Annabel Lee Page 27

  “What makes you think Annabel’s blood is some miraculous medicine?”

  Dr. Smith looked hard at Annabel. “Why don’t you tell your friend?” he said.

  Annabel shook her head. “I don’t understand it, really. Just that it’s something called neuroregenesis.”

  In response, Dr. Smith leaned back in his chair. He spoke to Trudi, but he never took his eyes off of Annabel.

  “According to biblical history,” he said, “a dead man was once tossed into a tomb that held bones of the prophet Elisha. When the dead man’s body touched the bones, it experienced a miraculous neuroregenesis. The dead man came back to life. It was that story that first prompted the Order of St. Heinrich von Bonn to become relic hunters. And we’ve been very good at it over the centuries.”

  Dr. Smith paused long enough to make sure Trudi was listening, then he stood and walked over to the bookshelves. He pulled the Bible off the shelf and dropped it on the table. He flipped it open about halfway through.

  “I see this one is marked,” he said to Annabel. “By you?”

  She shook her head.

  “Truckson then,” he said. “Leaving you more clues.”

  Annabel looked shamefaced, like she should have known that, like she should have memorized whatever it was that Dr. Smith was referring to.

  The old man read aloud, “Mark 3:1–5. ‘And he entered again into the synagogue; and there was a man there which had a withered hand. And they watched him, whether he would heal him on the Sabbath day; that they might accuse him. And he saith unto the man which had the withered hand, Stand forth. And he saith unto them, Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath days, or to do evil? to save life, or to kill? But they held their peace. And when he had looked round about on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts, he saith unto the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it out: and his hand was restored whole as the other.’”

  “Kind of an odd time for a Bible lesson, don’t you think?” Trudi said. “So two thousand years ago, Jesus healed a man with a withered hand. That doesn’t mean Annabel has sacred blood or something.”

  “As far as the Bible is concerned, that encounter with Jesus in the synagogue was the end of that story. Except it wasn’t.”

  Dr. Smith’s eyes glittered as he closed the Scripture book. He sat back down, across from Annabel, at the table.

  “The healed man was so grateful,” Smith said, “he became something of a missionary for Christ, traveling through as much of the world as he knew to spread the news of Jesus. And, in another miracle, that formerly withered hand became an agent of the supernatural. When the man touched the sick or the injured in the name of Jesus, they too were healed.”

  “Let me guess,” Trudi said, “then some vampire weirdos from your cult did something weird to him. Did they drink his blood?”

  Dr. Smith ignored Trudi’s interruption, speaking only to Annabel.

  “When the man died, his hand was severed and saved as a holy relic. By the time we got it a thousand years later, all that was left was the bone and lower joint of the index finger. My forefathers were unable to access the miraculous power stored in the bone, so they began to experiment. In the 1800s, they took what they knew of mysticism and began to combine it with basic biology and scientific process. In 1933, Hitler rose to power, with Joseph Goebbels as his Reich Minister of Propaganda.”

  “Goebbels was a Blood-Eater.” Annabel filled in the blank. Trudi felt disgusted.

  “Herr Goebbels was high priest in the Order of St. Heinrich von Bonn,” Dr. Smith corrected. “And he gave the bone to his acolyte. My grandfather. Together they sought to unravel the mystery of power hidden in the bone. World War II was an especially fertile time for them, and they made many advancements.”

  “Human experimentation. Nazi atrocities against the Jews. That’s your legacy?” Trudi said. She felt like spitting.

  Dr. Smith didn’t respond, but it was evident that Trudi had hit the nail right on the head. So, this crazy man is descended from an entire family of brutal, scientific, cultic psychopaths. Trudi pushed down the panic that threatened to overtake her.

  “After the war, my family moved to Erfurt in the German Democratic Republic, where my father joined my grandfather in the work.”

  Communist East Germany, Trudi mentally noted. Behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War.

  “And when they passed away, Dr. Schmitzden took over.” It was Annabel. Even she sounded disgusted. The old man nodded as if accepting a compliment.

