The Terminals (4 page)

Chapter 6

The monk looked at me
and scratched his stubbly skull. I'd agreed to convince this man to die and chase a ghost through hell. Outside of Purgatory, the whole operation now sounded ludicrous.

“You need me to—what?” he asked.

Under his kind eyes I shifted, not sure how else to put it. Maybe I didn't care enough to rephrase. I sighed and tried again. “We need you to die for us.”

The monk folded his hands in his lap in a very monkish way.

“That's what I thought you said.” He looked disappointed. “Some nerve.”

I told myself that just because someone took a vow didn't make them better, or more charismatic, or due any more respect. After all, this man had been a monk for almost forty years and he hadn't even risen in rank to Prior.

Brother Charlie Harkman was pushing sixty and the chemo had given him a deathly pallor, but had not yet extinguished lively hazel eyes. His tonsure was patchy and the skin beneath so thin I could see the networks of veins beneath. The parentheses framing his lips suggested a benevolent man who usually smiled, even if he wasn't currently. The cell was spartan: a small wardrobe, a washbasin, and a towel. On the plaster wall above where he rested his head hung a crucifix. To me, crosses had always looked too much like upside-down swords.

I believe you can learn a lot about a soldier based on what personal effects they bring on deployment. I'd brought books of poetry by Blake and Milton, good sunglasses, letters from my godfather and a photo of Julian, the German Shepherd I'd given up for adoption when I received my deployment order. This man had a cross, a washcloth, and what appeared to be a gold bracelet of a snake eating its tail. It wasn't much to go on. Either he'd never really settled in for the long haul, or he strictly followed the ascetic aspect of his faith. Why then, a thick gold bracelet?

“Suicide.” He snorted and then smiled as if he knew a punch line must be in the offing. “I'm a monk!”

“We don't use the term suicide.” I pressed the scars on my wrists against my wrinkled gray pantsuit. As I'd headed out of Purgatory, Morph had suggested that a change of attire might help with my mission. I hadn't worn this suit since attending my mother's funeral.

“You're serious.” He licked his lip. “And how then do you rationalize this?”

“Go terminal. You'll go terminal.” I flushed. In the Army, it was easy. I gave orders and I followed orders. I could control the ones I gave, and I could control how I executed the latter. I wasn't used to explaining myself, and my embarrassment trod a thin border with anger.

“And that makes a difference?” He cocked his head to the side.

“Suicide is killing yourself to escape the pain of living and usually when you would expect to have years left to live. What we do is free your soul at a specific time, when you're already going to die soon, allowing your inevitable death to serve as a chance to retrieve information that can save lives. You are making the ultimate self-sacrifice. A suicide is selfish, going terminal is selfless.” My cheeks heated; it might actually be true, that this spark of hope was what had brought me to New York. But suicide could also be righteous. Mine could be. The monk's face pinched with skepticism.

I was convincing no one, but had few options. For Doctor Deeth to approve terminals, they had to understand the faith of the deceased at a minimum. How many dying Gnostics or Gnostic scholars could there be? And, if the articles in my satchel were an indication, this guy was an expert not only on the religion, but also on Hillar the Killer.

I shrugged off my leather handbag and dipped into it, pulling out sheaves of laminated paper. These I dealt on to the bed like baseball cards.

“The location of eleven abducted children died with Hillar McCallum, and we need someone to follow after him.”

On the cot lay newspaper clippings. I knew each well, having studied them on the helicopter flight, along with the pitch Morph had used on her missions. If it'd worked for her, it wasn't for me.

From a pocket of his robe, Charlie plucked a delicate pair of reading glasses.

“It's nice to have a lady in the monastery.” He leaned forward and smiled at me over half-moon lenses. “I don't receive many, even with the cloister nearby.”

