Deadly verdict, p.17
Deadly Verdict, page 17
Then he raised his head. ‘You’re looking at a very modern version of Lazarus,’ he said.
‘Lazarus. Oh, so now you’re telling me you’re someone who was dead and brought back to life?’
‘Yes. I was brain dead,’ he said.
‘Don’t tell me it was Jesus who called you back,’ she said dryly.
‘Only if he has returned in the guise of a research scientist at Roc Shores,’ Wyatt replied.
Seventeen
‘However, unlike Lazarus, I have a great deal of trouble completely resurrecting my first or original identity, if you like. Many of the personal memories are as vague as old dreams. I’ve been dependent upon what they tell me or are willing to tell me.’
‘Your original identity?’ She held back her smile of incredulity. ‘OK, I’ll bite. What did they tell you about this so-called first identity?’
‘I was a special agent for the FBI.’
‘But not under the name Wyatt Ert.’
‘No. When I said I was brain dead, I meant it: flatlined brain activity. Apparently, a few other agents and I were in a shoot-out and hand-to-hand combat during a pursuit of terrorists off the Jersey shore. I was injured in a struggle and drowned. I was resuscitated, but the passage of time without oxygen to my brain was significant enough to do the damage. I was literally a vegetable and as such was signed off to a project in development at Roc Shores concerning nerve cell implants, which involved brain cell implants. In short, a transfer of material was made from someone who more closely resembles me today to my old self, if you will. It’s very similar to the stem-cell technology that’s been developed and continues to be expanded and improved.
‘There was a revival of my original brain cells, along with some electric stimulation caused by the implants. Some memory involving learned experiences has returned and, according to the doctor in charge of the program, could continue to return. This creates a crash of information that could and often does cause serious confusion. One of the many drugs I take keeps a lid on all that. If I forget to take it when I should, I suffer some problems with my memory, some distortion and confusion.
‘And so…I am a scientific wonder, but not quite perfected, I guess.’
She saw the sincerity in his face and lost some of her skepticism.
‘Actually, I’ve heard some chatter about this sort of thing,’ she said, ‘but nothing as elaborate as what you claim has been done with you. How long have you been in this dual personality state? I don’t know what else to call it.’
‘I’m not totally sure of that, but a significant amount of time. I’ve been going through a lot of physical and mental therapy. The coordination of an agent’s body and reflexes after years of training with this new, what shall I call it, personality, has taken some expert instruction. I’ve had to redesign some of the nerve highways in a sense.’
‘I can see why this would be clandestine, but also how it could be quite a significant achievement.’
‘Yes. Since people are often considered dead when their brain activity flatlines, the potential for resurrections is great. As long as the heart can be kept beating, artificially or otherwise, there’s a form of immortality involved.
‘The most natural thing to do when it was thought that I was ready for some outside life, was to return me to my law enforcement career. Maybe I was putting a different sort of foot into the same old shoe, but in a way it fit, if you know what I mean.’
‘And Landry Connors was aware of all this?’
‘He never came right out and said so, but I assume…’
Holland shook her head. ‘I wouldn’t assume anything except…’
‘Except what?’
‘It could very well be that you make for the perfect scapegoat.’
‘How so?’
‘This apparent screw-up with the investigation could easily be explained as the fault of the imperfect new Frankenstein’s monster, don’t you think?’
He stared at her, obviously troubled with the characterization.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean…well, you’re not exactly as distorted as the creature in the novel, but…’
‘No. I’ve had similar thoughts about myself from time to time, especially during your little cross-examinations,’ he added with a smile. ‘You don’t know just how close you came earlier to having me tell you all this.’
‘I don’t know as I would have believed it then.’
‘And now?’
‘After what’s been happening, I’ll believe anything.’
‘That’s not very…’
‘I know, I know, professional, scientific, objective.’
He thought a moment. ‘If I’m to be the scapegoat here, why would they work on convincing me it was you?’
