Mortal Fear

CHAPTER 29

Last night I dreamed of Erin making love to Miles. My memory is a traitor that way. The images I’d most like to wipe away cling to life with the tenacity of weeds, while those I want to treasure fade like the blush on a rose.

This morning Drewe left before I woke up. I fought to stay asleep while Miles fixed himself an omelette and commandeered the television in the den, but it was no use. He had me checking windows and trolling EROS before I could even get a bowl of cereal.

Brahma logged on as “Maxwell” early, but when “Lilith” started into one of her long monologues, he cut the conversation short and logged off. Miles wandered in and did some coding at his laptop, then drifted back to the TV. After watching CNN for a while, I walked into the backyard to verify that the tomatoes in our garden were as scorched as they’d been last week. They were. Then I walked around front and stared up the highway long enough to make sure Deputy Billy was at his post. He was.

About ten-thirty, I logged back onto EROS as SYSOP. I didn’t expect much. Morning traffic is mostly Level One stuff, medical questions or lonely hearts looking for a shoulder to cry on. A quick cruise through Level Two also showed what I expected: soft-core exchanges involving roguish dukes and hard-won ladies (which I knew from long experience were frequently two women taking opposite sides of a romantic fantasy).

Then I clicked into Level Three. The lobbies were mostly empty. Out of curiosity, I peeked into some private rooms. Most of it was gay action—men in some rooms, women in others—plus a few dominance sessions. Then, in a gossip lobby I rarely visited, I found some people discussing the murder of Karin Wheat. They were obviously fans, and speculation about who had killed the author ranged from her jealous and grossly overweight ex-husband to a crazed fan who lost sight of the line between fact and fiction. Meaning to join the conversation, I logged in as “Erin.” Ten seconds later a window appeared in the center of my screen. In it was a prompt followed by single line of text, which EROS’s voice duly read:

PROMETHEUS> Would you like to join me in the Blue Room?

My skin went cold. I sat paralyzed for a moment. Then I looked at the window on the left of my screen, which listed the code names of everyone in the lobby. Sure enough, “Prometheus” was there. I had got so used to looking at “Maxwell” that this older alias of Brahma’s had slipped right by me.

Yanking off the headset, I sealed its mike shut with my thumb and shouted, “Miles! Get your ass in here!” Then I put the headset back on, said “yes” into the mike, and clicked into the Blue Room. Instantaneously, these words appeared:

MAXWELL> I’ve been waiting for you.

Even as I heard Miles’s feet pounding the floor, I answered into the mike and watched my words appear on-screen:

ERIN> I think we’re about to be interrupted by someone who calls himself Prometheus.

Miles was standing beside me by then. “Hit the space bar if you want to tell me something,” he whispered in my ear. “It mutes the mike.”

MAXWELL> I am Prometheus, Erin. I use many names. But Prometheus fits me in many ways.

ERIN> Why use Maxwell if you like Prometheus so much?

MAXWELL> “Maxwell” has its own significance.

I was tempted to ask him about the Beatles reference, but instead I pressed the space bar and said, “Miles, this guy—”

“Say something to him!” Miles snapped, popping me on the shoulder.

I fired an elbow into his leg and held down the space bar. “Listen, goddamn it! I just figured something out.”

“What?”

“I logged on first as SYSOP, not Erin, and he didn’t see me spying on the lobby he was in. It was only when I switched to Erin that he noticed me.”

MAXWELL> Are you there, Erin?

“He wasn’t aware you were lurking as SYSOP?”

“Exactly.”

“That means he probably doesn’t have SYSOP access himself!”

“I know. Now get out of here. I need quiet.”

“Remember the Trojan Horse,” Miles said, walking backward. “Make him want you.” Then he stepped out of the office and closed the door behind him.

Brahma’s voice pulled my attention back to the screen.

MAXWELL> Erin?

ERIN> Sorry. The newspaper man came to my door.

MAXWELL> Ah. You follow current events?

ERIN> No, the obituaries.