  “We had some difficulties in funding after the fall of the Soviet Union and the reunification of Germany. Until we found a sponsor in Iraq. After the first Gulf War, it seemed that Qusay Hussein was interested in, well, innovative methods of keeping soldiers fit for fighting.”

  “You were a stooge for Saddam Hussein’s son in Iraq?” Trudi wished she could break her zip tie just so she could crack this old man’s teeth.

  “Possibly.” He shrugged. “I was never told exactly who was in charge. But I was given a large laboratory and plenty of prisoners to use for my studies.”

  “What about my mother?” Annabel said suddenly, fiercely. “Was she one of your prisoners?”

  “Ah, Dr. Marelda Gregor. No, she was no prisoner.” Smith looked nostalgic, as if remembering a picnic in summertime or a family reunion at Christmas. “Your mother was a brilliant woman. A natural with languages—I think she spoke seven or eight fluently. Miraculous in that regard, really.”

  Annabel’s face flushed.

  “She came to me when I was in Erfurt,” Smith continued. “She was young, beautiful. Startling green eyes, I remember that best about her. Striking. She was only twenty-five or twenty-six years old. Like me, she’d earned a PhD in psychology. And during her studies, she had discovered that the human mind is more than mass attached to the body. She found the impact of the spiritual world irresistible. She wanted to join the Order of St. Heinrich von Bonn as my disciple.”

  Dr. Smith shrugged. “I sent her back to school. Ten years later she returned with an undergraduate degree in biology and a medical doctorate specializing in stem cell research. She followed me to Fallujah, and we set out to unravel the mystery of power.”

  Alarms went off in Trudi’s head at the mention of Fallujah. That’s where Truck was stationed during the war, she thought, and where he must have recruited Rendel Jackson-Fife to join him in this Fade for Annabel.

  “And then you came along”—he nodded toward Annabel—“offering the answers.”

  “In my blood.” Annabel looked grim.

  “In your stem cells.”

  “She was going to stop you. Did you know that? She was going to leave.”

  “Yes.” Dr. Smith said it without emotion. “Her only fault. You. She couldn’t do to you what needed to be done.”

  “What needed to be done?” Trudi hated asking the question.

  “During Marelda’s pregnancy, we implanted into the child’s stem cells the last of the relic. We ground the tip of the finger bone from the man with the withered hand into fine powder and made it part of this child’s DNA.” He nodded toward Annabel. “Your mother almost died during the surgery. But she was strong. She was very strong.”

  “What was that supposed to do?”

  “In my studies I discovered there are spiritual forces at work in biological functions. The reason no one had been able to unlock the healing power of the bone was because it had only been tested with adults. It needed an innocent. A child. Only in that purity could the healing miracles be released.”

  “That’s why he’s been so hot to find me,” Annabel said. “When I turn thirteen, I won’t be a child anymore.”

  “It is the age of accountability,” Smith said matter-of-factly. “And, if my theories on mystical physiology are correct, her blood will be useless then.”

  “So, what, you’re just going to drain her blood for the next year and half to mix your little potions?”

  As soon
as Trudi said it, she knew it was true. That was why Smith had spent more than a decade painstakingly tracking Truck and this girl. His great plan for her was to suck her dry and then discard her when she turned thirteen. The horror of that made Trudi strain on her bonds, desperate to break free and save Annabel from this mad scientist’s plans.

  “Things are necessary,” Dr. Smith said calmly. To Annabel he said, “I can’t promise that you won’t suffer, but I do promise not to make you suffer needlessly. And in spite of what you may think of me, I never tell a lie.”

  Trudi let her mind swim past her encounters with Dr. Smith. He was deceitful and criminal, but he was right. He had never outright lied to her.

  “You can’t do this,” Trudi said softly. “She’s just a child.”

  “That’s what her mother told me. It was not enough.”

  “Is that why you killed her?” she accused.

  “No, I could never have killed Marelda Gregor. She was the incubator for my greatest achievement.” He tipped his head toward Annabel. “That’s why I arranged for her to be kidnapped by Iraqi insurgents. They would profit from her, and if necessary, they would kill her for me.”

