Bungalow 7 had a peach-colored door. Will rang the bell. There was a Do Not Disturb tag on the handle and a fresh Saturday paper. He'd slipped his Glock into his waistband for fast access and let his right hand brush against its rough grip.
The peephole darkened for a second then the handle moved. The door opened and the two men looked at each other.
"Hello, Will. You found my message."
Will was shocked at how haggard and old Mark appeared, almost unrecognizable. He stepped back to let his visitor in. The door closed on its own, leaving them in the semidarkness of the shade-drawn room.
"Hello, Mark."
Mark saw the butt of Will's pistol between his parted jacket. "You don't need a gun."
"Don't I?"
Mark sank onto an armchair by the fireplace, too weak to stand. Will went for the sofa. He was tired too.
"The coffee shop was staked out."
Mark's eyes bulged. "They didn't follow you, did they?"
"I think we're good. For now."
"They must've tapped my call to your daughter. I knew you'd be mad and I'm sorry. It was the only way."
"Who are they?"
"The people I work for."
"First tell me this: what if I hadn't seen your card?"
Mark shrugged. "When you're in my business you rely on fate."
"What business is that, Mark? Tell me what business you're in."
"The library business."
Frazier was inconsolable. The operation was blown to hell and he couldn't think of one thing to do except shriek like a banshee. When his throat became too raw to continue, he hoarsely ordered his men to hold their positions and continue their apparently futile search until he told them otherwise. If he'd been there, this wouldn't have happened, he brooded. He thought he had professionals. DeCorso was a good operative but clearly a failure as a field leader, and who would take the blame for that? He kept his headset glued to his skull and slowly walked through the empty corridors of Area 51, muttering, "Failure is not a fucking option," then rode the elevator topside so he could feel hot sun on his body.
Mark was hushed and confessional at times, alternatively tearful, boastful, and arrogant, occasionally irritated by questions he considered repetitive or naive. Will maintained an even, professional tone though he struggled at times to retain his composure in the face of what he was hearing.
Will set things in motion with a simple question: "Did you send the Doomsday postcards?"
"Yes."
"But you didn't kill the victims."
"I never left Nevada. I'm not a killer. I know why you think there was a killer. That's what I wanted you and everyone else to think."
"Then how did these people die?"
"Murders, accidents, suicides, natural causes-the same things that kill any random group of people."
"You're saying there was no single killer?"
"That's what I'm saying. That's the truth."
"You didn't hire or induce anyone to commit these murders?"
"No! Some of them were murders, I'm sure, but you know in your heart that not all of them were. Don't you?"
"A few of them have problems," Will admitted. He thought of Milos Covic and his window plunge, Marco Napolitano and the needle in his arm, Clive Robertson and his nosedive. Will's eyes narrowed. "If you're telling me the truth, then how in hell did you know in advance these people were going to die?"
Mark's sly smile unnerved him. He'd interviewed a lot of psychotics, and his I-know-something-you-don't-know grin was straight out of a schizophrenic's playbook. But he knew that Mark wasn't crazy. "Area 51."
"What about it? What's the relevance?"
"I work there."
Will was testy now. "Okay, I pretty much got that. Spill it! You said you were in the library business."
"There's a library at Area 51."
He was being forced to drag it out of him, question by question. "Tell me about this library."
"It was built in the late 1940s by Harry Truman. After World War Two, the British found an underground complex near a monastery on the Isle of Wight, Vectis Abbey. It contained hundreds of thousands of books."
"What kind of books?"
"Books dating back to the Middle Ages. They contained names, Will, billions-over two hundred billion names."
"Whose names?"
"Everyone who's ever lived."
Will shook his head. He was treading water, feeling like he was about to go under. "I'm sorry, I'm not following you."
"Since the beginning of time, there've been just under one hundred billion people who've ever lived on the planet. These books started listing every birth and every death since the eighth century. They chronicle over twelve hundred years of human life and death on earth."
"How?" Will was angry. Was this guy a sicko after all?
"Anger is a common reaction. Most people get angry when they're told about the Library because it challenges everything we think we know. Actually, Will, no one has a clue about the how part or the why. There's been sixty-two years of debate and no one knows. It would have taken hundreds of monks at a time, if that's what they were, writing continuously for over five hundred years to physically write down all these names, one for each birth, one for each death. They're listed by date, the earlier ones in the Julian calendar, the later ones in the Gregorian calendar. Each name is written in its native language with a simple notation in Latin-birth or death. That's all there is. No commentary, no explanation. How did they do it? Religious types say they were channeling God. Maybe they were clairvoyants who saw the future. Maybe they were from outer space. Believe me, no one has any idea! All we know is that it was a monumental task. Think about it: the numbers have been accelerating over the centuries, but just today, August 1, 2009, there are 350,000 people who will be born and 150,000 will die. Each name written with pen and ink. Then tomorrow's names and the day after, and the day after that. For twelve hundred years! They must have been like machines."
"You know I can't believe any of this," Will said quietly.
"If you give me a day, I can prove it. I can pull up a list of everyone who's going to die in Los Angeles tomorrow. Or New York, or Miami. Or anywhere."
"I don't have a day." Will got up and started aggressively pacing. "I can't believe I'm even giving you the right time of day." He angrily swore and demanded, "Go online and look up the Panama City, Florida, News Herald. Look at today's obituaries and see if you've got them on your goddamned list."
"The local paper's outside the door? Wouldn't that be easier?"
"Maybe you've already looked at it!"
"You think this is an elaborate setup?"
"Maybe it is."
Mark looked troubled. "I can't go online."
"Okay, this is bullshit!" Will shouted. "I knew this was bullshit."
"If I log my computer onto the Web, they'll locate us in a few minutes. I won't do it."
Will looked around the room in frustration and spotted a keyboard in the TV cabinet. "What's that?" he asked.
Mark smiled. "Hotel Internet access. I didn't notice that."
"So, you can do it?"
"I'm a computer scientist. I think I can figure it out."
"I thought you said you were a librarian."
Mark ignored him. In a minute he had the newspaper's website on the TV screen.
"Hometown paper, right?" Mark said.
"You know it is."
Mark took out his laptop and booted it up.
While he was logging on, Will pounced on an inconsistency. "Wait a minute! You said these books only had names and dates. But then you said you could sort them by city. How?"