‘I’m not sure yet. Did they just let you go or what?’
‘Not exactly.’
She stared at him, a terrifying realization forming.
‘You were sent here?’
He nodded.
‘To take me out?’
He didn’t respond.
‘The story would be I resisted or tried to escape?’
‘Something like that.’
‘So that’s why you snuck in here. Why didn’t you do it, Wyatt?’
‘I’ll credit my second personality,’ he replied. ‘It makes no sense that you’re a dirty agent.’
‘I’d like to find out whose cells they transplanted so I can thank him,’ she said.
He smiled.
‘Let’s get back to this situation. Did you actually convey all that you said you conveyed to Landry Connors?’
‘Yes,’ he replied, after a moment’s hesitation.
‘You sound very tentative about it, Wyatt.’
‘No, I’m sure I did.’
‘What about this name you gave me on arrival here, this agent, Matthew Letters?’
‘It was given to me. I had it on my PDA,’ he said.
‘Where is your PDA?’
‘They took it.’
‘And didn’t return it?’
‘Yeah, sure,’ he said. ‘Wait, I’ll show you.’ He hit some buttons and waited and then looked up. ‘It’s been deleted.’
‘Are you absolutely positive?’
‘I am,’ he said. ‘Yes.’
‘Why would they delete it? Why would you be given a phony name to pass on to me?’
He didn’t answer. He looked like he was falling into a trance. ‘Wyatt!’
‘Oh, sorry.’
‘What about your pills? Do you still have them?’
‘Yes,’ he said. He looked at his watch. ‘I’m fine.’
‘Wyatt, couldn’t some of this be a result of your confusion, distortion? Think. Was there ever someone named Matthew Letters in your memory?’
‘I don’t know. I couldn’t say yes or no, but…’ He tapped his PDA. ‘It was on here.’
‘When you called Landry Connors, you always spoke with him directly?’
‘Yes.’
She was quiet.
‘Do you have a way of reaching the doctor, the research doctor?’
‘Of course, but I’m to call him only in emergencies.’
‘I think this can safely be described as an emergency, Wyatt. God, I’d like to know what your real name is. I’ve never been able to take you seriously with that name. Someone involved in your program has a real sick sense of humor. Although my father pointed out that ERT stands for Emergency Response Team for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.’
Wyatt smiled. ‘My doctor, Doctor Landeau, is a Canadian.’
‘Landeau. You need to call him, Wyatt. Only I wouldn’t call anyone from here. This place is about as bugged as any place on the planet. In fact, I’m pretty sure everything you and I have discussed has been recorded, despite no indication of it on your magical watch.’
He looked at it and shook his head. ‘Nothing, I…’
She raised her hand for them to be quiet and then went to the desk and wrote out a note. She handed it to him with the pen. It read, Who gave you that watch?
Landry Connors himself, he wrote.
She said nothing. She looked at it on his wrist and then she took it off slowly and turned it around in her hands. Still silent, she went to her purse and took out a nail file, inserting the sharp end to pry the watch open. He rose and stood beside her as she worked at and then opened the back of the watch on the desk.
They looked down at it.
A tiny microphone was clearly part of its inner workings. She said nothing, but pointed to the door. Leaving the watch there, she picked up her purse and her pistol and walked out of the door with him.
‘Take me out the way you entered,’ she whispered. She nodded at the security cameras in the hallway. ‘I assume there are no cameras there.’
‘None,’ he said.
He showed her the service elevator and used his metamorphosis key to activate it. Moments later they were down in the basement area. He led her around some corners and then through a narrow hallway that passed behind the kitchen, just as he had said. His car was parked just outside the side entrance. They hurried to it.
‘Now what?’ he asked.
‘Let’s get back to California and see if we can locate that reporter who knew more than anyone was supposed to know.’
‘Makes sense,’ he said, nodding.
‘Good. I’m glad both of you approve,’ she quipped and he laughed.
