“I’m sorry,” Feyiz said. “We meant no disrespect. It’s just that you’ve seemed so exhausted, that we didn’t want to trouble you with this until we’d had a chance to—”
“Of course I’m exhausted!” Meryam snapped, and Adam thought he saw her mouth tremble a bit. Was there a quaver of emotion in her voice? “We’re all bloody exhausted!”
She shook her head, stared at the snowflakes eddying over the abyss as the daylight waned.
“Don’t you think I want the damn thing gone? You have my promise that the cadaver will be moved off the mountain the moment it’s possible to do so safely, but unfortunately that means after this storm. Thank you for bringing your concerns to our attention.”
Zeybekci seemed about to argue, but Feyiz tapped his arm and a moment later they were walking back into the ark. Meryam glanced at the camera, and then apparently decided she did not care if Calliope caught her words on film.
“I’ll speak to everyone during dinner and address their fears,” she said. “After that, if anyone wants to climb down the mountain before that storm hits, let them go. I’d rather lose half the staff than deal with a bunch of children who think the bloody bogeyman’s coming to get them.”
EIGHT
Walker and Father Cornelius had one rough-hewn stall to themselves, with Kim in the next one over. They had blankets and heavy sleeping bags, but the stalls had no doors. As cold as it was during the day it would be far colder at night, but now that he’d seen some of the other sleeping quarters he felt a little warmer. Some of the KHAP team had created false walls by hanging sheets of plastic from the roof and nail-gunning them to the floor timbers. The plastic snapped taut with every gust of wind, rustling quietly when it eased, but it did nothing to keep out the chill.
Only the infirmary had more substance. There were walls of preformed, insulated plastic that Ben figured must have been airlifted to the cave and then locked together. The little mobile procedure room came complete with floor and ceiling, and plenty of ventilation. It looked like a children’s playset zapped with some kind of growth ray, but Walker felt envious. There were several cots in the room, and he was sure Dr. Dwyer slept in one of them.
“This is cozy,” he said as he entered.
Dr. Dwyer glanced up from his laptop and surveyed his new arrivals. Walker had entered first, but Father Cornelius was right behind him. “How’s she doing?”
“Well, I don’t think there’s any need for last rites,” the doctor said, smiling at the presence of the priest.
Father Cornelius gave a soft laugh. “I might need them myself if I stay up here very long.”
Kim lay on her side on the cot farthest from the entrance. She faced them, and though her eyes tracked their arrival, she made no other sign that she had noticed.
“Is she all right?” the priest asked.
Dr. Dwyer closed his laptop and stood, clasping his hands behind his back in the manner of doctors and lecturers from the birth of time. “Seong is awake and alert and certainly able to speak for herself.”
Walker understood the doctor’s deference to his patient, but Dwyer hadn’t been there when Kim had gone racing through the ark, screaming and muttering gibberish. If they were all a bit wary now, that was to be understood.
He went over and sat on the middle cot, facing her. “How do you feel?”
“Tired,” the woman said, tucking back a lock of hair that had fallen across her face. “Embarrassed.”
Father Cornelius kept his distance, standing with the doctor.
“You gave us all a pretty good scare,” Walker said.
Kim’s face went cold. Hard. Somehow it made her beautiful. Walker tried to ignore the observation when it floated into his mind, particularly because he had known such women before. There was fear and pain beneath that cold veneer, and he had plenty of his own. He thought of his ex-wife, Amanda, of the pain he’d tried to spare her and the different stripe of it he’d inflicted upon her instead.
“I’m fine now,” Kim said. “That’s all I can tell you. I’ve had panic attacks—anxiety attacks, I suppose—in the past, but never anything like that.”
She spoke in a kind of monotone that made Walker wonder if Dr. Dwyer had put her on some kind of medication. He studied Kim’s eyes, saw the super-dilated pupils, and realized that had to be it. No wonder she felt fine.
“They’re going to be serving dinner soon,” he said. “Are you up to it?”
Kim’s upper lip twitched. He’d seen her do it before—a sign of irritation, though whether or not she was aware of it, he couldn’t be sure.
“I said I feel fine. And I’m starving.”
Walker glanced back at Father Cornelius and then the doctor. “Doc?”
Dwyer nodded. “Miss Kim is free to go.”
“Good.” Walker leaned toward her, gripping the edges of the cot beneath him. He studied Kim’s eyes again. “This is not a place where it is safe to lose control of yourself. If you feel another attack coming on—if your heart so much as skips an extra beat—you tell me.”
For a moment she just lay there staring at him. Then she sat up straight, blew in her hands to warm them, and stood so that—tiny as she was—she loomed over him.
“I’m not a child, Walker. And I’ll remind you that I do not answer to you.”
Walker stood as well, shrinking the space between the cots so now it contained only the two of them. He stared down at her, analyzing, evaluating, trying to follow the threads forward to find the worst-case scenarios that might spin out of this moment. They were too close, barely any light between them. Kim exhaled a warm breath and Walker breathed it in, an unwelcome intimacy that made him blink and turn away, suddenly too aware of her presence and her strength. She’d gotten under his skin, but he tried not to focus too much on why.
“I know you’re not a child,” he said as he walked away. “But if you snap and go off, raving and running around in here, you might run right off the ledge.” He paused, turning to meet her gaze. “I don’t want to have to explain to the UN why you fell off the mountain.”
He thought he saw the flicker of a smile on her lips. Then Kim nodded.
“Understood.”
Father Cornelius smiled softly. “Shall we go down to dinner, then?”
Kim took a wobbly step and caught herself. Whatever Dr. Dwyer had given her, it worked very well.
“Come on,” he said, watching to make sure she didn’t fall. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and it’ll be taco night.”
This time Kim definitely smiled. She had a sense of humor underneath that hard veneer. Then again, it might have been the drugs.
Walker stepped out of the infirmary and felt a sudden surge of nausea that made him stop and hold the doorframe. He took a deep breath as his skin prickled and a sickly sweat beaded on his skin. No, no. Not this again. He’d thought it was the elevation or the helicopter ride, but now he wondered if he’d come down with some kind of virus. He couldn’t afford to be sick.
“You all right?” Father Cornelius asked.
Another deep breath and Walker dropped his hand, forcing a smile. “Just a long day, I guess.”
The chill wind snaked back through the ancient timbers and slithered around the manmade efforts to keep it out. To his left, plastic sheeting flapped in the wind, torn loose from the nails that had pinned it down.
Something moved at the corner of his eye, but when he turned to look he saw nothing but shadows.