Authors: Geoffrey Girard
Cain's Blood (20 page)
The 21ST CeNTury
tanforth skated the note card across the table so that it settled
directly in front of Dr. erdman. There was dark, dried blood on
it, and the doctor eyed it without touching. It read:
ShARDhARA
ZODIaC BaBYSITTeR PhaNTOM
Independence Day
I also gave birth to the 21st century
“This is the emergency?” erdman asked.
“Love letter from Jacobson,” Stanforth answered calmly. Behind
him, another man stood in a textbook military at-ease pose. Solid and
motionless, his hands crossed, no more than a few inches from the pistol
at his hip. A similar-looking man had taken a position along the adjacent
wall, behind erdman. Though both were new to DSTI, Stanforth had
introduced neither. “found this morning laying atop a gutted corpse
near Indianapolis,” replied Stanforth. “Crime pics look a lot like the
way your psychiatrist was butchered. Gallagher, was it? handwriting’s
confirmed as Jacobson’s.”
“Who else has seen this?”
“No one to worry about,” Stanforth said.
“I don’t understand,” rolich said between them. “What does it
mean?”
“Something we’re all here to figure out,” Stanforth said, looking at
erdman. “Anything you want to tell me, Doctor?”
erdman read the note card again. “Well . . . I don’t know. I can tell
you that Zodiac was a notorious serial killer. Never caught. But he has
nothing to do with any of our research as far as I know. I’m not sure
about The Phantom or The Babysitter. I would assume they, too, are
serial killers?”
“They are,” Stanforth confirmed. “Also never caught. What else?”
erdman eyed the soldier behind Stanforth. The man’s eyes remained straight ahead, lifeless, as if he’d been the lone man in the room.
The doctor picked up the card. “I suppose ‘Independence Day’ refers to
their newfound freedom or, perhaps, Julyfourth. Some kind of threat
from Jacobson. A prediction, a schedule. If the lunatic thinks he’s Jack
the ripper . . .” erdman frowned. “The ripper once wrote to the police
on a card much like this that he’d be remembered for ‘giving birth to
the twentieth century.’”
“It’s plainly nonsense,” rolich said, reaching for the card. “Jacobson’s fucking insane.”
“Who is SharDhara?” erdman asked carefully, handing the card
over.
“
Where,
” Stanforth corrected. “Afghanistan.”
“Oh,” erdman said.
“Oh. Anything you need to tell me?”
erdman studied the card some more. Too long. he could have
memorized it backward by now. “I don’t see how . . . SharDhara was
used for testing, wasn’t it?”
“yes.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“few do.”
“What kind of testing?” rolich asked.
“IrAX11,” Stanforth said.
The CeO’s eyes widened. “That . . . that was terminated.”
Stanforth stared hard at erdman. “how would Jacobson know
about SharDhara?”
“you tell me.” erdman shook his head. “Never heard of the place
until now. I knew IrAX11’d been field-tested, but never when or where.
I’d always believed Jacobson was the one who helped you guys pick the
location, tabulate results, and so on.”
“you believed erroneously. Dr. Chaterjee performed that duty for
us.”
“he’s dead.”
“Quite.” Stanforth nodded. “I’ll assume that he somehow told Jacobson before his demise.”
“So what?” rolich said. “So Jacobson knows where IrAX11 was
tested. how much more damage could he possibly do? Go to the
press?”
“how much more damage, Doctor?” Stanforth asked erdman
alone. his voice remained calm, but his eyes showed something else
entirely. “I will not ask again.”
“We’re missing three canisters,” erdman said.
“Of IrAX11?” rolich grabbed the desk for support. “Missing? you
mean you didn’t . . .”
“We discovered this three days ago.” erdman stared at something
far past and away from the room. he looked like a man prepared to
die. “In the confusion of the escape. The murders! The cleanup. We’d
checked, but . . . These were test batches, canisters from deep storage.
I can presume Jacobson took them. We believed . . . I don’t know what.
That there’d been a mistake or . . . We, I concede, should have apprised
you more promptly.” he looked straight at Stanforth.
The colonel reached for something below the table, and rolich
visibly flinched. from beneath the table, Stanforth brought out a short
tubular canister. It looked like a can of tear gas or a beer can.