‘What?’ he said when she smiled at him. ‘One of me has to have had a sense of humor, too.’
‘We’re not going to be laughing long, Wyatt. In a little while, we’ll both be considered fugitives. In fact,’ she said as they pulled out of the hotel parking lot and on to the highway, ‘Now that I think of it, we probably won’t get past security at the airport.’
‘We won’t go to the airport,’ Wyatt said.
‘Really? How do we fly to LA?’
‘Not the public airport. The bureau has a plane here. And you might recall me saying when we first started out for California together,’ he added, turning to her, ‘that I was a competent pilot.’
‘First or second identity?’ she asked.
‘Would you be uncomfortable if I said I wasn’t sure?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then I won’t say it,’ he replied.
She stared at him, a little amazed. He smiled.
‘Something is happening to you, Wyatt,’ she said. ‘You’re becoming more…’
‘Human?’
‘Yes.’
He nodded. ‘I feel it, too. It’s like more and more of my former self is resurrecting.’
‘As long as you don’t turn into Norman Bates,’ she said, and then added, ‘You know who he is, don’t you?’
He struggled with his memory. She could see him churning way inside. It was like watching the inner workings of a computer.
‘A movie…Psycho.’
‘Very good. I suppose you remember not knowing what Mission Impossible was?’
He looked surprised. ‘I said that?’
‘In Landry Connors’ office.’
‘I’m creeping out from under,’ he told her.
‘But what if you fully emerge and we learn while we’re in the air that your first-person memories are not the memories of the one who knows how to fly?’
‘You’ll just have to trust me,’ he said.
‘No problem. I just don’t know whom to trust.’
They rode on in silence like two worshipers in a church pew, praying.
The jet was right where Wyatt had told her it would be. The hangar looked empty, but when they pulled up a maintenance technician stepped out, wiping his hands on a rag and looking at them.
The moment Wyatt got out of the car, however, the maintenance man smiled.
‘Agent Stamford,’ he said. ‘Long time no see.’
Wyatt glanced at Holland and then moved forward. ‘You know how it is. We get these long-term assignments sometimes. Everything set?’
‘Set? For what?’
‘Didn’t you get a call about the flight?’
‘No. Bob Thompson usually calls me at least twelve hours in advance.’
‘Oh, damn,’ Wyatt said, looking at Holland. ‘Do you believe this? Another fuck-up and who gets blamed when we don’t show in time?’
‘The maintenance man,’ Holland said dryly.
‘Not me. This plane is tuned and ready. It’s been that way for three days. Bob said something would come up soon so…’
‘And we’re the something? Why don’t you pull her out while I call Thompson,’ Wyatt said, flipping open his cell phone.
The maintenance man looked at Holland, who didn’t soften her expression, and then he shrugged and went into the hangar. Wyatt spoke loudly, complaining about a break in communication. Then he nodded at Holland. They heard the engines starting.
‘I’d better know what the hell I’m doing now,’ he said.
She raised her eyebrows. ‘He called you Agent Stamford.’
‘I know. I guess that’s who I really am.’
‘You guess that’s who you really are?’ She shook her head. ‘I must be out of my mind.’
‘That’s what I’m trying to do, get out of my mind,’ he said.
They headed toward the plane.
‘Does Thompson want me to call him?’ the maintenance man shouted to Wyatt as he stepped out and held the door for Holland.
‘He said to tell you to call in two hours. He has something he must get done. He apologized.’
The maintenance man nodded. ‘If it weren’t you, I wouldn’t be doing this, but how many people in the bureau know about this place?’
‘Not many,’ Wyatt said. ‘I’m glad you’re still here though.’
‘Me too,’ the maintenance man said, smiling. ‘Have a good flight, wherever you’re going.’
‘Thanks. You know I’d tell you, only…’
‘You’d have to shoot me. I know. I remember your sense of humor. See ya,’ he said.
Wyatt got into the pilot’s seat quickly. He indicated that Holland should get into the co-pilot’s seat and she did. She watched him play with the controls a bit and then he smiled.
