Chapter 17
David puts a stack of mail on the coffee table. He walks over to the phone in the dining area and calls his mother. “Are you okay?”
“Yes, I’m fine. Your girlfriend Neva called me.” David’s face brightens but he is puzzled. He never gave Neva his mother’s phone number. “Oh?”
“Yes. She said I did a fine job raising you. Can I ask you something?"
“What?”
“She sounded white. You aren’t going to marry some white woman, are you?”
“She’s part Greek,” he volunteers, as if Greek weren’t white.
“And part what?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know? What kind of grandchildren are you going to give me? Why are you doing this to hurt your mother?”
David winces.
⸎ Lying in bed but shoulders elevated by pillows, David picks up a newspaper and begins working on a crossword puzzle. The clue to 16 across: Gr. snake goddess. He writes in MEDUSA. Neva looks like a Greek goddess. Could it be? He writes out DEUMAS on the edge of the newspaper, then crosses out each letter with his pen: M, E, D, U, S, A. He puts down the paper and gets out of bed.
David sweeps the mail off the coffee table. He lifts his briefcase onto the table and opens it, then sits down on the sofa and begins shuffling through the contents. He finds the photocopies of Neva’s passports. He examines the Greek passport and the name Neva Deumas, then picks up the Indian passport for Seka Linh. He considers scrambling the letters but suspects it’s a different word game. He takes a pencil out of the case and circles the last two letters of the first name and the first two letters of the last name: KA LI. He remembers the statute at the Indian restaurant and Neva’s comment, “Kali is the Mother of All.”
David looks at the Jordanian passport name Ofra al-‘Uzza. Too many letters to juggle in his head. He takes the document to his computer in the den and opens Microsoft Word. He types OFRA AL UZZA, then tries combinations: FRAU O LAZZA, ZAZA FOR LUA and FAA RULZ ZOA.
He closes the page and accesses the company’s mainframe. The computer advises, “WELCOME TO MAGELLAN COUNCIL.” Please enter code word. David types DONUT. The computer advises: “You Have Access to Calendar, E-Mail, Library. He hits “L” and “Return.” The computer acknowledges: “WELCOME TO MAGELLAN COUNCIL LIBRARY” and shows the word “FIND:” David types “OFRA AL UZZA” after “FIND:” The computer works a moment, then replies, “There is no entry for OFRA AL UZZA” and repeats “FIND:”
David just tries AL UZZA. On the screen appears an illustration of a woman in a black robe holding a black stone. Besides the picture is the text: “AL-UZZA. The Black Stone at Mecca was originally worshipped by followers of the Arabian goddess al-Uzza, the ‘mighty one.’ Her shrine existed at Mecca until worship of her was suppressed by Islam.”
He turns on the ink jet printer and clicks off a copy. Maybe holding the words and pictures in his hands will make it more real. He let the epiphany fade. So, he had discovered Neva’s true identity, or had he just uncovered her conceit? Neva, the self-styled goddess with a small g. Neva, Seka, Ofra. Maybe a split personality. A legend in her own mind—or minds. But the reactor and Hussein: That is the stuff of legends. He would concede, at least, that she was some kind of super spy, with a special agenda. Her agenda or someone else’s?
David puts a stack of mail on the coffee table. He walks over to the phone in the dining area and calls his mother. “Are you okay?”
“Yes, I’m fine. Your girlfriend Neva called me.” David’s face brightens but he is puzzled. He never gave Neva his mother’s phone number. “Oh?”
“Yes. She said I did a fine job raising you. Can I ask you something?"
“What?”
“She sounded white. You aren’t going to marry some white woman, are you?”
“She’s part Greek,” he volunteers, as if Greek weren’t white.
“And part what?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know? What kind of grandchildren are you going to give me? Why are you doing this to hurt your mother?”
David winces.
⸎ Lying in bed but shoulders elevated by pillows, David picks up a newspaper and begins working on a crossword puzzle. The clue to 16 across: Gr. snake goddess. He writes in MEDUSA. Neva looks like a Greek goddess. Could it be? He writes out DEUMAS on the edge of the newspaper, then crosses out each letter with his pen: M, E, D, U, S, A. He puts down the paper and gets out of bed.
David sweeps the mail off the coffee table. He lifts his briefcase onto the table and opens it, then sits down on the sofa and begins shuffling through the contents. He finds the photocopies of Neva’s passports. He examines the Greek passport and the name Neva Deumas, then picks up the Indian passport for Seka Linh. He considers scrambling the letters but suspects it’s a different word game. He takes a pencil out of the case and circles the last two letters of the first name and the first two letters of the last name: KA LI. He remembers the statute at the Indian restaurant and Neva’s comment, “Kali is the Mother of All.”
David looks at the Jordanian passport name Ofra al-‘Uzza. Too many letters to juggle in his head. He takes the document to his computer in the den and opens Microsoft Word. He types OFRA AL UZZA, then tries combinations: FRAU O LAZZA, ZAZA FOR LUA and FAA RULZ ZOA.
He closes the page and accesses the company’s mainframe. The computer advises, “WELCOME TO MAGELLAN COUNCIL.” Please enter code word. David types DONUT. The computer advises: “You Have Access to Calendar, E-Mail, Library. He hits “L” and “Return.” The computer acknowledges: “WELCOME TO MAGELLAN COUNCIL LIBRARY” and shows the word “FIND:” David types “OFRA AL UZZA” after “FIND:” The computer works a moment, then replies, “There is no entry for OFRA AL UZZA” and repeats “FIND:”
David just tries AL UZZA. On the screen appears an illustration of a woman in a black robe holding a black stone. Besides the picture is the text: “AL-UZZA. The Black Stone at Mecca was originally worshipped by followers of the Arabian goddess al-Uzza, the ‘mighty one.’ Her shrine existed at Mecca until worship of her was suppressed by Islam.”
He turns on the ink jet printer and clicks off a copy. Maybe holding the words and pictures in his hands will make it more real. He let the epiphany fade. So, he had discovered Neva’s true identity, or had he just uncovered her conceit? Neva, the self-styled goddess with a small g. Neva, Seka, Ofra. Maybe a split personality. A legend in her own mind—or minds. But the reactor and Hussein: That is the stuff of legends. He would concede, at least, that she was some kind of super spy, with a special agenda. Her agenda or someone else’s?
The goddess
⸎ David opens his eyes. At the foot of the bed is a Kaaba-shaped stone nine feet tall. A gray-haired Neva, in black hood and robe, stands before the stone and pronounces to him, “There is no God but God, and you are my Messenger.”
She covers her face with the hood. Her body disappears from the robe. The hood and robe hang limp, suspended in front of the cube. Then from a fold in the hood emerges a black snake. It slowly moves through the air toward David, who sits up but remains calm as the head of the snake approaches him. The snake arches as if to strike. David grabs the snake below its head. It does not struggle.
A streak of light bursts across the bedspread. There is a soft, clanging sound. As he holds the snake, David looks up into a black void and sees a long, thin streak of light. The band of light grows wider until a large square block of blue sky shows through the ship’s open cargo hatch. Below, in the hold, David stands in front of a two-story reactor block. Wearing a radiation suit, he holds a black control rod at his side, like a shepherd holding a staff. At his feet are five other rods. Ladder rungs on the wall of the cargo hold reach to the light—his way out.
The prow of the ship cuts through the water. On the ship’s bow is the name AL-UZZA. The top of the reactor simmers and smokes. Graphite blocks begin to rattle and pop into the air.
On the beach, two black beach umbrellas rest on their spokes, barely touching each other. Between the cleavage of the umbrellas can be seen an approaching ship, its narrow profile obscured by smoke rising off the deck. A flock of sea gulls, eyes smarting from the soot, screech at the unfamiliar black cloud.
Melting graphite flows like hot wax down the side of the core. Far away, Neva’s straining face sweats profusely.
The white people lying on the sand begin to sit or stand up and look toward the sea. The ship’s profile grows larger and the smoke drifts over the beach. Flakes of burning hot graphite rain down on white arms and legs. The crowd turns and runs. Children scream.
David rises above the beach, above the smoke, above the thin, cold breathless clouds of the atmosphere. He rises into space, above day, into night. He sees a patch of stars disappear as a large black rectangle grows larger and larger. It is the side of a Kaaba a mile high. Behind this monolith, the earth is now the size of a basketball held at arm’s length.
He approaches the center of darkness and enters a tube-like, gray tunnel. Neva’s harsh breathing echoes through the corridor. The tunnel opens to a gray cavern eight body lengths in diameter, shaped like the inside of an empty eggshell, but with a nearly flat bottom. Streams of weak light filter through transparent pores at the top of the shell. Thin, rib-like beams run from the top of the cavern to the floor and extend to the center of the room like spokes on a wheel. In the center of the floor, the spokes meet at a crater five feet in diameter and a foot deep. Sitting in this dish is a blue and green orb: the Earth.
Opposite the tunnel entrance is a throne formed by the rib-like extensions and smaller bony pieces. The back of the throne is partially inclined; the arms and leg are sculpted to hold the limbs of the queen; an opening is molded around the pelvis. Neva sits on the throne. She is in labor. A wispy black web barely conceals her bulging nakedness.
She gives birth to a long black snake. It’s head and body thrusts from her pelvis like a fist and forearm. The snake slithers toward the crater and coils around the orb. The snake opens its jaws and swallows the Earth. Neva’s body and face relax. She opens her eyes. They see everything. They feel everything. They are completely black.
⸎ David opens his eyes. At the foot of the bed is a Kaaba-shaped stone nine feet tall. A gray-haired Neva, in black hood and robe, stands before the stone and pronounces to him, “There is no God but God, and you are my Messenger.”
She covers her face with the hood. Her body disappears from the robe. The hood and robe hang limp, suspended in front of the cube. Then from a fold in the hood emerges a black snake. It slowly moves through the air toward David, who sits up but remains calm as the head of the snake approaches him. The snake arches as if to strike. David grabs the snake below its head. It does not struggle.
A streak of light bursts across the bedspread. There is a soft, clanging sound. As he holds the snake, David looks up into a black void and sees a long, thin streak of light. The band of light grows wider until a large square block of blue sky shows through the ship’s open cargo hatch. Below, in the hold, David stands in front of a two-story reactor block. Wearing a radiation suit, he holds a black control rod at his side, like a shepherd holding a staff. At his feet are five other rods. Ladder rungs on the wall of the cargo hold reach to the light—his way out.
The prow of the ship cuts through the water. On the ship’s bow is the name AL-UZZA. The top of the reactor simmers and smokes. Graphite blocks begin to rattle and pop into the air.
On the beach, two black beach umbrellas rest on their spokes, barely touching each other. Between the cleavage of the umbrellas can be seen an approaching ship, its narrow profile obscured by smoke rising off the deck. A flock of sea gulls, eyes smarting from the soot, screech at the unfamiliar black cloud.
Melting graphite flows like hot wax down the side of the core. Far away, Neva’s straining face sweats profusely.
The white people lying on the sand begin to sit or stand up and look toward the sea. The ship’s profile grows larger and the smoke drifts over the beach. Flakes of burning hot graphite rain down on white arms and legs. The crowd turns and runs. Children scream.
David rises above the beach, above the smoke, above the thin, cold breathless clouds of the atmosphere. He rises into space, above day, into night. He sees a patch of stars disappear as a large black rectangle grows larger and larger. It is the side of a Kaaba a mile high. Behind this monolith, the earth is now the size of a basketball held at arm’s length.
He approaches the center of darkness and enters a tube-like, gray tunnel. Neva’s harsh breathing echoes through the corridor. The tunnel opens to a gray cavern eight body lengths in diameter, shaped like the inside of an empty eggshell, but with a nearly flat bottom. Streams of weak light filter through transparent pores at the top of the shell. Thin, rib-like beams run from the top of the cavern to the floor and extend to the center of the room like spokes on a wheel. In the center of the floor, the spokes meet at a crater five feet in diameter and a foot deep. Sitting in this dish is a blue and green orb: the Earth.
Opposite the tunnel entrance is a throne formed by the rib-like extensions and smaller bony pieces. The back of the throne is partially inclined; the arms and leg are sculpted to hold the limbs of the queen; an opening is molded around the pelvis. Neva sits on the throne. She is in labor. A wispy black web barely conceals her bulging nakedness.
She gives birth to a long black snake. It’s head and body thrusts from her pelvis like a fist and forearm. The snake slithers toward the crater and coils around the orb. The snake opens its jaws and swallows the Earth. Neva’s body and face relax. She opens her eyes. They see everything. They feel everything. They are completely black.
Chapter 18
The office is crowded with primitive statues and icons representing male gods and male power. It didn’t bother him, but David thought some visitors might be offended by some of the blatant phalluses. Is that a stolen Mayan artifact in your pocket or are you happy to see me?
Holding notepad and pen, David sits across from Mars, who rests his right palm on a folder on the desk. “I see you’ve been having more dreams.”
“Yes.”
“You wrote that you were on a ship with a melting reactor. The ship was approaching a beach. Do you know where this beach was?”
“No.”
“But you saw people on the beach?”
“Yes.”
“What did they look like?”
“They had the usual assortment of swimsuits. I don’t remember exactly.”
“No, I mean what did the people look like?”
David hesitates. “They were all white.” He had decided not to report everything in his dream. He did not write that it was he who had pulled the rods out of the reactor or that it was he who was killing the white people. He did not mention Neva on the throne.
