Shadow of Eden (7 page)

“You’re right, it’s following the olfactory radiations,” said Dr. Walker. “It must have wiped out his smell, then spread to his memory and emotional centers.”

Steve’s face knotted in thought, “Let’s put this together. We’ve got an airline pilot who has a disease affecting his frontal lobes, with a loss of judgment. His temporal lobes are affected, and somehow are recreating his Vietnam experiences.”

“Right,” Marty added, “memory’s stored there, triggered by this thing somehow. That would explain his flashbacks.”

“And,” Steve continued, “his limbic centers are involved, either increasing the intensity of his flashbacks or maybe making them seem credible. Otherwise, he would have felt like he was just dreaming or remembering things. Instead, he acted as if it were really happening.”

“I see what you’re driving at. He found himself in the middle of his memory, having to act it out all over again.” Marty scratched his head. “Interesting. And frightening. I wouldn’t want to go through that.”

“But what is it?” Steve stared at the picture as if it would talk. “A virus? A toxin? Fungal? And why did it start here?” He pointed to the frontal area. “Nasal entry of a toxin that spread back through the axons?”

“Good question.”

As they talked, Steve stared at the brain images, mentally picturing a pathogen entering the nose, tracking into the brain through the fine olfactory nerves, and then progressively spreading along nerve axons through the brain pathways into the most secret and prized parts of Captain Palmer’s brain. He imagined it seeping from the affected nerves into the adjacent brain tissue, extending the damage and eventually becoming confluent, wiping out brain tissue until there was nothing left. He shivered.

Where had he seen this pattern before? Steve tried to round up the scraps of that memory. Bits of the image floated just outside his grasp, like a partially remembered dream. He had been in a dark X-ray reading room much like this one and he had been standing next to another doctor, also male, but he could not remember who. The scan had not been one of his patients, but whose?

“Steve?” Marty broke his thoughts.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Steve remarked, turning to look at Marty. “Let’s stay in touch.”

Chapter 12

S
ecretary Resnick finished crunching a Rolaids as she walked into the Oval Office. Jeff Bell, President Dixon’s Chief of Staff followed her in and closed the door. Dixon and Bell had worked together as far back as Dixon’s first run for the Senate and they both had deep Virginia roots. “I’ve called in the team,” Bell announced. “They’ll be here soon.”

President Robert Dixon rose from a fireplace chair to greet her. He had dressed in a pair of Levi’s and a worn Yosemite sweatshirt. “Hello, Linda. Sit, sit. Coffee? Wesley’s making some.”

“No thanks, I’ve had plenty already.” She sat down in the chair in front of the fireplace opposite Dixon. “I am very sorry to wake you up,” she began, “but . . .”

“Nonsense. So what’s going on? China?”

“China has several thousand troops in Hong Kong surrounding the Falun Gong worshippers in Kowloon Park demonstrating for religious freedom.”

The President frowned. “The Falun Gong . . . ?”

Resnick knotted her brow. “Yes sir,” she said deliberately. “We spoke about it in yesterday’s meeting. I said it was a potential target for the Chinese government to break up.”

Dixon’s face registered recognition. “Oh, yeah. I guess I need the caffeine pretty quick. So the PLA’s got them surrounded. So . . . ?”

“We’re expecting some violence. How much I can’t say.”

The phone rang and Bell picked it up. After a moment, he hung up. “That was Larry Calhoun, Linda. He says to turn on CNN.” He opened the curved wall panel hiding the TV and hit some buttons on the remote. The CNN picture was dark and grainy and at first Resnick couldn’t make out what she was seeing. Titling at the bottom of the screen told them this was live from Kowloon Park.

“It’s dark,” a woman’s voice shouted. “All the lights have gone out.” Her words could barely be heard over nearby cries and yells. “People are frightened and— Oww! Pushing . . . hard to breathe . . .”

The camera image streaked with movement. They could make out a few words from the newscaster. “Can’t keep people off . . .” They heard some staccato pops that made Linda jump. Gunshots? The camera image blurred again before it settled on white smoky streaks against the lit night sky. “Tear gas . . . crowd is panicking.”

Resnick heard several sharp reports and the camera swung again, stabilizing on a podium in time to see several man-sized silhouettes crumple and fall, with others quickly following. In just a few heartbeats, all the men at the podium had ceased standing, apparently shot.

“Jesus Christ!” The sudden outburst from Dixon startled her. His face was red and his hands were balled into fists as he stared at the TV. “I need to talk to the Chinese leader!” He looked at Resnick. “He’s got to stop this crap!” Dixon rubbed his temples, looking suddenly very tired. “Can someone get him on the phone?” Looking around he shouted. “Where’s that coffee? Wesley!”

“I’ll get on it,” Resnick said, also shaken. She walked out to the reception area where Joan Pascal, Dixon’s personal secretary hurried in, looking as hastily put together as Resnick felt.

“Hello, Madam Secretary,” Joan said, managing a weak smile as she dropped her purse into a drawer of her desk.

“Hello Joan. I’m glad to see you. Can you get Chinese Premier Chow on the phone and patch in our translator from State’s situation room?”

Joan stuck out her bottom lip in thought. “I can do that,” she said slowly. Give me about five minutes to get someone on the line.”

“Right. Thanks, Joan.”

Back inside, Dixon and Bell still stared at the CNN broadcast. It now showed the darkened silhouette of the woman reporter facing the camera, backlit by the dim city glow. Behind her, scores of dark shapes ran or quickly walked by. “Okay, Okay, I’m Amy Chan in Kowloon Park, surrounded by panicked demonstrators.” She coughed several times and quickly wiped her eyes with her sleeve. “We’ve been hit with tear gas. People are panicking, not knowing what to do or where to go. This is the sorry state of the largest demonstration of the Falun Gong ever. It was peaceful and organized until literally moments ago when all the speakers on the podium were shot, cut down apparently by snipers as they stood before the demonstrators, calling for peace and non-violent resistance. About thirty died right before our eyes.” She stopped in a fit of coughing.

