Journey Into the Flame (33 page)

“I would doubt that,” Mr. Perrot said. “If Deya feared for the safety of the books, I doubt she would have hidden them here. She would
have certainly picked a more obscure place.” He continued to stare at the words. “Why did she capitalize ‘Great’ and ‘House’? That must be a proper noun, the name of a specific place.”

“A
once
Great House,” Jogi emphasized. “Which means that it is no longer great or no longer used.”

“Yes,” Mr. Perrot said. “A once Great House of fire and ash.”

Mr. Perrot and Jogi stood in the hot sun trying to solve the riddle in the ground in front of them, but their efforts stalled. They went to join Babu under the shade of the tree. While they kept repeating lines of the riddle, Babu’s attention wandered to a group of people walking past the house. He went over to the stone wall at the front of the property and observed a colorfully adorned body being carried ceremoniously down the street.

“What is it?” Mr. Perrot asked.

“A funeral procession,” Jogi said. “They are taking the body to the Ganges, where it will be cremated.”

“It seems to have caught Babu’s attention,” Mr. Perrot said, taking a drink of water. “It is certainly a very elaborate procession.”

“Wait,” Jogi suddenly burst out. “What about Manikarnika?”

“What is Mani—?”

“The Manikarnika Ghat. It used to be considered the most auspicious place to be cremated. It is just over there along the Ganges.” Jogi pointed to the east. “Very close to where Deya found the original set of the books.”

“What do you mean, it used to be?” Mr. Perrot asked. “Is it abandoned now?”

“No, not at all,” Jogi explained. “It still remains in use. After the Great Disruption, new, more modern cremation sites were built to handle the large influx of bodies. But the faithful still use Manikarnika Ghat.”

“I see. So this place was once a ‘Great House’?” Mr. Perrot said with a smile.

“And it is still a place of fire and ash,” Jogi added with a nod.

“That is certainly a plausible answer to Deya’s riddle,” Mr. Perrot said, rising to his feet. “And there is only one way to find out if it is the right answer.”

39

Everyone is an actor in his own drama. And, like all great thespians, you may forget your lines from time to time. But it is at that moment that you can improvise and advance your life’s epic tale in unexpected ways.

—THE CHRONICLES OF SATRAYA

WASHINGTON, D.C., NEAR DULLES INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

10:00 A.M. LOCAL TIME, 2 DAYS UNTIL FREEDOM DAY

“What’s taking them so long?” Lucius looked through the dark-tinted windshield of their vehicle.

On being notified by one of the mercenaries who’d escaped about the WCF’s assault on the plantation, Andrea had placed a call to a number that Simon told her was only to be used in an emergency. Now the targets of a WCF manhunt, she, Lucius, and Monique waited in an abandoned parking garage in a forgotten suburb of Washington, D.C., one that had sustained such extensive damage during the Great Disruption that it had never been restored. The top three floors of the garage had collapsed. Rebar and other binding material protruded from massive pieces of crumbled concrete, which lay on top of crushed vehicles. The back doors of a nearby van were open, revealing a cot and some blankets. It appeared to be a makeshift shelter that someone had used after the Disruption.

“They said they would be here, didn’t they?” Lucius persisted.

“Yes, Lucius. I’m sure they are on their way.” Andrea’s voice was tense, though. “Don’t you think that if the plan had changed, we would have been informed?” She looked at remnants of a sports car under a large piece of fallen concrete. The door to the car was missing, and a woman’s shoulder bag and a jacket were on the seat, covered in forty years of dust and debris. She wondered if the owner had made it out of the garage alive or if she’d find a pile of bones inside the car if she looked more closely. She returned her attention to her own perilous situation and picked up her PCD.

“What are you doing?” Lucius grabbed the PCD and quickly turned it off. “You make a call, and we’ll have the WCF all over us.”

“I need to know if G-LAB has been compromised. I’ve been unable to reach Dr. Malikei or his handler in the last few hours.”

“How could they have found out about G-LAB? I’m telling you, G-LAB is safe—and so is the doctor.”

