The Methuselah Project (33 page)

In the northern Atlanta suburb of Norcross, Roger and Katherine dropped off the taxi at its owner’s house. There they picked up her less-obvious sky-blue Passat.

“Let’s swing by my place so I can pack some clothing,” Katherine said.

Red flags sprouted in Roger’s mind. “Please, let’s not. It’s too risky. I mean, even though we’ve been on the road four hours, that Griffin guy or his pals could be on our trail. I’d feel better if we hit the highway this very moment.”

“If you say so. But this is already my second day in these same clothes. Don’t blame me if I look like a wrinkled mess.”

“I won’t say a word if you don’t. For me it’s the third day in these pants and shirt.”

Roger wondered—should he tell her about the object inside his arm? Unless there was some other technology at work, that object was the only explanation for how that Griffin guy found him. Katherine already thought his story sounded hokey. If she’d never heard of inserting tiny homing equipment inside people, it would be one more nutty yarn to swallow. He definitely needed to get the thing out of him, but decided not to mention it right now. Could he find a doctor, somebody who knew the position of veins and arteries, willing to do the job without asking questions? If not, he’d need to risk it and slice his own arm open. Until then, speed and constant movement would be his best protection.

Now that Roger had mastered the use of power steering and power brakes, his driving skills were much improved. Squinting against the sun’s glare, he slipped thumb and forefinger into his shirt pocket for the green aviators and put them on. “Driving a car isn’t half as fun as flying a fighter, but it’s better than being a passenger. By the way, I don’t suppose you would know anything about an airplane called a P-51 Mustang? The one hanging in the museum?”

“Sorry, no. I’m a landlubber.”

He shook his head. “Landlubber is naval talk. In the U.S. Air Corps, we’d say you’re a ground pounder. It’s not important. Just interesting to a pilot. How about you bring me up to date on life in the modern world instead? I have tons of catching up to do.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Anything. Everything. I’m a blank slate. While you talk, I’ll keep an eye on the rear view to make sure no one is tailing us.”

As mile after mile passed along northbound I-75, Katherine described modern life. Roger often posed questions that veered the conversation into new directions. He tried to stretch his brain to comprehend Katherine’s answers, but many of her explanations defied understanding. He jumped from topic to topic: “What are those little gadgets clipped to some people’s ears?” “Since when do women get tattooed like sailors and men sport earrings like girls?” “Those dinky records you called CDs—is it possible to buy them with any kind of music, or only new-fangled songs?” “Do they still make Nehi orange and grape soda pops?”

Katherine didn’t pretend to be an avid student of politics. However, her sketchy overviews of the Korean War, the Cold War, and Vietnam all fascinated him and sparked yet other questions. Hearing that Dwight Eisenhower had been elected president, he let out a whoop of excitement as if the election had happened yesterday. On the other hand, her description of the Nixon years and the Watergate scandal left him shaking his head.

“Washington politics.” He crinkled his nose.

When Katherine casually mentioned Neil Armstrong landing a spacecraft on the moon, Roger stared at her with disbelief. “People fly to the moon?”

“Roger, look out!”

He swerved to avoid sideswiping a guardrail.

“People visiting the moon? Shades of Jules Verne. So what did this Armstrong fellow do before he started buzzing around outer space?”

“Um, I think he was a pilot. Probably for the Navy or the Air Force.”

“A pilot, eh?” Roger nodded in satisfaction. “Sounds like my kind of guy.” He paused. “Say, you wouldn’t be slipping the new guy a gallon of propwash, would you?”

“Propwash?”

“Propwash—you know, like sending somebody to fetch a yard of flight line? Never mind. It’s a pilot thing. Ground pounders wouldn’t understand.”

In the discussions that followed, Roger found the dismantling of the Soviet Union simple enough to understand, but he couldn’t decipher the hostilities revolving around the Middle East. Oil … terrorists … missiles … suicide bombers … perpetual murders of innocent civilians …

“I don’t understand it all, either. That corner of the world never stays peaceful for long.”