Since earning the burns along the one side of my face, I'd been uncomfortable beneath the stares of men, more so now with the bandages removed. I moved my head so that my lank hair covered the still-raw wound. My insecurity annoyed me, weakened me, but here I was tossing my head at being ogled by a dying monk. Oddly, the injury had the opposite effect on men than that I would have expected; far from dissuading them, wearing my hair down to cover the scar had given me a femininity that I'd never before cultivated. Civilian clothing and the trim pantsuit had replaced the chunky military wear, though I still wore army boots. They'd take those off the day I went tits up.

“And why me,” Charlie asked, looking up from one article. “I've told the FBI everything I know.”

“Only someone who understands Hillar's religion can follow him into his afterlife,” I explained. “Otherwise, I'd be chasing after him myself.”

“Quite amazing,” the monk whispered and returned his attention to the press clippings. He took each in turn and read while I waited, knocking off the headlines in my mind.

Six cooked at campground barbecue—source says; eyes missing.
These were the first deaths of eighty that crossed sixteen state lines. No evidence to speak of, simply the partially charred remains of six unfortunates and the mystery of the missing eyes.

Dental hygienist murdered at ‘pain-free' clinic—eyes, teeth and tongue removed.
Perhaps due to the horror of it, no reporter touched the obvious irony in the second attack. The coroner believed the young woman died over the course of several hours while she bled out. After the MO of the murderer was made public, a man stepped forward and suggested that the killer might well be his son—Hillar McCallum; the boy had a history of slaughtering animals, once choked a girlfriend unconscious, and had an obsession with eyes. He'd disappeared to Thailand for nearly a decade before returning six months ago, tattooed and disinterested in renewing a relationship with his father. I wondered how many eyeless corpses might be littering Thailand.

A search of McCallum's last known address had added to the conviction, uncovering snuff videos, pornography, and a chamber that would have made the Marquis de Sade blush. Symbols and texts believed to be twisted versions of Gnostic glyphs papered the walls. But the food in the fridge was months old. It was a collage of black caviar, tiger shrimp, aged Stilton and uncorked wine, like he were some lowly-educated Hannibal the Cannibal who sampled one bite of everything, but ruined it all.

The rotten food and pile of flyers beyond the front door mail slot suggested Hillar was gone and might never return. He'd left one surprise, however. When a detective had opened the door leading to the hidden chamber, a bomb had exploded, killing her and two other officers. The father figured it had been meant for him.

Bus stolen with children still on board: Worst feared.
The monk fingered one of the latest clippings.

The final clipping I handed him featured two headshots side by side, a photo of Brother Harkman and another of Hillar McCallum.
Gnostic Expert Charles Harkman believes murderer wants victims' ‘sparks.
' In the article, the monk had gone on to explain how Gnostics believed that a spark of the divine lay within each of us. Hillar took this rather literally. The pages went limp in Brother Harkman's hands.

“And have you seen this?” I asked.

I held my iPhone out to him and started the video clip. Jian Kim, Iowa State Governor, stood before a clutch of news microphones. Behind him rose a water tower with a happy face and a logo that read
Iowa: Fields of Opportunity
, but vandals had scratched the
L
from Fields and replaced it with an
N
.

“The authorities
are
doing all they can, but they need information. Volunteers for the search. And for everyone to report sightings of abandoned school buses.” The Asian man's only accent was the hand slicing through the air to mark each item. “School buses can't hide. I want my daughter back. And time is running out. Thank you to those who have already helped, and thank you for listening.”

Brother Harkman reached down the far side of his bed and retrieved a stainless steel bowl. When it was in his lap, he breathed heavily over it.

“Damn chemo's making me sick,” he said. A fleck of spittle straddled his lower lip.

The use of a swearword caused me to start, and I felt as though I intruded on a private show of weakness. But I had no time for courtesy.

“By expert estimates, Brother, these children have as little as a day left, at most two-and-a-half. Depending on the temperature of their prison and exposure, they might be already near death. We really can't know for certain.”

He waved his hand for me to wait, seemingly annoyed, and then retched. When he had composed himself, he flexed his jaw muscles and turned back. He had aged years since I arrived.

