government benefits. The research is challenging. After a few years, she’ll be assigned to a Level-4 containment lab where she can work with some of the most dangerous biological substances on the planet.

The little voice agrees. Mary takes the job. The career shall define a life less lived.

In time, the dreams change.

The discovery had been unearthed in Montpellier. The archaeological team in charge of the dig required the services of a microbiologist experienced in working with exotic agents.

Montpellier is located six miles from the Mediterranean Sea. It is a town steeped in history and tradition, haunted by a nightmare shared by the entire Eurasian continent.

The archaeological dig was a mass grave — a communal pit that dated back to 1348. Six-and-a-half centuries had stripped away organs and flesh, leaving behind an entanglement of bones. Three thousand men, women, and children. The bodies had been discarded in haste by their tortured loved ones whose grief was rendered secondary to their own terrifying fear.

Plague: the Black Death.

The Great Mortality.

Three hundred people a day had perished in London. Six hundred a day in Venice. It had ravaged Montpellier, killing off 90 percent of the townspeople. In only a few short years, the Black Death had reduced the continent’s population from 80 million people to 30 million — all in an era where transportation was limited to horse and foot.

How had it killed so effectively? How had it spread so fast?

In charge of the excavation was Didier Raoult, a professor of medicine at the Mediterranean University in Marseilles. Raoult discovered that pulp tissue found inside the remains of plague victims’ teeth, preserved in many of the unearthed skulls, could yield DNA evidence that would, for the first time, unlock the mystery.

Mary set to work. The culprit was Yersinia pestis—bubonic plague. A pestilence delivered from Hell. Extreme pain. High fever, chills, and welts. Followed by swelling of the bulbous — black golf-ball-sized protrusions that appeared on the victims’ necks and groins. In due course, the infected internal organs failed, often bleeding out.

A thirteenth-century nursery rhyme provided vivid clues as to how quickly the Black Death had spread: Ring around the rosie, a pocket full of posies, at-shoo, at-shoo, we all fall down. One sneeze, and plague infected a household, eventually the entire village, wiping out its unsuspecting prey within days.

Impressed with her work, Didier Raoult presented Mary with a parting gift — a copy of a recently discovered unpublished memoir, written during the Great Plague by the Pope’s personal surgeon, Guy de Chauliac. Translated from its original French, the diary detailed the Great Mortality’s near eradication of the human species during the years 1346 through 1348.

Mary returned to Fort Detrick with de Chauliac’s journal and samples of the 666-year-old killer. The Department of Defense was intrigued. The DoD claimed they wanted protection for American soldiers in case of a biological attack. Thirty-one-year-old Mary Louise Klipot was promoted and placed in charge of the new project, dubbed Scythe.

Within a year, the CIA took over funding and Scythe disappeared off the books.

Mary awakens before the alarm sounds. Her belly gurgles. Her blood pressure drops. She barely makes it to the toilet in time.

Mary has been sick for a week. Andrew assured her it was just the flu. Andrew Bradosky was her lab tech. Thirty-nine. Boyishly charming and easy on the eyes. She had selected him from a pool of workers not because he was qualified but because she could read him. Even his attempts to foster a social relationship outside the lab were calculated toward promotion. The trip to Cancún last April was a welcome diversion, granted only after he acknowledged her rules of celibacy. Mary was saving herself for marriage. Andrew had no interest in marriage, but he did make good eye candy.

Mary dresses quickly. Cotton scrubs simplified her wardrobe choices. Loose-fitting clothing made for better choices in a BSL-4 suite and the environmental suit she wore for hours at a time.

Toast and jam were all her upset stomach could tolerate. This morning she would see the department physician. Not that she wanted to go. But she was sick, and standard operating procedure when working with exotic agents required routine checkups. Driving to work, she assured herself that it was probably just the flu. Andrew could be right. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

She hated waiting. Why were patients always relegated to antiseptic exam rooms with paper-lined cushioned tables and old issues of Golf Digest? And these exam gowns… had she ever worn one that actually fit? Did she have to be reminded that she needed to lose weight? She vowed to hit the gym after work, then quickly dismissed the notion. She had far too much work to do, and Andrew as usual was behind on his duties. She considered bringing in a new technician, but worried about the innuendo.

The door opened and Roy Katzin entered, the physician’s expression too upbeat to conceal bad news. “So. We’ve run the gamut of tests using the most sophisticated machines taxpayer money can buy, and we think we’ve nailed down the source of your symptoms.”

“I already know, it’s the flu. Dr. Gagnon had it a few weeks ago and—”

“Mary, it’s not the flu. You’re pregnant.”

August

The dashboard clock that had clung to 7:56 A.M. had somehow leapfrogged to 8:03 A.M. in the blink of time it had taken the intense brunette driving the Dodge minivan to negotiate her way across a minefield of moving traffic on the southbound lanes of the Major Deegan Expressway.

Now officially late, she managed to wedge herself in the right lane behind the carbon-monoxide-spewing ass end of a Greyhound bus. The gods of rush hour mocked her, vehicle after vehicle passing her on the left. Engaging the only available tool in her arsenal, she struck the steering wheel with both palms, the long blast of horn intended to rattle the nerves of the steel cow grazing in front of her.

Instead, the hold music on the hands-free cell phone animated into a Zen-like male voice bearing a rhythmically sweet Hindu accent that greeted her with, “Good morning. Thank you for holding. May I ask who I am speaking to?”

“Leigh Nelson.”

“Thank you Mrs. Nelson. For security purposes, may I have your mother’s maiden name?”

“Deem.”

8:06 A.M.

“Thank you for that information. And how may I help you today?”

“How may you help me? Your freakin’ bank put a freakin’ hold on my freakin’ husband’s last deposit, causing eight of my checks to bounce, for which you then charged me $35 per check, severely overdrafting my account, and now I’m freaking out!”

“I am sorry this happened.”

“No you’re not.”

“I see your husband’s check was deposited on the fourth.”

She inches over to the right shoulder beyond the carbon-stained, vision-impairing Greyhound bus. The FDR South exit ramp remained a hundred yards ahead, the narrow shoulder lane all that separated her trapped vehicle from liberating freedom. She contemplated the opportunity like Cool Hand Luke working on a chain gang.

Shakin’ it here, boss.

She accelerated through the opening, only to be cut off by a black Lexus whose driver shared the same idea. Brakes! Horn! Middle finger!

“The check will clear on Tuesday.”

“Tuesday’s bullshit. Since when do you put a week’s hold on a General Motors deposit?”

“I am sorry for the inconvenience. Unfortunately, this is a new bank policy on all out-of-state checks.”

“Listen to me. My husband just lost his job. His unemployment won’t kick in for another four weeks. At least refund the bounced-check fees.”

“Again, I am sorry, but I cannot change bank policy.”

Now Luke, seems to me what we got here is a failure to communicate.

“I’m sorry, too. I’m sorry the government bailed your asses out with $800 billion of our tax money!”

“Would you like to speak to my supervisor?”

“Sure! Which part of freakin’ India does he live in?”

The Dodge minivan crawled past construction traffic on East 25^th Street. Turned into the staff lot of the Veterans Administration hospital. Parked in a spot at an angle sure to annoy the owner of the car on the right.

The brunette wrenched the rearview mirror sideways. Rushed mascara through the lashes of her gray-blue eyes. Dabbed makeup on her pug nose. Smeared a fresh coat of a neutral lipstick over her thick lips. Stole a quick glance at the clock, then grabbed her leather briefcase from the toddler’s car seat and hustled out of the minivan to the emergency entrance, praying she will not cross paths with the hospital administrator.

Double doors slid open, greeting her with cooled air tainted with the scent of the sick. The waiting area was standing room only. Coughs and crutches and crying infants diverted by The Today Show, broadcast on wall-mounted flat screens, secured to cinder block by steel cable.

She looked away, moving past admittance desks and attitudes. Halfway down the main corridor, she paused to slip on her white lab coat, attracting the attention of a tall Indian man in his early forties. He fought to catch his breath. “Please… how do I get to ICU?”

His torn expression quelled her urge to vent, his appearance assuring her he is not the bank employee she spoke with earlier. Perspiration-stained dress shirt. Bow tie. Right pant leg coiffed with a rubber band. An academic visiting a sick colleague. Probably rode over from campus on his bicycle. “Follow the corridor to the left. Take the elevators up to the seventh floor.”

“Thank you.”

“Dr. Nelson!”

Jonathan Clark’s voice caused her to jump.

“Late again? Let me guess… traffic backup in New Jersey? No wait, today’s Monday. Mondays are child-rearing conflicts.”

“I don’t have child-rearing conflicts, sir. I have two adorable children, the younger is autistic. This morning she decided to paint the cat with oatmeal. Doug’s interviewing for a job, my babysitter called out sick from Wildwood and—”

“Dr. Nelson, you are familiar with my philosophy regarding excuses. There’s never been a successful person who needed one, and—?”

Her blood pressure ticked up a notch. “There’s never been a failure who lacked one.”

“I’m docking you half a day’s pay. Now get to work, and don’t forget — we have a staff meeting at six.”

Pick your battles, Luke. “Yes, boss.”

Leigh Nelson escaped down the hall to her office. Tossed her briefcase on top of a file cabinet and collapsed into the creaky wooden chair perpetually teetering on its off-center base, her blood pressure set on broil.

Mondays at the VA were mental bear traps. Mondays made her yearn for her tomboy days back on her grandfather’s pig farm in Parkersburg, West Virginia.

It had been a challenging summer. The Veterans Administration’s New York Harbor Healthcare System consisted of three campuses — in Brooklyn, Queens, and her own Manhattan East Side. In an attempt to save what amounted to pocket change, Congress had decided they could only afford two prosthetic treatment centers. This despite two ongoing wars and yet another surge. A million dollars per fighting soldier, pennies to treat his wounds. Had Washington gone insane? Were these people living in the real world?

Certainly not in her world.

Longer hours, same pay. Soldier on, Nelson. Suck it up and repeat the mantra: Be glad you still have a job.

Leigh Nelson hated Mondays.

Twenty minutes, a dozen e-mails, and half a leftover donut later, and she was ready to sift through the patient files stacked on her desk. She was barely through the second folder when Geoff Payne entered her office.

“Morning, Pouty Lips. Heard you got caught on the last train to Clarksville.”

“I’m busy, Geoff. State your business.”

The director of admissions handed her a personnel file. “New arrival from Germany. Patrick Shepherd, sergeant, United States Marines, age thirty-four. Another IED amputee, only this poor schmuck actually picked the device up in his hand when it went off. Complete removal of the left arm just below the biceps insertion. Add to that bruising and swelling at the base of his brain, a collapsed left lung, three broken ribs, and a dislocated collarbone. He’s still suffering from bouts of vertigo, headaches, and severe memory lapses.”

“Post-traumatic stress?”

“Bad as it gets. His psychosocial diagnosis is in the file. He’s not responding to anti-depression meds, and he’s refused counseling. His doctors in Germany had him on round-the-clock suicide watch.”

Leigh opened the folder. She glanced at the PTSD evaluation, then read the patient’s military history aloud. “Four deployments: Al-Qaim, Haditha, Fallujah, and Ramadi, plus a stint at Abu Ghraib. Christ, this one took a tour of Hell. Has he been fitted for a prosthetic?”

“Not yet. Read his personal history, you’ll find it especially interesting.”

She scanned the paragraph. “Really? He played professional baseball?”

“Pitched for the Red Sox.”

“Well, then, take your time ordering the prosthetic.”

Geoff smiled. “We got off lucky. This kid would have been a Yankee killer. First year up, he’s a rookie sensation, eight months later he’s in Iraq.”

“He was that good?”

“He was a star in the making. I remember reading about him in Sports Illustrated. Boston drafted him as a low-round pick in ’98, no one gave him a shot at sticking around. Three years later, he’s dominating hitters in Single A. The Sox lost one of their starters, and suddenly the kid’s pitching in the majors.”

“He jumped from Single A to the majors in one season? Damn.”

“The rookie had ice water in his veins. Fans nicknamed him the Boston Strangler. First game up he pitches a two-hitter against the Yanks, that made him a cult hero with Red Sox Nation. Second game he goes nine innings and gives up one unearned run before the Sox lost the game in the tenth. His rematch with the Yankees was penciled in for mid-September, only 9/11 happened. By the time the season resumed, he was gone.”

“What do you mean, gone?”

“He flaked out. Left the Sox and enlisted in the Marine Corps… crazy schmuck.”

“The bio says he’s married with a daughter. Where’s his family now?”

“She left him. He won’t talk about it, but a few of the vets remember hearing rumors. They say his wife took the kid and split after he enlisted. She was probably pissed off, who could blame her. Instead of being married to a future multimillionaire and sports celebrity, she’s stuck raising her little girl alone, surviving on an enlisted man’s pay grade. Sad really, but we see it all the time. Relationships and deployments have never made for a good marriage.”

“Wait… he hasn’t seen his family since the war began?”

“Again, he won’t talk about it. Maybe it’s for the best. After all this guy’s been through, I wouldn’t want to be sleeping next to him when he starts dreaming about combat. Remember what Stansbury did to his old lady?”

“God, don’t remind me. Where’s the sergeant now?”

“Finishing up his physical. Want to meet him?”

“Assign him to Ward 27, I’ll catch up with him later.”

The room smelled. Bedpans and ammonia. Disease and death. A way station to the grave.

Pankaj Patel stood by the foot of the ICU bed, staring at the elderly man’s face. Cancer and chemotherapy had combined to drain the life force from his mentor’s physical being. His face was pale and gaunt. Skin hung from his bones. The eye sockets were brown and sunken.

“Jerrod, I am so sorry. I was in India with my family. I came as soon as I heard.”

Jerrod Mahurin opened his eyes, the sight of his protégé stirring him into consciousness. “No… not there! Stand by my side, Pankaj… quickly.”

Patel moved to the left side of the professor’s bed. “What is it? Did you see something?”

The elderly man closed his eyes, gathering his last reserves of strength. “The Angel of Death waits for my soul at the foot of the bed. You were too close. Very dangerous.”

Unnerved, Patel turned to look back at the empty space. “You saw him? The Angel of Death?”

“No time.” Jerrod reached out to his protégé with his left hand, the pale flesh baby soft, marked by a minefield of telltale bruises from a dozen IV drips. “You’ve been an exceptional student, my son, but there is far more to this sliver of physicality we call life. Everything you see is but an illusion, our journey a test, and we are failing miserably. The imbalance is tipping the scales to favor evil over good, darkness over the Light. Politics, greed, the capitalism of warfare. And yet everything we have stood against are merely symptoms. What drives a man to act immorally? To rape a woman? Sodomize a child? How can one human being commit murder, or order the deaths of tens of thousands… even millions of innocent people without a single spark of conscience? To find the real answers, you need to focus on the root cause of the disease.”

