Elixir (31 page)

He gets on an elevator with three men and two women buttoned up in business attire. As they rise, one of the males starts chatting with one of the females about an article in this morning’s
Washington Post
on campaign finance reform. Sean tries to decide if he’s hitting on her or not. By the time the cart pauses on his level he thinks yes. He weaves out from the back and walks down a wing filled with all fifty US state flags, each touched by bands of natural light, no two in the exact places.

He stops at a room labeled “Congressman P. Goya – PA – 13
^th
District,” opens it, and goes in. Passing a framed photo of the Liberty Bell, he approaches a secretary in a green sweater and pearl necklace. The young woman closes a drawer and tilts her attention up. “Sean?” she asks as if expecting him.

“Yeah. Hey.”

“Hold on.” She presses a black button on an intercom and says into it, “Hi sir. I have Sean Malone.” Smiling, she moves her stare to him. “He’ll be just a bit longer. You can have a seat.”

“No problem.” He settles on a two-person couch against the wall. She returns to her paperwork but glimpses him every few seconds, a dash of intrigue in her eyes, her boss informing her of the kid’s lore. He puts on a pair of headphones and listens to music for about ten minutes, a slight bob to his knee.

“Okay,” she says to him with a wave, Sean twisting out the earpieces and shifting to her. “You can go right ahead.”

“Thanks.” He hooks around the reception area to a set of brown double doors, cracks one, and steps into the office, Patrick leaning against his desk in anticipation, palms behind him on the wood surface.

“Jesus Christ, you grew up Sean,” the former NSA employee says, taking in the taller, eighteen-year-old version.

“I’m still not used to being called that.” Sean shuts the door and walks over. “You look good too Congressman.”

“Shit. I’m still not used to being called that either.” Patrick chuckles, then holds out his arms. “Good to see you man.” They hug. “Sit, sit,” he says, pointing at a seat.

Sean descends into it, unzipping his heavy jacket. He flaps it a couple times, trying to get some air on his toasty midsection. Patrick situates himself at his desk across, still has the same ergonomic chair from his NSA days.

Sean spots a framed picture he recalls a few inches from the computer, Patrick with his family at Disney World, two new photos next to it, one of his son, another his daughter, each about Sean’s current age in them, both much more mature-looking than as children at Disney World. He also notices a Philadelphia Eagles jersey he remembers, mounted on the wall. He thinks about the last time he saw it, the day he flew to the NSA in the middle of the Traveling Salesman dilemma. He ponders how different his life was then, no graffiti art, no Natasha, no Ebola cure.

He glances at Patrick and says, “Well, you tell me.”

“You’re positive you want to go through with it?”

“I wouldn’t have flown out here if I didn’t.”

Patrick inches closer, setting his elbows on his desk, folding his hands. “Just so you know, my friend in the FBI isn’t thrilled. The program is a one-way deal. Not to mention you did violate the agreement by coming back into the country without notice. He didn’t take too fondly to that. He’d be doing me a huge favor.” He leans back and rocks a couple times. “That’s not to say he won’t do it though. If you go through with what we talked about last night.”

“I just have to testify, right?”

“Yeah. If you do they’ll play ball. They really want to lock this guy up.”

Sean bites his lip, a pensive expression building on him. “Man, I still can’t believe they caught him...”

Patrick reaches under a heap of scattered documents, fishes out a manila folder, and tosses it to him. “Check it out.” The corner hits him in the chest, then it drops to his lap. Peeling open the cover, he gazes at three mugshots of Dante paper-clipped inside, a look of defeat on him. In the right-profile one Sean can see an oval scar on his face from the whack with the metal rod.

“They found some of his blood in the jail in Suddsfield,” Patrick says, tapping his right index finger on his left wrist. “He presumably cut himself on the...apparatus...when he was...handling the first victim. A bunch of the cop’s blood was outside the cell, but there were a few drops inside, different person’s. One of the officers who arrested you left a few minutes before the attack. He remembers the cells the three of you were in and confirmed this Dante was in fact in the one where the strangling happened.”

“How did they track him down once they had his DNA?” he asks, attention still on the black-and-white images of the killer.

