John Case - Ghost Dancer aka Dance of Death

His own vision was beginning to fray at the edges. It was just a flicker at the side of his eye, but he knew where it was going. The pattern was intricate and beautiful, scalloped and iridescent. In a couple of minutes, he’d be half-blind.

He heard sirens now, wailing in and out of harmony with the quavering cries of those who’d fled the courthouse. Already, traffic was grinding to a standstill as people got out to help, slowed to gawk, or succumbed to fender benders. On impulse, Wilson, turned the Escalade into the entrance to an underground parking lot that served the Civic Center.

Grabbing a ticket, he spiraled down to the third floor, pulled into a space, and sat, waiting for his sight to come back. It didn’t seem like a good idea to sit in the truck so close to the scene. Even in the garage, under tons of concrete, he could hear the sirens, a layered wailing effect that sounded like women ululating.

He stayed in the Escalade for what seemed like a long time, although he couldn’t be sure of the duration. Neither his watch nor the digital numbers on the dashboard were legible to him. A waterfall of light danced in front of him.

Taking out his wallet, he fumbled for the picture of Irina that he carried. Holding it in the palm of his hand, he tried to focus on it.

At first, he couldn’t be sure if he was looking at the picture, or at its back. But then, her face began to appear, almost like a simulacrum. Finally, it snapped into focus. The almond-shaped eyes, her bright smile.

When he looked at his watch, he almost laughed. He’d been disabled for less than ten minutes. Even so, he’d hoped to be on his way to the airport by now, the idea being to abandon the Escalade in a satellite lot and rent something else for the drive to Vegas.

That was out of the question now. Traffic would be frozen for hours around the courthouse and Civic Center. The best thing to do, he decided, was to leave the Escalade right where it was. Walk to the BART station, and get to the airport that way.

On foot, there was nothing to incriminate him. His laptop looked ordinary enough, and his suitcase could stay where it was, locked in the truck.

Plan B, then, Wilson thought, and walked quickly to the elevator.

Once outside, he kept going, head down, walking quickly. It was hell on a beautiful day. At the BART station, a red-haired woman was babbling about “a freak fire at the courthouse – they say a boiler blew, and lots of people were burned.”

A black man in a Zegna suit and Hermès tie nodded knowingly: “Superheated air.”

At the airport, people were clustered around television monitors, shaking their heads incredulously. On-screen, a platinum blonde reporter stood in front of the Civic Center, commenting on the scene in a smaller screen that showed people in spacesuits, or what looked like space suits, toddling in and out of the courthouse. The reporter was doing her best to keep her composure, but she was breathless and obviously rattled by what she’d seen. “No one – I can’t find anyone – with any idea about who, or what, is responsible for this.”

Still weary with jet lag, Burke decided to spend the night in Fallon. He took a room at the Holiday Inn Express and ate dinner at a Mexican joint called La Cocina. Returning to the motel, he went to bed at ten, thinking he had traveled thousands of miles to see Mandy Renfro. For nothing.

He didn’t have a clue as to what he was going to do in the morning. Go to the casino. Put whatever he had in his wallet on red, and watch the ball go around and around. Or maybe he’d just play blackjack until the world came to an end. That would be a plan.

As it turned out, he slept nearly twelve hours, waking up a little before ten. When he stumbled downstairs to see if he could still catch the free continental breakfast, he knew right away that there had been another event. Despite the lateness of the hour, a dozen people were still in the breakfast room, clustered around a television.

On the screen, figures in HazMat suits were carrying stretchers to a fleet of ambulances standing haphazardly at the curb, while police kept a crowd at bay in front of what looked like a government building. Paramedics were treating people on the sidewalk.

“Where is that?” Burke asked. Never taking his eyes from the screen, the man next to him replied, “Frisco.”

“What happened?”

The man just shook his head. “A lot of people are dead.”

The screen shot changed to a press conference, where the city’s mayor, standing next to the chief of police, was insisting earnestly that there was “no evidence of biological agents.”

A reporter asked: “Was this a terrorist attack?”

The chief of police rambled through a series of evasions.

An elderly woman close to the TV spoke up. “Someone said the temperature went through the roof. They said it happened all at once. What’s that all about?”

Burke poured himself a cup of coffee. He’d just taken a sip when a plume of sensation shot through his chest. The federal courthouse in San Francisco was where Jack Wilson had been tried.

Later that day, Burke sat at a booth in the Cowboy Diner, drinking coffee from a thick mug and looking at his notebook. A television droned above the bar.

The authorities in San Francisco were leaning toward an explanation that involved a malfunction in the building’s heating system. So far, no one had connected the event with Culpeper.

Burke flipped through the pages of his notebook, searching for leads that he might have overlooked. In the end, he found only one. A scribbled note that read

Ukrainebrides

There was a telephone number next to it, and it took him a moment to remember how he’d come up with it. The hotel clerk in Belgrade. For another twenty euros, Burke thought, I could probably have gotten a DNA sample.

He went back to his room around eight, stopping to buy a phone card at a convenience store. God only knows how much it would cost to call Ukraine from a Holiday Inn.

Sitting on the bed with the phone, he punched in about twenty numbers and listened to the recorded message. Finally, he went for Option 5: talk to a representative.

Five minutes of Europop ensued, while Burke stared at the screen on the muted television. Stretchers and gurneys in the hallways of a hospital. Harried doctors coming out of a burn ward. Body bags and hapless officials.

He was tempted to hang up. Five minutes of Europop was a lot, especially when he didn’t think anything was going to come of it. He was just basically crossing his t ’s and dotting his i ’s. He wasn’t expecting the call to go anywhere.

Finally, a voice interrupted the music. “Yes, hello? This is Olga Primakov.”

“Hi-”

“I am sorry to make you wait, but it is very late here.”

Burke hadn’t even thought about that. “I’m really sorry-”

“Is better the website, yes?” Olga said. “You can see pictures of brides. But maybe… you don’t have computer?”

“That’s right,” Burke told her. “I don’t. Not where I am.”

“Perhaps the library-”

“Actually, I got your number from a friend. Jack Wilson?”

“Oh yes, I’m meeting him at Romantic Weekend. Of course.”

Burke sat up straight, and snapped off the television with the remote. “He told me about that!”

“So Jack Wilson gives you this number. Wonderful! You are also looking for a pretty bride?”

Bride? Had Wilson married one of these women? Where did he find the time?

“The ring he’s giving Irina – oooooh, is super-fantastic,” Olga gushed.

“Yeah,” Burke agreed, “it’s a great ring.” He pounced on the name. “Irina’s thrilled with it!”