⸎ The Chernobyl accident in 1986 may have killed up to 8,500 of the workers who were assigned to the containment effort, according to a joint Russian-American study released in April 1992. Leaders of the research project supported the forecasts of John Gofman, professor emeritus of medical physics at the University of California at Berkeley, that the disaster had endangered the health of at least one million people.
As a weapon of war, nuclear reactors had only been considered in a passive capacity. A meltdown could be caused by terrorists or by some other armed assault that would incapacitate the reactor’s safeguards.
David discovers something from his research into the Manhattan Project. In his August 2, 1939, letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Albert Einstein had suggested a possible way to deploy the new type of bomb: “A single bomb of this type, carried by boat and exploded in a port, might very well destroy the whole port together with some of the surrounding territory.”
Maybe it was a distant memory of that letter that triggered his dream of a ship carrying a melting reactor. Once a meltdown commences, water cannot cool or control the reaction; the water turns to radioactive steam. The Chernobyl meltdown was only contained after 5,000 tons of sand and other suppressants were dumped over the reactor from helicopters. Trying to cool a reactor burning through the bottom of a beached ship would be well-nigh impossible considering the tides and shifting sands. Divers would have to expose themselves to a fatal level of radiation to get any kind of work done.
The cylindrical core at Chernobyl measured 100 feet tall by 65 feet in diameter. Five tons of reactor fuel had evaporated, becoming fallout; another 70 tons had spewed into the immediate area, and 50 tons remained in the reactor shell. The reactor in Kuwait had contained 30 tons of fissionable material, the fallout potential of more than six Hiroshimas.
David began to make some ballpark estimates of his dream disaster. Even after the burning ship is noticed, it might be hours before harbor officials realize it is a nuclear fire. Radiologists in local hospitals will notice a rise in radiation on monitoring devices. Assuming that the target is a major city, thousands of beach goers would be among the first to receive a deadly exposure.
Southern California came to mind. The poison cloud drifts east, reaching the White Man’s Sacred Ground, the temple of racial memories. Merchants on a lily-white Main Street tend ice cream parlors, nickelodeons, and barber shops. Chaste dance hall girls share Frontierland with tamed Indians. Seven eunuchs serve a snow-white virgin as she awaits her Fantasyland prince. Graphite dust stains the phony white mountain.
Halfway down the coast, technicians at the San Onofre nuclear power plant record elevated levels of radiation. They check and recheck the reactor. There are no leaks. Where is this coming from? News of the meltdown brings chaos as millions jam the freeways to flee the city and looters rampage through abandoned shopping centers. Available gasoline supplies soon vanish and gunfights ensue at gas stations. Armed drivers who run out of fuel will carjack those who haven’t. Much of Los Angeles and Orange Counties would be rendered uninhabitable for decades, if not centuries.
The meltdown scenario brings back teenage memories of a trip to Disneyland. On the bobsled Matterhorn bobsled ride, he was squeezed into the sled behind his mother. That should have been a girlfriend with him.
⸎ Barely conscious, David embraces the familiar body next to him, then awakens and pulls back. Neva gently assures him, “Don’t be afraid.” She puts her hand on his chest, then moves forward and kisses him on the lips. He accepts the familiar pleasures; he is not afraid of the snake.
The office is crowded with primitive statues and icons representing male gods and male power. It didn’t bother him, but David thought some visitors might be offended by some of the blatant phalluses. Is that a stolen Mayan artifact in your pocket or are you happy to see me?
Holding notepad and pen, David sits across from Mars, who rests his right palm on a folder on the desk. “I see you’ve been having more dreams.”
“Yes.”
“You wrote that you were on a ship with a melting reactor. The ship was approaching a beach. Do you know where this beach was?”
“No.”
“But you saw people on the beach?”
“Yes.”
“What did they look like?”
“They had the usual assortment of swimsuits. I don’t remember exactly.”
“No, I mean what did the people look like?”
David hesitates. “They were all white.” He had decided not to report everything in his dream. He did not write that it was he who had pulled the rods out of the reactor or that it was he who was killing the white people. He did not mention Neva on the throne.
⸎ The Chernobyl accident in 1986 may have killed up to 8,500 of the workers who were assigned to the containment effort, according to a joint Russian-American study released in April 1992. Leaders of the research project supported the forecasts of John Gofman, professor emeritus of medical physics at the University of California at Berkeley, that the disaster had endangered the health of at least one million people.
As a weapon of war, nuclear reactors had only been considered in a passive capacity. A meltdown could be caused by terrorists or by some other armed assault that would incapacitate the reactor’s safeguards.
David discovers something from his research into the Manhattan Project. In his August 2, 1939, letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Albert Einstein had suggested a possible way to deploy the new type of bomb: “A single bomb of this type, carried by boat and exploded in a port, might very well destroy the whole port together with some of the surrounding territory.”
Maybe it was a distant memory of that letter that triggered his dream of a ship carrying a melting reactor. Once a meltdown commences, water cannot cool or control the reaction; the water turns to radioactive steam. The Chernobyl meltdown was only contained after 5,000 tons of sand and other suppressants were dumped over the reactor from helicopters. Trying to cool a reactor burning through the bottom of a beached ship would be well-nigh impossible considering the tides and shifting sands. Divers would have to expose themselves to a fatal level of radiation to get any kind of work done.
The cylindrical core at Chernobyl measured 100 feet tall by 65 feet in diameter. Five tons of reactor fuel had evaporated, becoming fallout; another 70 tons had spewed into the immediate area, and 50 tons remained in the reactor shell. The reactor in Kuwait had contained 30 tons of fissionable material, the fallout potential of more than six Hiroshimas.
David began to make some ballpark estimates of his dream disaster. Even after the burning ship is noticed, it might be hours before harbor officials realize it is a nuclear fire. Radiologists in local hospitals will notice a rise in radiation on monitoring devices. Assuming that the target is a major city, thousands of beach goers would be among the first to receive a deadly exposure.
Southern California came to mind. The poison cloud drifts east, reaching the White Man’s Sacred Ground, the temple of racial memories. Merchants on a lily-white Main Street tend ice cream parlors, nickelodeons, and barber shops. Chaste dance hall girls share Frontierland with tamed Indians. Seven eunuchs serve a snow-white virgin as she awaits her Fantasyland prince. Graphite dust stains the phony white mountain.
Halfway down the coast, technicians at the San Onofre nuclear power plant record elevated levels of radiation. They check and recheck the reactor. There are no leaks. Where is this coming from? News of the meltdown brings chaos as millions jam the freeways to flee the city and looters rampage through abandoned shopping centers. Available gasoline supplies soon vanish and gunfights ensue at gas stations. Armed drivers who run out of fuel will carjack those who haven’t. Much of Los Angeles and Orange Counties would be rendered uninhabitable for decades, if not centuries.
The meltdown scenario brings back teenage memories of a trip to Disneyland. On the bobsled Matterhorn bobsled ride, he was squeezed into the sled behind his mother. That should have been a girlfriend with him.
⸎ Barely conscious, David embraces the familiar body next to him, then awakens and pulls back. Neva gently assures him, “Don’t be afraid.” She puts her hand on his chest, then moves forward and kisses him on the lips. He accepts the familiar pleasures; he is not afraid of the snake.
Chapter 19
David is in Mars’ office again. This is becoming a routine. “David, just what do you think we do here?” Damn it, why is Mars always trying to throw him off balance? “Do? Well, research into mythology and religions.”
“No, we serve our clients. What do our clients want?” Obviously, the idealistic answer is wrong, but David pushes ahead. “To understand other cultures, other peoples?”
“No. Our clients want control. Control over what people think, control over what people buy. We control the mythology.” Mars turns on the TV set with a remote. On the screen is a car in the desert, covered with a black shroud. “Recognize this?”
“The shroud from Saddam’s dream.” Mars doesn’t correct him. Well, at least he got one right. A woman in a black gown stands by the car. A wind blows the shroud off the new car, some boxy American sedan. Mars explains, “When the sheet is blown away, the viewer subconsciously thinks a divine truth has been revealed. He buys the truth—the car. That satisfies his inner self, at least until next week. Then we will sell him something else. That is what keeps the economy going.” He turns off the TV.
David thinks this mythic application to advertising is a bit thin, but he plays along. “Is that what I should be looking for, connections to advertising?”
“I want you to become more aware of what you are doing and how the information you collect can be misused. This Neva, for example. She is using mythology to create raw power, the type of power that can be used by a Saddam Hussein or a Hitler or a Stalin. We can’t allow that, can we?”
“I guess not.”
“We have an opportunity to work closer together, an opportunity to find the truth. Do you want to find the truth?”
“Well, yes.” What else could he say? It was a loaded question. “I believe there is information in your mind, information that Neva does not want you to see. Your mind is your own, and you have the right to know what’s in it.”
“What are you suggesting?”
“I would propose an intensive hypnosis session, perhaps medically supervised, to help you find the truth.”
“What do you mean, medically supervised?”
“Medications can help clear the pathways to your deepest thoughts. Are you with me on this?” What an interesting euphemism. “Clear the pathways"—like some harmless New Age meditation. No, he wasn’t with Mars on this, but David wants to buy some time. “I’ll have to think about it.”
Mars stands up and extends his hand. “I’m sure you’ll make the right decision.”
David shakes his hand. Does Mars know he is holding back information? Was it something in his inflections or body language? If he confessed under medication, he would also confess that he had deceived Mars.
Mythology in advertising. Back in his office, David muses over the possibilities. Interior of bedroom, late afternoon. Beautiful black woman “of a certain age” rises from the bed and looks out the window at the desert landscape. She sees a falcon land on a stone and suspiciously eye a black snake. She walks to the doorway, which opens to a large adobe-white room with oak plank floors. A young black man in a bathrobe is playing a wistful jazz riff on a grand piano, the only piece of furniture in the room. Outside, the falcon hops to and fro as the snake hisses and coils.
The woman glides toward him. The falcon is lying on the ground, caught in the snake’s coils, its talons jerking futilely. She stands behind him, her left fingers touching his temple, the right hand reaching down his chest. Cut to product shot: bottle of “Serpent” perfume on black velvet. Voice-over repeats the brand name and the words on velvet: “Serpent. When you want him to surrender.”
⸎ In a Middle East port, Dr. Noon waits on the floor of the ship hold as the crane operator lowers the first pallet of numbered graphite blocks. Four longshoremen will take 19 hours to stack the 6,864 radioactive bricks into forty-eight layers. Dr. Noon inserts control rods as the energy accumulates. The approximately 4 by 12 by 12-inch bricks are mortised and interlocked to prevent the stack from sliding apart when the ship rolls.
The captain is bemused at the complex smuggling operation that was explained to him: hiding balls of heroin inside bricks of graphite. Their previous manifests of “Said to Contain” boxes had slipped through with the appropriate palm greasing. Why all this fuss?
⸎ Leslie sits opposite Haynes in his office, waiting for his validation of her brilliance—the little girl showing her A+ to daddy. Haynes looks up from her report. “Well, this is certainly imaginative, but I don’t see what this has to do with our work here.”
“I would think we would be interested in anything that threatens world peace.”
Haynes holds up the folder in his hand. “What do you expect me to do with this?”
“I think we should alert other scientists and those agencies concerned with nuclear proliferation.”
“And tell them what? To watch for nuclear reactors on ships?”
“Yes, why not?”
“I don’t see how anybody could hide something that big.”
“But nobody would be expecting it.”
“Well, you can work on this on your own time. Where is your paper on the top quark?”
“I haven’t had time.”
“And when will you make time?”
“I’ll do it right away.” Personal rejection and now a professional scolding. Leslie stands, then lurches forward and grabs the folder off the desk. “Okay, if you don’t want it, I’ll take it. I’m not going to be ignored.”
She retreats to her office, her mood rocking wildly between depression and determination. She knows she is right. She has discovered something important through her strange memories. But did she have to snap at Haynes? As for top quark, well she is sick on it. Quark, quark, quark. Have bottom, find top. Top quark would prove the standard model, would prove we know what God was thinking. All you needed was a bigger accelerator to detect the mass. But bottom, top was a strange kind of symmetry. Like searching for the princess’ slipper. Except one shoe fits an ant; the other shoe fits an elephant. Were we spending millions on a wild goose chase? What did this tell us about God, that He or She was leading us down a blind path?
Maybe God was making it up as He/She went along. Reality is only what we think it is. If cavemen thought the earth was flat, it was flat; God just made it more complicated as we got smarter. But now we’re getting ahead of God. We haven’t found top quark because even God hasn’t figured out what it should be. Leslie realized she was hoping for an easy answer—anything to avoid the hard thinking and the hard math.
⸎ Haynes had not actually dismissed Leslie’s report; he had only pretended to be disinterested. In fact, he was appalled at the potential public relations disaster. The newspaper headline blaring “Nuclear Physicist Gives Terrorists Free Advice” would be followed by “Congress Slashes Fermilab Budget.” Leslie could be such a crybaby and so naïve about power and politics. When will she grow up? When will she learn she has a responsibility to the institution and the people she works with?
This wasn’t the first time Leslie had gone off the rails and Haynes had to call in support. There was the time she . . . Haynes struggles to complete the thought. The time she . . . The time she butted heads with those congressmen on the tour. No, that wasn’t it. It was something else. Something nuclear. It’ll come to him later.
Haynes is a member of a highly select committee on nuclear proliferation, a committee whose very existence is classified. He decides to convey Leslie’s theory to another member: Leon Mars.
⸎ In the dream, David stands between the kitchen and the living room in a very old house. He is naked except for a white towel he clutches around his waist. Members of a black Baptist choir file through the living room and out the front door, on their way to church. They pay him no mind.
