The Glass House (18 page)

Decker hesitated.

“There was a before the apple and after the apple,” Linwood prompted.

“Time,” Decker said. “There was no time before Eve bit into the apple.”

Linwood nodded. The man never smiled, but this particular nod seemed to be approving.

“And with the beginning of time what else comes into existence?”

“Death,” Decker said.

Again that approving nod, then Linwood said, “And with the arrival of death, what else was born?”

It took Decker a moment to figure it out. “Ego. Your death versus my death. Time leads to death. Death leads to ego.”

“Right. That's why they chose an apple—a thing in two identical halves perfectly joined into one thing, complete in and of itself. Then it is bitten into—and it is separated from its wholeness. Just as you and I are separated by ego—yourself versus myself.” He hesitated, then said, “But you have felt the healing of that rift in your time here.” Then he said the most extraordinary thing: “You love music but are not even remotely musical yourself. You can't carry a tune. You have almost no sense of rhythm. You are separated from it—or you were till you started working here. But now you could harmonize without thinking about it.”

He sang a single lovely bass note, and before Decker knew it
he'd sung a perfect third above it. Linwood stopped and sang a note two steps above Decker's note, and Decker immediately responded with the tonic. And so they sang in the rising of the sun over the African desert and welcomed the day.

• • •

The next night Linwood surprised him with another bit of knowledge—or insight, or bias. “Do you believe in miracles?”

“No.”

“Really?”

“No. Nor angels for that matter.”

“Do you know why you don't believe in miracles?”

“Because they don't exist.”

“No, because you mistake the entire idea of miracles.”

“And how do I do that?”

“You think they have to do with doing good.”

“And they don't? Miracles aren't about good being done?”

Linwood asked, “Do you know your World War Two history?”

“A bit.”

“What would you say was the most world-changing thing that happened in the Second World War?”

“The Holocaust, the bomb, the slaughter of twenty million Russians?”

To each of Decker's statements Linwood shook his head. “No. Not even close.”

“Then what?”

“The bombs to doves in Croatia.”

“What?”

Linwood continued to walk. Neither his pace nor the tone of his voice changed.

“The Allied forces were moving north through Serbia fighting against the Croatians, who were as committed Nazis as the Germans. Well, the Allies had encircled them inside a medieval fort. When they had sealed off all the exits, they ordered in the
bombers—and they came and they dropped their bombs. And in the full view of hundreds of Allied soldiers, those bombs turned to doves. There were hundreds of reports—maybe thousands of them—but all were suppressed.”

“Why would someone suppress—”

“Because those Croatian soldiers were as vicious and savage a group of racist assholes as have ever existed.” Decker had never heard Linwood swear, and it threw him off balance. “So how could a miracle happen to save such evil men?”

“I don't know.”

“Yes, you do.”

After a pause Decker said, “Because miracles have nothing to do with the doing of good?”

“Yes, that is not their purpose.”

“Then what is?”

“To remind us that there is an other out there. Neither good nor bad—just an other, he or she or it just is. Like winter after autumn, just a fact, neither good nor bad. It's a mistake every religion makes. They assume the ‘other' keeps score, that if you gain enough points you get a reward. And of course only they know what's a credit and what's a demerit. As if they had a rule book—the only rule book! Folly! Ignorant, self-righteous folly.”

A cloud moved at that moment, and the full brilliance of a desert moon illuminated the craggy realities of Linwood's face. Suddenly it hit Decker.

“You were there. You saw it.”

As if on cue, the cloud reasserted itself. Decker was not able to see whether Linwood's face betrayed what Decker knew to be the truth.

“Are you of the clearing?” Decker asked.

Linwood moved away, and the shadows seemed to follow him.

“Are you a friend of the clearing?” Decker persisted.

Linwood nodded slowly.

“But not
of
the clearing?”

The big man slowly turned to Decker. “They also serve who only stand and wait.”

“So you know your Milton.”

“Who?”

“Nothing. But you aren't of the clearing?”

“Sadly not
of
the clearing.”

“But you know of the clearing?”

“Everyone who breathes knows of the clearing. People who call themselves religious sense its existence but are not even in the forest, let alone in the clearing. But the clearing draws them. The aggressive atheists call it ‘the religious gene.' ”

“I'm not religious.”

“As you've said, but you sensed the existence of the clearing.”

“I didn't.”

“Yes you did, you just wouldn't allow yourself to believe in it.” It took a moment for Decker to digest that, but before he could reply Linwood continued. “It's the real promised land, but some of us only get to see it from across the Jordan.” Linwood looked more closely at Decker. “The Jordan?”

“Not a river, a metaphor.”

“Right. Enough talk, let's walk.”

And so they did—till the sun rose and brought the desert back to life.

• • •

It never occurred to Decker to truth-tell Linwood. He knew beyond knowing that the large man always spoke the truth, or at least the truth as he understood it.

One night they stopped in the midst of a dry riverbed and Linwood slowly turned and turned in the light of the full moon. When he finally ceased his circling he stooped and picked up a large handful of dusty river sand and slowly cascaded it onto Decker's head and shoulders.

It was only after the sand stopped that Decker realized that he was kneeling in the riverbed—at the feet of the large white man who called himself Linwood.

“You asked me if I was of the clearing.”

“Yes.”

“I prepare those who enter the clearing to try to find the great glass house.” He dropped more sand on Decker's head. To Decker it felt like cool river water washing away his old self.

• • •

Another night they sat on the great boulders and Linwood asked him, “So, do you know why you're here yet?”

“No.”

“You are a very bad liar, Mr. Decker Roberts. A very bad liar indeed.”

