Dante's Equation Part 5

Years ago, Mark Avery had been a bachelor. Mark had trained Calder when he'd come to the DoD, worked as his partner for about a year. They'd developed an understanding that was rare for Calder. They'd believed in the same things: in the United States of America, in military power and order, in dedicating their lives to keeping their country number one. Or so he'd thought. Maybe it had even been more than that. Maybe there had been something paternal in the older man's affection-or maybe Calder had just imagined it.

Screw it.

Anyway, they'd spotted each other at the gym, watched games together on TV in this very house, pizza and beer, card games sometimes, s.h.i.+t like that.

But then Calder's training had been over and he'd traveled a lot. He and Avery got together once in a blue moon. And one day Avery said he was getting married. Calder couldn't f.u.c.king believe it. The man was nearly fifty and had known the girl all of three months. She was younger than Calder, ferchristssake.

Calder had tried to talk him out of it. He'd told Avery exactly what he thought, that he didn't need a ball and chain, that he had no business marrying someone her age. Calder had only met Cherry once, but he hadn't liked her but figured she was marrying Avery for free housing and a military pension package, and said so.

In the end, Mark had married Cherry and Calder had hardly seen him since. And Cherry must have known some of it, because she treated him pretty cool.

Yup, as far as Calder was concerned, Mark Avery's life was over long before he'd been diagnosed with the big "C."

Today, though, Cherry didn't give him the Popsicle imitation. She invited him in as if he were her old pal. Her too-pretty face, the face Calder had once found such an affront to his good opinion of Mark Avery, was thin and pale and wore no makeup. A kerchief held back unwashed red hair. She looked exhausted. She looked like something you'd sc.r.a.pe off the bottom of your shoe.

"He'll be so glad you came." Cherry smiled, gratefully. Great. If Cherry was happy to see him it had to be pretty d.a.m.n intolerable.

A small body came charging out of the kitchen and smashed into her legs. Avery's son. Calder couldn't remember his name. He stared at the kid uneasily-red corduroy overalls and a striped T-s.h.i.+rt, red baby hair, sticky face.

"Mama!"

Cherry smiled and picked up the kid.

Calder couldn't get over the baby smell-fleshy and sickly sweet and faintly uriney. Man. The one time he'd visited since the kid was born it had taken hours at the shooting range for the acrid gunpowder to burn away that smell. He held his breath, wondering how Avery could stand it.

"Go on back to the den, Calder. I'll make you boys some coffee."

Avery was sitting on a couch that was made up as a bed. He had on clean pajamas and Calder could swear his hair had been washed. Cherry must have done that, in honor of Calder's visit. It made him feel guilty as h.e.l.l.

He sat in a chair and Mark acted like they were two buds on some average, ordinary visit. For a while they chatted, Calder not having a whole lot of news because he'd been working, mostly, and Avery going on about Cherry and the kid-Jason, that was his name. "Jace." The way Avery said it made Calder's teeth hurt.

Jesus, it was as bad as Calder figured it would be. Avery was wasted away to nothing, his face like a skull, his remaining hair dry and dead-looking, as if it had pa.s.sed on a couple of months ahead of Avery himself.

"You said on the phone you had some things to tell me," Calder reminded Mark, to get the show on the road.

"Yeah." Avery tried to sit up straighter and looked so d.a.m.ned pathetic that Calder stared out the window at the backyard. There was a play set back there. Aplay set .

"I taught you how to do your d.a.m.ned job." Avery grinned-a rictus. "But that doesn't mean I told you everything I knew."

Calder wasn't surprised. He knew exactly what was going down. Avery wanted to do a mind dump before he kicked it. And whatever had happened between them, Calder was his dumpee of choice.

"So what is it?"

"It's waves, Farris. It's all about waves."

"Sound waves?"

There were a couple of top-secret projects going on in the DoD revolving around the lethal use of sound waves. Calder wasn't supposed to know about it, but he did. Avery and he had always known these things.

Avery shook his head. "What if you could point a device at someone that would disrupt the particles of their bodies? Scramble their atoms? Neutralize their electrons? What if you could make a bomb that would do that to an entire city? And do it clean, not leave a couple of millenniums' worth of radioaction behind?"

Calder was interested. "You have something solid?"

"Some good leads . . . The subatomic level, that's the future. I'm talking about the fundamental nature of matter here."

Calder slowly smiled, despite himself. It was like old times. They used to go on about this s.h.i.+t for hours.

For a moment, he remembered how much he owed Avery. Calder had always loved weapons, even as a kid-toy guns, soldiers, stone "grenades" . . . But Avery had taught him a deeper truth. Since early man picked up that first stick and conked a rival over the head with it, technology had always been about one thing: power. He who has the biggest toys rules. And power waseverything .

"I'm serious," Avery insisted. "The Next Big Thing is not going to be explosives. The future is going to be about undoing life from the ground level up, from theinside . And, Calder, matteris waves. You want to know who really has their hands in some nasty-a.s.sed science, you find someone who knows that."