He nodded. “I’ll have to pick up a Bible and compare your information to what it predicts about future events.”

She offered no reply. He didn’t expect her to. He understood. Until he started reading a Bible in the Methuselah bunker, he’d always shied away from religious topics too. Maybe in time, Katherine would be willing to swap thoughts about God and faith and deeper issues of the universe.

Katherine twisted sideways to face him more directly. “Now, let me ask you some questions. You claim you were stationed in England, that you flew with the RAF even before America entered World War II. If that’s true, what memories from those days stand out especially in your mind?”

Roger said the first word that popped into his mind. “Coventry.”

“Coventry? What’s that?”

“It’s a city in England. In November of 1940, the Luftwaffe staged an all-night blitz on Coventry. I wasn’t there, but I happened to be nearby at the time. An RAF buddy and I—Ballard was his name—we drove over the next morning. The sight was appalling. Beyond anything I’d ever imagined.”

Katherine’s voice softened. “How so?”

Roger fixed his eyes on the strip of highway in front of him, but the screen of his mind returned to sights and sounds he’d witnessed all those years ago. “At dawn, we encountered droves of people pouring away from the city any way they could: in overloaded cars, on bicycles, by oxcart, on foot. Sometimes parents limped along carrying little bawling babies. To this day, I still picture the horror etched in those faces. A bunch of ’em shuffled along in a stupor. Others just stood by the roadside staring nowhere, as if their brains got clicked off or something.”

“How horrible.”

“You haven’t heard the half of it. Ballard and I were like salmon swimming upstream in his car. When we finally reached the city, the place was a smoking rubble heap. In one spot, Ballard told me we were standing at a downtown corner, but in three directions I saw nothing but pulverized mounds of wasteland. Places that were once streets were nothing but ankle-deep mud. He pointed out a smoking ruin he said used to be a newspaper office. All that was left were broken bricks, twisted girders, and smashed-up linotype machines. I still recall the taste of powdered brick and ashes on my tongue. I heard later only five hundred people died in that city, since most hid themselves in shelters. But I saw bodies. Some had been covered with sheets to keep the crows from pecking at them.”

Katherine’s head drooped. “No wonder people would be stunned. Just hearing your description is turning my stomach.”

Roger’s own stomach agreed, even after all these decades. “For me, Coventry became the dividing line. When I sailed to England with a bunch of Canadian boys, I went as a wet-behind-the-ears Hoosier hoping for adventure and a chance to get paid flying airplanes. At Coventry my naïve sense of adventure died. My new goal became to stop the Nazi war machine. Or at least part of it.”

“What about London? Did you visit there?”

“Sure. Londoners lived through more than their share of blitzes. How can I describe it? Sandbags everywhere. Barrage balloons tethered over every neighborhood. Nighttime blackouts so dark you couldn’t see the nose on the face beside you. Sirens. Searchlights. Strangers in pajamas and overcoats all crammed into musty bomb shelters. Stirrup pumps positioned all over town—”

“Stirrup pumps?”

“Yeah, it was something the Brits invented. A stirrup pump was a few feet of hose, a manual pump, and buckets of water. Incendiary bombs started lots of fires. With stirrup pumps, ordinary citizens could squelch small fires before they grew into big blazes.”

Roger glanced from the road to see Katherine’s face. Her intent eyes studied him. Was she convinced he’d really experienced the Battle of Britain? He couldn’t tell. Would he have believed such a story if their situations had been reversed? No answer for that one, either.

After hours of asking Katherine questions and struggling to comprehend her answers, Roger needed time for the ocean of new information to soak into his brain. “Okay if we ride in silence a while? I need to digest all this stuff.”

Katherine nodded. She, too, looked weary from the marathon discussion. “Six hours down, and possibly six to go before we hit Indianapolis. I’m going to rest my eyes.” She slumped down in her seat. Before long, her even breathing signaled she was asleep.

