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Authors: F. Paul Wilson

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BOOK: Panacea
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As she walked toward the man, glaring, his leer faded. A newbie, no doubt. The others knew better. He'd been standing with a buddy, both in firefighter PPE, but now his buddy faded too. The guy was all of twenty-five, if that. Laura had a good dozen, maybe fifteen years on him. She stopped and looked him square in the eyes.

“What did you call me?”

His brown eyes darted left, then right. “Uh, nothing.”

“I heard ‘MILF.' I know of no such word, so it must be an acronym. What does it stand for?”

“Nothing. I was just talking to—” He turned to look at his buddy who was no longer there.

“M-I-L-F … let's see…”
DOLAN
was stenciled on his yellow rubberized jacket. “What could that stand for, Mister Dolan? Morsel I'd Like to Fondue? Mignon I'd Like to Filet?”

“You weren't supposed to hear.”

“Oh, yes I was. I'm not a MILF, Mister Dolan. I'm a deputy medical examiner for Suffolk County. Do you know what can happen when one public service employee sexually harasses another public service employee? In front of witnesses, no less? There's
alllll
sorts of regs and nasty consequences for that sort of behavior.”

“Hey, I wasn't—”

“Yes, you were—six ways from Sunday, as the saying goes. I'll send a copy of the regs to your chief so he can explain them to you.”

With that she turned and continued her trek toward the morgue attendants. Lawson was already with them.

He grinned. “Carved him a new one?”

“I went easy on him.”

“But I bet he won't be mouthing off anytime soon.”

“His type never learn. But, on the bright side, one of the perks of my practice is that my patients have impeccable manners.”

She told the attendants to tag and bag the victim. She'd post him later this morning.

 

2

Nelson Fife rubbed his temples but the fingertip massage did nothing for the headache. He was suffering more and more of them lately. No time was a good time for a headache, but now was especially inconvenient.

“Can we get on with this, Fife?” said Arnold Pickens from behind his desk.

Pickens was a deputy director of the Office of Transnational Issues. They were using his office to view the recording of last night's bust. Nelson blinked back the pain and focused on his superior.

“Of course. Just a little prelude, if I may. We traced the suspect to a house on the north shore of Suffolk County and began questioning him.”

“He's one of these ‘panaceans' you talk about?” He said the word like it tasted bad.

“You'll hear him admit to it.”

Nelson knew he was viewed as a bit of an eccentric. Usually the Company would ease out someone like him, so he'd learned to compensate. His talent for astute analysis had earned him the rank of senior operations officer in the Special Activities Division of the Central Intelligence Agency's National Clandestine Service, and made him damn near indispensable. So, because he never let it interfere with his assigned duties, the Company allowed him what they considered his one harmless eccentricity.

He was an analyst, not a pitchman, but he had to sell Pickens. He'd need extra funding and a certain amount of leeway to track down the panaceans. To get those, he needed Pickens on board.

He remembered Alec Baldwin in that depressing movie about salesmen:
Always be closing.

He plugged the thumb drive into the USB receptacle on the side of the flat-screen monitor set in the wall and it flickered to life. The time display in the lower right-hand corner read
1:38
A.M.
Not even eight hours ago. Seemed like days.

A shirtless man sits on a chair among plant-filled trays crowding the front section of the small ranch house he's renting. They bask in artificial sunlight from the lamps strung above them. Marijuana growers use this method with great success, but these specimens are not
Cannabis sativa
.

In a grating voice he says, “Who the hell do you think you are?”

A man in a suit—Nelson—steps into the frame.

Nelson admired his suit from the rear—a dark-blue pinstripe, drape cut in the classic British style. He never got to see it from this angle and it looked good. Damn good. He especially liked the way the center vent fell. Nineteen hundred dollars well spent. He'd switched to a three-piece wool herringbone for this meeting.

On the screen, he yanks one of the plants from the soil and holds it up to the light for the camera. At first glance, from a distance, it resembles garden-variety pachysandra. As it's brought closer to the camera, the leaves show smooth edges and a rounded tip.

Pickens said, “That's the plant you've been rattling on about?”

Nelson refused to respond to the verbal slap.

 … rattling on about …
as if he'd been raving like a madman.

He studied the image. Such an innocent-looking plant. And yet so dangerous. Despite the resemblance, its genome was far removed from pachysandra. This abomination was like no other plant on Earth.

He watched the shirtless man on the screen. Nelson had run his prints before the confrontation and knew lots about him: Cornelius Aloysius Hanrahan, age thirty-two. Born and raised in Des Moines. High school graduate. No criminal record. Lutheran by birth but never attended church as an adult. Worked as a mechanic until he seemingly dropped off the face of the Earth for two years. Resurfaced three weeks ago as a panacea dispenser under the guise of an orderly at Franklin Hospital in Valley Stream.

“You can't just march in here without a warrant!” Hanrahan says.

He's not bound to the chair, yet he offers no resistance. Nelson does not reply. Allow a suspect to blather long enough and they often let secrets slip.

“This is crazy!” he adds. “I ain't broke a single damn law! But if you want my plants, take 'em.”

Nelson can't suppress a smile. “As if I needed your permission. And rest assured, I care not a whit about your tawdry plants. I—”

Hanrahan laughs. “‘I care not'? Really? Who talks like that?”

Nelson ignores this. “I already have more of your plants than I can count. I'm here for answers.”

“I'm all ears.”

As Nelson opens his mouth to speak, Agent Bradsher emerges from the rear rooms.

Behind Nelson, Pickens groaned. “You got Bradsher involved too? Jesus! Do I have to remind you—?”