“The plantation was also supposed to be safe,” she said. She gave her son a skewering look. “All we needed to do was deliver those two insolent people to the doctor, and we couldn’t even do that right. Where did you find such incompetent help?”

“You’re blaming me?” Lucius said incredulously. “They came highly recommended. If you have a problem, you need to take it up with Mr.—” He was cut off by another displeased look from his mother.

Monique was seated behind them, listening intently to their conversation. “Where are we going?” she asked. “What are we going to do?” She leaned forward, hoping to get a response. But they didn’t seem interested in providing her with any assurances.

Lucius gestured for her to sit back. “Here they are,” he said, unlocking the doors as a blue van came down the ramp and pulled up alongside them. A well-dressed middle-aged man with a small briefcase emerged from the van and got into the backseat with Monique.

“I was told there were only two of you,” he said in a monotone, looking at Monique.

“No, there are three of us,” Andrea responded. “Is that going to be an issue?”

The man remained silent and continued to stare at Monique.

Monique’s heart started to race. If it was a problem, she knew what it would mean.

“It shouldn’t be,” he replied, as he opened the silver-colored briefcase he was carrying. “Hand me your identification glasses.” As he placed the glass cards on a device in his briefcase, a monitor displayed each person’s name, birth date, eye color, address, PCD number, and employment, credit, and medical histories. “First, we need to reprogram your glasses with new identities.” One by one, each ID card was programmed with new information. “Review your cards, and memorize your new names and addresses.”

“Howard? That’s the best name you could come up with for me?” Lucius looked irked. He grabbed his mother’s card. “Sarah—yeah, that’s even worse. Now I don’t feel so bad.”

Monique looked at her card. “I’m Ming-Lee?”

“See, now that name makes sense,” Lucius commented.

The man didn’t appear to be in any mood to banter, however. “Hand me your PCDs,” he said. “I need to program new identifier codes. The WCF won’t know to track these new numbers.” The flat-panel display lit up each time a PCD was connected. “Except for you,” he said coldly, looking at Monique again. “I only have two new codes to allocate.”

“Surely you can secure an additional number,” Monique said in a pleading voice. “Surely you can.” All she got was a disgusted look before the man turned back to the device in the briefcase. He worked on it a little while longer.

“I can program the PCD with a new number, but I won’t be able to initiate the switch until I return to the office. Until then, don’t turn this PCD on. It’s still programmed with the old identifier.” He raised his eyes at her, his look cold and threatening. “I’ll notify you when the new ID is active.”

“That will be just fine.” Andrea smiled at Monique, who was still shaking. “See, dear, we wouldn’t let any harm come to you.”

Monique swallowed, forcing herself to nod.

Now another similarly dressed man exited the blue van and walked over to the vehicle. Lucius placed a hand on his gun, which was sitting on his lap.

“Relax, Howard,” the man in the backseat said calmly, using Lucius’s new name. “He’s going to reprogram the transponder signal from your car. They may try to track that, too.”

Lucius relaxed his grip on the gun and gestured to the small device inside the silver briefcase. “That’s an interesting toy you have there. Any chance you have an extra one lying around?”

The man didn’t respond. Working methodically, he finally finished and handed the PCDs back to them. “Remember,” he said to Monique, “yours is not to be turned on until you hear from us.”

Monique nodded.

The second man completed his task under the hood and returned to the blue van.

“What now?” Andrea asked, as the man shut his briefcase and stepped out of their vehicle.

He ignored her. “They have their new identification glasses, and their identifiers have been changed,” he said into his PCD. He then walked back to the blue van, climbed into the front passenger seat, and sped away in the van.

“Friendly guy,” Lucius said.

As soon as it was connected, Andrea’s PCD rang, and Simon’s image was projected. “It seems that we have underestimated Camden’s son. Or that I have overestimated your ability to deal with him. Which one of these statements is true?”

“The loss of the plantation is unfortunate,” Andrea admitted.

“And what of G-LAB and the good doctor?” Simon continued. “The loss of them would be even more
unfortunate
.”

“Even if G-LAB is compromised, the Purging time line remains unaffected. Once the solution has been implemented, the authorities will be concerned with more pressing matters.”