The elderly man closed his eyes, pausing to swallow a lump of mucus. “There is a direct cause-and-effect relationship in play, a relationship between the negative force and the levels of violence and greed that have once more risen to plague humankind. Man continues to be seduced by the immediate gratification of his ego, moving us farther away from God’s Light. Mankind’s collective actions have summoned the Angel of Death, and with it, the End of Days.”

The blood beneath Patel’s skin vasodilated, leaving goose bumps. “The End of Days? The conflict in the Middle East… will it lead to World War III? A nuclear holocaust? Jerrod?”

The dying man reopened his eyes. “Symptoms,” he coughed. The smell lingered.

Searching an untouched breakfast tray, Patel spooned an ice chip, placing it in his teacher’s mouth. “Perhaps you should rest.”

“In a moment.” Jerrod Mahurin swallowed the offering, watching his protégé through the open slits of his feverish eyes. “The End of Days is a supernal event, Pankaj, orchestrated by the Creator Himself. Mankind… is moving away from God’s Light. The Creator will not allow the physical world to be eradicated by those drawing strength from the darkness. As with Sodom and Gomorrah, as with the Great Flood, He will wipe out humanity before the wicked destroy His creation, and the terminating event, whatever it may be, shall happen soon.”

“My God.” Patel’s thoughts turned to his wife, Manisha, and their daughter, Dawn.

“This is important. After I pass on, a man of great wisdom will seek you out. I’ve selected you.”

“Selected me? For what?”

“My replacement. A secret society… nine men hoping to bring balance.”

“Nine men? What am I required to do?”

A diseased breath wheezed softly from Jerrod Mahurin’s mouth like a deflating bellows, the smell stale and harsh.

Pankaj Patel recoiled. “Jerrod, these men… can they prevent the End of Days? Jerrod?” Reaching for another ice chip, the pupil placed it gingerly on his teacher’s tongue.

Water dribbled from the open slit of the elderly man’s mouth.

A moment passed, the silence broken by the steady beep of the flatlining cardiac monitor.

Dr. Jerrod Mahurin, Europe’s foremost authority on psychopathic behavior, was dead.

Leigh Nelson entered Ward 27, one of a dozen areas her colleagues referred to as a “fishbowl of suffering.” Here, everything was on display, the carnage, the emotional wreckage, the ugly side of warfare that no one outside the hospital wanted to be reminded of.

Although there were only fourteen amputees treated during the entire first Gulf War, the second Bush administration’s invasion was a far different story. Tens of thousands of American soldiers had lost limbs since the 2003 occupation, their long-term care overwhelming an already overburdened health-care system, their anguish purposely kept from the public eye. And still the war raged on.

It takes a special breed of health-care professional to work day after day in a combat amputee ward. Bombs leave the human body ravaged by burn marks and shrapnel wounds. The pain can be excruciating, the surgeries seemingly endless. Depression runs rampant. Many wounded vets are in their twenties, some in their teens. Coping with the life-altering loss of a limb can be devastating on the victim, his family, and the caregiver.

As bad as it was during the day, it was always far worse at night.

Leigh stopped by the first bed on her right, occupied by Justin Freitas. The corpsman, barely nineteen, had lost both eyes and hands ten weeks earlier while attempting to defuse a bomb.

“Hey, Dr. Nelson. How’d I know it was you?”

“You smelled my perfume.”

“I did! I smelled your perfume. Hey, Doc, I dropped the remote to the television, can you hand it to me?”

“Justin, we talked about this yesterday.”

“Doc, I think maybe you’re the one that’s blind. I have hands, I can feel them.”

“No, baby doll. It’s the nerve endings, they’re confusing your brain.”

“Doc, I can feel them!”

“I know.” Nelson fought tears. “We’re going to get you new hands, Justin. A few more surgeries, and—”

“No… no more surgery. I don’t want any more surgery! I don’t want pincers! I want my hands! How can I hold my little girl without hands? How can I touch my wife?”

The anger ignited like a flashpoint. Dr. Nelson barely had time to signal for help before she was forced to wrestle with her patient, fighting to prevent him from bashing the stubs of his bandaged forearms against the aluminum bed rails.

An orderly rushed over, helping her to pin Justin Freitas’s arms down with Velcro strips long enough for her to inject a sedative into his IV drip, delivering him into an anaesthetized delirium.

Stalling to catch her breath, Dr. Nelson made notes on his chart. Sixteen more amputees lay in wait in this ward. The first ward of eight.

Every ward had its gatekeeper, a combat veteran who knew the pulse of his fellow soldiers. In Ward 27 it was Master Sergeant Rocky Allen Trett. Wounded by a rocket-propelled grenade eight months earlier, the double-leg amputee was sitting up in bed, waiting to greet her.

“Morning, Pouty Lips, you’re late. The little one giving you a rough time at home?”

“What’s the term you like to use? It’s been… challenging. You seem in good spirits.”

“Mona came by with the kids.”

“Okay, don’t tell me… the boys are Dustin and Logan, your daughter is Molly.”

“Megan. Blue eyes, just like yours. Great kids. Can’t wait to go home. Listen, I know I promised not to ask—”

“I called our prosthetist again this morning. He promised me no later than mid-September.”

“Mid-September.” Rocky struggled to hide his disappointment. After a few moments he regained his composure, pointing across the aisle. “Keep an eye on Swickle. He was bawling his eyes out earlier. Wife handed him divorce papers for breakfast. Says she can’t deal with having a gimp for a husband.”

“Lovely. Rocky, what about the new guy… Shepherd?”

Rocky shook his head. “Forget the prosthetist; that boy needs a shrink.”

“Baby doll, we all need a shrink.” She kissed him on the forehead, returned his smile, then proceeded to bed station 17, one of several areas that had been curtained off for privacy. “Sergeant Shepherd, my name is Dr. Nelson, and I’m your—”

She pulled back the curtain.

The bed was empty.

The Manhattan sky was awash in blue. A steady breeze coming from the East River kept the scent of soot to a minimum. Rows of industrial air conditioners hummed nearby, the mechanical groan of their rotating fans reverberating the roof’s asphalt turf. The sound of traffic joined in the serenade seven stories below, the horn frequency increasing ever so slightly as lunch hour rapidly approached.

The VA hospital’s helopad was empty, the medevac chopper on a run.

The lanky man in the gray sweatpants and white tee shirt walked barefoot along the eight-inch-wide concrete ledge surrounding the rooftop helopad. Long brown hair flopped with the breeze, his features and faraway look reminiscent of those of Jim Morrison, the late lead singer of the Doors. The soldier shared the artist’s restless soul, imprisoned in a tomb of flesh.

His left hand felt like he had dipped his arm elbow deep in lava. The pain was excruciating, driving him to the edge of madness. There’s no arm there, you asshole. It’s phantom pain… just like your existence.

Patrick Ryan Shepherd closed his eyes, the one-armed man beckoning the sounds and scents of the urban jungle to flow into the hole in his memory—

— flushing out images from a long-lost past…

The breeze is steady, the sky awash in blue. The stickball bat is gripped firmly in the boy’s balled-up fists.

Patrick is eleven years old, the youngest kid in the game. Brooklyn is made up of ethnically divided neighborhoods, and this area of Bensonhurst is predominantly Italian.

Patrick is Irish, the runt of the litter.

An outsider pretending he belongs.

It is Saturday. Saturday’s have a different feel than Sundays. Sundays are more somber. Sundays are dress pants and church. Young Patrick hates church, but his grandmother makes him go.

Sandra Kay Shepherd is disabled, having fallen from a ladder at work. The sixty-one-year-old is also an insulin-dependent diabetic. Twelve years earlier, Sandra’s second husband walked out on Patrick’s grandmother with no explanation.

Patrick’s mother died of breast cancer when he was seven. Patrick’s father is in jail, serving the fourth year of a twenty-five-year sentence for DUI manslaughter.

Two outs, the bases are loaded, only there are no bases. First and third are parked cars. Second base is a manhole cover. Home plate is a pizza box.

Young Patrick lives for these moments. In these moments, he is no longer the runt. He is no longer different. In these moments, Patrick can be the hero.

Michael Pasquale is on the mound pitching. The thirteen-year-old has already been embarrassed twice by the younger mick. The Italian throws the first pitch at Patrick’s head.

Patrick is ready. He steps back and wallops the rubber pimple ball with the broomstick, the base hit whizzing past the pitcher’s left ear. The bounding shot skids beneath several parked cars before disappearing from sight.

“Sewer ball! Ground rule double. Go fetch, German Shepherd.”

“Don’t you mean Irish Shepherd?”

Patrick moans as the older boys escort him to the concrete crevasse. The rules of stickball are simple: He who hits it retrieves it.

Two boys lift the manhole cover, unleashing a vomit-inducing smell. The liquid muck is five feet down, and Gary Doroshow, who normally brings the metal rake, is away with his parents at Coney Island.

“Down you go, Shepherd.”

“Are you sure it went down there? I can’t even see it.”

“You calling me a liar?”

“Get your mick ass down in that hole.”

Patrick descends, rung by rung, the collar of his tee shirt pulled high over his nose against the overpowering stench of liquid shit.

The blue sky suddenly disappears, the manhole cover clunking in place.

“Hey!”

The muffled sound of laughter causes Patrick’s heart to race.

“Hey! Let me out!” He presses his shoulder to the cast-iron cover, unable to budge it beneath Michael Pasquale’s weight. To his right is a sliver of opening between the curb and street. He tries to squeeze out, only to be met by kicking sneakers.

“Let me out! Help! Grandma, help!”

He gags, then vomits his breakfast into the muck.

Sweat pours from his face. He feels dizzy. “Let me out, let me out!”

Panic sets in, he can’t breathe. Adrenaline turns his shoulders into battering rams, and he attacks the manhole cover, the force of his blows momentarily knocking Michael Pasquale off kilter. The resistance is quickly doubled by the weight of a second boy.

He feels faint. He feels small and scared. Cancer has stolen his mother, alcohol his father. Sport is the glue that has held him together, his athletic prowess leveling life’s playing field. As the laughter grows and the last ounce of dignity leaves his body, he loosens his grip on the metal ladder rung, intent on filling his emptiness with the muck’s drowning embrace.

Then he hears a girl’s voice, firm and demanding. Backed by an older male presence.

The sneakers move off.

The manhole cover is lifted.

Patrick Shepherd looks up into the blue August sky at his angel.

She appears to be his age, only far more mature. Wavy blond hair, long and silky. Green eyes peer down at him below the bangs. “Well? You gonna stay down there all day?”

Patrick climbs out of the sewer and into the light, helped out by a man in shirtsleeves and a maroon tie. His gray wool sport coat is flung over one shoulder. “No offense, son, but you need to find yourself some new friends.”

“They’re not… my friends.” Patrick coughs, trying to disguise the sob.

“By the way, that was a nice hit… the way you kept your wrists back. Try to lay off the pitches out of the strike zone.”

“That’s as good as they pitch me. If it’s over the plate, I can take it deep, only we lose too many balls. Really though, I’m a pitcher, only they don’t like me to pitch either—”

“—’cause you’re so good, huh?” The girl smirks.

“What’s your name, son?”

“Patrick Ryan Shepherd.”

“Well, Patrick Ryan Shepherd, we’re just on our way home from synagogue, then we’re headed over to Roosevelt High to watch the baseball team scrimmage. Why don’t you grab your glove and meet us there. Maybe I’ll let you toss batting practice.”

“Batting practice? Wait… are you the new baseball coach?”

“Morrie Segal. This is my daughter—”

“—no, don’t get near me, you stink. Go home and shower, Shep.”

“Shep?”

“That’s your new nickname. Dad lets me name all the ballplayers. Now go, before I change your name to Stinky Pete.”

Coach Segal winks, then leads his daughter away.

The sky is awash in blue, the August day glorious—

— the day life changed for Patrick Shepherd… the day he fell in love.

The man with no left arm opened his eyes. The phantom pain had subsided, replaced by something far worse.

It had been eleven years since he last kissed the only woman he has ever loved, eleven long years since he held her in his arms, or watched her play with their toddler daughter. The absence wrenched his heart, the organ a dam about to burst, releasing a swollen river of frustration and anger.

Patrick Shepherd loathed his existence. Every thought was poison, every decision of the last eleven years cursed. By day he suffered the humiliation of a victim, at night he became the villain, his actions in battles past replayed in heart-wrenching, skull-rattling, nerve-shattering nightmares of human violence, the reality of which no horror movie could ever capture on film. And yet, as much as he despised himself, Patrick hated God even more, for it was his accursed Maker, his eternal guardian of indifference, that arrived like a thief in the night and excised the memory of Shep’s family from his brain, leaving in its place an empty hole. Try as he might, Patrick could not fill the void, and the frustration he felt — the sheer anger — is far too much for one man to bear.

His bare toes gripped the concrete ledge. A strange sense of calmness washed over his being like a soothing tide. Patrick looked up one last time at the clear blue August sky. Unleashed a primordial, guttural scream, announcing his death, and—

No.

He froze, balancing precariously on one foot. The whispered voice was male and familiar. Sizzling through his skull like a tuning fork. Patrick Shepherd whipped his head around, startled. “Who said that?”

The empty helopad mocked him. Then the rooftop exit burst open, the stairwell releasing a dark-haired beauty. Her white physician’s coat flapped in the wind. “Sergeant Shepherd?”

“Don’t call me that. Don’t ever call me that!”

“I’m sorry.” Dr. Nelson approached cautiously. “Is it okay if I call you Patrick?”

“Who are you?”

“Leigh Nelson. I’m your doctor.”

“Are you a cardiologist?”

The reply catches her off guard. “Do you need one?” She saw the tears. The anguish on his face. “Look, I have a basic rule: If you’re going to kill yourself, at least wait until Wednesday.”

Shepherd’s expression changed, his anger diffusing into confusion. “Why Wednesday?”

“Wednesday’s hump day. By hump day, you can see your way clear to Friday, then you’ve got the weekend, and who wants to off themselves on a weekend. Not with the way the Yankees are playing.”

Patrick’s mouth twitched a half smile. “I’m supposed to hate the Yankees.”

“That must have been quite a problem, a Brooklyn son pitching for the Red Sox. No wonder you want to jump. Anyway, you can call me Dr. Nelson or Leigh, whichever you prefer. What should I call you?”