“I'm well aware of the restrictions, sir.” Of course he knew the CIA was not allowed to operate on U.S. soil. “But this is a matter of national security.”

Bradsher was an operations officer assigned to Nelson. Built like a fullback and an excellent field agent, but dressed in an awful, sack-cut, off-the-rack gray cotton suit.

“That is still up for debate,” Pickens said. “But even if it turns out to be true, we have something called the Department of Homeland Security to handle that.”

“Do you trust DHS, sir?”

Pickens didn't answer. No one trusted the heavily politicized DHS with anything sensitive.

On the screen, Nelson asks Bradsher, “Anything?”

Bradsher shakes his head. “Nada.”

“Just what is it you're looking for?” Hanrahan says.

Nelson turns to him. “Answers. First question: Why have you returned?”

Hanrahan frowns. “Returned? I didn't know I'd gone anywhere.”

Bradsher steps forward and makes to backhand him across the face, but Nelson raises a palm.

“We don't need that.” He looks at Hanrahan again. “Don't be obtuse. Your cult has been quiet for decades. Why return now?”

Nelson wanted to know this most of all. The last time the panaceans made their presence felt was post–World War II during the polio epidemic, before his time. The plants and the man in the video were proof positive of their return.

“Why now?” Hanrahan's tone is matter-of-fact. “Because the All-Mother says it is time.”

The All-Mother … how can such pantheistic bullshit exist in this modern age? Anyone can ascribe anything to the so-called All-Mother.

“Did this goddess of yours say why it was time?”

He shakes his head. “She's all-knowing. She doesn't need to explain. If she says it's time, then it's time.”

“Does she speak to you in dreams? Does she whisper in your ear?”

“Word comes through channels.”

“Channels?”

“You know: the grapevine.”

No, Nelson did
not
know. The cult is fragmented, cellular, acting as individual operatives with only the most tenuous interconnections.

“How exactly did word reach you to begin dispensing your potion?”

“The mail—a packet of seeds in my mailbox. That was all I needed.”

“And of course you disposed of the envelope.”

Hanrahan smiles. “Of course.”

“And where do you store your potion?”

The smile holds as he speaks without hesitation. “In the fridge.”

Nelson glances at Bradsher, who shakes his head. “Nothing there.”

“And no sign of any elsewhere?”

“Sorry, no.”

Hanrahan says, “You want some for yourself, is that it?”

“I want it for many reasons, none of which involve me.”

He shrugs. “Whatever the reason, Mister Pleeceman, you're outta luck. The batch was small and I used it all.”

“How many doses did you dispense?”

“Four. But don't ask who to. I'm not allowed to tell.”

“I know all four—that's how we found you. But I'm not interested in them. I'm interested in you … the brewer of the potion.”

Nelson now turned to Pickens, a shadow in the darkened room. “Please listen carefully. Here is where he admits to making the panacea.”

Hanrahan's eyebrows lift. “Brew … so you know something about the process.”

“I know everything about the process except the missing ingredient.”

The eyebrows rise higher. “Missing ingredient? You got me there, pal.”

“Don't lie. We know that you boil the plants, roots and all, but you add something in the process. What?”

“I have no idea what you're talking about. Seriously. Like you said, we brew a tea from the plants, but that's it.”

Nelson knows there's more to it. “You will tell us.”

“Or what? I can't tell you something I don't know.”

“Maybe you've just forgotten,” Bradsher says. “We'll jog your memory.”

“You can't get away with this.”

“But we can,” Nelson says. “And we will.”

Hanrahan's features grow bleak. “So that's it, then? Torture, then what? Death?”

Nelson tells him, “You're familiar with Exodus 22:18?”

“The Bible? I don't read your Bible.”

“You should. The passage leaves no wiggle room: ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.'”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Pickens said. “You're quoting the Bible?”

Maybe he should have cut that out, but Nelson hadn't wanted the recording to appear edited in any way.

“Just playing head games. He belongs to an ancient pagan cult, so I thought I'd take a shot at putting a little Inquisitional fear into him.”

“Jesus!”

Nelson winced as he turned back to the screen.

“I'm no witch! I'm just a guy who cooks up plants and doles out the tea they produce. Where'd you guys come from? The Dark Ages? You're crazy. Totally bug-fuck nuts! What's it gonna be? Thumbscrews? Got an iron maiden waiting outside?”

“Don't be melodramatic. We have injections now.”

“Right,” Bradsher adds. “You'll tell us everything. Even stuff you don't know you know.”

“And then you kill me?”

“It doesn't have to be that way.”

“Now a death threat? Jesus, Fife. You're heading off the reservation at ninety miles an hour.”

“Just a little theater,” Nelson lied.

Nelson speaks softly to Hanrahan. “Tell us the ingredient and I'll let you go.”

The sudden tears in the man's eyes startle him.

“I can't do that. I'm pledged to the All-Mother.”

“Stop that!” Nelson shouts, causing even Bradsher to jump. His face contorts. “There is no All-Mother! You are pledged to a fiction!”

“No,” Hanrahan says, sobbing. “You are. And now … I've gotta go.”

“You're not going anywhere,” Bradsher says.

“Good-bye.”

So saying, Hanrahan closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. As he lets it out, his head drops forward and his body slumps to the floor.

Bradsher looks from Nelson to Hanrahan, then back again. “What's he doing?”

“Passed out. But that's not going to change anything. Wake him up.”

Bradsher kneels by Hanrahan and lifts his head. Dull, lifeless blue eyes stare ceilingward.

“What the—?”

Jabbing two fingers against the side of the man's throat, Bradsher waits, then says, “No pulse! He's dead!”

BOOK: Panacea
2.08Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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