“You seem to be trying to convince yourself of that outcome,”
Simon said, in a tone that indicated he did not appreciate having his concerns dismissed so cavalierly. “If the lab and the doctor have been compromised, it affects you and Lucius far more than it affects me.”

Andrea did not answer. She knew what Simon was referring to. He was correct; Dr. Malikei held the key to the cure that she and Lucius desperately needed.

“We’ve already taken our shots,” Lucius interjected. “We just need to administer the pulse. The device stored at the plantation house might be buried under rubble, but we can still use the one that was deployed in India.”

“The doctor already gave you the shots?” Monique said, alarmed. “What about the medicine for my parents? You promised me they would be taken care of!”

“Of course, dear,” Andrea said. “We have not forgotten our commitments. When I last saw the doctor, he was working diligently on a cure for them.”

“What about the frequency device?” Monique asked.

“We have that covered. Didn’t you hear what I just said?” Lucius was getting impatient. “Stop your whining!”

“I have made arrangements for all of you to leave the country and fly to Château Dugan,” Simon explained. “Go to the airport. One of our operatives will meet you there.”

“The Château?” Monique said, surprised. “But I need to go to Japan.”

“No!” Andrea snapped. Then, in a calmer tone, she added, “We need to stay together at the moment. But once we are all in Europe, we will be able to operate more freely, and you will be reunited with your parents. Perhaps we will send for them, and we can administer our frequencies together.”

“Just get to the airport!” Simon ordered. “I will deal with the Ford boy myself. And I know exactly who can assist me.”

40

Wake up in the morning, and do something different.

—THE CHRONICLES OF SATRAYA

G-LAB, 10:00 A.M. LOCAL TIME, 2 DAYS UNTIL FREEDOM DAY

Logan did not know what to expect when he entered the lab’s so-called library. The room was spotless and well organized, with four rows of six-foot-high bookcases occupying approximately half of it. One of the bookcases contained stacks of research papers, and Logan was surprised to see an entire case dedicated to religious documents. He walked over to a tidy desk in the corner, which held a neat stack of papers, small figures made of sticks and colored wooden balls, a rainbow-colored spiral figure that he recognized as a DNA helix, and an advanced HoloPad computer with a PCD interface port on it. Judging by the diplomas and certificates hanging on the wall, he was certain that this was the desk of Dr. Serge Malikei. Next to it was a small, crisply made bed with a single pillow and a green blanket.
Looks like you spent a great deal of time here, Doctor
, Logan thought. Papers with handwritten formulas and scribbling that Logan didn’t understand were pinned to the wall near the bed. The lair of a mad scientist.

The strangest and seemingly most out-of-place item in the library
was the trophy head of a lion mounted on one wall. Its mane was perfectly groomed, and Logan noticed a hairbrush with a great deal of hair tangled around its bristles on a small mantel below it. Another portion of the wall displayed a series of esoteric paintings depicting the energy chakras of the human body.
Very odd
, Logan thought.
The doctor certainly was a man of eclectic interests.
The middle painting, which was slightly out of alignment with the others, caught his eye. When he tried to straighten it, it slipped farther down on the right, exposing a wall safe behind it. He’d wait for Valerie before inspecting it, not that he could open it himself.

He continued his inspection of the library. On a bookcase, he noticed a shelf labeled “Iatrogenesis and Genetic Engineering.” He pulled a document from it and read an excerpt from a research paper on a virus called HIV that caused a disease called AIDS. He was startled. Iatrogenesis, he learned, meant “physician-induced.” The paper made the case that many catastrophic diseases of the past, including AIDS, the swine flu, and the Black Plague, were actually man-actuated. The paper also suggested that population control had been the purpose of the conspiracy. Logan could not help but wonder why the doctor would have been reading this macabre material.

“What are you reading?” Valerie said from behind him. She had slipped into the library without his noticing.

He showed her the documents he was browsing through. “I think the doctor was trying to create a virus of some sort.”

Valerie skimmed the research papers and looked up with a dark expression.

Logan turned back to the wall safe. “And check this out,” he said, removing the painting that covered it. “I need you to help me get into it.”