“How do I know you are for real? You listed as the Center for Disease Control or something?”

I mourned the loss of his good nature and wondered if other Euths would see me like this, forever the bearer of unpleasant news until my case turned up. The alternative was beginning to seem more attractive again.

“No, sir, we do not have a cover, nor are we recognized by the government. Only three non-terminals know of our existence. The heads of the CIA, FBI, and State.”

“State. The president?”

“Correct.”

He shut his eyes, leaning back against a pillow and the stone wall.

“The Terminals were active in Iraq and Afghanistan. We've foiled bioterrorism plots, a dirty bomb left over from the Cuban missile crisis, and found missing planes and submarines with onboard nukes before our enemies could.” It was much the same pitch the general had given me. But while he had convinced me to live, I was now using it to convince a monk to die. If hell existed, I had a clear pass through its gates.

“Sounds grander than a serial killer.”

I frowned. “Eleven kids have disappeared with the kidnapper dead.”

“Bet one of them being the governor's kid has something to do with it.” Charlie spat into the bowl. The reek of bile was stringent in my nostrils. I wanted to leave.

He squinted at me, pinioning me where I stood. “You said you'd be going yourself if not for the religion mismatch.”

I nodded.

“So, what are you dying of?”

“I'm not. I'm doing this for my own reasons.”

“An actual suicide, then.” He worked himself further forward and cocked his head. “No
going terminal
about it.” When I didn't respond, he continued. “You can understand why it would be difficult to be convinced by someone who could not follow through with their own suicide?”

He regarded me, listening to the silence. I always thought priests could do that better than soldiers. Soldiers ordered silence, it was a discipline. Priests listened to it, as if learning from it what needed to be said and plucking it out like a ripe carrot. It made me realize how much silence I had in my life. I just never listened to it. I'm not sure I wanted to hear what it had to say.

“We all have a darkness in us that we regret,” he said. From the hang of his head these were obviously not mere words. And I wondered if his darkness could be the Achilles heel I needed to convince him to join the Terminals. “But you need not let it consume you.”

“I'm not here for counseling,” I said.

He rubbed his stubbly bald spot. “Do you know how much time I have left?”

“The doctor gave you six months. Terminally ill,” I replied.

“Yes, six months.” Breath whistled through his nose. “Six months can be as full of grace as sixteen years.”

“Could be less,” I cut in.

He nearly kicked the bowl off of his bed. “Could be more!”

If he expected a suicidal colonel to see the glass as half-full, he was mistaken. I reached back into my bag and felt for the smooth gloss of photographs. I fanned them in one hand and plucked out the first; names and notes were written on the backs. I held a picture of Cordell Hayward.

“Eleven children.”

His eyes narrowed, but he said nothing.

“Cordell, twelve years old—loves art and music—wants to be a fireman.”

I let it drop to the stone floor, revealing Jake Altman.

“Jake, eleven years old—particularly good at spelling even though he's dyslexic, wants to be a writer.”

Alistair Dexter broke my heart. In the photo, he worked a piano with an intense, very adult concentration. He was engulfed by a tuxedo, and I suspected that the piece he played was powerful.

“Alistair, twelve years old—staged his own play this year in front of church, a monologue about saving the Earth—you can catch it on YouTube.”

“I know what you're trying to do,” Charlie said, and his color deepened.

“Nathanial—prefers Nate, eleven-years-old, he's a competitive swimmer, father beats him, and Nate takes it out on the water, swimming two hours a day.”

“Please,” he pointed to the door.

But I didn't stop talking even as I moved toward the exit. My voice lifted over his pleas, my tone growing shrill, like a Sunday morning preacher trying to bring a congregation to a feverish pitch; I rattled off the children's names. When my hand touched the doorknob, he shouted.

“Get out!”

Then he wilted, the strength leaving him, and he sagged into the rough woolen covers.

I hated myself. “Hillar McCallum slowly drains the blood of his victims and then tears their eyes out. We've never found any of the eyes.”