“I don't know why I'm here. If you do know, why don't you just tell me?”

Linwood shook his head. His lips did not move, but Decker clearly heard him say, “If I had to tell you then it wouldn't be your path, it would be mine.”

For a moment Decker made himself believe that Linwood had spoken those words, but he had been watching the man's lips and they hadn't moved.

They did not share a single word more that night.

• • •

Two nights later, Decker didn't wait for Linwood to speak but shouted at the large man's back; “So? Why exactly am I here?”

To his surprise, Linwood turned slowly, almost elegantly, in the bright starlight and said simply, “To put an end to this old world and usher in the new one. But you know that you can't do that alone, don't you? Don't you!”

Decker felt his head nod without intending to.

“You know that you can't do that without the boy from the Junction. Where is the boy from the Junction?”

“I feel like an autistic child beside you.”

“Neither true nor relevant. An autistic child is merely on a separate path.”

“Than me?”

“You are the man from the Junction. You have found your path.”

“To what?”

Linwood ignored the question. “Where is the boy from the Junction?”

“Why do you want to know that?”

“Because the man from the Junction must be together with the boy from the Junction.”

“To do what?”

Linwood stared at Decker and finally said, “You know what.”

“Tell me, dammit!”

Linwood sighed deeply. For a moment Decker almost saw the weight of time itself on the big man's shoulders. “We've already talked about this.”

“When?”

“What happens when Eve bites the apple?”

“Time begins.”

“And when time begins what else?”

“Death.”

“And with death, ego—your death versus my death—and so our present nasty world.”

Decker thought about that for a moment then asked, “So what happens when Seth and I are together?”

“You put a stop to it.”

“To what?”

Linwood spread his huge arms and said, “To all this. You bring this nasty tired world to an end and begin the new one.”

TRISH INVOLUNTARILY SHIVERED AS SHE
crossed Annette Street in the Junction and climbed the library steps. She turned and looked back at the place where the gaslight had stood from which the boy with eight fingers, each nail painted black, had been hanged in 1902.

She entered the library and went to the basement, where Theo had told her to meet him. She opened the door to the Junction archives and didn't see him.

Then she heard him cough.

“That's nasty, Theo.”

“Yeah, and then we die. Thanks for coming, Trish.”

“Sure. You found something in this place? I thought you'd been through here a dozen times already and found nothing of interest.”

“Yeah.”

“So why'd you want me to meet you here?”

Theo hesitated, then stifled a cough.

“What?” Trish demanded.

“When are you meeting with that Public Broadcaster guy about the hanged boy?”

“Later today.”

“Too bad.”

“Why's it too bad?”

Theo hesitated again. This time he didn't bother stifling his cough.

“Come on, Theo, we've worked together on this doc for almost two years. No one knows more about the Junction than you. So what's up?”

Theo spat something dark into a handkerchief; its multiple stains showed that it had received such deposits before. He pocketed the filthy thing, then asked, “You ever gone to a place over and over again—thought you knew every twist and turn—then one day you go back to that same place and it's like you've never been there before? Everything's changed?”

“Are you talking about this archive?”

“Yeah. It's like I've never been here before—but I've been here over and over again.”

“So what's changed?”

“Everything. Nothing's where I left it, and there seems to be all sorts of new stuff—stuff I've never seen before.”

“Anything interesting?”

“I honestly couldn't tell you. I have to go through it all—from the beginning.”

“Is that why you asked me to meet you here?”

Theo coughed, then spat, then said, “I'm not sure why I asked you here.”

“Theo!”

“Okay, okay, I'm sorry. It's just that . . .”

“What?”

“Somehow it's all changed. Everything's changed.”

For a moment, Trish felt that she should hug Theo, then she thought better of it, turned and left the dusty little man in the dusty room—by himself.

AS YSLAN GOT OFF THE
plane, her phone rang. “Hicks.”

“Special Agent Yslan Hicks?”

“Yes, who's this?”

“Carpenter, from the Oceanside office. Do you hear an odd hum on the phone?”

“A bit. But I'm in an airport so—What is it, Carpenter?”

“Your guy back east—”

“Are you referring to Leonard Harrison, head of the NSA?”

“Yeah, sorry. I meant no disrespect.”

“Can you get to it, Carpenter. Why are you calling?”

“We found a man slumped over the wheel of his car, lucky as hell he ran out of gas. Could've killed himself and a lot of other people.”

“What about the man?”

“He's displaying the same symptoms as Mr. Harrison. Totally vegetative but nothing out of the usual on his tox report. Just in a permanent deep sleep like Mr. Harrison.”

A thought leapt into Yslan's head:
Is he dreaming?
She asked, “Have you got an ID?”

“Dr. Petronius Chumley, PhD in computer science.”

She relayed the information to Emerson, who punched it into
the Homeland Security database: “Convicted of computer crimes in 2006, released four years early.”

“How long is the drive to Oceanside from here?”

“Six hours or twenty—depends on getting around L.A.”

Yslan thought about it, then said, “Get us a car.”

• • •

Emerson's phone rang, and he picked it up. “Is she with you?”

“If she was I wouldn't have answered. She's in the ladies' room.”

Mallory stared at the map on his office wall showing him where exactly number 3, number 4 and the catalyst were. “
Pilgrim's Progress
,” he muttered.

“Excuse me, sir?”

“Nothing.”

Emerson quickly explained about the call from Oceanside and ended with, “Do you want me to cancel this?”

“No. She'll suspect something. But be quick. Catch a flight—there're private airports all over Southern California, there has to be one near Oceanside. Take a damned plane, it can take hours to drive around Los Angeles.”