This was true. Twice during our interlude in Chicago, Erin sat in bed reading the Tribune obits aloud and making up outrageous stories that supposedly lay behind the sanitized life summaries of the rich and prominent.

MAXWELL> The obituaries?

ERIN> I’m eccentric.

MAXWELL> You are interested in the death of Karin Wheat?

ERIN> I barely even saw what they were talking about before you invited me here. It does seem interesting, though. Her death sounded so gory.

MAXWELL> I’m sure that was exaggerated. The press makes its money pandering the prurient and the morbid. I was hoping we could continue last night’s conversation.

ERIN> I’m tired of the mental sparring on this network. It’s all so juvenile.

MAXWELL> What do you want from EROS?

ERIN> I told you, I’m looking for someone.

MAXWELL> The man with the soul of a woman?

ERIN> That’s what I called it last night. It’s nothing that definite. It’s just a yearning I have.

MAXWELL> Do you mean you wish to find this person and then meet him in real life?

ERIN> Why not?

MAXWELL> Most are afraid to transmit real information about themselves over the net. It may be a wise precaution. The world is full of disturbed individuals.

ERIN> I’m pragmatic about that kind of thing. I figure when my time’s up, there’s nothing I can do about it anyway. Until then, enjoy.

MAXWELL> You believe in predestination?

ERIN> No. Fate.

MAXWELL> What’s the difference?

ERIN> Not sure. Maybe it’s one of degree. With predestination, everything’s laid out from square one. With fate, those ladies are up there weaving, but you have a certain amount of power to tangle the threads.

MAXWELL> Yes? And death?

ERIN> Well, I mean, you have some power to tangle, but the _length_ of the thread is predetermined from the start.

MAXWELL> How interesting. You know mythology?

ERIN> A nodding acquaintance. You?

MAXWELL> All life is myth, when viewed from the proper perspective.

ERIN> Whatever you say. You’re supposed to be the genius.

MAXWELL> Please forget that. A little fillip of ego. In our last conversation you spoke of having no inhibitions. As though you have no shame.

ERIN> I have shame.

MAXWELL> Of what act in your life are you most ashamed?

Déjà vu prickled across my neck and arms. For a moment I saw Arthur Lenz sitting at his computer in Virginia, pretending to be “Maxwell” as easily as he pretended to be “Lilith.” Then I remembered that Lenz had used the same shrink routine on Brahma. Brahma could merely be echoing the psychiatrist’s questions with me, consciously or not. Maybe Lenz provoked more of a response in him than I thought.

ERIN> Would you answer the same question coming from me?

MAXWELL> Yes. I have never committed an act for which I felt regret. All life is exploration, thus all acts are justified.

ERIN> I don’t agree with that.

MAXWELL> Ah. You believe in sin?

ERIN> I don’t know about that. But there are certainly wrong choices.

MAXWELL> No, only poor choices. And only from a given perspective.

ERIN> But isn’t the idea of sin one of the oldest creations of mankind? It was there in Greek mythology just as much as in the Bible.

MAXWELL> You answered your own question! Sin is a creation of man’s intellect. A Herculean effort to explain the eternal condition of sorrow in which he has found himself from the dawn of time. Look at Oedipus. The poor lad did all he could to avoid sin, yet ended up killing his father and sleeping with his mother. Murder and incest, all to illustrate the inevitability of man’s fate. The same with Job. Nothing was his fault. It was God having a wager with Satan.

ERIN> No mortal act deserves punishment?

MAXWELL> That’s a different question. Sin occurs in relation to God, not man. Look at Prometheus. He ridiculed the gods and their power, and he acted accordingly. He stole divine fire and gave it to man as a gift. He sinned against the gods, but blessed man forever.

ERIN> And look what happened to him. Chained to a rock with his liver eaten by eagles for thirty years. And the liver grew back each night.

MAXWELL> A nodding acquaintance, indeed! But remember, after paying that price, Prometheus was taken up to Olympus, where he resided forever among the gods.

ERIN> Does that have something to do with why you use the name Prometheus?

MAXWELL> Just so. Heroic men must often endure a period of suffering or darkness before their work is recognized.

