book tattooed on her arm. She began explaining to Will the hospital’s visitor policy when she suddenly stopped and gave him a closer look over her half-rimmed glasses. “You’re the one in his photograph.”
“Am I?”
“His only photo. He doesn’t get visitors, you know. Occasionally someone from the government with a special pass who’s in and out in a minute. You say you’re a friend?”
“Yes.”
“Come with me. I’m going to make an exception.”
The sight of Shackleton in his bed was shocking because he had gotten so small and inconsequential. There had never been much in the way of meat on his bones, but a year of coma and subsistence nutrition had produced a living skeleton with waxy yellow skin and sharply protruding bones. Will could have lifted him as easily as he could his infant son.
He was on his side, staged in a daily rotation to prevent pressure sores. His eyes were open but clouded over by a film, and his mouth was fixed in a permanent oval gape, showing brownish teeth. A filthy Lakers cap was tight on his bald head, covering up the indentation from his devastating wound. He was covered by a sheet from the waist down. His chest and arms were concentration-camp-thin, his hands flexed into claws. His chest moved dramatically, each breath a sudden gasp. One plastic bag drained into his body: white liquid dripping into a gastric feeding tube. One plastic bag drained out: urine from a catheter.
On his bedside table there was a single framed photo. The four college roommates at their twenty-fifth Harvard reunion. Jim Zeckendorf beaming on one end, Alex Dinnerstein at the other. In the middle, Shackleton with a forced smile wearing the same Lakers cap, standing next to Will, who was a full head taller, photogenic, and easy.
The nurse said, “When they went to his house, that was the only photo he had, so they brought it here, which was nice. Who are the other men?”
“We were roommates at college.”
“You can tell he was a smart man even though he doesn’t talk.”
“Does anyone think he’s going to come out of this?” Will asked.
“Heavens, no!” the nurse exclaimed. “This is as good as he’ll ever be. The lights are on, but Lord knows that nobody’s home.”
She left Will at the bedside. He pulled up a chair and sat a foot away from the rails, staring into Shackleton’s empty eyes. He wanted to hate him. This unhappy little man had snared him like a rabbit and drawn him down into his mad world. He had force-fed him knowledge of the Library and sent his life spinning off into a strange orbit. Maybe it was all predestined, meant to be, but this pathetic man had willfully plotted to muck up Will’s life, and he had succeeded spectacularly.
But now he couldn’t muster hatred against this half-dead, creature, gasping like a fish out of water, whose face resembled the openmouthed, anguished character in Munch’s painting, The Scream. He could only feel a dull sadness for a life wasted.
He didn’t bother to speak to him, in the hopeful manner of the naive bedside visitor to the comatose. He just sat there and used the time to think about his own life, the choices he’d made, the paths traveled and those not. All the times he’d made decisions that had consequences affecting the lives of others, had each decision been predetermined by an unseen hand? Was he responsible for his own actions or not? Did planning his next move matter? Whatever was going to happen was going to happen, right? Maybe he wouldn’t go back to the warehouse and spend a miserable night looking for the memory stick. Maybe he’d just strip off his shirt and spend the night lying on the beach, watching the stars. Maybe that was the next move on the grand chessboard.
Will’s brain wasn’t wired to be overly philosophical. He was a practical man who operated by instinct and action. If he was hungry, he ate. If he was horny, he found a woman. If a marriage or a relationship made him unhappy, he left it. If he had a job, he did it. If there was a killer, he’d track him down.
Now he was a husband again. And a father again. He had a great wife and a son full of promise. He needed to dwell on them. Nancy and the baby had to guide his decision-making. If there were other forces at play, so be it. He shouldn’t over-think things. His next move was getting the memory stick. Then he’d metaphorically ram it up Frazier’s ass.
He felt better, more like the old Will.
And what about 2027?
End of days or not, it was years away. He had seventeen years to make up for five decades of selfishness. There was time to redeem himself.
It was a pretty good deal.
“Thanks, asshole,” he said to Shackleton.
Chapter 35
On the way back to the warehouse, Will made one good phone call and two bad ones.
Nancy wasn’t alone any longer. Will’s daughter and son-in-law had just arrived to keep her company at the lake and stay until Will returned. She sounded happily distracted, and Will could hear the pleasant sounds of cooking in the background.
The other calls were troubling. Dane didn’t answer his cell phone. A second call to the motel rang through, but no one picked up in the room. The clerk confirmed he had checked in. Will figured him for a heavy sleeper but was queasy, nonetheless.
At Area 51, Dane’s cell phone registered the missed-call number of Will’s prepaid mobile. A tech at the Ops Center picked up that number’s beacon just north of Long Beach, heading north. He called Frazier with the news.
Frazier grunted. It was good to know Piper’s mobile number, but hopefully he wouldn’t need it. He had Will under direct visual, and if all went well, he’d be in custody soon enough, and Frazier would have the database.
Then he’d swoop down on Henry Spence and pick up whatever it was that Piper had found in England.
He looked forward to getting Lester off his ass. He wanted to report that he’d done his job, the threat was over, their targets neutralized. He wanted to hear the bureaucrat fawn over him for a change. Then he’d take a few days off, maybe stain his deck or do something else pleasantly ordinary. At the one-week point from the Caracas Event, the base would be on lockdown, and he’d be living there twenty-four/seven.
It was still too early to make his move, so Will stopped for dinner a couple of miles from the warehouse. In the parking lot of the Chinese restaurant, he tried unsuccessfully to reach Dane again. This time he left a message on his voice mail: “It’s Will. It’s five thirty. Been trying to reach you. This is taking longer than expected. Call me as soon as you get this message.”
An hour later, he was still there, full of moo-shu pork and up to his gills in green tea. The restaurant had a nice bar, and there was plenty of alcohol to be had, but he kept pouring himself the wretched tea instead.
Before leaving, he cracked open his fortune cookie: The smart thing is to prepare for the unexpected. Thanks for that, he thought.
As he turned the corner into the warehouse parking lot, Will held his breath. It was empty. Blessedly, no second shift. It was a half hour past sunset and the rapidly diminishing light gave him comfort though he would have preferred pitch blackness. He drove around the building twice to make sure he was going to be okay, then parked around the side and made for the front door. The purloined security badge turned the little red light on the magnetic pad green, and the door clicked open. He was in.
He steeled himself for a security guard, but the lobby and reception desk were empty, lit only by a single lamp. The card worked a second time, and he was inside the main warehouse.
It wasn’t completely dark. A handful of ceiling fluorescents were on, illuminating the vast space in a highly dilutive glow.
The first thing that caught his eyes were the robots, a row of them at the front of the room. They were like giant TV sets without screens. Each one had an open box-shaped compartment with a V-shaped wooden support designed to securely hold a book by elasticized cover straps.
At the machine closest to him, a robotic arm was frozen in action, shut down for the night, grasping a page in
