Blindspots Page 11

  She heard him gasp.

  "That's right, Franklin. You remember this."

  She heard him wheeze, felt the mattress tremble and smelled urine as his bladder let go.

  "Don't take your eyes off the hourglass, Franklin. Watch the sands."

  It was time. Time to tie up loose ends. Unfinished business. With Monica here, soon to be under her control, she didn't need Franklin. He was too much trouble. High maintenance. She knew the identities of the Six, and so he was no longer necessary.

  "Franklin." She smiled, reached down and touched his hand. "Our sessions were very informative, and you proved to be everything I had hoped for. For that I thank you. And for that, I'll make this short and sweet. But don't worry, I'm sure the next life will turn out better for you."

  She leaned in, her hair tickling his sweating face. "Picture your vineyards, Franklin. You're strolling through them, touring your Napa Valley estate, touching the grapes, tasting them, inhaling their wonderful scents. Are you there?"

  "Yes." He always spoke so smoothly under hypnosis.

  "Good, Franklin. Enjoy your walk. But keep your eye on these sands. When the top glass is empty, you're going to do exactly as I tell you."

  9.

  I-89, Vermont

  Shortly after passing a slow-moving snowplow and veering back into the right lane, the police cruiser hit a thick drift, spun in a wide circle and slammed into five feet of snow on the west side of the interstate.

  Pure stupidity! Jake thought. Not bad luck, not this time. He wrestled with his seat belt, freed himself and turned to help the state trooper when Jake saw the blood fountaining down his face from the deep gash on the trooper’s scalp and shattered nose. Still, his eyes rolled around in a sea of crimson and locked on Jake… just as the car's interior lit up like a solar flare.

  The snowplow!

  Without thinking, implicitly understanding that the cop was a goner, Jake lunged. Got the passenger door open and burst out, sliding and slipping across the street, praying the snowplow didn't veer left out of reflex.

  Jake looked back, squinting through the onslaught of snow and wind. Saw the police car crumple like a balsa wood model, then flatten into the snow bank as the plow drove it off the road.

  Oh shit.

  The plow skidded a little further, then ground to a halt.

  Jake stumbled back onto the street, desperately looking back down the road, hoping to see another pair of headlights through the driving snow and the swirling darkness. But he remembered hearing on the police scanner that Vermont had issued a state-wide No Travel Advisory until the morning. No one was going to be out here except other snowplows. Or cops.

  He dug his hands into his windbreaker's pockets after zipping up its meager collar. Teeth chattering, legs weak, ears already numb and tingling, he approached the plow. Smoke coughed out from the mashed cruiser, snatched immediately by the wind. Maybe the snowplow driver's dead, too, or unconscious. Jake had the wild hope that he could just take the plow and cruise the rest of the way.

  The plow's door opened.

  No such luck.

  Jake stood still – just as the driver saw him and froze, too. Jake had an instant of doubt. What to do? He couldn't run. He'd be dead in a half hour, lost in the dark, unable to distinguish road from field. Frostbitten in no time, and then… he didn't want to think about it.

  The snowplow was his only chance. Heat was his only chance. Now Jake wished he had thought ahead and grabbed the trooper's gun before bolting from the car.

  The driver was huge. He was waving him forward. Jake stumbled ahead, still thinking about a way to overpower the driver. But then he saw the other man, another passenger. Just as big.

  Goddamn it. Give me a break.

  The driver was shouting back to his friend, and over the howling winds Jake made out the words, "Police" and "accident" and "hurry".

  So, here it ends.

  So close.

  If not for the damn weather. If not for bad luck.

  What were the odds that when the police got here they wouldn't recognize him, they wouldn't ask what he was doing in the police car? Bad enough he would be blamed for the murders of Fenrik and Krantz, now they'd tack on 'cop-killer.'

  Imagining he could already hear sirens, Jake slowly made his way to the snowplow's cab.

  Right now, shivering so hard his bones were chattering with his teeth, he actually looked forward to being recaptured. He missed the humidity, the heat and the bugs. Missed the palm trees and the scent of the salty ocean.