“Is that . . . ?” rolich retreated back from the table as if Stanforth
had placed a cobra there.
“Shall we open it and find out?” Stanforth put his fingers on the top.
erdman leaned toward it. “Where did you find that?” he asked.
“Three targets were eliminated in Jersey yesterday. Dennis, David,
and another boy. One of Jacobson’s secret adoptees, we assume. I’ve
brought you all three bodies for testing. When we received the letter
this morning, we made a closer examination of the cleanup, and there it
was.”
“IrAX11?” rolich reclaimed his seat, looked between them, confused. “They had this? Out in the world?”
Stanforth nodded. “Most likely with instructions to open it on July
fourth at some public event. Agreed?”
“San francisco,” erdman murmured. “It’s where The Zodiac killer
operated. . . .”
“yup,” Stanforth agreed. “The Babysitter in Detroit. There was a
freeway Phantom in D.C. and a Phantom killer in Texas. Could be either, but we assume it’s D.C. Gotta be a dozen major public celebrations
planned, and the symbolism alone would have been tantalizing. Three
canisters, three cities.”
“Astonishing. how many . . . ,” the CeO stuttered, “I mean, how
many people could he . . .”
“Ten thousand,” erdman said.
“each canister,” Stanforth added.
rolich shook his head. “Astonishing,” he said again. “I mean, guys,
if we don’t—”
Before the man could finish his thought, Stanforth shot him.
DSTI’s chief executive flipped backward with the force of the discharge, his body and chair upended in an instant. Blood and brain had
sprayed across the wall behind. The sound still reverberated throughout
the room, and a single leg still extended from beneath the table, the
pant leg wilted down to reveal a dark tartan sock; the leg’s shoe apparently vanished alongside the gunshot.
“I told you: If you lied to me again, I’d kill both of you,” Stanforth
said as he laid his pistol atop the table. erdman had stood during the
shooting. The two henchmen with Stanforth hadn’t even exchanged
glances. “In this case, it seems, you’d not revealed the entire truth. A
technicality that warranted, you’d agree, a reduced punishment. Next
time, there’ll be only you.”
“how will you—” The geneticist stared in horror at the pant leg.
“Not your concern,” replied Stanforth. “hiking accident, maybe.
fell. Sit down, Doctor.”
erdman did as he was told. “There’s no antidote,” he said, one eye
still on the extended leg. “July fourth is three weeks away.”
“We stay the course. keep fixing snags as they come along. Castillo’s already found three clones, including one of the original six, and the
second nurse. he has a strong lead on half a dozen more. In just fortyeight hours, our other solution has eliminated four more.” Stanforth
grabbed the canister, shook it slightly for emphasis. “We’re missing two
canisters now. Three weeks could be enough time to clean this up. from
what the Ohio kid—Albaum, was it?—said, we suspect several are still
traveling together. heading west. hitting houses along the way that
have Jacobson’s other private clones.”
“And if not?” erdman asked.
“Twenty thousand Americans tear themselves and their neighbors
into small bloody pieces,” Stanforth said. “And you’ll be killed in the
subsequent cover-up, which blames Al-Qaeda sleeper cells for contaminating the water supplies.”
“understood.”
he most assuredly did. It was three days since Albaum, the ed Gein
clone, had been brought in. The first Castillo’d found. The boy’d arrived in the morning for a handful of various blood and DNA tests and
a brief psychological exam. Diagnosis made. Prescription given. Done.
Little edward “Leatherface” Albaum was peaceful and drooling by the
middle of that same afternoon. utterly comatose. No more stories of
killer clones or boys dressed as clowns from this kid. Stanforth had apparently taken care of the boy’s dead family, with other hired “parents,”
even now being disposed of. More “hiking accidents,” no doubt.
The
price of admission,
erdman figured.
Progress always comes with an invoice.
With Jacobson, and now rolich, out of the way, just maybe he could
make peace with Stanforth. Prove he was on the same page, and always
had been. “understood,” he said again, more to himself this time.
“you seem to be taking this all rather well, Doctor. Good. Always
fancied you a practical man.”
“Pragmatism and science have always gone hand in hand, Stanforth.
The dreamers and bleeding hearts can stick to poetry and paint. you
remember what Oppenheimer said when they first tested the atomic
bomb.”
