No hard feelings … His eyes said otherwise.
Nelson continued unbuttoning his shirt.
“What is this?” Hayden said. “A strip-tease?”
“No. I want to show you something.” He pulled it open to reveal the device taped to his chest. “This is a monitor-transmitter. It monitors my heartbeat. If that heartbeat should stop, or if this should be removed from me, a signal will be transmitted to the helicopter hovering outside, causing two AGM-114s to fire at my last known location.”
“Hellfire missiles?” he said. “Isn’t that overkill? I mean, just a little?”
He began rebuttoning his shirt. “Mutually assured destruction. I know you were nearly suicidal when you returned from Dusseldorf, but I also know your sense of duty. You wouldn’t want anything to happen to Doctor Fanning on your watch, would you?”
Hayden shook his head and lowered his voice nearly to a whisper. “Hardly a deterrent when it’s clear that you and your two goons will be the only ones leaving this island alive.”
Was the man a mind reader? No, the options were narrow and obvious.
“Not so,” Nelson said. “The jury is still out on the good doctor.”
That ought to keep him from trying anything stupid.
Hayden raised his voice again. “You were always a son of a bitch, Fife. But I didn’t know you were crazy too. You’re really a member of 536?”
“Most of my life.”
“And this Israeli too?”
Nelson turned to see Dr. Fanning staring at Chayat.
She said, “Weren’t you…?”
Chayat smiled and bowed. “Noam Chayat, at your service.”
“But you said you were with … what was it?”
“Shin Bet. I am. But my first loyalty is to the Brotherhood.”
She shook her head, obviously baffled. “But … but you’re an Israeli and 536 is Christian.”
“Bereshit, the first book of our Torah, is Genesis in your Old Testament. You learned of mankind’s banishment from the Garden from us.”
“Then it was you who sent those raiders after us.”
He laughed. “Hardly. Your naïveté is so charming, Doctor Fanning.”
She looked puzzled. “I don’t get it. You’re telling me those dead men did not have ‘536’ branded on their arms?”
“Of course not.”
“Why would you lie about that? For what purpose?”
“To keep you off balance.”
“Enough chatter,” Nelson said. “The Lord singled out Doctor Fanning to be our Pillar of Fire, leading us to our goal.” He turned to the woman. “To a priestess of the cult.”
“We don’t use that term. We prefer a more traditional designation: urschell.”
“I don’t care what you call yourself. I am more interested in where you are in the hierarchy of your cult.”
“I suppose I am at the top.”
The high priestess herself. This was getting better and better.
“Do I have to tell you why we are here?”
“Call me Clotilde,” she said with a sweet smile.
She did not seem the least bit nervous or apprehensive. In fact, she seemed completely composed and relaxed, as if welcoming friends for coffee and cake. That bothered Nelson.
“I call you pagan and witch, and I’ve come to put a stop to your sacrilege.”
“Gimme a break,” Hayden said. “Did we just walk onto the set of a Syfy Channel film?”
Clotilde shook her head. “There are too many of us. You cannot stop us. You may stop me. But someone else will take my place. We shall go on.”
We’ll see about that, Nelson thought.
An obvious candidate for the Leviticus Sanction, she would not be leaving the island either.
“I’ve also come for the secret of your potion.”
“You mean that after all the sylyk you’ve killed, you still don’t know the secret?”
Was she toying with him?
“No, we don’t. Especially since your members now seem to be able to stop their own hearts.”
Dr. Fanning said, “I still find that hard to believe.”
Clotilde nodded. “The Brotherhood would subject our sylyk to the tortures of the damned. If they get caught they know they are going to die horribly, so they have the option of avoiding the pain and ending it right there.”
Nelson raised a hand. “Never mind that. Is sudden death what we can expect from you as well?”
“Perhaps. But I am not a sylyk and I have no problem telling you the secret. I am one of the few who knows it.”
“What do you mean?”
“The sylyk couldn’t tell you the secret, no matter what you did to them, because they were never told.” Clotilde shook her head sadly. “Centuries of torture … all that pain inflicted on people who could not divulge a secret they did not know.”
She’s lying, he thought. She must be.
“But they make the potion.”
“They simply follow instructions.”
“We have followed those same instructions—to no avail.”
She smiled. “So … you have tried to make the cure. I thought it was an affront to God, an act punishable by death.”
“Do not question my commitment, woman. It has merely been a matter of ‘know thine enemy.’ The more we know about your infernal potion, the more efficient we can be in combating it.”
“If you say so.”
Nelson waited for her to go on, but she merely stared at him.
“Well?” he said finally. “What have we been missing?”
“You have killed the sylyk and burned their bodies, you have uprooted their plants and cultivated them in your own plots, you have followed the instructions for boiling and filtering, just as they described them to you between their screams, but the result was no more effective than a sip of water.”
Nelson’s pounding headache, blurred vision, and queasy stomach had drained his meager reserve of patience.
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
“The answer has been written on the back of every sylyk.”
“The tattoo?” Dr. Fanning said.
Clotilde turned to her. “You know the meaning of the shooting star and the staff. What is left?”
