The Memorist

Chapter 60

Under the Musikverein Concert Hall

Wednesday, April 30^th-3:03 a.m.

Sleeping in the crypt on the dirt floor with only his jacket as a pillow had actually been easier than sleeping in the ugly room at the pensione. For the first night since David could remember he hadn’t been haunted by the familiar and hideous PTSD dreams that were his nemesis. Instead a very different vision had awakened him. The images had been very vivid; intense but fragmented. He’d been in terrible pain but at the same time felt a deep satisfaction that he’d done the right thing.

Standing, stretching, he took some supplies out of his knapsack, then drank a bottle of mineral water and ate a hard-boiled egg-consumed them mechanically as if they had no taste or texture but were just sustenance. That last morning, Lisle had made him eggs. He’d been in a hurry, but she’d insisted. It was his son’s birthday morning-they’d all have breakfast together-no. He had to stop doing this. It was not helpful anymore. He was taking care of it now. Action fueled by rage was better than helpless pity. His family was not going to have died in vain. The Bible talked of an eye for an eye. What he was doing was that and more.

A ragged scratching noise startled David and as he spun around he put his hand on the hilt of his Glock.

But it was only one of the half-dozen caged rats scraping its sharp nails on the metal bars of its cage. David considered his companion rodents who survived in the world’s cesspools. But wasn’t the whole world becoming a cesspool? Several of the rats were scratching at the bars now as if they sensed that their captor was thinking about them. They were impatient but they’d have to wait…

David had found that waiting down in the crypt wasn’t as difficult as he’d imagined. So much of his anxiety over the last few weeks had come from the fear he’d be discovered before he’d accomplished his task.

He only had a few more hours until the concert hall came back to life and Paxton’s men would return to continue their explorations. It was easier to stay awake when there were noises above him. Concentrating on them gave him something to do. The rats had stopped scratching and it was too quiet now; quiet enough to fall asleep again…even on the ground…here on the dirt…

Standing on the shore of a rushing river with tall snow-capped mountains filling the Indus Valley horizon, he breathed in air sweetened with the fragrance coming from flowering trees. An older man wearing a light-colored robe was screaming at him bitterly, threatening him. But he wasn’t scared of the elder. The woman with sea-green eyes was in danger because of this man and he had to do something to save her.

David woke up with a start, surprised that the dream had returned. He felt an overwhelming sense of impending doom.