fluid and chemicals. The resemblance to a hospital grew stronger-and yet it seemed to be a hospital without patients; the few people they passed were dressed in street clothes, ambulatory, and obviously healthy. Logan peered curiously into the open doorways as they walked by. He saw conference rooms, a large, empty lecture hall with seats for at least a hundred, laboratories bristling with equipment, what appeared to be a reference library full of paperbound journals and dedicated terminals. More strangely, he noticed several apparently identical rooms, each containing a single narrow bed with literally dozens-if not hundreds-of wires leading to nearby monitoring instruments. Other doors were closed, their small windows covered by privacy curtains. A group of men and women in white lab coats passed them in the hallway. They glanced at Logan, nodded to Rush.
Stopping before a door marked DIRECTOR, Rush opened it and beckoned Logan through an anteroom housing two secretaries and a profusion of bookcases into a private office beyond. It was tastefully decorated, as minimalist as the outer office was crowded. Three of the walls held spare postmodernist paintings in cool blues and grays; the fourth wall appeared to be entirely of glass, covered at the moment by blinds.
In the center of the room was a teakwood table, polished to a brilliant gleam and flanked by two leather chairs. Rush took one and ushered Logan toward the other.
“Can I offer you anything?” the director asked. “Coffee, tea, soda?”
Logan shook his head.
Rush crossed one leg over the other. “Jeremy, I have to be frank. I wasn’t sure you’d be willing to take on this assignment, given how busy you are… and how closemouthed I was concerning the particulars.”
“You weren’t sure-even given the fee I charged?”
Rush smiled. “It’s true-your fee is certainly healthy. But then your, ah, work has become somewhat high profile recently.” He hesitated. “What is it you call your profession again?”
“I’m an enigmalogist.”
“Right. An enigmalogist.” Rush glanced curiously at Logan. “And it’s true you were able to document the existence of the Loch Ness monster?”
“You’d have to take that up with my client for that particular assignment, the University of Edinburgh.”
“Serves me right for asking.” Rush paused. “Speaking of universities, you are a professor, aren’t you?”
“Medieval history. At Yale.”
“And what do they think of your other profession at Yale?”
“High visibility is never a problem. It helps guarantee a large admissions pool.” Logan glanced around the office. He’d often found that new clients preferred to talk about his past accomplishments. It postponed discussion of their own problems.
“I remember those… investigations you did at the Peabody Institute and the Applied Physics Lab back in school,” Rush said. “Who would have thought they’d lead you to this?”
“Not me, certainly.” Logan shifted in his seat. “So. Care to tell me just what CTS stands for? Nothing around here seems to give any clue.”
“We do keep our cards pretty close to our vest. Center for Transmortality Studies.”
“Transmortality Studies,” Logan repeated.
Rush nodded. “I founded CTS two years ago.”
Logan glanced at him in surprise. “You founded the Center?”
Rush took a deep breath. A grim look came over his face. “You see, Jeremy, it’s like this. Just over three years ago, I was working an ER shift when my wife, Jennifer, was brought in by paramedics. She’d been in a terrible accident and was completely unresponsive. We tried everything-heart massage, paddles-but it was hopeless. It was the worst moment of my life. There I was, not only unable to save my own wife… but I was expected to pronounce her dead, as well.”
Logan shook his head in sympathy.
“Except that I didn’t. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Against the advice of the assisting doctors I continued heroic measures.” He leaned forward. “And, Jeremy-she pulled through. I finally revived her, fourteen minutes after all brain function had ceased.”
“How?”
Rush spread his hands. “It was a miracle. Or so it seemed at the time. It was the most amazing experience you can imagine. It was revelatory, life altering. To have pulled her back from the brink…” He fell briefly silent. “At that moment, the scales fell from my eyes. My life’s work was suddenly revealed. I left Rhode Island Hospital and my practice as an anesthesiologist, and I’ve been studying near-death experiences ever since.”
The life-changing event, Logan thought. Aloud, he said, “Transmortality studies.”
“Exactly. Documenting the various manifestations, trying to analyze and codify the phenomenon. You’d be surprised, Jeremy, how many people have undergone near-death experiences and-in particular-how many similarities they share. Once you’ve come back from the brink, you’re never quite the same. As you might guess, it’s something that stays with you-and with your loved ones.” He swept his hand around the office. “It was almost no effort to raise the money for the Center, all this. Plenty of people who have had near-death experiences are passionately interested in sharing those experiences and learning more about what they might mean.”
“So what goes on at the Center, exactly?” Logan asked.
“At heart, we’re a small community of doctors and researchers-most with relatives or friends who have ‘gone over.’ Survivors of NDEs are invited here to stay for a few weeks or months, to document precisely what happened to them and undergo various batteries of tests.”
“Tests?” Logan asked.
Rush nodded. “Although we’ve been operational only eighteen months now, a great deal of research has been conducted already-and a number of findings made.”
“But, as you say, you’ve kept it all pretty hush-hush.”
Rush smiled. “You can imagine what the good residents of Pevensey Point would say if they knew exactly who had taken over the old Coast Guard training base down the road, or why.”
“Yes, I can.” They’d say you were tampering with fate, he thought. Messing with people brought back from the dead. Now he began to have some idea why his own expertise had been called for. “So exactly what’s been going on here that I can help you with?”
A look of surprise briefly crossed Rush’s face. “Oh, you misunderstand. Nothing’s happening here.”
Logan hesitated. “You’re right-I do misunderstand. If the problem you’re experiencing isn’t here, then why was I summoned?”
“Sorry to be evasive, Jeremy. I can tell you more once you’re on board.”
“But I am on board. That’s why I’m here.”
In reply, Rush stood and walked to the far wall. “No.” And with a single tug, he opened the blinds, exposing a wall of windows. Beyond lay the airstrip Logan had noticed on his arrival. But from this vantage, he could see the runway wasn’t empty after all: it was occupied by a Learjet 85, sleek and gleaming in the noonday sun. Rush extended a finger toward it.
“Once you’re on board that,” he said.
2
There were five people on the plane: a crew of two, Logan, Rush, and a CTS staffer bearing two laptops and several folders stuffed with what appeared to be lab results. Once the jet was airborne, Ethan Rush excused himself and walked to the rear to meet with the staffer. Logan fished the latest issue of Nature out of his duffel bag and browsed through it, looking for any new discoveries-or anomalies-that might interest him professionally. Then, feeling drowsy, he set the magazine aside and closed his eyes, intending to doze for five or ten minutes. But when he awoke it was dark outside and Logan felt the disoriented haze of a long, deep sleep. Rush looked over at him from the seat across the aisle.
“Where are we?” Logan asked.
“Coming into Heathrow.” He nodded at the staffer, still sitting in the rear. “Sorry about that-like you, I don’t know exactly how long I’m going to be away, and there was some CTS business that couldn’t wait for my return.”
