“THOMAS.”
A sweet voice. Calling his name. Like honey. Thomas.
“Thomas, wake up.”
A woman’s voice. Her hand was on his cheek. He was waking, but he wasn’t sure if he was really awake yet. The hand on his cheek could be part of a dream. For a moment he let it be a dream.
He relished that dream. This was Rachelle’s hand on his cheek. The strong-headed woman who kept showing him up with her fighting moves.
“Thomas?”
His eyes snapped open. Kara. He gasped and jerked up.
“Thomas, are you okay?” Kara, face white, stood back staring at the bed. “What is this?” But Thomas’s eyes were on the air conditioner where rolled white sheets had been cut and Monique had been freed. She was gone.
“Thomas! Talk to me!”
“What?” He looked at her. “What’s—” The sheets were wet. Soaked in red. Blood?
Thomas scrambled out of the bed. He’d been lying on sheets soaked in his blood. He grabbed his chest and belly as visions of the attacker shooting into his body flashed through his mind. Two silenced shots. Phewt! Phewt!
Yes, there was that, but, more important, there was the lake and the boy. He looked up at Kara.
“God is real,” he said.
“What?”
“God. He’s . . . wow.” His head spun with the memory of the lake. He could feel a wild grin tempt his face, but his mind wasn’t working in full cooperation with all of his muscles yet.
“Well, at least I dreamed that he’s real,” he said. “Not just real, like wow he exists, but . . . real, like you can talk to him. I mean, maybe touch him.”
“Very nice,” she said. “In the meantime, here, where I live, we’re standing next to a bed covered in your blood!”
“I was shot,” he said.
She stared at him, unbelieving. “Are you sure? Where?”
“Right here. And here.” He showed her. Chest and gut. “I swear I was shot. Someone broke in; we fought; he shot me. And then he must have taken Monique.”
“I called you. Was that before or after?”
“You called before. He was here when you called.” Suddenly Bangkok was making more sense than the lake. “Actually, I think your call unnerved him. The point is . . .” Yes, what was the point?
“The point is what?”
“I’m not dead.”
Kara looked at his stomach. Then his eyes. “I don’t get it. You’re saying that you were healed in your dreams?”
“It’s not the first time.”
“But you were shot, right? You were shot and killed. How’s that possible?”
“I don’t know that I was killed. I lost consciousness. But there, in my dreams, I was lying on the shores of the lake. The air was full of mist from the waterfall. Water. The water is what heals. I was probably healed before I could die.”
He pulled the sheets from the bed, grabbed the mattress. Flipped it over. Kara hadn’t removed her stare.
“You’re dead serious.”
“No, not dead.”
She looked away, paced to the end of the bed. Turned back. “Do you understand the implications?”
“I don’t know, do I?” He quickly untied the homemade ropes from the air conditioner. “There’s a lot I’m not clear on. But one thing I am sure of is that Monique is gone. The guy who took her wasn’t your everyday thug.”
She was still preoccupied with his healing. Thomas stopped.
“Look, I’m not indestructible, if that’s what you’re thinking. There’s no way.”
“And how would you know?”
“Because I think you’re right—both realities are real, at least in some ways. Evidently, if I get shot here and then fall asleep and get water poured on me there before I die, I get healed. But if I get killed here and there’s no water around to heal me, I just might die.”
“You’re like Wolverine or somebody now? You get hit in the head or shot in the chest, and there’s not a mark on you! That’s incredible!”
It was incredible. But there was more, wasn’t there? A simple bit of information that had nagged at him since he’d talked to Teeleh, that bat in the other place. The details began to buzz in his brain, and he felt the first hints of panic.
“Well, that’s not all,” he said. “For starters, I’m pretty sure that the guy who shot me and took Monique is the guy who’s going to blackmail the world with the Raison Strain.”
Thomas began to pace. He’d bundled up the bloody sheets and now held them in his right hand.
“Or at least the guy works for whoever is planning this. That’s not all. I’m pretty sure that the only way they even know the Raison Vaccine has the potential to mutate into a deadly virus is because I spilled the beans to someone who told them.”
“That can’t be. That would mean without you the mutation wouldn’t happen? You’re saying you’re the cause of this thing?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying. I learn about the Raison Strain as a matter of history in my dreams, I tell someone, ‘Hey, such and such is going to happen,’ and they decide to make such and such actually happen. Like a self-fulfilling prophecy. If I’d kept my mouth shut and not told the State Department or the CDC, no one would even know the Raison Strain was possible.”
She chewed on that for a moment. “So you’ve caused the very virus you’re trying to stop? That’s a trip.”
“Where can we stash these sheets?”
“Under the bed.” They stuffed the bedding under the frame.
“But if that’s true,” Kara said, “can’t you change something now that would ruin the rest of what happens? You go back to the histories, find out that X-Y-Z happened, then return and make sure that doesn’t happen.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. I can’t get information about the histories that easily anymore.”
“What about the black forest?”
“I went to the black forest! I’m not going back again, no way!”
“What if it’s a dream? And it saves us here?”
“There’s more.” Thomas turned slowly, remembering his conversation with Teeleh. But there was something he was missing from it, he was sure. He’d gone to prove himself to Monique, and he’d done that. But he’d also learned about the antivirus.
He’d repeated the antivirus.
“What if . . .” A chill snaked down his spine. He turned back to Kara, stunned by the thought. “What if I inadvertently told them how to do it?”
“To make the virus?”
“No, they know that. Intense heat. They can figure it out. But that doesn’t do anyone any good. You put the virus in the air and three weeks later, everyone’s dead. Including the person who releases it. But if you have an antivirus, a cure or a vaccine to the virus, you can—”
“Control it,” Kara finished. “The threat of force. Like having the only nuclear arsenal in the world.”