Roger considered. Would this trip turn into a wild goose chase? Would driving to Indy achieve anything he couldn’t accomplish in Georgia? Maybe not. Even so, remaining on the move should buy some time. He needed to plan. How could he reclaim his identity as a normal American citizen? According to Katherine, the Social Security system FDR had created back in the 1930s still functioned. Except for short, temporary work, nobody could legally hold a job without a Social Security number. How might he use his old number, even if he could recall it? Or how could he get a new number?

And computers. If everything Katherine described was on the level, a public computer—say, in a library—should be able to tap into the system she called “the Enter Net.” He could learn things. Look up old acquaintances.

I can’t stay on the run from the Methuselah people forever. I’m going to need sleep. When I do …
He rubbed the lump inside his arm. Eight hours—even six hours—might be plenty of time for one of Hans’s cronies to plug him while he slept.

He pondered their destination.
Okay, so what if I just go to the Indianapolis police for protection? Maybe I wouldn’t have to tell the whole story about the war and Nazis.
Would they believe him if he simply said that he was homeless and that somebody was trying to murder him?

What a laugh. Even before the war, policemen had required details before getting involved. They would ask questions he couldn’t answer without convincing them he was a crackpot.

He compiled a mental inventory of classmates from Plainfield High, faces he hadn’t pictured in ages: Lloyd Mason, Agnes Appling, Leon Vetter, Edith Hendershot … Even as he dredged up names and images, his hope of locating them sank.

Probably a lot of fellows died in the war. Others must’ve moved away. The girls would’ve married and lost their maiden names. But what if a few old classmates survived? Memories fade.
Would any elderly person swear on a Bible I’m the same Roger Greene they sat beside in math class?

The likelihood seemed microscopic. Still, he resolved to give it a shot. Even one testimony would carry more weight than his flimsy solo story.
Maybe I could run an ad in the newspaper? I could list the people I remember.

On second thought, maybe not. The organization had murdered Sophie for helping. He’d never forgive himself if anything happened to Katherine. Once more, he admired the girl slumbering in the passenger seat. She was cute when awake. Asleep, she was cuter. Gutsy, too, since she’d stuck with him and even helped despite obvious danger. He smiled, imagining them sitting arm in arm in front of a crackling fireplace, her head resting on his shoulder. He couldn’t resist another glance at her lips.
How would it feel to be kissing—?

That’s when Roger noticed Katherine’s purse had tipped over, spilling her portable telephone, ink pens, a pack of Juicy Fruit, and several other items onto the floor. One object in particular snared his attention. He pulled off the green aviators, then reached down and hefted the gray-cased gadget.

Exactly like the gizmo Griffin was holding when he found me. The exact same thing! Must be some kind of tracking device.
He examined Katherine’s sleeping face with fresh interest. Sleepy Beauty was hiding something.

M
ONDAY
, M
ARCH
9, 2015

N
ORTHBOUND
I
NTERSTATE
64,
NEAR
L
EXINGTON
, K
ENTUCKY

D
aylight faded into dusk when Roger stopped to refuel. He thought again about the tracking device. They still had several hours’ drive ahead. It made sense to get the device out before they reached their destination, but if Katherine was in cahoots with Griffin and others like him, it was a moot point. Katherine awoke under his gaze, realized where they were, and handed him several tens to pay for the gasoline.

She yawned. “Want me to take another stint driving?”

“Not quite yet.” He started the engine and angled back to the interstate. “I’ve been mulling over a lot of stuff. I need you to explain one item.”

She rubbed her eyes and groaned. “I’ve already reviewed half of human history with you. What’s left?”

“This.” Roger held up the gray device he’d discovered. “It tumbled out of your bag. I want to know what it is, how it works, and why you—the one person in Atlanta who just happened to offer me a free ride—are carrying a device exactly like one that assassin at the museum was holding.”