  Just before climbing in, he gazed longingly ahead, to where the storm collided with the darkness. Goodbye Monica, and goodbye Daedalus.

  Goodbye answers.

  As he was about to confront the men inside the cab, headlights appeared. Intensely bright, up high like a truck, or an equipped four-by-four. Coming fast.

  Jake started to laugh. Here come the cops. Or the National Guard. Either way, he was screwed. Shaking his head, he raised his numb hands to ward off the lights. The other men were out of the cab now, one of them lighting a flare and signaling the approaching vehicle.

  "It's not the police," one of them shouted, with surprise in his voice.

  10.

  Nestor Simms found the snowplow shortly after 4:00 am. He had been driving a Ford F-50 with chained 22-inch mag wheels and a front plow, going dreadfully slow for the past twenty miles since the roadblock.

  He had used the stolen vehicle's On Star Navigation system to track a side route and bypass the National Guard's checkpoints, driving through the swirling blizzard and navigating the deserted roads with his fog lights.

  Nestor looked ahead, to the outline of a mountain, and something on the way up: dim, flickering lights. Beacons, pointing the way. He was almost there, but now, this setback. Was it another test, or was it the Scourge making a last-ditch effort to throw him off its trail?

  His headlights speared into the angrily whipping blizzard, and he could make out a massive vehicle set up high on thick tires. A plow truck sat on the side of the road, lit by a couple of meager flares, and three men waving their arms.

  Then he saw the destroyed police car, and a mangled arm hanging out the window.

  He slowed, meaning to pass around the men and just keep on his way; he couldn't afford any distractions. But one of the men, the smaller of the three, huddled with a blanket around his shoulders, turned his face to Nestor's car.

  "Holy shit!" Nestor slammed on the brakes, skidded sideways and slid back to center. He threw the truck into park and leapt out before the truck had even stopped skidding. He raced around to the man whose face had appeared in the storm like a perfect beacon of clarity; he grabbed him by the shoulders and stared into his eyes. "Holy--"

  "—shit!" the young man said, gaping back at Nestor. The winds tore at their voices, but circled around the two of them, almost protectively. "You can see me?"

  Nestor nodded vigorously, snowflakes dancing across his vision. This was it – one of the signs! Miraculous things were happening. He shifted into action. "Get in my truck quick!"

  "Hey!" One of the snowplow guys came closer. "We've got a dead cop back here, and that guy there… we don't know--"

  Nestor pushed his new ally behind him, sent him skidding and tripping toward the truck. "Go," he shouted, and when the man had reached the door, Nestor turned around, facing the two demons.

  #

  Jake got inside, immediately enveloped in a soothing, warm cocoon. He closed the door against the harsh wind, and continued shivering as he looked out the windshield at his unlikely rescuer. First the woman on TV and now this man. His whole life, Jake hadn't been able to see anyone clearly, couldn't form the most basic of connections, but now…what the hell was happening?

  Ahead, the snow swallowed up the big man and the two retreating snowplow guys, but not before Jake thought he saw his rescuer reach into his coat for something. Jake leaned forward, straining to see.

  There were two bright flashes amidst the storm
, followed by muffled pops. Jake swallowed, still trying to make out anything but the angrily swirling flakes. A silhouette emerged, arms at his side, head down like a warrior-monk in prayer. Jake sat motionless as the big man rounded the truck's edge, paused in the headlights, grinning inside to Jake with that incredibly detailed and memorable face. Then the man was inside, sliding next to him behind the wheel, shaking off the snow.

  "Name's Nestor," he said, extending a cold hand and shaking Jake's in a bear-grip. He slammed the door and put the Ford in gear. Jake pulled his hand away quickly, mumbling his own name as they skidded away from the crash scene.

  "What did you…?"

  The Ford's headlights angled away, down the drift-covered highway, and Nestor smiled at his passenger. "Nothing to be concerned about, my friend. Next stop, Daedalus!"

  11.

  Boston

  The Lear Jet-60 belonged to Indra Velanati's father. One of three company planes, it seated seven comfortably in leather couch-like seats. A 27-inch plasma screen with DirecTV was mounted on the left wall, currently running CNN.