  “She was going to leave you.” Annabel said it with urgency, and Trudi saw her fighting tears. “Why couldn’t you just let her go?”

  “Because, meine Tochter, she was going to take you with her. I couldn’t let that happen. Of course, I didn’t count on your Leonard Truckson and his army Special Forces soldiers getting involved.”

  Trudi could guess what happened next. Truck and his men came to steal away Marelda Gregor, and bad things happened.

  “She called for them to come,” Annabel said.

  “Yes,” Smith said grimly. “She promised secrets about Qusay Hussein and Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army. Promised a windfall in intelligence for your American CIA interrogators. How could they resist her pleas for help?”

  “Somehow she contacted The Mute,” Annabel said. “Asked for help to escape from you. To get me away from you. And she waited for them. She said it was the beginning of ‘the real adventure.’”

  “The Mute?” The old man looked curious. “That was his name? Interesting. Regardless, this mute and your uncle timed it wrong. They didn’t count on members of the Mahdi Army getting to Marelda before they could. To their credit, Truckson and his men did manage to liberate both your mother and you away from al-Sadr’s fighters, but she was already wounded by the time they got to her. She died at the compound. Truckson left her body but took you away.”

  Raw anger flashed across Dr. Smith’s face. It was the first display of real emotion Trudi had seen from the man.

  “He stole what was rightfully mine,” the old man said. “And he hid it in this backwater countryside for more than a decade. He deserved all that came to him.”

  “Her.” Trudi couldn’t help herself saying it.

  “What?” Dr. Smith said.

  “Her. You called Annabel ‘it.’ But Annabel is not that. She is a human being, flesh and blood. And spirit. An educated girl. Her.”

  Dr. Smith stood and walked to Trudi until he towered over her. He stared at her unblinking for a moment, then with unexpected fury, he smashed his knuckles across the right side of her face.

  Trudi grunted. The force of the blow caused her to smack her head against the bunk bed on the other side. She closed her eyes at the unexpected pain. There was a moment of quiet in the bunker, and then underneath the unkempt hair and battered lips, Trudi’s voice called out firmly, defiantly.

  “Her,” she said again. “Her!”

  42

  The Mute

  Night was in full force when Samuel Hill and The Mute found the dog.

  The German shepherd was lying in the brush near a dead mercenary and a mangled body that, upon closer inspection, turned out to be Samir Sadeq Hamza al-Sadr. The Mute refused to pity the Arab, and instead turned his attention toward the nonhuman form stretched out and bloodied on the ground.

  At first The Mute thought the dead animal might be a small deer or a bobcat, perhaps caught in accidental gunfire, or maybe a casualty from some natural predator. Then he took a step closer and saw the full moon shining on the matted, furry body, and he knew what had taken the brunt of that cannonball explosion they’d heard before.

  “Ah, no,” Hill said. “Come on, not the dog.”

  Samuel Hill apparently knew that dog too. Recognized its importance.

  “If they got the dog,” he said softly after checking the dead bodies nearby, “then they got the girl, they got Annabel. And if they got to Annabel, they got to Trudi.”

  The Mute didn’t move, watching the carcass of the dog, hoping for any slight movement.

  “Do you think that they would’ve taken Trudi with them? Or would they have . . .” He trailed off and tilted his head toward the dog.

  The Mute shook his head. He didn’t know. But the dog, Truck’s dog . . . Truck’s soldier . . .

  Hill began searching out the hidden places surrounding where the dog lay, hissing intermittently, “Trudi! Trudi, are you out here?”

  The Mute could see pain and anxiety etched in the man’s face. He would look for her until he dropped, or until her dead body appeared before him. And if he found her dead body, The Mute would pity any person who had anything to do with making her that way.

  But the dog, was he still alive? Or had that cannonball of a bullet silenced the animal forever?

  The Mute approached the German shepherd, focusing his vision on the shadowy spot that outlined his torso. Was that movement? Did the ragged rib cage rise and fall? The Mute moved closer until he was able to kneel down next to the animal, to touch his neck and side.

