“Everyone who goes on the Internet knows that.”
“Yes. But they don’t know why we sold them the bombs.”
“We did so out of guilt. Because we turned our heads during World War Two and let six million Jews die.”
Brutran nods. “Very good. Spoken like a wise observer who lived through those turbulent years.”
“What makes you think I’m so old?”
“Intensive research. For such a rich lady, you have no birth certificate. Nor do you have any death certificates. You’ll laugh at that last remark and say, ‘Of course, I’m still alive. Why should I have a death certificate?’ But let me give you a taste of the advice I can pass on to you if we agree to work together. You should have let your old identities die. It would have covered your tracks better. None of your earlier aliases were ever buried. That’s one of the main ways we were able to track you.”
Her advice is sound. I have been careless at killing off my earlier incarnations. Before the computer age, it wasn’t necessary. Now I see I’ll have to adjust my lifestyle to include regular funerals.
Brutran has scored a point.
“How old do you think I am?” I ask.
She studies me. “Our data reaches back four centuries. You’re at least that old. But sitting with you now, I sense we’ve barely scratched the surface of who you really are.”
“Interesting.”
“Now you sound like me. Good.”
I shake my head. “I’m not like you. You may be right about certain worldly events, but I’ll never believe money can buy everything. IIC can accumulate all they want, but when the public becomes aware of what you’re up to, there will be such an outcry, your wealth will be useless.”
“How is anyone going to know what we’re up to?”
“No secret remains secret forever. Even now, there are cracks in your veil.”
She brushes my words aside with her hand. “We own CNN and your beloved New York Times. Within five years we’ll control all the major media outlets. Events don’t make the news, the people who own the news companies do. Why, I could make you famous in less than a month, Alisa Perne. Or should I say Lara Adams? Talk about cracks in my veil. Your veil is paper thin. I don’t have to physically touch you to destroy you. You have more secrets than any of us.”
I play with the gun in my lap. “Are you sure you want to threaten me?”
“I’d rather reason with you. But threats have their place.” She adds, “By the way, you can’t harm me with that gun. Out of respect, I thought I should warn you.”
“So a bullet through the brain won’t bother you?”
“You’d never get that far.”
“You sound pretty confident.”
“I am.” She slowly smiles. “Let’s not fence. We have much to offer each other. We should form an alliance.”
“So far I haven’t heard what you can do for me.”
“Let’s say I know who sent that assassin after you. How would you feel if I told you I can stop your enemies from sending another?”
“Who are my enemies?”
“Don’t answer a question with a question. How would you feel?”
“I can take care of myself.”
“That man nearly killed you.”
“How do you know how close he came?”
“To escape you had to blow up your house. He must have come damn close.”
“And you promise to keep the bad guys away?”
“Yes. Among other things.”
“Such as?”
She nods to the news on TV, where there are images of Arabs and Jews killing each other. “IIC has a greater goal than wealth and power. Our higher purpose is to save mankind. Yes, I know that sounds grandiose. But the truth is mankind needs saving. You’d be hard-pressed to find a scientist who wouldn’t agree that we’re destroying the earth with global warming, pollution, and overpopulation. You’d have trouble finding a politician who doesn’t believe we’re heading for a major war in the Middle East or with China.”
“And you have a magic pill that will make people behave?”
“In a sense, yes.”
“The Array?”
She blinks. “What do you know about the Array?”
I gamble to keep her talking. “I know it’s begun to malfunction. You can no longer count on making your usual percentage in the stock market. I wonder. Has the magic gone out of the pill?”
I have hit a nerve. The woman’s face darkens.
“It seems a part of your nature to taunt us mere mortals. Perhaps if I’d lived as long as you, I’d do likewise. But I must warn you, I find the quality annoying.”
“That’s the second warning you’ve given in two minutes. Has anyone told you it seems a part of your nature to threaten people when you’re in the midst of asking for their help?”
