eyes.”
Stern stared at the hole between his feet. “Okay, okay. But please, I’ve got children and grandchildren.”
“A deal. You show me the stuff, and I’ll let you live.”
“Swear on your life.”
“I swear.”
Stern stared at Roman for a long moment. “They’re in my laptop.” He got up and led Roman into the kitchen and to a narrow set of stairs leading to the second floor. In a small corner office with a window was a desk with a computer monitor and stacks of papers.
“Play it.”
Stern clicked the mouse and ran the first video of Zachary Kashian in a soundproof chamber wearing a motorcycle helmet with wires. Stern explained how they had stimulated parts of his brain and how he had emerged claiming he sensed his dead father. The next video showed Zack in suspension, shots of the various monitors, computer images of his brain. Then his awaking and requesting root beer, which proved the kid had an out-of-the- body experience. Then clips of him coming out of near-death experiences, claiming he’d killed people. Stern explained that the other scientists believed that Kashian’s spirit had merged with that of his dead father.
“Is that something you believe?”
“I think it’s some kind of paranormal thing like ESP. But I’m not convinced.”
“So you’re not buying that his spirit merged with his dead father’s.”
“No.”
“Even though the others claim he’s got this hot God lobe.”
Stern nodded.
After reviewing more videos, Roman packed Stern’s laptop and slung it over his shoulder.
“What are you going to do?”
“You’re coming with me.”
“Where?”
“Your cellar.”
“My cellar? What for?”
“To keep you from jumping on 911 soon as I walk out of here.” He jabbed the pistol into Stern’s back. “Downstairs.”
Stern led them to a door that led into the basement, a small dim place with one wall of granite boulders that formed one flank of the foundations. The other walls had been finished off. The ceiling was maybe seven feet high, consisting of beams and wallboard. Some beams looked original, with hooks for drying meat in the olden times.
From his briefcase Roman pulled out a length of rope. “Turn around.” He wrapped the rope loosely around his hands. Then he removed a sleep mask. “And where exactly is the lab?”
Stern rattled off directions as Roman jotted them down. “Who else works there?”
He named names, beginning with Sarah Wyman.
“Do she and Kashian have a thing going on?”
“Not that I know of.”
“And Elizabeth Luria’s in charge.”
“Yes.”
“Back to Zachary Kashian. Is he special?”
“How do you mean special?”
“Is he divine?”
“Divine?” Stern gave him a perplexed look. “No. He’s a neurological anomaly, at best maybe psychic. But he’s as mortal as you and I.”
“Then how do you explain his channeling Jesus?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it was a paranormal experience. Maybe he memorized it as a child.”
“Any reason to believe he was lying about his experiences?”
“No.”
The man had settled into the charade as his body relaxed. And that was good. “Would you say that he’s evil?”
“Evil? No, he’s not evil.”
Roman slipped the mask across Stern’s eyes. “Two more questions, and then we’re done. Do you believe in God?”
There was a moment’s hesitation as his body appeared to stiffen. “No. I don’t.”
“Well, you’re wrong. God exists.”
Stern said nothing.
“What about the devil? Do you believe in Satan?”
“No.”
And in a flash Roman slipped a length of clothesline over a beam hook and a noosed end around Stern’s neck. With all his body weight, Roman pulled the rope, causing Stern’s body nearly to lift off the ground. The man kicked and twisted as the rope dug into his neck, cutting off blood to his brain. In less than a minute, he stopped twitching as his body went limp. With a few quick twists of the loose end around the hook, Stern’s body weight did the rest.
“Well, you’re wrong there, too,” Roman said, and left.
72
“You don’t even know if he’s alive,” Sarah said.
“I think he is,” Zack said as he drove. “And I think he’s dying.”
“Based on what?”
“The last NDE—Gretch shot him in the side. And I felt it. I still do.” He pulled up his shirt to show clear, unbroken skin. “But it hurts, and I think he needs help.” He headed down Huntington Avenue and took a left onto Forsyth and from there to Storrow Drive, heading east, feeling a dim hum in his mind just above the threshold of awareness.
“This is crazy. You said yourself the toxin creates delusions.”
“That was him in the video.”
“But it was grainy. You couldn’t see his face. Besides, that was three years ago.”
Zack felt a blister of petulance rise. “Sarah, I recognize the shape of his head. I also saw him dig himself out,” he said. “And I saw him kill those people.” At the end of Storrow Drive, near Mass General Hospital, he turned into the lane for Route 93 North. “I felt the bullet go into him, like it was me.”
“You heard Morris. They could be just scraps in your unconscious—things you put together. Flash dream stuff.”
“He also said my mind merged with another.”
“But that wasn’t confirmed.”
Her insistence that he was yielding to some mystical instinct was making him anxious. “Then tell me how I knew about those deaths?”
“Your suspensions happened after they died. So maybe you read about them and forgot, and maybe you thought you experienced them in suspension.”
The traffic had slowed to a crawl just before the turnoff to 93 North. To their right was Massachusetts General Hospital. Except for the coma, the only other time Zack had been in a hospital was at his birth twenty-five years ago. His mother said he had been born with a caul. She also said that according to legend, people born with cauls were supposed to be mystical, have special powers. “Maybe.”
Not so long ago, Sarah had sat across from him at the Grafton Street Pub & Grill and talked about the wondrous possibilities of transcending the physical world, of there being no death. And now she was telling him it was probably delusions. And that whatever instinct he was following was just his imagination. “Then how do you explain Luria’s claim? She said they’d identified his neuroprofile and that I merged with him last night.”
