Paul Johnston - Maps of Hell

Karen and I had undergone weeks of treatment, too. Unlike the other survivors, we weren’t guilty of killing or injuring anyone. Rodney Owen and Peter Sebastian had managed to prevent Karen from stabbing the justice secretary, while I had been floored by a member of the Secret Service as I had tried to get at the president. Fortunately, the M16 I was wielding jammed, so I hadn’t been able to shoot anyone. The fact that we were foreign nationals probably helped. We had been visited by staff from the embassy and from the U.K., and given to understand that we would not face charges. But there was no immediate prospect of our release. There was a medical center on site and our son would be born there. Meanwhile, the drug and talking therapies continued, and we both woke up every night screaming.

One hundred and sixty-three people had been killed at the cathedral and over four hundred injured, not counting the attackers. Although the president and first lady had escaped unscathed, the veterans’ secretary had been shot dead and a senior White House adviser confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. The bomb planted in the floor in front of the altar had destroyed the stone from Mount Sinai, which no doubt had symbolic significance for the Rothmanns. The state of Israel quickly offered to provide a replacement.

The North American National Revival claimed responsibility for the attack, crowing that the bloody disruption of what it called “the undeserved commemoration of minority subhumans” was backed by the majority of Americans. That was called into doubt when, because of public demand, thirty-six state legislatures immediately passed bills establishing annual services for minority veterans. The NANR also stated that the attack was aimed at destroying “the Jew and Negro controlled regime” that the recent financial collapse had already shown was failing America. The tainted logic of the Rothmann twins was easy enough to discern.

The FBI quickly published documentation proving that the NANR was a Nazi front and two camps were found, one in Montana and the other in Texas. The Maine camp remained undiscovered despite helicopter searches, some of which I joined. Then one of the psychiatrists working with me-a strange guy called Ray Iselin-got interested in the settlement where the Antichurch of Lucifer Triumphant had flourished. Using nineteenth-century maps and documents, the location of the long-lost town of Jasper was pinpointed. The camp where I’d been tortured was under a mile away. I’d like to think that it was immediately shut down, but no doubt plenty of government bodies and private companies would have been interested in the research that had gone on there.

“Matt?” Karen asked plaintively. “Do you think I’ll ever get my job back?”

It was the first time she’d mentioned her career since we’d arrived at the facility. She’d been composed but withdrawn, engaged fully by our son’s imminent arrival. I had slightly more interest in the outside world, but I hadn’t been as deeply programmed as she had. I certainly wasn’t interested in writing books and columns, despite the offers that my agent kept sending me via the FBI.

“Do you want it back?” I asked, kissing her cheek. “Work isn’t everything.”

She looked at me solemnly. “Work makes you free.”

I felt my abdomen clench. It was impossible to tell if she remembered that “Arbeit Macht Frei”-the German version of those words-had been above the gates of the Auschwitz death camp, among others. I wondered if she would ever be free of the coffining. I had no idea if I would ever get over mine-I hadn’t forgotten Rothmann’s boast, that subjects became his possessions. Even if the experts finally told us we were clean, would we ever be sure that we wouldn’t turn into Aryan killing machines at the utterance of some unsuspected trigger word?

That wasn’t all. We had asked the scientists if there was any chance that the conditioning could have affected the child in Karen’s womb. They didn’t think so, but there wasn’t much research on the subject. Besides, Irma Rothmann was a brilliant neuroscientist. Who would bet against her having extended her father’s research into the unborn fetus? Not me.

Peter Sebastian turned up once a week and filled us in on some things. Predictably, Gordy Lister had vanished-I was sure he would have linked up with Rothmann by now. Dana Maltravers was recovering physically, but she was in deep shit. The FBI is hard on their own who go bad, though her lawyers would no doubt argue that Irma Rothmann-literally the mother from hell, having grown up in Auschwitz-had brainwashed her from an early age. Clem Simmons and Gerard Pinker had both been discharged from the hospital. Apparently Clem was going to take his pension and do some private sleuthing. Versace had been given a commendation and a promotion. Much to Rodney Owen’s disgust, Pinker had recently won a contest as the most fashionable detective in the entire MPDC.

Karen stopped about fifty yards away from the building we were forced to call home for the time being.

“Matt,” she said softly, “are you going to be a good father to your son?”

“Sure I am,” I said, smiling. “Rugby training every evening, two foreign languages before he goes to school, and no arguing with his mother.”

She nudged me in the ribs, the first time that had happened for months. The smile faded from my lips. I wasn’t going to tell her, but on his last visit Sebastian had passed me an intercepted message from my ex-lover Sara Robbins, the Soul Collector.

Matt, where are you? All that stuff in the press about the Washington murders and then…poof, you’re gone. Karen, too. It isn’t long now till you’ll be a father again, is it? I would swing by sometime, if I knew where you were. After all, we have unfinished business. All right, I accept the challenge. I’ll track you down. Don’t expect me to be in a good temper when I find you, though. SC

There was a time when I’d have been scared shitless by a communication like that, but not anymore. Rothmann was still at large and it wouldn’t be long till he reconstituted the NANR and the Antichurch of Lucifer Triumphant. There would be other camps, other maps of hell, and he would soon find someone else to wear his sister’s gargoyle mask.

It was obvious that I’d have to deal with Rothmann, just as I’d have to put an end to Sara. If there was one thing I had learned in the U.S., it was the benefit of nailing your enemies before they nailed you. Actually, it was something I had practiced on the rugby pitch often enough-get your retaliation in first. That was as good a principle as any, though I wasn’t planning on passing it on to my son till he was a lot older.

I kissed Karen and we walked into the warmth.