He needs to get some clothes on. He heads up the staircase to his bedroom and opens the door. Nine, middle-age attractive white and black women are sitting around the room, some on his bed, some on chairs. David tells them that he has paid for the room, he needs to get dressed, and they cannot meet there.
They seem disappointed but understand. They file out of the room. David suggests that, well, maybe they can come back when he’s finished dressing. They don’t respond.
He opens the dresser but there are no clothes. He looks under the bed. Nothing. As he peers up, he sees first the shoes then the black evening dress of a young woman. He follows the line of the dress to her bosom. He does not have to look further. He knows it is his mother when she was young. She has been out dancing. He stands up. She wants him to come over and hug her, but he knows he cannot do that unless he drops the towel first. He steps toward her and lets go of the cloth.
Now he is in the sky, looking down on a small valley in a pine forest. Rising from the clearing are the gray spires of a cathedral. As he draws closer, he sees the spires are like the points of a crown. The cathedral has no roof; the floor is open to the sky.
He awakes. Neva is facing him. “Have you ever been in love?” David turns his eyes to the ceiling. “No.”
“When you are in love, your soul is naked to the person you love. The women in your life are the women in that room. They are strangers to you because you did not bare your soul to them. No matter who you were with, you were always alone.” David puts his hand to his face to conceal his expression.
“The last person to see your naked soul was your mother. When you are a child, you show everything in your heart.” A tear trickles down David’s cheek. “When you open your heart, your soul is a cathedral open to heaven.”
David is in Mars’ office again. This is becoming a routine. “David, just what do you think we do here?” Damn it, why is Mars always trying to throw him off balance? “Do? Well, research into mythology and religions.”
“No, we serve our clients. What do our clients want?” Obviously, the idealistic answer is wrong, but David pushes ahead. “To understand other cultures, other peoples?”
“No. Our clients want control. Control over what people think, control over what people buy. We control the mythology.” Mars turns on the TV set with a remote. On the screen is a car in the desert, covered with a black shroud. “Recognize this?”
“The shroud from Saddam’s dream.” Mars doesn’t correct him. Well, at least he got one right. A woman in a black gown stands by the car. A wind blows the shroud off the new car, some boxy American sedan. Mars explains, “When the sheet is blown away, the viewer subconsciously thinks a divine truth has been revealed. He buys the truth—the car. That satisfies his inner self, at least until next week. Then we will sell him something else. That is what keeps the economy going.” He turns off the TV.
David thinks this mythic application to advertising is a bit thin, but he plays along. “Is that what I should be looking for, connections to advertising?”
“I want you to become more aware of what you are doing and how the information you collect can be misused. This Neva, for example. She is using mythology to create raw power, the type of power that can be used by a Saddam Hussein or a Hitler or a Stalin. We can’t allow that, can we?”
“I guess not.”
“We have an opportunity to work closer together, an opportunity to find the truth. Do you want to find the truth?”
“Well, yes.” What else could he say? It was a loaded question. “I believe there is information in your mind, information that Neva does not want you to see. Your mind is your own, and you have the right to know what’s in it.”
“What are you suggesting?”
“I would propose an intensive hypnosis session, perhaps medically supervised, to help you find the truth.”
“What do you mean, medically supervised?”
“Medications can help clear the pathways to your deepest thoughts. Are you with me on this?” What an interesting euphemism. “Clear the pathways"—like some harmless New Age meditation. No, he wasn’t with Mars on this, but David wants to buy some time. “I’ll have to think about it.”
Mars stands up and extends his hand. “I’m sure you’ll make the right decision.”
David shakes his hand. Does Mars know he is holding back information? Was it something in his inflections or body language? If he confessed under medication, he would also confess that he had deceived Mars.
Mythology in advertising. Back in his office, David muses over the possibilities. Interior of bedroom, late afternoon. Beautiful black woman “of a certain age” rises from the bed and looks out the window at the desert landscape. She sees a falcon land on a stone and suspiciously eye a black snake. She walks to the doorway, which opens to a large adobe-white room with oak plank floors. A young black man in a bathrobe is playing a wistful jazz riff on a grand piano, the only piece of furniture in the room. Outside, the falcon hops to and fro as the snake hisses and coils.
The woman glides toward him. The falcon is lying on the ground, caught in the snake’s coils, its talons jerking futilely. She stands behind him, her left fingers touching his temple, the right hand reaching down his chest. Cut to product shot: bottle of “Serpent” perfume on black velvet. Voice-over repeats the brand name and the words on velvet: “Serpent. When you want him to surrender.”
⸎ In a Middle East port, Dr. Noon waits on the floor of the ship hold as the crane operator lowers the first pallet of numbered graphite blocks. Four longshoremen will take 19 hours to stack the 6,864 radioactive bricks into forty-eight layers. Dr. Noon inserts control rods as the energy accumulates. The approximately 4 by 12 by 12-inch bricks are mortised and interlocked to prevent the stack from sliding apart when the ship rolls.
The captain is bemused at the complex smuggling operation that was explained to him: hiding balls of heroin inside bricks of graphite. Their previous manifests of “Said to Contain” boxes had slipped through with the appropriate palm greasing. Why all this fuss?
⸎ Leslie sits opposite Haynes in his office, waiting for his validation of her brilliance—the little girl showing her A+ to daddy. Haynes looks up from her report. “Well, this is certainly imaginative, but I don’t see what this has to do with our work here.”
“I would think we would be interested in anything that threatens world peace.”
Haynes holds up the folder in his hand. “What do you expect me to do with this?”
“I think we should alert other scientists and those agencies concerned with nuclear proliferation.”
“And tell them what? To watch for nuclear reactors on ships?”
“Yes, why not?”
“I don’t see how anybody could hide something that big.”
“But nobody would be expecting it.”
“Well, you can work on this on your own time. Where is your paper on the top quark?”
“I haven’t had time.”
“And when will you make time?”
“I’ll do it right away.” Personal rejection and now a professional scolding. Leslie stands, then lurches forward and grabs the folder off the desk. “Okay, if you don’t want it, I’ll take it. I’m not going to be ignored.”
She retreats to her office, her mood rocking wildly between depression and determination. She knows she is right. She has discovered something important through her strange memories. But did she have to snap at Haynes? As for top quark, well she is sick on it. Quark, quark, quark. Have bottom, find top. Top quark would prove the standard model, would prove we know what God was thinking. All you needed was a bigger accelerator to detect the mass. But bottom, top was a strange kind of symmetry. Like searching for the princess’ slipper. Except one shoe fits an ant; the other shoe fits an elephant. Were we spending millions on a wild goose chase? What did this tell us about God, that He or She was leading us down a blind path?
Maybe God was making it up as He/She went along. Reality is only what we think it is. If cavemen thought the earth was flat, it was flat; God just made it more complicated as we got smarter. But now we’re getting ahead of God. We haven’t found top quark because even God hasn’t figured out what it should be. Leslie realized she was hoping for an easy answer—anything to avoid the hard thinking and the hard math.
⸎ Haynes had not actually dismissed Leslie’s report; he had only pretended to be disinterested. In fact, he was appalled at the potential public relations disaster. The newspaper headline blaring “Nuclear Physicist Gives Terrorists Free Advice” would be followed by “Congress Slashes Fermilab Budget.” Leslie could be such a crybaby and so naïve about power and politics. When will she grow up? When will she learn she has a responsibility to the institution and the people she works with?
This wasn’t the first time Leslie had gone off the rails and Haynes had to call in support. There was the time she . . . Haynes struggles to complete the thought. The time she . . . The time she butted heads with those congressmen on the tour. No, that wasn’t it. It was something else. Something nuclear. It’ll come to him later.
Haynes is a member of a highly select committee on nuclear proliferation, a committee whose very existence is classified. He decides to convey Leslie’s theory to another member: Leon Mars.
⸎ In the dream, David stands between the kitchen and the living room in a very old house. He is naked except for a white towel he clutches around his waist. Members of a black Baptist choir file through the living room and out the front door, on their way to church. They pay him no mind.
He needs to get some clothes on. He heads up the staircase to his bedroom and opens the door. Nine, middle-age attractive white and black women are sitting around the room, some on his bed, some on chairs. David tells them that he has paid for the room, he needs to get dressed, and they cannot meet there.
They seem disappointed but understand. They file out of the room. David suggests that, well, maybe they can come back when he’s finished dressing. They don’t respond.
He opens the dresser but there are no clothes. He looks under the bed. Nothing. As he peers up, he sees first the shoes then the black evening dress of a young woman. He follows the line of the dress to her bosom. He does not have to look further. He knows it is his mother when she was young. She has been out dancing. He stands up. She wants him to come over and hug her, but he knows he cannot do that unless he drops the towel first. He steps toward her and lets go of the cloth.
Now he is in the sky, looking down on a small valley in a pine forest. Rising from the clearing are the gray spires of a cathedral. As he draws closer, he sees the spires are like the points of a crown. The cathedral has no roof; the floor is open to the sky.
He awakes. Neva is facing him. “Have you ever been in love?” David turns his eyes to the ceiling. “No.”
“When you are in love, your soul is naked to the person you love. The women in your life are the women in that room. They are strangers to you because you did not bare your soul to them. No matter who you were with, you were always alone.” David puts his hand to his face to conceal his expression.
“The last person to see your naked soul was your mother. When you are a child, you show everything in your heart.” A tear trickles down David’s cheek. “When you open your heart, your soul is a cathedral open to heaven.”
Chapter 20
Seka, at her desk, pokes a syringe into a bottle and fills it up. “Lie down.” Leslie complies but challenges her. “What are you doing?”
“You’re hiding the truth, hiding it in these stories about changing history.” As the needle is pulled from her arm, Leslie feels a warm rush. The plush toys on the corner table become one furry, blurry beast.
⸎ The wide-eyed teddy bear on the dresser has seen everything, but he can’t help her. Father knocks and jiggles the doorknob. “Leslie, don’t play games.” Leslie, at 11, clutches her blanket. Father puts the small black key in the hole. The latch obeys. He sits at the edge of Leslie’s bed. “How is daddy’s little girl? It’s time for another lesson in love.” He pulls the blanket back, then unfastens the first button on Leslie’s pajama top.
⸎ Leslie clutches a throw pillow. The tone reassures but Seka’s words accuse her of lying. “See, that was everything. No nuclear war, no magical keys, no living inside Lee Harvey Oswald.” She whispers “No.” She won’t let go of the memories. She strains and sees another door. She will open it.
⸎ November 19, 1963. Lee unhooks the ring of keys—five door keys and one ancient, black key—and twirls one in the door lock. He enters the storage room with a hand cart. The transistor radio clipped to his belt produces a feeble, tinny treble: the Four Seasons sing, “Walk like a man, walk like a man . . . “ He puts the radio on a window shelf. He can’t lift or bend with the radio sticking in his ribs. He pulls the book requisition list from his shirt pocket and surveys the row of boxes on the steel shelves.
A scratching sound, even scratchier than the dying radio battery, catches his ears. Lee turns off the radio. He follows the scratching to the end of the aisle and around the corner. Seka stands in front of a row of portable blackboards. She has chalked “VIETNAM” and below that “NUCLEAR WAR” on the first board. Seka looks to Lee, then turns back to the board. She erases the NU in NUCLEAR and writes in UN to spell UNCLEAR WAR. “See, now isn’t that a lot better?”
The familiar face pulls memories. Lee and Leslie see Seka in the black DeSoto, Seka in the Chicago diner twirling the chocolate donut. Seka calls to her, “Leslie, I know you’re in there.” Leslie remembers Kennedy on television. “ . . . our boys in Vietnam,” the fire and wind screaming from Chicago.
Seka steps forward and hugs the female soul in the male body. “We have a lot to do.”
⸎ “Leslie, are you all right? Are you listening to me?” Leslie releases her white-knuckle grip on the pillow.
⸎ Some yapping female at a physics lab wanted to tell the whole world about the reactor-as-a-weapon. The walls Mars had built around the secret were crumbling. The smoking ships burned in his head. The simplicity taunts him. After all, what had convicted the Rosenburgs? The A-bomb secret: a drawing of one circle inside another, with arrows pointing toward the center.
The late-night trickster grins in his head. “Ladies and gentlemen, here tonight: from Seinfeld, Jason Alexander . . . (applause) . . . singing sensation 10,000 Maniacs . . . (applause) . . . and physicist Leslie Carney, the world’s most dangerous woman. Yes, here tonight, nuclear weapon secrets . . . and Viewer Mail.”
Mars considers the options. If he had enough information, maybe he could still stay ahead of the game. It must be Neva. What is her connection with Carney?
⸎ Leslie notes the brass letters on the door—Dr. Seka Linh, Psychologist—then jiggles the knob. It’s locked. She jiggles it again; this time it opens. Is someone inside, letting her in? She knocks on the door to offer the pretense that she is not breaking in. No answer. She opens the door very slowly and turns on the wall light. The waiting room is empty.
She peeks into the vacant counseling room then heads for Seka’s office, which is unlocked. Leslie rifles through the drawers, seeing nothing of interest. The metal filing cabinets are locked. She opens the door of a walk-in closet and switches on the light. On one shelf sits a statue of some ugly, six-armed goddess, a disemboweled man at her feet; on another shelf is a replica of the Maltese Falcon. Ominous, but meaning what?
Leslie lifts a stack of folders on a third shelf and sees underneath a wrist-sized key ring with one small ancient key. She picks up the ring and examines the black key. Outside the office, far down the hall, Seka stands and waits. Her black gown flutters in the wind. She disappears.