“Sure . . . sure. he cited the
,
ah
, Bhagavad Gita,
right? ‘I am become
Death, the destroyer of worlds.’”
erdman nodded. “Apocryphal. What we tell classrooms and the
history Channel to make ourselves feel better. Want to know what he
really said, according to half a dozen witnesses?”
Stanforth smiled. “What?”
“ ‘It worked.’ ”
hey rested in an east Illinois motel. It was afternoon. Castillo lay on his back in his bed, fully dressed, staring up at
the ceiling.
Castillo sat up, passed over his phone to the other bed. “They sent
me this a couple minutes ago. What do you think?”
Jeff reached out to take the phone and looked at the image. “My
father?”
“They think so. his handwriting.” Castillo nodded. “They found it
yesterday.”
“Where?”
“Outside Indianapolis. This mean anything to you?”
his thumb flicked across the touch screen. “What the fuck?!” Jeff
looked away from the phone. “Oh my God, Castillo . . .”
“Give me—” Castillo lunged up.
“I already saw it,” Jeff said, handing the phone back. “you didn’t
think I know how to scroll back? Who is she?”
“Some woman. The card was next to her when they found her.”
“I can see that. What’s it mean?”
“They don’t know.” he watched the boy absorb the quantifiable
evidence that his father was a murderer. “you Ok?”
“yeah.”
It was a lie. Castillo figured it best to keep the conversation elsewhere. “The three names on the card there are serial killers from specific cities.”
“Clones?”
“Can’t be, apparently. Because no one knows who those three guys
really were.”
“you still believe in ‘can’t be’? I’m not sure there’s such a thing.”
“Maybe you’re right.” Castillo shook his head. “My bosses figure it’s
some kind of clue that something’s going to happen in San francisco
and Detroit and Washington on July fourth. henry did say they were
headed west. Makes sense.”
“SharDhara.”
“That’s what it says.”
“But no one really knows what happened there.”
“We know
something
happened there. A test of some kind. Some
kinda biotoxin.”
“That’s going to happen here?”
“Who knows.” Castilllo thought a moment. “I know I don’t like
the way my boss sounded. he couldn’t give a shit about henry or these
other two. your leads on Salem. Sherwood forest. Didn’t care. It was
about the guys heading west. ‘Grave’ was the word he used. Wouldn’t
tell me anything beyond that.”
“you didn’t tell him you know about SharDhara.”
“Nope. When I asked
him
about it, he said it was outside my ‘needto-know’ anyhow, but to keep an eye out for any references to it moving forward. Said the only thing I needed to know now was that it was
a grave threat and to keep my eye out for a canister of some kind. So I
didn’t feel obligated to tell him anything about what Ox told us.”
“Wow.”
“uh-huh.”
“That pisses you off, doesn’t it?”
“What’s that?”
“That they wouldn’t tell you what SharDhara is.”
Castillo rubbed his head. “Maybe. But it shouldn’t. I’ve spent fifteen years on a need-to-know basis. Goes with the job. And maybe they
don’t know much more than we do right now. regardless, if . . . If your
father’s note or anything we’ve learned about SharDhara is any true
indication, and these guys have a canister of some terrible biotoxin . . .”
“So are we still going west, then?”
“Like I said, he had no real interest in Salem or Sherwood forest.
especially when I told him those two kids were either already freed
or dead. he said they’d be taking care of it. Ordered me west to San
francisco. Those are the guys I was hired to bring in.” Castillo lay back
down and closed his eyes. “Anything on that card make sense to you?”
“What’s the twenty-first-century thing?” Jeff asked.
“Nothing,” Castillo replied.
“It’s something.”
“Something to do with Jack the ripper.”
“Oh.”
Castillo yawned, a long groan that turned into a half-formed
thought: “Gotta nail these little fucking monsters. . . .” he regretted the
words even as they passed his lips. Looked at Jeff. “hey, look . . .”
“Don’t worry about it,” Jeff said.
“Not the Sizemore kid,” Castillo said. “Not
you
. The other six
guys.”
“Sure.”
“you know what, fuck it. here’s the thing. Sorry if it ‘offends’ you
somehow, but it is what it is. I’ve tracked down some real bad guys over
the years. Men who’ve killed a lot of people. But I always knew what I
was dealing with. I got it. The religious fanaticism. Or greed. Or power.