ERIN> You sound bitter.

MAXWELL> I’m tired of dealing with squalid little souls. I yearn for a society of Ahabs but inhabit a world of Walter Mittys.

ERIN> Now you sound like some kind of superrace nut.

MAXWELL> I have my moments. Do you know Nietzsche’s quote about society? A people is a detour of Nature to get six or seven great men.

ERIN> Yes, but that’s not the whole quote. The rest is, Yes, and then to get around them. Or something like that.

MAXWELL> You amaze me.

ERIN> Sometimes I amaze myself. I suppose you’re one of the six or seven?

MAXWELL> Only time will tell.

ERIN> I suppose women don’t fit into that equation of greatness?

MAXWELL> Of course they do. Women are the gateway of the Absolute. From an evolutionary perspective, as critical as the male. They provide half the genetic code.

ERIN> What do you mean, the gateway of the Absolute?

MAXWELL> You have a child. A son, I believe. Did you deliver vaginally?

ERIN> Yes.

MAXWELL> Did you not feel, when your cervix dilated and the cramps exploded in your belly and your anal sphincter let go and the pain was like a scaly hand ripping you apart that you had been possessed—hijacked, if you will—by something infinitely larger than yourself?

ERIN> Don’t remind me. But the answer is yes. It was like... I don’t know.

MAXWELL> That was LIFE, Erin. LIFE seizing every cell in your body and bending you to its single-purposed will. LIFE is violent and uncontrollable and indescribably beautiful. Don’t you sometimes walk naked into the nurturing sun and scream I AM ALIVE?

ERIN> I’m not usually that demonstrative about it.

MAXWELL> You should be. LIFE IS EVERYTHING.

ERIN> You don’t believe in an afterlife?

MAXWELL> You do?

ERIN> No. I told you about the thread, remember? When the thread runs out, it’s over. I just wanted to know what you thought.

MAXWELL> For a moment I thought we had gone as far as we could go.

ERIN> Are you married?

MAXWELL> No.

ERIN> Ever been?

MAXWELL> No.

ERIN> How old are you?

MAXWELL> How old would you guess?

ERIN> If you’ve really never been married, you must be young. Or gay.

MAXWELL> I am not _gay_. I defy Nature in far more profound ways than that. How old a man are you looking for?

ERIN> Age doesn’t matter.

MAXWELL> Not in the man, you are right. But the woman must be of childbearing age.

ERIN> You’re a real sexist, aren’t you?

MAXWELL> A Darwinian sexist, perhaps. What do you visualize happening with this man you seek? You already have a son. Do you see yourself abandoning him for this man?

ERIN> I don’t want to talk about that.

MAXWELL> Your family?

ERIN> My son. I don’t mind talking about my husband.

MAXWELL> Why the selective affection?

ERIN> It’s something to do with what we discussed before.

MAXWELL> Sin?

ERIN> Being ashamed. Having regrets.

MAXWELL> You are ashamed of your son? You regret having him?

ERIN> No. Only the way he was conceived. I guess you could say he was conceived in sin.

MAXWELL> Through an adulterous relationship?

ERIN> Not exactly. Worse, really.

MAXWELL> I don’t understand.

ERIN> It’s something to do with a sin you mentioned earlier.

MAXWELL> I mentioned? But what? Murder?

I didn’t respond. He’d get it fast enough.

MAXWELL> Your son was conceived through _incest_?

ERIN> Not exactly. It’s complicated.

MAXWELL> But I must know!

ERIN> I’ve said too much already.

MAXWELL> But Erin, I can help you with this. I have specialized knowledge. We must explore this!

ERIN> I need time to think.

MAXWELL> Of course. Yes. I understand. But we must speak again. The soonest possible time for me would be late tonight. Possibly very early tomorrow morning. Is either of these times good for you?

ERIN> Maybe. If I’m on-line, I’ll check the Blue Room. You can find me there.

MAXWELL> And if not?

ERIN> We’ll leave it to fate.

MAXWELL> How very appropriate.

