featured face. If Tom hadn't known that the Preacher was a woman, he would have tagged this man as a candidate. There was something palpably dangerous about him. Even the name Tom heard Helix address him by was strangely unsettling. Gomorrah was hardly a normal name.
By the time they reached the helicopter at the far end of the runway, the man with his passport had returned. Helix handed it back, then led him into the Chinook. Once inside he heard the doors clunk shut behind him, enclosing him in the womb of the helicopter. He remembered Jack telling him not to go and how he'd ignored all pleas for caution.
He thought of Holly. Last night when he'd said goodbye, she'd somehow sensed this trip was different. She'd actually asked him where he was going and why--something she never usually did. He'd told her that he was going to try to help someone who was ill and she'd understood immediately. To Holly that was what he did. He remembered how once at school Mrs. Hoyt, the English teacher, had asked the class to say in one sentence what their parents did for a living. Holly's answer had been a matter-of-fact: "My dad stops people from dying."
As he looked around the gloomy confines of the helicopter, Carter kept telling himself that this was what he was doing now. He had embarked on this trip into the unknown to stop Holly from dying. He was right to ignore Jack's advice because it jeopardized the one chance he had. He simply had no choice, he told himself again. It was no more complicated or sinister than that.
Still, he couldn't help a nervous swallow when he heard the roar of the rotors starting up, and a few seconds later felt the aircraft move off the ground. He was committed now; there was no going back. His stomach lurched, and he hoped he wouldn't vomit. He wished that Jack was with him, so he could feed off his physical courage.
Especially when Gomorrah reached toward him.
The man held something in his hand that looked like an electric razor with a series of red blinking lights down one side. Tom sat motionless as the guy scanned his shoulder bag, shoes, and clothes with the gadget. Tom took a deep breath when he realized he was being checked for tracking
devices. He'd agreed to swallow the tracker only because Jack had told him it was "state of the art"--undetectable. But he needn't have worried. After a few moments the smoky green eyes relaxed and the guy nodded his satisfaction to Helix.
"I am sorry about these precautions," said Helix with an apologetic shrug, "but they are necessary." Tom nodded, determined not to show his fear. But just as he began to relax Gomorrah reached into his pocket and pulled out what looked like a blindfold. If he wasn't able to see he was sure he would be ill, and aside from losing the tracking device he hated the idea of showing this weakness to his hosts--or enemies. When Gomorrah asked him in perfect, accentless English to lean forward, Tom considered struggling. But he just gritted his teeth and let the man wrap the greasy-smelling cloth around his head. Think of Holly, he told himself again.
The disorientating move from gloom to complete blackness as the blindfold tightened around his head made him dizzy. And, as if to compensate for the loss of sight, his sense of hearing and smell became more acute--as did his sensitivity to the chopper's every movement. He became keenly aware of the smell of sweat and oil in the helicopter. And now that he was blindfolded, his escorts began to talk as if they believed the blindfold also made him deaf, or nonexistent.
Their unintelligible, guttural tones cut through the roar of the engines. His chest tightened with panic and nausea brewed in his lurching stomach. He felt as if he were shrouded in a heavy, suffocating blanket. He wanted to rip off the blindfold, pull back the doors of the helicopter, and breathe in the air and light outside. But he did none of these things. Instead he cupped his hands over his mouth, filled his lungs with his own exhaled breath, and forced himself to think of his glass laboratory of light and limitless space. And to imagine standing on the firm, unmoving ground with Holly. At least you're doing something, he told himself again. This has to be better than doing nothing, just letting it happen.
Just letting it happen.
As he listened to the rhythm of the engine and the whup-whup of the rotating blades, his mind folded in on itself. The engine noise had a rattling tempo at its core that reminded him of a sound from his childhood; the summer of '74; that day, not long after his twelfth birthday.
T
he drapes are drawn in the bedroom. It is dark and the whirring
noise of the broken air conditioner beats out its rattling rhythm.
The room is empty and he ignores the crisp, white piece of paper
resting on the bed, and rushes to the closed door of the connecting
bathroom. He knocks, of course, but he's excited and knows that
if you twist the handle around twice then the old lock doesn't
work. So without waiting for a response he just pushes in.
The steam from the hot bath makes it impossible to see anything
at first. Then he hears his mother say in a voice that doesn't sound
like her own: "Shut the door, darling, and leave me alone for a
moment
."
"What's wrong, Mom?" Something in her tone makes his excite
ment disappear, replaced by a tight feeling in his stomach. "Dad
says we should be leaving soon. The movie's going to start." Then
he turns from closing the door and sees what will stay with him
for the rest of his life.
Tom knows even then that his mother is ill. The visits to the
hospital have told him that much. He's heard the word cancer
whispered late at night but it hasn't really registered. And he
certainly doesn't know she's been fighting the tumor growing in
her brain for months, and that it's already changed her personality
and brought untold pain.
As the steam clears he sees his mother lying naked in the full
bath. Her face is deathly white and the bathwater is clouded pink.
Each of her wrists is lined with grisly crimson cuts.
At first he simply doesn't understand what he is seeing.
"Mommy, you're bleeding. What happened?" he asks in be
wildered horror. "Did you fall? Are you all right?"
"
I'm sorry, darling. I didn't want you to see me like this
."
His first instinct is to run out of here and get his dad.
His mother says, "Tom, darling, I'm fine. Honestly. Don't be
frightened. It doesn't hurt at all."
He moves to the door. "I'll get Dad." His throat is too tight with
sobs to scream, but something in his mother's voice stops him
from opening the door. There is a pleading quality he has never
heard before.
"
No, don't get Daddy. Not yet
."
"
But why not, Mom? Why not?" His lower lip trembles uncon
trollably. Gradually the awareness trickles into his young mind
that his mom has done this to herself.
