The Presence

CHAPTER 22

Takeo Yoshihara awoke, as he always did, as the first glow of dawn was lighting the eastern sky. As fully awake now as he’d been deeply asleep the moment before, he rose immediately from his bed and, dressing in the aloha shirt, white pants, and sandals that were his standard uniform on Maui, he went to the small dining pavilion. His breakfast of miso soup, fish, and tea was waiting for him, just as always when he was in residence at the estate.

As he ate he reviewed the conditions of the financial markets and scanned the stack of reports that had come in from all over the world during the night.

It appeared that he was thirty million dollars richer than when he’d gone to bed last night.

Finishing the reports as he drained the last drop of tea from his cup, Yoshihara left the dining pavilion to make his way through the gardens to the research center, stopping only once to remove a wilting orchid bloom that the Filipino gardeners had overlooked.

Entering the research pavilion through the main doors, he nodded to the guard as he passed the desk, pushed open the double doors leading to the south corridor, and strode quickly down the long passageway to the elevator at its far end. Pulling his wallet from his pocket, he passed it over a nondescript gray plate above the call button, and the red light at the top of the plate immediately blinked green. A moment later the door slid open. Yoshihara stepped into the car, and the door closed behind him.

Less than a minute later he was in the laboratory to which the large wooden crate had been delivered late last night. The crate, though, had long since been taken away, as had the remnants of dry ice in which the contents had been packed, and the plastic sheeting in which it had been wrapped.

Only the body itself remained, and it was all but unrecognizable.

Stephen Jameson looked up as the laboratory door opened. Surprised to see his employer coming into the room, he glanced at the clock.

Nearly six-thirty.

Suddenly feeling the fatigue of the long night of dissection, Jameson took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes, and stretched.

Nodding a greeting to the doctor, Yoshihara stepped closer to the table and looked down at what was left of the body that he’d had removed from its grave and shipped to Maui. If the sight of the carnage caused Yoshihara any discomfort, he gave no outward sign.

The corpse had been laid open from the crotch to the neck, and what few organs still remained in the thoracic area lay in confused disorder, like the pieces of a quickly disassembled jigsaw puzzle. The rib cage had been split and spread wide to allow easy access to the lungs and heart — both of which were missing entirely — so all that now remained was a great yawning cavity that, since it was entirely free of blood, gave the body the odd appearance of never having been alive at all. Rather, the remains of the cadaver had an artificial and strangely impersonal look to them, as though what lay on the table had been sculpted of wax rather than flesh and blood.

Yet Yoshihara knew that such was not the case, for he himself had seen pictures of the boy taken only a few weeks ago. A white male, seventeen years old, he’d stood a little over six feet tall, with the broad shoulders and narrow hips of an athlete. In one of the photographs Yoshihara had seen, the boy was smiling broadly, showing perfect white teeth, deep dimples, and a slightly cleft chin. In combination with his blue eyes and blond hair, he’d been the perfect example of the California surfer.

Oddly, the boy’s good looks remained.

His blond hair, neatly combed and sprayed for his funeral, had been slightly mussed by the packaging, and before Yoshihara realized quite what he was doing, he found himself reaching out to smooth the stray locks back into place.

The pallor of death had been expertly covered with makeup, and the boy’s cheeks showed a rosy glow, as if he might wake up at any moment.

The cleft in his chin was as clear as it had been in the photo, though in the solemn expression of death, he showed no signs of his dimples.

Yoshihara turned his attention back to Jameson, who now held a manila folder in his hands. “Have you determined the exact cause of death?”

Jameson opened the folder, scanning its contents. He’d had a team of laboratory assistants working all night, analyzing the tissues that Jameson himself had taken from each organ as he’d performed his dissection of the body.

As Jameson had expected, most of the boy’s organs proved to be as healthy as they’d appeared. The lab tests showed no signs of disease or toxic substances.

Or at least there were no signs of any substances that one might have expected would kill a seventeen-year-old boy.

No strychnine, or cyanide, or any other poisons.

No drugs, either. No heroin, no cocaine, no uppers or downers.

Not even any alcohol or marijuana.

Yet the boy had died, and the lab report in Stephen Jameson’s hands clearly showed why.