“The snake?”
The old woman shook her head. “It is not a snake.”
Fanning said, “I thought it was meant to represent the message on the belt.”
Nelson leaned closer. “I know about the belt, but what message?”
“It doesn’t matter now,” Clotilde told him, somewhat dismissively, he thought. She turned back to Dr. Fanning. “Do you know the origin of the staff of Asclepius?”
“He was the Greek god of healing. He’s always pictured with a snake coiled around his staff. And one of his daughters was…” Nelson saw her glance his way. “Panacea.”
Clotilde nodded. “What most people don’t know was that the creature wrapped around the staff was originally a worm.”
“I’m sure this would make a fascinating lecture sometime,” Nelson said, “but what does it have to do with—?”
“It has everything to do with the ‘infernal potion,’ as you call it. Humans in ancient times were plagued by parasites, and worms were the most common—in the gut and under the skin. Ancient doctors couldn’t do much for intestinal round worms and tapeworms, but they had a way of ridding people of the ubiquitous Dracunculus—the guinea worm.”
Dr. Fanning was nodding. “It’s confined to Africa pretty much. I’ve never seen a case in the flesh, but I’ve seen pictures.”
“Yes, confined to Sudan and Chad and thereabouts now, but in ancient times they were a plague all around the Mediterranean. You could see them moving under the skin.”
Nelson swallowed bile. His already queasy stomach threatened to heave. “What does this—?”
Clotilde continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “Doctors of those times would make a slit in the skin ahead of the worm’s path and when its h
ead appeared, they would grab it and remove it from its victim by slowly winding its body around a stick. It could take a while because some worms run as long as a man’s arm.”
“You’re kidding, right?” Bradsher said, looking a little green.
“Not a bit. Doctors used to advertise their services by painting a stick wrapped with a worm outside their homes. Now, as to what all this has to do with the ikhar … follow me.”
“Follow you where?” Nelson said.
“Downstairs … to the farm.”
As she stepped to the rear of the room and opened a door, Nelson raised a hand. He had to maintain control of the situation.
“Wait. Stop right there. You don’t go anywhere—you don’t even move until I tell you to.”
Clotilde folded her arms across her chest and stared at him. “Whatever you say, Brother Fife.”
Nelson stepped to the doorway and looked down the stone steps. A warm glow filtered up from the space below. The moist air rising along the stairs was redolent of earth and a vague rot.
He motioned to Bradsher. “Go see.” He pointed to Chayat, then to Hayden. “Do not take your eyes off him. Do not hesitate to shoot him dead.”
A few seconds after Bradsher had descended the steps he called back up.
“It’s empty. Nothing here but a dirt floor and lots of lights.”
Nelson looked at Clotilde. “Doesn’t sound like much of a farm.”
“Ask your man if he notices anything unusual about the soil.”
“I heard that,” Bradsher said from below. “Yeah … it’s full of holes.”
Nelson got it then. “A worm farm?”
She bowed. “Exactly. The key to the ‘secret ingredient’ you’ve been seeking.” She cocked her head toward the doorway. “Shall we?”
Nelson could think of nothing he wanted more right now, but he couldn’t allow any sloppiness. He pointed to Chayat again.
“Take him down first.”
That would put Hayden downstairs with the two armed men. No way could he be allowed to stay up here with a single guard.
After they had passed and were well on their way down, he made a flourish to Clotilde and Dr. Fanning. “Ladies first.”
At the bottom of the stairs he found an expanse of moist earth lit by lamps suspended from the ceiling timbers.
“All this,” he said, amazed, “for worms?”
“They are the key, Brother Fife. I don’t know if the comet brought the seeds of the plant with it, or if something within it caused a change in the plants around its impact site, but I do know that these earthworms were changed and are crucial.”
He stared at the expanse of earth and realized the Lord had been with him when he’d requisitioned the AGM-114s. Pickens had been dubious at first, but once Nelson convinced him that the U.S. had a chance to lay exclusive claim to the panacea, and that the missiles would be used only as a last resort to protect that exclusivity, the assistant director pulled every string necessary to get them approved.
The Hellfire missiles were two more things that would not leave this island.
“Do you see that bag on the table to your left?” Clotilde said. “Would you kindly hand it to me?”
Nelson checked inside and saw a powdery substance. “What’s this?”
“Bread crumbs. Very fine bread crumbs. May I?”
He dug his hand inside to make sure nothing was hidden there, then handed it to her. She withdrew a handful and scattered the crumbs over the soil, like she was spreading seed. She replaced the bag on the shelf.
“Watch.”
So saying, she went to the near left corner where a thick block of wood had been partially buried in the soil. She lifted a large wooden mallet with both hands and slammed it down on the top of the block. The sound echoed through the underground chamber. Nelson felt it vibrate through his shoes.
“What are you doing?”
“Wait,” she said, and struck the block twice more. “Now … watch.”
For a moment, nothing happened, then glistening pink tendrils began to poke up from the mossy surface and wriggle free of the dirt, more and more appearing and slithering around until the earthen patch was alive with them.
Somewhere to his left he heard Bradsher say, “Gross.”
