Fire Of Heaven 02 - Threshold Page 3

  True, he could have spread out the injections over a few days, resulting in less discomfort. But that would have meant delaying his flight — and the mysterious donor down there in the mountains of Nepal had wanted to see him immediately. If there was one thing Reichner knew about securing financial gifts, it was to make the people with the money think you were jumping whenever they said jump.

  As executive director of the Moran Research Institute, Reichner was a pro at playing people to get what he wanted. Those from other parapsychology labs around the world described him in less generous terms: huckster, manipulator, shameless con artist. Let his peers say what they would. While they were busy scraping and fighting for the few funds available for paranormal research, he was enjoying a free ride from a single donor. It had been that way since the construction of the 2.8 million dollar complex at Bethel Lake nearly three years ago. He had never understood why the donor had insisted that he build it in the backwoods community of northern Indiana, but that was a small price to pay for total and complete funding. Funding that would later include the purchase of expensive PET scan and MRI equipment. And funding that, if Reichner played his cards correctly, he would continue to enjoy for many years to come.

  He didn’t know who the guru down there was, where he got his money, or why he hid in the remote mountains of Nepal. Reichner had never actually met him; all their interaction had, until this point, been handled through the guru’s intermediaries. There were rumors that he was a young man, perhaps even a boy, the result of a genetic experiment in the States that had gone awry. An experiment that had supposedly left him with incredible psychic powers — powers currently being groomed and guarded by some sort of international cartel. For what purposes, Reichner hadn’t the foggiest. But the boy and the cartel had been sponsoring the Institute for three years now. And if Reichner handled this hastily called face-to-face correctly, it should not only answer some of his questions about his donor but ensure uninterrupted financial support for several years to come.

  After all, using people and situations was what Reichner did best.

  The plane lurched again. Reichner readjusted his meticulously kept six-foot frame, searching for some portion of his anatomy to take the final abuses. He was grateful to hear the dull whine of the landing gears as they opened and locked into place.

  He glanced up; the flight attendant he’d been flirting with since New Delhi approached the bulkhead in front of him and folded down the flight seat. Her name was Gita. This was her first month on the job and she was still a little nervous. But the details didn’t concern Dr. Reichner. The point was that she was slender, attractive, and very, very young — nearly thirty years his junior.

  Just the way he liked them.

  He’d been playing the powerful yet understanding father figure during the trip, and it had been working perfectly. Of course he’d made his occupation clear, and of course she found it incredibly intriguing. The younger ones always did. But now they were about to land and he’d have to work fast.

  The plane gave another jolt and he winced.

  “Are you okay?” she asked as she buckled in. “You look a little pale.”

  Reichner smiled. Adding a trace of vulnerability would only work to his advantage. “Just a little air sickness. I’m okay.” He grinned, wincing just enough to make it clear that he was lying.

  “We’ll be on the ground in a few seconds,” she said sympathetically. “Hang in there.”

  He smiled and nodded. She smiled back.

  Good.

  There was another jar as the wheels touched down and they began to taxi toward the terminal.

  “So,” he cleared his throat, “you’ve never met anyone involved in psychic research before?”

  “No, never. It is most intriguing.”

  “Yes, well, we are a rare breed.” He straightened his tropical wool slacks and folded his hands. “There are only fifty to sixty full-time parapsychologists in the entire world.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. With less than a dozen labs.”

  “That is all?”

  He nodded. “Two in England and Russia, one in Beijing, Edinburgh, Bombay, the Netherlands, Brazil of course, and a small handful in the States. But that’s all. As the leader in this field, I try to visit them often. But you can imagine how having no family and being on the road can make one lonely from time to time.” He threw her a look.

  She didn’t get it. The kid was obviously too naive to appreciate his subtlety. They were approaching the terminal. He’d have to be more obvious.

  “But the amazing thing is, I believe everybody on our planet has psychic abilities.”

  “Really?”

