Paul McEuen - Spiral

Dunne noticed Kitano watching the sky.

Dunne followed his gaze, spotting a large bird circling high above. “Is that a hawk?” Dunne asked.

“Falcon. I also keep birds of prey.”

The pigeon flew toward them, the red string in its beak, oblivious to the danger. The falcon hung in the air high above the pigeon, practically motionless. Neither man spoke.

Finally, Kitano said, “We had plans.”

Dunne kept his face neutral, taking another bracing sip of the alcohol. “That was a long time ago.”

“Time has not diminished the necessity of action.”

Kitano appeared calm, placid, but Dunne knew better. “Hitoshi—”

“You and I were going to change the world. Instead you are sending me to jail.”

“That was your own fault.”

“Don’t insult me. You had those charges brought against me. You can stop this at any time.”

“Hitoshi, you left me no choice.”

Kitano kept his eyes on Dunne. “How close are you to a cure?” “We don’t have it. Let it go. It’s over.”

Kitano turned his gaze back to the falcon. “It can dive at one hundred eighty miles an hour. It comes down so fast that its prey cannot see it, cannot respond.”

Dunne watched as the falcon pulled in its wings and plummeted downward, picking up speed as it neared its prey. It was over in a fraction of a second. The falcon struck, and the pigeon almost exploded in midair.

Kitano said, “Make these charges go away. Or I will kill you.”

Dunne had put down his scotch carefully, looked Kitano directly in the eyes. “You think this impresses me? A falcon killing a goddamn pigeon?” He shook his head. “If you can beat these tax evasion charges, do it. But the Uzumaki is a national security issue. You say one wrong word, and I’ll have you locked up without a trial so quick your head will spin.” Dunne paused. “Another option would be to turn you over to the Chinese for prosecution of war crimes.”

Dunne had laid it out in detail.

“You need me,” Kitano said. “Once I have the Uzumaki—”

“But I don’t need you, Hitoshi, not anymore. I have the President now. And once Detrick develops the cure, we can take down China anytime we want.”

“You’ve discussed this with him. The President of the United States.”

“When the time is right, I can bring him along.”

Kitano changed direction. “Japan will oppose any unlawful—”

“We’ve already spoken to the Japanese government. They will be best pleased if we make you disappear. You are an embarrassment, a relic that they’d prefer to forget. Listen closely. I’m the falcon here, not you.”

And that had been the end of it. Kitano had kept his mouth shut. He had lost his case, gone to jail. SunAgra was shuttered.

Kitano had become nothing more than an old man in a cage. Soon he would be dead. No matter what happened to Orchid, Kitano would not survive—on that, the President had clearly agreed with Dunne.

TWENTY MINUTES LATER, THEY WERE OUTSIDE KITANO’S cell. The old man stood stiffly in the small room’s center, head held high and clearly angry. From behind Dunne, they wheeled in the cart with the pigeon cage. Kitano barely glanced at them, keeping his focus on Dunne.

“Leave us,” Dunne said to the warden.

When they were alone, Kitano pointed to the pigeons. “I expected to go to my estate. To see them fly again.”

“Clearly impossible at this point, you must know that. You wanted to see your pigeons; here they are.” Dunne pushed on. “Now let me tell you how this will play out: You’ll lead us to Orchid, you and a Marine. Special Forces. He’ll be carrying the money. In the money are carbon trackers—completely undetectable. We’ll hit first with an EMP weapon, knock out any electronics, including the MicroCrawlers she’s collected. After removing that major threat, we hit her. We take Orchid down, and that’s that. It’s over. You ride away in a Black Hawk helicopter.” Dunne laid his hand on the pigeon crate. “We put you on a flight to Osaka with your birds. You’re a free man.”

“Why should I trust you?”

“Because I’m telling the truth.”

One of the pigeons in the box fluttered its wings. Kitano said, “I want a signed presidential pardon. For any and all crimes committed.”

Dunne didn’t look away. “It’s already arranged. If you make it.”

“When?”

“We’re waiting for another communiqué from Orchid. We’re assuming first thing in the morning.”

Kitano studied the trapped birds, running his fingers over the lock on the door. He stepped forward. His face was only inches from Dunne’s.

“You sicken me, Mr. Dunne.”

Dunne didn’t look away. He wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

Kitano surprised him. He spit in his face.

“You son of a bitch!” Dunne said.

Kitano attacked. He dove for Dunne, on him like a monkey, hands scratching at Dunne’s face. The ancient prisoner was remarkably strong. Dunne couldn’t shake him, and yelled for help.

A giant guard came through the door and grabbed Kitano by the neck. The old man was thrown backward and fell in a heap against the far wall.

A second guard stood over Dunne, eyes wide. “You hurt?” Dunne shook his head no, though he tasted blood. He was in shock. His neck was bleeding. The other guard, the giant, had Kitano in a headlock. The pigeons screeched, flapping their wings wildly inside the cage.

Dunne got his wits about him and stood. Wiping blood off his face with his jacket sleeve, he said, “I hope Orchid slices you open, like you sliced all those prisoners at Harbin.”

He left the old man to the screeching of his birds.

THE ROOM WAS PITCH-BLACK. MAGGIE AWOKE, DRENCHED IN sweat and hyperventilating. She had been trapped in a horrible, horrible nightmare. She was standing in an empty field, Dylan at a distance and walking away from her toward a cliff. She tried to run after him, to save him, but she couldn’t move. She tried to yell, to warn him, but it was as if her throat were made of stone. She was frantic and panicked, unable to warn her son, unable to stop him.

Maggie tried to calm herself, to erase the terrifying image of her endangered son. The air was sticky and humid inside the claustrophobic gas mask. The tears on her cheeks were cold. From not far away, she heard the sound of geese, their cries echoing in the chamber.

She knew what was happening. The toxins of the Uzumaki were chemical cousins of LSD—hallucinogenic but much rougher. The alkaloids exploded like a bomb in your mind, causing a wild hallucinatory mania. Outbreaks from infested rye in Massachusetts in the 1600s had led to the Salem witch trials, where infected women were put to death. Outbreaks in France in the summer of 1789 had incited the manic, crazed riots that catalyzed the French Revolution.

Even though Maggie knew what to expect, the truth of it, the awful plunge into it, was much more frightening than she could have imagined. She was alone inside her head, alone in the dark.

The hallucinations kept coming. A scratching noise, like fingernails on concrete. She knew what the sound was, even though she couldn’t see it. The room was full of corpses, crawling like spiders. They were all over the floor, dozens of them. The floor was far below. The corpses wanted her, but they could not reach her.

Maggie pulled and pulled with her right arm, working to free her hand from the metal cuff, fighting to keep her thoughts under control well enough to focus on her task. She always had small hands, and after a car accident when she was sixteen, the bones in her right hand had broken in two places. Her thumb was never quite right. It would slot into her palm as if it were made to go there. She could form her hand into a small pointed cylinder and slide it in almost anywhere. She’d been fighting to pull it out of the cuff since she’d been imprisoned.