“Universal constant of balance,” said Pushkin playing with the black satchel. “How grandiose.”
“So now you’re reading minds,” Reisch answered. It was rare for Pushkin to appear twice in one day.
“It works for you.” He smiled at his protégé. “So, up is balanced by down, a positron is balanced by an electron, which would make you balanced by. . Amanda? I can see that.”
Reisch was momentarily confused and hazarded a glance at the specter. “No patronizing tone? No obvious flaws in logic? I’m disappointed.”
“I can see your logic, but I didn’t say that there weren’t flaws in it.” Pushkin waited for a response, but Reisch continued driving. ”All right, since you asked, I’ll tell you. There will be survivors of this pandemic who, like the two of you, will evolve, correct?”
“Go on,” Reisch said.
“From these survivors you will create a society that is the embodiment of balance. Everyone will be the same abilities; there will be no lies, nothing hidden, no agendas, no jealousy, no hatred, etc., etc., etc.; a veritable communist utopia. I understand that, but what you fail to realize is that it can never work. Right now your ideal society is composed of two, you and Amanda, and you both are vying for control or planning to kill the other. This isn’t balance, it’s chaos.”
Chapter 22
The plane landed with a bone-jarring bounce. Nathan Martin wondered if that had been planned for his benefit, or if it was just another training exercise for the two marines in the back. All his earlier excitement had faded with the realization that a genetically engineered virus was right now infecting untold numbers of Americans, and the military-style touchdown only served to darken his mood even further. He had tried to remember everything he could about Jaime Avanti, but it wasn’t much. Martin stared at the picture of Avanti as the plane taxied. He remembered the hair. Avanti was probably the hairiest man he had ever met. A shock of gray and black hair that would put Albert Einstein to shame was only the beginning. He had a beard that had crept up as far as his eyes and hung as low as his large abdomen. A mat of black fur escaped from below each of his sleeves and completely enveloped the back of Avanti’s hands. Nathan remembered thinking that Avanti was more of a health risk than the viruses he studied. They had met several times over the years, but their last meeting had been many years before Martin was named director of special pathogens at the CDC. When we were both young, he thought. A lifetime ago, they had both been rising stars in the small world of public health, and now Avanti threatened that health.
The only constant in life is change. Someone famous once said that. Now he couldn’t remember whom.
The plane came to an abrupt halt, and Martin was thrown forward against his seat belt. A groan followed by a curse escaped his lips before he could suppress either of them. Simpson was already up and heading to the door, and Captain Winston was right behind, both demonstrating that U.S. Marines were not subject to the laws of gravity or momentum. Martin followed them out of the plane and down the flight of stairs, disappointed that he didn’t get to thank, or hit, the pilot. Two black Suburbans waited at the bottom of the steps, and a large, powerfully built man in full dress uniform was returning the salutes of Simpson and Winston. The three of them talked while Martin cautiously descended the steps.
“Welcome to Bolling Air Force Base, Doctor,” the large man said as Martin drew closer to the three.
“Where the hell are we?” he asked, his head swiveling to find something familiar.
“Washington.” Above his impressive array of ribbons and colorful insignias, the big man wore a nametag with McDaniels stamped across it.
“I take it you are the famous Lieutenant-General McDaniels that Colonel Simpson spoke so highly about.” As Martin was framing his next sarcastic remark, it dawned on him that he had seen McDaniels before, not in person, but on television, and recently. His tone changed markedly. “Aren’t you the General McDaniels that’s. . what?” Martin couldn’t remember the exact context of his familiarity.
“I have just been confirmed as the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.”
“I’m honored,” said Martin, and he half meant it. “I’m glad to see that someone in this government is finally taking this threat a little more seriously. This morning, I spent an hour with the secretary of health trying to convince him that this was an urgent problem, and all I got for my trouble was ‘it’s your problem.’” He did a poor imitation of the small and somewhat effeminate secretary.
“The secretary is not involved with this, Doctor. In fact, less than half a dozen people know that you are here, and even fewer know why. It is important that we keep it that way.” He said this in a friendly tone, but his true meaning was clear. “Please come with me, we have a madman to see.” McDaniels turned back to the trailing vehicle and opened the door for Martin. Simpson and Winston climbed into the lead car.
They sped out through a series of gates without once pausing, and within minutes they were rocketing down the Beltway expressway.
“If all this is for my benefit, General, you can order the driver to slow down now, because I am suitably impressed with his driving abilities.”
“Relax, Doctor. You are perfectly safe.”
“I think that’s what the captain of the Titanic was saying just before he rammed an iceberg.” Martin had a death grip on the handhold mounted over his head as the two Suburbans weaved through traffic.
“Actually, I know for a fact that it was ‘Oh, shit!’” Both men laughed. “You don’t remember me, do you?” McDaniels asked, his tone very suddenly becoming serious with a touch of menace.
Martin glanced up at the officer, but aside from the recent press coverage, he would have sworn that he had never seen him before. “We’ve met?”
“It was a long time ago, and we were both very different people then. At least, I hope we are different people now.” McDaniels let the clue dangle between them a little longer.
“No, I still don’t recall us ever meeting before today.”
“January eighth, nineteen-seventy.”
Martin froze as a sea of bad memories flooded back into his head. “That was you?”
“I was the one in the wheelchair. You and your merry band didn’t expect a wounded marine, did you?”
“No, we didn’t, and we didn’t expect the reporter, either.” Martin’s voice was down to a whisper. He had been seventeen and a freshman in college, with all the answers to all the questions anyone would ever need to ask. He and his friends were intellectuals, blessed with an intelligence that others could only dream about. But more than that, they had a singular understanding of the world, and from their lofty perch, they could see all the evils that enslaved man, the worst of which was war. And because they were uniquely in tune with the cosmic force that governs all life, they knew exactly how to exorcise that evil from society. It had been Martin’s idea to meet the returning soldiers at the airport gate wrapped in body bags with the words Baby Killer painted across the front. It had been someone else’s idea to bring along a gallon of pig’s blood. “We were so stupid, so immature,” he said.
“You deserved everything that you got. If I’d been capable, I would have joined in.” McDaniels’s voice was flat and even, which made Martin’s shame all the more sharp.
“I have never regretted anything more than that. . day, in my life,” he said, his voice a little louder. “I don’t think I ever got to apologize, at least publicly.” Martin had been a minor at the time, and despite having been one of the instigators, he was never prosecuted. He was expelled from college, though. The dean visited him in his hospital room and delivered the official notification personally, along with his scathing opinion of Nathan and his fine friends.