  “Absolutely. In fact, right here, right now, I bet you could telepathically communicate to me what you’re thinking.”

  She laughed. “You are not serious.”

  Reichner glanced out the window. The terminal was three hundred yards away. He’d have to work fast. “Of course I’m serious.” He reached out to her. “Here, give me your hand, and I will tell you what you are thinking.”

  She hesitated.

  “I’m serious. Simply focus your thoughts upon me and I will be able to tell.”

  She threw a nervous glance at the rest of the cabin, then leaned discreetly forward and held out her hand. Reichner took it. It was cool and smooth. So young, so firm.

  He fixed his eyes onto hers and looked deeply into them. She faltered, glancing away, then looked back.

  Good.

  He dropped his voice into a soothing, controlled tone — the one he used on his subjects during their sessions at the Institute. “Just relax and concentrate…Concentrate.” He noticed the terminal out of the corner of his eye. They were nearly there.

  “Oh my, I am getting lots of thoughts.” He smiled.

  She fidgeted.

  “First of all, you are feeling a bit lonely, too, are you not? In fact — hmm, you are wondering what you will be doing this evening.” He could feel a slight dampness break out in her palm. Excellent. He tightened his grip so she couldn’t easily pull away. Still staring at her, he continued. “You do not want to be cooped up in that hotel room …” His eyes widened, pretending surprise. “Well, now.”

  “What?” she smiled self-consciously.

  “No, I —”

  “Please, tell me.”

  “Well, somewhere in the back of your mind you are wondering…you are wondering if I will invite you to dinner.”

  Her smile wavered.

  He’d gone too far. Immediately he went in for damage control. “It might be deep in your subconscious, of course, but —”

  She pulled back her hand.

  “I am sorry,” he feigned embarrassment. “Sometimes our subconscious thinks things that we are not even aware —”

  “Excuse me.” She fumbled with her safety harness and unbuckled it. Without another word, she rose and entered the other cabin.

  Reichner leaned back in his seat as the plane shuddered to a stop. He’d been clumsy, hadn’t taken enough time. Too bad. In the proper environment he could talk anybody into anything. It was a gift he’d developed over the years. That’s how he’d survived his childhood poverty in Austria. That’s how he’d risen to his current level of success in his field.

  He just hadn’t taken enough time, that was all. But there were others. There were always others.

  After retrieving his carry-on from the overhead and donning his Hickey-Freeman suit coat, he moved down the aisle. A moment later he passed the girl at the front exit. “It was very nice meeting you,” he said, smiling.

  She returned the smile and reached out to shake his hand. He was surprised, but he took her hand, once again enjoying the soft firmness of her touch. When he withdrew, he discovered a folded piece of paper in his palm. He waited until he’d stepped out of the plane to read it. Outside, the rain-soaked air was hot and humid, hitting him like a sauna. As he moved down the portable stairway toward the tarmac he unfolded the paper
. It read:

  Hotel Ganesh

  312 Sukrapath Rd.

  He smiled. Yes, he was good. He was very, very good.

  “Mr. Reichner.”

  He glanced up to see two Westerners approaching the foot of the stairs. One was short and stocky, about five-five. The other was nearly Reichner’s height and had a steel prosthesis for a left hand. Both wore suits almost as expensive as his.

  They met him at the bottom of the steps and moved off to the side, out of the flow of traffic. “Are you Mr. Reichner?” the tall one asked.

  “Dr. Reichner,” Reichner corrected. “Who are you?”

  “The Teacher has sent us.”

  Reichner frowned. They were obviously disciples of the boy guru. “We aren’t scheduled to meet until tomorrow.”

  “The situation’s gettin’ a lot worse.” Tall Suit’s accent was lower British class. Reichner guessed Liverpool.

  “Yes,” Reichner cleared his throat. “Well, I have another appointment this evening, so I am afraid —”

  He felt a hand lightly press against his back. “I’m sorry, but this can’t wait.” Not fond of being manhandled, Reichner held his ground. The taller man repeated, “The Teacher, he needs to see you. Now.”