The camera moved in closer, jerkily, and the features of the reporter became somewhat sharper. Chan was a young oriental woman, disheveled, her black hair in disarray. Composed again, she resumed speaking loudly to be heard over the din. “And—wait . . .” she looked over her shoulder. “Just now, I hear bangs, gunshots, I believe, fired from,” she turned her head and listened, “Yes, different directions, lots of shots, probably hundreds, hundreds of shots.” Faint pops, like strings of firecrackers firing all at once, came through the TV speakers.

“The crowd is in a frenzy.” Chan was shouting again. She moved still closer to the camera. “Shots continue even as we speak. One man I spoke to just half an hour ago said all he wanted was to go home to his family; he expressed no political interest, just a desire for religious freedom. He had no idea the army would—”

A group of demonstrators collided with Chan, knocking her to the ground. Resnick saw a tangle of bodies, punching and kicking to get free. Then the screen went blank.

“Jesus!” Dixon exclaimed, pacing back and forth in front of the TV. “Where’s the goddamn Premier? Get him on the line, now!”

Resnick stared at the President in surprise. Dixon rarely swore.

The scene cut to anchorman Frank Robinson who looked up from his monitor and into the camera. His expression betrayed his alarm. “We will resume the live broadcast from Kowloon Park when it becomes possible. We now have a live voice report from George Liu in Hong Kong who is calling us from a satellite phone. He is outside Kowloon Park and has been giving us reports of the actions of the Chinese Army. Here is George Liu.”

“Herb,” shouted a man’s voice, identified on the screen as George Liu. “They’re shooting! They’re shooting into the Park!”

“Are you sure it’s live ammo?” Another man’s voice, clearer than the first, answered George. Titling on the screen identified the second voice as Herb Wong, CNN’s Hong Kong station chief.

“I’m close. I’m just outside Kowloon Park,” Liu continued, “behind a car and I can see the crowd. Oh! Oh! They’re . . . they’re stampeding between two buildings. They’re running down the stairs between the buildings and . . . and the Army is . . .” His words took on a hysterical note. “I can’t believe what I’m seeing! They’re shooting, Herb! Point blank, with machine guns and, and assault rifles. People are being stampeded from behind and pushed right into the shooting range of the Army.”

His voice rose in anguish. “It’s point blank range. This is awful! People are dying by the hundreds. There’s a pile of bodies in front of the Army and still they are being pushed over . . . and . . .” He stopped talking and Resnick wondered if they had lost the signal.

“George?” Wong shouted.

“I’m here.” Liu continued in a much more subdued voice, almost whispering, and Resnick found herself leaning towards the TV. “There is no telling how many have been killed or trampled already. It’s horrible, horrible. I’ve never . . .”

“George, are you okay?”

“I don’t know. I’d better get out of here. I’m leaving.”

Resnick’s stomach roiled. This was as raw as it got.

“Are you safe?” Wong demanded.

“I’m walking away, now, away from the Park. I only hope the Army’s not— Wait! Wait! Oh, no! The Army’s going in. I repeat, the Army’s moving into Kowloon Park.”

“Where’s the goddamn Premier?” Dixon shouted again. “Joan!”

She yelled back. “Working on it.”

“This has got to goddamn stop!”

Chapter 13

J
oan walked in, a frustrated look on her face. “Boss, no go. Premier Chow is indisposed and cannot take your call.”

Dixon looked at his secretary, unbelieving. “What in the hell does indisposed mean? Is he sitting on the crapper?”

Resnick voiced her first thought. “Perhaps he is no longer Premier.”

Dixon laughed without humor. “So maybe he got flushed down the can. Dammit, what the fuck can we do about this thing?” He pointed his coffee mug at the TV, his glare challenging Bell and Resnick. “What?”

Resnick, frustrated at the killing she knew was going on at this very moment, heard herself speak calmly. “At this time, sir, nothing. At least to stop the killing.”

Dixon shifted his glare onto Resnick. “I gathered that. What else?”

Tyrone Grune, President Dixon’s Press Secretary, walked into the Oval Office followed by August Crusoe, the National Security Advisor. Dixon pointed at the TV. “You guys up on this?”

“Been getting reports from my staff,” Crusoe said, his pipe already lit and filling the Oval Office with its pungent smell. “Terrible. Tiananmen all over again, worse.”

“Ty,” Dixon said to his press secretary. “I want something by ten-thirty, ten would be better.”

“Right. I’ll get you on for a five minute statement.” Grune, a tall, gangling, word genius with a red pencil perpetually stuck behind his ear, vanished down the hall.

“Camera’s on,” a male voice announced from the TV, drawing their attention back to the events in Kowloon Park. The story was impossible to resist, reality TV at its voyeuristic worst.

Chan was leaning against a palm tree, breathing hard. Her image was ghost-like, silhouetted against the faint light behind her. “Okay,” she said, “I’m Amy Chan with cameraman Rudy Winchong. We have just escaped a group of Peoples Liberation Army troops who entered the Park and are apparently shooting at anybody in their path. We have seen many victims of the shooting, both wounded and dead. I got spattered with blood, I was so close.”

She held up her hand showing the blood on it. As Ms. Chan looked at it, Resnick could see a puzzled look cross her face.

“Oh, no, it’s my blood! I’ve been shot in my hand! Funny, it doesn’t hurt.” Her laugh was tinged with hysteria. Resnick’s insides filled with bitter dread, like the horror movies where the woman turns around to look at her pursuer and trips and falls and cannot get up.