ERIN> Good-bye.

MAXWELL> Yes. Good-bye.

After a giddy few moments staring at the screen, I called Miles back into the office. He snatched up the printouts of the conversation and read them with stunning speed.

“You’ve hooked him,” he announced, setting down the pages. “You know, Brahma sounds a long way from crazy to me. I feel exactly like he does sometimes.”

I took off the headset and pushed back from the computer. “Our conversations don’t have quite the same feel as his conversations with the other victims. I can’t put my finger on why.”

“I know. I don’t think he’s looking at you as a potential victim. A donor or whatever. He’s interested in some other way. Just keep stringing him along. By tomorrow I should be finished with the Trojan Horse, and we’ll be ready for Phase Two.”

“You sound like a bad movie.”

He grinned. “I like bad movies.”

That exchange happened four hours ago.

Since then Miles has been coding more or less steadily. He seems to have scented the finish line, and only stops for fresh Mountain Dew. Now and then he’ll shout something like “FMH!”—which he explained was a polite form of “Fuck me harder!”—a hacker curse usually directed at some particularly annoying piece of software that refuses to behave as it should, in this case his Trojan Horse.

I’ve read half a paperback novel, cleaned up the kitchen, and driven to Yazoo City and back, all in an attempt to keep my nerves steady. Knowing that the man we call Brahma is looking forward to his next conversation with me is more than a little unsettling. This connection is what I set out to establish, but now that I have, all I want is for Miles to finish his Trojan Horse so we can get the whole thing over with.

Around five-thirty it strikes me that Drewe might like it if I whipped up some dinner before she gets home. She might like it a lot. I have a vision of fresh tomatoes from our garden, then remember the heat-shriveled specimens I saw this morning. Without intravenous therapy they’ll never be fit for a dinner table. As usual, it’s too late to thaw anything out. I am nearly reconciled to tuna on toast when Miles walks into the kitchen with his laptop and says, “Why don’t you fire up the search engine?”

I start to remind him that Brahma said he wouldn’t be back on-line until late tonight, but arguing with Miles is useless. I expel the air from my lungs with a disgusted plosive, walk back into the office, and sit down at the EROS computer.

The search program begins its monotonous task with an efficient clicking of the hard drive. Searching for Brahma’s prose patterns takes much longer than a search for an account name. After a few distracted minutes of playing guitar on my bed, I look over at the computer. The monitor shows the screen format of a private room. The prompt at the top of the page reads: MAXWELL> . The answering prompt reads: LILITH> .

First I yell for Miles. Then I rehang my guitar on the wall and sit down before the EROS computer.

“He lied to me,” I say when Miles comes in. “He’s back on. He’s talking to Lenz again.”

“I thought he might. Same old shit from Lenz? Freud dispensed at the level of Sally Jessy Raphael?”

“Looks like it. Want me to turn up the sound?”

“Nah.” He sits on the bed and opens his laptop.

As I skim the usual purple prose, a wave of heat suffuses my face. My eyes have locked onto one passage like a laser sight.

MAXWELL> I understand too well. The majority of men are asshoels.

I reread the text above this line, but everything looks normal. Then this appears:

MAXWELL> We’ve discussed HIV in abstract terms, but we’ve neveer asked each other the one iportant question.

I try to yell “Miles!” but my voice comes out a whisper.

“You say something?” he asks.

“Typos! Look at this!”

In seconds he’s reading the screen over my shoulder.

“He keeps making them,” I murmur.

“He’s not using his voice recognition unit.” Miles grips my shoulder. “He’s on the move!”

My chest feels hollow. “Lenz knows that, right?”

“Got to. The FBI agents at EROS probably saw the typos before you did. Scroll back up. I’ll bet he’s been making errors during the whole exchange.”

I scroll through the previous lines and verify that Miles is correct. “Okay,” I say, trying to calm down. “Okay, they must have seen that. Too many to miss.”

“Damn,”Miles says softly. “Lenz pulled it off. I’ll bet an FBI SWAT team is greasing its guns right now.”