  Reichner considered his options. He could resist, but since these goons were connected to the money man it would be better to let them play their hand, at least for now. Later, he could complain, maybe even use their inhospitality to his advantage.

  As if reading his mind, Tall Suit cranked up a feeble excuse for a smile. Reichner turned to the shorter man who was struggling to look equally as pleasant. The two seemed intent upon having their way, and judging by how they both filled out their suits, Reichner guessed that they were used to getting it. Well — best to play by the house rules. At least until he learned how to manipulate those rules to his advantage. And he would. That was his style. The secret to his success.

  SLAUGHTER! KILL! DESTROY! MUTILATE!

  The voices inside Lewis’s head had been screaming for nearly three days. In calmer times they spoke in complete sentences. But when Lewis refused to obey, their demands grew louder, shriller. The rantings stirred other voices in him. Voices he didn’t often hear but that he suspected were always there. Voices that joined in the screaming.

  KILL! DECIMATE! ANNIHILATE!

  He didn’t always understand the words, but he knew what they wanted. They demanded destruction. They hungered for the hot, rusty smell of blood. They demanded the rush of power that came only from taking another life. Of course, Lewis wanted it, too. In fact, at times like this, he couldn’t tell where their desires ended and his began. Not that he cared. At least not now. Now his appetite and their screamings had to be silenced — the throbbing, all-consuming hunger had to be fed.

  “Which one?” a young teen with an acne-ravaged face whispered.

  Lewis stood silently under the cover of trees near the pen. He stroked his red, ragged goatee and carefully surveyed the eight pigs. The moon made their lovely pale skins luminescent. They were beautiful animals. Any one would do.

  “Let’s go. Let’s do it, let’s do it.” It was the other teen, a little older — the one with the long greasy hair and double-pierced eyebrow.

  Lewis said nothing but watched in silence. The urgency of his companions caused him little concern. They were slackers. Hangers-on who were nominally attracted to his power. They were far more interested in witchcraft, Satanism, and the other childish games misfits like them needed to try to gain control of their lives. Neither boy fully appreciated Lewis’s real powers — or what he would soon become.

  The animals, aware of the strangers’ presence, were growing uneasy.

  “Come on,” Pierced Eyebrow urged, casting a worried glance at the farmhouse. “Let’s do it.”

  Lewis ran his hand over the red stubble atop his head. Yes, it was definitely time. He reached for his belt to check on the Buck hunting knife — one of the few things his daddy had given him before he’d killed himself.

  KILL! DESTROY! RAVAGE!

  Lewis’s heart pounded as he surveyed the animals. Finally he focused on one to the far right. It seemed to be the youngest, the fairest, the most pure.

  MUTILATE! DESECRATE!

  This was always the best part. Just before the kill. The teasing. The building up of desire until it practically exploded inside him.

  “Let’s do it!” Acne Face whispered.

  Lewis’s breath came shorter now, in ragged pants of excitement. He had never killed an animal this large. Hamsters, yes. Stray cats, several. Even a neighbor’s puppy. But never this.

  Suddenly, he broke from cover and ran toward the fence. Five steps, up, over, and he was inside the pen. A moment later his partners joined him. The pigs squealed in panic, running in every direction. A chained dog began barking over at the house. But that was okay; they’d be done before the porch light came on.

  “That one!” Lewis shouted. “That one, right there!”

  They closed in on the young animal. It cut to the left, then to the right, then left again. In seconds they had it cornered. Pierced Eyebrow lunged; the others followed until they were all holding it. The thing kicked and jerked and squealed, but it was outnumbered.

  “Hold him!” Acne Face yelled. He’d made the mistake of grabbing the haunches and was now suffering considerable abuse because of it. “Hold him!”