⸎ As he walks toward Mars’ office, David mentally rehearses his decision. “No, I think I’ll pass on the hypnosis” or “No, I just don’t feel comfortable with this.” David knocks. Mars beckons him in and invites him to sit down. David braces for the confrontation. “Have you ever heard of a Dr. Leslie Carney?”
“No, should I know her?” Maybe Mars has forgotten about the hypnosis. “She works at a physics lab in Illinois. She has come up with the idea that one could use a nuclear reactor as a weapon. I would like you to talk to her. Find out where she got the idea.” Mars hands him a portrait photo of Dr. Carney and a lab brochure. “Shouldn’t some FBI agent be doing this?”
“We want somebody she can be open with.”
“Open with?”
“Our background indicates she is a white liberal. Member of ACLU, People for the American Way. She even gave money to the United Negro College Fund.”
The presumptuous jerk, thinks David.
Seka, at her desk, pokes a syringe into a bottle and fills it up. “Lie down.” Leslie complies but challenges her. “What are you doing?”
“You’re hiding the truth, hiding it in these stories about changing history.” As the needle is pulled from her arm, Leslie feels a warm rush. The plush toys on the corner table become one furry, blurry beast.
⸎ The wide-eyed teddy bear on the dresser has seen everything, but he can’t help her. Father knocks and jiggles the doorknob. “Leslie, don’t play games.” Leslie, at 11, clutches her blanket. Father puts the small black key in the hole. The latch obeys. He sits at the edge of Leslie’s bed. “How is daddy’s little girl? It’s time for another lesson in love.” He pulls the blanket back, then unfastens the first button on Leslie’s pajama top.
⸎ Leslie clutches a throw pillow. The tone reassures but Seka’s words accuse her of lying. “See, that was everything. No nuclear war, no magical keys, no living inside Lee Harvey Oswald.” She whispers “No.” She won’t let go of the memories. She strains and sees another door. She will open it.
⸎ November 19, 1963. Lee unhooks the ring of keys—five door keys and one ancient, black key—and twirls one in the door lock. He enters the storage room with a hand cart. The transistor radio clipped to his belt produces a feeble, tinny treble: the Four Seasons sing, “Walk like a man, walk like a man . . . “ He puts the radio on a window shelf. He can’t lift or bend with the radio sticking in his ribs. He pulls the book requisition list from his shirt pocket and surveys the row of boxes on the steel shelves.
A scratching sound, even scratchier than the dying radio battery, catches his ears. Lee turns off the radio. He follows the scratching to the end of the aisle and around the corner. Seka stands in front of a row of portable blackboards. She has chalked “VIETNAM” and below that “NUCLEAR WAR” on the first board. Seka looks to Lee, then turns back to the board. She erases the NU in NUCLEAR and writes in UN to spell UNCLEAR WAR. “See, now isn’t that a lot better?”
The familiar face pulls memories. Lee and Leslie see Seka in the black DeSoto, Seka in the Chicago diner twirling the chocolate donut. Seka calls to her, “Leslie, I know you’re in there.” Leslie remembers Kennedy on television. “ . . . our boys in Vietnam,” the fire and wind screaming from Chicago.
Seka steps forward and hugs the female soul in the male body. “We have a lot to do.”
⸎ “Leslie, are you all right? Are you listening to me?” Leslie releases her white-knuckle grip on the pillow.
⸎ Some yapping female at a physics lab wanted to tell the whole world about the reactor-as-a-weapon. The walls Mars had built around the secret were crumbling. The smoking ships burned in his head. The simplicity taunts him. After all, what had convicted the Rosenburgs? The A-bomb secret: a drawing of one circle inside another, with arrows pointing toward the center.
The late-night trickster grins in his head. “Ladies and gentlemen, here tonight: from Seinfeld, Jason Alexander . . . (applause) . . . singing sensation 10,000 Maniacs . . . (applause) . . . and physicist Leslie Carney, the world’s most dangerous woman. Yes, here tonight, nuclear weapon secrets . . . and Viewer Mail.”
Mars considers the options. If he had enough information, maybe he could still stay ahead of the game. It must be Neva. What is her connection with Carney?
⸎ Leslie notes the brass letters on the door—Dr. Seka Linh, Psychologist—then jiggles the knob. It’s locked. She jiggles it again; this time it opens. Is someone inside, letting her in? She knocks on the door to offer the pretense that she is not breaking in. No answer. She opens the door very slowly and turns on the wall light. The waiting room is empty.
She peeks into the vacant counseling room then heads for Seka’s office, which is unlocked. Leslie rifles through the drawers, seeing nothing of interest. The metal filing cabinets are locked. She opens the door of a walk-in closet and switches on the light. On one shelf sits a statue of some ugly, six-armed goddess, a disemboweled man at her feet; on another shelf is a replica of the Maltese Falcon. Ominous, but meaning what?
Leslie lifts a stack of folders on a third shelf and sees underneath a wrist-sized key ring with one small ancient key. She picks up the ring and examines the black key. Outside the office, far down the hall, Seka stands and waits. Her black gown flutters in the wind. She disappears.
⸎ As he walks toward Mars’ office, David mentally rehearses his decision. “No, I think I’ll pass on the hypnosis” or “No, I just don’t feel comfortable with this.” David knocks. Mars beckons him in and invites him to sit down. David braces for the confrontation. “Have you ever heard of a Dr. Leslie Carney?”
“No, should I know her?” Maybe Mars has forgotten about the hypnosis. “She works at a physics lab in Illinois. She has come up with the idea that one could use a nuclear reactor as a weapon. I would like you to talk to her. Find out where she got the idea.” Mars hands him a portrait photo of Dr. Carney and a lab brochure. “Shouldn’t some FBI agent be doing this?”
“We want somebody she can be open with.”
“Open with?”
“Our background indicates she is a white liberal. Member of ACLU, People for the American Way. She even gave money to the United Negro College Fund.”
The presumptuous jerk, thinks David.
Chapter 21
Leslie stands at the rim of a circular pool atop the lab auditorium. An eight-foot tall, donut-like mental sculpture titled “Infinity” stands like a tire in a puddle. She remembers the chocolate donut in Seka’s hand. “Time is like the surface of this donut.”
“Doctor Carney?” Leslie hears a male voice flying through a donut hole. “Doctor Carney?" She turns to him. “I’m sorry. I was off in my own little world. You must be Mr. Compton.” David meets her extended hand. “Yes, I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.”
Leslie feels a chill. A black hand—why did it frighten her? A memory of a black rubber glove. She recovers with a quick smile. “I suppose physicists do a lot of daydreaming.” Leslie tries to grab control of the conversation. “What about you, Mr. Compton? Do you dream?”
“More than I used to.”
“Have you ever read Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“One of the characters discovers that dreams are invading reality. He believes it means the end of the world is coming.”
“Is that where you got your reactor weapon idea, in a dream?”
“A dream.” She remembers the black hands again. No, it wasn’t a dream. “No, more like a memory of what history used to be like.” The blackness. What did she fear—sex or death? Get a hold of yourself, woman. Don’t let him catch you staring into space. David has taken out a note pad and is making notes. Leslie is part alarmed, part amused. “You’re taking that down?”
“I try to make complete observations. How much do you remember from this other history?"
“You know, I don’t want people to think I’m some kind of New Age kook. We should just drop that idea. What is really important is that we let other scientists know about this problem.” David closes the note pad. “Perhaps. It’s just a thought. If we were to meet later, say over dinner, you might recall something about this theory of yours.”
Leslie speaks quickly. “Thank you for the offer but I really have to catch up on some work.” She thrusts out her hand. “Thank you, Mr. Compton.”
Small beads of flushed embarrassment collect on David’s head. Of course, it was a stupid offer. He shakes her hand. She feels the excitement again, but now a warm rush, not a cold chill.
⸎ David pauses at the large reflecting pool. He had passed it on the way in. Why did it look familiar? There should be people around the pool. Thousands of people. August 1963, The obelisk—it should be the Washington Monument. Beyond the pool, at the Lincoln Monument, Martin Luther King, Jr. speaks. “I have a dream.”
David sees Neva’s reflection in the pool. “You may have her.”
“Her?”
“Dr. Carney. You want her, don’t you?”
“I thought gods were jealous.”
“I will not always be here for you. Call her.”
“She didn’t seem interested.”
“She is.”
⸎ Leslie watches The Maltese Falcon on the TV in her living room. In Sam Spade’s apartment, the main characters are gathered around the desk. The Fat Man scratches the falcon with a pen knife and discovers that it’s a fake. There are no jewels under the enamel. That isn’t how Leslie remembered it. Wasn’t there a struggle? Didn’t the falcon break on the floor? She remembered Mary Astor raising her hands in astonishment. Is that the big climax, scratching the statue with a knife? How lame.
The cop asks about the statue. Bogie says it is “the stuff that dreams are made of.” That’s what it all comes back to: dreams. Leslie shuffles off to bed, wondering where the dreams end.
She awakens to see Seka sitting on the edge of the bed. She is not surprised. She has stopped drawing barriers between reality, dreams, and memories. “What do you think of him?” Seka asks. “I don’t like men right now.”
“He would be good for you. You can lose yourself in his darkness. And he’s very bright. You can talk to him.”
“And what happens when he sees my breasts?”
“Is that all that’s bothering you?”
Half a gallows laugh escapes from her mouth. “Yeah, that’s all.”
Seka pulls the comforter and sheet down to Leslie’s waist. Leslie is wearing pajamas buttoned in front. “Do you want me to kiss them and make them better?”
“What?”
Seka starts to unbutton the pajama top. Leslie pulls Seka’s hands away, then lets them go. Seka waits a moment, then resumes undoing the buttons. Leslie does nothing but gazes at the ceiling, aversion mixed with hope. Am I dreaming?
⸎ Dignitaries wearing overcoats fill the four rows in the parade review stand. Leslie is four seats away from the podium and the microphone at the center of the stand. Below her, a parade is passing by. She hears the drumbeat of a marching band. A whistle blows and the brass and percussion proclaim “Sisters Are Doin’ It For Themselves” for a half minute, then the drumbeat resumes.
As the beating fades, Leslie and a short, Jewish woman at the opposite side of the stand remove their black overcoats. Leslie wears a navy-blue suit; the other woman is in a judge’s robe. They get up and meet at the podium. The Chief Justice raises a black book from the podium and raises her right hand. Leslie places her left hand on the book and raises her right hand.
“Do you Leslie Carney, solemnly swear . . . “
“I, Leslie Carney, do solemnly swear . . . “
“that you will execute and uphold the office of the President of the United States . . . “
“that I will execute and uphold the office of the President of the United States . . . “
“and preserve, protect, and defend the New World Order . . . “
“and preserve, protect, and defend the New World Order . . .”
“so help you, Mother of All.”
“so help me, Mother of All.”
The sleeping Leslie hears Seka’s insistent voice in her ear. “You can do better than that.” Better that the niggling burdens of these mortals.
⸎ After scarfing down his bologna sandwich, Oswald walks a block west of the Texas School Book Depository. A 1961 white Ford Falcon pulls up. Oswald gets in. He wants Neva to assure him of his place in history. “Will people know I am doing the work of God?”
“They should. I’m leaving all the clues. Lincoln was elected in 1860; Kennedy was elected in 1960. Lincoln was shot in Ford Theater. You will shoot Kennedy in a Lincoln built by Ford. Lincoln and Kennedy were succeeded by Johnsons. Booth fled from a theater; you will flee to a theater.”
“What if people say those are just coincidences?”
“Only a god can create such synchronicity.”
⸎ David and Leslie walk on a hard dirt path through the tallgrass prairie that has been restored on half of the 600 acres encompassed by the accelerator ring. They hear ducks quacking as they approach a large pond concealed by oaks and shrubs. David hopes they don’t leave the path; he only brought dress shoes on this trip. Leslie spies a large bird silently circling the pond. “Could that be a falcon?”
“I suppose.”
“Did you ever see the movie The Maltese Falcon?”
“I think so, It must have been several years ago.”
“Do you remember how they discovered the falcon was a fake?”
“I think the falcon was broken or something.”
“There was a struggle and the falcon fell to the floor and broke open.”
“That sounds right.”
“But that isn’t what happens. The Fat Man just scratches the falcon with a knife.”
“I guess I must have been thinking about a different movie.”
“No, you remember the right movie. I think there used to be a movie in which the Maltese Falcon was broken. Then somebody changed history and the movie changed too.”
David thinks that’s a lot to lay on a vague memory of a film. “That’s a very heavy idea.”
“Maybe the answer is in the falcon. You say you study mythology. What does the falcon stand for?”
“Well, birds are spiritual guides. In addition, a raptor like a falcon represents authority and knowledge, and, in Egyptian mythology, the sun god Ra.”
Leslie has left the path and is peering between bushes at the ducks on the water. “So, the male god is a fake.”
“Well . . . “A crescendo of splatters and beating wings greet them as the startled fowl take to the air. Leslie jumps back from her vantage point.
Then they both see it: a ball of feathers tumbling to the ground, followed, in a second, by the falcon swooping down on his dinner, some 40 yards from the pond.
Leslie begins to wade through the tall grass toward the two birds. David calls out, “You’re going to get yourself all messed up.” Leslie pauses, cranes her neck and, seeing nothing, turns back toward the path.
⸎ A candle at the center of the table casts a flickering light on Leslie’s radiant smile. David sits opposite her in a booth in one of the better restaurants in Chicago. He can almost count the bites on his plate: one chicken breast, three asparagus spears, four red potato halves, and an orange slice. He puts knife and fork to the breast, smearing the puddle of creamy Dijon. Leslie takes a decorous sip of her white wine. “I think I’ve figured it out. The Maltese Falcon.”
