Kaye remembered Burkett now. They had met at a conference on SHEVA four years ago. He was a fundraiser for legal aid for SHEVA parents.
Luella returned from the kitchen carrying a pitcher of orange juice and a plate of cookies and celery stalks with peanut butter and cream cheese fillings. “I don’t know why you folks come here,” she told the group. “I’m not much of a cook.”
Bloch put her arms around Luella’s shoulders. They made quite a contrast. Kaye could tell Luella was six months or more along, although it was only slightly apparent on her ample frame.
“Come sit,” said the younger woman. She pointed to an empty chair beside her and smiled. Her name, printed neatly on her tag, was Linda Gale. Kaye knew that name from somewhere.
“It’s our second meeting,” said Burkett. “We’re still getting acquainted.”
“Orange juice okay for you, honey?” Luella asked, and Kaye nodded. Luella filled her glass. Kaye felt overwhelmed. She did not know whether to resent Cross for not warning her in advance, or to just hug her, and then hug Luella. Instead, she walked around the table and settled into the seat beside Gale.
“Linda is assistant to the chief of staff,” Bloch said.
“At the White House? For the president?” Kaye asked, hopeful as a child looking over a Christmas package.
“The president,” Bloch confirmed.
Gale smiled up at Bloch. “Am I famous yet?”
“About time,” Luella said, passing around the plate. Gale demurred, saying she had to keep in fighting trim, but the others snatched the cookies and held out glasses for juice.
“It’s the legacy thing,” Burkett said. “The polls are going fifty-fifty. Net and media are tired of being scaremongers. Marge tells us the scientific community will come out in support of the conclusion that the SHEVA kids won’t produce disease. Do you go along with that?”
In politics, even a fragile certainty could move mountains. “I do,” Kaye said.
“The president is taking advice from all sectors of the community,” Gale said.
“They’ve had years,” Kaye said.
“Linda is on our side, Kaye,” Bloch said softly.
“Won’t be long,” Luella said, and nodded, her eyes both angry and knowing. “Mm hmm. Not long now.”
“Dr. Rafelson, I have a question about your work,” Burkett said. “If I may…”
“First things first,” Bloch interrupted. “Marge knows already, but Kaye, you have to be absolutely clear on this. Everything said in this room is in the strictest confidence. Nobody will divulge anything to anybody outside this room, whether or not the president chooses to act. Understood?”
Kaye nodded, still in a daze.
“Good. We have some papers to sign, and then Kendall can ask his questions.”
Burkett shrugged patiently and chewed on a cookie.
Two phones rang at once—one in the kitchen, which Luella pushed through the swinging door to answer, and Laura Bloch’s cell phone in her purse.
Luella clutched an old-fashioned handset on a long cord. “Oh, my God,” she said. “Where?” Her eyes met Kaye’s. Something crossed between them. Kaye stood and clutched the back of her chair. Her knuckles turned white.
“LaShawna’s with them?” Luella asked. Then, once more, “Oh, my God.” Her face lit up with joy. “We caught a bus in New Mexico!” she cried. “John says they got our children! They have LaShawna, dear Jesus, John has my sweet, sweet girl.”
Laura Bloch finished her call and clacked her phone shut, furious. “The bastards finally did it,” she said.
38
OREGON
“You found them,” a voice said, and Mitch opened his eyes to a haze of faces in the shadows. The migraine was not done with him, but at least he could hear and think.
“The doctor says you’re going to be okay.”
“So glad,” Mitch said groggily. He was lying on an air mattress under a tent. The mattress squeaked beneath his shifting weight.
“One of your migraines?”
That was Eileen.
“Yeah.” He tried to sit up. Eileen gently pushed him down again on the mattress. Someone gave him a sip of water from a plastic cup.
“You should have told us where you were going,” a woman he did not know said disapprovingly.
Eileen interrupted her. “You didn’t know where you were going, did you?” she asked him. “Just what you wanted to find.”
“This whole camp is on the knife edge of anarchy,” the other woman said.
“Shut up, Nancy,” said Eileen’s colleague, what was her name again, Mitch liked her, she seemed smart: something Fitz. Then, it came to him, Connie Fitz, and as if in reward, the pain flowed out of his head like air from a balloon. His skull felt cold. “What did I find?”
“Something,” Fitz said admiringly.
“We’re taking scans now with the handheld,” said Nancy.
“Good,” Mitch said. He took a plastic bottle of water from Eileen and swallowed long and hard. He was as dry as a bone; he must have lain out on the rock and dirt for at least an hour. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“De nada,” Eileen said with a hint of pride.
“It’s a tibia, isn’t it?” Mitch asked.
“It’s more than that,” Eileen said. “We don’t yet know how much more.”
“I found the guys,” he said.
The women would not commit.
“Just be happy you didn’t die out there,” Eileen said.
“It’s not that hot,” Mitch said.
“You were three feet from the bluff,” Eileen said. “You could have fallen.”
“They weathered out,” Mitch mused, and took another swallow of water. “How many are left, I wonder?”
He peered into the blue light of the tent at the three women: Nancy, a tall, striking woman with long black hair and a stern face; Connie Fitz; Eileen.
The tent flap opened and the light assaulted him, bringing back a stab of pain.
“Sorry,” Oliver Merton said. “Just heard about the incident. How’s our boy wonder?”
“Explain it to me,” Merton said.
Mitch sat alone with Oliver under the sun shade. He sipped a beer; Oliver was working away, or pretending to, on his small slate. He had a tracer cap on one finger and typed on empty air. All the archaeologists from the camp, except for two younger women standing guard at the main site, were at the bluff, leaving Mitch grounded, “to recover,” as Eileen put it, but he strongly suspected it was to keep him out of their hair, out of trouble, until it was determined what he had found.
“Explain what?” Mitch asked.
“How you do it. I sense a pattern.”
Mitch covered his eyes with his hands. The sunlight was still dazzling.
“You undergo some sort of psychic revelation, enter a trance state, troop off in search of something you’ve already seen… . Is that it?”
“God, no,” Mitch said, grimacing. “Nothing like that. Was I showboating, Oliver?” he asked, and did not know himself whether he spoke with satisfaction, pride, or real curiosity as to what Merton thought.
Before Merton could answer, Mitch winced at a spike in his thoughts. His neck hair prickled.
Something’s wrong.
“Oh, most definitely,” Merton said with a nod and a sly little grin. “Sherlock Holmes, I presume?”
“Holmes was not psychic. You heard them. They still don’t know what I found.”
“You found a hominid leg bone. All of Eileen’s students, searching for two months around this site, haven’t found so much as a chip.”
“They were making us look bad,” Mitch said. “Men in general.”
“A camp full of angry women digging out a camp full of abandoned women,” Merton said. “Look bad? Right.”