Patrick took in the pretty brunette, his emptiness momentarily quelled by her beauty. “Shep. My friends call me Shep.”

“Well, Shep, I was just about to grab a coffee and a donut. I’m thinking chocolate cream-filled, it’s been a helluva Monday. Why don’t you join me? We can talk.”

Patrick Shepherd contemplated his existence. Emotionally spent, he expelled an exasperated breath and stepped down from the ledge. “I don’t drink coffee, the caffeine gives me headaches.”

“I’m sure we can find something you’ll like.” Hooking her arm around his, she led her newest patient back inside the hospital.

September

“Please state your name and occupation for the record.”

The wiry fifty-seven-year-old man smoothed his brown goatee, then spoke into the microphone, his Brooklyn accent heavy. “My name is Barry Kissin. I am an attorney currently living and practicing law in Frederick, Maryland, the home of Fort Detrick.”

Chairman Robert Gibbons, the Democratic senator from Maryland leaned into his microphone to address the witness. “Mr. Kissin, could you briefly describe the nature of your work as it pertains to today’s hearing.”

“Over the last decade, I have been investigating US biowarfare activities, specifically as it pertains to the FBI’s blatant cover-up regarding the anthrax letter attacks on two members of Congress as well as the media in September and October of 2001.”

“Cover-up? Mr. Kissin, are you suggesting the FBI has willfully misled this committee?”

“Senator, the evidence is overwhelming. Case in point: At a prior committee hearing, held on September 17, 2008, Congressman Nadler specifically pointed out to the FBI and attending members that there are only two facilities in the world, let alone the United States, that have the equipment and personnel necessary to produce the dry silica-coated anthrax powder found in the envelopes of Senators Daschle and Leahy back in 2001. These facilities are the United States Army’s Proving Ground in Dugway, Utah, and the Battelle Memorial Institute in West Jefferson, Ohio, a private CIA contractor. Despite numerous requests, the FBI still refuses to include these facilities in their investigation.”

“Mr. Kissin, the Ames strain of anthrax was discovered in a dead cow in Texas back in 1981. The FBI’s primary suspect, the late Bruce Ivins, experimented with the Ames strain as a potential bioweapon while he worked in a biosafety-3 lab located in Fort Detrick.”

“Correct. But Bruce Ivins sent the strain to Battelle, where the anthrax was converted from Fort Detrick’s wet slurry form into the powdered weaponized form found in the letters addressed to the two senators.”

“In your opinion, Mr. Kissin, what was the motivation behind this alleged FBI cover-up?”

“The anthrax letters had ‘Death to America,’ ‘Death to Israel,’ and ‘Allah is Great’ printed in them, a crude propaganda attempt to make the public believe the letters were sent from Muslim terrorists following the events of 9/11. The Bush administration used this fear card to ram the Patriot Act through Congress, even though the evidence overwhelmingly proves that the military-grade anthrax came from labs run by our own intelligence agencies. The Amerithrax investigation metamorphosed into an FBI cover-up soon after the New York Times and Baltimore Sun reported that the Ames strain in the letters had been weaponized, meaning the anthrax had to have come from either Dugway Proving Ground or Battelle. From that point on, the FBI stonewalled, phasing out any reference to weaponization, referring to the anthrax spores as merely dried. This allowed the FBI to paint immunologist Bruce Ivins as a rogue operator in order to divert attention away from Battelle and Dugway. Ivins’s reported suicide in 2008 was a convenient way to wrap things up and close the books on this case before the evidence trail could be traced back to the US intelligence community and Battelle’s private labs. The cold harsh reality, Senator, is that the United States has embarked on a program of secret research into biological weapons that violates the global treaty banning such weapons, and threatens the lives of every citizen on this planet. These programs were begun under the Clinton administration without the president’s knowledge, then embraced during the Bush administration and the tenure of CIA Director George Tenet, who was looking for ways to quote-unquote ‘break the back of biological terrorism.’ As a result, we now have a series of covert and extremely dangerous bioweapons research programs that are being controlled for profit by our own military intelligence.”

“Can you elaborate more in regards to these secret research programs?”

“Yes, sir. As explained by the science editor of the New York Times in his book, Germs, in 1997 the CIA funded a covert project called Clear Vision, a program which focused on developing weapon systems that could effectively deliver lab-harvested biowarfare germs. President Clinton was never told about the program; in fact, only a handful of officials knew the program even existed, most of them associated with the military-intelligence industry. A second program, Project Jefferson, run by the DIA at Dugway, is focused on genetically engineering anthrax. Battelle was contracted to modify this anthrax into a weapons-grade form. The anthrax letters sent to Senators Daschle and Leahy contained two grams of this weaponized anthrax, each envelope holding over a trillion live spores per gram, more than 2 million times the average dose necessary to kill a person. It should be noted that Daschle and Leahy were the two Democrats who stood in the way of the Patriot Act being passed.”

A murmur buzzed through the Senate chambers.

“Mr. Kissin, in your opinion, how involved is Fort Detrick in this… scandal?”

“Senator, that’s not an easy question to answer. Fort Detrick serves many masters, including Homeland Security and the National Cancer Institute. I happen to know that there are many scientists at Fort Detrick who take the international treaty banning bioweapons very seriously. The problem is not Fort Detrick itself; the problem is the military-industrial complex and their insane goal to replace détente with full weapons spectrum dominance. And let’s not discount the variable of profit in those plans. What is both terrifying and criminal is the fact that the new 10-billion-dollar lab expansion at Fort Detrick is being secured and managed at a sizeable profit by Battelle, the very organization responsible for weaponizing the anthrax attacks in the first place.”

“Tell us more about Battelle. I know they’re a private corporation—”

“—a private corporation that operates in conjunction with the military-intelligence-industrial complex. Battelle maintains a national-security division that offers the services of engineers, chemists, microbiologists, and aerosol scientists that are supported by state-of-the-art laboratories that conduct research in the fields of bioaerosol science and technology. Battelle’s Pharmaceutical division, Battelle-Pharma, has developed a new electrohydrodynamic aerosol that delivers more than 80 percent of a drug into the lungs in an isokinetic cloud of uniformly sized particles, compared to 20 percent efficiency among competitors. To reiterate, the spores used in the anthrax letters were coated with a polyglass which tightly bound the hydrophilic silica to each particle. Bruce Ivins had zero access to this type of advanced technology at Fort Detrick. In short, Senator Gibbons, this is what we mean when we use the term weaponization. It’s the necessary postproduction that allows a bioterror weapon to be used on a large population, be it on pamphlets dropped from airplanes or some other means of delivering a toxin to an enemy.”

“The chair recognizes the Republican senator from Ohio.”

Kimberly Helms offered a pert smile. “Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Kissin, with all due respect, I have a serious problem with your ‘conspiracy theories’ being made part of the public record. You just testified under oath that the FBI has been involved in a massive cover-up regarding the attempted murder of two US senators, the attacks originating from a covert bioweapons program run by our own intelligence agencies without congressional oversight or even the president’s knowledge. In the process of attempting to frighten the American public watching these proceedings, you managed to smear the good name of the Battelle Corporation, a company that has never been a target of the Amerithrax investigation. As far as I’m concerned—”

“Everything I stated under oath is true, Senator Helms. Battelle worked on Project Clear Vision, Battelle was contracted to genetically modify the anthrax used in the 2001 attacks, and Battelle is now being paid to manage the biowarfare labs at Fort Detrick. What you refer to as conspiracy theory is conspiracy fact. More important, as a result of this insane black ops program, small unmonitored labs across the United States, funded by $100 billion in taxpayer money, are devising, as we speak, species-threatening agents for which there is neither a vaccine nor cure. And if that doesn’t frighten you, Senator Helms, then perhaps we need to check you for a pulse!”

Ernest Lozano exited the Senate building into a budding September maelstrom. Thunder rumbled in the distance. The western sky had taken on a bizarre appearance — the cloud’s low-hanging ceiling undulating like a forty-foot sea, the distant horizon over Washington, DC, appearing lime green.

Lozano descended one concrete stair at a time, each weight-bearing step causing his two artificial knees to buckle. Reaching the sidewalk, he limped toward a line of black limousines parked bumper to bumper along two city blocks.

There were many entry points into the lucrative military intelligence — private industrial complex, but the two most effective remained politics and the military. Lozano’s career had been swept along by the latter, his years spent in Army Intelligence introducing him to gun runners, drug warlords, mercenaries, and despotic dictators — all part of a moving current navigated by clandestine factions within the CIA and other intel organizations. It was an arena that suffered no fools nor sense of morality, its operators using fear and fraud to create new niches within the global marketplace.

What few Americans understood was that the “war on terror” was big business, and big business had to be protected at all costs — costs defined in terms of swaying the legislation in power, be it through charitable contributions, political favors, or campaign contributions. It was the military-industrial complex that ruled the roost, and the new game in town was biowarfare. Unlike weapon systems, biowarfare monies could be tucked out of sight, budgeted under everything from Homeland Security to the National Cancer Institute, or farmed out to private companies like Battelle.

Of course, there were also practical military applications to consider.

To Ernest Lozano and the “Pentagon piranhas” he did business with, biological warfare was the wave of the future. Oil refineries and natural-gas pipelines were vital commodities that had to be protected; without them, populations would starve, economies would collapse. Tanks and soldiers were profitable, but their resources were limited to the availability of steel and flesh. A biological weapon was clean, quick, and indiscriminating in its lethality. Plus, there were plenty of residual profits to be made by allies in the pharmaceutical industry when it came time to mass-produce a cure. The swine flu “epidemic” had been a trial run — a resounding financial success.

Lozano walked to the last limousine. He verified the license plate, then signaled to the female driver, a short-haired woman in her forties, her black turtleneck sweater barely concealing a bodybuilder’s physique and her 9mm sidearm.

Like Lozano, Sheridan Ernstmeyer was former CIA. Unlike Lozano, Sheridan had chosen combat over cash, joining the Joint Special Operations Command. The JSOC was an independent wing of Special Ops, exempt from any congressional or departmental oversight. Established after 9/11, the unit had been used as an assassination ring to eliminate perceived enemies of the United States, both home and abroad.

Sheridan unlocked the doors, allowing Lozano to climb inside the limo.

Alone in back was a spry seventy-three-year-old man. Silky white hair yielded to a receding hairline, magnifying the gray-blue slightly upturned eyes — an effect resulting from a recent face-lift.

Known around Washington circles as a “ruthless intellect,” Bertrand DeBorn had established his tough-guy image during the late seventies, when he and two of his fellow foreign policy advisors in the Carter administration were reported missing on a three-day hunting trip in the Alaskan wilderness. A search-and-rescue mission had been deployed for more than a week when DeBorn was reportedly found by loggers, “delirious, dehydrated, and suffering from frostbite,” thirteen miles southwest of his hunting lodge. Rumors of a “savage bear attack” were kept purposely vague, the only verifiable injuries coming from the frostbite that had cost DeBorn two toes on each of his feet.

The remains of his dovish-leaning colleagues were never found.

Old European blood ran through the National Security Advisor’s veins. As a young man, DeBorn’s paternal grandfather had survived Stalin’s Great Revolution by trekking from Siberia to Warsaw. Once in Poland, he pretended to toe the Communist Party line rather than face a firing squad. DeBorn’s father, Vasiyl, had been far more vocal about his hatred toward totalitarianism. Working covertly as a Cold War correspondent, Vasiyl smuggled letters out of Poland that detailed torture at the hands of the communist regime.

When he was eleven, Bertrand had witnessed his father’s arrest by the secret police. Vasiyl DeBorn was tortured in prison over the next six months before being executed.

Bertrand dedicated the rest of his life to fighting the Communist Manifesto. His anti-Soviet views would play to a large audience in Washington during the 1970s and ’80s. A hawkish Democrat, DeBorn was one of the architects of a plan to dethrone the Shah of Iran in order to strengthen Islamic Fundamentalism. By arming the Mujahadeen, DeBorn hoped the Afghani freedom fighters could give the communists their own debilitating version of Vietnam. They did far more, forcing the communists out of Afghanistan to a rousing defeat. That his plan indirectly gave rise to the birth of al-Qaeda never bothered DeBorn, who considered it a small price to pay for the collapse of the Soviet Union.

A decade later, the Bush/Cheney White House would use al-Qaeda to justify their own “war on terror,” a decision that infuriated DeBorn, who saw Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as the real enemy of democracy. Working behind the scenes, DeBorn helped seal the deal with Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski to deploy a U.S. missile interceptor system in Poland, a strategic move designed to incite officials in Moscow. Years later, he would team with Vice President Cheney to convince Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili to attack the South Ossetian rebels during the 2008 Summer Olympics in China, an action designed to unleash a very public counterattack by Russia.

A founding member of both the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations, Bertrand DeBorn was a man on a mission to change the world, the cost be damned. The Washington power broker had backed Eric Kogelo’s candidacy in the last presidential election, serving as a military advisor, offering the voting public the assurances they needed that the junior senator could handle the war on terror while bringing a conclusion to the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Having spent many long hours conversing with the candidate, DeBorn saw in Kogelo a conservative in liberal’s clothing who could inspire like John F. Kennedy yet whose foreign views could be manipulated, aligning certain global variables necessary to bring about a new paradigm sought by both neoconservatives and hawkish Democrats for decades: a New World Order.

Novus Ordo Mundi: one government overseeing one united global economy serviced by a single monetary system. One language: English. One unified code of laws policed by one integrated military force shining its light of justice on every terrorist organization and third-world dictatorship cowering in the shadows of global apathy. To conspiracy wackos, the NWO represented an Orwellian nightmare, but to the world’s richest and most influential movers and shakers, it was the only future that made any sense. Like it or not, the era of cheap oil that moved the global economy was quickly drawing to a close, bringing a forecast of famine and recession. Change was necessary to prevent anarchy and ensure the market’s survival… a survival of the fittest. Like an unkempt forest, populations had to be pruned to prevent a potential blaze. Left to the tree huggers and liberal extremists, everything would end up burning to the ground — taking civilization with it.

And nothing effected change like war. DeBorn was an experienced hand in the game, having influenced Ayatollah Khomeni to rise against the Shah of Iran by using Iranian students to take over the American embassy, thereby strengthening a Muslim resolve that would be needed to challenge the Soviets. Reagan and the first President Bush had used DeBorn’s war strategy to pit Iran against Iraq. More recently, Bush II and Cheney had created their own “war on terror” as an excuse to take over Iraqi oil reserves and secure a natural-gas pipeline across Afghanistan.

