Justin Cronin - The Twelve

“So what did Command say?”

“They ordered us never to tell anyone.”

“Why would they do that?” Though, of course, they had told Peter exactly the same thing.

“Who knows? But my guess would be the order came from the Civilian Authority, not the military. They were scared. Whoever those people were, they had a weapon we couldn’t match.”

“The virals.”

The man nodded evenly. “Stick your fingers in your ears and hope they never came back. Maybe not wrong, but it wasn’t anything I could sit with. That was the day I resigned my commission.”

“Did you ever go back?”

“To Iowa? Why would I do that?”

Peter felt a mounting urgency. “Vorhees’s daughter could be there. Sara, too. You saw those trucks.”

“I’m sorry. Sara. Do I know this person?”

“She’s Hollis’s wife. Or would have been. She was lost at Roswell.”

A look of regret eased across the man’s face. “Of course. My mistake. I believe I knew that, though I don’t think he ever mentioned her name. Nevertheless, this changes nothing, Lieutenant.”

“But they could still be alive.”

“I don’t think it’s likely. A lot of time has passed. Either way, there wasn’t anything I could do about it. Not then and not now. You’d need an army. Which the CA more or less guaranteed we didn’t have. And in the leadership’s defense, these people, whoever they are, never returned. At least until now, if what you’re saying is true.”

Something was missing, Peter thought, a detail lurking at the edge of his awareness. “Who else was with you?”

“On the scouting party? The officer in charge was Nate Crukshank. The third man was a young lieutenant named Lucius Greer.”

The information passed through Peter like a current.

“Take me there. Show me where it is.”

“And what would we do when we got there?”

“Find our people. Get them out somehow.”

“Are you listening, Lieutenant? These aren’t just survivors. They’re in league with the virals. More than that—the woman can control them. Both of us have seen it happen.”

“I don’t care.”

“You should. All you’ll accomplish is getting yourself killed. Or taken. My guess is, that would be a good deal worse.”

“Then just tell me how to find it. I’ll go on my own.”

Tifty rose from behind his desk, returned to the table in the corner, and poured himself another glass of water. He drank it slowly, sip by sip. As the silence lengthened, Peter got the distinct impression that the man’s mind had taken him elsewhere. He wondered if the meeting was over.

“Tell me something, Mr. Jaxon. Do you have children?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Indulge me.”

Peter shook his head. “No.”

“No family at all?”

“I have a nephew.”

“And where is he now?”

The questions were uncomfortably probing. And yet Tifty’s tone was so disarming, the answers seemed to spring forth of their own accord. “He’s with the sisters. His parents were killed at Roswell.”

“Are you close? Do you matter to him?”

“Where are you going with this?”

Tifty ignored the question. He placed his empty glass on the table and returned to his desk.

“I suspect he admires you a great deal. The great Peter Jaxon. Don’t be so modest—I know just who you are, and more than the official account. This girl of yours, Amy, and this business with the Twelve. And don’t blame Hollis. He’s not my source.”

“Who then?”

Tifty grinned. “Perhaps another time. Our subject at hand is your nephew. What did you say his name was?”

“I didn’t. It’s Caleb.”

“Are you a father to Caleb, is what I’m asking. Despite your gallivanting around the territories, trying to rid the world of the great viral menace, would you say that’s true?”

Suddenly Peter had the sense of having been perfectly maneuvered. It reminded him of playing chess with the boy: one minute he was drifting in the current of the game; the next he was boxed in, the end had come.

“It’s a simple question, Lieutenant.”

“I don’t know.”

Tifty regarded him another moment, then said, with a note of finality, “Thank you for your honesty. My advice to you would be to forget about all of this and go home and raise your boy. For his sake, as much as your own, I’m willing to give you a pass and let you and your friends go free, with the warning that speaking of our whereabouts will not, how shall I put this, bring happy things your way.”

Checkmate. “That’s it? You’re not going to do anything?”

“Consider it the greatest favor anybody’s ever done you. Go home, Mr. Jaxon. Live your life. You can thank me later.”

Peter’s mind scrambled for something to say that might convince the man otherwise. He gestured toward the drawing on the desk. “Those girls. You said you loved them.”

“I did. I do. That’s why I’m not going to help you. Call me sentimental, but I won’t have your death on my conscience.”

“Your conscience ?”

“I do have one, yes.”

“You surprise me, you know that?” Peter said.

“Really? How do I surprise you?”

“I never thought Tifty Lamont would be a coward.”

If Peter had expected to get a rise, he saw none. Tifty rocked back in his chair, placed the tips of his fingers together, and looked at him coolly over the tops of his spectacles. “And you were thinking maybe that if you pissed me off, I’d tell you what you want to know?”

“Something like that, yeah.”

“Then you mistake me for somebody who cares what others think. Nice try, Lieutenant.”

“You said one of them was never found. I don’t see how you can sit here if she could still be alive.”

Tifty sighed indulgently. “Perhaps you didn’t get the news, but this isn’t a what-if world, Mr. Jaxon. Too many what-ifs are just a way to keep yourself up at night, and there’s not enough decent sleep to go around. Don’t get me wrong, I admire your optimism. Well, maybe not admire—that might be too strong a word. But I do understand it. There was a time when I wasn’t so very different. But those days are passed. What I have is this picture. I look at it every day. For now, that’s what I have to content myself with.”

Peter picked up the drawing again. The woman’s shining smile, the lift of her hair on an unseen breeze, the little girls, wide-eyed, hopeful like all children, waiting for their lives to unfold. He had no doubt that this picture was the center of Tifty’s life. Looking at it, Peter sensed the presence of a complex debt, allegiances, promises made. This picture: it wasn’t just a memorial; it was the man’s way of punishing himself. Tifty wished he’d died with them, in the field. How strange, to find himself feeling sorry for Tifty Lamont.

Peter returned the picture to its place on Tifty’s desk. “You said the trade was only part of what you do. You never told me what else.”

“I didn’t, did I?” Tifty removed his glasses and rose. “Fair enough. Come with me.”

Tifty manipulated another keypad and the heavy door swung open, revealing a spacious room with large metal cages stacked against the walls. The air was rank with a distinctly animal scent, of blood and raw meat, and the high-noted aroma of alcohol. The light glowed a cool, violety blue—“viral blue,” Tifty explained, with a wavelength of four hundred nanometers, at the very edge of the visible spectrum. Just enough, he told Peter, to keep them calm. The builders of the facility had understood their subjects well.

Michael and Lore had joined them. They passed through the room of cages and ascended a short flight of stairs. What awaited them was obvious; it was just a question of how it would be revealed.