"Fancy enough," Veil replied with a grin as he moved to the table. He hadn't eaten all day, and the sight and smell of the food made him realize just how hungry he was. "Thank you very much. Will you join me?"
Sharon shook her head. "I've eaten."
"Then please keep me company."
"All right," Sharon replied evenly, sitting down in the chair that Veil pulled out for her.
He sat down across from Sharon, poured two glasses of wine from the carafe, then selected a roast beef sandwich from the tray. "Delicious," he said when he had finished the first sandwich and was about to start on another. "This wasn't necessary, but it's certainly much appreciated."
"I had an ulterior motive for coming here tonight, Veil."
Veil set aside the second sandwich and looked up. Sharon was leaning forward on her elbows, chin cupped in the palms of her hands. She was staring at him intently. "Which is?"
"I'd like you to answer some questions."
"I'll try."
"What are you?"
"Just a man," Veil replied softly, sipping at his wine.
"We've established that you worked for the CIA. Are you a spy now?"
"No. Now I'm just a painter from New York City."
"I don't think I believe you," Sharon said after a long pause.
"It's true."
"What are you doing here?"
"You know what I'm doing here; I was invited."
Sharon sighed and closed her eyes for a few seconds. When she opened them, there was a glint of frustration and anger in their pale depths. "You're just using words, Veil. If you don't want me to know what's going on, simply say so. Don't play games."
"I'm sorry, Sharon. I don't mean to be rude. If you want to know what's going on, I think you should ask Jonathan."
"I'm asking you."
"You seemed content yesterday to take Jonathan's direction on this. Has something happened?"
"Let's just say that I feel a renewed sense of responsibility."
"For the hospice, or Jonathan?"
"Both."
"Where is Jonathan?"
"I don't know, Veil. Wherever he is, he went there in the helicopter just before noon. He may be in Monterey, or even San Francisco, doing research, but I can't be sure. He almost never leaves the mountain, unless it's on some kind of fund-raising business. I don't think that's what he's doing, and it makes me uneasy. That's why I'd like you to tell me what's happened."
"Somebody made a mistake, Sharon. I have to find out who made the mistake and why it was made." "What kind of mistake?"
"A dangerous one. It involved me, but it could also affect the Institute. That's why Jonathan wants me to get to the bottom of it."
"You're not telling me anything, Veil."
"I feel in an awkward position, caught between my host and hostess. Jonathan made it very plain that he didn't want you to worry."
"Is there something to be worried about?"
"I don't know, Sharon."
The woman took a deep breath, slowly let it out. "Can what you're doing bring harm to Jonathan?"
Veil rose from the table, poured himself a second Scotch, and lit one of the few cigarettes he allowed himself each day. "I don't know the answer to that question, either," he said as he exhaled a thin stream of smoke. "I'm beginning to wonder if there isn't something he's doing, or has already done, that could harm him."
"I'm not following you."
"What are you and Jonathan hiding from me?"
The question startled the woman, causing her to stiffen in her chair. "Veil, I don't know what you mean."
He sipped at his drink, studying Sharon over the rim of the tumbler. If she was putting on an act, he thought, it was a very good one. He set the glass down, ground out his cigarette. "What else do you do over here that you haven't told me about?"
"Nothing." Sharon replied, a note of frustration creeping into her voice. "It's just near-death studies, and I've told you virtually everything there is to know about it. We look for changes in consciousness and behavior as people approach the cusp between life and death."
"But you also study Lazarus People, whom you believe may already have been on that cusp."
"Yes. And, of course, we provide any continuing medical treatment that's required. I'm sure you've seen our hospital, farther up the mountain." "What kind of medical treatment do you provide?"
"The best, but standard—if there is such a thing. We're not a medical research facility, Veil; this is psychological research. Lazarus People, naturally, don't require medical treatment, unless they become ill from something else while they're here. As for the others, they've already run through the gamut of medical treatment by the time they get here. They come here to share their deaths with us, Veil, not to look for a cure. There's nothing more that medicine can do for them, except make them more comfortable."
"And what you've just described to me is all that's happening on this mountain?"
Sharon flushed slightly. "Well, 'all that's happening' isn't exactly the way I'd choose to put it, but I suppose the answer to your question is, yes—that's it. It's a terribly complex field of study, but our procedures are simple. This isn't a large facility, and you've seen what I do."
"No secret research here? No Pentagon-funded studies?"
"Of course not."
"Could anyone conduct research projects here without you being aware of it?"
"You must be joking."
"Sharon, I assure you I'm not joking."
"It would be impossible. Besides, what would be the purpose?"
"That's what I'm asking you."
"And I've given you an answer. Veil, why are you so suspicious?"
He finished his drink and lit another cigarette. "Remember the soul-catching phenomenon you told me about?"
"Of course. It's part of the Lazarus Syndrome—but very rare."
"Is it? What you describe as soul-catching is something I've experienced all my life—or at least as long as I've been getting into serious trouble, which covers quite a few years."
There was prolonged silence as Sharon stared at him, her lips slightly parted and her eyes filled with confusion. Finally she swallowed hard and shook her head. "A bell inside your head? A chiming sound?"
"Precisely as you described it."
The woman lifted her hands in a gesture of bewilderment, let them fall into her lap. "Veil, I don't know what to say, except that I'm astonished."
"Jonathan wasn't."
"What?"
"I told Jonathan about it, during the course of one of our earlier conversations. He didn't even twitch. In light of what you've told me about Lazarus People and soul-catching, I would have thought he might have said something when I mentioned it."
"I would have thought so too," Sharon said softly, staring at the wall over Veil's left shoulder. "I'll have to ask him about it."
"I'd appreciate it if you'd hold off on that. I'd like to talk to Jonathan about it—in my own time and in my own way."
Sharon thought about it, finally nodded. "All right. Jonathan must have had a good reason. ..." Her words trailed off as she half turned in her chair and stared into the shadows in a corner of the room.
"Sharon, I almost died at birth. Could that make me a Lazarus Person?"
The woman looked back and slowly blinked, as if she were having trouble concentrating on Veil's words. "If so, it would be a first. All of the Lazarus People we've studied had the near-death experience which changed them as adolescents or adults, after they had a fully developed human consciousness and memory pattern. Did you suffer clinical death again as an adult?"
"No."
"But you've been in the kind of dangerous situation that would trigger the soul-catching response?"
"Once or twice," Veil said, suppressing a grim smile. "In any case, the fact that I almost died at birth had nothing to do with the reason why I was invited here."