“Oh?”
“Maybe it’s a prophecy.” Leslie offers her hypothesis. “In the original movie, male values are discovered to be fake, but only after a violent confrontation, like a nuclear war. The bird was broken. Now, the falcon is only scratched. It was a smaller war. You men are so lucky.”
“If you say so.”
“If the male is the falcon, what is the female?” She rolls a strand of spaghetti on her fork. David smiles. He knows he has her on this one. “The female is the snake.”
⸎ David lies naked under the covers of Leslie’s bed. Leslie is at the dresser, wearing a lacy black babydoll top. She is rummaging through two drawers, looking for a certain piece of jewelry. Hurry up, she thinks, I don’t want to break the mood. There it is. A gold-plated band on one side, black enamel on the other. She coils it around her left forearm. Two red stones gaze from the head.
She jumps into bed, on hands and knees, then, before David can rise, she straddles his chest. Leslie slips her left middle-finger into his mouth. The snake stares into his eyes. “Hisss . . .” She quickly flips her body around and her head dives under the covers. Her fanny commands his face; her mouth and hands quickly discover he is pleased with the surprise. Seka told her he would like this.
Two hours and two positions later, her back is nestled to his chest. Her arms hold her, his hands cupped on her born-again breasts. Leslie comments, “You don’t talk much.”
“Sorry, I thought you were a god and could read my mind.”
“Really?”
“I’m used to doing all my thinking alone. This baring your soul stuff takes some practice.”
“Well, don’t take too long.”
The end of the bed sags. They turn their heads. “I would join you two lovebirds, but I have things to do.” A wind tickles their faces and Neva disappears. David and Leslie grin at each other, recognizing their mischievous bond.
⸎ In the dark, moist pine forest, the figure in the black hood and robe repeatedly stoops down. Neva pulls the toadstools and stuffs them into a black pouch.
⸎ David puts his overnight case into the trunk of a rental car. He turns to Leslie. They embrace and kiss. David doesn’t know where the game is taking them, but he is certain he will see her again. “We both have to play this out,” he says.
Behind a screen door, Leslie’s neighbor watches the couple at the curb. He bristles as the black animal hands touch the pure white flesh. He worked his ass off to get a house this far from the city. But now they were coming. First one black family, then another will move on the block. Soon the night will be filled with cruising drug dealers and their booming car radios. A crack house will open down the block. He isn’t going to let it happen. The next time a nigger comes around, that house will get a Molotov cocktail through the window. Or a bullet.
Now, what’s that? A couple of teen punks on bicycles coming this way. One is carrying some pink and yellow thing. He raises it and aims it at David. A water gun. David ducks as he’s drenched. “Hey, nigger, why don’t you go back to Africa?” They speed off. Leslie waits for David to yell, to do something, but he just stands there, wiping the drops off his face with a couple of facial tissues. “Why didn’t you say something?” she demands.
“Don’t worry. I’ll get my chance to get even.”
Leslie stands at the rim of a circular pool atop the lab auditorium. An eight-foot tall, donut-like mental sculpture titled “Infinity” stands like a tire in a puddle. She remembers the chocolate donut in Seka’s hand. “Time is like the surface of this donut.”
“Doctor Carney?” Leslie hears a male voice flying through a donut hole. “Doctor Carney?" She turns to him. “I’m sorry. I was off in my own little world. You must be Mr. Compton.” David meets her extended hand. “Yes, I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.”
Leslie feels a chill. A black hand—why did it frighten her? A memory of a black rubber glove. She recovers with a quick smile. “I suppose physicists do a lot of daydreaming.” Leslie tries to grab control of the conversation. “What about you, Mr. Compton? Do you dream?”
“More than I used to.”
“Have you ever read Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“One of the characters discovers that dreams are invading reality. He believes it means the end of the world is coming.”
“Is that where you got your reactor weapon idea, in a dream?”
“A dream.” She remembers the black hands again. No, it wasn’t a dream. “No, more like a memory of what history used to be like.” The blackness. What did she fear—sex or death? Get a hold of yourself, woman. Don’t let him catch you staring into space. David has taken out a note pad and is making notes. Leslie is part alarmed, part amused. “You’re taking that down?”
“I try to make complete observations. How much do you remember from this other history?"
“You know, I don’t want people to think I’m some kind of New Age kook. We should just drop that idea. What is really important is that we let other scientists know about this problem.” David closes the note pad. “Perhaps. It’s just a thought. If we were to meet later, say over dinner, you might recall something about this theory of yours.”
Leslie speaks quickly. “Thank you for the offer but I really have to catch up on some work.” She thrusts out her hand. “Thank you, Mr. Compton.”
Small beads of flushed embarrassment collect on David’s head. Of course, it was a stupid offer. He shakes her hand. She feels the excitement again, but now a warm rush, not a cold chill.
⸎ David pauses at the large reflecting pool. He had passed it on the way in. Why did it look familiar? There should be people around the pool. Thousands of people. August 1963, The obelisk—it should be the Washington Monument. Beyond the pool, at the Lincoln Monument, Martin Luther King, Jr. speaks. “I have a dream.”
David sees Neva’s reflection in the pool. “You may have her.”
“Her?”
“Dr. Carney. You want her, don’t you?”
“I thought gods were jealous.”
“I will not always be here for you. Call her.”
“She didn’t seem interested.”
“She is.”
⸎ Leslie watches The Maltese Falcon on the TV in her living room. In Sam Spade’s apartment, the main characters are gathered around the desk. The Fat Man scratches the falcon with a pen knife and discovers that it’s a fake. There are no jewels under the enamel. That isn’t how Leslie remembered it. Wasn’t there a struggle? Didn’t the falcon break on the floor? She remembered Mary Astor raising her hands in astonishment. Is that the big climax, scratching the statue with a knife? How lame.
The cop asks about the statue. Bogie says it is “the stuff that dreams are made of.” That’s what it all comes back to: dreams. Leslie shuffles off to bed, wondering where the dreams end.
She awakens to see Seka sitting on the edge of the bed. She is not surprised. She has stopped drawing barriers between reality, dreams, and memories. “What do you think of him?” Seka asks. “I don’t like men right now.”
“He would be good for you. You can lose yourself in his darkness. And he’s very bright. You can talk to him.”
“And what happens when he sees my breasts?”
“Is that all that’s bothering you?”
Half a gallows laugh escapes from her mouth. “Yeah, that’s all.”
Seka pulls the comforter and sheet down to Leslie’s waist. Leslie is wearing pajamas buttoned in front. “Do you want me to kiss them and make them better?”
“What?”
Seka starts to unbutton the pajama top. Leslie pulls Seka’s hands away, then lets them go. Seka waits a moment, then resumes undoing the buttons. Leslie does nothing but gazes at the ceiling, aversion mixed with hope. Am I dreaming?
⸎ Dignitaries wearing overcoats fill the four rows in the parade review stand. Leslie is four seats away from the podium and the microphone at the center of the stand. Below her, a parade is passing by. She hears the drumbeat of a marching band. A whistle blows and the brass and percussion proclaim “Sisters Are Doin’ It For Themselves” for a half minute, then the drumbeat resumes.
As the beating fades, Leslie and a short, Jewish woman at the opposite side of the stand remove their black overcoats. Leslie wears a navy-blue suit; the other woman is in a judge’s robe. They get up and meet at the podium. The Chief Justice raises a black book from the podium and raises her right hand. Leslie places her left hand on the book and raises her right hand.
“Do you Leslie Carney, solemnly swear . . . “
“I, Leslie Carney, do solemnly swear . . . “
“that you will execute and uphold the office of the President of the United States . . . “
“that I will execute and uphold the office of the President of the United States . . . “
“and preserve, protect, and defend the New World Order . . . “
“and preserve, protect, and defend the New World Order . . .”
“so help you, Mother of All.”
“so help me, Mother of All.”
The sleeping Leslie hears Seka’s insistent voice in her ear. “You can do better than that.” Better that the niggling burdens of these mortals.
⸎ After scarfing down his bologna sandwich, Oswald walks a block west of the Texas School Book Depository. A 1961 white Ford Falcon pulls up. Oswald gets in. He wants Neva to assure him of his place in history. “Will people know I am doing the work of God?”
“They should. I’m leaving all the clues. Lincoln was elected in 1860; Kennedy was elected in 1960. Lincoln was shot in Ford Theater. You will shoot Kennedy in a Lincoln built by Ford. Lincoln and Kennedy were succeeded by Johnsons. Booth fled from a theater; you will flee to a theater.”
“What if people say those are just coincidences?”
“Only a god can create such synchronicity.”
⸎ David and Leslie walk on a hard dirt path through the tallgrass prairie that has been restored on half of the 600 acres encompassed by the accelerator ring. They hear ducks quacking as they approach a large pond concealed by oaks and shrubs. David hopes they don’t leave the path; he only brought dress shoes on this trip. Leslie spies a large bird silently circling the pond. “Could that be a falcon?”
“I suppose.”
“Did you ever see the movie The Maltese Falcon?”
“I think so, It must have been several years ago.”
“Do you remember how they discovered the falcon was a fake?”
“I think the falcon was broken or something.”
“There was a struggle and the falcon fell to the floor and broke open.”
“That sounds right.”
“But that isn’t what happens. The Fat Man just scratches the falcon with a knife.”
“I guess I must have been thinking about a different movie.”
“No, you remember the right movie. I think there used to be a movie in which the Maltese Falcon was broken. Then somebody changed history and the movie changed too.”
David thinks that’s a lot to lay on a vague memory of a film. “That’s a very heavy idea.”
“Maybe the answer is in the falcon. You say you study mythology. What does the falcon stand for?”
“Well, birds are spiritual guides. In addition, a raptor like a falcon represents authority and knowledge, and, in Egyptian mythology, the sun god Ra.”
Leslie has left the path and is peering between bushes at the ducks on the water. “So, the male god is a fake.”
“Well . . . “A crescendo of splatters and beating wings greet them as the startled fowl take to the air. Leslie jumps back from her vantage point.
Then they both see it: a ball of feathers tumbling to the ground, followed, in a second, by the falcon swooping down on his dinner, some 40 yards from the pond.
Leslie begins to wade through the tall grass toward the two birds. David calls out, “You’re going to get yourself all messed up.” Leslie pauses, cranes her neck and, seeing nothing, turns back toward the path.
⸎ A candle at the center of the table casts a flickering light on Leslie’s radiant smile. David sits opposite her in a booth in one of the better restaurants in Chicago. He can almost count the bites on his plate: one chicken breast, three asparagus spears, four red potato halves, and an orange slice. He puts knife and fork to the breast, smearing the puddle of creamy Dijon. Leslie takes a decorous sip of her white wine. “I think I’ve figured it out. The Maltese Falcon.”
“Oh?”
“Maybe it’s a prophecy.” Leslie offers her hypothesis. “In the original movie, male values are discovered to be fake, but only after a violent confrontation, like a nuclear war. The bird was broken. Now, the falcon is only scratched. It was a smaller war. You men are so lucky.”
“If you say so.”
“If the male is the falcon, what is the female?” She rolls a strand of spaghetti on her fork. David smiles. He knows he has her on this one. “The female is the snake.”
⸎ David lies naked under the covers of Leslie’s bed. Leslie is at the dresser, wearing a lacy black babydoll top. She is rummaging through two drawers, looking for a certain piece of jewelry. Hurry up, she thinks, I don’t want to break the mood. There it is. A gold-plated band on one side, black enamel on the other. She coils it around her left forearm. Two red stones gaze from the head.
She jumps into bed, on hands and knees, then, before David can rise, she straddles his chest. Leslie slips her left middle-finger into his mouth. The snake stares into his eyes. “Hisss . . .” She quickly flips her body around and her head dives under the covers. Her fanny commands his face; her mouth and hands quickly discover he is pleased with the surprise. Seka told her he would like this.
Two hours and two positions later, her back is nestled to his chest. Her arms hold her, his hands cupped on her born-again breasts. Leslie comments, “You don’t talk much.”
“Sorry, I thought you were a god and could read my mind.”
“Really?”
“I’m used to doing all my thinking alone. This baring your soul stuff takes some practice.”
“Well, don’t take too long.”
The end of the bed sags. They turn their heads. “I would join you two lovebirds, but I have things to do.” A wind tickles their faces and Neva disappears. David and Leslie grin at each other, recognizing their mischievous bond.
⸎ In the dark, moist pine forest, the figure in the black hood and robe repeatedly stoops down. Neva pulls the toadstools and stuffs them into a black pouch.
⸎ David puts his overnight case into the trunk of a rental car. He turns to Leslie. They embrace and kiss. David doesn’t know where the game is taking them, but he is certain he will see her again. “We both have to play this out,” he says.
Behind a screen door, Leslie’s neighbor watches the couple at the curb. He bristles as the black animal hands touch the pure white flesh. He worked his ass off to get a house this far from the city. But now they were coming. First one black family, then another will move on the block. Soon the night will be filled with cruising drug dealers and their booming car radios. A crack house will open down the block. He isn’t going to let it happen. The next time a nigger comes around, that house will get a Molotov cocktail through the window. Or a bullet.
Now, what’s that? A couple of teen punks on bicycles coming this way. One is carrying some pink and yellow thing. He raises it and aims it at David. A water gun. David ducks as he’s drenched. “Hey, nigger, why don’t you go back to Africa?” They speed off. Leslie waits for David to yell, to do something, but he just stands there, wiping the drops off his face with a couple of facial tissues. “Why didn’t you say something?” she demands.