Her expression remains flat, distant. “I’m asking you to join us in a great cause. To use your special abilities to help save mankind.”
“And I can start by killing two innocent young women?”
“I explained to you why they must die.”
“No, you haven’t.” I pause. “Not yet.”
“Is that a threat?”
“Yes.” I raise the gun and point it at her face. “I believe it is.”
She shrugs. For some reason she uses her remote to lower the volume. I see her push the mute button, and the sound stops. For the first time I realize she hasn’t let go of it since I entered her house. Indeed, she was holding the remote even before I entered the living room. If it’s a weapon, I assume she would have to point it at me for it to work—something I won’t allow. At the same time, the device looks harmless.
But she doesn’t put it down. She stares at my gun without the slightest trace of fear. “Are you going to shoot me?” she asks.
“I will if you don’t start answering my questions.”
“You’d kill me knowing I can protect you?”
“I know nothing of the sort. Tell me about the Array.”
Her smile widens, yet it’s a joyless expression.
“Why tell you about it when you can have a demonstration?”
“Huh?” I manage to mutter before I feel a sudden pressure at the back of my head. The sensation distorts my balance. I try to stand, to get away from what’s causing it, but I have no control over my legs. It’s as if someone else has taken charge of my central nervous system. The pressure escalates rapidly until the pain itself almost blinds me. I feel as if a metal claw fresh from a furnace has clamped down on my skull at the top of my neck. My cervical vertebrae make loud popping sounds. They feel close to rupturing.
“I think you will shoot yourself before you shoot me,” she says.
I shake my head, trying to shake free of the invisible but all too real vise that squeezes me. The internal pressure is so great, I fear my brain cells will explode.
“No!” I gasp.
“Shoot, Alisa. Shoot yourself in the head.”
Fearing she has somehow hypnotized me, I tear my gaze away from her eyes and try blocking out her voice. My right arm shakes. The hand that holds the gun twitches. With each passing moment, it twists the gun closer to my head. I don’t understand what’s happening, I only know I’m unable to resist it.
“No!” I cry.
“It will stop if you shoot. Just shoot yourself, Alisa.”
I force myself to focus on the TV, anything to drown out the wicked suggestions she continues to force-feed my agonized mind. But on the screen the rival Arabs and Jews no longer fight each other. Instead, I see close-ups of children pressing guns to their temples and firing. As their innocent skulls shatter, their brains splatter the screen, and three-dimensional images of gross gray matter drip from the TV. I smell it, the bloody pulp, and I, who have killed thousands, feel sick to my stomach.
The next child who appears on the screen is Shanti. Beautiful Shanti—it’s an image of her before her fiancé threw acid in her face. I’m confused. Where did such a pic
ture come from? Is it real? Holding a gun beside her mouth, she begs for me to save her life.
“Shoot yourself and I’ll live,” she cries.
“No!” I shout back.
“Please, Alisa?”
“Shanti!” How does she know my name?
“I don’t want to die,” she pleads, before she puts the gun in her mouth. I cannot help her any more than I can help myself. My hand keeps twitching, and soon my gun is pointed at my face the same way hers is. Only I won’t open my mouth, I refuse to open my mouth.
“Save me!” Shanti mouths a mumbled cry as the barrel of the gun slides past her lips.
“Don’t do it!” I cry back.
“Sita!” she moans, calling me by my childhood name.
“Shanti!”
She pulls the trigger. The impact of the bullet hurts me as badly as if the bullet entered my own skull. The bullet ricochets around inside the girl’s mouth, ripping out her right eye, tearing off her right nostril, bursting through her cheek and leaving a gaping hole. It’s like the acid all over again.
Incredibly, the Shanti on the screen doesn’t die. Her face covered with blood, she calmly puts down the gun and speaks to me in the hissing tone I’m familiar with, only amplified tenfold.
“You promised to protect me,” she says.
I feel myself weep. “I’m sorry.”