“And I think I might have given it to them.”
“How?”
“Teeleh. He tricked me. Just before he gave me the information, he cut me.” He was speaking through a daze, as if to himself. “I could swear I heard myself saying it out loud.”
“So then you also have it. What good is the virus to them, if you have the antivirus?”
“Do I?” He cocked his head. He couldn’t remember it. “I . . . can’t think of it right now.”
“I’m not going to pretend to understand all of this, but we have to get out of here. The police bought my story, and I talked to Monique’s father. I called because he agreed to hold the shipments. I nearly killed myself getting here unseen when you didn’t pick up. I think I can get us in to see Raison, but he’s pretty bent out of shape. When he finds out that Monique’s gone again . . .”
She sighed.
They left the room looking lived in but not massacred.
“You what?”
The sharp nose on Jacques de Raison’s angular face was red, and for good reason. He’d just lost, then found, then lost his daughter, all within eight hours.
“I didn’t lose her,” Thomas objected. “She was taken from me. You think I would take her just to lose her?” He glanced from the dark-haired Raison to Kara and then back. He had to get the situation back in hand. Or at the very least back in mind.
“Please, if you’ll have a seat, I’ll try to explain.”
Jacques glared at him, tall and commanding, the kind of man who had grown accustomed to getting what he wanted. He sat in a wing chair by his desk, eyes fixed on Thomas.
“I’ll give you five minutes. Then I call the authorities. Three governments are looking for you, Mr. Hunter. I’m quite sure they’ll make quick work of you.”
Thomas had driven from the hotel to Raison Pharmaceutical. Kara wanted to know what had happened in the colored forest, so, with only a little encouraging, he told her. He told her about meeting Teeleh at the Crossing. About the lake. About the boy. They finally agreed that none of it proved God really did exist, but Thomas was having trouble reconciling the reasoning with his experience. He changed the subject and told her about Rachelle.
The world was facing a crisis inadvertently caused by Thomas, and he was off learning the fine points of romancing Rachelle. It didn’t seem right, Kara had said.
Getting past the gates and in to see Jacques de Raison required no fancy footwork on Thomas’s part this time. Three ambitious guards nearly took off both their heads in the courtyard before Raison Pharmaceutical’s prestigious founder marched in and suggested they lower their rifles. They dipped their heads and backed off.
Jacques de Raison had ushered them into this library, with its tall bookcases and a dozen high-backed black leather chairs positioned around a long mahogany table. Now he and Kara had the prodigious task of convincing this man that his true enemy was the Raison Strain, not Thomas Hunter.
Jacques’ eyes dropped to a large bloodstain on the pocket of Thomas’s Lucky jeans. His shirt, which had been off at the time of his shooting, had been spared the carnage.
Thomas took a deep breath. “The fact of the matter is, Mr. Raison, your daughter and I were attacked. I was shot and left for dead. Monique was taken by force.”
“You were left for dead,” the man said. “I can see that.”
Thomas waved off his cynicism. “I clean up good. The man who shot me was the same person I was trying to protect your daughter from in the first place. I knew there was a potential problem. I tried to convince her of it, and when she refused, I forced her hand.”
“That’s utter nonsense.”
“My five minutes aren’t up. Just listen to me for a minute here. You may not like it, but I may be the only one who can save your daughter. Please listen.”
“Please, Mr. Raison,” Kara said evenly. “I told you before, this goes way beyond Thomas or Monique.”
“Yes, of course; the Raison Vaccine will mutate and infect untold millions.”
“No,” Thomas said. “Billions.”
“Monique submitted the vaccine to the most ardent series of tests, I assure you.”
“But not to heat,” Thomas said. “She told me that herself.”
“The fact is, you can’t substantiate any of this,” Raison said. “You kidnap my daughter at gunpoint, and then you expect me to believe you did it for her own good. Forgive my suspicions, but I think it’s more likely that you have her hidden away right now. At any moment I’ll get a call from an accomplice demanding money.”
“You’re wrong. What you will get is a call demanding either information or samples of the vaccine. Test it yourself. The virus mutates under extreme heat. How long would it take to confirm that?”
It was the first thing Thomas had said that seemed to sink in.
“She is my only daughter,” he said. “There is nothing I love more. Do you understand this? I will do whatever it takes to bring her home safely.”
“So will I,” Thomas said. “How long to test the vaccine?”
“You really do believe this? It’s preposterous.”
“Then the tests will show that I’m wrong. If I’m right, then we know we have a very big problem. How long?”
“Two weeks under normal circumstances,” Raison said.
“Forget normal.”
“A week. There are a number of variables. Exact temperature, length of exposure, other external elements.”
“A week is too long, way too long!” Thomas crossed to the long mahogany table and spun around. “If I’m right, just for the sake of argument, and they knew exactly how to initiate this mutation, how long would it take them to have a usable virus?”
“I can’t answer—”
“Just pretend, Jacques. Best-case scenario, how long?”
He studied Thomas. “Could be a couple of hours.”
“A couple of hours. I suggest either you start taking me at my word or you start your tests, because if you’re right, God help us all.”
“Could take weeks. This is all impossible to believe.”
The phone on Raison’s desk rang.
“Then you’d better do some soul-searching, because Monique’s life rests in your ability to believe.”
The man stood and snatched up the phone. “Yes.” He was silent for five seconds. “Who is this? Who . . .” Silence. Fear spread through the man’s eyes. “How will I know . . . hello?”
The phone went limp in his hand. “They’ve . . . they’ve given me seventy-two hours to turn over all our research and all existing samples of the vaccine, or they will kill her.”
Thomas nodded. A lump gathered in his throat. “You’d better turn this facility into one giant testing lab. Twenty-four–seven. And you’re going to need a lot more than the virus. You’re going to need a new antivirus.”