‘We’re OK,’ he said. ‘I remember now. I was a flight instructor in the Navy.’
‘The Navy?’
‘It was afterward that I entered the bureau training program.’
He started his approach to takeoff. ‘Hey,’ he said, shouting over the noise, ‘this is like being born again. Just call me Lazarus.’
He laughed.
She held on for dear life, as they rose toward the clouds and the answers they hoped were waiting just hours away.
Eighteen
Billy hurried out the front entrance of his condo building and then paused to look at the black limousine at the curb, imagining it was panting like a racehorse at the gate, eager to get started.
When the Voice had called him, he had naturally complained.
‘I thought I was going on vacation.’
‘You are. Something unavoidable has come up. I’ll take care of you right after this.’
Billy didn’t like the way he said, ‘I’ll take care of you.’
Trying not to be too obvious about it, he felt for his pistol. He knew it was there, but he needed to feel the weapon to reassure himself. He did not like the look of this and held himself back in the belly of the long shadow cast by the building as the sun journeyed west. For a few moments, he studied the scene.
Never before had they sent a car for him where he lived. Security and identity protection had always been a priority so cherished it was almost another biblical commandment. Why take the risk now? He could drive himself to any place in Florida. They hadn’t sent a car for him to take him to Palm Beach, had they? I don’t like this, he thought. I don’t like it at all.
The driver obviously knew what he looked like, too. As soon as he spotted Billy, he stepped out of the automobile, unfolding to a height of at least six feet four or five. He was a caramel-colored African-American with a licorice-black mustache and military short black hair that from this distance looked painted on his skull. He folded his arms and appeared to be impatient with Billy’s hesitation. Instead of calling to him, he moved forward to open the rear door and then stepped back, taking the same posture as if to say, ‘Well, move your ass, fool.’
Billy strolled slowly down the walk, looking from side to side, watching the oncoming traffic as if he anticipated an assassination attempt. When he was finally at the limousine, he stopped.
‘Where we going?’ he asked the driver.
‘How the fuck do I know?’ he replied. ‘Getting in or not?’
Billy looked back and even looked up at the windows of what he knew to be his condo, as if he were looking back for the last time, as if he longed to be up there looking down at himself. I should have quit when I was ahead, he thought. I should have disappeared in the night.
He got in and the driver slammed the door so hard, the limousine shook. Then he got in and called in to tell whomever he was supposed to call that he had his passenger. Billy imagined that to be the Voice even though he also imagined the Voice kept his contact with outsiders to a bare minimum.
The driver waited, glancing into the rearview mirror to catch sight of Billy eyeing him like some kind of terrified panther ready to lunge. He could see the way his shoulders were hoisted and the way his lower body was poised.
‘Relax,’ the driver said. ‘It’s going to be a moment.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know why,’ the big man whined, now sounding weaker than he first looked. ‘I was just told to pick you up. Don’t you know anything?’
Billy didn’t answer, but he did relax. His jacket was open, however. He could whip out the pistol as fast as Billy the Kid, if necessary.
Outside, the Florida day was developing into sheets of humidity. He could almost see the droplets in the air. Mother Nature was herding heavy clouds on the eastern horizon for a stampede in their direction. It would be a while yet, but when it came, it would bring some relief. Few places in America welcomed a sudden downpour with such open arms, he thought.
Waiting quietly now, he became somewhat philosophical. This is one of those days of death he had envisioned. He had a theory that when the energy felt as dark and as heavy as it did at the moment, more people overall died throughout the world than on other days…more accidents, more old people keeling over or simply croaking in their sleep, more soldiers fatally wounded in whatever wars happened to be in progress, more babies and children dying of malnutrition. It was a harvest of expiration and demise, a boon for the sympathy card industry and undertakers, not to mention cemeteries. He was once going to invest in a private cemetery. There was an irony there. He would help fill it.