“They were able to link the sample to another murder in Oregon from three months ago. He left some blood there as well getting in a physical altercation with the other man before...he broke his neck.” He clenches the air with his fingers. “Bare hands. They followed up with some old leads from that incident. The FBI pieced together enough information to get an address on him. Near the Idaho border. It was apparently a battle...but they dragged him in.”

“Nuts,” Sean says in a subdued tone. He closes the folder, wiping Dante’s chilling image from his field of vision, then lobs it on the desk.

“You have no problem providing an ID on him in court? Being a witness?”

“I’ll do anything they need to get that monster out of society.”

“Perfect. If you help the FBI out on this I don’t see it having any issues reversing the identity program it put you in.” He loops his fingers around the handle of a mug with the US Congressional seal on it. He has some coffee and asks with a grin, “So you want to bring Sean back from the grave, huh?”

“I always thought zombies had a charm to them.”

Shaking his head, Patrick laughs. He has two more sips, finishing the cup. “Let’s take a drive over to Bureau headquarters and chat with my pal.” He stands and saunters to a brass coat hanger, collecting his wool jacket and scarf.

“What’s he gonna need from me?”

“If you put in writing today you’ll testify they should make the identity reversal official in the system. Give them a couple more days to transfer your finances and get you new documentation, and after that it’ll be like you never left. They of course won’t acknowledge they were involved. The responsibility of the disappearance will fall on you. So you’ll need to make up a story convincing people why you wanted to play dead for four years.”

“Fair enough.”

“Don’t take this lightly. Assume the media will be all over it. People still remember you from the game show. Journalists will want to cover your...resurrection. You’re going to need something to say. And you obviously can’t mention the truth...anything about the NSA.”

“I know, I know. I don’t want cyber-crime gangs chasing me now anymore than I did back then. I’ll tell them I was stressed from being in the public eye. With
Jeopardy!
and everything.”

He nods a couple times. “That should work.”

“Well, it is true in its own right.”

Patrick slips into his coat. “You seem...solid now. You look...more relaxed than you did the last I saw you. Life good?”

“I can’t complain.”

“When the press hounds you, just tell them you needed to get away from it all, and now you’re fine. They’ll bug you for a few weeks then let you be. It’ll be impossible for anyone to make a connection back to the NSA if you keep it at that.”

“Speaking of the NSA, what’ll happen with all that crap with Paul Pine?”

“You were gone for a while. Put in enough time to weather it. New President as you must know. New Cabinet. New Secretary of Defense. Pine’s probably on a golf course somewhere. Fifty pounds heavier. No political reputation to protect anymore. You’re not a threat to him. I doubt we’ll see that flabby, pockmarked turkey neck of his ever again.” Sean chuckles. “Hey, they asked me about your aunt too. Is she staying in the program or not?”

Sean stands and zips his jacket up. “I spoke to her about it. She’s ready to come out of it if I do. She’s gonna still live in Italy with her husband, but would switch back to her real name.”

“Shouldn’t be an issue. Just make sure she goes along with your story. There can’t be any deviations. The media will come at her too.”

“She’ll be cool.”

“All right. FBI time. Let’s go.” Patrick collects his keys from the edge of his desk, then gestures toward the door.

“I hope they put this psycho behind bars for life,” Sean says, walking next to him.

Twisting his maroon scarf around his neck, Patrick asks, “How did you ever go from being in Rome to getting mixed up with some hit man in the mountains of Central California anyway?”

“Colzyne Systems hired him to kidnap me.”

“The big pharmaceutical company? With the commercials of the doctor roaming the rainforest in a lab coat?”

“Yup, them. There wouldn’t be a paper trail linking them back. But hopefully the hit man gives them up to the Feds.”

“Why the hell would they want to kidnap you?”

“I’ll be getting to that.” He stops walking, Patrick too. “It’s the second reason I wanted to fly out here.”

“You need something else from me?”

“A small favor.”

“What?”

“An introduction.”

“Who?”

“The director of the Centers for Disease Control. You know him?”

“Fred Bask. I’ve met him at a fundraiser before. Why?”

“There’s something I want to talk to him about. Something related to Colzyne.”

“You can’t get on the chief of the CDC’s calendar just like that. He’s a busy dude.”