“The cause of death,” he said, “was a violent allergic reaction to the substance in question.” He gave Yoshihara a smug smile. “When the ambulance arrived, his mother was trying to get him out of his car, which was running in the garage with the door closed.”

Yoshihara nodded. “And so they gave him oxygen.”

“And he died,” Jameson said.

“And the weather in Los Angeles that day?” Yoshihara asked.

Jameson smiled thinly. “Close to perfect. A Santa Ana condition had developed; the weather reports spoke of a crystalline day such as Los Angeles hardly ever experiences anymore.”

“But not good for our subject,” Yoshihara observed. “What would the result have been if they hadn’t applied pure oxygen?”

“It’s hard to say,” Jameson replied. “But it appears that our latest subjects are doing better. So far, four of the five seem to be doing fine. Of course, the air in Mexico City has been particularly bad the last few days, but in Chicago it’s been pretty good.”

“And how long have they been in place?”

“Only two days,” Jameson told him.

“Interesting,” Yoshihara mused. “What about the local boy who died? What was his name?”

“Kioki Santoya,” Jameson replied. “He wasn’t given oxygen, of course — he was already dead when his mother found him. But our lab work shows that his lungs are in very much the same condition as this subject’s.” He nodded toward the cadaver on the table.

Takeo Yoshihara was silent for a moment, thinking. “The other two locals,” he finally said. “I would like to see them. Not on the monitors. I wish to look at them directly.”

Stephen Jameson’s eyes clouded. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” he began. “If either of them recognizes you—”

“It won’t matter if they do,” Takeo Yoshihara cut in. His expression was grim. “After all, it’s unlikely they’ll be leaving here, isn’t it?”

Stephen Jameson tilted his head noncommittally. It would not do to expose his feelings to his employer. “As you wish,” he said, leading Takeo Yoshihara through a door. They passed through a chamber filled with tanks of compressed gas and a large pump, and then into yet another room.

This room was empty, except for a large Plexiglas box.

The box was filled with a brownish fog.

Barely visible through the haze were the figures of two young men. Naked, they lay sleeping on the floor, their heads resting on their arms. But as Takeo Yoshihara stared at them, the eyes of one — the larger of them, and as Yoshihara could now see, a Polynesian by ancestry — suddenly snapped open. In an instant he was crouched low to the floor, as if ready to spring.

Like an animal, Takeo Yoshihara thought. Like a wild animal sensing danger. Yoshihara stepped closer, exactly as he might have to get a closer look at an ape in a cage at the zoo.

The figure sprang at him, his hands extended as if to seize Yoshihara’s neck, until, crashing against the Plexiglas wall, he dropped back to the floor of the cage with a howl of pain.

Now the other, smaller specimen was awake, too, staring through the transparent wall, his eyes burning with fury.

“We still have no idea how they became involved in our experiments?” Yoshihara asked, turning away from the box to gaze once more at Jameson.

“Since I’m sure they don’t know themselves—” he began, but once more Yoshihara cut him off.

“I’m not interested in what they know,” he said. “I wish to understand how they became exposed to our compound. Find out. I want an answer by the end of the day. Is that clear?”

Stephen Jameson swallowed nervously, but nodded his assent, knowing no other response would be acceptable.

“Good,” Yoshihara said softly. Then, without so much as a backward glance at the two boys imprisoned in the Plexiglas box, he made his way back through the series of rooms, rode the elevator up to the main floor, and left the building to stroll for a while in the gardens.

He had an hour before it would be time to leave. Except for the small hitch involving the local boys, things seemed to be progressing nicely. And even the problem with the locals was being contained.

“Contained,” he repeated silently to himself. It would have been better if all the research subjects could have been kept far from Maui, as originally planned, but since the error had occurred — and he would find out precisely how that error had occurred — there was no point in not turning the mistake to his own advantage.

For as long as they lived, the two young males down in the laboratory would make valuable research subjects.

For as long as they lived.

For Takeo Yoshihara, the life spans of Jeff Kina and Josh Malani were of no concern. Far more important — indeed, the only matter of any importance — was the essential scientific data their corpses would provide.