Now Bertrand DeBorn and his “commission” would instigate a completely new war — this one designed to spawn their New World Order. Iran, Syria, and Lebanon would be toppled first, followed eventually by Saudi Arabia. Any nation that refused to participate would simply be subdued or eliminated, their resources confiscated, all the while boosting the profit margins of key Western companies heavily invested in warfare. The only downside to ongoing combat operations was its drain on America’s middle class, but then the middle class had no future in a New World Economy. As anticipated, higher gas prices had succeeded in further segregating the masses into the haves and have-nots, making society easier to manage. One either staked a claim at the banquet table or was relegated to servicing the needs of the upper class — that was “Law of the Jungle” economics.

Ernest Lozano climbed in the backseat of the limo, waiting to be acknowledged.

Bertrand DeBorn continued reading his New York Times, never bothering to look up. “How bad?”

“Bad. Kissin outed Battelle.”

“Battelle will rebound,” said DeBorn, turning to the op ed page. “They’ll discover the cure to the next pandemic and the stock will split. What is needed now is the pandemic. You saw this morning’s SAT images?”

“Six Russian-made Topol-M SS-27 mobile ICBMs, each missile having a seven-thousand-kilometer strike range.”

“Eleven thousand kilometers, and it was a dog and pony show, orchestrated in part by Iran’s biggest oil recipient, the Chinese. The clock is ticking, Mr. Lozano. We need a suitable biological solution.”

“Yeah, well anthrax is out. And since Battelle is out, it has to be something coming out of Fort Detrick.” Lozano searched his BlackBerry files. “West Nile virus, Venezuelan equine encephalitis, SARS, tuberculosis, typhus…”

DeBorn folded the newspaper, clearly perturbed. “No, no. These are all BSL-3 toxins. I need a BSL-4, something that strikes the masses with the fear of Marburg or Ebola but carries the weaponization component of the Ames strain.”

Lozano continued searching his files. “Lassa fever is Level-4, so is Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever. Wait a moment, here’s something new… Project Scythe. It’s a BSL-4 contaminant, with a small R & D team attached, headed by an unknown, a microbiologist named Mary Klipot.”

“Scythe… I like the sound of that. What’s the bacilli history?”

“Yersinia pestis—bubonic plague.”

DeBorn smiled. The Black Death was a true pandemic. In only a few short years, it wiped out more than half the population of Europe and Asia. “What did this Klipot woman find?”

“Looks like they found the living virus.”

“Who else has access to Scythe?”

“Besides command, just her lab assistant, another level-four geek named Andrew Bradosky.”

“Get to him.” DeBorn laid his head back.

“What’s your timetable? No disrespect, but after today, we may not be the only buyer seeking product. I need to know the extent of my resources—”

The National Security Advisor grabbed Ernest Lozano by his left wrist, his icy blue glare causing the former commando to freeze. “Things are in play, my friend. Big things. The world is going to change. So you spend what you need to spend and eliminate anyone who stands in our way. I expect to be in Tehran, pumping crude, in eighteen months. As such, I want Scythe weaponized no later than early spring. That, Mr. Lozano, is your timetable.”

The one armed man with the Jim Morrison looks and faraway eyes tossed ragged in his sleep, his mind caught in a hurricane of recycled memories…

“Where you from, Rook?”

“Brooklyn.” The twenty-three-year-old sporting the fresh crew cut and standard-issue Army tee shirt and briefs avoids the medical officer’s face, his eyes glued to the series of vaccinations the dark-haired physician is preparing.

“Greenwich Village, we’re practically neighbors. Got a name, Brooklyn?”

“Patrick Shepherd.”

“David Kantor. I’m CO of the medical party you’re assigned to. We play a lot of pickup games during downtime. You play hoops?”

“A little.”

“Yeah, you look like an athlete. Got a decent team, but most of my surgeons are ninety-day BOGers. We could use you.”

“BOGers?”

“Boots on the Ground. Surgeons rotate in every ninety days. Okay, this first shot is for anthrax. It’ll hurt a little, and by a little I mean it’ll feel like I injected a golf ball made of lava into your deltoid. Any preferences?”

“Yeah, don’t do it. Wait, Doc, not that arm, do my left shoulder, I’m a righty.”

David Kantor injects the elixir into his deltoid, the fire igniting thirty seconds later.

“Mutha F’er—”

“It’ll cool down, but you’ll feel that knot for about two weeks. This next shot is the bitch: Smallpox. Believe it or not, George Washington was the first one to inoculate his troops against the disease. Forward thinker, the general. Of course, when I say inoculate, I’m talking about sticking a fork into an infected soldier’s pox, then stabbing the person to be vaccinated a few dozen times with the pus. Plenty of Washington’s men died in the process, but the numbers were far better than the disease. The British were the first to use smallpox as a biological. Right arm or left?”

“Left.”

“You sure? I have to jab you fifteen times.”

“Just stick me… ahh!” Patrick winces, counting each injection out loud.

“They teach you some basic Arabic?”

“What’s your name? Drop your weapon. Do you need medical assistance? I’ll never remember it.”

“You’ll pick it up. Of course, they never teach you what the acceptable responses are.” Dr. Kantor finishes bandaging the area. “Okay, Brooklyn, this is important: You need to keep this area covered with a bandage for a month. Screw up, and you’ll get pox pustules that will itch like hell. Plus we may have to vaccinate you again. So don’t screw up. You all packed?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Make sure you have extra socks and tee shirts, plus batteries for your flashlights and cleaning kits for your weapons. Buy some Sharpies, too. Anything that doesn’t have a name on it walks away. Get a spool of the five-fifty paracord. It’s light and strong, makes a good clothesline for drying your laundry. And don’t forget duct tape. It fixes damn near everything, plus you’ll need it to tape down the straps on your rucksack. Telltale noises get soldiers shot. How are you handling the Kevlar body armor?”

“Stuff’s heavy.”

“Forty-five pounds with the ceramic rifle plates. Plus your Advanced Combat helmet. Plus your ECWCS — seven layers of tactical pouches, pockets, and vests holding enough equipment to outfit a Boy Scout troop hell-bent on destruction. It’s a lot of gear, but you’ll be glad you have it. Wouldn’t want to get your arm blown off…”

Leigh Nelson entered Ward 27, the physician heading straight for Master Sergeant Trett. “What happened, Rocky? What spooked him?”

The double-leg amputee sat up in bed. “I don’t know. He had the usual nightmares, then started freaking out about an hour ago.”

“Suicide threats?”

“No, not since that first day. This was different. Don’t forget what day it is.”

“September 11…”

Rocky nodded. “There’s a lot of us who enlisted because of that day. I’m guessing your boy was one of them.”

“Thanks, baby doll.” She left him, heading for the ward bathroom.

There were fist-sized holes in the drywall. One of the three community sinks had been torn from the wall, a mirror shattered. Two male orderlies had wrestled Patrick Shepherd to the ground. A nurse struggled to inject him with a sedative.

“Stick him already!”

“Hold him steady.”

“Wait!” Leigh Nelson positioned herself so that her patient could see her face. “Shep! Shep, open your eyes and look at me.”

Patrick Shepherd opened his eyes. He stopped struggling. “Leigh?”

The nurse jabbed the hypodermic needle into the left cheek of Shepherd’s buttocks. The one-arm amputee’s body went limp.

Dr. Nelson was livid. “Nurse Mennella, I told you to wait.”

“Wait for what? This man is a walking billboard for post-traumatic stress. He shouldn’t be in the VA, he should be in a sanitarium.”

“She’s right, Doc,” added one of the orderlies, palpating a fresh welt over his left eyebrow. “The guy’s a bull. From now on, I’m carrying a Taser.”

“He is still a veteran. Try to remember that.” Leigh Nelson gazed down at her inert patient, the knuckles of his right hand bleeding from punching the walls. “Put him back in his bed and use the restraints. Keep him sedated for the rest of the day. And nurse, the next time you take it upon yourself to ignore my instructions, you’ll find yourself on bedpan duty for a week.”

The nurse capped the hypodermic needle, waiting until Nelson was out of earshot. “Big deal. You want to pay me $45 an hour to clean bedpans, do it.”

The injured orderly helped his associate lift the sedated patient off the floor. “You did the right thing, Veronica. The doc’s just having a bad day.”

“No, that’s not it.” She grabbed Patrick’s right wrist, checking his pulse. “Nelson likes him.”

Founded in 1754 as King's College by the Church of England, Columbia University was a private Ivy League school that occupied six city blocks in Morningside Heights, a neighborhood situated between Manhattan's Upper West Side and Harlem.

Professor Pankaj Patel exited Schermerhorn Hall, accompanied by a female graduate student representing the Columbia Science Review. “I do not have a lot of time. Where do you want to do this?”

“Over here.” She led him to a park bench. Aimed the palm-sized camcorder, framing Patel’s face in her monitor. “This is Lisa Lewis for the CSR, and I’m with Professor Pankaj Patel. Professor, you’ve written a new book, Macrosocial Evil and the Corruption of America. Maybe you can begin by telling our bloggers what macrosocial evil is.”

The balding forty-three-year-old intellectual cleared his throat, unsure of whether to look at the girl or the camera. “Macrosocial evil refers to a branch of psychology which examines the pathological factors that are found among deviant individuals who, through the manipulation of wealth, political affiliations, and other affluent associations, prey on what they consider the moral weakness of society in order to rise to power.”

“In your book, you call these people psychopaths with power.”

“Correct. A psychopath, by definition, is an individual who engages in abnormal activity while lacking all sense of guilt. Imagine living your entire life having no conscience… no feelings of remorse or shame, no sense of concern for others. When it comes to morality, you’re essentially without a soul, ruled by a sense of entitlement. Are you concerned about being different? Not at all. In fact, you consider it an asset, a strength — you are a wolf among sheep, acting while others hesitate. Sure, as a child, you were punished for microwaving the pet hamster or feeding firecrackers to the local duck population, but being a devious sort, you learned how to blend in, to appear ‘normal,’ all the while using your sociopathic tendencies to charm and manipulate your peers. For you, society’s laws have no meaning, you are governed by the Law of the Jungle… if you want something, you take it. And if you happen to be born into the right family, the right social class, well then, the sky’s the limit.”

“What about political figures? You’ve actually named names on both sides of the political spectrum, including a certain former vice president. Are you worried about being sued?”

“What I worry about is a world run by members of the military-industrial complex who believe they have the right to kill innocent people in order to achieve their objectives.”

“The book is called Macrosocial Evil and the Corruption of America, the author is Columbia’s own Professor Pankaj Patel, and I am Lisa Lewis for CSR online.” The reporter powered off the camera. “Thank you, Professor.”

“That was a good interview. Did you enjoy my book?”

“Actually, I only read the inside flap. But I’m sure it’s a great read.”

He sighed, watching her leave. Crossing Amsterdam Avenue, he headed straight for the blue lunch truck parked along the curb. “Yes, I’d like a turkey sandwich on wheat, lettuce and tomato—”

“—and a bottled water, got it.” The proprietor handed him his usual brown bag lunch, then swiped his debit card.

Making up for lost time, Patel ate as he walked, heading for Low Memorial Library. An hour of research, then an hour at the gym before my last class. I should call Manisha again. September 11 is always a difficult day for her and—

“Professor Patel, a quick question please?”

He turned, expecting to see the reporter, startled to find an Asian beauty in her twenties. Dressed in a black suit and chauffeur’s hat.

“How many letters are there in God’s name?”

The jolt of adrenaline seemed to electrify the pores of his skin. “Forty-two.”

She smiled. “Come with me, please.”

Suddenly feeling numb, he followed her across the street to an awaiting stretch limousine, his legs trembling beneath him. She opened the rear passenger-side door. “Please.”

Unsure, he looked inside.

The car was empty.

“Where are we going?”

“Someplace close. You will not miss your next class.”

He hesitated, then climbed in back, feeling like Alice entering the rabbit’s hole.

The limousine turned right on 116^th Street, then made another right on Broadway. Heading north, they entered Hamilton Heights, a neighborhood of grad students and ethnic professionals, named after Alexander Hamilton, one of America’s founding fathers.

The driver parked curbside at 135^th Street, then exited the vehicle, opening the door for the nervous college professor. She handed Patel a magnetic entry key, then pointed to a seven-story building across the street. “Suite 7-C.”

Unsure, Patel took the key and headed for the apartment building.

The doorman greeted him with a smile, as if he’d been expected. He nodded, crossing the marble-laden lobby to the elevators, using the magnetic card to summon a car.

Suite 7-C was on the top floor. Patel stepped out onto plush gray carpeting, the corridor empty. Locating the doubled oak door of Suite 7-C, he again used the keycard and gained entry.

The condo had an empty elegance hinting at Asian design. Polished bamboo floors led to floor-to-ceiling bay windows and a balcony overlooking the Hudson River. The living room was sparsely decorated — a white leather wraparound sofa, a flat-screen television, and a glass kitchen table. The high-priced apartment appeared to be unlived in.

“Hello? Is anyone here?”

Welcome.

The voice resonated in his brain, causing Patel to jump. He looked around, his scalp tingling, the thinning black hairs along the back of his neck standing on end.

Follow my utterance.

Taken aback, yet sensing he was in no danger, Patel walked past the living area to a short alcove and the master bedroom. The door was open, the king-size bed made up but empty. Hesitant, he peeked inside the master bathroom.

The whirlpool tub was rectangular, sized to hold two adults. It was filled with water.

Come closer.

Unnerved, Pankaj stepped forward until he was looming over the tub.

The small Asian man was underwater, lying faceup along the bottom. A white loincloth barely covered his groin, the color nearly blending with his pinkish ivory flesh, as hairless and shiny as the porcelain. The man’s ankles and wrists were held down by Velcro-covered weights, his eyes fixed open, revealing opaque pupils.

The body appeared lifeless. The smile was serene.

Patel fought the urge to flee. As he watched, the left side of the man’s bare chest jumped, the double cardiac beat releasing a ripple of blood that pulsated through his veins.

Incredible. How long has he been underwater?

Just over an hour.

Patel gasped a breath. “How are you—” Closing his eyes, he restated the question, this time saying it only in his thoughts. How are you able to communicate with me telepathically?

Through extensive study and the discipline acquired through time, I have been able to access the full extent of my brain. I sense you are uncomfortable. Please wait for me in the outer room. I shall only be a moment.

Pankaj backed out of the bathroom, closing the door behind him. He paused a brief second, long enough to hear a bizarre humming sound.