“Brahma goes mobile two or three days before a kill,” I remind him. “Based on his error rate and the old murder dates, anyway.”

“Reconnaissance,” says Miles. “He’s out there right now using a laptop and a cellular. I wonder how close he is to that safe house.”

“I’m calling Lenz,” I decide aloud.

“Why? The FBI’s gearing up to slam this guy down right now.” Miles runs one hand over his still ridiculous crewcut. “You know, now’s the time to trace him.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s on a cellular, and we know where he’s headed.”

“I’m calling the safe house, Miles.”

“Go ahead, but they’re just going to blow you off.”

“Fine.” Scrounging in my wallet for the number Lenz gave me, I find it and drop it by the phone. My call is answered on the second ring.

“Yes?” says a female voice.

“This is Harper Cole. I need to talk to Dr. Lenz.”

“You shouldn’t have called here.”

“I need to make sure he knows something important.”

“He knows. Harper, this is Margie Ressler.”

“Margie.” The decoy. “Is everything okay?”

“Yes, but we can’t tie up this line right now.”

“I’ve got to tell Lenz about something.”

“About the errors?”

“You know about that?”

“Everything’s under control. Really. Take it easy.”

Relief washes over me. “Okay. I just wanted to make sure you guys weren’t going to be surprised.”

“We’re the FBI, Harper. We’re not going to be surprised.” Her voice goes quiet. “You’d better keep your eyes open, though. Did you or Miles Turner send e-mail to Mr. Baxter warning him to check tissue donor networks?”

“Margie—” I stop, unwilling to implicate myself on a phone that might be tapped.

As if reading my mind, she says, “All I’m going to tell you is that the shit hit the fan after they started checking. You’d better watch your butt.”

“Thanks. And you’d better take your own advice.”

“He won’t come tonight. Not if the record’s any indication.”

Suddenly I hear a babble of male voices.

“Sir!” Margie answers like a boot camp recruit.

The phone goes dead in my hand.

“Well?” asks Miles, back on the bed now.

“They know.”

He gives me his dour I-told-you-so look.

“She also said they got your note about transplant networks.”

Now he’s paying attention.

“She said the shit hit the fan when they started checking.”

Miles ponders this for a few seconds. “Then Drewe must be right. There must be another missing woman.”

“Jesus. What are we going to do?”

He takes a deep breath, looks at the floor for a few seconds, then says, “I’m going to code until seven, which is when TBS is showing I Walk the Line, with Gregory Peck and Tuesday Weld.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope. I love Tuesday Weld. Did you see Who’ll Stop the Rain ? From Robert Stone’s book? Even Nolte was great in that.”

“Miles—”

“Tuesday Weld should have played Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, not Audrey Hepburn. Even Capote said that. Of course, he said a young Tuesday Weld. With her we wouldn’t have gotten that bullshit Hollywood ending. Holly would have—”

“Miles!”

He looks up irritably. “What?”

“Don’t you care what happens at the safe house?”

“Of course. But it’s not in my power to affect the outcome.”

“Isn’t there some way to at least monitor the action? Hack into a Bureau computer or something?”

“Harper, a stakeout is just some guys on the radio. They’re probably not even talking a whole lot.”

“So?”

“There’s no computer angle to it. Baxter will want to be there for the collar, so he’s probably at the safe house already, or else on his way. Nothing will have to be relayed to him, ergo we can’t intercept anything digital.”

“What about radio, then?”

Miles laughs. “We can’t monitor police radio from a thousand miles away.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s analog, man. Radio waves that die after a few miles.”

Smugness is one of my pet peeves. At times like this I want to smack Miles on the side of the head. And somewhere between staring at his arrogant expression and clenching my right fist, a solution arcs through my brain like a Roman candle. As Miles stares, I sit down at my Gateway 2000 and switch on my modem.

“What are you doing?” he asks.

“Logging onto CompuServe.”

“Why?”

“To eavesdrop on the stakeout.”

“How?”

I click the mouse rapidly. “By talking somebody local into doing it for us.”

“Who’s going to do that?”