“Can you reach out to him? He can meet with me when he’s free.” A few moments pass. “I have a feeling when he finds out what it involves he’ll schedule sooner than later.”

“I can see what I can do.” Patrick puts his hand on the doorknob but doesn’t turn yet. “Before I start calling in requests to higher-ups in the federal government you’re going to need to tell me what you’re...referring to. Why you need him. I don’t want to give the impression I’m going to be wasting his time. I’m sure you understand.”

“I came up with something.” Sean slides his hands in his front jean pockets. “I think he’d want to hear about it. In his possession it can help a lot of people.”

“Came up with something?” he asks, surveying him. “What?”

He glances at the chairs back by the desk, then at Patrick. “You might want to sit down.”

Two days later Sean is waddling down a metal ramp extending from the rear of a U-Haul truck to the pavement below, the top of a dinette table snug against his chest. It’s over seventy degrees in Santa Barbara, California this afternoon, the heat combined with the weight of the wood sustaining a coat of sweat on his face.

Once on flat ground he lugs the heavy piece of furniture toward a quaint bungalow home he signed a lease on yesterday, nestled among an overflow of greenery and bright flowers. Behind him in the van’s back are four stools, a TV box, a rolled-up area rug, and a lamp, all with their tags still on.

As he heads up the inclined driveway, the property’s hilltop view of the coast comes into sight, deep, lush foliage with palm trees peeking out here and there, all set on the backdrop of the Pacific Ocean. The ebb and flow of the vineyards in the distance remind him of the landscape around Marco and Mary’s villa in Tuscany.

Arms straining, he guides the table through the propped-open front door and crosses the foyer into the kitchen, where he situates it in an alcove. He lifts his white T-shirt and dabs some moisture around his eyes. He steps into the living room and weaves around eight cardboard boxes toward the rear of the home. Stopping at a window, he scans the deck, a flood of natural light pouring through the glass onto him.

He spots Natasha in a two-piece yellow bathing suit, tanning. He pops the lock on the pane, slides it up, and says with sarcasm, “I don’t need any help with the new stuff for my place. Thanks though.”

Laughing, she rolls over, a glow to her skin from more than the sun, all signs of her disease gone. “Just give me a little longer.” She pinches the curly straw in her cup of iced tea and has a sip.

“I don’t care how good you look in that bikini Vonlanden. I need a hand.”

“Oh shush mister. You know I’ll help. I’m almost done.” She sticks her tongue out at him and flips back over on her pink towel. “If I’m gonna move to California I need my California tan,” she says squinting up at the bluish-gold sky.

“Five more minutes. I’m timing you.” He closes the window. Kneeling, he yanks open a taped cardboard box. As he reaches inside, a knock on the propped-open front door carries into the room.

Turning to the sound, he notices a man on the stoop, gray beard, wide shoulders, lightweight cardigan sweater. “Hi,” the visitor says, double-checking the number on a sheet of paper in between his thumb and index finger. “I’m looking for Sean Malone. This was the address I was given.”

“You found him.” Sean springs up and strides to him. He slaps the dust and sweat from his right hand on his jeans, then locks grips with him. “Nice to meet you.”

“Hi Sean. I’m Fred. Fred Bask. Director of the CDC.”

“Yes. Of course. Come in, come in.”

He enters. “Just moving in?”

“You could tell, huh? Sorry for all the boxes and stuff.”

“It’s not a problem.” The man peruses the empty house, no furniture other than the dinette table in the kitchen. “Do you have somewhere to sit though at least?”

“Yes. One second.” He dashes outside. In about a minute he returns with a stool in each arm from the U-Haul, coat of sweat back on his face. He situates them in the living room by the window and gives them a quick wipe with his shirt. “Work?” he asks, catching his breath.

With a shrug the CDC director plops his broad build on one of the seats, cushion squeaking a bit. “Quite comfortable.”

Sean climbs onto the other and says with pride, “I bought the whole set for a hundred bucks. Got two more back in the truck.”

“Thrifty.”

Sean bends, snatches a half-full bottle of water from the white rug, and swigs. “Thanks for making it all the way out from Georgia,” he says, blotting the perspiration from his brow with his forearm.