They passed through customs with the easy indifference of people so powerful that such things did not matter to them. The officers were quick, discreet. “Welcome home, Dr. Roberts; welcome back, Miss Patton.”
When they appeared in the Concorde Lounge, there was a discreet spatter of applause. Miriam slowed, then stopped, then turned. She raised a gloved hand, smiled. Nobody who did not know the truth could possibly have imagined, not for an instant, that she was anything but a girl — a girl with wise eyes, but still a girl.
She stepped forward into the richly dressed crowd.
They surrounded her, kissing her cheeks, touching her as children do a mother they have not seen in a very long time. In each pair of eyes was the same regard, the same awe. Sarah watched this with the dispassion of a captive. Most of them probably thought of her only as the sparkling mistress of the most exclusive club in all of the Americas, a secret, exquisite club, a place where the most powerful of people could express their true selves without shame or restraint, where there were no restrictions . . . once you had passed the door. Some few knew part of the truth, the whispered reality of Miriam.
Only Leonore Patton was entirely certain of the truth. Leonore was being brought along. She was being educated. Sarah knew that Miriam planned to infuse Leo with her blood. Now she wondered if she herself would be killed or set adrift on her own?
People murmured around them, expressing happiness to see Miriam — some familiar faces, others less so — while Sarah anguished inside over what was taking place.
Some were staring with the mixture of fascination and horror that the true insiders shared, the ones who knew to be thrilled but also terrified when she swept them into some dark corner of the Veils, and kissed their necks in a moment of tipsy excess.
Miriam went to a young Latino — a kid she had marked as an upcoming star — and kissed him, brushing his cheek with the rough tip of her tongue. Miriam was never wrong about such things as stars. Carlos Rivera would certainly become one. So, for that matter, would Kirsten Miller who stood beside him, her careful, beautiful face radiating intelligence.
Then Miriam was finished with them, speeding out with Sarah behind her. Luis, their driver, came up to take the bags that others had conducted through customs. Inner New York, secret New York, had been waiting for nothing but her return. Now the delicious terror could continue. Was she going to feed? Would it be some forgotten soul, ready for death? Or someone who deserved it — one she had judged in her correct and careful way? If so, would it be one they knew, perhaps some garish magnate who had tried to lie his way past the Veils? If it was, then who must they carefully fail to notice was missing, who next?
“One of my shorts paid off,” Sarah said after Luis had pulled into traf-fic and Miriam had settled back with a cigarette.
“How much?”
“It was BMC Software. We made thirty-three percent.”
“On what?”
“Six hundred thousand.”
Miriam smoked, gazed out the window. Sarah had heard the little grunt of approval that the awareness that she had made nearly two hundred thousand dollars had drawn from her.
Suddenly she snatched off the big hat, which she had been wearing since Paris. Then she said, “My head is warm.” She inclined it toward Sarah, who set about removing the wig. Even when Sarah had bathed her in the enormous tub at the Crillon, she had not allowed this wig to be taken off.
“Are you ready for this, Luis,” Miriam called, her voice tart with angry irony.
The silky blond strands of hair that had waved in the wind like fronds in the sea were gone. The effect was so disturbing that Sarah drew back. Miriam smiled, her face looking utterly false and improbably small on her strange, long head. In Egypt, they had concealed their heads beneath tall headdresses. Raise the crown from Nefertiti, and you would see Miriam’s mother with the same long head. She was called Lamia only among her own kind, and in myth. In the nations she had ruled, she had been many queens.
Miriam’s eyes were wet. The baldness embarrassed her, even before Sarah, who knew every intimate stroke of her being.
“Oh, my love! My love, what — what — ”
“They tried to burn me to death,” she said.
“The other Keepers? My dear God!”
Miriam’s eyes bored into Sarah’s. In that moment, she seemed more profoundly alien than ever before. They were the eyes of a goddess . . . or a predatory insect. Glassy, cruel, and way too quick, the way they flickered about.
Sarah’s heart broke for her. Lamia had died by fire, and Miriam had spent many a Sleep with her head in Sarah’s lap, crying out as she helplessly relived the horror of that day.
Sarah threw her arms around Miriam. “Miri,” she whispered, “Miri, I will never let that happen to you, never!”
“We’re in terrible trouble, child.”
“I know it, oh, God, I know it.”
Miriam came close to her, took her hand. They remained like that — both silent, Sarah weeping — on the long, traffic-choked drive home.
TWELVE
Sourball Express
Paul watched Justin Turk fool with his pipe. You weren’t supposed to light up inside the building. Langley was a nonsmoking facility. Justin lit up. “You know,” he said, “you’re a good ten grades away from the use of exclusive air transport.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“You requisitioned a Falcon Jet assigned to General Ham Ratling and took it from Bangkok to Paris on a noncontracted run. Meaning that we got a forty-eight-thousand-dollar bill from the Air Force, plus a letter from Secretary Leisenring. A very pissed-off letter. The general and his wife and kids all ended up in first class on Thai Airways, and we got a bill for that, too.”
