Jake held them both, unable to fathom the sudden bond he felt with these children. In the midst of the nightmare that had become his life, this was surely the last thing he had expected to be doing right now.
It was also the best thing.
The events of the past few days had all led up to this moment, and it gave him purpose before he died.
One way or another, he was going to help these kids.
Part 2
“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”
—Albert Einstein
Chapter 13
Venice, Italy
BATTISTA WATCHED IN DISMAY as the children embraced Jake on the other side of the one-way mirror. He and Carlo stood in a darkened observation room next door to the children’s conservatory. Two tired-looking doctors in white lab coats sat at a long counter beneath the mirror, tapping notes into computer terminals as they studied the interaction.
One of the doctors turned to Battista. “You were right to bring the American. Ahmed has been making steady progress since his implant, especially with languages. But the treatment did little, if anything, to overcome his inability to express emotion. And his touch phobia has only worsened since the treatment.” He looked back at the scene. “Until now.”
The second doctor added, “It’s as though he created a telepathic bond of some sort with the children, or else he whispered something under his breath. Either way, he has affected them both profoundly. Sarafina hasn’t uttered a word in three years. This American is an incredible find. We should move to the full cranial examination immediately.”
Battista was pleased at the renewed sense of urgency the doctors exhibited. Stroking his trim beard, he said, “No, not yet. It is because of revelations like this that I placed the American in this unexpected environment in the first place. We need to observe him in a number of controlled situations in order to learn the extent of his new abilities. I will allow you to perform some of the tests after he goes to sleep tonight, but the full cranial procedure must wait. The risks are too great. I am not prepared to lose him yet.”
Battista stepped forward, his face inches from the glass, his expression thoughtful. “Already he has surpassed all of our subjects.”
Both doctors nodded. The children were leading Jake hand in hand over to one of the terminals on the computer table. One of the doctors opened a new window on his own screen, displaying an image from one of two hidden cameras in the room. He adjusted the camera angle so he could zoom in on Ahmed’s computer.
Ahmed tapped a couple of keys on the keyboard, and a page appeared on the screen, titled “Learn Dari in Twelve Weeks.”
“Excellent,” Battista said with a smile. “Ahmed wants to teach the American to speak Dari. Let us see how Mr. Bronson does with our language. Continue the observation protocol. Let me know if anything unusual happens. In the morning, Carlo and I will set up a more intense test for the American. Then we shall learn for certain just how fast his reflexes really are.”
Before turning to leave the room, Battista added, “Remember, Francesca must not learn that the American is here. She is still an important part of our cover, and she will never cooperate if she discovers our true intent. She must not be allowed in this area until the American has been transported to the mountain.”
Everyone’s attention was drawn back to the one-way mirror when Ahmed recited a Dari prayer that ended with Allahu Akbar. God is great.
The American repeated the entire prayer perfectly.
Chapter 14
Redondo Beach, California
IT HAD BEEN THREE DAYS since the explosion. Jake’s body would be cremated at ten this morning, less than thirty minutes from now. Then at two, Jake’s friends and family would hold a memorial service on the sand in Malaga Cove. It was Jake’s favorite getaway spot, just a half mile from the south end of the strand, where the coastline could be enjoyed without the normal crowd of tourists. A group of Jake’s surfer buddies planned to paddle out and spread most of his ashes in the water. Later, at Jake’s mother’s request, a small portion of his remains would be interred in an urn at Green Hills Memorial Park in Rancho Palos Verdes, where his grandmother was buried.
Tony refilled his coffee cup and returned the steaming pot to the Mr. Coffee machine. He stood in the kitchen of Marshall’s beachfront apartment. He’d purposely made this second pot a lot stronger than the first, needing the jolt. No cream, no sugar, just thick liquid caffeine like downtown at the squad room. He took a slow sip.
Marshall was in the adjoining living room, still consoling Jake’s mom and going over a few details of the afternoon’s upcoming memorial service. Tony had left them alone while he escaped to the kitchen to make the coffee and get a break from the emotion-filled room. He wore a black blazer, dark gray pants, a white shirt, and a tie. The getup felt foreign to him.