  They would have landed in Boston eight and a half hours after departing London on any other day, but today they had been circling Logan International Airport for the better part of an hour, and their fuel was running out. They would have to land soon, snowstorm or not. The airport had been closed for three hours, with plows and de-icers fighting a losing battle against the storm. One runway had been cleared for emergencies, and Indra's plane was fifth in line.

  Kaitlin had slept for the last four hours, after washing her hair and cleaning up in the Lear’s lavish bathroom. When she finally awoke, she saw Indra, his bony feet outstretched, a tabletop over his knees, piled high with folders, stacks of papers and glossy photographs. An Indian woman with long straight black hair, dressed in a blue-striped suit, stood beside him, sorting through the files.

  Kaitlin stretched and blinked away an odd assortment of dreams and memories. Trish was dead. Her past life was over. All of England thought she was a murderer.

  And she was on the run with this man, a stranger by all accounts, but somehow she recognized him, knew him. Indra's face was warm, clear and responsive, and she still couldn't believe that she could see him, that his features stayed locked in place.

  "I thought it was a dream," she said.

  Indra shook his head. "Welcome back. This is my sister, Virisha. You didn't get a chance to meet while we were taking off."

  Kaitlin nodded. The woman's face was a blur surrounding a single dot on her forehead.

  Virisha’s voice was silky. "So you're like him? You can't see faces?"

  "Except for his," Kaitlin said, still staring at his eyes, his lips, his nose, every feature triggering some primal sense of understanding, a burning desire to know more, to grasp and hold on to an elusive lost treasure before it could be snatched away again. "And that woman in America. The one on the news."

  "Monica Gilman," Virisha said, holding up an enlarged color photograph, a printout from the Web. Kaitlin trembled, staring at Monica's face, seeing the clear, recognizable features. She knew she shared something with Monica, with Indra, something profound. But whatever it was, it was elusive, slipping from her grasp after every attempt to understand it.

  "Tell me," Indra said, looking up. "Do you know where you have seen her before?"

  "No," Kaitlin whispered. "But… I feel like I've known her a long time. Like… she's important." She continued staring right into Indra's eyes, only barely aware of his sister’s presence. "Same with you. I haven't been able to 'see' anyone my whole fu… sorry, freakin' life. How's this possible?"

  "That is what I am trying to determine," Indra whispered.

  Virisha took a seat beside her brother. "What do you two have in common, then, besides this disease? Besides Prosopagnosia?"

  Kaitlin shrugged and raised her eyebrows at him. "I'm guessing you don't like gothic punk music? Ever heard of Pinkeye?"

  "I had it as a kid, I think."

  "We're not long-lost twins or something?" Kaitlin asked, attempting a grin. "No offense."

  "None taken." Indra sighed. “But we are also not related to the other four."

  Kaitlin gave Indra a puzzled look. "Other four?"

  Virisha groaned. "Here we go. You have to understand what a conspiracy nut my brother is. The whole world's out to get him. Hence, the panic room in his apartment.”

  “It saved my life.”

  Virisha nodded. “Even I have to admit there's something incredible going on here. Something that you two are a part of."

  "Something," Indra added, "that is bringing the six of us together."

  Kaitlin frowned. "Bringing us where?"

  "To the Daedalus Institute."

  "But why us, and who are the others?"

  Indra rattled off the names from memory. He told her about the incident in his apartment, about the files he retrieved from Daedalus's server, about the call he intercepted. "Including the two of us, that's five; five of the people Daedalus had in their secret file. They are still waiting for one more, apparently. Or at least they were, as of yesterday."

  Kaitlin shook her head. "I'm sorry. None of this makes any bloody sense. Why did they send someone to kill me? To kill you? Why do they want us dead?"

  "I do not believe they intended to kill us. Not yet…"

  Kaitlin thought on that for a moment, but wasn't convinced.

  "Why can I see you and Monica? Will I recognize the others too?"

  "Probably," Indra said. "We share something. What it is – that is what we must find out."