“Don’t worry. I’ll get my chance to get even.”
Chapter 22
At home, David watches on TV a replay of the Rodney King beating tape. The baton against the shoulders, against the arms, against the head. Again and again and again. David recollects fragments of his dream. Flakes of burning hot graphite fall on white arms and legs. The crowd begins running off the beach.
⸎ David was an Oreo. He was comfortable in the white brother’s room. He flopped on the white brother’s bed, played with his computer, fucked his women. He studied the whitest of whites: Einstein, white man, white hair. White-hot cloud burns 60,000 yellow faces.
Then he saw the photo in the book: a white man pulling the black rod out of the black cube. A black mama giving birth to fission, a nuclear baby. Hey cracker, get your hands off that black cock! So that’s what white people didn’t want us to know. Nuclear power is black power. Black, graphite Chernobyl. Poisoned whites, poisoned their land. Graphite is carbon, building block of life. Black gives life, now black with take life away.
White people who deserved to live, like Leslie, would be saved. But David had not planned how that would happen.
⸎ The next morning, David wakes to the sound of pots and pans rattling and clanking. In the kitchen, Neva opens the freezer section of the refrigerator and frowns at the stacks of frozen dinners. David enters the kitchen in his pajamas. Three full grocery bags sit on the counter. On the range top are three frying pans and a large pot half-filled with water. Neva greets him. “I need to teach you how to cook.”
⸎ All the roses are rotting on the ground, smashed under Italian-made shoes. Mars is disenchanted with the flawed, fading petals. They are all whores.
In his office, Mars frowns at David’s brief report. He holds the two stapled papers up by one corner to let the pages droop. “There is nothing here.”
“She really didn’t have anything to say.” Mars flips to the second page and cites the last paragraph. “She said she wants to give the reactor-as-a-weapon idea to other scientists.”
“Yes.”
“I am very disappointed. You can leave.” David rises and walks toward the door. “By the way.” David looks back. “Have you run across Neva again?”
“No.” He leaves.
Mars picks up the phone and dials an extension. “We have an uncooperative subject. We need to place him in a more useful environment.”
In the basement of the Magellan Council, a security guard clicks on the wall switch. A harsh light carves a cone around a large, straight-back metal chair in the center of the room. Black leather belts hang from the arms, legs, and neck brace of the chair. The guard rolls a shiny metal cart to the side of the chair. Atop the cart is a black pouch filled with syringes and surgical instruments. Mars finds everything in order. He will schedule the procedure for next Tuesday.
Mars prefers working with white flesh. The color graduations of bruises—the yellows, blues, and blacks—are easier to calibrate.
⸎ David examines the items left by Neva on his bed: the black pouch, the one-way ticket to Honolulu, and the forged, 11-month-two-week National Shipping Card, which will guarantee him the cook’s post on the ship. He stuffs the items in the flight bag sitting on his bed. He carries the flight bag and a duffel bag to the kitchen and places them in front of the door to the garage—can’t leave home without them. He spends the Friday night restlessly watching TV.
Early the next morning, David, dressed in his sloppiest slacks and sports shirt, puts the bags in the trunk of the Toyota Corolla, then pushes the garage door opener on the wall. He walks to the mailbox four houses down and drops in the resignation letter to Mars, who can’t get it till Monday, when David will be long gone. As he returns to the garage, he picks up the newspaper in the driveway and tosses it on the passenger seat as he gets into the car.
The detective waits in a white van. He sees the Toyota back out of the driveway. Is this the dullest guy in the world to follow or what? He knows the Saturday morning routine: Compton will drive to Carl’s Jr. or Jack-in-the-Box for breakfast, then return home. If this were Friday, it might be Chubby’s; the breakfast specials are only good on weekdays.
No point in tailing too close on this trip; the dick will let Compton get to Peabody before following. He watches the car turn on Caldwell and counts slowly to five before starting the van. When he reaches Peabody, he can already see Compton turning left on Alamo. Ok, so it’s Jack-in-the Box this time. On Alamo, he doesn’t see the Toyota; it’s ahead of that rise in the road. Past the rise, he still doesn’t see it, but the road bends to the right. The detective pulls to the right, then turns into the Jack-in-the Box but doesn’t see the Toyota among the five cars facing the restaurant. Must have taken an empty spot around the corner. He turns, still no Toyota.
Shit, he’s lost him. Damn it, the freeway onramps are just a half mile away. Or maybe he drove to the fast-food outlets on Monte Vista. The dick heads back to Compton’s house. He’s already on Peabody when he realizes the mistake. He should have assumed the worst, that the Toyota had taken one of the freeway onramps. He could have picked east or west 80 and would have had a 50-50 chance of catching up with him. He can only hope Compton returns home, and he doesn’t have to answer to Mars on Monday.
⸎ A Polynesian woman lifts a lei from her neck and places it over David’s neck as he leaves the passenger ramp of the jet. David, his carry-on bag strapped over his shoulder, picks up the duffel bag at the luggage carousal then walks out the terminal building to the curb. He hails a taxi and takes it to the union hall at Honolulu Harbor.
⸎ David and Dr. Noon stand at the ship’s railing, watching the harbor recede. Dr. Noon explained to him what happened to the black soldiers in Dhahran. So, that will be part of the mission—revenge. David asks, “What does the crew know?”
“They think they’re smuggling heroin to Mexico. They are paid well.”
Good, thought David. That will make his next task a bit easier.
⸎ David sleeps in a bunk bed in a small but private cabin. He remembers. The six-year-old David in a black parka climbs a jungle gym on a chilly day in the school yard. He is nearly at the top rung. He looks up at the clouds. The sun peaks through. David puts one hand to his eyes to shield his view. He hears Neva, “You can get hurt when you reach for the light.” His other hand loses its grip. He falls to the ground and loses consciousness. He remembers the women helping him: the teacher, the nurse, his mother.
From reaching for the sky to getting down and dirty. He attended an elementary school that provided an after-hours day care center where children could stay until their working mothers could pick them up. The school had a large sand box, which became more fun to play with when the sand was hosed down and you could pretend you were at the beach, sculpting sandcastles or other creations.
David recalled building a mountain of sand then carving furrows that circled the mountain. He would run marbles down the sand chutes. Sometimes if the wet sand was firm enough, he carved a tunnel through the mountain to provide a more interesting route for the marbles.
⸎ What man every mattered? David dimly recalls Mr. Johnson, his third-grade teacher—tall, gangly, with buck teeth and glasses. David was an outstanding student. Somehow that prompted Mr. Johnson’s visit to their apartment for dinner. Mother made potato pancakes, served with cranberry sauce, not the jellied type but the kind with little pieces of skin—like you were eating twigs. David stayed with the catsup.
They soon made a contest of it—who would eat the most of his mother’s pancakes. Asking for third or fourth helpings let mother know she was a good cook. David won.
On the second visit, Mr. Johnson took him to his first Dodger game. They were still playing in the Coliseum. David recalled dark, unused corners of the field and a haunting absence of color: players in white and gray uniforms guarding fields of night-gray grass. He and Mr. Johnson knew what baseball was all about. If his mother had been there, she would have done more waiting than watching and worry that a foul ball would hit them. David was safe and comfortable with Mr. Johnson being in charge of the evening.
The final score was 3-1. It was the era when pitchers like Koufax and Drysdale smothered the game, facing off Aaron, Mayes, McCovey, and Robinson. On the way out, Mr. Johnson said the sixth inning had been exciting, almost apologizing for the low score. David had been more taken with the whole ballpark experience—the slightly scary heights of steps and seats, and the thrill of seeing the real ballplayers as the loudspeaker announced their names.
At home, his mother saw him to bed. Murmurs and light from the living room kept him awake. David began to feel that his territory was crowded. It was time for Mr. Johnson to go home. He kept waiting. Finally, the front door opened, he heard more conversation, the front door closed, and the living room light went out. David was relieved. Things were back to normal. Mr. Johnson did not visit again.
⸎ David is alone in the galley, preparing breakfast for the crew. He opens the black pouch from Neva and empties the toadstools onto the wooden cutting board. He chops half of them, then spreads the diced pieces on the omelets cooking on the grill. What did Lenin say? If you want to make an omelet, you must break some eggs. Omelets for ten requires perfect timing; there is no time to contemplate morality. David and Dr. Noon eat separately from the crew.
⸎ Because the first symptoms do not appear for 10 to 15 hours, David has the opportunity to feed both shifts. The patient first experiences violent abdominal pain, vomiting, and an unusually malodorous diarrhea.
When the first ten crewman, including the captain and the poorly trained paramedic, take ill, the five sailors on the night shift quickly deduce the possibility of food poisoning. Dr. Noon pretends to share their indignation as he joins the others in trying to ferret out the cook. David hides in Noon’s cabin. The symptoms lessen, giving the crewmen false hope. A radio call for help is postponed.
The destroying angel (Amanita verna) affects the heart, lungs, and kidneys but performs its deadliest task in the liver, destroying massive quantities of red blood cells. The patient collapses, and the pulse races and weakens. Vision is blurred but consciousness remains until the very end.
A fevered crewman vainly clicks the switches and swirls the dials on the dead radio set on the bridge. Noon has stripped the circuits. The crewman staggers out the bridge door and heads back to his cabin. Noon enters the wheelhouse and sets the autopilot for a new direction.
⸎ At the National Security Agency headquarters in Ft. Meade, Maryland, Dale Erickson waits for the transparent plastic sheet to roll off the laser printer. The cartographic output of the Contact Area Summary Position Reports (CASPERS) pinpoints ships in harbor and at sea, as sighted by satellites, aircraft, other ships, and underwater sensors.
Three dozen sunflower seed-sized flecks, each marked with a one-letter, four-digit code, represent vessels on the sheet. Erickson takes the sheet to the map room and places it over the South China Sea template on the light table. He finds the high priority sliver marked P2188E and frowns at the added letter; E stands for estimated position; the satellite has lost the ship under heavy cloud cover. P2188E is a North Korean freighter carrying medium-range missiles to Iran.
Erickson speculates on potential covert operations. When the ship refuels in Colombo, Sri Lanka, CIA frogmen attach explosive charges to the hull. The ship sinks after it leaves the harbor. The North Koreans declare the sabotage an act of war and send torpedo boats to sink two cargo ships approaching Seoul. Things get out of control very quickly.
Six templates east, the latest CASPER shows that I3056 has changed from an easterly to a northeasterly course, a shift unnoticed by Erickson.
The Barque of Ra rises in the east each day to travel across the sky, providing light to the world. The Barque of David is heading in the wrong direction, toward the wrong Sunset.
⸎ David steps over the body sprawled on the corridor floor. He steps a few more feet, then unlocks a cabinet. He takes out the white radiation suit. A white skin over black skin over . . . white soul? He realizes he would not be here if he were married. He would not be here if he had children. It was never a question of commitment. Isolation was destiny. You can’t share your soul with another if it always belonged to the gods.
⸎ In one arm, Lee cradles a long narrow package wrapped in coarse brown paper. He unlocks the door with his free hand. He walks past the shelving to the easternmost window. Neva stands next to the window, watching. Lee unwraps the paper and leans the rifle against the wall.
⸎ David pulls away the black tarp covering the reactor pile. He begins removing rods from the core.
At home, David watches on TV a replay of the Rodney King beating tape. The baton against the shoulders, against the arms, against the head. Again and again and again. David recollects fragments of his dream. Flakes of burning hot graphite fall on white arms and legs. The crowd begins running off the beach.
⸎ David was an Oreo. He was comfortable in the white brother’s room. He flopped on the white brother’s bed, played with his computer, fucked his women. He studied the whitest of whites: Einstein, white man, white hair. White-hot cloud burns 60,000 yellow faces.
Then he saw the photo in the book: a white man pulling the black rod out of the black cube. A black mama giving birth to fission, a nuclear baby. Hey cracker, get your hands off that black cock! So that’s what white people didn’t want us to know. Nuclear power is black power. Black, graphite Chernobyl. Poisoned whites, poisoned their land. Graphite is carbon, building block of life. Black gives life, now black with take life away.
White people who deserved to live, like Leslie, would be saved. But David had not planned how that would happen.
⸎ The next morning, David wakes to the sound of pots and pans rattling and clanking. In the kitchen, Neva opens the freezer section of the refrigerator and frowns at the stacks of frozen dinners. David enters the kitchen in his pajamas. Three full grocery bags sit on the counter. On the range top are three frying pans and a large pot half-filled with water. Neva greets him. “I need to teach you how to cook.”
⸎ All the roses are rotting on the ground, smashed under Italian-made shoes. Mars is disenchanted with the flawed, fading petals. They are all whores.
In his office, Mars frowns at David’s brief report. He holds the two stapled papers up by one corner to let the pages droop. “There is nothing here.”
“She really didn’t have anything to say.” Mars flips to the second page and cites the last paragraph. “She said she wants to give the reactor-as-a-weapon idea to other scientists.”
“Yes.”
“I am very disappointed. You can leave.” David rises and walks toward the door. “By the way.” David looks back. “Have you run across Neva again?”
“No.” He leaves.
Mars picks up the phone and dials an extension. “We have an uncooperative subject. We need to place him in a more useful environment.”
In the basement of the Magellan Council, a security guard clicks on the wall switch. A harsh light carves a cone around a large, straight-back metal chair in the center of the room. Black leather belts hang from the arms, legs, and neck brace of the chair. The guard rolls a shiny metal cart to the side of the chair. Atop the cart is a black pouch filled with syringes and surgical instruments. Mars finds everything in order. He will schedule the procedure for next Tuesday.