When Tony returned to the living room, Jake’s sixty-year-old mom was still sitting on the sofa, dressed in a black jacket with matching skirt and a small, round hat with a dark veil that she could pull forward. Tony had never noticed how tiny she was until today. Whenever she’d visited in the past, she seemed plenty big as she ruled the kitchen and treated Jake and all his friends as her unruly children. They all loved her. But today, it seemed as if all the life had gone out of her. There was a vacant look on her face and a growing pile of used Kleenex on the cushion beside her. She held a manila envelope on her lap.
Marshall sat beside her in a black suit and tie. He took her hand in his. She looked up at him, tears filling her eyes. “I’m afraid to open it.”
Glancing down at the slightly bulging envelope, Tony read the computer label across the top: bronson, jake r., doa. He reached down and picked it up. “Let me take care of that for you, Mrs. Bronson.”
She nodded, reaching for another tissue.
Tony walked back into the kitchen and emptied the contents on the counter. The charred remnants of Jake’s wallet, watch, and ring were all that slipped out. The wallet was hardly recognizable, a scorched wad of leather and plastic he could barely separate. The seared face of the watch was cracked, the band half melted. He threw both of them back in the envelope. He didn’t want Jake’s mom to see either of them.
The ring, however, could be saved. It was warped, but the rectangular jade setting was still intact. He scrubbed it clean in the sink and polished it dry before returning to the living room and handing it to Jake’s mom.
She cradled the ring in her palm on her lap, staring at it. As though she was speaking to herself, she said, “This was my husband’s ring. He gave it to Jake on his eighteenth birthday. It was originally Jake’s grandfather’s. He had it made in Italy when he served there as a correspondent before the Second World War. What Jake never knew was that there was a sister ring to this one, first given to Jake’s grandmother, Marie, by his grandfather when their first child was born—my husband.”
She held the ring up and tilted it to examine the engraving in the jade stone. “This ring has a depiction of Mars, the Roman god of war.” She reached into her purse and pulled out a small box, opening it to reveal a smaller version of the same ring, though it was oval. “This one is engraved with Venus, the Roman goddess of love. Jake’s father gave it to me when my first son was born. I’ve been waiting to give it to Jake’s wife upon the birth of his first son.” She dabbed her eyes with a tissue. “That can never happen now. I brought it to place at Jake’s marker, along with the necklace.”
She sniffled. “Do you have the necklace?”
Listening to Mrs. Bronson’s story had Tony choked up. He glanced at Marshall for help.
“The necklace?” Marshall asked. “What necklace is that, Mrs. Bronson?”
“Well, Jake’s gold necklace, of course.” Mom hesitated, her voice tight. “It was passed to him when his older brother died in a motorcycle accident. It has a thin medallion no larger than a dime with an engraved symbol on it. The Bron
son family has passed it down from father to firstborn son for several generations.” Her eyelids relaxed as she escaped into the memory. “I was never told the whole story behind it because Jake’s dad liked to be very secretive about it, saying it was a father-son thing. But I knew all along it was a symbol of the Freemasons. You can’t really hide such things from a mother.” A momentary smile found her face. “Jake never took it off.”
Tony recalled the necklace. “Oh, yeah. Hang on.”
Back in the kitchen he sifted through the envelope again to see if it was stuck inside. There was nothing there. He wondered if it could still be on the body. He glanced at his watch. He had less than fifteen minutes to get to the funeral home before Jake’s body would be incinerated.
He hurried into the living room. Mrs. Bronson looked up expectantly. There was no way he wanted to deliver any more bad news to her. Instead, he said, “It must be back at the funeral home. I’ll just run over real quick and pick it up.” He didn’t have his truck with him. He motioned to Marshall for his car keys.
Tony sped down the Pacific Coast Highway in Marshall’s Lexus. The body was to be cremated in twelve minutes. He dialed the mortuary on his cell phone.
