The Fury and the Terror Page 7

  Sirens in the distance. Wind swishing through the myriad leaves of the oak she was resting against. Swift patterns of light and shade across her body. There were grass stains on the white pique dress she'd bought especially for graduation.

  She was thirsty. Tongue dry, bad taste, a case of puke-mouth. She needed to go to the bathroom, but there were no facilities. Nothing up here but trees, modest grave markers, Geoff's car pulled off on the grass.

  Down there, at the college, the remnant of holocaust. Eyes tearing, she surveyed the scattered remains of the DC-10, wondering who had been aboard. Survivors? Not many, probably. On the ground, there had to have been casualties. Anxiety was jammed below her breastbone like a hard fist. Betts. Riley ...?

  Eden began to shake in the cooling wind. The sun was in its late afternoon phase, burning up the western sky. Dense clouds in the east, not moving. She heard someone playing an accordion.

  She walked toward Geoff's Taurus. She saw, halfway down the hill, a woman in a straw gardening hat with a wide drooping brim. The woman wore a flowered print dress that the wind wrapped around her bowed legs.

  She was standing well along a row of grave markers, by a grave heaped with floral remembrances. It was her accordion Eden was listening to. She played it with the energy of a stevedore, rolling out the barrel. The woman had, apparently, driven to the cemetery in an old stake-sided pickup truck. No one else seemed to be around. Eden and the accordionist had the memorial gardens to themselves.

  Eden glanced into the Taurus but she already knew. No keys. Nature called. She hunkered down behind the Taurus, dress hiked up, panty hose rolled down. Because she had no shoes, when she finished peeing she took the hose off, rolled them carefully, and put them in the glove compartment of Geoff's car. He might've left his cell phone in the trunk, but without a key she couldn't retrieve it. Still, she needed a phone.

  So much anxiety in her breast she could barely swallow. Part of her mind seemed unwilling to do anything but replay horrors, incongruities, and curiosities, like the little Chinese doppelganger who had come and gone, making pronouncements but little sense. Gone for good, Eden hoped. The rest of her mind was firing blanks when she tried to come up with a coherent plan of action. Brief whiteouts of comprehension. After one of those she found herself walking barefoot down the hill toward the woman who swayed beside a grave with her large accordion, a giant thing of rosewood, brass, and ivory; the woman looked, from behind, as if she were tussling with something that had attacked her.

  Eden waited, ten feet away, until the music stopped. She felt very tired. Whiteout.

  "Hello, dear."

  Eden blinked and focused.

  "Oh ... hello."

  Her face was old. Blunt wide nose, cheeks wrinkled like pink silk pillows. But it was a kind face, and Eden was grateful.

  "Did you have a good nap?"

  Eden reacted with a vague nod:

  "Saw you sleeping up there under that tree. Didn't want to wake you, you looked so peaceful. Can I be of any help?"

  Eden gestured. "Up there. My car ... I think I must have lost the keys."

  "Dear, that is a problem."

  "Was wondering if—you have a phone I could use to call—"

  "You must mean one of those wireless jobbies, that fold up and fit in a pocket. No, sorry to say I don't."

  "I apologize—for bothering you. I guess I'll . . ." Eden shrugged, smiling drearily. "I don't know."

  "No bother. I've finished playing, and I'm entirely at your disposal." The woman unloaded her accordion with a profound huffing and set it on the ground. "Does get awfully burdensome. Haven't the stren'th for a full set any longer. Time was, I could play as long as there were dancing feet in front of me. Do you like to dance?"

  "Uh—yes."

  "I see you've stained that beautiful dress. Time was, it took a lot of scrubbing, but the stain never quite disappeared. Now this new miracle stuff, spray it on before you wash, poof. No stain. My name is Wardella Tinch." She turned with a fond smile to the grave behind her. "And this is my husband Mycal. I mean, of course, his resting place. Room aplenty in the Tinch family plot in Eureka, but Mycal was always put off by the monuments that generations of Tinchs had erected to their own memories. So he chose to come all the way to Innisfall, to the Gardens, where, he said, everyone gets the same shake. A simple bronze marker. Mycal didn't wish to stand out, you know, living or dead. He took a quiet sort of pride in hiding his light under a bushel. He was a musician too. You want to know why I drive this far just to play the accordion for Mycal? Well, because I know it brings a smile to his face. But you're in need of a telephone, you said."

  "I have to find out if my parents are all right."

  "Why, they're doing just fine, Eden. Although Riley strained his back getting himself out of harm's way when part of that plane came crashing into the stadium."

