Lincoln Child - The Third Gate

He began by holding up a card with a star on it.

“Circle,” Jennifer Rush said instantly, staring at its back.

Logan held up a second: a card with the wavy lines.

“Cross,” Jennifer Rush said.

A smirk came over March’s face.

Logan took a deep breath. Then he held up a card containing a circle.

“Star.”

With increasing embarrassment, Logan went through the cards. Each time, Jennifer Rush got it wrong. Logan thought back to what her husband had told him: about the Kleiner-Wechsmann scale, about her ranking being the highest of anyone ever tested. Something’s very wrong here, he thought. His professional instincts began to sense charlatanism at work.

He put the ten cards facedown on the table. As he did so, he saw Jennifer Rush’s gaze turn to March’s smug expression. For a moment, she was silent. Then she spoke. “They were all wrong, weren’t they?” she said.

“Yes,” Logan replied.

“Once more, please. This time I’ll get them all right.”

Logan picked up the cards, began raising them again, one at a time, in the same order.

“Star,” said Jennifer Rush. “Waves. Circle. Cross. Star. Square.”

It was a flawless performance. Not once did she get a card wrong.

“Holy shit,” Tina Romero muttered.

Now Logan understood. Jennifer Rush had deliberately gotten the cards wrong on the first try. She had rubbed March’s nose in his own skeptical words. It was a bravura performance. Logan looked at the woman with renewed respect.

“Empirical evidence, Dr. March?” he said, turning to the archaeologist. “Care to have the results reproduced?”

“No.” March rose. “I’m not a fan of parlor tricks.” Then, nodding curtly to each of them in turn, he left the lounge.

“What a piece of work that guy is,” Tina said, shaking her head and looking at the door March had just exited through. “And did you hear what he said? ‘What’s buried beneath the Sudd- if anything?’ Trust Stone to bring someone like him along as lead archaeologist.”

“You mean March thinks this is all a wild-goose chase?” Logan fell silent. It had never occurred to him that Stone’s fabled research might be flawed-that this entire vast undertaking might be built upon a false assumption.

“Why did Stone hire him, then?” he asked after a moment.

“Because March might be a prick, he might be an intellectual snob, but he’s the best at what he does. Stone’s brilliant that way. Besides, he likes someone who questions his assumptions. Maybe that’s why he likes you.” Tina stood up. “Well, I have to get back to work. If I’m right, March is going to get some news soon that’ll put his nose even more out of joint.” She glanced at Jennifer Rush. “Thanks for the show.” Then she turned to Logan. “You ought to show her your trick with the straw. The two of you may have more in common than you realize.”

Logan watched her leave, then turned back to Jennifer Rush. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you, Mrs. Rush,” he said.

“Call me Jennifer,” she replied. “My husband has told me about you.”

“He’s told me about you, as well. How you were the inspiration for the Center he founded. And about your remarkable abilities.”

The woman nodded.

“I have to say, your performance with the Zener cards just now-it’s unparalleled in my experience. I’ve overseen the test hundreds of times, but I’ve never seen greater than a seventy, seventy-five percent success rate.”

“I doubt Dr. March has, either,” she replied. She had a low, silky voice that was out of keeping with her small, slender frame.

“If Ethan has told you about me, you probably know that my business is with unusual phenomena, things not easily explained,” he said. “So naturally I’m fascinated with the phenomenon of the NDE, of ‘going over.’ I’ve read the literature, of course, and I know all about the remarkable consistency in what people encounter: the feeling of peace, the dark tunnel, the being of light. You experienced all those, I assume?”

She nodded.

“But for me, of course, reading and actually experiencing are such different things…” He paused. “As an investigator, it seems I’m always on the outside, looking in after the fact. That’s why I almost envy you-personally undergoing such an extraordinary event, I mean.”

“Extraordinary event,” Jennifer repeated, her voice barely audible. “Yes-you could call it that.”

Logan looked at her closely. In another person, such a reply would have seemed cold, distant. But he sensed something different in her. He sensed unhappiness, a private discomfort. He knew from personal experience that not all gifts were welcome-or even, at times, tolerable. Her amber eyes had a remarkable depth and a curious hard, agate quality. It was as if they had seen things no other human had seen-and, perhaps, that no human being should have.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t know you well enough to speak of such things. Let me just say that I understand the skepticism and disbelief you must face from people like March. I’ve faced it, too. For the record, I believe-and I look forward to working with you.”

Jennifer Rush had been watching him. As he spoke, something in the agate eyes softened slightly. “Thank you,” she said, with a small, gentle smile.

Then-as if with one thought-they rose from their chairs. They stepped toward the door of the lounge; Logan opened it and Jennifer Rush stepped through.

In the hallway, Logan extended his hand for a farewell handshake. After the briefest of delays, she grasped it lightly. As she did so, Logan felt a sudden, searing flash of emotion, so powerful and overwhelming he was almost physically staggered. He withdrew his hand, struggling to conceal his shock. Jennifer Rush hesitated. He ventured a smile, and then-with a disjointed farewell-he turned and made his way down the corridor.

“This was three nights ago,” Logan said to the young man operating the airboat.

The man-his name was Hirshveldt-nodded. “It was dusk. I was on the catwalk outside Green, checking the methane-conversion feeder ducts. I dropped a wrench. When I bent down to pick it up, I looked out over the swamp. And I saw… her.”

They were perhaps a quarter mile out from the Station, heading northeast at a painful crawl over the skeletal vegetation of the Sudd. It was a bizarre, arduous trip through several elements-mud, water, bracken, air-as the airboat forced its way through an otherworldly tangle. One minute, they were wallowing in viscous black mud that seemed to suck the vessel downward; the next, they were taking small, jarring leaps over knots of clotted reeds, dead stumps, water hyacinth, and long, whiplike grass. It was dusk, and a smoky sun was setting into the marshland behind them.

Hirshveldt brought the airboat to a shuddering halt. He looked around, glanced back toward the Station. “It was more or less here.”

Logan nodded, looking at him. He’d read up on Hirshveldt. Machinist Second, he’d been on three prior expeditions with Porter Stone. His expertise was in fixing and running complex mechanical systems of all kinds, with particular emphasis on diesel engines. His psych profile-Stone ran profiles on all prospective employees-showed a very low coefficient of divergent thinking and disinhibition.

In other words, Hirshveldt was probably the last person one would expect to start seeing things.

Now that they had stopped moving, legions of mosquitoes and other biting insects began hovering around them in increasing numbers. The smell of the Sudd-a raw, earthy, putrescent stench-was inescapable. Opening his duffel, Logan slipped out his digital camera, adjusted the settings manually, and took several shots of the vicinity. This was followed by a slow pan with a video camera. Returning these to his bag, he brought out a half-dozen test tubes, took samples of the mud and vegetation, then stoppered the tubes and put them aside. Finally, he pulled a small handheld device from the duffel. It sported a digital readout, an analogue knob, and two toggle switches. Stepping carefully into the bow of the airboat, Logan switched it on, then adjusted the knob, sweeping the device slowly in an arc ahead of him.