"What kind of leads do you have?"

"Some names. Some ideas. It's all in the file." Avery motioned his hand toward a thick envelope on the coffee table. Calder picked it up and looked inside-a big manila envelope, papers. Mark Avery's legacy. It gave him a momentary stab of pain. He swallowed it.

"Thanks."

"h.e.l.l." Avery dismissed the word with a blink. He sank back, looking so tired suddenly, Calder thought he was going to red-line right there. "Everything's kind of a mess. I didn't really have the . . . energy to neaten it up for you."

"No problem."

The moment stretched out awkwardly. Mark coughed, doing it weakly, as though it hurt. Calder clenched his jaw.

"The thing is, the DoD-that whole inst.i.tution-it's gotten to be about sucking down tax money and producing jack-all. And the academics, h.e.l.l, they've gotten themselves so tied up in knots they can't see their way out of a cardboard box. The Big One, when it comes, is gonna be some undiscovered Einstein out there who isn't a part of any of that. It'll be someone from Podunk, New Jersey, and he's gonna belong toyou ." Mark turned his eyes on him. For oncehis eyes looked spooky. "He would have beenmine , but I guess that's unlikely now. You should thank me, you lucky b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

"Yeah, right." Calder tried for a jokey tone and missed. He just sounded p.i.s.sed off.

Cherry brought them coffee. It gave them something to do. Calder could barely stand the taste. Between the smell of the kid that pervaded the house and the stench of Mark's sickness, he had to gag it down. As they drank he sat with the envelope on his lap like a freaking job applicant. And Avery lay there, hardly able to hold the cup. Neither one of them could bear to look at each other.

As soon as he was done with the coffee, Calder thought, he could go.

Out the window, he saw something red flash by-the kid. Cherry came into view, chasing the baby, picking him up, swinging him in the air. f.u.c.king Hallmark moment.

There was a m.u.f.fled noise from Avery, and Calder looked at him. His eyes were on the backyard, too, his face soregretful it made Calder want to hit something. Avery glanced at him, guiltily. His face twitched.

"I . . ." He hesitated. Calder thought,Whatever it is, spare me, please G.o.d . Avery didn't. "I almost didn't give that to you, you know." He met Calder's eyes in a challenge, then looked back out at the kid. "I dedicated my whole life to weapons technology. Jace's birth . . . sometimes I wonder if what we do . . . if it's the right thing."

Calder saw red as a hand reached up from his gut, squeezing. "What isthat supposed to mean? We have the freedom we do in this country because we have the meanest, most kick-a.s.s weapons, end of story. What the f.u.c.k's the matter with you, Mark?"

Avery's eyes were unapologetic. "I wonder if you'll be as sure of that when you're a father."

Calder snorted.I'd have my b.a.l.l.s chewed off by alligators before I'd let that happen . He kept it to himself.

"Calder, if youdo find him . . ." Avery paused. Calder didn't need to ask who the "him" was; it was the next Oppenheimer, the inventor of the new Big One. "When you do . . ."

"What?" Calder said impatiently.

Avery licked his cracked lips. "Ever heard that whole thing about what you'd do if you had the chance to go back and meet Hitler in 1925?"

"Stop talking this c.r.a.p!" Calder's tone said he meant it. It was a tone that would have made most men stick a horn up their b.u.t.t and blow taps if he'd told them to.

Avery smiled sadly. "I guess when you're dying you get some funny ideas." He looked out at the backyard again where Cherry was swinging the baby around and around. "I don't s'pose . . . if I asked you to keep an eye on them for me . . ."

"Jesus, Mark! Are you drugged or what?"

"Forget it." Avery sounded resigned, like he'd known Calder would refuse and that it was stupid to ask him in the first place.

Well, it was stupid. d.a.m.ned stupid. Hemust be stoned to have even thought such a thing. Then Calder recalled that Avery didn't have any family. He'd been as much a loner as Calder himself until Cherry came along.G.o.d, he hated this.

"I'll make sure they don't starve, if that's what you're asking." Calder spit it out like shards of gla.s.s. f.u.c.king Cherry, she knew what she'd been doing when she married Avery. She'd get a pension. She and the kid would do just fine. And he'd bet anything she was remarried within a year anyway. But he had to saysomething .

"Thanks," Avery said.

He sounded like he believed it about as much as Calder meant it.

3.2. Denton Wyle

ZURICH.

Denton beat the letter to Zurich by a whole week. Thank G.o.d Schwartz was too cheap or too old-fas.h.i.+oned to spring for FedEx.Why Denton went to Zurich-that was something he didn't examine too closely. He was moving on pure intuition. Schwartz had lied. He hadbig-time lied.

Kobinski. Ever heard of him?

Could be.

All that feigned disinterest and hypocritical scolding! And for what? What was Schwartz trying to hide? Denton couldn't wait to find out.

Denton's stubbornness, once awakened, wasn't like other people's: it wasn't a brick wall; it was more like water, flowing around or through or under all obstacles, seeking its instinctual resting point.