Mars prefers working with white flesh. The color graduations of bruises—the yellows, blues, and blacks—are easier to calibrate.
⸎ David examines the items left by Neva on his bed: the black pouch, the one-way ticket to Honolulu, and the forged, 11-month-two-week National Shipping Card, which will guarantee him the cook’s post on the ship. He stuffs the items in the flight bag sitting on his bed. He carries the flight bag and a duffel bag to the kitchen and places them in front of the door to the garage—can’t leave home without them. He spends the Friday night restlessly watching TV.
Early the next morning, David, dressed in his sloppiest slacks and sports shirt, puts the bags in the trunk of the Toyota Corolla, then pushes the garage door opener on the wall. He walks to the mailbox four houses down and drops in the resignation letter to Mars, who can’t get it till Monday, when David will be long gone. As he returns to the garage, he picks up the newspaper in the driveway and tosses it on the passenger seat as he gets into the car.
The detective waits in a white van. He sees the Toyota back out of the driveway. Is this the dullest guy in the world to follow or what? He knows the Saturday morning routine: Compton will drive to Carl’s Jr. or Jack-in-the-Box for breakfast, then return home. If this were Friday, it might be Chubby’s; the breakfast specials are only good on weekdays.
No point in tailing too close on this trip; the dick will let Compton get to Peabody before following. He watches the car turn on Caldwell and counts slowly to five before starting the van. When he reaches Peabody, he can already see Compton turning left on Alamo. Ok, so it’s Jack-in-the Box this time. On Alamo, he doesn’t see the Toyota; it’s ahead of that rise in the road. Past the rise, he still doesn’t see it, but the road bends to the right. The detective pulls to the right, then turns into the Jack-in-the Box but doesn’t see the Toyota among the five cars facing the restaurant. Must have taken an empty spot around the corner. He turns, still no Toyota.
Shit, he’s lost him. Damn it, the freeway onramps are just a half mile away. Or maybe he drove to the fast-food outlets on Monte Vista. The dick heads back to Compton’s house. He’s already on Peabody when he realizes the mistake. He should have assumed the worst, that the Toyota had taken one of the freeway onramps. He could have picked east or west 80 and would have had a 50-50 chance of catching up with him. He can only hope Compton returns home, and he doesn’t have to answer to Mars on Monday.
⸎ A Polynesian woman lifts a lei from her neck and places it over David’s neck as he leaves the passenger ramp of the jet. David, his carry-on bag strapped over his shoulder, picks up the duffel bag at the luggage carousal then walks out the terminal building to the curb. He hails a taxi and takes it to the union hall at Honolulu Harbor.
⸎ David and Dr. Noon stand at the ship’s railing, watching the harbor recede. Dr. Noon explained to him what happened to the black soldiers in Dhahran. So, that will be part of the mission—revenge. David asks, “What does the crew know?”
“They think they’re smuggling heroin to Mexico. They are paid well.”
Good, thought David. That will make his next task a bit easier.
⸎ David sleeps in a bunk bed in a small but private cabin. He remembers. The six-year-old David in a black parka climbs a jungle gym on a chilly day in the school yard. He is nearly at the top rung. He looks up at the clouds. The sun peaks through. David puts one hand to his eyes to shield his view. He hears Neva, “You can get hurt when you reach for the light.” His other hand loses its grip. He falls to the ground and loses consciousness. He remembers the women helping him: the teacher, the nurse, his mother.
From reaching for the sky to getting down and dirty. He attended an elementary school that provided an after-hours day care center where children could stay until their working mothers could pick them up. The school had a large sand box, which became more fun to play with when the sand was hosed down and you could pretend you were at the beach, sculpting sandcastles or other creations.
David recalled building a mountain of sand then carving furrows that circled the mountain. He would run marbles down the sand chutes. Sometimes if the wet sand was firm enough, he carved a tunnel through the mountain to provide a more interesting route for the marbles.
⸎ What man every mattered? David dimly recalls Mr. Johnson, his third-grade teacher—tall, gangly, with buck teeth and glasses. David was an outstanding student. Somehow that prompted Mr. Johnson’s visit to their apartment for dinner. Mother made potato pancakes, served with cranberry sauce, not the jellied type but the kind with little pieces of skin—like you were eating twigs. David stayed with the catsup.
They soon made a contest of it—who would eat the most of his mother’s pancakes. Asking for third or fourth helpings let mother know she was a good cook. David won.
On the second visit, Mr. Johnson took him to his first Dodger game. They were still playing in the Coliseum. David recalled dark, unused corners of the field and a haunting absence of color: players in white and gray uniforms guarding fields of night-gray grass. He and Mr. Johnson knew what baseball was all about. If his mother had been there, she would have done more waiting than watching and worry that a foul ball would hit them. David was safe and comfortable with Mr. Johnson being in charge of the evening.
The final score was 3-1. It was the era when pitchers like Koufax and Drysdale smothered the game, facing off Aaron, Mayes, McCovey, and Robinson. On the way out, Mr. Johnson said the sixth inning had been exciting, almost apologizing for the low score. David had been more taken with the whole ballpark experience—the slightly scary heights of steps and seats, and the thrill of seeing the real ballplayers as the loudspeaker announced their names.
At home, his mother saw him to bed. Murmurs and light from the living room kept him awake. David began to feel that his territory was crowded. It was time for Mr. Johnson to go home. He kept waiting. Finally, the front door opened, he heard more conversation, the front door closed, and the living room light went out. David was relieved. Things were back to normal. Mr. Johnson did not visit again.
⸎ David is alone in the galley, preparing breakfast for the crew. He opens the black pouch from Neva and empties the toadstools onto the wooden cutting board. He chops half of them, then spreads the diced pieces on the omelets cooking on the grill. What did Lenin say? If you want to make an omelet, you must break some eggs. Omelets for ten requires perfect timing; there is no time to contemplate morality. David and Dr. Noon eat separately from the crew.
⸎ Because the first symptoms do not appear for 10 to 15 hours, David has the opportunity to feed both shifts. The patient first experiences violent abdominal pain, vomiting, and an unusually malodorous diarrhea.
When the first ten crewman, including the captain and the poorly trained paramedic, take ill, the five sailors on the night shift quickly deduce the possibility of food poisoning. Dr. Noon pretends to share their indignation as he joins the others in trying to ferret out the cook. David hides in Noon’s cabin. The symptoms lessen, giving the crewmen false hope. A radio call for help is postponed.
The destroying angel (Amanita verna) affects the heart, lungs, and kidneys but performs its deadliest task in the liver, destroying massive quantities of red blood cells. The patient collapses, and the pulse races and weakens. Vision is blurred but consciousness remains until the very end.
A fevered crewman vainly clicks the switches and swirls the dials on the dead radio set on the bridge. Noon has stripped the circuits. The crewman staggers out the bridge door and heads back to his cabin. Noon enters the wheelhouse and sets the autopilot for a new direction.
⸎ At the National Security Agency headquarters in Ft. Meade, Maryland, Dale Erickson waits for the transparent plastic sheet to roll off the laser printer. The cartographic output of the Contact Area Summary Position Reports (CASPERS) pinpoints ships in harbor and at sea, as sighted by satellites, aircraft, other ships, and underwater sensors.
Three dozen sunflower seed-sized flecks, each marked with a one-letter, four-digit code, represent vessels on the sheet. Erickson takes the sheet to the map room and places it over the South China Sea template on the light table. He finds the high priority sliver marked P2188E and frowns at the added letter; E stands for estimated position; the satellite has lost the ship under heavy cloud cover. P2188E is a North Korean freighter carrying medium-range missiles to Iran.
Erickson speculates on potential covert operations. When the ship refuels in Colombo, Sri Lanka, CIA frogmen attach explosive charges to the hull. The ship sinks after it leaves the harbor. The North Koreans declare the sabotage an act of war and send torpedo boats to sink two cargo ships approaching Seoul. Things get out of control very quickly.
Six templates east, the latest CASPER shows that I3056 has changed from an easterly to a northeasterly course, a shift unnoticed by Erickson.
The Barque of Ra rises in the east each day to travel across the sky, providing light to the world. The Barque of David is heading in the wrong direction, toward the wrong Sunset.
⸎ David steps over the body sprawled on the corridor floor. He steps a few more feet, then unlocks a cabinet. He takes out the white radiation suit. A white skin over black skin over . . . white soul? He realizes he would not be here if he were married. He would not be here if he had children. It was never a question of commitment. Isolation was destiny. You can’t share your soul with another if it always belonged to the gods.
⸎ In one arm, Lee cradles a long narrow package wrapped in coarse brown paper. He unlocks the door with his free hand. He walks past the shelving to the easternmost window. Neva stands next to the window, watching. Lee unwraps the paper and leans the rifle against the wall.
⸎ David pulls away the black tarp covering the reactor pile. He begins removing rods from the core.
Chapter 23
Lee crouches behind the boxes that form a waist-high barrier in front of the sixth-floor window. The motorcade is coming down Main Street toward Dealey Plaza. He lifts the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle to his shoulder. Lee suddenly feels weak. In the moments when eternity counts, Lee is now Leslie: The slender finger curls around the trigger, blond hair touches the gun stock, blue eyes peer through the scope. Only a woman can free the key.
Neva, stooped behind her, commands, “Do it now, NOW!”
The first shot misses, the second and third find the neck and head of the President. The ring of keys on Lee’s belt drops into Neva’s hand. Ancient eyes, concealed by a black hood, examine the old key. On the donut of time, the lines of history intersect.
⸎ The pregnant Neva now has the two keys. Her groin is trapped in a large, lead belt padlocked on each side of the throne. Neva unlocks each with the ancient keys, then flings aside the keys and belt. She is free to give birth to the snake, the chthonic force.
As the radiation cloud drifts across Southern California, an Islamic government will claim victory over the Great Satan. Retribution will follow. A war of Islam versus the infidel will swallow the Middle East. The fury of purification will be unleashed everywhere—race against race, religion against religion, nation against nation.
The new weapon of nuclear poison will provoke the old weapon of nuclear fire. Couldn’t you feel it? Extinction in the air, dinosaurs everywhere. In humans, radiation rots the rungs of DNA ladder. Meek only in size, ferocious swarms inherit the earth, serving Queen bee or Queen ant or Queen whatever.
Mutations are kinder to insects; they can afford losers. A billion insects throw a billion dice. If they need seven sevens in a row, lucky genes keep coming.
⸎ In the wheelhouse, Dr. Noon pushes a button that unrolls the cargo hatch door. The thin streak of light grows wider until the large block of sky is seen through the cargo hatch. Below, David, in the radiation suit, stands in front of the reactor core. At his feet are five control rods. He holds the last rod in his hand. He looks at the wall and sees the ladder rungs leading to the sky.
⸎ Leslie lies in bed in pink chemise. She had called in sick but was just dreamy tired. She lies in bed, masturbating, thinking about David, then recalling her other lives. Professor Hayes in her college class. Waking up in a Moscow hospital. A body not her own. She touches her breasts. Was the breast cancer just a dream? Everything was upside down. Maybe she should readjust her thinking. Her dreams. What had Seka said? Her experience of incest was creating dreams of a nuclear meltdown, What if it was the other way around—the experience of the meltdown was creating dreams of incest? If you poison the Earth, maybe the Earth will poison your mind with false memories.
Was Seka even a real person? Maybe she is just part of some Multiverse machine, churning out alternative universes and different histories.
She gets up and slouches to the bedroom dresser mirror. Through the looking glass. The mirror becomes blurred. Leslie is in an elevator, losing her balance. She reaches for the railing. She can’t. Her hands are cuffed. Officers on each side grip her arms. The elevator opens to a bright spotlight and the faces of policemen and reporters. “He’s coming,” someone shouts.
⸎ A vision of the beach appears in David’s head. He is a child on the wet sand, again building his mountain with marbles racing down the spiral groove. Beyond the beach, inland, is another mountain: the miniature Matterhorn, with bobsleds racing around and through the structure. An epiphany. His sand mountain became Disney’s mountain; his marbles were the bobsleds. His child mind had linked to Disney’s and inspired the snowy pyramid and the tourist ride. David was going to poison and destroy his own creation. He will put the rods back in.
David points the control rod end toward the center hole of the reactor. “Don’t you want our baby?” David turns to see a pregnant Neva, her hands held protectively over a flowered muumuu belly. For a moment, in the purifying sun, he can almost pretend she and the baby are normal. “You can both go to hell.” David pushes the control rod into the reactor.
On her throne, Neva gasps and starts to cry. She thought David would be thinking of her pain, would feel for her. The second rod is pushed in. Neva looks down. The snake churns in her belly, feeling for a new way out. The third rod is in. The snake breaks the womb. Fourth rod in. The snake twists among the red and pink organs in her body. Fifth rod in. The snake rips the stomach. Blood trickles from Neva’s mouth. Final rod. Neva’s head snaps back. A gurgle clears blood in her throat. Blood sprays from her mouth as a roar rises to her tongue, becomes screaming and shouting, shaking walls, vibrating the cube. Then only a dull metal ring, a distant drum humming through blackness.
⸎ There is an easier way out—the winding metal staircase to the cabins above, but destiny pushes David to choose the ladder. He will reach for the light; he will see and know everything. He begins the climb up; the thick gloves and boots barely feel the rungs. The sun beats down on David’s hood, steaming his glasses. He hears, sees flapping about his face. What are those annoying wings —seagull, falcon, or angel? He lifts a hand to better see, to protect his face. Head tips back, weight shifts, the other hand loses its grip. He falls. The deck metal floor breaks his skull.