“Ever hear of ham radio?”

It takes less than five seconds for Miles to see where I’m going. “But ham radio is a totally different frequency spectrum than law enforcement stuff,” he says.

I don’t even respond. I know he’s kicking himself for not thinking of this first.

“Ham operators hang out on CompuServe?” he asks, getting up and looking over my shoulder.

“Either here or AOL. One of my neighbors is a ham nut. He’s mentioned a forum before, and I think it’s on CompuServe. I’m doing a Find for the word ‘radio.’ ”

Suddenly a neat column of words appears on my screen:

Broadcast Professionals

CB Handle

CE Audio Forum

HamNet Forum

IQuest($)

National Public Radio

“Ha! You see that?”

“HamNet,” Miles says. “That’s it?”

“Let’s see.”

Seconds later we’re staring at the multicolored logo of a computer forum dedicated exclusively to the arcane joys of ham radio. I click the mouse, and topic headings like “Amateur Satellites,” “Swap Shop,” “Utility DX’ing,” and “Hardware/Homebrew” appear.

“Miles, I guarantee you some of these guys are into a lot more than ham radio. That Tom Swift crap with cigar boxes full of vacuum tubes is history. These guys are high tech now.”

“A couple of old hackers at MIT were into ham,” he says, and I sense how badly he wants to move me out of the chair and take over this job.

“The only question,” I muse, “is will somebody with the right equipment be close enough to McLean, Virginia, to do it?”

“Definitely,” Miles says excitedly. “McLean’s the D.C. metro area, not far from Langley. Bound to be somebody there. I’ll bet some of these guys have wet dreams about intercepting CIA and FBI communications.”

“I don’t know,” I say, reading the screen more closely. “Look at some of these topics. “FCC Compliance” and “Proper Certification.” Maybe they’re not into that kind of stuff.”

“Why don’t you let me talk to them?” Miles suggests, standing so close that I feel uncomfortable.

“It’s all yours,” I tell him, rising from the chair.

He sits and immediately begins composing a forum message. “We just have to approach it right. I’m not a federal fugitive, I’m... a reporter. For the Times Picayune . So are you.” He pauses, thinking. “We just got a tip about a rogue FBI operation in D.C. It might even involve the ATF. How does that sound?”

“Like another bad movie.”

He laughs. “This is great, man. Within two hours we’ll have real-time coverage of Lenz’s little trap, right through your telephone. Just like two tin cans on a thousand-mile string.”

“What if my phone’s really tapped?”

“Oh, yeah,” he says, his brow furrowing. “Well... I’ll just have to figure something out.”

The bang of the front door catapults Miles out of his seat and to the nearest window. “Go check!” he commands.

“Harper, it’s me.”

“Drewe,” I reassure him. “It’s just Drewe.”

He steps away from the window and leans against the wall, one hand over his heart. “This is major stress, man. What did I do to deserve this?”

“I won’t answer that.” I start toward the door. “I’d better fix us some supper.”

The office door opens before I reach it.

Drewe stands in the hall holding a large brown paper bag. She is smiling, and her radiance gives me an unexpected lift. Yet it is plain that she does not intend to cross the threshold. Instead, she reaches into the bag and pulls out a paper box printed with red curlicues and an alarmingly orange fluid dribbling down its side.

“Chinese,” she says. “I figured we were due for a change.”

“You are a goddess, ” Miles says with genuine reverence. “I shall kiss your feet and worship forever at the altar of your infinite kindness.”

Drewe laughs. “Just chew with your mouth closed, and I’ll be satisfied.”

As she walks away, Miles sits back down at the Gateway.

“You coming?” I ask.

He waves one hand. “Just let me post this message. Be right there.”

As I pass through the door, I hear him say, “This is going to be better than sex.” This from a man who has seen, heard, and perhaps participated in just about every carnal activity the human mind can imagine. I turn and look back. It is the new sight for this century, I think, a man in digital bliss. And yet it is as old as the first hominid who stared mesmerized into a campfire.

We are fascinated by that which can destroy us.