April 28
4:31 p.m.
“Bernard Heidenstam, you old traitor, I see you’ve finally made captain!”
Bruno turned around and faced the infidel leaning against the bar. He wiped a wet hand on the front of his Corona Beer T-shirt and squinted his eyes at the old man in the dark suit of gray tweed. “Benjamin Andrews? So you didn’t die after all!”
“I’ve been dead since the war, Bruno. A vampire bit me behind enemy lines. I’ve been walking the dark for almost fifty years.”
“Decided to see the light,” Bruno smiled. He slapped the old man in the arm. “It is good to see you,” he said with fake emphasis. “Let me buy you a drink.”
“You owe me at least that, traitor.”
“You still harping on my name, Andrews?” said Bruno, pouring the most toxic liquid he could find. He’d kill this vampire, if he could. A band of seven math students pushed by Andrews on their way out, jabbering loudly as if no other humans existed on the planet around them.
“You’re a German, Heidenstam,” said the man, taking the fat glass when it came. “You always were a spy, and we all knew it. It’s the only reason you boxed so well.”
“Well, I can still take you out any time you’re ready, Andrews! Don’t call me by my real name. I’ve got a reputation here I don’t want changed.”
“Ah!” the old man in the suit said, leaning on the bar. “That’s how you keep your new company in order here! Terror techniques.” He took a swig and grimaced. “What is this stuff?!”
Bruno grinned and said in his best growl. “You don’t wanna know, Andrews!” He wiped down the bar, smelling the sour odor of the wet rag in his hands. “We missed you at the reunions, old man.”
“I missed the invitations.” He braced himself with one hand on the counter and took another swallow.
Watching him from the corner of his eye, as two girls entered the cafe laughing, Bruno said, “coming up again in November. Driskel’s putting it on, I think. Means it’s in Nebraska this year, if you’re up to it.”
“Well I am a busy fellow,” said Andrews, slapping the glass down as if he were twenty-one and proud of it.
“At your age? Doing what!”
“Look who’s flapping his naked gums!” said Andrews waving a finger. “Oh, you remember those days? Soaring over India in the dark? Not a sound! Even the wind, hushing for us!”
“I remember praying we wouldn’t be noticed,” Bruno turned his eyes up to the dead fan hanging above his old…acquaintance.
“Silent birds diving through enemy skies. 900th Airborne Engineers. Bernard, I knew the wheels on those gliders were useless. Without the skids, we’d all be buried behind enemy lines.”
“You knew nothing,” Bruno said with a huff and a chuckle. “You’d never touched down in soaked rice patties ‘fore. You were ignorant as the rest of us!”
“They told us to land there!” said Andrews. “Besides, you couldn’t land a glider if the ground was smooth and a hundred beautiful women waited for you.”
“There weren’t no woman,” said Bruno.
“There were in our company.”
“ They weren’t women.”
“Jen sure looked like one,” said Andrews, tapping his glass.
“Jen’s danced through three husbands since the last World War. And I never needed to pilot those gliders. I was only along for the ride.” Bruno poured the toxin.
“We got those runways built in no time.”
“We did our job. Then I beat you into a ball,” Bruno said with grit in his voice.
“I’ve…given up boxing,” said Andrews, drinking.
“For what,” said Bruno, turning his back to the man in order to look casual.
Andrews pinched down the alcohol. “FBI, my good man. That’s why I’m here.”
“Isn’t there a law against working for a government agency when you’re passed eighty? There should be! The world’s going senile, and if you’re running things, it’s no wonder why!” Bruno grabbed a dry cloth from under the bar and wiped his hands.
“I’ve retired,” said Andrews with a grin. His eyes were tight, dry, and as serious as they had been in India. “But I still work…as a Special Informant.”
“Counter intelligence? You’re spying on Americans for America, eh? Back-stabbing your brother and that stuff? You gone communist on us, Andrews? That why we haven’t heard from you in so long?” Bruno said with a laugh, but the questions had meaning, expecting straight answers. Andrews had carried a dark soul inside his living corpse during the war. No one at the reunions debated how much blacker he’d become since then.
Andrews looked at the remaining liquid in his glass. “You wouldn’t understand what I do, traitor.”