⸎ Leslie’s memory keeps moving through the mirror. She is walking toward a parking ramp; the crowd of reporters and onlookers loom larger. Jack Ruby lunges from the crown, points the gun at her belly and fires a single shot.
Leslie turns from the mirror to see a man pointing a gun with a silencer. Leon Mars fires the nine-millimeter Glock. Leslie barely recognizes the pain. She is dizzy again. Her head slumps down and she just catches sight of the red blotch on the pink chemise. Oh, is that where it . . . She slumps to the floor.
⸎ Dr. Noon, who has been waiting impatiently near the launch with a duffel bag, walks back across the deck to the open hatch and peers down. David lays motionless on the floor, limbs splayed, face invisible through the glare of the suit mask. Did he fall or was he pushed or beaten? Noon fears that a crewman may still be alive in the hold, waiting for him to descend. He doesn’t see any control rods on the floor and can’t tell from his angle if they’re still in the cube.
He walks away with his bag, climbs into the small white launch, then unlatches the pulleys. The boat descends to the water. He revs the tiny engine and points the craft northwest. The duffel bag contains $30,000 in cash, and a forged Pakistani passport, U.S. Social Security card, and birth certificate. He eases into a vacant slip in San Pedro, from where he takes a bus up Figueroa and disappears into the immigrant milieu of Los Angeles.
⸎ At the Long Beach pilot station, dispatcher Andy McPhee receives a call from the M.S. Tarakan, holding with engine trouble at Fox Trot Anchorage off Sunset Beach. The Tarakan is concerned that an approaching freighter has not responded to any calls. McPhee hails her and receives no reply.
The S.S. Princesa, three miles west of the Tarakan, has monitored the Tarakan’s inquiry and reports to the ship and McPhee that it has visually identified the vessel as the Al-Uzza.
The Al-Uzza has not notified the Los Angeles Marine Exchange of its entry into the Precaution Area. McPhee discovers that the ship, moving east at approximately 10 knots, is not on incoming logs for either Long Beach or Los Angeles harbors. He calls the Coast Guard Group, Long Beach.
“Guzman speaking? . . . uh uh . . . just a moment.” Petty Officer John Guzman puts him on hold and turns to Captain Ellencamp. “Who is it?”
“McPhee. A freighter approaching Fox Trot won’t answer any calls.”
“Is that it?”
“He thinks it may run aground or hit another ship.”
“Tell him to hold.” Ellencamp steps into this office and dials the Marine Safety Division. Meanwhile, the petty officer considers the possibilities. A mother ship with Chinese illegals? Not in broad daylight, not this close in. After a 30-second conversation, the captain returns to Guzman. “Okay, tell McPhee we’ll send the 41-footer to give her a look.”
The patrol boat, at the CG #1 mooring buoy inside Queens Gate, gives chase at 25 knots and intercepts the Al-Uzza a mile and a half offshore. The boarding officer climbs the pilot ladder and races to the abandoned bridge, where he reverses the engines, bringing the ship short of touching the bottom by a dozen feet.
⸎ In the cube in the heavens, the cold, gray egg-shaped throne room has been replaced by a temple of warm colors, a large square room bordered on each site by six sand-colored stone columns 10 meters tall, each engraved with hieroglyphics. The floor is covered in unpolished travertine marble. The domed roof is a fresco of a dark blue sky dotted with stars. White lines connect the stars to form animal figures, including a jackal, lioness, bull, crocodile, cat, scarab, and ibis.
The globe at the center of the throne room has become a meter-wide glass ball, nestled in a black tray. The ball shows an image of the Matterhorn in the Alps. Snow swirls around and conceals the mountain. Then the snow turns to sand, which drifts away to reveal the Great Pyramid of Giza.
Leslie sits on the cordage fabric of a cedar throne that is covered with gold foil and decorated with bright blue tiles forming geometric and floral patterns. She wears a close-fitting beige robe, tied with a red sash. Atop her head is a flat-topped blue crown. On its front is the image of a cobra’s head. Opposite her, on the other side of the glass orb, David sits on a larger ebony chair with a zebra-skin cushion, also covered with gold foil but decorated with a pattern of bird wings. He wears a white kilt covered with fine accordion pleating and wrapped counterclockwise around his body. A large gold necklace adorns his bare chest. Atop his head is a blue crown, matching Leslie’s but his with the image of a falcon’s head.
Leslie is Isis. David is Ra.
Lee crouches behind the boxes that form a waist-high barrier in front of the sixth-floor window. The motorcade is coming down Main Street toward Dealey Plaza. He lifts the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle to his shoulder. Lee suddenly feels weak. In the moments when eternity counts, Lee is now Leslie: The slender finger curls around the trigger, blond hair touches the gun stock, blue eyes peer through the scope. Only a woman can free the key.
Neva, stooped behind her, commands, “Do it now, NOW!”
The first shot misses, the second and third find the neck and head of the President. The ring of keys on Lee’s belt drops into Neva’s hand. Ancient eyes, concealed by a black hood, examine the old key. On the donut of time, the lines of history intersect.
⸎ The pregnant Neva now has the two keys. Her groin is trapped in a large, lead belt padlocked on each side of the throne. Neva unlocks each with the ancient keys, then flings aside the keys and belt. She is free to give birth to the snake, the chthonic force.
As the radiation cloud drifts across Southern California, an Islamic government will claim victory over the Great Satan. Retribution will follow. A war of Islam versus the infidel will swallow the Middle East. The fury of purification will be unleashed everywhere—race against race, religion against religion, nation against nation.
The new weapon of nuclear poison will provoke the old weapon of nuclear fire. Couldn’t you feel it? Extinction in the air, dinosaurs everywhere. In humans, radiation rots the rungs of DNA ladder. Meek only in size, ferocious swarms inherit the earth, serving Queen bee or Queen ant or Queen whatever.
Mutations are kinder to insects; they can afford losers. A billion insects throw a billion dice. If they need seven sevens in a row, lucky genes keep coming.
⸎ In the wheelhouse, Dr. Noon pushes a button that unrolls the cargo hatch door. The thin streak of light grows wider until the large block of sky is seen through the cargo hatch. Below, David, in the radiation suit, stands in front of the reactor core. At his feet are five control rods. He holds the last rod in his hand. He looks at the wall and sees the ladder rungs leading to the sky.
⸎ Leslie lies in bed in pink chemise. She had called in sick but was just dreamy tired. She lies in bed, masturbating, thinking about David, then recalling her other lives. Professor Hayes in her college class. Waking up in a Moscow hospital. A body not her own. She touches her breasts. Was the breast cancer just a dream? Everything was upside down. Maybe she should readjust her thinking. Her dreams. What had Seka said? Her experience of incest was creating dreams of a nuclear meltdown, What if it was the other way around—the experience of the meltdown was creating dreams of incest? If you poison the Earth, maybe the Earth will poison your mind with false memories.
Was Seka even a real person? Maybe she is just part of some Multiverse machine, churning out alternative universes and different histories.
She gets up and slouches to the bedroom dresser mirror. Through the looking glass. The mirror becomes blurred. Leslie is in an elevator, losing her balance. She reaches for the railing. She can’t. Her hands are cuffed. Officers on each side grip her arms. The elevator opens to a bright spotlight and the faces of policemen and reporters. “He’s coming,” someone shouts.
⸎ A vision of the beach appears in David’s head. He is a child on the wet sand, again building his mountain with marbles racing down the spiral groove. Beyond the beach, inland, is another mountain: the miniature Matterhorn, with bobsleds racing around and through the structure. An epiphany. His sand mountain became Disney’s mountain; his marbles were the bobsleds. His child mind had linked to Disney’s and inspired the snowy pyramid and the tourist ride. David was going to poison and destroy his own creation. He will put the rods back in.
David points the control rod end toward the center hole of the reactor. “Don’t you want our baby?” David turns to see a pregnant Neva, her hands held protectively over a flowered muumuu belly. For a moment, in the purifying sun, he can almost pretend she and the baby are normal. “You can both go to hell.” David pushes the control rod into the reactor.
On her throne, Neva gasps and starts to cry. She thought David would be thinking of her pain, would feel for her. The second rod is pushed in. Neva looks down. The snake churns in her belly, feeling for a new way out. The third rod is in. The snake breaks the womb. Fourth rod in. The snake twists among the red and pink organs in her body. Fifth rod in. The snake rips the stomach. Blood trickles from Neva’s mouth. Final rod. Neva’s head snaps back. A gurgle clears blood in her throat. Blood sprays from her mouth as a roar rises to her tongue, becomes screaming and shouting, shaking walls, vibrating the cube. Then only a dull metal ring, a distant drum humming through blackness.
⸎ There is an easier way out—the winding metal staircase to the cabins above, but destiny pushes David to choose the ladder. He will reach for the light; he will see and know everything. He begins the climb up; the thick gloves and boots barely feel the rungs. The sun beats down on David’s hood, steaming his glasses. He hears, sees flapping about his face. What are those annoying wings —seagull, falcon, or angel? He lifts a hand to better see, to protect his face. Head tips back, weight shifts, the other hand loses its grip. He falls. The deck metal floor breaks his skull.
⸎ Leslie’s memory keeps moving through the mirror. She is walking toward a parking ramp; the crowd of reporters and onlookers loom larger. Jack Ruby lunges from the crown, points the gun at her belly and fires a single shot.
Leslie turns from the mirror to see a man pointing a gun with a silencer. Leon Mars fires the nine-millimeter Glock. Leslie barely recognizes the pain. She is dizzy again. Her head slumps down and she just catches sight of the red blotch on the pink chemise. Oh, is that where it . . . She slumps to the floor.
⸎ Dr. Noon, who has been waiting impatiently near the launch with a duffel bag, walks back across the deck to the open hatch and peers down. David lays motionless on the floor, limbs splayed, face invisible through the glare of the suit mask. Did he fall or was he pushed or beaten? Noon fears that a crewman may still be alive in the hold, waiting for him to descend. He doesn’t see any control rods on the floor and can’t tell from his angle if they’re still in the cube.
He walks away with his bag, climbs into the small white launch, then unlatches the pulleys. The boat descends to the water. He revs the tiny engine and points the craft northwest. The duffel bag contains $30,000 in cash, and a forged Pakistani passport, U.S. Social Security card, and birth certificate. He eases into a vacant slip in San Pedro, from where he takes a bus up Figueroa and disappears into the immigrant milieu of Los Angeles.
⸎ At the Long Beach pilot station, dispatcher Andy McPhee receives a call from the M.S. Tarakan, holding with engine trouble at Fox Trot Anchorage off Sunset Beach. The Tarakan is concerned that an approaching freighter has not responded to any calls. McPhee hails her and receives no reply.
The S.S. Princesa, three miles west of the Tarakan, has monitored the Tarakan’s inquiry and reports to the ship and McPhee that it has visually identified the vessel as the Al-Uzza.
The Al-Uzza has not notified the Los Angeles Marine Exchange of its entry into the Precaution Area. McPhee discovers that the ship, moving east at approximately 10 knots, is not on incoming logs for either Long Beach or Los Angeles harbors. He calls the Coast Guard Group, Long Beach.
“Guzman speaking? . . . uh uh . . . just a moment.” Petty Officer John Guzman puts him on hold and turns to Captain Ellencamp. “Who is it?”
“McPhee. A freighter approaching Fox Trot won’t answer any calls.”
“Is that it?”
“He thinks it may run aground or hit another ship.”
“Tell him to hold.” Ellencamp steps into this office and dials the Marine Safety Division. Meanwhile, the petty officer considers the possibilities. A mother ship with Chinese illegals? Not in broad daylight, not this close in. After a 30-second conversation, the captain returns to Guzman. “Okay, tell McPhee we’ll send the 41-footer to give her a look.”
The patrol boat, at the CG #1 mooring buoy inside Queens Gate, gives chase at 25 knots and intercepts the Al-Uzza a mile and a half offshore. The boarding officer climbs the pilot ladder and races to the abandoned bridge, where he reverses the engines, bringing the ship short of touching the bottom by a dozen feet.
⸎ In the cube in the heavens, the cold, gray egg-shaped throne room has been replaced by a temple of warm colors, a large square room bordered on each site by six sand-colored stone columns 10 meters tall, each engraved with hieroglyphics. The floor is covered in unpolished travertine marble. The domed roof is a fresco of a dark blue sky dotted with stars. White lines connect the stars to form animal figures, including a jackal, lioness, bull, crocodile, cat, scarab, and ibis.
The globe at the center of the throne room has become a meter-wide glass ball, nestled in a black tray. The ball shows an image of the Matterhorn in the Alps. Snow swirls around and conceals the mountain. Then the snow turns to sand, which drifts away to reveal the Great Pyramid of Giza.
Leslie sits on the cordage fabric of a cedar throne that is covered with gold foil and decorated with bright blue tiles forming geometric and floral patterns. She wears a close-fitting beige robe, tied with a red sash. Atop her head is a flat-topped blue crown. On its front is the image of a cobra’s head. Opposite her, on the other side of the glass orb, David sits on a larger ebony chair with a zebra-skin cushion, also covered with gold foil but decorated with a pattern of bird wings. He wears a white kilt covered with fine accordion pleating and wrapped counterclockwise around his body. A large gold necklace adorns his bare chest. Atop his head is a blue crown, matching Leslie’s but his with the image of a falcon’s head.
Leslie is Isis. David is Ra.
Image Illustration of Marina Sirtis as Deanna Troi, by Roman Bureš, CC BY-SA 4.0