  Eden backed up a step, anxiety twisting into fright as she stared at Wardella Tinch.

  "Did I startle you? I'm sorry for that, dear. Of course I'm going to take you straight home, it's my duty."

  "Who are you?"

  "Oh, I'm nobody, really, compared to you. I'm only a seeress. A clairvoyant. Treasurer Emeritus of the Auspices and Scryers' Society, Northern California Circle. Usually Wednesday is my day to be here at the cemetery, when I can close my shop for the afternoon. But my spirit guide told me I was needed today. He strongly suggested that I scoot right over to Innisfall. I hope you don't mind that I didn't wake you immediately. Let the girl get her sleep, I told myself. She's been through quite an ordeal. I wasn't shirking. I did keep a weather eye on you, all the time."

  "Spirit guide?"

  "Clark Gable. Name doesn't ring a bell? He was a famous movie star in his, hmmm, I should say our day." She made a grab for her floppy hat as a gust of wind nearly picked it up off her head. "Looks like we're in for some testy weather. We'd better be going then, Eden. Such a lovely name, and so, well, symbolic. It would be proper for me to call you Eden?"

  "I guess so. I don't care."

  "Thank you. It's definitely an honor for me. And a real change from my usual routine. Crystals, palms, entrails when called for, you know. But it's a living. We are all put on this earth for a purpose, and it is my great privilege to serve the needs of my fellow man. Oh, I can be such a rattle-brain! Plain to see how exhausted you are. That terrible accident. I suppose things don't always go right, even for the greatest of the adepts. We all have our human flaws, don't we?"

  "Please. I'd like to go home now."

  Wardella smiled and picked up her accordion, led the way to the pickup truck. The rump-sprung seat inside was covered with a crocheted lap robe that featured blue roses. Crystals like wind chimes dangled from the pedestal of the rearview mirror. Wardella got the truck's engine to kick over after three tries, pulled and tugged at the floor shift until they lurched away with a roar.

  "Do you know what makes that awful noise?" Wardella asked, concentrating on the road.

  "You need a new muffler."

  "Oh. What's that?"

  "And a tune-up."

  "Mr. Tinch always took care of those things."

  "Probably some new shocks," Eden added, her head hitting the underside of the roof. She looked around for something to hold on to. The pickup pre-dated seat belts by at least a dozen years.

  "This is all very helpful. I'm making mental notes as we go." They reached the cemetery gates. "Which way, dear?"

  "Right, then right again at the second light. We live on Deep Creek Road."

  "You're probably wondering how many of us there are, in this part of the world. We're quite numerous, actually. Northern California has always been a hotbed of psychic activity. From time immemorial. The redwood groves provide a harmonically beneficial environment for extrasensory development. Mount Shasta is one of the earth's prime energy centers. Dozens of communes in the area. Of course there's always a need for caution. Because, as you may already be aware, the Bad Souls also find these regions agreeable
to their purposes."

  Eden, only half hearing, was absorbed in the dance of the crystals below the rearview mirror. As the rattling old truck turned southwest, sunlight set the crystals on fire, a blue interior dazzle. Within the dazzle, movement: a swarm of tiny figures. They seemed aware of her. She had a prickling, superheated sensation, an urge to be included in the depths of the crystal, the wellspring of the Mysteries. But she also felt a sharp sense of danger. There were places she shouldn't go to, not yet anyway.

  The deluge of sun was fogging her eyes. She looked down, gently massaging the closed lids. Looked up and saw a boy of about fifteen, fallen, as if from a height too near the sun. Badly injured but not dead (she knew this in the first moment of recognition), he lay on the high hood of the pickup, his body moving laxly to the bump and jostle from the under-shocked wheels on the road. His face was inches from the windshield. Blood trickled slowly from his nose and one ear; otherwise his handsome face was unmarred. But there were so many broken bones. Eden reviewed the damage, as analytically as if she were looking at an X ray. Shattered bones could be mended. But there, deep in his brain ... He was, had been, a superb athlete. Twisting in the air like a platform diver, missing most of the rocks at the edge of the lake. She saw this too. The impact, his sprawled stillness. Hair the color of smoky brick. Black water and rocks.

  Eden, appalled, reached out to him. Her fingers stubbed against the windshield glass. A great upwelling sorrow filled her throat, her eyes; sorrow spilling out in a gush of tears. She fell back in the seat. Wardella glanced worriedly at her.

  "Robin," Eden said, and convulsed.