  Pierced Eyebrow yanked up the animal’s head, exposing its neck. Lewis reached for his knife, and then everything turned to slow motion. Ecstasy exploded in his chest, rushing through his veins, firing every nerve.

  It was over in seconds. Lewis’s legs buckled in euphoria, dropping him to his knees. Already the voices were subsiding. Of course, they would return. They always did. And each time their hunger and desire was greater than the time before. But that was okay. Lewis knew the reason. He was being prepared. There was a stirring in him. He’d felt it, known it, been told about it by the voices. He was about to enter his season. After years of patiently waiting, being ignored and humiliated, Lewis Thompson would shortly — very, very shortly — begin fulfilling the destiny for which he’d been born.

  CHAPTER 2

  SOMETHING WAS WRONG AT Moran Research Institute. Terribly wrong.

  An exhausted Sarah Weintraub entered one of the two narrow labs and dimmed the lights. It had been a frustrating evening, and these rooms, with their subdued lighting and gray, ribbed panels of sound-absorbing material, always comforted her. She dropped into one of the two swivel chairs in front of a black console that contained a handful of controls, a couple of joysticks, some unwashed coffee mugs, a half-used legal pad, and a computer keyboard. Above this were two or three computers, some video monitors, a pair of speakers, and four red floodlights directed toward a plush leather recliner to the right. Behind her, almost within reaching distance, were waist-high racks of DATs, more computers, and other monitoring equipment. And finally, above that was the three-foot-high by seven-foot-long, one-way glass of the observation room, which housed even more state-of-the-art electronics and dirty coffee mugs.

  Earlier that evening, she had made an obligatory public relations appearance at the country club — on the arm of some Neanderthal who had tried more moves on her than he had words in his vocabulary. That had been a mistake, but she had paid her penance by spending the rest of the evening and early morning hours here, at the Institute. Other twenty-eight-year-olds had their boyfriends, their husbands, their kids, but Sarah Weintraub had her work. And over the years it had become a demanding lover, one she seldom refused.

  It hadn’t always been that way. Granted, she was ambitious and even aggressive, more than most. As the only girl in a family with four brothers, she’d had to be. But at the appropriate time, she’d always been able to fit in and unwind with the best of them. Until her second year at grad school. That’s when she’d gotten pregnant, and that’s when the fights with Samuel had started. “Come on, babe,” he had insisted, “I want a kid as much
as you. But not now. We’ve both got school to finish and careers to launch. After that, sure. The more the merrier. But not now.”

  Sarah hadn’t wanted the abortion, but Samuel’s persistence had worn her down. He understood her ambition perfectly, and he’d used it to get his way. At the end of her ninth week, she’d found herself on the table, legs in the stirrups, staring at a poster of a smiling Garfield up on the ceiling.

  She knew the fetus was a boy, had sensed it from the beginning. She’d begged him to please understand, to please forgive her. But apparently he hadn’t. There had been an accidental perforation of the uterus wall, followed by severe bleeding. By the end of the day, Sarah Weintraub had found herself the recipient of an emergency hysterectomy. Eight months later, she and Samuel had broken up. He’d never admitted it, but she suspected “damaged goods” to be a contributing factor on his part. And for her, there had been the guilt and overbearing depression that she just couldn’t seem to shake.

  Fortunately, there had been her studies and later, her work. Not only had they kept her mind occupied and held back the depression, but they had also earned her the reputation as a diligent researcher and a go-getter — proving that she really was a good girl. Proving that her work really did count for something. Proving that maybe, after enough accomplishments in her field, that maybe, just maybe, the sacrifice of her son could someday be justified. Until then, all Sarah Weintraub needed were two to three dozen hours of overtime each week to keep the guilt and self-loathing at bay.

  She leaned over the console and punched on the power. The board lit up, and one of the computers started to whir. She had spent the past several hours alone at the Institute, checking and rechecking last week’s data. But no matter how carefully she scrutinized the procedural notes and reworked the probabilities, the results remained the same.