Voice mail.
He hit redial, loosening his tie and the top button of his shirt while it rang, but still no luck. He left an urgent message to hold off on the cremation, fishtailing around the next corner as he pushed the car to its limits. He was pretty sure he knew what had happened. Jake’s body was badly burned in the gas explosion and fire. The thin necklace had probably melted into the charred and peeling skin around his neck. Since there had been no autopsy—foul play wasn’t suspected and Tony and Marshall had kept their mouths shut about possible suicide—it was never discovered. He might not be able to save the thin chain, but if he could at least get the medallion, it would mean a lot to Jake’s mom.
The sparse lobby of the funeral home was empty. Tony hurried through a door behind the empty reception desk. It opened to a short hallway with offices on either side. At the end was a set of double doors with a sign on the transom that read cremation chamber. He ran down the hall and pushed through the doors into a bright, sterile room with white-tiled floors, two freestanding sinks, and several glass-fronted equipment cabinets. The opposite wall held a closed stainless steel furnace door. A long-haired kid with a white lab coat stood beside the furnace, his hand hovering over a red button on the wall.
“Hold it!” Tony shouted. “Is that Bronson in there?”
The wide-eyed kid just nodded.
“Pull him out and give me some space.”
The kid regained his composure. “Who the hell are you?”
Tony walked over to the other side of the furnace door and growled in a voice that made the kid take a step backward. “I’m family. Open it up. Don’t make me ask again.”
The young technician opened the thick door and pulled out the rolling platform. “My boss is not going to be happy about this.”
“Out,” Tony snarled.
The kid hurried out of the room.
In spite of how many times he’d dealt with dead bodies, Tony still hated it. Jake’s body was charred beyond recognition. In some ways, that made it easier. Sort of.
He pulled on latex gloves from a dispenser on the wall and dabbed a small amount of scented petroleum jelly on his upper lip. Leaning over the body, he began the morbid task of peeling away the layers of burned skin around Jake’s neck, hopeful that he’d find the necklace in the crispy folds.
It wasn’t there.
He expanded his search to the chest and shoulder area.
Nothing.
Frustrated, the insides of his stomach turning cartwheels, he stepped back for a moment, disgusted that these grisly remains used to be his best friend.
As he glanced at the corpse’s feet, Tony noticed something odd. The fourth and fifth toes on the right foot were missing. They must have been blown off during the explosion. But when he took a closer look, he wasn’t so sure. Other than the burned skin, there was no sign of other trauma to the foot. Where the two toes should have been, there were two small nubs.
Tony wasn’t a doctor, but he knew a congenital defect when he saw one. This body never had those two toes.
A flood of emotions washed over him, but the one that took control was rage. He snapped off the gloves and pushed through the doors into the lobby. The tech was walking toward him with his manager in tow.
Tony stopped them cold. He flashed his LAPD badge. “Don’t go into that room or touch that body until the police arrive. This is now a homicide investigation.”
He stormed out of the building, punching numbers into his cell phone.
Where the hell was Jake?
Chapter 15
Venice, Italy
JAKE GROANED. He felt like he had a bad hangover. Again. The last thing he remembered was going to sleep in the dorm room with the children after having spent most of the day learning Dari with Ahmed.
He woke up to a pair of dark eyes staring at him. They reminded him of a king cobra ready to strike.
Flinching, he found that his ankles and wrists were held fast by fleece-lined leather buckles. He lay stripped from the waist up on a wooden exam table that was tilted up to a near-vertical position.
Just like Frankenstein’s monster.
An IV was taped to the inside of his left elbow, and a number of electrodes were stuck in an elliptical pattern across his chest. When he turned his head, he had a sensation of similar attachments on his head. The wires led to monitoring equipment on a wire rack beside him.
The guy standing in front of him had a cultured look about him, with a perfectly trimmed Vandyke and slicked-back dark hair. He wore a white lab coat over an expensive-looking silk shirt and tie, with pleated wool pants and a pair of alligator shoes that looked like something you would expect to see in a window on Rodeo Drive. His self-satisfied smile left no doubt that he was the man in charge. Jake hated him immediately.