Shanti is suddenly bitter. “Why, you can’t even protect yourself. Go ahead, pull the trigger and get it over with.”
“No!”
“Put the gun in your mouth and do it!” She stops to grin as blood leaks from the hole in her face. “Who knows, you might survive and look like me. It’s not so bad.”
“Please, no,” I beg like a frightened child.
“In the mouth,” she insists.
I cannot resist her command. No matter how much my will strives to say no, my mouth begins to open, and my hand steers the barrel of the Glock into my mouth. I feel the cold steel scratch the top of my teeth. My tongue tastes the residue of the gunpowder inside the barrel from the last time I fired the weapon. I don’t remember when that was, who I killed, but I know with a sickening certainty that this will be the last time I fire any gun. How ironic my long life should end in suicide.
“Oh, God!” I cry.
Shanti’s grin causes her face to tear open further. More blood spills out, like black oil from a cracked engine. “That’s a secret lesson the Array never had a chance to initiate you into. There’s no God, Sita. He’s nothing but a childish illusion. There’s only power. The power over life and death.” She stops and giggles like a hysterical witch. “Now pull the trigger and die!”
For some reason, hearing the final instruction of my doom from the image of a child I know is devoted to God causes me to think of Krishna. It’s sad but true—in my life I’ve never known for sure if he was God. But like Yaksha once said, it didn’t really matter if he was God or not. God was just a word. Krishna was simply too powerful to disobey. And now that my life is about to end, I see him in a slightly different light, and I would have to say it doesn’t matter what we call him—he was just so loving, I have to love him in return.
If only I could say his name before I die. To die with Krishna’s name on my lips means I’ll go to him after I draw my final breath. That’s what the ancient scriptures promise. But the gun is stuck deep in my mouth, and I can’t speak. I can only think of him, and the dark blue light of his unfathomable gaze. Maybe death won’t be so bad if it means I will see him again.
I hear his mantra vibrate inside my soul.
Om Namo Bhagadvate Vasudevaya.
A wave of peace washes through my chest.
As if from far away, I hear myself coughing. Gagging.
I pull the trigger. The bullet explodes in a vision of blue light.
I die, I am dead. Yet I have not lost my vision of Krishna.
I open my eyes—I don’t remember closing them—and see I have shot out the TV. Somehow, I must have pulled the gun out of my mouth at the last second.
Brutran stands above me, her face creased with fear. A white trail of smoke rises from the tip of my fired weapon. She looks down, thinking she should grab it from me before I recover. Or else she considers reaching for another gun before I shoot her in the head. It’s odd, but suddenly her thoughts are crystal clear to me. Her protective veil has been ripped away.
Only I know the effect won’t last. Krishna promised me that I would have his grace, his protection, if I obeyed him. And even though I’ve gone against his word on more than one occasion, he has chosen to save me again. However, he helps those who help themselves, and I know I have to get out of this house as quickly as possible. Before the Array returns.
Standing, unsteady on my feet, I slip the gun in my belt.
I stare at Brutran, who’s pale as a ghost.
“Impossible,” she whispers.
“That I continue to live? Or that there could be a God?”
“Yes . . . Yes.”
My reply is strangely sympathetic. “I’ve pondered those two riddles all my life. For me, the answer is knowing that I’ll never know the answer. I have to take it on faith that both miracles are true. I suppose that’s why I’m still alive.” I pause. “And that’s why your Array can’t kill me.”
The woman appears resigned to death. She doesn’t grovel.
“Kill me then. I can’t stop you,” she says.
“Why did you try to murder me if you wanted my help?”
“I decided I could never trust you.”
“When?”
“Just now.”
“You’re right, you can’t trust me. I’ll probably kill you later, and you won’t stop me.” Turning, I head for the door. “Until then, leave my friends alone. Understand?”
She doesn’t speak but nods.
I suppose that will have to do.
I leave her as shaken as I feel.
