“And we still have a lot of computations to do before drawing any conclusion.” It was Stern, muttering to nobody in particular.
Warren disregarded him like a gnat and glared at the colored mottlings imposed on the schematic of Zack Kashian’s brain. “This fellow may be a godsend … literally.”
“Yes,” Elizabeth said. “He’s got the most active God lobe we’ve ever seen. Last week, he positively identified a root beer logo hidden from view. Then he had two more NDEs that he couldn’t recall but which showed high activity. What distinguished the last one was the emotional profile. His bloodwork showed secretions of chemicals associated with fear followed by serotonin tranquillity.”
“Dare I suggest that he crossed over to heaven?” Warren could see Stern rub his nose in disdain at the suggestion. The man was a godless fool, locked in his own steel-clad tunnel with the cold light of reason burning at one end, a sealed tomb at the other.
“A lovely thought,” Elizabeth said, “and maybe so. But he reported none of the classic experiences: no tunnel, bright lights, no sense of tranquillity. Just playing ball with his father.”
“And his father is dead, correct?”
“Yes,” Elizabeth said.
“So maybe he was interacting with his father’s spirit.”
Before she could respond, Stern cut in. “Or maybe a flash dream just before he woke up.”
Warren nearly spat at Stern.
“We still have more tests to run before we can draw conclusions,” Elizabeth said.
“The point is,” Stern continued, “we haven’t got enough data to determine if sensing a dead loved one is a so-called spiritual experience or long-term memory rising from stimulation of the temporal lobe—the more likely case.”
“You don’t give an inch, do you?”
“I would if I saw the evidence.”
“It’s still very encouraging,” Elizabeth said, trying to end the scrapping.
Warren nodded. “Okay, so what do we know about him?”
“He needs the money.”
“That hardly distinguishes him,” Warren said.
“No, but his father abandoned him and his mother when he was about ten, and he claims to have sensed his presence in the booth test. He hasn’t said it in so many words, but I think he wants to make contact.”
“Don’t we all,” Warren said.
“She means he wants contact with his biological father,” said Stern.
“We would all do well to seek our Heavenly Father, you included,” Warren said. Then he turned to Elizabeth. “So, what’s the next step?”
“To suspend him again. We’ve scheduled him for this Friday.”
“I’d like to meet this young man.” Warren checked his watch. He had a meeting with his accountant in an hour. But there was something in Elizabeth’s face.
“I hate to be the bearer of bad news,” she said, “but we lost another of our colleagues, Roger Devereux. He and his wife, Ruth, were found shot to death—a case of a murder-suicide, according to the police.”
“Good God. How horrible!”
“Yes. We didn’t know of any problems,” Elizabeth said.
“Roger was a good man,” Stern interjected. “He helped design the imaging software. His wife was also a neurologist who worked with him. It’s a terrible loss.”
“The police have no motive so far. We don’t know what went wrong,” Elizabeth said.
“That’s the third person associated with the project who’s died in the last month.”
“I’m afraid so.”
Although he financed the project and met regularly with the principals, Warren didn’t know others whose work on the project had been contracted for specific tasks. And only the principals and a couple of technicians knew the big picture. It was their way of maintaining security until they had conclusive evidence that he could broadcast to the world. “Could be an unfortunate coincidence,” Warren said. “But you can still carry on without him, right?”
“Yes, of course,” Stern said. “Sarah Wyman is very competent.”
“The other possibility is that these deaths are the result of foul play,” Warren said.
“Foul play? Tom Pomeroy died of a heart attack, and LeAnn Cola from a gas leak.”
“Yes, but those could have been cleverly staged, like this one.”
“But why?”
“Warnings for us to desist.”
“But who would do that?”
“I’m not sure,” Warren said. “But there are enough fundamentalist crazies out there who oppose what we’re doing.” Like every televangelist, he received an occasional nasty letter, telephone call, and e-mail mostly from unenlightened oafs who complained that they made contributions and still had miserable lives. But ever since Warren had begun broadcasting his Day of Jubilation message, he had received scathing responses suggesting an awareness of their research. Possibly some had drawn conclusions from Warren’s online exhortations that Christians embrace science, not fear it; that while atheists look at the rational universe and see accident, the enlightened look at the universe and see the handiwork of a rational Creator. Maybe someone had connected the appeals to his NDE books. “Just in case, I think we should take every precaution. I need not remind you how much is at stake.”
“We have cameras all over the compound. And no one can get in without IDs.”
“Then it might be time for a security service—armed guards, whatever.”
“Okay.”
“If these deaths are deliberate warnings,” Stern said, “it might be wise to back off on the broadcasts. Sending out more sermons about the Day of Jubilation might only fuel the fire.”
Warren looked at Stern, wondering if the man was a wolf in lamb’s clothing. He pretended to be a Jewish rationalist, but he could be one of those Opus Dei or Fraternity of Jesus loonies who had posted threatening, scathing blogs against his NDE writings. The real question was how they knew. “That probably makes sense. When we reach our goal, we’ll come out in full force.”
“In the meantime, we’ll look into security guards,” Elizabeth said.
“Good,” Warren said, and he could see Elizabeth begin to fret.
“Of course,” she said, “that means we’ll need more resources.”
“You’re as subtle as a train wreck, Elizabeth. Send me a bill. In return, I want to know who leaked.”
43
Zack was again back on that beach, but the tide was up, the air was cold, and fog was closing in. Also, the perspective was wrong. Instead of crossing the sandbar, he was looking down from a set of wooden stairs at the far end of the beach and climbing to the cliff top. He knew the area, but the stairs seemed much higher than he remembered. And the beach appeared to stretch forever. Somewhere in the distance was their rental cottage, but he couldn’t make it out. And farther down was the vague impression of the canal. Through the mist, he could hear the muffled groan of the foghorn and see the blinking red eye of the channel marker. Just below, the bay spread into the mist like a sheet of rippled iron.
“Almost there.”
He looked up. His father. He was maybe ten steps ahead of him, climbing to the top. “Dad, wait.”
But his father kept climbing without looking back. “This way.”
Zack’s legs were tired, but he had to keep up because his father had to tell him something. “Dad, slow down.”
But his father didn’t seem to hear him. Or maybe it was the sea breeze in his ears. Winded, Zack fought the heaviness in his legs and pushed on. When he looked up again, the top was only a dozen stairs away. But something was different. His father’s clothes had changed from the swimming trunks and bare back to a brown robe. Where did that come from?