Nelson could not disagree.
“Trained earthworms,” he said. “How quaint.”
“They have mouths but no teeth. They eat almost anything but mostly feed on dirt and the organic matter, living and dead, within it. The tiny bread crumbs are a treat. They devour some, roll around in the rest and that way take them back into their tunnels. Worms are crucial to plant growth. Did you know that in the average acre of land, sixteen thousand pounds of soil pass through the guts of its earthworm population?”
Nelson felt his thin patience fraying to the breaking point.
“Is this some sort of delaying tactic?”
“You asked for an answer. I am giving it to you.”
“But we know they are not part of the process since your instructions to your minions are to remove all worms before boiling.”
The old woman offered a tolerant smile. “I will get to that, if I may continue. All that soil passing through the guts of the earthworms is left behind in the form of nutrient-rich castings. It is the castings of these particular worms, excreted after they’ve fed on the plants from around the crater, that are the source of what you call the panacea.”
“Worm shit?” he heard Hayden say through a laugh. “You gotta be kidding me! The cure-all is worm shit?”
“You’re lying,” Nelson said. He waved to the worms. “This is all an elaborate misdirection.”
“No, Brother Fife. The misdirection is telling the sylyk to remove all insects and worms and grubs. Instructions for making the elixir include boiling some of the dirt in the root ball, but by telling them to discard the worms, we make them appear worthless, when in reality it is their casts in the soil that yield the panacea. That is why anyone who steals the plants will be frustrated.”
Mute with shock, Nelson could only stare at the thinning mass of worms as they slithered back into their tunnels. Mutated earthworms … that was the key? The reason all the acres of those foul plants the Brotherhood had planted over the centuries yielded nothing?
“So…” he said, finding his voice, “your minions never knew?”
Clotilde shook her head. “They have no need to know. We, the urschell, send them packets of seeds from various post offices around the continent—never the same twice. Unknown to the sylyk, tiny cocoons of the mutated worms are included along with the seeds. When the seeds are planted, so are the cocoons, which hatch as the seeds germinate. We tell them they must uproot the plants before they drop their seeds. Once they’ve used up one crop, they must wait for a new packet to start another.”
How very clever, Nelson thought with grudging admiration. They hold the reins on supply, and eliminate demand by keeping the panacea’s very existence secret. That is how they’ve maintained control for fifteen centuries.
The situation was perfect for the Lord’s purposes. People must never learn of the panacea’s existence. If they knew, they would clamor for it, riot for it, and flock to the Serpent for it.
And that, he supposed, was reason enough to terminate Dr. Fanning. Avenging Uncle Jim would be simply a bonus. But he would let her know about her victim before she died.
“And here is the result,” the woman said, stepping over to a shelf and lifting a flask of cloudy fluid. She held it up and looked at Nelson. “What so many have died for. Their blood is on your hands.”
She unstoppered the flask, took a shot glass from that same shelf, and began to pour the fluid into it.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Nelson said, stepping closer.
She tossed back the liquid. “I know I will be going to the All-Mother very soon. I wish to arrive in good health.” She looked over at Fanning and Hayden. “Perhaps I can offer some to your prisoners?”
 
; “Absolutely not.”
“He doesn’t want you to waste it,” Hayden said.
He’d saved Nelson the trouble of saying it.
“Wait,” Dr. Fanning said. “Are you planning to … kill us?”
“Of course he is, dear,” the old woman said.
“But we’re no threat to you.”
“Ah, but you are,” Clotilde said. “He can’t leave a witness to his crimes.”
Nelson felt a familiar rage expand within him. “Doctor Fanning has her own crime to answer for.”
She looked baffled. “What?”
“The man you ran down in Salt Lake City. You not only robbed him of the use of the left side of his body, but his career and his life’s mission as well.”
“What on Earth are you…?” The light dawned in her eyes. “Fife … James Fife.”
“Yes!” he said, exalted now that he could finally confront her. “My uncle. The man who raised me.”
Fanning shook her head, her expression dismayed. “Your uncle … I’m sorry. I’ve never stopped regretting that.”
He didn’t believe her—not a word of it.
“Empty words. You’ve suffered no consequences, while he’s stuck in an East Meadow nursing home, suffering every day. That scale needs balancing.”
He waited for delicious fear to fill her eyes, but instead he saw tears pooling along the rims of her lids.
“Oh, no,” she whispered, her voice quavering. “That poor man.”
He fought the sudden evaporation of his exaltation. No … crocodile tears. She couldn’t fool him. He’d—
“Brother Fife,” Clotilde said. “I ask you again: May I give them a wee dram to send them to the Goddess in good health?”
He forced himself to focus on the here and now. “And I tell you again: no.”
Clotilde gave him a level stare. “You don’t look well, Brother Fife. As a good hostess I’d offer you a taste, but I know you won’t take it.”
Nelson could not take his eyes off the bottle. There it was … the cure for his headaches, his blurred vision, his seizures … his cancer.
And then he realized that God had put him here on this island, in this cellar, with this high priestess of evil, for a purpose.
“Oh, but I will take it. I accept.”