Mark said, “You were one of thousands of researchers whose work we followed — though you were of somewhat special interest because of the extreme secrecy at Project 99. Then, a year ago, you left Manassas with something from the project, and overnight you were the most wanted person in the country. Even after you supposedly died aboard that airliner in Colorado. Even then…people were looking for you, lots of people, expending considerable resources, searching frantically for a dead woman — which seemed pretty weird to us.”
Rose said nothing to encourage him. She seemed tired.
Joe took her hand. She was trembling, but she squeezed his hand as if to assure him that she was all right.
“Then we began to intercept reports from a certain clandestine police agency…reports that said you were alive and active in the L.A. area, that it involved families who’d lost loved ones on Flight 353. We set up some surveillance of our own. We’re pretty good at it. Some of us are ex-military. Anyway, you could say we watched the watchers who were keeping tab on people like Joe here. And now…I guess it’s a good thing we did.”
“Yes. Thank you,” she said. “But you don’t know what you’re getting into here. There’s not just glory…there’s terrible danger.”
“Dr. Tucker,” Mark persisted, “there are over nine thousand of us now, and we’ve committed our lives to what we do. We’re not afraid. And now we believe that you may have found the interface — and that it’s very different from anything we quite anticipated. If you’ve actually made that breakthrough…if humanity is at that pivot point in history when everything is going to change radically and forever…then we are your natural allies.”
“I think you are,” she agreed.
Gently but persistently selling her on this alliance, Mark said, “Doctor, we both have set ourselves against those forces of ignorance and fear and self-interest that want to keep the world in darkness.”
“Remember, I once worked for them.”
“But turned.”
A car swung off Pacific Coast Highway and paused to pick up Joshua. It was followed through the gate and along the driveway by a second car.
Rose, Mark, and Joe got to their feet as the two vehicles — a Ford trailed by a Mercedes — circled the fountain and stopped in front of them.
Joshua stepped from the passenger door of the Ford, and a young brunette woman got out from behind the steering wheel. The Mercedes was driven by an Asian man of about thirty.
They all gathered before Rose Tucker, and for a moment everyone stood in silence.
The steadily escalating wind no longer spoke merely through the rustling foliage of the trees, through the cricket-rasping branches of the shrubbery, and through the hollow flute-like music issuing from the eaves of the mansion, for now it also enjoyed a voice of its own: a haunted keening that curled chillingly in listening ears, akin to the muted but frightful ululant crying of coyote packs chasing down prey in some far canyon of the night.
In the landscape lights, the shuddering greenery cast nervous shadows, and the gradually paling moon gazed at itself in the shiny surfaces of the automobiles.
Watching these four people as they watched Rose, Joe realized that they regarded the scientist not solely with curiosity but with wonder, perhaps even with awe, as though they stood in the presence of someone transcendent. Someone holy.
“I’m surprised to see every one of you in mufti,” Rose said.
They smiled, and Joshua said, “Two years ago, when we first set out on this mission, we were reasonably quiet about it. Didn’t want to excite a lot of media interest…because we thought we’d largely be misunderstood. What we didn’t expect was that we’d have enemies. And enemies so violent.”
“So powerful,” Mark said.
“We thought everyone would want to know the answers we were seeking — if we ever found them. Now we know better.”
“Ignorance is a bliss that some people will kill for,” said the young woman.
“So a year ago,” Joshua continued, “we adopted the robes as a distraction. People understand us as a cult — or think they do. We’re more acceptable when we’re viewed as fanatics, neatly labeled and confined to a box. We don’t make people quite so nervous.”
Robes.
Astonished, Joe said, “You wear blue robes, shave your heads.”
Joshua said, “Some of us do, yes, as of a year ago — and those in the uniform pretend to be the entire membership. That’s what I meant when I said the robes are a distraction — the robes, the shaved heads, the earrings, the visible communal enclaves. The rest of us have gone underground, where we can do the work without being spied on, subjected to harassment, and easily infiltrated.”
“Come with us,” the young woman said to Rose. “We know you may have found the way, and we want to help you bring it to the world — without interference.”
Rose moved to her and put a hand against her cheek, much as she had touched Joe in the cemetery. “I might be with you soon, but not tonight. I need more time to think, to plan. And I’m in a hurry to see a young girl, a child, who is at the center of what is happening.”
Nina, Joe thought, and his heart shuddered like the shadows of the wind-shaken trees.
Rose moved to the Asian man and touched him too. “I can tell you this much…we stand on the threshold you foresaw. We will go through that door, maybe not tomorrow or the day after tomorrow or next week, but in the years ahead.”
She went to Joshua. “Together we will see the world change forever, bring the light of knowledge into the great dark loneliness of human existence. In our time.”
And finally she approached Mark. “I assume you brought two cars because you were prepared to give one to Joe and me.”
“Yes. But we hoped—”
She put a hand on his arm. “Soon but not tonight. I’ve got urgent business, Mark. Everything we hope to achieve hangs in the balance right now, hangs so precariously — until I can reach the little girl I mentioned.”
“Wherever she is, we can take you to her.”
“No. Joe and I must do this alone — and quickly.”
“You can take the Ford.”
“Thank you.”
Mark withdrew a folded one-dollar bill from his pocket and gave it to Rose. “There are just eight digits in the serial number on this bill. Ignore the fourth digit, and the other seven are a phone number in the 310 area code.”
Rose tucked the bill into her jeans.
“When you’re ready to join us,” Mark said, “or if you’re ever in trouble you can’t get out of, ask for me at that number. We’ll come for you no matter where you are.”
She kissed him on the cheek. “We’ve got to go.” She turned to Joe. “Will you drive?”
“Yes.”
To Joshua, she said, “May I take your cell phone?”
He gave it to her.
Wings of furious wind beat around them as they got into the Ford. The keys were in the ignition.
As Rose pulled the car door shut, she said, “Oh, Jesus,” and leaned forward, gasping for breath.
“You are hurt.”
“Told you. I got knocked around.”
“Where’s it hurt?”
“We’ve got to get across the city,” Rose said, “but I don’t want to go back past Mahalia’s.”
“You could have a broken rib or two.”
Ignoring him, she sat up straight, and her breathing improved as she said, “The creeps won’t want to risk setting up a roadblock and a traffic check without cooperation from the local authorities, and they don’t have time to get that. But you can bet your ass they’ll be watching passing cars.”
“If you’ve got a broken rib, it could puncture a lung.”