  CHAPTER 7

  HONOLULU, HAWAII • MAY 28 • 11:26 A.M. HDT

  In the fabulous tropical gardens of whatever-hotel-it-was, Rona Harvester received news of the crash of TRANSPAC 1850 in a note handed to her by Melissa McConnell.

  Rona had long been able to take bad news with hardly a blink of dismay. Her gracious smile remained in place and she continued to chat with fellow honorees from the World Health Organization until she was able to take advantage of a break before lunch and excuse herself.

  "Details," she demanded when she was alone with key members of the R Team.

  "We don't know much yet," Melissa said. "The DC-10 apparently wandered off course, some problem with the autopilot, according to the Los Angeles Air Traffic Control Center. The plane crashed on a college campus in northern California."

  "Survivors?"

  "One, listed as extremely critical at the Innisfall Medical Center. We don't have ID."

  Casey, the R Team's press secretary, got off the phone after a lengthy talk with her opposite number at Cal Shasta.

  "Here's one for the books. Apparently they were holding graduation exercises in the stadium a couple of hundred yards from where the DC-10 came down. Big crowd, six or seven thousand grads and parents."

  "And?" Rona said impatiently.

  "Well, part of the burning plane landed inside the stadium. It could have been a weenie roast, but just prior to the crash the class valedictorian apparently had a premonition. She warned everybody to run like hell. Uncanny. Saved scores of lives, I'm told."

  Rona turned to look at the aerial coverage of the crash scene that had just become available on CNN.

  "Premonition, huh? Do you have a name?"

  "The valedictorian? Eden Waring. That's E-D-E-N."

  "Get a phone number. I'd like to thank her personally for her efforts in preventing a worse disaster. I may invite her to the White House for a visit."

  "Major photo ops," Casey said approvingly.

  "She deserves a medal for valor," Melissa added.

  "No, no. That isn't what I had in mind. I just want to get to know her. She sounds like a very special person." Rona had the vague look she acquired when she was thinking hard. "Okay, everybody clear out. 'Lissa, send Daisy in to freshen my makeup and give me a recomb. It was hot as a bastard in that garden. But first I want a secure line; I need to make a phone call. Case, I could be a little tardy for lunch."

  Eight minutes later she was talking to the Director of Multiphasic Operations and Research Group.

  "Hello, Zeph." His tone was dour.

  "We have a problem, Victor."

  "I'm watching now."

  "Cheng was trying to fox us, Victor. Then it went bad. The Avatar is dead. I know it; I just have that feeling in my bones. Portia too."

  "You know we don't have much time," he said, and Rona thought she detected a note of panic in his voice.

  "But there may be someone else. The college kid, the one who saw it coming."

  "They just did thirty seconds on her, tape from the commencement exercise. And her yearbook photo. Beautiful girl. Zeph, how could this have gone so badly for us?"

  "Victor, don't get down in the dumps. Get busy and find out everything you can about Eden Waring. Obviously she's a seer, but there may be more to her than that."

  He sounded better when he spoke again, more sure of himself, the Victor Wilding she knew and loved.

  "The unexplained change of course did seem a little too neat."

  "Sure, Cheng had it worked out. I don't think she was ready to die."

  "According to the FAA in Los Angeles, TRANSPAC 1850 could have landed safely if some idiot student pilot hadn't flown into them."

  "So you know what I'm thinking."

  "Yes. And I think we should put Eden Waring on ice until we make up our minds about her."

  "Now you're talking. Do it. By the way, there's going to be some excitement out here in Luau Land in a couple of hours. Just in time to preempt prime time TV stateside for the entire evening."

  "What are you up to now, Zeph?"

  "I'm up to nabbing the presidency of the United States, what do you think? My motorcade is going to be ambushed. Some casualties, to make it look good. My own ass will be safe from imminent peril. And Allen Dunbar can eat shit up there at the U.N. while the rest of the world is focused on Rona Harvester."

  "Be cautious," Victor Wilding said, but he was laughing, which excited Rona. "Zeph, when you get going like this, my pecker points to the Dog Star. Don't stay away too long."

  "We lost Cheng. But it's all gonna work out, Victor. Maybe I always skimped on the book learning, but I knew how smart I was the day I was born."

  CHAPTER 8

  JFK INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT • MAY 28 • 5:10 P.M. EDT

  Tom Sherard had just collected two scotch and sodas from the bar in British Airways' first class lounge when the men came in looking for him. He was well acquainted with one of the three men: Otis Bloodsaw, onetime statesman, now the preeminent partner in one of those Wall Street firms where the walnut paneling is from a fifteenth-century French chateau and the custom carpeting is almost deep enough to require snowshoes. A big-shouldered man in a bespoke double-breasted blazer, in his mid-seventies but tanned and vigorous, with a piranha-like gaze and tooth line.