“How do you know I didn’t go work with the CIA before retirement?” said Bruno, turning away.
“You’re a fist, Bernard. Not an intelligence officer,” said Andrews, scratching the side of his nose.
“Hundred and twenty men and five officers in our division. You were the traitor all along. Here to check up on me, Andrews? You’re not here to catch up on lost memories, are you.”
Rubbing the rim of his glass in an attempt to get it to hum, Andrews said nothing.
“What can I do for you then?” Bruno said to the businessman, as customers waved good-bye, heading out the glass door.
“I’m looking for a student from these parts.”
The door slapped into the doorframe with a crack.
“Wait here then. Get about three hundred of them in a day,” said the man in the T-shirt.
“Name’s…Alred. First name, Erma. Know her?” said Andrews, his pupils dry as natural glass in the Sudan.
“Nope. Said yourself, I’m not a brainiac, I’m a grunt. What’s up with her.” Bruno kept his chin up, his old trick for inviting punches. He did his best to look vulnerable. That way, Andrews wouldn’t defend against Bruno’s mind-probing jabs.
“Green eyes. Light auburn hair. Big-boned, but not overweight. Twenty-seven.” Andrews pulled a black and white photograph from a leather briefcase he lifted onto one of the stools.
Bruno examined the picture. Immediately he rumbled through the files in his mind, collating the data, searching…
“Hey Bruno!” called a customer.
He shouted without looking up. “Hold your hairy horses!” Bruno remembered the girl. She’d been in a few times. The one who looked like she’d seen a ghost. Had some connection with…John Porter, the hot chocolate, French fries, and ranch dressing man. Asked questions about the young man, if Bruno remembered right. “Don’t recognize her.”
“No?” said Andrews, obviously sensing the lie.
“What’d she do?”
“She may have stolen something,” Andrews said, sliding the glossed paper back into the briefcase. “But I think she’s innocent. I can help her, if I find her. What about…this guy.”
The picture of Porter made Bruno’s blood speed even faster through his well-aged veins. The snapshot looked as if it’d been taken within the month.
“Been a student at Stratford University almost seven years now. Kinda plain looking, I realize, and the black and white doesn’t help. Brown hair and gray eyes. About thirty-three, little over six feet…seen him?”
“Not at all,” Bruno said too quickly.
“Worth a shot,” said Andrews. He smiled and put the photo away. “Well it was good to see ya…you old traitor.” His eyes were sharp as old-fashioned razor-blades.
Bruno nodded, eyeing the straight-standing geezer in the suit, wondering who was the real defector. Andrews was a weasel from the beginning, strategically selling his soul-or rather, anyone else’s-for a filthy buck. “You take care, now. No dying of old age, hear?”
“I told you,” Andrews said heading for the door, “I’m immortal now.”
The glass door swung closed, another thunderclap.
“A bloodthirsty killer, I have no doubt,” said Bruno.
8:59 p.m.
“This is a rotten idea. It’s going to get me killed,” Porter said.
“You don’t know that,” said Alred, leading the way. “Besides, Kinnard said he needed both of us right away.”
“What if he’s being cajoled. Gun point or something,” said Porter, bumping into the wall as they pushed down the white corridor.
“Porter, you have to trust somebody.”
He decided to say nothing else for fear of sounding any more like a child. But still, he looked behind him repeatedly. Almost to Dr. Kinnard’s office, Porter sneezed, panicked about giving himself away, and turned around again-doing his best to look as if he’d simply slowed to admire the modern art depiction of a fifteenth-century German pavis, the shield used in medieval times to protect the entire body.
Porter figured there were at least twenty doors on either side of the corridor. He pictured men in black waiting for them to pass before shooting them in the back.
He was examining the closed portals again-pretending to examine the pink and green lily pad in oils-when he heard Alred’s knuckles hit Kinnard’s door frame. His skin cooled.
“So you did get to Ulman’s security box?” Porter said under his breath.
“I’d better tell you about that later,” she said as Porter locked eyes on her. Alred wore an attracting perfume he didn’t recognize, and for some reason his stomach felt empty.
Kinnard opened the door. “Come on in.”