The professor double-timed it into the living room, certain that the Asian man had just levitated out of the tub.

He appeared ten minutes later, dressed in a gray Columbia University sweat suit, white socks, and Adidas sneakers. “Less unnerving?”

“Yes.”

Moving to the refrigerator, the Asian man removed two bottles of water, the green label adorned in a ten-pointed figure, branded pinchas water. He handed one to Patel, then sat across from him on the couch.

Patel stared at the man’s skin, which appeared to be entirely composed of keratin, the fibrous protein substance found—

“—in fingernails. Yes, my skin is slightly different than yours, Professor. Those who have come to know me have endeared me with the name, ‘the Elder.’ I know you have many questions. Before I provide you with the answers, let us begin with a simple deduction. Why are you here?”

“My teacher, Jerrod Mahurin. Before he died, he told me a man of great wisdom would seek me out. Are you that man?”

“Let us hope. What else did he tell you?”

“That I was to replace him in some sort of secret society… nine men hoping to bring balance to the world.”

“Again, let us hope.” The Asian man took a sip of water, then closed his opaque eyes, his face as serene as a pond on a windless day. “Little is known about the Society of the Nine Unknown Men. Our history traces back more than twenty-two centuries, to the year 265 b.c. and our founder, Emperor Asoka, the ruler of India and the grandson of Chandragupta, a warring leader who used violence to unify his nation. Asoka’s first taste of battle came when his army laid siege upon the region of Kalinga, his men slaughtering one hundred thousand foreign combatants. It is said the sight of the massacre mortified the Emperor, the senselessness of the bloodshed causing him to forever renounce war.”

Patel interrupted, excited. “I learned about Asoka when I studied back in India. The Emperor converted to Buddhism, adopting the Conquest of Dharma—principles of a right life. He preached respect toward all religions. The practice of positive virtues.”

The Elder nodded. “Asoka’s transformation spread peace throughout his empire, as well as Tibet, Nepal, Mongolia, and China. It was a sea change for the Mauryan dynasty, but for its last ruling emperor it was not enough. While Buddhism offered the prospect of enlightenment, what Asoka desired was the knowledge of existence: How did man come to be? How could man become one with the Creator? What was man’s true purpose in this world? Why did man seem to have a propensity to commit violence and acts of evil? Most of all, Asoka wanted to know what was really out there, beyond the physical world… beyond death?

“To find these answers, Asoka secretly recruited nine of Asia’s most renowned wise men — the greatest sages, scientists, and thinkers in the land. The Society of the Nine Unknown Men was tasked with seeking the truth about existence. Each member was responsible for recording his assigned body of information in a sacred text so that the acquired knowledge could be passed on to an apprentice worthy of safeguarding the information.

“Emperor Asoka died in 238 b.c., having never obtained the answers he coveted. His leadership would be missed; over the next three centuries India would suffer a series of invasions, falling under the spell of foreign rulers. But the quest of the Nine would go on.

“In a.d. 174, a man named Gelut Panim, a blood descendant of Emperor Asoka and one of the appointed lineage of the Nine, heard a strange tale about a man in the Holy Land who could walk on water and heal the sick. Seeking this man’s wisdom, the Tibetan traveled to the city of Jerusalem, only to learn he had arrived too late, that the holy man, known as Rabbi John ben Joseph, had been tortured to death by the Romans.”

“You are speaking of Jesus.”

“Correct. Panim learned that much of Jesus's teaching came from his study of Kabbalah, an ancient wisdom that had been passed down from God to Abraham the Patriarch, who encoded it in the Book of Formation. Moses acquired the knowledge at Mount Sinai, only the Israelites were not ready for it — its energy remained buried in the original tablets. For the next fourteen centuries the Jewish sages kept the ancient wisdom hidden, encoded in the Torah's original Aramaic.

“The Romans had strictly forbidden the study of Torah within Jerusalem. After skinning alive the great Kabbalist, Rabbi Akiva, alive, the Romans went after his remaining students. One man, Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai, managed to escape to northern Israel with his son. The two holy men remained in Galilee, hidden in a mountain cave. They spent the next thirteen years decoding the ancient wisdom, which they eventually transcribed into the Zohar, the book of splendor.

“It was about this time that Panim found his way to the Sea of Galilee and the city of Tiberius, where he learned Rabbi Shimon had just come down from the mountain. When he finally found the Rabbi, he offered the man a small fortune to share his acquired wisdom, but the teacher refused. Realizing he had insulted the holy man, Panim dismissed his entourage, donated his gold and camels to the poor, then denied himself food until the Kabbalist would reconsider. For the next eight days he followed the Rabbi around until he collapsed, close to death. Impressed by the Asian’s newfound sense of humility, the teacher brought Panim back to his home and fed him, instructing his new student to meet him in a cave on the next full moon, where he was teaching the ancient wisdom to Rabbi Akiva’s surviving sages.

“Though the Zohar’s knowledge was intended for all of God’s children, mankind simply wasn’t ready to comprehend concepts involving the Big Bang or atoms, let alone the true purpose of man’s existence in the physical universe. And so the Zohar remained hidden until the 13th century.

“Gelut Panim returned to Asia decades later, a changed man. Convening the Society of the Nine in Tibet, he divided the ancient wisdom into sacred texts, assigning a field of study to each member. The ninth text dealt with the mystical, its teachings defying the laws of physics, tapping into the higher realms to enable mind over matter. So powerful and dangerous was this last subject that Gelut Panim felt it best to safeguard this sacred book of wisdom himself.

“And so the Nine ventured forth, spreading their teachings where they felt the knowledge might do the most good. Plato and Pythagoras called the ancient wisdom ‘Prisca Theologia.’ Aristotle, Galileo, and Copernicus all served time as members of the Nine, along with Alexandre Yersin, the eighteenth-century French-Swiss bacteriologist who received knowledge from the book of microbiology in order to develop a cure for the bubonic plague. Isaac Newton acquired his own personal copy of the Zohar, relying on it as a scientific reference. Albert Einstein used the ancient wisdom to advance his Theory of Relativity.

“The Society of the Nine Unknown Men had hoped to use the ancient wisdom to maintain the balance between good — the Creator’s Light — and evil, which is the darkness brought on by man’s ego. According to the ancient wisdom, when the scales of humanity are finally swayed toward the Light, then fulfillment and immortality shall be had by all. But when negativity outweighs the positive forces, then the Angel of Death shall again walk freely upon the Earth at a time known as the End of Days. According to the Zohar, this epoch of human existence began in the Age of Aquarius on the twenty-third day of Elul, in the Hebrew year of 5760, ushered in by ‘a great tall city, its many towers collapsed by flames, the sound of which shall awaken the entire world.’ The Gregorian calendar date: September 11, 2001.”

Patel felt his blood pressure rising. “September 11 was not a supernal event, it was a false-flag conspiracy, involving lunatics hell-bent on rewriting the map of the Middle East.”

The Elder smiled with his eyes. “That you believe this does not make it so. As brilliant as you are, you remain stuck in the one percent of existence we call Malchut, the physical world of chaos and pain, war and pestilence, dying and fear. In your latest book, you blame September 11 on the psychopath, sweeping their enablers into a big tent labeled macrosocial evil.”

“I am a psychologist. Understanding the root causes of evil is what psychology is all about.”

“And yet nothing changes. Murder and genocide go on, despite the advent of drugs and overflowing prisons. Perhaps you are looking at the roots of the wrong tree?”

Willing himself to remain calm, the professor took a deep breath, then exhaled, flashing a false smile. “Go on, I’m listening.”

“No, you are hearing with your ego. You have formulated a judgment without having heard one utterance. You remain deceived by your five senses, which, in turn, are being manipulated by the opponent… the Satan.” The Elder pronounced the word: Sa-tahn, emphasizing separation between the two syllables.

Patel felt his patience waning. “With all due respect, I did not come here to be lectured by the Buddhist version of David Blaine. From what my teacher implied, your society could help root out corruption by identifying it to the masses—”

“—while seeking justice?”

“Two wars, a trillion dollars, a million innocent lives stolen. What’s wrong with a little justice?”

“Justice will happen for each of us when we leave this realm. What you seek is driven by the ego… the self. You cannot experience justice and true happiness — the pursuit of justice will make you miserable.”

This must be a test… he’s testing me.

Life is a test, Professor Patel. Pain and suffering, chaos and evil all exist to test us.

Patel ground his teeth. “I hate that you can hear my thoughts.”

“That is your ego speaking. The answers you seek are out there, only they have been purposely hidden from us.”

“Why? Why must all the answers be hidden?”

“Because we asked the Creator to hide them.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You will in time. For now, there are more immediate concerns. As I mentioned, when a critical mass realizes that we are all brothers and sisters, then the world will be transformed, and we shall receive immortality. The pendulum, however, swings both ways. There are times when the negative consciousness of humanity becomes so widespread that darkness affects every element of the physical world. When the desire to hate outweighs love, and war trumps peace, the Creator affects a general cleansing. The last time this happened on a global scale was during the time of Noah. We believe another supernal event may be coming soon, perhaps on the winter solstice—”

“—December 21, the day of the dead.” Pankaj Patel swallowed hard.

“My wife, Manisha, she is a necromancer — one who communicates with anguished souls. Manisha has told me things, describing warnings from the spiritual world about the End of Days.”

“But you refused to listen. You harbored doubts.”

“Regrettably, I am a man of ego.”

“It is never too late to change.”

“I shall try to change. As for the Nine… replacing my teacher, I regret I am not yet worthy of this honor.”

The Elder nods. “I remember the day I first met your mentor. It was in Communist China shortly after he was arrested and tortured by the dark forces he would spend a lifetime attempting to shed his light of knowledge upon. He was more than a brother to me, he was a trusted friend. And like the rest of us, he made mistakes.

“There is a saying: ‘May you live in interesting times.’ Some interpret this as a blessing, others a curse. I prefer to see it as an opportunity for great change. Noah lived in interesting times — a time of great evil and selfishness where man’s darkest, most barbaric traits reigned supreme. The Creator made a covenant between Himself and this righteous man, only then did He wipe the wicked from the face of the Earth. Abraham, too, made his covenant, and Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed. The same with Moses. In each generation of evil, a righteous man has been selected and tested, each challenge intended to strengthen the chosen one’s sense of spirituality and certainty, each covenant made between man and the Creator leading to the destruction of evil. Thousands of years have passed, the cycle repeated many times, culminating in this, the End of Days. If there is to be salvation this time around, it can only be found within the Light. Fail, and darkness shall rule the earth, leading to global annihilation and the death of more than six billion people.”

The seniormost member of the Nine stood, the professor following suit.

“Pankaj Patel, do you swear upon your soul and all that is holy to safeguard the body of knowledge about to be entrusted in your care?”

“Upon my soul, I swear it.”

“Do you swear to uphold and honor the secrecy and sanctity of the Society of the Nine Unknown Men under penalty of torture and death?”

“Upon my soul, I swear it.”

“Do you swear to add to the body of knowledge for which you have been sworn to safeguard, and in due time recruit a qualified successor?”

“Upon my soul, I swear it.”

The Asian monk stepped forward and placed his keratin-flesh palms upon Pankaj Patel’s head. “I need to establish a connection with your biorhythm, linking your DNA with ours. In this way, you will know your brothers when your paths cross, and the dark forces can never penetrate our inner circle. You may feel a slight electrical discharge.”

The professor jumped as a surge of energy raced down his spinal cord, then distally throughout his anatomy by way of his nerve endings.

“Pankaj Patel, I welcome you into the Society of the Nine Unknown Men. From this day until your last, you shall be known among your brethren only as Number Seven. May the Creator sanctify your acceptance with His blessings and keep you and yours in the Light.”

“Thank you, Elder, for this honor. What is my first assignment?”

Gelut Panim, blood descendant of Emperor Asoka, student of Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai, turned to face the swiftly moving waters of the Hudson River. “I need you to be my eyes and ears in Manhattan. I need your wife to be our barometer in the supernal realm. There is a storm approaching, my friend. The Angel of Death has been summoned—

— and for reasons that remain unknown, it has targeted your family.”

October

“Yes, he’s suffering from stress-related paranoia, but this is way beyond the usual post-traumatic disorder. The inner rage, the feelings of emptiness, most of all his unstable self-image… this is textbook borderline personality disorder.”

Dr. Mindy Murphy closed Patrick Shepherd’s folder, handing it to Dr. Nelson. “Bottom line, Leigh, this one’s dangerous. Pass him on to Bellevue and let them deal with it.”

“Pass him on? Mindy, this man sacrificed everything… his family, his career — now you want to lock him up in a padded cell?”

“It doesn’t have to be like that. There are new approaches for BPD. Dialectical behavior therapy has shown real promise.”

“Good! You can treat him right here.”

“Leigh—”

“Mindy, you’re the best psychologist in the system.”

“I’m the only psychologist in the system. Two of my associates quit last spring, a third took early retirement. My workload went from seventy-five patients to three hundred. I’m no longer practicing psychology, Leigh, these monthly meetings are nothing more than triage. Face facts, the system’s underfunded and overwhelmed, and sometimes soldiers fall through the cracks. You can’t save everybody.”

“This one needs to be saved.”

“Why?”

“Because he does.”

Dr. Murphy sighed. “Okay. You want to play Florence Nightingale, go for it, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Just tell me what to do.”

“For starters, don’t try to change him right now. Accept him as he is but don’t coddle. If he tries to hurt himself again or contemplates suicide, let him know he’s inconveniencing you, even jeopardizing your career. Have you measured him for a prosthetic arm?”

“Last week.”

“Was he receptive?”

“No, but I bribed him with a DVD copy of Bull Durham. I’m being told there’s a six-month backlog on prosthetics.”

“It used to be worse. But getting him a new arm is potentially a good thing, it’ll give him something to focus his mind on. If nothing else, it could help alter his self-image. The biggest challenge you’re facing right now is finding a way to reignite his pilot light, to get him to desire something, to set a goal, to feel useful again. He’s in decent physical shape, why don’t you put him to work in the wards. Helping others is a great way to get someone to feel needed again.”

“Good idea.” Leigh Nelson scribbled herself a note. “What about his family?”

“What about yours? Shouldn’t you be home with the husband and kids?”

“Mindy, his wife deserted him, and he has a daughter he hasn’t seen in eleven years. Should I facilitate a reunion or not?”

“Go slow. There are a lot of anger issues there, feelings of abandonment. What makes you so sure you can even find them?”

“The two of them grew up in Brooklyn, they were childhood sweethearts. She might still have relatives living over there.”