  Kaitlin crossed her arms and sat back, sighing. "Do you have any ideas?"

  He regarded her for a moment. "A few. But first, we should eliminate obvious solutions."

  "Okay. Go."

  "Have we met before?"

  Kaitlin tried to tune out the TV, a commercial between news segments. "No."

  "Ever have any missing time?"

  "What?"

  "Any blackouts, any surgeries that left you unconscious for a long time, or in a coma, or…"

  "No."

  Virisha got up. "I'm going to check on the pilot, see how we're faring with the landing clearance."

  Indra paid his sister no attention. He tapped his fingers together. "How about psychotherapy?"

  "What?"

  "Ever been treated by a specialist? Ever been hypnotized?"

  Kaitlin kept shaking her head. "No therapy, but I probably should've been committed years ago." She leaned in, tugging at her left ear absently, feeling the holes the earrings used to fill and finding herself longing for their comforting presence. "What about you? You have any of those things? Have you been to Vermont?"

  "Never. But I have been hospitalized, obviously." He tapped his withered legs. "Drugs, long periods of unconsciousness. I often wonder what might have been done to me during that time. Perhaps my brain was altered, memories implanted. Something…"

  "But I don't remember anything like that. I've never had surgery. When would someone…?"

  "It’s just a possibility," Indra said. "There are other scenarios."

  "Such as?"

  He held up a steady hand. "Not yet. I need to know more. More about the Daedalus Institute and Alexa Pearl."

  "Alexa who?" Kaitlin glanced at the TV, with its scenes of the snowstorm, of the thousands stranded at JFK and Logan International, of the state of emergency in Massachusetts and Vermont, the closed expressways, the power outages.

  The plane lurched, dropped and swerved to the side. Kaitlin gripped the arms of her chair. Indra picked up a file, opened it and showed Kaitlin a photo. "This picture is one of only a few she's ever allowed to be taken. This was from eight years ago. During her first week at the Institute, addressing the staff."

  "I can't see her face," Kaitlin said.

  "Nor can I." Next, Indra held up a printout from a local Chicago paper from 1994. "And this one was from when she was only fifteen years old."

  "She's blind?"
Kaitlin looked close, saw the thin girl with the dark glasses and the cane, the headlines about her winning a scholarship despite her disability.

  "Since birth," Indra said.

  "Yale at sixteen," Kaitlin murmured, reading the text. "Must be academic hot-shit. What'd she go for, medicine?"

  Indra shook his head. "You would think so, but no. Law. And also, surprisingly, she never graduated. As you can see by the size of this file, I've been busy digging into her background."

  "Why'd you do that?"

  "I like to be prepared."

  "You saw Monica Gilman. On the news, I take it. And then you checked out the institute?"

  Indra nodded. "My gift, my curse. Suspicious of everyone. I felt an almost incomprehensible longing to seek her out."

  "Jesus," Kaitlin said. "Me too."

  "It was so intense, so extraordinary, I knew it could not be anything natural. And since I had no conscious memory of this woman…" He shrugged. "Sorry, my cynical nature made me seek out a potential villain in this scheme, and who else but the one who has promptly sought out and brought Mrs. Gilman to her?"

  "What could she possibly have to do with all this?"

  "Appearances are nothing," Indra said dismissively, patting his legs. "In any case, I made some calls to Yale's admissions and I learned that Alexa Pearl dropped out unexpectedly, right in the middle of her senior year, another straight-A semester. Disappeared, in fact."

  Kaitlin scratched her head. "Family problems?"

  "I thought the same. Looked up her family. Called her father, who is living in the same home she was born in, down in Austin, Texas. Mother died when Alexa was a child, and they only had the one child. Dad loved her dearly despite her handicap, you could tell, but…"

  "But?"

  "But he claims she just… became someone else right after she dropped out of school. He didn't want to talk at first, but because of my promise I made to share anything I found with him, he relented. He told me that for a while he thought she might have been brainwashed by some cult. All of a sudden, she started acting as if she had just found out she was adopted and wanted nothing to do with her father anymore."