As the professor took his seat in silence, Porter entered and stared helplessly at the wide window to his left with no shade to shut out the night. It was a black hole in the white wall. With florescent light brightening the room, anyone could see them from outside. And if a sniper waited…he wouldn’t even need a scope to kill Porter in that small office.
The only other decoration was the silver expansion bolt Porter always glanced at when entering, wondering if there would be a screw in it some day. He looked at it out of habit, but also hoping it would bring some sense of comforting normality. He had to shut off his emotions; they were getting in the way. He felt like a small child on a playground full of bullies hiding behind big trees.
“Thanks for coming so late. I needed to talk to you as soon as possible…before you got much further,” said Kinnard, sitting, leaning forward, and clasping his muscular hands together.
“Why,” Alred said, taking a seat.
“You’d be impressed, Dr. Kinnard,” said Porter. “With all the…opposition we’ve faced in this project…everything is still progressing well.” It was the truth, but did it make him feel better?
Kinnard examined Porter as if he were a caterpillar in a cocoon. “You’ve found positive links between the ancient Middle East and Mesoamerica?”
“The KM-2 substantiates facts I’ve already been gathering for many years,” Porter said, sinking into the other hard chair before Kinnard’s desk, glancing at the window from time to time.
“Like what,” Kinnard asked Porter, shooting Alred a quick look.
“Mesoamerican historians professing isolationist’s theories have attempted to explain away the existence of the coconut, cotton, and the bottle gourd in pre-Columbian America by saying it simply floated there,” said Porter. “Their arguments for the sea voyages of pineapples, maize, and tobacco have proven more difficult. There is evidence for chickens, with weak evolutionary explanations, in America long before Columbus.
“Mesoamerican cultural traits in parallel with the ancient Near East may have come into existence by a means of logical coincidence, but it’s hard to invent a chicken, or the sweet potato, or the red-flowering hibiscus which had to be transplanted. In KM-2, I’m finding a slew of patterns brought by visitors from the old world to the New. I’d prefer to publicize them during my formal argumentation.”
With his lips together, Kinnard looked again at Alred, who simply waited. “You’re an ancient Americanist,” he said.
“And I have plenty of explanations for the things Porter has mentioned,” said Alred.
“Ah,” said Porter, “but your replies are simply the facts taught you by other ignorant authorities on the subject of Mesoamerican history and pre-history. Secondhand knowledge. The KM-2 is history, by definition of the word, and-”
“I studied under Dr. Ulman, Porter. You forget that. He was a fine authority and the discoverer of the Kalpa site from whence we have KM-2,” she said.
“He and his finds will validate our arguments that there is a connection between the Near East and Mesoamerica,” said Porter, raising a finger.
“But he is dead,” Kinnard said, his face flushed by heretofore unspoken excitement. “ He was my friend…and now… Dr. Albright has also passed away.”
“And you think there’s a link,” Porter said, studying Kinnard’s hard face for silent messages.
With a jerk, Kinnard looked out the window.
Porter snapped his head to the glass as well, expecting to see…
“Seems you both suppose the same conspiracy,” Alred said to Porter. “But we don’t know what’s going on. I suggest taking a breath and getting to work.”
“I-,” said Kinnard, but he didn’t say anything else.
Porter sensed the heat radiating from the professor’s flexing muscles. Was he having second thoughts? Why would that- “Dr. Kinnard…do you know what is going on?”
Kinnard looked at his desk and reached up with his right hand to rub his bald forehead. He removed his glasses. “Porter, you…are really in a lot of trouble…with your dissertation. I know how terribly consequential these last few days have been-”
“Why was the deadline for dissertations moved?” Porter said. “I suppose there are a vast number of other Ph. D. candidates complaining.”
“I had nothing to do with it-”
“Was it Dr. Masterson? Is that who I need to talk to?” said Porter.
Alred closed her eyes.
“Porter, will you stop cutting me off?” said Kinnard, struggling to maintain a peaceful face. His naked head was turning white, and his lower forehead red. He pushed his glasses against his face.
“If I didn’t need to write it all out, I could give my dissertation tomorrow,” Porter said.
“You could not,” said Kinnard.