Dr. Murphy shook her head. “You’re married with kids, you work sixty-hour weeks, but somehow you have time to search for one of your patient’s estranged wife’s family who may or may not live somewhere in Brooklyn. Leigh, what are you doing?”

“I’m trying to save a lost soul, Mindy. Isn’t that worth a little time out of my day? A little sacrifice?”

“Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance: The five stages of grief.”

“You think Shep’s experiencing them?”

The former gymnast stood, tossing Patrick Shepherd’s file onto a stack of fifty. “No, Leigh, I was talking about you.”

Andrew Bradosky turned north on US 15, the four-cylinder car lacking the power of his new Mustang. He had debated all morning about whether to waste another fifty dollars on a rental car. In the end, caution had outweighed frugality. Besides, what was fifty dollars when a big payday was coming down the pike.

Tonight’s meeting would be the third in the last five weeks with the black ops officer. Andrew suspected Ernest Lozano was either CIA or DIA, maybe even Homeland Security. In the end, it didn’t matter, as long as the deposits kept arriving every two weeks into his offshore account.

The Hampton Inn was on the right. Andrew turned into the driveway and parked, then headed for the lobby, the Baltimore Orioles baseball cap tucked low over his eyes. He kept his head down as he moved past the registration desk and bar, then took the elevator up to the third floor.

Andrew Bradosky was thirty-six when he began working at Fort Detrick following a two-year stint at Battelle’s facility in Ohio. To his fellow employees he was a fun-loving guy, always good for a beer after work or the occasional male-bonding weekend in Vegas. His supervisors generally liked him, until time and activity revealed his work ethic to be less than stellar. To his closest friends, Andy remained the consummate bullshit artist, which was why they loved him. While he could charm the underpants off the hot chick with the frosty attitude, most of his peers agreed the terminal bachelor lacked the substance to progress from one-night stands to more meaningful relationships. In fact, Andrew preferred things that way. In small doses, women were sport; the trouble began when they started to nest, something that was clearly not in his best interest.

What Andrew Bradosky was really interested in was a better-paying job. Perhaps that was the reason he had maneuvered himself into the life of Mary Klipot. Had he met her in a bar or at a social gathering, she would never have progressed beyond small talk, but at Fort Detrick, the microbiologist had an intellectual flare that made her pseudoattractive. Andrew dubbed this the “Tony Soprano effect.” In real life, a fat, balding middle-aged man like the HBO character could never get the kind of pussy he got on the show, but being a mob boss gave him a certain flare that attracted beautiful, albeit problematic women.

Mary Klipot’s intellect and job title empowered her in the same manner. The fact that she was a loner working in-charge of a BSL-4 lab only made getting to know her that much more enticing.

The first day he had introduced himself at lunch was beyond awkward.

During the second lunch encounter, she had walked away.

For the next two weeks, she had avoided him by eating lunch in her lab. Ever the opportunist, Andrew learned that Mary worked out in the campus gym every other morning. Playing it cool, he began showing up to pump iron, never acknowledging her presence until the third workout. A few hellos led to small talk, enough to set the introverted redhead at ease.

His diligence paid off a month later when Mary selected him as a lab tech for Project Scythe.

Andrew stepped off the hotel elevator, following arrowed signs to room 310. He knocked twice, then once, then twice more.

The door swung open, Ernest Lozano beckoning him in. He pointed to the bed, reserving the desk chair for himself. “So how are things at work?”

“We’re progressing nicely.”

“I didn’t summon you for a weather report. When will the agent be weaponized?”

“You said spring. We’re on target. March or April, for sure.”

Andrew never saw the stiletto until its point was inches away from his right eye. The lanky agent’s powerful upper body leaned over him, pushing him back on the mattress, his face so close, the lab technician could smell a whiff of Alfredo sauce mixed in with the Aqua Velva aftershave. “We’ve paid you fifty thousand. For fifty grand I want assurances, not best guesses.”

Andrew forced a nervous grin. “Easy big fella. We’re on track, at least we were until Mary found out she was pregnant. Things got sort of complicated, but we’re working it out, I swear.”

Lozano backed off the bed. “Is it yours?”

Andrew sat up, wiping beads of sweat from his forehead. “That’s where it gets complicated. Mary’s a strict Catholic girl. Last April, we went to Cancún together and sort of got toasted doing shots of tequila.”

“So you busted her.”

“Yeah, but she doesn’t remember anything about it, and all things considered, I figured it’d be best if I left it that way. But now that she’s pregnant…”

“You told her?”

“I tried. She’s convinced it was an immaculate conception. You gotta understand what I’m dealing with here. When it comes to biowarfare and genetically altering viruses, Mary Klipot’s as brilliant as they come. Stuff like sex and emotional bonding and normal-relationship crap, she’s like a functional retard. I mean, there’s some seriously dark shit floating around in this chick’s head… spooky shit. So hell yeah, if she wants to believe she’s carrying Jesus’s kid, who am I to tell her otherwise. As long as you keep paying me, I’ll play father Joseph to her mother Mary, but the moment Scythe is ready for deployment, I’m outta there.”

Lozano crossed the room, returning to the desk chair. “When is she due?”

“Third week in January, though she’s convinced the doctor’s lying. She swears baby Jesus will be born on Christmas Day.”

“You need to stabilize the situation.”

“How?”

“Propose marriage. Move in together. Tell her you want to be the baby’s surrogate father. Don’t do anything to rock the boat. Meanwhile, tie in the Scythe deadline with the baby’s birth. Push her to finish as soon as possible, so she can take a long maternity leave.”

“That could backfire. Scythe’s supervisor, Lydia Gagnon, is already talking about bringing in another microbiologist or two. Mary agreed we need to keep things as proprietary as possible, especially after all those sanctions.”

“What sanctions?”

“Don’t bullshit a bullshitter, friend. You and your CIA pals started offing microbiologists at a steady clip right after 9/11. Six Israeli dudes shot down on two different airliners, that cell biologist at the University of Miami… the Soviet defector who had his head smashed in with a hammer. Mary knew Set Van Nguyen, and she went to grad school with Tanya Holzmayer. Tanya was shot dead when she answered the door for a pizza-delivery boy. Guyang Huang was shot in the head while jogging in a park in Foster City. Nineteen dead scientists in the first four months following 9/11, another seventy-one while Bush and Cheney were still in office. Bodies found in suitcases, two in freezers, a half dozen in car accidents. No arrests, everything kept out of the news and swept conveniently under the carpet. All of these eggheads had two things in common: Each worked for facilities that performed black ops biomedical research for the CIA, and they were all considered frontline scientists who would be selected to stop a global pandemic, should one ever break out.”

Andrew got up off the bed, his feeble act of defiance building into a rehearsed speech. “You wanna use Scythe to wipe out a bunch of towel-heads, go for it, but here are my terms: First, forget the hundred grand, that was a down payment. I want two million deposited into my Credit Suisse account, fifty grand a week from now through March, with the balance due the week we turn over Scythe. Second, as insurance against pizza-delivery boys carrying guns and hammers, I’ve instructed attorneys in several different states to deliver the details of Scythe and our little arrangement to certain members of the foreign press in the event something should happen to me.”

Lozano’s expression caused Andrew’s cockiness to crawl back up his sphincter. “Deliver Scythe by March 1, and you might just live to spend your money. Fail, and you’ll join the Virgin Mary and Baby Jesus in an unmarked grave.”

The East River glistens olive green as they head south across the bridge for Brooklyn.

“Your fastball had nice movement, your breaking ball froze their right-handed batters. But the college ranks and minor leagues are full of losing pitchers with great stuff. We need to start working on your mental game.”

Coach Segal is driving the van, one of two school vehicles transporting Roosevelt High’s varsity baseball team home from a 3-to-1 playoff victory in the district quarterfinals. Patrick Shepherd is up front in the passenger seat. The sixteen-year-old junior is today’s winning pitcher. Squeezed in between Patrick and his baseball coach is Morrie Segal’s daughter. Shep’s classmate and best friend is resting her head against his left shoulder, her eyes closed—

— her right hand snaking its way playfully beneath the baseball glove and warm-up jacket resting on his left thigh, her touch sending jolts of electricity through his groin.

“…your front shoulder and head were locked onto your target throughout your stride, and you kept your shoulder and hips closed, ready to uncoil, just like we worked on. You had perfect symmetry today, Patrick, but form will only you carry you so far. Sandy Koufax said many pitchers master the physical aspects of baseball, but most never become big winners because they fail to develop the mental part of their game. Sure, you thrive in the pressure situations — I love that about you. But games can be won and lost with two outs and no men on base. You gave up a meaningless home run to a backup catcher hitting.225 because you didn’t feel challenged. Mentally, you had already ended the inning. As a result, you rushed a curveball that never broke instead of delivering it smooth and easy.”

Her bare right thigh is pressed against the back of his left hand. Her tan flesh is silky smooth. He attempts to inch his hand beneath her leg, only to jam his finger painfully against the buckle of her seat belt.

She closes her eyes, stifling a giggle.

“Every pitch counts. You need to play mind games. Challenge yourself so that you attack every hitter. Steve Carlton would visualize the lanes of each pitch before he threw, as if the batter weren’t even there. Focus on the catcher’s sign. Take a moment to visualize the successful flight of the pitch. Inhale slowly as you visualize, smell the fear in the batter’s sweat.”

Strands of the girl’s long blond hair lay on his left shoulder. He inhales the scent of jasmine shampoo, her pheromones an aphrodisiac to his senses.

“You make a bad pitch… let it go. Walk off the mound. Get your anger under control by breathing. Remember, breathing is affected by what and how you think. Clear the negativity. Visualize success. Retake the mound only when you’ve regained control of your emotions.”

The tips of her fingers inch closer to his groin, the girl now in full control of his body. What had begun as an innocent game of chicken has turned into something far more exciting, and he’s unsure of what to do next. Sitting upright and at attention, he’s afraid to breathe as she casually inches her hand closer to his genitals, the fabric of his uniform stretching…

“—ice the shoulder as soon as you get home, the last thing we need is swelling.”

Her fingernails work the inside part of his plate — teasing him before retreating high and outside. Completely under her spell, he exhales and closes his eyes as she moves in again.

“I know pitching again on two days’ rest is asking a lot, but if we can get you on the mound again Friday, then you’ve got a week to rest before the finals. Are you sore? How do you feel?”

“Baby, I feel great.”

Patrick Shepherd sat up in bed. Eyes wide. Heart pounding. Tee shirt matted to his back and neck in perspiration. Anxiety builds. He searched the darkness. Focused on the glowing red exit sign. A temporary lifeline.

Reaching to the bedside table on his right, he searched inside the top drawer for the envelope. Inside was the partially burnt Polaroid. Taken before his first deployment, the picture was shot inside Fenway Park just after he had been called up from the minors. In the photo, his wife was holding their two-year-old daughter while Patrick, wearing his Red Sox baseball uniform, was leaning in from behind, embracing them in his arms.

A sudden rush of phantom pain. Shep squeezed his eyes shut, the crushing, bone-stabbing sensations causing every muscle to quiver.

Breathe! Regain control of your emotions.

He forced slow, deliberate breaths. The agony tapered off to a more tolerable level.

He sank back against the pillow. Attempted to sift through the shards of memory that always seemed to accompany the bout… the memory of the accident, the last day of his final deployment.

Gray sky. Warm metal in his left hand. A blinding light. The skull-rattling blast obliterating all sound, the sensation of his liquefying skin submerging him in blackness.

Shep opened his eyes. He shook loose the horror. Returned his attention to the Polaroid.

The explosive had been doubly cruel; not only had it robbed him of his left arm while gouging a hole in his memory, it had stolen the lasting images on the photo, singeing his wife’s head. Try as he might, Patrick could not lock down her face, his mind’s eye catching only fleeting, frustrating glimpses.

For wounded vets, the psychological scars associated with losing a limb run deep, often leading to bouts of depression. For Patrick Shepherd, the burden is nothing compared to the empty feeling of being separated from a wife and child whose presence he registers in his heart but whose faces he can no longer remember. The loss remains a constant assault on Shep’s identity. In waking hours, it could be overwhelming; during sleep, it fostered intense nightmares.

His doctors in Germany had given him a choice as to which stateside VA hospital he wished to be sent, and the choice was simple. From that day forth, he had imagined himself lying in bed, or perhaps engaging in therapy when his soul mate and daughter — now a teen — entered to reclaim him.

Through the partitioned curtain surrounding his bed, he listened to the snores and catcalls of his fellow war vets, his eyes glazing over with tears as he locked his gaze upon the glowing red exit sign, feeling as alone as a human being can possibly feel.

November

Situated on the outskirts of Mexico City’s historic downtown, the town of Tepito was located in the borough of Delegaciôn Cuauhtéemoc, an area composed of three neighborhoods — Tepito, Lagunilla, and Peralvillo. Together, they made up one of the largest flea markets in all Latin America. Lagunilla and Peralvillo are bohemian markets, selling everything from tee shirts to antiques and jewelry. Tepito, also known as the “Barrio Bravo” (tough neighborhood), was strictly black market.

Tepito’s history dated back to the Aztec Empire, which established the area as part of its slave trade. When the people were forbidden to sell their goods in Tlatelolco, the Tepiteños set up their own market — a place where thieves could move their stolen goods.

Today, the neighborhood was ravaged with crime, policed by more than fifty gangs, and ruled by drug cartels. Enter the market, and you would find fake designer clothes, stolen cameras, and stall after stall of pirated CDs and DVDs. Used electronics were sold as new, cookware and other goods bore unbeatable prices, having “fallen off the truck.” Lose your passport, and you could probably buy it back in Tepito for $5,000. Need phony documents or a gun while visiting Mexico? Tepito was your destination.

The people of Tepito were very religious. There were altars erected on almost every corner, dominated by the presence of La Santa Muerte—Saint Death.

No one knew for certain how this female Grim Reaper came into being. Historians traced her origins to Mictlantecuhtli, an Aztec death goddess whose skeleton was said to belong to the Virgin Mary. Condemned by the Roman Catholic Church, the cult of Sante Muerte remained underground until 2001. From one altar in Tepito rose twenty, the “skinny girl’s” growing congregation demonstrating that the power of prayer was not limited to those who chose to live life without sin.

To gangbangers and members of Mexico’s drug cartels, “Santisima Muerte” was a spiritual figure whose presence provided psychological strength. Prisoners prayed to her for protection against other inmates. Mexico’s poor, sick, and oppressed sought the salvation she offered, free of judgment.

