The little man kept busy working for defense contractors, personal security. Sometimes that meant just what it sounded like – keeping VIPs safe in rough country. Sometimes it meant off-the-books clandestine and covert work, all plausibly deniable.
“You still teaching at that gun club?” Daniel asked.
“Yep. Certified Master Instructor, senior Range Safety Officer, all that. Once the relic holding the top job finally retires or croaks, I’ll be in charge of all range operations. Nice and cushy.” He paused, chewed his lip. “Too cushy. Run your van into the barn, will you?”
Daniel did that, as he opened and closed the big door behind him. There was a Jeep Cherokee, a Land Rover and a Porsche Cayenne parked inside. I bet the Porsche is Spooky’s. He always did have champagne tastes.
As they walked out the side, man-sized door, Daniel said, “Well, if what I got to tell you doesn’t get your cushy butt off the couch, I don’t know what will.”
They went into the cabin, grabbed a couple of cold ones out of the fridge – Zeke a beer, Daniel a diet peach iced tea. They sat down in the dim glow from the coals of the fireplace, no artificial lights on. Daniel breathed in the familiar, comforting smells of canvas and wool, old fish and deer’s blood, wood and smoke.
Setting his tea on a side table next to his elbow he stared across at Zeke. “I only want to tell this once, so can we get Spooky and anyone else you got around in here? He needs to hear it too.”
“It’s just Spooky and me so far.” He pulled a little sport walkie out of his jacket pocket and keyed the mike twice, then twice more. Private code for “bring it in,” Daniel guessed.
A minute or so later he felt the faint stir of air that accompanied a door opening, but try as he might he didn’t hear a thing until the hot pot in the kitchen started boiling. He saw Spooky moving around in the next room with a stainless steel tea ball then heard him pour. He came in with the mug, sat down across from Daniel. His face was sharp and closed, wary as always. He wasn’t Daniel's friend, but he was Zeke’s, and that was good enough for now.
Daniel told them the story, then, from the open door at his house to departure from Quantico, leaving nothing out but some of his own private thoughts.
Spooky’s face showed nothing. Zeke’s more open countenance displayed doubt and wonder. He ran his left hand repeatedly over his face, smoothing his beard, his eyes distant, thinking. Daniel was sure his mind was running down some of the same tracks his had, and he would come to some of the same conclusions pretty soon. Now he would see what these guys were made of.
Zeke got up and began pacing. Spooky nodded at Daniel, then slipped out of the cabin again, probably to make another sweep. Daniel would have bet cash money there was nothing to worry about out there, but Spooky wasn’t taking any chances. Hopefully he’d swept the van for bugs, too.
“Got anything to eat?” Daniel asked, uneasy in the silence.
“Yeah…” They went into the kitchen and Zeke turned on the little light over the stove. He pulled out a fragrant pot of something from the fridge, set it on a gas burner and lit it. “Cass sends her love. And her stew.”
Daniel laughed. “Ditto, and I get to enjoy the stew.” Then his face fell. “Maybe you shouldn’t have mentioned me to her.”
“Yeah. Well, I’m fresh out of the habit of lying to my wife.”
“I hope you didn’t tell her precisely where you were going.”
“I’m not that out of practice. I just told her I had to help you out for a few days, and I couldn’t tell her where. She’s a Special Forces wife and a retired spy. She understands.”
He got out a loaf of bread and sliced it up, next to a bowl of butter. They waited for the stew to warm up, and for Daniel’s story to sink in.
Zeke opened his mouth a couple of times to speak, then closed it, false starts. Finally he said, “All right. So you say you got this XH in you, whatever it is. So you can heal like magic, almost, if you’re the same as Elise now. If it doesn’t take longer to get to its full strength. If it doesn’t have some unknown freaky side effect. And you can pass it in a bite. But maybe you’ll turn into a werewolf when the moon is full, or maybe you’ll burn up your years of life, or maybe you’ll get a taste for blood and go Dracula on our asses, or who knows. But I have to see it for myself. I mean, I wanna believe you, man, but…”
“Trust but verify, right? Yeah, I figured. Well, as far as I know it doesn’t protect from pain, so pardon me if I don’t chop off a pinky. This ought to do.” Daniel picked up a paring knife, put his hand down on the butcher-block counter, palm up. He stabbed the tip into the meaty part of his left hand. He had some callus on it from working the bags, but it still caused a pretty deep little cut and a welling of purplish blood. He held it over the sink and dripped for a minute, just for proof.
Daniel could feel something happening, a nervous surge, like a jolt of adrenaline. His mouth started watering, and he had a definite attack of the munchies. He buttered a piece of bread one-handed and ate it, which calmed them down for a bit. After a couple minutes of waiting, he ran his hand under the cold tap, rubbing the spot with his other hand until it was completely clean.
Then held it out for inspection.
Zeke grabbed it and looked closely, pulling Daniel’s hand over under the stove light.
The wound was gone.
The stew was starting to smell really good.
“And all that happens besides the healing is you get hungry?”
“Yeah, so far, just like I told you Elise did. She was tore up and she wolfed down four or five pounds of food like it was nothing, and a quart of orange juice, and I bet she needed more. It must take energy and building blocks – sugars, protein, amino acids, vitamins and minerals, stuff like that. Just like recovering from a hard workout but a thousand times more and faster.”
“Not much of a downside, if you get your bum knee and your bad back and your concussions and whatall fixed.” He licked his lips. “I wonder about Ricky.”
Daniel raised his eyebrows, shrugged sympathetically. Ricky was Zeke’s son. He must be about eleven, and he had muscular dystrophy. Duchenne’s. He would already be in a powered wheelchair. Daniel had volunteered at a Jerry’s Kids’ camp a few times, so he knew. He also knew that pretty soon Ricky wouldn’t even be able to use his hands to control the chair. By twenty or twenty-five he would be almost helpless, probably bedridden. Most people with DMD didn’t make it to thirty. It made Daniel feel a little guilty, because it smacked of manipulation, holding out a cure for his friend’s son.
Zeke wondered, “But what happens if it heals him, then whatever ticking time bomb of a side effect is even worse? Until we know that, we can’t even try. What if it didn’t cure him, but did…whatever? Turned him into a monster? His mother would never forgive me.”
“You’re starting to get it, what I’ve been agonizing over. We have to know what the downside is. And there’s only one person I know of that knows anything.”
“This Elise Wallis woman.”
“Yeah.”
“Then we have to find her and spring her.” He made it sound like running to the store to pick up a quart of milk.
Daniel frowned. “Spring her, I can see. But how do we find her? I’m just an operator, and a pretty fine stitch. You’re an A-team leader; hell you were, what do they call it, a detachment commander? There are a couple more guys I could call that I can count on, but nobody with the skills and contacts to find someone like that, just from a name.”
Zeke smiled, wicked. “Spooky does. His company also does corporate intel.”
“Cool.” And it was. It was a ray of hope.
-8-
Elise walked into the office and sat down in the chair by Doctor Durgan’s desk. This put her well away from Miguel, who couldn’t exactly hover nearby with the Doc in his usual spot – the place of power behind it. She ignored the man, since she couldn’t do much else. She did notice he was wearing gloves, long sleeves and body armor.