“It was a hot pursuit, Justin. For Chrissakes.”
“A hot pursuit.” He pulled a yellow pad out of his desk. “So how do I write this up? Give me words, buddy.”
“Agents were in hot pursuit of a female vampire —”
Justin held up his hand. “Say something else.”
“Terrorist.”
“A terrorist contact incident has to be written up on one of those — lemme see here — Candy!”
Candy Terrell, his assistant, came in.
“I need a TCI form,” he told her.
“What the hell is a TCI form?”
“Terrorist Contact Incident. Every field op who thinks he’s encountered a terrorist, whether known or unknown, has to fill one out and file it within six hours. It’s been days in this case, of course. But nobody expects less from our boy.”
Candy left the room.
“We’ll return to the plane issue later. I thought you were injured.”
“It healed.”
“In two days? The police report said you had a knife wound in your left shoulder that took eighteen stitches. Why isn’t your arm in a sling?”
“I heal fast. Always have.”
Justin cleared his throat and shuffled some papers. Paul was perplexed. He had healed fast — incredibly fast. He should have been in a sling. He should have had a cast.
Why wasn’t Justin curious about that? Paul sure as hell was.
“You also have a body coming back. Was it on the transport with you?”
“The French flew it from Villacoublay to Ramstein. It oughta be in Santa Clara tomorrow. It’s being delivered directly to the family.”
“You’ve written a letter?”
Paul had not written a letter. He couldn’t do that, as Justin well knew. “It has to come out of the pool.” Next of kin were handled out of a central office when agents died or were injured in the course of secret operations.
“You do it. Let the pool send it.”
“Okay.”
“Because I want you to feel it.”
Paul sucked in breath. He really did not want to deck Justin Turk, his only ally at Langley, but Paul’s tendency was to go physical when he felt threatened, and an insult like that was damned threat
ening. He was sitting here, and getting this. “I took a hit, too,” he said. “We had a terrible time in there. Just awful.”
“You couldn’t have stayed out of harm’s way? I mean, given the French presence on French soil?”
“We couldn’t.” What else was there to say? Just let it go. The desks never understood operational issues, never had, never would.
Justin was watching him carefully. Paul realized that the needle had been inserted on purpose. Justin was probably trying to make him feel vulnerable, to throw him off-balance.
This meant only one thing: this was not a conversation. It was not a report. It was an interrogation and he was in trouble. The question was, what the hell kind?
“Well, Paul?”
“Justin, I don’t know what to say. I don’t like your drift. ‘Want me to feel it’ — what the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“You lose agents!”
“I’m fighting a war!”
“You and Don Quixote. We’re not sure about your war.”
“The White House is bothering the director, and you’re taking heat. Is that it?”
Justin did not reply, confirming the accuracy of Paul’s diagnosis.
“Tell ’em they have no need to know. Like the alien business.”
“The alien business! We don’t exactly have a directive from another world enforcing the secrecy in this particular case, Paul. All we have is you.”
“Thing is, how did the White House find out in the first place?”
“The French have a program. The Germans have a program. For all I know, everybody has a program. This is a secret that’s about to come out. And they are scared, because when that press conference has to be called, they will have to explain you and your killing spree, and they don’t know how to do that.”
“I’ve done my job. The French have done theirs. No doubt the others have, too. We’ve been effective. End of story.”
“Yeah, the French have a casualty rate of seventy percent. You’ve lost four out of eleven people in two years. That’s very effective, but not in the way we want, Paulie Paul.”
“Everybody loses personnel. I saw the French clean out dozens of vampires when I was there.”
“We prefer to call them differently blooded persons. DBPs.”
He did not like the drift of that. “Who decided this?”
“The Human Rights Directorate.” Justin shuffled more paper. “I printed out their memo for you.”
“I didn’t know we had a Human Rights Directorate.”
“It’s attached to the Office of the General Counsel. It was mandated under PD 1482 a year ago.”
Presidential Directive 1482 had established humane practices guidelines for the Directorate of Operations. Since Paul was not dealing with human beings, humane practices, he had assumed, were not relevant to his work.
Justin held the paper out to him. “We’ve been instructed to use these guidelines as the basis for a policy recommendation. We’re assembling facts for the Directorate of Intelligence now.”
Paul took the sheet of paper. “Who wrote this?”
Justin did not answer directly. “Read it.”
We must determine if these alleged vampires are human. These are the questions that should be asked in making this determination: Do they have language? Do they plan? Do they experience emotion? Have they enough basic intelligence to perform human activities? If all of these things, or most of them, are true, then it must be assumed that they are human or humanlike creatures, and should be afforded all the protection of the law.
Further, if indeed they must consume human flesh as a natural condition of their lives, then it is not clear that they can be identified as murderers or terrorists, any more than any predator species can be considered the murderer of its prey.