Carlo stood next to him. The memory of the confrontation in Jake’s home ripped through him. “You bastard.”
Carlo grinned. He walked to the far corner of the room, sat down on a small hardback chair, and crossed his legs.
The small, windowless room smelled of chemicals and cleaning solutions. There was a drain in the center of the tiled floor. A short hose hung under a wide stainless steel sink off to one side. Two banks of fluorescent lights hummed on the ceiling above him. A tripod-mounted video camera stood to one side, pointed at Jake’s face.
Jake strained at the straps binding his wrists. The veins in his arms bulged with the effort, but it was no use. He wasn’t going anywhere. He studied the man in front of him. Hoping the anger in his voice would hide the fear is his gut, he said, “Who the hell are you?”
“Calm down, Mr. Bronson. You’re going to be just fine. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Luciano Battista, your host.”
Motioning to his strapped hands, Jake said, “Nice party, you freak.”
“I’m sorry for the restraints. Had you accepted Ms. Fellini’s invitation to help us willingly, I’m sure they would not have been necessary. In any case, I think we’ll have to get to know each other a little better before I’m willing to loosen your bindings. Besides, you’re an American, and unlike us Italians, you don’t really need your hands in order to carry on a conversation, do you?” He laughed at his own joke.
So the guy wanted to talk. Fine. That was probably better than the alternative. “Yes, your pretty messenger was a tasty bit of bait, wasn’t she? Quite impressive. I never suspected that she was a conniving underworld spy until her boyfriend over there started sticking needles in me.”
“Our Francesca is something special,” Battista said. “She is certainly an indispensable part of the team. But let’s talk about you, Mr. Bronson, and your new talents. What’s happened to you is really quite incredible. It’s as though your brain has been rewired. And we should know, because we spent the
past forty-eight hours examining it.”
A wave of dread rolled over Jake. While he was asleep, had they opened up his skull like they did to Ahmed? Was he “fixed” now? He rolled the back of his head from side to side against the table. There was just a small twitch of pain there from the previous small puncture wound. Nothing worse than that.
Battista picked up a chart from the monitor rack and flipped through the pages. “Whatever happened to you by accident during your MRI is something we’ve been trying to duplicate artificially for quite a while. And while we’ve been somewhat successful in our experiments, unlocking remarkable genius in average subjects, we still had a few bugs to work out. Until now.”
Battista’s excitement showed on his face as he continued, “You, my friend, seem to have avoided any debilitating side effects from your accident.”
Except that I’m dying, Jake thought. With all their tests they haven’t figured that out yet?
“Mr. Bronson, your brain has gone through an incredible metamorphosis. It’s as if you’ve leaped ahead a thousand years on the evolutionary scale. No, make that ten, or even a hundred thousand years. It has provided us with the missing ingredient in our research. Already our scientists are making the final modifications to our implants based on what we learned during your exam last night. You should be proud. You are the harbinger of a new super race that will quite literally change the world.”
Super race? Change the world? I’m in some deep shit.
“Okay,” Jake said. “Then I guess you don’t need me anymore, right? Why don’t you just undo these straps and let me go home. No harm, no foul.”
Battista shook his head. “Home? But this is your home now, Mr. Bronson. We have so much more to learn from you. Your old life is over. Your home is up in smoke, along with your burned body. Your friends and family think you are dead. In fact, the funeral service should have occurred this morning.”
Jake’s face went cold. This last bit of information struck him hard, making this whole nightmare way too real. The thought of his mother hearing for the second time in her life that one of her sons had died brought forth a rush of painful memories: a family summer vacation long ago when his brother died in a motorcycle accident, the look of anguish on Mom’s face when Dad hung up the pay phone at the campground and said, “He’s gone.” Mom collapsing in grief, his little sister clinging to her skirt, his own desperate flight deep into the forest, running blindly until he couldn’t breathe anymore, knowing nothing would ever be the same.