He'd never been fond of Zurich. It was a city of unbridled materialism, more his mother's style than his. He walked through street after street of glitzy stores, entire shops that sold nothing but gold pens, furs, or crystal stemware. Zurich's good taste weighed on him like a thumb.

The address he had was in an area that looked older, the stores even posher, if only because they didn't scream their message. Some of the shops were so discreet you couldn't even tell what they sold. The address he had was like that. He found himself the only customer in a small room filled with polished, translucent antiques. Sophisticated hand-printed cards rested on each object. He began to question, for the first time, and rather belatedly, what he was doing here.

An elegant elderly man approached him. The man began the formalities in German, moving smoothly into English on hearing Denton's reply. His name was Gretz and he had a highbrow British accent. Denton b.u.t.tered him up by admiring the pieces in the shop before sidling, nonchalantly, into his real business.

"Do you work with rare ma.n.u.scripts, papers, things like that?"

Gretz reappraised him. "As a matter of fact, we do. But you must have heard this from someone, no? Are you looking for anything in particular, sir?"

"As a matter of fact, yes. I'm looking for anything written by Yosef Kobinski."

Gretz blinked. "That's quite remarkable."

"You have something in that line?"

"I do indeed, sir."

The man waited, his soft, long-fingered hands pressed together.And? Did he want a secret pa.s.sword or something?

"I'd love to see what you have if that's at all possible."

"This way, please."

He led Denton through a curtain to a part of the shop that was-Denton saw at once-the real heart of the place. There were smooth mahogany tables. Bookcases lined two walls and cut-gla.s.s display cases held ancient ma.n.u.scripts. There was a reverent, hushed tone to the room.

"Please be seated." Gretz donned plastic gloves and retrieved a transparent folder from one of the cases. He carried it over to Denton, drew up a chair opposite him, and, like a jeweler, took a pair of long flat-p.r.o.nged tweezers and a magnifying gla.s.s from a nearby shelf, adjusted a small desk lamp with a protective filter, and turned it on.

With these elaborate preparations met, Gretz carefully turned the folder around, maneuvering it gently by its edges. He handed Denton the magnifying gla.s.s. Under the plastic, Denton could see a piece of dirty brown paper marked with characters he didn't recognize.

"Five pages, written in Hebrew," Gretz said melodiously. "They were found in 1962 in a metal cylinder buried on the grounds of Auschwitz. Since then they've been in private hands. I obtained them three months ago."

Auschwitz!This had been writtenin the camp.

"The papers date from approximately 1943. Every page bears the mark 'YK' in Hebrew." He pointed to said mark at the bottom of the page with his tweezers. "The author is a Polish rabbi, Yosef Kobinski, about whom you appear to know."

Denton studied the identifying mark with an escalating sense of nervous wonder. Maybe it was just the old-world surroundings, or seeing an actual relic of Auschwitz, or the mysterious tinge of secrets that pervaded the room, but he half expected Gretz to say,"Eez eet safe?" like Olivier inMarathon Man .

"Um, yeah, I know something about him. But I'd like to know more."

"I don't have a great deal of background on the man myself except that his work was based on kabbalah. He published one book before the war,The Book of Mercy . It had a very small run and is extremely rare. Fragments of his Auschwitz ma.n.u.script, t.i.tledThe Book of Torment , are rarer still. He went to a great deal of effort to hide individual pages."

Denton nodded, as if he knew all about it.

"As I'm sure you know, prisoners in the concentration camps were not allowed personal property, nor did they have access to writing materials as a rule. Still, the human mind is quite ingenious, yes? These things appear now and then. That's not to say that they aren't extremely valuable."

"Valuable," Denton echoed. "Are all five pages in this condition?" He asked it because it was something a serious customerwould ask.

"Yes. But I must tell you, I have an offer pending for the papers."

"Ah!"

Denton pretended to study the page, but he wasn't really seeing it. He was trying to sense the dealer's att.i.tude, and he decided that there was definitely an open door here somewhere. So the sale wasn't completely final or perhaps Gretz had something else in mind.

"I'm new to the area of rare ma.n.u.scripts. I hear there's a difference between an exclusive and a nonexclusive purchase. Is that right?"

Gretz looked at Denton as if he were being coy, like maybe he was a riverboat gambler asking how many cards to deal. "In the antique business a rare ma.n.u.script is considered to be aphysicalobject- an antique-quite a separate thing from the text on the page. Most dealers will photograph any object before selling it and, in the case of written materials, may copy or transcribe the text. You see, the text is usually not what's important but rather the doc.u.ment itself which has value."

Had he sensed a door? This was a freakingcanyon . "Interesting."

"And when a buyer purchases an unpublished ma.n.u.script such as this, he may opt to buy the physical doc.u.ment only, or he may choose to also purchase all rights to the text. Naturally, purchasing all rights is the more expensive option."

"In other words, a nonexclusive purchase means someone else could buy acopy of the text?"

"That is the arrangement, yes."