Others prayed to the female Grim Reaper to strike their enemies dead.

The taxi motored north along the Avenue Paseo de la Reforma, the driver glancing every few minutes at his female passenger in the rearview mirror. Gold cross, no other jewels. Plain purse, no designer wear. Still, an American, and pregnant at that. The wedding ring is probably in the purse.

He flashed a false smile. “Senorita, you have been to the Mercado de Tepito before?”

The woman continued staring out the window, absentmindedly palpating her swollen abdomen with her right palm, her left hand twirling a strand of silky red hair.

“I love you Mary. I want to be there when you have our baby. I want us to be a family. Marry me, Mary, and make me the happiest guy in the world.”

If Andrew Bradosky’s proposal was a blessing from heaven, then the two-carat engagement ring was the icing on the cake. Her head in the clouds, all Mary could think about was making arrangements for a December wedding.

Andrew had other plans. “Mary, darling, a December wedding… it’s too soon. We’d have to rush out invitations, secure a banquet room, there are a million details. June is better for a wedding. The baby will be born, you’ll have your figure back. Plus, I can hire a wedding planner while you focus on finishing Scythe.”

Andrew’s sentimentality touched her to the core. And he was right. How could she possibly prepare for the best day of her life while her mind remained absorbed in untangling the genetic secrets of the Black Death? And so she threw herself into her work, intent on finishing the weaponization of Scythe a full week before Baby Jesus’s birth. After the blessed event, she’d take a six-month leave of absence, giving her time to bond with her child and plan out her wedding. She could not recall being so happy, feeling so alive.

Three weeks later, she began having doubts.

The cost of her diamond ring was beyond Andrew’s means, but she had dismissed it as an emotional buy. His new suits and plasma television were justified by his decision to sell his condo and move into Mary’s farmhouse, a recent investment in a down real-estate market. Then there was his new Mustang convertible. He had shrugged the purchase off a month earlier, explaining that his lease was expiring and he had gotten a good deal. When she decided to contact the salesman, another red flag popped up — he had paid cash for the new car.

Where was the sudden influx of money coming from? Could she risk allowing Baby Jesus to be raised under the same roof with a man she wasn’t sure she could trust?

Mary had met Rosario Martinez at the gym, the two women sometimes working out together. Her curiosity was piqued by the female Grim Reaper tattoos that covered the Mexican woman’s arms and back, one of which bore a six-inch scar across her left scapula.

“Saint Death watches over me. When I was younger, I was arrested for selling cocaine. The judge sentenced me to seven years’ hard time at Almoloya de Juárez, a maximum-security prison. My cellmate had painted the skinny girl on our cell wall. Many of the inmates had Santa Muerte tattoos. My cellmate told me the skinny girl watched over her flock, especially the women. One day, two gangbangers jumped me in the shower. One hit me in the throat, another stabbed me in the back, the blade slicing through my tattoo of Santa Muerte. I woke up in the hospital, having been in a coma for two weeks. My doctor said it was a miracle I survived. But I knew Saint Death had saved me, you see, I saw her in my dreams. She was standing over me, wearing a red satin dress, her hair as dark as midnight. I promised that if she saved me I would make something of myself when I left prison. And I did. I owe my life to her.”

“I’d rather be dead than worship Satan.”

“This is not Satan worship. I go to the same church and believe in the same God as you. But all of us are going to die, and I want my death to be sweet, not bitter. I’ve done things in my life I’m not proud of. Saint Death forgave my sins, now she takes care of me. One day you may need protection. One day you may wonder about your man’s intentions. There is a place in Mexico called Tepito. On the first of each month is a holy day, dedicated to the ‘skinny girl.’ Thousands of people go there to ask her blessings for the coming month. Go there, ask for her help. If you wish for money, she will grant you prosperity. If you are in danger, she will protect you from those who wish you harm. If you fear your man will leave you, pray to her, and she will punish him should his eye ever wander.”

It was dark by the time the taxi exited the Avenue Paseo de la Reforma thoroughfare onto Calle Matamorosa, one of the local roads into Tepito. The traffic was congested. The crowd spilled over the sidewalk into the streets. A local startled her by banging on her window. He held up a baggy of marijuana. Despite her objections, he continued to barter until the taxi moved on.

The driver stared at her in the rearview mirror. “Tepito can be a dangerous place, Señorita. Tell me what you seek, and I can take you where you need to go.”

She unfolded the paper given to her by her Mexican acquaintance, then read the address. “Twelve Alfareria Street.”

The driver’s eyes widened. “You are here to see the skinny girl?” He crossed himself, then surged through an opening in the traffic, vanquishing all prior thoughts.

He drove another half mile before pulling over. “The crowd is too large, Señorita, they’ve shut down Alfareria Street. You’ll have to walk from here.”

She paid the driver, then grabbed her tote bag and stepped out into a swarm of brown people, all moving toward one destination. Many locals were carrying Saint Death dolls, the four-foot skeleton figurines dolled up in long wigs and color-coded robes — white for protection, red for passion, gold for money, and black for bringing harm to another.

Somewhere up ahead, a mariachi band played.

Number 12 Alfareria Street was a brown brick apartment building with white trim, located across the street from a run-down laundromat. A small storefront featured a six-foot window display that had been converted into a shrine. Situated behind the glass was a life-size figure of La Santa Muerte—Saint Death, dressed in a bridal gown.

Mary followed a procession line, pushing in closer. The path leading to the shrine was adorned with fresh flowers, the ground made luminous from the flames of several hundred burning candles. Worshippers bearing color-coded candles knelt before the shrine, then rubbed themselves with the wax offerings before lighting them. Everyone brought gifts. Cigarettes and alcohol. Candies and apples. One of the owners of the shop placed the lit end of a cigar into his mouth and blew clouds of smoke out the other end at the doll, filling the shrine.

Mary moved closer, sensing the crowd staring at her. She assumed it was because she was an American. Then she heard the whispers, catching a few recognizable words in Spanish.

Pelirrojo? Rojo is red… they’re staring at my hair.

She waited for a Hispanic family to finish their prayer, then knelt before the window, looking up at the female Grim Reaper manikin. The doll’s long wavy hair was scarlet, the color matching her own.

From her bag she removed a stack of hundred-dollar bills, then turned to a short heavyset Mexican woman, her dark hair marked by a white “skunk’s tail.” “I have a request for the Saint. How do I go about asking it?”

“Come with me, Señorita.” Enriqueto Romero led Mary through her store to a supply room out back. “You are American, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Then you have traveled a long way to be here on this holiest of holies. The color of your hair is shared this evening by the skinny one, this is no coincidence. You are about to embark on a very special journey, am I right?”

“The man in my life, I need to know if he really desires me. I’ve been abandoned before—”

“—and you do not wish to be abandoned again. The most Holy Death can help in these regards. For this you must purchase a statue. The statue comes with a string knotted seven times. Cover the string with your beloved’s semen, place it around the skinny girl’s neck within its notch, then recite the ejaculatory prayer for nine consecutive nights. The Saint will make clear the intentions in your man’s heart.”

“And if he is lying to me?

“Then the Saint will be waiting for him… in Hell.”

Built in 1929, the eight-story, sixty-four-thousand-square-foot building had originally been a toy factory, the company’s big seller being the first electric football game. Today, the Toy Factory Lofts featured eleven-foot ceilings and wall-to-wall eight-foot-high windows.

Doug Nelson begrudgingly followed his wife and the building manager down the fourth-floor hallway to the last door on the right. “Kind of unusual for a landlord to hold an apartment open this long for a soldier.”

Joe Eddy Brown, known to the occupants of the Lofts as “the Brown-Man,” fumbled to find the right key. “Most of these apartments are condos. Mr. Shepherd bought his outright back in 2001.”

“What about his ex-wife? She ever come around?”

Brown paused before inserting the pass key in the lock, running a weathered palm over his cleanly shaved head. “Haven’t seen the missus around here for a while. Damn shame, she was easy on the eyes. Oh, well, you know what I always say, better to have loved and lost than never loved at all.”

“Actually, Tennyson said that,” Doug said. “And the man spent most of his life penniless and ended up in a sanitarium.”

Leigh shot her husband a chastising look.

The loft was small, composed of a six-hundred-square-foot living area, a bathroom, and several large storage closets. A modern kitchen faced a view of the Williamsburg Bridge. The queen-size bed was located in one corner of the room, the mattress on the floor, the blankets and sheets unmade. There were no photos or artwork on the walls, no decorations of any kind… as if the owner occupied the dwelling but never called it home.

“I know what you’re thinking — there’s not much to look at. Mr. Shepherd, he pretty much spent his days walking the streets. He’d come home late at night, oftentimes drunk. Found him on the stoop passed out on more than one occasion. We don’t tolerate that sort of behavior in Brown Town, but him being a war hero, I sort of let it slide. If he’s intending to move back—”

“Mr. Shepherd has no memory that this place even exists,” Leigh clarifies. “I’m only here because I found the address in his military file.”

“And I’m only here because my wife dragged me here on a Saturday night.” Doug met his wife’s glare with his own.

“Ten minutes, Doug. Stop being so selfish.”

“I’m being selfish?” He searches a magazine rack. Grabs an old issue of Sports Illustrated. “Let me know when you’re ready to leave. I’ll be in the bathroom.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Brown. Where’s that closet you mentioned on the phone?”

Leigh followed the building manager to a mirrored wall. Brown tapped it with two fingers, releasing the magnetic clasp. He pulled open the door, revealing a walk-in storage area.

There were a few collared shirts on hangers and a navy suit. The rest of Patrick Shepherd’s wardrobe was set in piles of dirty laundry. A whiff of alcohol-soaked denim, marinated with body odor before being aged, gravitated up from the polished wood floor.

The stacks of cardboard boxes appeared more enticing.

“Mr. Brown, I need a few minutes to go through my patient’s belongings.”

“Just pull the door closed when you leave. I’ll come back later to lock the dead bolt.”

“Thank you.” She waited until he left before rummaging through the first few boxes. Baseball gear. Grass-stained cleats and jerseys. Bundles of never-worn tee shirts with the words, boston strangler printed across the chest. She sorted through three more boxes, then found the foot locker buried beneath a pile of jackets.

Going down on one knee, she popped open the steel clasps and raised the lid.

Aged air, musky and filled with discarded memories escaped from the long-sealed container. She removed a woman’s hooded pink Rutgers University sweatshirt, then two toddler outfits, one a Yankees uniform, the larger one a Red Sox shirt. The three college textbooks, all dealing with European literature, were marked up and highlighted, the curvy penmanship clearly a woman’s handwriting. She searched in vain for a name, then saw the framed photo, the picture taken outside a college dormitory.

The girl was barely twenty, blond, and model-gorgeous, her long hair wavy and bowed. Her boyfriend was hugging her from behind. Boyishly handsome, he wore a cocky smile. Leigh stared at the image of Patrick Shepherd in his youth. Look at you. You had the world by the balls, and you walked away… just so you could crawl through hell.

“Leigh? You need to see this.”

Picture in hand, she joined her husband in the bathroom.

Doug pointed to the medicine cabinet. “I’d say your boy has some serious demons.”

The handwritten note, yellowed with age, is taped to the mirror.

He’s worse than I thought… She opened the medicine cabinet, its narrow shelves filled with expired prescriptions. “Amoxapine. Thorazine, Haldol. Trifluoperazine, Triavil, Moban. There’s enough antidepressants and tranquilizers here to medicate the entire building.”

“Looks like he was suicidal long before he lost his arm. Bet you dinner he keeps a loaded gun beneath his pillow.” Doug left the bathroom and walked over to the bed, tossing the goose-down pillows aside. “What’s this?”

Leigh joins him. “Did you find a weapon?”

“Not exactly.” He held up the leather-bound book.

Dante’s Inferno.

Doug headed west on 34^th Street, guiding the Range Rover into one of the three lanes heading to New Jersey via the Lincoln Tunnel. “You want to know why I’m mad? It’s because you spend more time with your soldier pal than you do with your own family.”

“That’s not true.”

“Why him, Leigh? What’s so special about this vet? Is it because he played baseball?”

“No.”

“Then what?”

“I don’t know.” She stared out the window, consciously trying not to breathe the carbon-monoxide fumes as their vehicle raced through the brightly lit tunnel. “At first, I was just afraid that he’d try to kill himself again. Then, when I saw how much he missed his wife, I was afraid he’d try to get back together with her too soon.”

“Thomas Stansbury again? Leigh, we’ve been through this a million times. He had a night terror. It was out of your control.”

“He strangled his wife, then he killed himself. I’m the one who released him.”

Night reappeared, the tunnel delivering them into New Jersey. Doug remained silent, contemplating a course of action. “Invite him over for dinner.”

“Who? Shep? What for?”

“At some point you’re going to have to discharge him, right? Why not ease his transition with a little normalcy? We’ll make him a home-cooked meal, he can play with the kids. Maybe you can even invite your sister over.”

“My sister?”

“Why not? I’m not suggesting you make this a blind date, I just think it would be good for him. Plus, you know how lonely Bridgett has been lately.”

“She’s going through a rough divorce.”

“Exactly my point.”

“No, it would be too weird. Plus, Shep might be offended. He’s still head over heels in love with his wife.”

“So just call it dinner and see what happens.”

“Okay. I can do that.”

“Now answer my original question: Why Shepherd?”

Leaning over, the brunette laid her head on her husband’s shoulder. “Have you ever met someone who just seemed so needy, so lost, yet at the same time had a personality you couldn’t help but gravitate to. This will sound strange, but being around Shep, it’s like hanging around with an old soul who’s lost on an important journey, and it’s my job to help him as much as I can before he moves on. Does that make any sense?”

“Old soul or new, guys like Shepherd who fought in combat have a tendency to want to self-destruct. I know you’re his doctor, Leigh, but some people just don’t want to be saved.”

December

The funny thing was, he had never liked running. Not in high school when Coach Segal had required it of all his pitchers. Not at Rutgers, when his fiancée was in training for the field hockey team and insisted he join her on those four-mile jaunts around the university golf course. And certainly not when he pitched in the minors.

So why did he like it now?

The Beatles’ “Help!” blasted over the classic rock radio station as the treadmill’s built-in odometer approached the two-mile mark.

