Chris Mooney - World Without End

The Praxis fire had also been front-page news, but, with no mention of the bomb call and the fake firemen and bomb technicians that had scoured through the lab, the story had died. And no mention of Randy Scott's death.

Behind the lines of black text, Conway could see the CIA at work, using its influence and various sources and favors to plant false leads with the hope that the story would die down. And it probably would as long as no one made the connection between the Praxis fire and Angel Eyes.

The story that dominated the news was the discovery of CIA-counterterrorism-expert John McFadden who, over a twenty-year period, had launched a one-man spy war that led to the loss of priceless spy craft technology and major assets a CIA term for valuable double agents. McFadden's victim list, they believed, stretched into well over thirty. Conway read the papers and then followed the story on CNN and found it a perfect match to Rombardo's earlier words.

Conway was exhausted. He had been out cold for three days, and all he wanted to do was sleep. He fought it and kept reading the stories until his eyes started to shut. Conway tossed the newspapers on the chair where Rombardo had sat earlier. Just close your eyes and get a quick rest. Right. A quick catnap. That wasn't really sleeping. He would rest and then watch CNN again, see if they had discovered the truth. Conway closed his eyes and within minutes drifted off to a deep sleep.

In the dream he was trapped in the deepest part of the ocean; the water around him was black and as thick as paint and so cold that it chilled him to the bone. Small pairs of green eyes the size of marbles glowed in the murky water and disappeared. From somewhere in front of him he heard someone screaming, muted by the water. It was Pasha's voice. She was screaming for help. Hang on, Pasha, he thought as he swam toward her. Pasha's screams grew louder. Hang on, I'm almost there. Out of the blackness came the extended jaws of an enormous great white shark, its jagged, arrow-shaped teeth just inches from his face. Conway tried to swim away, but the jaws had already snapped around his body with a terrifying force. He was being ripped apart, about to be eaten alive, chunk by chunk.

Steve Conway did not wake from the dream. The drugs that had been placed in his food guaranteed he would stay under for several hours. He did not stir when the door to his room began to open.

The badge with the photo ID pinned to his white doctor's coat announced him as Dr. Peter Bensen, a visiting neurologist from Houston. Amon Faust wasn't prone to worry or concern the way most people are and, as a result, moved through life with a rare brand of steely confidence. If he was stopped, he could easily answer questions on neurology, and, if someone decided to investigate, a quick call to the Brazosport Memorial Hospital in Houston would verify that Dr. Bensen was indeed a member of the staff.

The door closed with a soft click. Stephen Conway lay still in the bed, his mouth parted open, as if posing a question. The combination of Valium and the sleeping medication Zolpidem that Gunther had mixed into Stephen's lunch and soda would keep Stephen under for several hours. What Faust needed to do would take less than a minute.

The semidark room was lit up with slivers of moonlight. He walked toward the bed, breathing in the air laden with viruses that were now deep inside the soft tissue of his lungs. The thought didn't unnerve him. True, he wished he could be wearing his biohazard mask with its excellent filtering system, but one did not travel outside wearing such things unless one wanted to draw attention.

Next to the bed now and close to the smell of Stephen's body odor and bad breath, packed with dead tuna and disease, too close to the sickening plague of whatever germs lay incubating on the bed sheets.

With his latex-covered hand, Faust reached underneath his white coat and removed the thin eight-by-ten-inch envelope wedged between the back waistband of his white pants. He placed it on the nightstand and rested the envelope so that it faced Stephen.

In the sliver of moonlight Stephen's eyes fluttered behind closed lids, moving in all directions, as if trying to sight an invisible enemy that would at any second descend from the sky and destroy him. He swallowed, his brow furrowing. A sweat had broken out on his forehead.

What nightmare has gripped you this time, Stephen?

We never outgrow our childhood pain and fear; we merely catalogue it and, when it becomes visible in our adult life, if we are educated and lucky, we can talk away the anger. Faust did not often reflect on his childhood, but now, staring at Conway, he was aware of the common stigma they both shared: They were both orphans. They had overcome their miserable conditions and had emerged victorious. We are warriors, you and I. We are gladiators.

Faust bent forward until his eyes were inches from Stephen's. Gently, he cupped the man's face in his latex-covered hands and using his thumbs pulled back Stephen's eyelids. Stephen Conway stared back at him.

"You don't have to travel this road alone, Stephen. I will be there with you. I will keep you safe. I won't let them hurt you. You have my word."

Faust took notice of the bandage on Stephen's forehead, directly above the eyebrow. He leaned in closer and, on a clean patch of skin, kissed Stephen on the forehead. Faust eased Stephen's head back against the pillow and exited the room.

Gunther was dressed as an orderly and was still regaling the two plump nurses at the nurse's station with an animated story when Faust walked up the hall. He could feel Stephen's sweat his essence lingering on his lips.

An orderly stopped emptying the trash to stare at the odd, euphoric look on Dr. Bensen's face. Amon Faust didn't see the man. He was lost deep in the warm beating drums of his heart, enraptured with the thrill of joint exposure, this act of coupling, of becoming one with Stephen, the memory of this shared, intimate moment now forever sealed inside the great expanse of his scarlet kingdom.

John Riley leaned back in his swivel chair and rubbed his eyes. For the past two hours he had been working on an Excel spreadsheet on the computer monitor set up in the Pottery Barn walnut armoire that acted as his desk. Numbers danced in his head. The window on his left was cracked open, and he heard the giggles and laughter of children. He opened his eyes, turned his chair around and leaned forward and pressed his head against the cold glass. It was Halloween night, and kids dressed up in their costumes marched up and down Mount Vernon Street with their parents under the glow of old-fashioned streetlights on Boston's Beacon Hill.

Three years ago, Riley would have been out at a bar getting shit-faced.

He'd pick up one of those pretty college girls found in abundance at the local bar, The Hill, and then would invite her back to his old place, drink some more, maybe do a little blow. The next morning he would wake up naked and Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, his mind would be howling.

Those days were gone, he reminded himself. A thing of the past. He had shut the door on that world. Forever.

It was all about second chances. That's what his mother had told him.

No matter how bad yesterday was, tomorrow was a chance to start over.

His mother was full of such sayings. You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. Don't grow old alone. If you can't love yourself, you can't love anyone else. And his all-time favorite: It's all about choices.

As a kid, even as an adult in his early twenties, John Riley had never paid much attention to her words. They seemed the byproducts of another era, some sort of weird Leave It to Beaver universe where your dad was an actual physical presence in your life, this warm, caring dude who wore cardigan sweaters and asked you how your school day was while smoking a pipe and petting the happy dog wagging its tail at his feet. Right. Real life was your dad dying in an auto accident just before you were born. Real life was a cramped, two-bedroom apartment with cracked ceilings spotted with brown watermarks, worn tread marks in the dark blue carpet, the windows opened to that awful city smell and neighbors arguing in Spanish and Vietnamese in the armpit of the universe, downtown Lynn, Massachusetts, a place where his mom had to work hard for simple things like food and clothes and school supplies.