“I have enough data to speak for a day on the aforementioned connection.”
“Porter,” said Alred, putting a hand over his.
Porter jumped from his seat, glanced at the window, found a safe location in the corner of the room, and faced the professor again. “Did you know Cortez wrote in a letter to his king that the things he found were so…unbelievable…Cortez knew the description he was about to write down would not be easily trusted? He gave a written warning to that effect before his report.” Porter lifted a finger and pointed as he spoke. “Cortez feared-feared no one would go along with his story about the Old World because even he and his men, who saw the things with their own eyes that he was about to relate-and no doubt witnessed things he didn’t write down! — Cortez and his men couldn’t comprehend as actual reality? There is so much that we as Americans have forgotten or lost since ancient times. Not even the natives agree on the old tales. Don’t tell me we should give up-”
“Porter,” Alred said calmly, turning around in her chair, “sit down. We don’t know why Kinnard asked us here. You’re jumping to conclusions and…not acting very scholarly right now.”
An embarrassed statue, Porter stood in the corner until his legs carried him back to the chair. His eyes shot out the window on their own for a second. No bullets so far.
“I’m sorry, Dr. Kinnard,” said Alred, still sitting with her hands neatly settled one atop the other, her folded legs relaxed, her back straight, and her head up. “It’s been a stressful semester.”
“I’m the one who should be apologizing,” said Kinnard, looking back at her. “Ms. Alred, this won’t affect you as much…as it will Porter, but it won’t make you happy either.”
Kinnard stood and looked down at his desk, attempting to collect himself and breathe more easily.
Porter shoved his focus to his own knee-caps, as if the action would hide him from whatever Kinnard was about to say. He still suspected a gun in Kinnard’s back…somehow.
“KM-2,” Kinnard said. He looked at Alred. “Wouldn’t Kalpa start with a C, Alred, if it is a Central American-”
“That is my understanding,” said Alred. “I can’t explain Albright’s choice, nor the reason other scholars have perpetuated-”
“Was there a reason we came here?” said Porter as innocently as he could, though the emotions were pouring invisibly from every orifice.
“I think you should forget about this project,” Kinnard said looking straight at Porter.
Gazing through the silence, Porter felt the blood to his brain shut-off. “Why?”
“We might be wrong, Porter, but I think you agree with me. This isn’t a simple dissertation you’re working on anymore. I fear…illegal actions may have been taken, and icy waters are stirring which we should leave alone.”
“That,” said Porter, “is…it? Thank you, Dr. Kinnard,” he said with a smile, “but I would rather present my argument to the board!”
Alred sighed.
“We only have six days left! Six!!! You can’t pull the rug out on this one,” Porter said.
Kinnard kept his eyes on the desk. “I really feel for you-”
“But…not that much, eh?!” Porter huffed and flung his hands, standing again.
Alred got to her feet. It was over.
“Look,” Kinnard said as she turned quietly to the door and Porter threw his hands a second time, flopping them against his sides. “I know the vitality of your predicament, Porter, but I can’t do anything about it.”
Porter froze his arms in midair and looked at his supervising professor. “Wait.” He pointed again. “You can’t. You mean you tried to… You didn’t make this decision?”
Alred turned slowly. “What? Dr. Kinnard, you’re not shutting down the study because you’re worried about-”
“No,” he said.
“It was Masterson, wasn’t it!” said Porter approaching the desk. He felt the acid rain in his lungs.
Kinnard lifted a signed paper from his desk. “Stratford is terminating your research and the applicable dissertations.”
“Can the University do that?!?” Porter asked Alred.
With eyebrows lifted at Kinnard and arms folded, she said, “Stratford can do anything she wants.”
“Especially when impending lawsuits are suspected,” said Kinnard. “I’m sorry.”
Porter turned like a rhino for the door, bumping Alred aside and yanking the portal open. This was worse than being shot through the window.
Before he could make it out, he heard Kinnard’s voice. “We will need KM-2 back…of course.”
Black smoke clogging his heart, Porter looked at his supervisor.
Alred thanked the professor and put a hand on Porter’s shoulder as she went by him. “That’s it, Porter. We’re done.”