Chris Mooney - World Without End

"I don't work for the CIA anymore." Conway moved back outside and stared down from the roof. The streets below him were quiet, empty.

"I was told the Director wasn't happy about your media stunt. Nobody likes their secrets played on television."

It was true. Conway had placed the truth before the needs of the Agency and had exposed the slick underbelly of an enterprise that thrived on keeping secrets. Add that to the fact that he had been in the national spotlight, his face too well known for any undercover work, and he was looking at a desk job. No thank you. Conway took his severance package and, with a few conditions, went home.

"I was also told that as part of your departure you agreed to have your phone tapped in case I called," Angel Eyes said.

"I understand I'm a wanted man now."

"Where's Dixon?" Major Dixon's body had not turned up.

"I assure you that the Major is quite alive and quite safe. He's made a remarkable recovery, Stephen. Doesn't hold any ill will toward you.

I wish I could say the same about your other friend." Angel Eyes laughed quietly.

Raymond Bouchard had disappeared. Conway had not thought of the man and didn't want to think about the man now. Or ever.

"Would you like to know about Raymond?" Angel Eyes asked.

"No."

"I rescued Pasha when she was a young girl. So full of venom. Not that I blame her feelings. After the horror she endured at the hands of Misha inside her father's kitchen, I was often surprised by her transformation. All things are possible if you have the right guide."

Conway stared out at the rooftops, the hum of traffic in the distance.

"You're the first man she loved deeply," Angel Eyes said.

Conway said nothing. His heart felt like it was beating inside his throat, stuck, struggling to break free.

"Pasha didn't have to die, Stephen. You could have come with her could have become a part of us and lived that vision that struggles inside your breast."

"And if I didn't, you would kill me."

"I would never hurt you, Stephen."

"I saw you that day at the Holocaust Memorial. I saw your hand pressed against the glass, your eyes closed." Conway thought he heard a moan coming from the other end.

"That's why you wanted the suit. You needed it to carry out your secret wish, the one you hid away from Gunther and Pasha because if they had ever found out, they would have left you."

"I'd love to chat, Stephen, but I'm afraid I'm pressed for time.

Remember to mind your place."

"That sounds like a threat."

"Be sure to make use of the gift I left for you on your doorstep." As gentle as a whisper, Angel Eyes hung up.

Conway ran down the stairs and opened the front door. A brown-wrapped, 8-by-ll envelope leaned against the stairs. He picked it up, felt it.

No name and no postage; it had the weight of a stack of papers. A bomb? He didn't feel a watch battery.

I would never burn you, Stephen.

Back on the patio roof, Conway sat down in his chair and opened the package. Attached to the front of the file folder was a neatly written note:

Dear Stephen, We dedicate much of our life wondering why we've been treated unfairly; why we've been victimized and used; discarded; passed by. It is on our deathbeds, about to draw in our last breath, that we finally come to the realization of how much time we've wasted on these petty transgressions that in their collective sum are worthless; how we took for granted the gifts that had always lain beneath our feet or next to our hearts, or how we failed to see the joy and beauty and splendor that offer themselves to our eyes every day.

Claire Arlington, like yourself, is a survivor. A cunning warrior. I won't tell you much here; it will spoil the wonder of the discovery.

Icarus was warned by his father not to fly too close to the sun. The boy didn't heed his father's warning and plummeted into the sea. Enter your mother's life free of judgment. If you can do that, you may finally begin the process of exorcising those demons of doubt and curiosity that torment you deep in the night.

I think of you often.

Steve Conway leaned back in his chair, and in the blood-red early-morning light, met his mother for the first time.

Working with blood in this age of disease called for multiple layers.

One had to be careful.

Raymond Bouchard was disease free. His blood had been tested for all the known lethal viruses Hepatitis and HIV and had come up negative. It was safe to play.

A man in Amon Faust's position couldn't risk even the smallest chance of infection. Before venturing down into the basement, Faust would scrub his hairless skin under the hot water until it turned pink. After air drying, he applied the iso-foam alcohol, and when that had dried, he would apply the first layer: the Tyvek sterile garb. Next came the surgical suit and booties, and the two sets of sterile latex gloves.

The biohazard suit, the final layer, was critical. It allowed Faust to be close to the action when it got messy, as it often did down in the basement. The suit had its own respirator and air-flow supply. As a matter of personal taste, he refused to share the same air with a man like Raymond.

Faust hovered above the same surgical chair in which Major Dixon had been bound. Taking the boy's place was Raymond Bouchard, nude, his pale body sweating and shaking as the painkillers wore off. Raymond had become quite the addict would, in fact, cry for another shot of morphine before another finger was taken. Only three left before moving on to the toes.

Raymond blinked with fear at what fresh new terror awaited him. He opened his dry mouth, his cracked lips quivering as he started in with another request for mercy.

"Please… no more… I can't… please, I'll do whatever you want."

Faust tilted his domed head to the side. Through the shield that covered his eyes, he looked at Major Dixon, who stood next to the same chair in which he had been tortured. The tray of torture instruments lay close to his mutilated hand.

"What shall it be, Major?" Faust asked, his voice amplified by the suit's speaker system.

Major Dixon looked down at the man who had orchestrated all of his pain. He wiggled the remaining fingers on his left hand, thinking.

Under Faust's guidance, the boy had come far in the past few months.

The mental conditioning had helped him erase the memories of what he had endured in the basement; Faust had helped shape the boy's rage, helped him channel it to more satisfying alternatives.

Major Dixon stopped wiggling his fingers.

"Remove his tongue," he said.

"Novocain or not? Your choice, Major."

The boy didn't hesitate.

"Like me, he gets nothing."

Faust turned back to the white-faced Raymond.

"You've been charged with the crime of blasphemy, Raymond. Personally, I think you're getting off lightly. Now be a good boy and hold still.

This won't take but a minute."

Few men have born witness to Faust's strength. With the agility and power of a snapping turtle, Faust pinned Raymond's head against the headrest and held it firmly, his right hand already on the jaw and pushing it open. Raymond's tongue wiggled like an exposed worm searching for a place to crawl away and hide.

Major Dixon fished around for the instrument of choice and settled on a scalpel. He looked up at Faust and smiled. Progress.

Major Dixon held the scalpel above Raymond's wild, terrorized eyes.

Raymond started screaming.

"That's the spirit," Faust said.

"Go ahead and scream, Raymond. Scream as loud as you want."

There's a saying in New England that if you don't like the weather, wait until tomorrow. On Monday, the week of Memorial Day, summer booted spring out of the way and flooded Boston with a heat wave. By Wednesday the heat was gone and spring was back, the air cool and dry, but by Friday morning, the start of the holiday weekend, the heat and humidity was so intense Conway wanted to shut himself inside a meat locker. He leaned back in the driver's seat of Booker's BMW, the windows down, parked across the street from the old two-story white Colonial home that sat directly across from the dormitory building at Framingham State College. He was sweating and miserable, but he wanted to keep watching.