ELEVEN
At home, I have much to consider. Most of my thoughts focus on the cryptic comments Brutran made. It’s true the woman contradicted herself repeatedly. She’d say she didn’t know something and then talk about it minutes later. That didn’t matter much to me. That’s her way; she is by nature a manipulative bitch.
Ironically, the point that impressed me most about my meeting with Brutran—besides the attack of the Array itself—was her honesty. It was unfortunate I couldn’t read her thoughts, but I still have a truth sense without my telepathic gift. I know that most of what the woman said was accurate.
Yet I’m not sure if I understand what she meant.
There’s a fine difference between the two, and it’s a testament to the subtlety of Brutran’s mind that she was able to lead me on without revealing what I wanted to know. The woman’s a master at dropping hints. She said enough to keep me wanting more, but not enough to betray her position.
Even though she tried to kill me, I still feel like she’s trying to recruit me to her cause. It’s possible she used the Array to test me. It was probably a test she figured I’d fail, but now that I’ve passed, she wants me even more. I sensed that as I left her house.
I’m pretty sure she’s going to test me again.
I dread the thought of the Array returning, especially now that I’m back home with Teri and Matt. I still don’t know what the damn thing is, whether it’s tied to Brutran’s presence or not. Do I have to be in the same room for her to psychically attack? Is she the channel through which the power comes? In the end, one thing worries me the most. . . .
Can the witch, at a distance, force me do something I don’t want to do?
I hate to admit it, but I’m afraid of the Array. It scares me worse than the assassin that came for me. At least he was a visible foe. True, he was a virtual superman, but he was alive, in a physical body that I could kill, and kill him I did. But my one-time resistance of the Array counts for nothing.
I know I didn’t damage it. Besides, it was only by an act of Krishna’s grace that I survived the
initial attack. I have no doubt that if I had not thought of him at that last instant, I’d be dead now. Somehow, Krishna heard my prayer and answered.
The fact deepens my faith and my confusion. I remember, in ancient India, how famous Krishna was for his mischievous nature. So he helped me ward off the Array this one time. It’s unlikely he’ll help me again. There’s one thing I’ve learned in my long life. You can’t count on grace; it doesn’t follow a schedule. I’d be a fool to think God’s going to keep saving my ass.
I can imagine Krishna laughing at me this instant.
It’s your problem, Sita. Deal with it.
I warned Brutran to leave Shanti and Lisa alone, but I doubt she’ll obey. Out of fear for their lives, I bring the women to Missouri and move them into a nearby condo. Shanti’s uncle protests his niece’s relocation until I explain that—besides being an FBI agent—I’m super wealthy and can afford to pay for reconstructive surgery on her face.
Lisa and Shanti form a tight bond. It’s Lisa who accompanies the girl on her trips to a superb clinic I’ve found in Memphis. Shanti’s doctors schedule a dozen preliminary surgeries, but cut the number in half when they see how fast she heals. Of course, they have no idea, nor does Shanti, that I often rub a diluted form of my blood on her face in the middle of the night when she’s asleep. There’s no chance it will change her into a vampire, but it might give her a chance at a normal life. Even I’m surprised when sight begins to return to her right eye.
Despite the care Lisa showers on Shanti, I find it difficult to keep our resident mathematician happy. I understand how the woman feels. She’s lost her boyfriend, she’s been uprooted from her home, and she’s hiding from an enemy she’s not fully convinced will attack her. However, I know Brutran wants Lisa dead. I tell her that her boss told me so, but she only half believes me.
To calm her restlessness, she gets a part-time job tutoring math students at Truman College. She does so under her real name. I’ve dropped the whole hiding routine. I’m convinced Brutran knows exactly where we are and there’s no point in pretending otherwise. That’s not to say we won’t hit the road again in the future, if the need arises. For now I rely on Brutran’s fear of my ability to resist the Array to keep the woman at bay.