At the same time, there is nothing that prevents us from warning our citizenry about them and providing, for example, survival guidelines. The right of the prey to attempt to thwart the predator would seem to be as fundamental as the right of the predator to kill. However, their status as conscious creatures would preclude simply destroying them to relieve the threat.
Additionally, their relative rarity may identify them as an endangered species and, on that basis, mandate a level of protection of their habitats and limits on killing them.
In summary, the existence of these creatures should be made public, along with guidelines about how to avoid capture by them. Their lives would be protected under the International Human Rights Convention and possibly by endangered species acts in various countries. Their right to kill to eat must not be interfered with, except insofar as to aid legitimate attempts to avoid them.
Paul continued to stare at the document, not because he was still reading it, but because he was literally paralyzed with amazement. Had all of his blood descended into his feet? Is that why he felt this sense of having totally lost contact with reality? Or was it the piece of paper in his hand?
“Justin, could you tell me something? Could you tell me if Franz Kafka is still alive?”
“He’s dead. What’s the point?”
“Oh, I just thought he might have written this — you know — as a sort of kafkaesque joke.”
“Paul, I’m required to inform you that an investigation of your activities has been instituted. As there is a possibility that criminal charges could be levied against you, it is our official recommendation to you that you retain counsel. If you don’t have a lawyer of your own —”
“I haven’t got a damn lawyer!”
“Then you can apply to the Office of General Counsel for a referral to a legal representative who has an appropriate clearance match with you, so that you can discuss your situation with him freely. If you cannot afford to pay your lawyer, you can be referred to a legal aid lawyer with a clearance.”
Paul thought, Just sit, keep breathing, don’t turn white, don’t turn red, don’t hit anybody or break anything.
“Paul?”
“Just a minute. I’m trying to decide if I should laugh or cry. What’s your thought? Tears?”
“I didn’t write it, Paul.”
“Damnit, Justin, don’t you see what this is?”
“It’s an attempt to recognize the human rights of an alien species.”
“It’s a license for the vampires to hunt and kill human beings. Jesus Christ, I lost my father to these things! A little boy waits, and a wife, she waits and waits, and Dad just never comes home. You go on for years wondering, ‘Did he die or get killed, or did he walk out on us?’ It eats away at your heart and makes you hard, and gradually, it kills your heart. In my case, I found my dad. Most people never find a damn thing.”
“The government has decided that the differently blooded are part of nature.”
“Justin, pardon my stupidity, but aren’t we out there trying to protect people? I mean, isn’t that the fundamental promise of government? If a rancher gets his cattle killed by coyotes, you know what happens? He goes out and he damn well shoots the buggers or traps ’em. Nature made the coyote to eat cattle. But that doesn’t mean the rancher’s just gonna let it happen.”
“You’re under investigation for suborning your orders, Paul.”
Suborning was an ugly word. It meant misusing your orders or intentionally misinterpreting them. It was the kind of word you heard in trials. “That’s the criminal route.”
“I told you to get a lawyer. This is a serious situation, buddy. You could be looking at a count of murder for every single creature you’ve killed.”
“Justin, for the love of God, help me!”
Justin stared at him like he was something in a damn zoo.
“This is coming from the White House.”
“A bunch of college kids with no experience of life. Look, this is about people being killed. You know — mothers and sons, fathers and daughters.”
Justin worked at his pipe. “I’m only the messenger.”
“Why don’t you tell Mr. President something for me
— for this stupid grunt nobody who just happens to value human life above all things. A couple of days ago in Paris, I was in a room — deep underground — where I saw maybe half a million dead people stacked in rows . . . long, long rows. Every one of them was a tragedy. Every one of them was a broken family, or a broken heart, or at least a life stolen from somebody to whom it was precious.”
“People will have the right to defend themselves.”
“From something that can move so fast you can’t see it, that’s four times as strong as you are and twice as smart? I don’t think so.”
“The state will protect them.”
“Only one way to do that. Kill the vampires.”
“Paul, a stupid rancher does the environmentally unsound thing when he traps and poisons the coyotes on his place. A smart one plans so that his herd is never in jeopardy. The state’s simply gonna be the smart rancher.”
“But they’ll get through. They’ll find ways!”
“Some people will be killed. But it’s been like that for all of history, hasn’t it?”
“Let me pose you a hypothetical. You wake up some night, and one of these things is drilling into your neck. What do you do — I mean, personally?”
“This isn’t going to happen to me.”
“Hypothetically. Do you call Nine-one-one? Come on, be real, here! Christ!”
“The good rancher uses various appropriate and effective means to chase off the coyotes. We’ll be proactive in the same way.”
Paul got to his feet. “I’m in the middle of a mopping up operation in Paris. Gotta get back.”
“We are not going to continue with this barbaric exercise of yours. It’s over, Paul. Totally and completely over! Okay? And there are some people you need to meet.”
Danger always tapped on Paul’s shoulder before most people realized that it had entered the picture. Something about Justin’s tone of voice suggested that these people were going to give him a whole lot of trouble.