  The eyes were closed, but The Mute could hear a rasping rale pass through the dog’s teeth. He placed a hand on the animal’s side and felt his chest cavity rise and fall and rise again, ever so slightly, but undeniably so.

  Signs of life, The Mute thought. The dog still lives. There’s still a chance.

  For a moment, his mind was filled with plans of action. Carry the dog back to the Jeep. Pound on the door of Dr. Anthony Packer, the vet that Truck had used on many occasions. Save the animal’s life.

  He gently reached down and rolled the dog off the wounded shoulder. The animal yelped and came awake growling, then he recognized the hands that held him. The Mute saw the dog’s tail thump once, twice against the ground. One soldier greeting another in the theater of war. The dog’s shoulder was smeared with blood and ash and mud, a dirty mess, but The Mute was relieved to see that most of the bleeding had been staunched by the red mud pressed under the dog’s body. If he left now, if he didn’t waste any time, this dog would live. The Mute knew it to be true, and that thought filled him with hope.

  Then he heard Hill calling softly to the wind.

  “Trudi! Trudi, are you here? Are you safe?”

  A choice to make, The Mute realized. The soldier or the girl. There isn’t time to rescue both. But how can I leave either one behind?

  He sat frozen, watching the dog as it watched him, listening to his ragged breathing, seeing him struggle to stand and fail. It was a full minute before The Mute realized that Samuel Hill was now kneeling next to him.

  “We’ve got to go,” he said. “They’re not here. From what I can tell, they took the ATVs and headed back toward Truck’s farm. We’ve got to go there.”

  There was silence between them, and in the silence, The Mute heard the crunch of burnt grass, the melody of death in mercenary army boots.

  He reacted instinctively. Without warning, he launched himself at Hill until they were both on the ground, rolling and chasing themselves away from automatic gunfire that ripped through the night. When the bullets paused, Hill crab-walked behind the stump of a large oak tree. The Mute lay stock-still in the burned-over grass and hoped he was out of the moonlight.

  “Did you get them?” a voice shouted. “Are they still alive?”

  “One got away, but I think I got the other
one,” another mercenary called back. “I’ll go check. Cover me.”

  The Mute heard gunfire sail over his head, but he didn’t move. A moment later one of the mercenaries was standing warily over him, keeping a safe distance.

  “This one’s—”

  A burst of bullets cut into the air, slicing through and silencing the nearest mercenary. He fell to the ground like a sack of onions, blood already dripping from wounds in his forehead and chest. Behind him, the other mercenary let loose a volley of gunfire, aiming above The Mute’s head and toward the tree where Samuel Hill now hid, crouched into a ball that The Mute would not have thought possible for a man his size. Under the cover of this distraction, The Mute slid his right hand behind his back and retrieved the Kahr handgun stashed there. When there was a break in the fire, he struck, rolling onto his back and firing two shots toward the mercenary in the dark. At least one shot struck home. He heard the man grunt and fall to the ground.

  The Mute scrambled to his left and found cover behind another tree. He looked for Hill, but he was no longer in the hiding spot.

  Was he shot? Had he run? Where was he?

  The Mute waited, watching and listening. After a moment, he heard the sounds of a hand-to-hand battle, then one gunshot, then more fighting. A few minutes later, Hill reentered The Mute’s view, dragging a mercenary who was wounded in the leg.

  “Okay, you can come out now,” Hill said. The Mute stepped out from behind the tree. “You hurt?” Hill asked. The Mute shook his head. “Good. This joker actually shot himself in the leg trying to get at me.”

  The mercenary insulted Hill’s ancestry and suggested he perform a physically impossible sex act. His advice was ignored.

  “This one,” Hill said, “we keep alive. I think Homeland Security will want to have many long conversations with him.”

  The mercenary stopped talking, the reality of his situation setting in. This was the age of terror, after all, and anyone invading America with less than stellar motives could, and sometimes did, disappear completely. He didn’t struggle when Hill hung his wrists from a thick branch on an oak tree and secured him there with zip ties.