  The other two were younger by half, obviously from the same shop. The up-and-coming talents, a year or so from being named partners. Among the prestigious clients of Bloodsaw, Murdo, McKinzy, and Gunn, the Bellaver family and their several family foundations were at the top of the list.

  "Tom, how delightful."

  "Otis."

  The other lawyers on Bloodsaw's traveling squad had minimal smiles, not expecting to be introduced. Sherard knew the type. They didn't just look at him; they cased him, like burglars in a drawing room trying to decide where the safe is hidden.

  Otis Bloodsaw drove them farther away with a glance and would have taken Sherard by the arm if not for the drinks he was holding.

  "Tom, can we talk?"

  "Sure. This way."

  "I mean, somewhere else," Bloodsaw said, falling in beside Sherard as he limped across the lounge to a paneled corner, a plush sofa, and two leather easy chairs that faced a floor-to-ceiling window.

  "I'm traveling with a friend. It's quiet here. What's on your mind?"

  "Tom, I have Katharine waiting in a l
imousine outside. She urgently needs to see you."

  "What about?"

  "She will only discuss that with you."

  "Send her in. My flight doesn't board for thirty minutes."

  A tall young Kenyan woman looked up from the book of Mallarme's poems she was reading and smiled at Sherard as he handed her one of the drinks. She had slipped out of her shoes and was sitting with her long legs tucked underneath her. She had Arab blood from her Somalian grandfather, the almond-shaped eyes of her Chinese mother, and the high strong cheekbones from a race of African warriors. Her skin was the shade of a brown hen's egg. Her black, thick hair was cut rakishly short. Like most of the southern Masai people she had a merry broad grin, a heart-warmer. Otis Bloodsaw took her in with a wistful widening of his saw-toothed smile.

  "Don't I know you?"

  Sherard said, "Alberta Nkambe, Otis Bloodsaw."

  "Of course!" Bloodsaw said. "Little Bertie. You've cut your hair since I saw you last."

  "I was on a shoot in the Cyclades for SI's swimsuit issue. Long hair gets so messy on the beach. Anyway, I wanted a change."

  "My, but you've made a name for yourself in the fashion world."

  "And big bucks," Sherard said dryly. "Bertie's off to London to tape a video with Elton John."

  "We're off to London," Bertie corrected him, gently. Sherard gave her a look, fond and then perplexed, as if she posed a riddle he wasn't keen on solving.

  "Then I'm headed home," Sherard said.

  "To Kenya?" Bloodsaw asked.

  "Shungwaya. The game preserve my grandfather founded on Lake Naivasha."

  "Oh, back to the bush. I see." Bloodsaw glanced at the cane, a thick length of hand cut African ironwood, topped with a gold lion's head, which was leaning against the side of a chair. "How's the leg, Tom?"

  "Seventy percent, I reckon. About as good as it ever will be, according to the docs."

  "Have you spoken to anyone at Manhattan North recently?"

  Sherard sipped his scotch. Bertie reached up to squeeze his free hand. Sherard turned his head to look out the window, at the droop-nose Concorde nestled against the mouth of a jet-way. Between himself and the freedom he craved stood his own reflection, a shade of what he used to be. He cringed inwardly, but nothing showed on his face. Bertie, serenely gorgeous, squeezed his hand, drawing his attention back to her. He smiled tensely. "I talked to the homicide guys two days ago. Nothing new, as usual. No leads." He shrugged, as if to hide a shudder. "A man steps out of the back of a green Cadillac sedan on Madison Avenue, in full daylight, and guns down my wife while I'm buying a paper at the corner kiosk. He fires a dozen rounds. I know the weapon by the bloody sound of it. H and K MP5 submachine gun. And I see his face, every day. Turning to look at me as I run toward him. I have no gun. No gun. Gillian didn't like for me to carry one, even though we both knew she might ... Every day. Every fucking day I see it all again with perfect clarity. The gunman has a steak tartare face, like a burn victim's. The eyes of a dead carp. A toupee that looks as if it were purchased from a taxidermist. He takes his time with me. His pleasure to let me live and never forget him. The bastard merely cuts the legs from under me with another burst, steps back into the sedan and is driven away. Tinted windows. Stolen plate. I never see the driver. Someone is screaming. It must be me. Then I'm crawling toward Gillian. I have to get to her. Though I already know, from the way she lies there. I know."