"Of course. Of course." He nodded sagely.
They rose together. "Should you uncover anything you find it difficult to account for," he said, "you have my contact information."
"Thank you, Doctor. I will remember that. And thank you for the time. What you've told me is highly intriguing." That was the truth.
"Just one thing," he said, arresting her as she began to turn to walk back to the parking lot to reclaim her rental. "These warnings the Holy Child issues – "
"Don't most of them involve immediate peril to the people who report seeing him? Like a flash flood, in that Murakami case?" she said.
"Yes. But percipients also report, rather unanimously, an impression that he was also trying to convey some greater danger, some common danger we all face. Here's the thought that makes myblood run cold. Could that greater menace possibly have anything to do with our own current spate of sightings of strange and very scary animals?"
I sincerely hope not, she thought. Aloud she said, "One thing's for sure, Doctor. It doesn't concern the Mayan calendar."
He laughed at that. "Indeed. A very good day to you, Ms. Annja Creed. And remember to look behind you."
Annja was standing in her motel room in her underwear trying to figure out what to pack in her overnight bag for her imminent jaunt overseas. The small stack of clothes on the bed beside her open case was not giving her any hints.
Damn that smug old bastard, with his look-behind-you bullshit, she thought peevishly. He got me so rattled I'm actually dithering about doing something I've done a thousand times. It was true. It seemed she had spent far more time moving from place to place than fixed at any given address. Even the Brooklyn loft where she'd lived for the past few years served as little more than a pied-à-terre. She should have been able to pack for a short trip in her sleep. As a matter of fact, she was pretty sure she had.
On the television, which she had on as a sort of background, a man with a young face and a richly coiffed head of silver hair was interviewing a lean, tanned man who seemed to smile perpetually.
" – really think there's nothing to these reports coming out of New Mexico, Don?" the silver-haired man asked.
"Just call me Mr. Skeptic, Miller," his subject said, grinning. The crawl beneath him read Donald "Mr. Skeptic" Triphorn, Editor, Skeptic EyeMagazine. "And the answer to your question is, of course not."
"How could so many people be mistaken, Mr. Skeptic?"
"I'm glad you asked me that, Miller." He turned the unrelenting grin to the camera. "I'd say it's a classic example of an overwhelming will to believe. We're inundated incessantly with fantasy – stories that take us out of our humdrum daily existence, reassure us that there really is magic in the world, regardless of what the mean old scientists say. From Harry Potter to Roswell conspiracy theories, it's very popular. The fact is, Miller, a lot of us wantto be fooled by easily explainable events. Or publicity stunts. Or simply to buy into urban legends."
"But don't urban legends usually have no traceable attribution, Mr. Skeptic? Don't these stories usually get told as happening to a friend of my cousin, third-or fourth-or sixteenth-hand? Whereas these stories have names and faces associated with them," Miller asked.
Mr. Skeptic's grin had turned a bit glassy. Hearing part of her own discussion of a couple of hours earlier with Dr. Cogswell replayed, Annja had stopped staring fruitlessly at her piled clothes. She gave full attention to the television screen.
"In one recent case our alleged Holy Child appeared to a young couple whose SUV had broken down at night in an early blizzard near Red River. If you'll recall, he actually gave them a silver thermal blanket to keep them warm until help arrived."
Miller – Miller Pemberton, an on-screen flash identified him – nodded his silver head. "We have some shots of that." The screen showed a pair of hands displaying a thermal blanket.
"Not only is that a perfectly normal thermal blanket you see there, Miller," Mr. Skeptic said as his grin reappeared, along with the rest of him, "but thanks to the magic of modern inventory-tracking technology, authorities have been able to identify it as an item shoplifted from a Wal-Mart near Interstate 40 in Albuquerque."
"Hard to reconcile petty theft with an entity popularly rumored to be the infant Jesus," Pemberton said.
A great, warm wave of reassurance washed over Annja.
Cogswell was clearly full of nonsense; that much was obvious. He was an intelligent, very learned man, well meaning. But misguided, like so many devotees of the strange.
"I understand you actually believe there is a threatening aspect to these sightings, though, Mr. Skeptic."
The grin went away and was replaced by a look of concern so studied it almost made Annja burst out laughing.
"Yes, there is a considerable threat here, Miller," Mr. Skeptic said. "Tall tales such as these cause people to question proper authority, disbelieving what scientists or even our government tells us. I don't think I have to tell you how dangerous such antigovernment sentiments can be. If people trust their own untrained observations instead of what they are told by qualified professionals, the possibilities for unjustified panic or worse are infinite. Don't you agree, Miller?"
"Of course, Mr. Skeptic. Of course I do." Another camera focused on his head as he turned to look into the lens. "And now a few words about a very special program coming up called 'We'reAll Going to Die'..."
"Christ," Annja said. She reminded herself that in the late sixteenth century, popular broadsheets distributed all across Continental Europe described the Spanish Armada as an overwhelming success for King Philip and Spain for weeks and weeks after the battle. The more things change,she thought.
Shaking her head, Annja turned off the television. My plane leaves in three hours, she told herself. I have to make some executive decisions here.
I don't have time to wonder who's crazy – me or the rest of the world.
Chapter 15
Madrid, Spain
"Pretty, isn't it?" the little man asked.
From the small platform built out over the second-floor scenic overlook Annja observed the great spray of palms and other tropical vegetation springing from the middle of the huge atrium. "Yes," she said, "but definitely not what I expected."
"You expected some kind of mystic or historical shrine," he said, hopping from foot to foot. "Instead I give you a shopping mall."
Her host, who rejoiced in the name Dr. Eleuterio Bobadilla, was a professor from the even more impressively named Departamento de Historia Antigua, Historia Medieval y Paleografía y Diplomática of the Madrid Autonomous University. Both his name and that of his department were substantially longer than him. The top of his shiny brown head, egg bald but for a little black fringe at the back, barely came to Annja's shoulder. He had lean features, a neat little mustache and skinny arms and legs sticking out, improbably, from a grotesquely large white jersey that came down almost to the bottom of his black silk running shorts. Annja recognized it as a Real Madrid home jersey. A pair of red-and-white running shoes completed his ensemble. She gathered he'd actually jogged from the university to meet her. It was impossible to guess how old he was, but he somehow reminded Annja of a young Mohandas Gandhi.