“You shoulda taken a flu shot, man. Flu shots keep that crap from happening.”
“Yeah, next time.” Karr exhaled as slowly as he could, trying to force his body into concentrating. The tiny hamlet he’d pointed them toward lay down the slope at about three o’clock, roughly two miles off. He thought of sending Gidrey there by himself but decided that wasn’t the best solution; the Art Room would be tracking him, not the Marine.
“All right, let’s go,” said Karr. “We got to get to that field near the village before nightfall.”
“Christ, it better not take us that long,” said Gidrey.
“At this point, if we get there this year I’ll be happy,” said Karr. He tried to smile but couldn’t quite pull it off.
60
Johnny Bib stared at the Escher print in Dr. Kegan’s kitchen, trying to work out the topographical solution to the visual puzzle. Two spheres seemed to exist within each other, but the mathematician knew this was just a metaphor for the formula that allowed a five-dimensional space to be conjured into a three-dimensional object.
Unless it was supposed to be a two-holed doughnut in four dimensions. In that case, it would be a clever reference to the Poincare Conjecture.
Or was the artist simply depicting a doughnut and a sphere coexisting: a metaphor for the universe stated in its two essential shapes?
The secure sat phone rang as Johnny debated the point.
“Johnny Bibleria.”
“Yes, Johnny, I was hoping it would be you.”
Johnny sensed that Rubens was being satirical, but he wasn’t quite sure.
“Are you familiar with Escher?” Johnny asked him.
“Of course. Listen, Johnny, I need you to come back to Fort Meade and help out your team. We’ve been trying to link the man found there with UKD and we’re having a devil of a time. It was hard enough linking the Greek that met Charlie Dean with them, but this man. I need more information on the Dulugsko group—”
“Since you’re not coming up with anything further there,” said Rubens, “I’d like you to get back. I have a helicopter en route.”
“I was just examining this Escher print,” said Johnny. “I realize it’s a metaphor.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Poincare.”
Poincare was a famous mathematician who had posed a simple — or seemingly simple — question about spheres. No one had been able to prove that his guess about the answer was right. It remained one of math’s great problems — but Rubens couldn’t imagine what its relevance was here. “What the hell are you getting at?”
“Two essential shapes, sphere and doughnut. They don’t go into each other.”
“I don’t need a lesson on topology, for christsakes.”
“Unrelated. Is that the metaphor? Yet they coexist.”
Baffled, Rubens said nothing.
“Was the man meant to poison him? But then it couldn’t have been our Polish friend, since he wanted something,” said Johnny, gazing at the print.
“I’m going to send a helicopter, Johnny. I want you back here.”
“A helicopter? I don’t want to fly.”
“You must. There is no other option.”
Johnny Bib closed his eyes. There was no arguing with Rubens when he spoke in that sort of tone..
“Okay,” said Johnny Bib. “But…”
“But what?”
“Would anyone mind if I brought the Escher print?”
“Take the whole wall if you have to. Just get down here.”
61
It took two hours to walk the two miles to the village but seemed considerably longer to Karr. The pain in his body surged and then dropped off, only to surge again. His fever likewise seemed to wax and wane, occasionally replaced by violent chills. He started shaking uncontrollably as they reached the edge of the field.
“Gotta rest,” he told Gidrey. He went to sit and sprawled on the ground.
“You okay?”
“I’m real thirsty.”
“I’ll be back,” said the Marine. “Give me your gun.”
“Uh-huh.”
Karr closed his eyes, resting his head in the thick weeds. Warmth seemed to wrap itself over his face, a blanket covering his body.
His mind drifted; he thought he heard Lia calling to him.
“Hey, princess, what the hell are you doing?”
“Looking for you, asshole.”
“That’s sweet.”
“You’re dying, Tommy Karr.”
“Screw that,” said Karr, the wave of heat once more rushing up from his chest. “Just taking a nap.”
62
“They’re in a small village about seventy kilometers from the border,” said Sandy Chafetz. “One group of guerrillas seems to be following their trail, but it’s not clear.”
Rubens pressed his arms together in front of his chest. “Let’s get them out of there,” said Rubens.
Chafetz looked up at Telach, who was leaning against the runner’s consoles. The Art Room supervisor looked spent, as tired as Rubens had ever seen her.
“I’m working on it, chief,” said Telach. “The Army has all the resources over in the other end of the country.”
“What other resources are available?” asked Rubens, knowing the inevitable answer.
“CIA has some contract people. But I have to talk to Deputy Director Collins.”
The one thing that Rubens hated more than having to draw on CIA assets was having to go through Collins to get them. Collins, who headed the Operations Directorate, had been in the running to head Deep Black and still felt she should have had the job — and that the organization should have been part of the CIA.
“Boss?”
“Yes, of course, go ahead.”
“I have the Puff/1 en route. It’ll keep an eye on them until we can get in there.”
“How long?”
“Few hours maybe. I’ll know soon.”
“It’ll be nightfall.”
Telach pursed her lips.
“Why isn’t his radio working anyway?” Rubens asked.