Duty. Whatever it happened to be, I understood it. These guys were
sadistic and terrible and damned, but there was a
reason
to be those
things.”
“But not these guys.”
“No,” Castillo admitted. “Not henry. Or Ted. Or some little fuck
dressed up like a clown. And I’m talking these kids
and
their original
selves. They kill for fun. Period. They fucking kill because it’s fun. And
I just can’t accept, I won’t . . .” he could hardly breathe. The air in the
room was suddenly warm and thick. “Physiological, biological . . . old or
new. Nature, nurture. I don’t give a shit anymore. They’re . . . they’ve
become only monsters to me. And, despite what your new pal Ox might
think, I’m too old to believe in monsters.”
“you’ve killed people,” Jeff said. “Are
you
a monster?”
“War’s different.”
“you think
I’m
a monster.”
“Didn’t say that.”
“That I’m just some clone. evil incarnate.”
“Jeff . . . I didn’t—”
“My father told me they’d taken one of Dahmer’s cells and retrained it to become, like, an egg cell. Then they fertilized that egg with
another one of Dahmer’s cells. Never been done before, he said. I
am
one hundred percent him. I
am
Jeffrey Dahmer.”
“In genes only. I guess that’s how it works. right? So what? So,
you’ll be tall and blonde and probably need LASIk. And? Good for you.
I wish I was tall and blonde. So you’re maybe genetically prone to being
an alcoholic, so what? Go to AA meetings and keep away from alcohol.
So you’re genetically prone to, what, being gay? Good. you’re not being
raised in the sixties. fall in love with whoever you want and live happily
ever after.”
“And the murder? The death? The corpses?”
Castillo looked away. “I never said . . . I’m not saying you’re like
henry.”
“Castillo.”
“What?”
“I don’t want to . . . to hurt people. I don’t ever even
think
about
hurting people. I don’t care whose blood is running in my veins. That’s
why my father did this, you know. I understand that now. he wanted
to explain the terrible thoughts in his own head. he wanted to prove
it was all in his blood, that he didn’t have a choice. So he took the
most terrible person ever and raised him like a normal boy to see
what would happen. To prove that the genes, the blood, that nature
would win. But I never even think about . . . I’m not some disgusting
monster.”
“I know.”
“Do you?” The words were a soft plea. “Do you really?”
Castillo looked at the boy. But he didn’t reply.
“Well, don’t feel too bad,” Jeff said. he turned away. “To tell the
truth, I’m not totally sure either.”
They both lay in the silence for a long time.
Then Jeff said, “I want to find my dad.”
“So do I.”
“I mean now.” Castillo could hear Jeff moving off the bed, and he
opened his eyes to look over. “I want to find him now.”
“unless he’s in San francisco, can’t do it. Not yet. you Ok? you
look kinda . . .”
“I’m fine. When?”
“After. you’re shivering.”
“I’m a little cold is all. After what? July fourth? That’s bullshit. We
can start now.”
Castillo stared hard at the boy. “‘Bullshit’? Get your quilt. Jesus.”
“I’m fine.” even as he said it, Jeff’s face had crunched in agony. Castillo could almost feel the shiver scrabble up his own spine.
“Sorry, kid,” he said. “I’ve been ordered to San francisco. Go yourself if you want.”
“you’d let me?”
“yup.”
“But I need your help.”
“Then we’ll look
after
San francisco.”
“Can we start now?”
“haven’t we already? We’ve been fighting through two hundred
pages of notes. What more do you want us to do?”
“We need books.”
“What kind of books?”
“Books about Jack the ripper. And I want you to use your fBI database thing to pull up any unsolved murders of women in the last five
years. Women who’ve . . . who’ve been cut open. Like that teacher at
DSTI. Like the woman in Indiana where they found the card.”
Castillo looked at the boy, who’d freed the motel quilt and blanket
from underneath and wrapped them around his shoulders so that only
his small head pushed out.
his face the same as the monster from Castillo’s dreams.
I bite.
But, also, not at all.
Castillo sighed, pushed himself up to grab his laptop. “Ok. I guess
you’ve earned that, too.”
“yeah.” Jeff said. “I have.”