plane and the start of the spread — but there is still a chance, Everett. We can hold them here in New York City. Listen — vampires can’t cross bodies of moving water. So we quarantine the island, seal off every bridge—”
“I don’t have that kind of control here — you know that.”
A train announcement broadcast from overhead speakers. “I’m in Penn Station, by the way, Everett. Send the FBI if you like. I’ll be gone well before they arrive.”
“Ephraim…come back in. I promise you a fair shot at convincing me, at convincing everyone. Let’s work on this together.”
“No,” said Eph. “You just said you don’t have that kind of control. These vampires — and that’s what they are, Everett — they are viruses incarnate, and they are going to burn through this city until there are none of us left. Quarantine is the one and only answer. If I see news that you’re moving in that direction, then maybe I’ll consider coming back in to help. Until then, Everett—”
Eph hung the receiver up on its hook. Nora and Setrakian waited for him to say something, but an entry on Jim’s phone log had piqued Eph’s interest. Each one of Jim’s contacts was entered last name first, all except one. A local exchange, to which Jim had made a series of calls within the past few days. Eph picked up the landline and pressed zero and waited through the computer responses until he got a real Verizon operator.
“Yes, I have a number in my phone and I can’t remember who it connects to, and I’d like to save myself some embarrassment before placing a call. It’s a 212 exchange, so I believe it is a landline. Can you do a reverse lookup?”
He read her the number and heard fingers clicking on a keyboard.
“That number is registered to the seventy-seventh floor of the Stoneheart Group. Would you like the building address?”
“I would.”
He covered the mouthpiece and said to Nora, “Why was Jim calling someone at the Stoneheart Group?”
“Stoneheart?” said Nora. “You mean that old man’s investment company?”
“Investment guru,” said Eph. “Second-richest man in the country, I think. Something Palmer.”
Setrakian said, “Eldritch Palmer.”
Eph looked at him. He saw consternation on the professor’s face. “What about him?”
“This man, Jim Kent,” said Setrakian. “He was not your friend.”
Nora said, “What do you mean? Of course he was…”
Eph hung up after getting the address. He then highlighted the number on the screen of Jim’s phone and pressed send.
The number rang. No answer, no voice-mail recording.
Eph hung up, still staring at the phone.
Nora said, “Remember the administrator for the isolation ward, after the survivors left isolation? She said she had called, Jim said she hadn’t — then he said he just missed some calls?”
Eph nodded. It didn’t make any sense. He looked at Setrakian. “What do you know about this guy Palmer?”
“Many years ago he came to me for help in finding someone. Someone I was also keenly interested in finding.”
“Sardu,” guessed Nora.
“He had the funding, I had the knowledge. But the arrangement ended after only a few months. I came to understand that we were searching for Sardu for two very different reasons.”
Nora said, “Was he the one who ruined you at the university?”
Setrakian said, “I always suspected.”
Jim’s phone buzzed in Eph’s hand. The phone did not recognize the number, but it was a local New York exchange. A callback from someone at Stoneheart, maybe. Eph answered it.
“Yeah,” said the voice, “is this the CDC?”
“Who is calling?”
The voice was gruff and deep. “I’m looking for the disease guy from the Canary project who’s in all that trouble. Any way you can put me through to him?”
Eph suspected a trap. “What do you want him for?”
“I’m calling from outside a house in Bushwick, here in Brooklyn. I’ve got two dead eclipse hysterics in the basement. Who didn’t like the sun. This mean anything to you?”
Eph felt a tingle of excitement. “Who is this?”
“My name is Fet. Vasiliy Fet. I’m with the city’s pest control, an exterminator who’s also working a pilot program for integrated pest management in lower Manhattan. It’s funded by a seven hundred and fifty thousand dollar grant from the CDC. How I have this phone number. Am I right in guessing that this is Goodweather?”
Eph hesitated a moment. “It is.”
“I guess you could say that I work for you. Nobody else I could think to bring this to. But I’m seeing signs all over the city.”
Eph said, “It’s not the eclipse.”
“I think I know that. I think you need to get over here. Because I’ve got something you need to see.”
Eph had two stops to make on the way. One alone, and one with Nora and Setrakian.
Eph’s CDC credentials got him through a security checkpoint in the main lobby of the Stoneheart Building, but not past a second checkpoint on the seventy-seventh floor, where an elevator change was necessary to gain access to the top ten floors of the Midtown building.
Two immense bodyguards stood upon the massive brass Stoneheart Group logo, inlaid in the onyx floor. Behind them, movers in overalls crossed the lobby, rolling large pieces of medical equipment on dollies.
Eph asked to see Eldritch Palmer.
The larger of the two bodyguards almost smiled. A shoulder holster bulged conspicuously beneath his suit jacket. “Mr. Palmer does not accept visitors without an appointment.”
Eph recognized one of the machines being dismantled and crated. It was a Fresenius dialysis machine. An expensive piece of hospital-grade equipment.
“You’re packing up,” said Eph. “Moving house. Getting out of New York while the getting’s good. But won’t Mr. Palmer need his kidney machine?”
The bodyguards didn’t answer, didn’t even turn to look.
Eph understood it then. Or thought he did.
They met up again outside Jim and Sylvia’s place, a high-rise on the Upper East Side.
Setrakian said, “It was Palmer who brought the Master into America. Why he is willing to risk everything — even the future of the human race — in order to further his own ends.”
“Which are?” said Nora.
Setrakian said, “I believe Eldritch Palmer intends to live forever.”
Eph said, “Not if we can do anything about it.”
“I applaud your determination,” said Setrakian. “But with his wealth and influence, my old acquaintance has every advantage. This is his endgame, you realize. There is no going back for him. He will do whatever it takes to achieve his goal.”
Eph couldn’t afford to think in big-picture terms or else he might discover that he was fighting a losing battle. He focused on the task at hand. “What did you find out?”
Setrakian said, “My brief visit to the New York Historical Society bore fruit. The property in question was completely rebuilt by a bootlegger and smuggler who made his fortune during Prohibition. His home was raided numerous times but never more than a pint of illicit brew was seized, due, it was said, to a web of tunnels and underground breweries — some of those tunnels were expanded later to accommodate underground subway lines.”
Eph looked at Nora. “What about you?”
“The same. And that Bolivar bought the property expressly because it was an old bootlegger’s pad, and