He liked it because the challenge made him feel alive again, and any feeling that was different from his usual doom and gloom was a good thing. He liked it because it made him feel less self-destructive, something Dr. Nelson attributed to ‘happy endorphins’ being released in his brain. Most of all, Patrick Shepherd liked to run because running gave his thoughts greater clarity, helping him to remember things. Like that his fiancée forced him to run the golf course back at Rutgers. Like that she, too, was a scholarship athlete. Like…

The song changed. He has not heard the tune in more than a decade, its lyrics prying open yet another sealed memory, the words, sung by the late Jim Morrison, tearing open the fissure in his heart: “Before you slip into unconsciousness, I'd like to have another kiss. Another flashing chance at bliss, another kiss, another kiss…”

The one-arm runner stumbled, his right hand briefly grabbing the support bar before his legs rolled out from under him, and the treadmill spit him out onto the rubber matting.

“The days are bright and filled with pain, enclose me in your gentle rain. The time you ran was too insane, we'll meet again, we'll meet again…”

Patrick rolled over. Nose bleeding, feeling woozy, he leaned against the wall to listen to the rest of The Doors’ song… the painted cinder block identical to the walls in his fiancée’s old college dorm room.

He’s sitting on the floor, leaning back against the dormitory wall. “The Crystal Ship” is playing on the tape deck, the blond coed in the muddied field hockey uniform staring at him from the bed, her hazel green eyes tinged blue with tears.

“Are you sure?”

“Don’t ask me again. If you ask me again, Patrick, I’m going to shove the dipstick up your ass, then we’ll see if you’re pregnant.”

“Okay, okay. Let’s not panic just yet. How far along are you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe a month or two.”

“Shouldn’t you know?”

“Shouldn’t you, Mister ‘We Should Be Safe, You Won’t Be Ovulating for Another Eight Days.’ God, my father’s going to kill me when he finds out.”

“Here’s an idea — let’s not tell him. We take you to the clinic, they do whatever they do, and we get you on the pill.”

She throws one of her field hockey shin pads at his face, hitting him squarely in the nose, drawing blood. “First, abortions cost money, something neither one of us has right now. Second, there’s a baby growing in my belly… our baby. I thought maybe you’d react differently. I thought I was your soul mate?”

“You are. But what about our plans? You wanted to go to grad school, and I still have two more years of eligibility to improve my stock before the amateur draft.”

“I can still finish school.”

“They’ll rescind your scholarship.”

“I’ll redshirt a year.”

“Okay, sure. But seriously… are you really ready to have a kid?”

“I don’t know.” She covers her face, weeping uncontrollably.

Patrick’s dumbfounded, he has never seen her like this. Reaching for her wrist, he guides her down on the tile floor next to him, holding her in his lap as if she were a little girl.

“The Crystal Ship” ends, mockingly yielding to the opening lyrics of “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”. And in that singular moment of clarity everything changes for Patrick Ryan Shepherd, the solution suddenly clear, as if his adolescence has just passed the baton of youth into adulthood.

“Okay, here’s another option: You stay in school while I enter next month’s draft. I won’t hire an agent, so I’ll still maintain my amateur status. If I’m drafted, we use the signing bonus to pay for diapers. If I’m not, I finish my junior year and work nights to pay for the kid’s expenses. How’s that sound?”

She stops crying, her face streaked with tears and sweat from the afternoon practice. “You’d really do that?”

“On one condition… marry me.”

“…that was The Doors. This is your station for Classic Rock, the time now is 3:45. Coming up after the break we’ll be playing the Beach Boys—”

The radio is turned off. “Shep, are you okay?”

Patrick glanced up at Dr. Nelson, his nostrils streaked with blood. “I never liked running.”

“I told you not to run so fast, your gait is off-balance. You’ll feel a lot more in control when your prosthetic arm arrives.”

“What year will that be?”

“Honestly, I wish I knew. Are you still okay about tonight?”

“You sure this isn’t a blind date?”

“It’s just dinner. But you’ll like my sister, she’s a firecracker.” Leigh opened the leather briefcase hanging from her shoulder strap. “Shep, I have something that belongs to you. I’m going to show it to you because I think it may help you to remember your wife’s name, only I don’t want you to get upset. Do you think you can handle it?”

“What is it?”

“You tell me.” She removes the leather-bound book from her brief.

Shep jolts upright, staring at the object from his past. “Dante’s Inferno. My wife bought it for me while we were at Rutgers. It was her favorite. Where did you get it?”

“From your apartment in Brooklyn.”

“I have an apartment in Brooklyn?”

“Yes. But you haven’t been there since before your last deployment. Shep, tell me about the book. What can you remember? Why was it so important that you kept it under your pillow?”

Shep’s expression darkened. “It meant something to me because it meant something to her.”

“But you still can’t remember her name?”

He shook his head. “It’s there, it’s so close.”

“She wrote a message to you on the title page. Take a look, see if it helps.”

With a trembling hand, Patrick opened the front cover to read the first page:

Patrick closed his eyes, hugging the book to his chest. “Beatrice. My wife’s name is Beatrice.”

President Eric Kogelo looked up from his desk as one of his senior advisors entered the Oval Office for their scheduled meeting. “Have a seat, I’ll be right with you.” Kogelo continued multitasking, listening to his chief of staff on the telephone while he text messaged the first lady.

The older man with the silky white hair and upturned eyes glanced around the Oval Office, concealing his contempt.

The seat of power. Office of the most powerful man on the planet. And the public still believed it. America was like a chessboard, the president its king, a mere figurehead, capable of incremental moves barely greater than a pawn. No, the real power was not the pieces on the chessboard, it was the unseen players moving the pieces. The CIA maintained editorial influence over every major network, radio station, and print medium in the country. The insurance and pharmaceutical companies ran the medical industry while Big Oil monopolized the energy sector. But it was the military-industrial complex that ran the world, a dark queen whose tentacles reached into almost every politician’s pocketbook and across Wall Street, pulling the purse strings that instigated revolutions, terrorist acts, and ultimately started wars.

He glanced across the room at the oil painting of JFK. Eisenhower had warned Kennedy against the unchecked rise of the CIA and its military-industrial complex. JFK was determined to break up the intelligence agency and “scatter its pieces to the wind.” A month later, the president was assassinated, firmly establishing who was really in-charge. Democracy had run its course, freedom merely a convenient illusion, intended only to keep the masses in check.

President Kogelo placed his BlackBerry in his jacket pocket, turning his attention to his guest. “My apologies. Last-minute details before I leave for New York.”

“Any of these details concern me?”

Kogelo leaned back in his chair. “The secretary of defense will be resigning in three hours.”

“That’s official?”

“He left me no choice. The last thing I need now is a member of my administration tossing verbal grenades at the negotiation table.”

“For what it’s worth, his remarks last week were justified. The Russians would not have sold Tehran ICBMs without China’s approval.”

“Maybe so. But this fire needs to be put out, not doused with gasoline.”

“You are offering me the position?”

“You’ve got the experience, plus you have allies on both sides of the aisle. With everything that’s going on in the Persian Gulf, we could use a quick confirmation. What do you say?”

National Security Advisor Bertrand DeBorn offered a Cheshire cat smile. “Mr. President, it would be my honor.”

“So Shepherd, did you know Hoboken was the site of the very first baseball game?”

Patrick focused on the Jackson Pollack-inspired motif of spaghetti on his dinner plate, still too unnerved by his surroundings to make eye contact with Leigh Nelson’s husband or her younger, less refined sister, Bridgett.

“Elysian Field, 1846. The Knickerbockers versus the New York Nine. We’ve always been big baseball fans. Bridgett loves baseball, don’t you, Bridge?”

“Hockey.” Bridgett Deem chased a mouthful of broccoli with what little remained of her third glass of wine. “At least I used to.” She turned to Patrick. “My ex… he used to get season tickets to the Rangers for me and my girlfriend. Later, I found out he only wanted me gone so he could schtup his secretary in our apartment while I was at the game.”

Leigh rolled her eyes. “Bridge, do we really have to go there?”

“That reminds me of a joke,” stampeded Doug, his segue accompanied by a boyish grin. “Shepherd, have you ever heard the one about the wife who was pissed off at her husband for not buying her a gift on her birthday? The husband says, ‘Why should I waste more money on you? Last year I bought you a grave site, and you still haven’t used it.”

Patrick coughed, concealing a smile.

Leigh punched her husband on the shoulder. “Everything’s a joke to you, isn’t it?”

“Hey, I’m just trying to lighten things up. Bridgett’s cool with it, aren’t you Bridge?”

“Sure, Doug. I already knew men were insensitive scumbags, thanks for the contribution.” She turned to Shep. “Barry used to tell me I was his soul mate. For a while, I actually believed him. Ten years, you think you know someone, but the moment your back is turned they run off—”

Patrick’s heart convulsed in his chest as if stabbed by a stiletto. His eyes squeezed shut.

The blood drained from Leigh’s face. “Bridgett, help me with the dishes.”

“I haven’t finished eating.”

His left arm announces its return. The limb bathed in lava. Flesh melts down his forearm. His fingers drop off, covered in acid. A rubber mallet pounds the back of his skull. His body spasms. Breathe, asshole!

The back door plowed open, unleashing the Nelson’s seven-year-old son, Parker, the boy’s presence diverting intrusive eyes from his internal struggle.

“Mommy, you’re home! I missed you.”

“I missed you, too. How was the science museum?”

“Good. Autumn got in trouble again.” The boy’s head swiveled to face the stranger. Striking blue eyes focused on Patrick’s empty left sleeve. “Mommy, where’s his arm?”

From the hot darkness behind his squeezed eyes amid the dripping flesh and clenching heart, a voice whispered desperately into Patrick’s brain. Get out!

“Honey, it’s all right. This is Patrick—”

“Bathroom!” He was on his feet so quickly it startled the boy. He hugged his mother.

His father pointed until he could find the words. “Hall. On the left.”

Patrick moved through purple spots of light in gelled air beneath muscles barely his to control. Half-blind, he entered the bathroom and sealed himself within the porcelain sanctuary. Blotches of perspiration had soaked his clothes. The pale man with the long, matted brown hair returned his distant glare in the mirror. Muted rants from the kitchen violated the small voice in his head as manic eyes searched for a taped note that was not there.

Thoughts pulled away to eavesdrop on the blathering Hispanic woman.

“Go on, Autumn! Tell your father what you did.”

“Leave me alone!”

“I will leave you alone if you ever run away from me like that again!”

“Sophia, please.”

The screaming child twisted free of the woman, knocking over Patrick’s plate of spaghetti. She evaded her father’s grasp and escaped down the hallway, screaming bloody murder as she stomped up the stairs to her room.

“Autumn, come back here! Doug?”

“Not me, Leigh. She needs her mother.”

“I cannot control her, Mrs. Nelson,” the au pair blustered. “She refuses to keep her seat belt buckled, she runs away when I speak to her. She is too hyper a child for someone my age to handle.”

“It’s getting late, I should probably go.” Bridgett squeezed her sister’s shoulder, suddenly grateful her marriage terminated without children. “Dinner was delicious, I’ll call you tomorrow.” She lowered her voice. “Did you want me, you know, to drop Patrick off at the hospital?”

“Patrick!” Leigh handed Parker to her husband and hustled down the hallway to the sealed bathroom door. “Shep, you okay?” No answer. Her heart skipped a beat. “Shep? Damn it, Shep, open the door!”

She twisted the knob. Surprised to find it unlocked, she stole a breath and pushed her way in, readying herself to scream CALL 9-1-1, all the while cursing her career choice and the self-indulgence and ignorance that has led to—

— empty.

She checked the window. Sealed and locked. He’s still in your home. Find him fast before…

Exiting the bathroom, she took the stairs two at a time. Frantic, she searched Parker’s room, then her master bedroom and bath. She checked the walk-in closet. Under the king-size bed. Nothing but her daughter’s stuffed animal.

A kernel of thought blossomed into a parent’s worst nightmare. “Autumn…”

Mother bear raced across the hall into her cub’s bedroom. The Dora the Explorer lamp on the child’s desk illuminated the two inert figures entwined on the bed.

Doug joined her in silence.

Patrick’s head was propped by pillows. His eyes were closed. Curled up on the one-armed man’s chest was the Nelson’s daughter.

Two troubled souls. Comforted in sleep.

The farmhouse sat on twelve acres in rural Frederick County. Built in 1887, the home was structurally sound, its former residents having buttressed the foundation, replaced the roof, and renovated the stone-face exterior. There still remained much work to be done — the rotting barn was an eyesore in desperate need of demolition — but the new owner, in her final trimester of pregnancy, has had little time for anything other than work and readying the nursery for her unborn child.

Mary Louise Klipot had purchased the home on a short sale when the bank had foreclosed on the previous owners. The location was ideal — isolated yet close to several shopping malls and only a twenty-minute drive to Fort Detrick.

Andrew Bradosky had moved in two weeks after proposing.

“…with Bertrand DeBorn accepting the responsibilities of acting secretary of defense on this, the eve of a global summit. Joining us now is FOX news political analyst, Evan Davidson. Evan, in your opinion, what impact will President Kogelo’s eleventh-hour decision to dismiss his secretary of defense have on tomorrow’s summit?”

Mary entered the living room from the kitchen, carrying a steaming mug of hot chocolate in each hand. She passed a cup to Andrew, who was kneeling by the fireplace, adding another log to the dying embers. “Darling, see if this is hot enough.”

He sipped several swallows of the hot beverage, wiping whipped cream from his upper lip. “Mmm, that’s good. Mary, can we finish our conversation?”

Mary half sat, half collapsed in the cushioned rocking chair, her lower back aching.

“I told you, Scythe should be ready by March, April the latest.”

“April?” Jabbing at the embers with a poker, Andrew ignited the log, then sat on the fireplace stoop facing her. “Mary, timing is everything. By April, we could be involved in a full-scale invasion. The last thing we want is the CIA deciding they can replace us—”

“Andy, in case you forgot, the baby’s due in a few weeks.”

“The doctor said January.”

“The doctor’s wrong. Besides, I’m taking off at least six months to nurse.”

“Six months? Mary, come on, the future of the free world’s at stake!”

“Don’t be such a drama queen. Anyway, I was just kidding. Scythe’s way ahead of schedule. Now finish your hot chocolate so you can rub my feet.”

“Geez, you had me scared.” Relieved, he drained the mug, wiping his mouth with the back of his sleeve. “But cereal… surreally… surr…” Andrew dropped to his knees, the numbness in his lips creeping up his legs. “Wha… huh—?”

“No worries, darling, the paralysis probably won’t affect your breathing… assuming I measured the dosage correctly. You did say you weighed 182? Oh, dear… I forgot about your asthma. Is it getting hard to breathe?”

Mary sipped her hot chocolate, wincing slightly as Andrew Bradosky’s forehead struck the maple wood floor.