"
I need to rest, darling. My body's turned against me. But I
love you and Daddy so much. You will tell him, won't you? But
later. Okay
?"
He is desperate to leave that room, but his mother's eyes are
so pained. If he fetches Dad he will only stop her from going. And
although he wants his mom to stay more than anything else in
the world, it doesn't seem right to make her stay.
"
Sit down, darling. Stay with me and show me how clever you
are by counting like you used to
."
He has the strange sensation of watching himself from outside
his own body. He sees himself walk numbly to the chair by the
laundry basket. He moves his mother's neatly laid out wristwatch,
bracelet, and necklace, then sits down.
"Count for me like you did when you were small," he hears her
say. "Prime numbers. As high as you can." Her eyes look so sad
that he hurts inside. He leans forward and kneels by the bath,
then gently strokes her forehead just as he remembers her doing
whenever he was ill. Despite the steam her skin feels cold and
clammy, so he puts both his small hands on her forehead, hoping
his own heat will somehow warm her and make her well again.
Then he starts to count, just as his mother asked him to, "One,
two, three, five, seven, eleven, thirteen, seventeen, nineteen,
twenty-three..."
I
t wasn't until he reached two hundred and sixty-nine--the number he'd got to when she died--that Tom Carter
snapped back to the present. The noise of the helicopter engine now sounded nothing like the air conditioner in his parents' room all those years ago. He had to strain his ears even to hear a faint resemblance.
To this day Tom still didn't know if he should have colluded in his mother's suicide. The guilt remained. His father had tried to convince him that he'd done the right thing. But Tom knew Alex must harbor a bitter regret that his son hadn't alerted him; that he hadn't even said goodbye to the woman he loved so much he had never married again.
As he'd grown older and wiser Tom had taken only two certainties from the experience. The first was that if a blameless woman like his mother could be smitten by cancer, then a God worth believing in--let alone worshiping--couldn't possibly exist. If any power did indeed preside over the cosmos then it was a cruel, arbitrary Lady Luck masquerading as Mother Nature. And only science offered any chance of shortening the odds.
The second certainty was that the next time someone needed his help he would make sure he was as equipped as possible to give it. Even as an adolescent his heroes had been dressed in white coats wielding scalpels or peering down microscopes fighting disease and saving lives. He had known from the start that he needed to be more than just a doctor, or "people mechanic," to win this war. So he had become a genetic scientist too. And he hadn't dedicated his whole life to this crusade just to stand by now that his own daughter needed him.
The helicopter turbulence jarred his unsettled stomach. It took some minutes to realize that the sudden loss in altitude was the aircraft coming down to land. With a mix of excitement and dread he realized that he had almost arrived at his destination.
As he braced himself for the landing he tried to estimate how much time had elapsed, but in the darkness, deep in his thoughts, he had lost all track. It could have been one hour or four. Suddenly there was a sharp increase in engine noise and a final vibration, then he felt the helicopter come to rest.
"We're here," said Helix to his right.
Relief flooded through him when he heard the door being opened and sensed light through the thick blindfold. Warm, dry air blew into the cabin and swirled around him like a sweet ointment, purging his nausea. He could smell dust and sand and the suggestion of spice. He breathed deep and felt his muscles relax one by one. "Can I take the blindfold off now?"
"Not yet," said Helix, holding on to his arm and leading him out of the aircraft. "Soon." As Tom blindly negotiated the rickety steps down to the ground, his face was struck by countless grains of sand stirred up by the dying rotor blades. The sun warmed the back of his neck and his mouth felt dry as his feet found the uneven sandy ground and he was led away.
When the engine eventually died he was struck by the lack of sound. Apart from the whisper of the dry wind and the occasional exchange among his escorts, there was no noise at all. No traffic. No distant voices. Nothing. Only the sound of his own breathing and the shuffle of his blind footsteps on the sand. He felt very alone, but the hot air, sandy ground, and the hint of light through the thick blindfold encouraged him.
Almost immediately he felt the sand beneath his feet give way to more solid terrain, and the heat of the sun left his back. He could sense from the new sound of his footsteps that he was entering a building of some kind. Arms pulled him forward, deeper into the coolness. Then, suddenly, they stopped him.
"Steps. Be careful," commanded Helix's voice to his right.
Gingerly, taking his weight on his good leg, he extended his right foot into space and then lowered it. The next step was so deep down that for a heart-stopping moment he thought he was at the edge of an abyss. Then just as he began to lose his balance his foot finally came to rest on hard stone. He had never encountered stairs so large before. He descended lower and lower, gripping the rope of the handrail to keep from falling.
Suddenly the obvious thought intruded on his conscious
ness:
If you're still alive. Then they must be genuine. They might
have what you seek.
Excitement surged through him then, and as he went deeper and deeper down the huge spiral stairwell his fear melted away, replaced by an almost intolerable sense of anticipation.
When he eventually reached the bottom, his escorts made him stoop and led him briskly along what sounded like a narrow corridor. He banged his head on the low ceiling, and his now hypersensitive ears were almost deafened by the concentrated, reverberating sounds of their feet clicking on the hard floor.
Then, like the babble of a rushing river dissipating into a great lake, he heard the clattering echoes of their footsteps soften and deepen as the narrow corridor entered a larger space.
Abruptly he was pulled back, his pace slowed to a gentle walk. To Tom's nose this place smelled like the churches he'd visited in his childhood, all dry dust and old religion. The smell of incense wasn't overpowering but it was in the air with the pungent smoke of candle wax. However, it was the acoustics of the place that were most remarkable. The hollow silence all around him seemed a palpable living thing. And he found himself treading quietly to avoid the echo of any loud noise he might make being thrown back at his sensitive ears.