Panacea Read Free Page B

angling the narrow slats to let in the day. He suppressed a groan as the light jabbed into his brain, intensifying his headache. Squinting, he saw Foley Square basking in the sun fifteen stories below. And beyond that, the roof of the hulking New York City Supreme Court building.
    â€œSo, he had the place rigged to go up, taking him and everything else with him. And I’m supposed to believe that this is the guy with the secret to a cure-all?”
    Yes, you are, Nelson thought. And I’ll have you convinced before I leave here.
    Always be closing.
    Nelson wandered the office. Brown industrial carpet, beige walls adorned with blah photos of Manhattan streets. The sign on the door said Asian Studies . The directory down in the Federal Building’s lobby didn’t list the room at all.
    â€œI don’t see an incongruity. We’re dealing with a member of a hyper-secretive cult. The incendiaries he had rigged destroyed all evidence, including his plants. From his end it makes perfect sense: His secrets are safe.”
    Pickens motioned to the chair before his desk. “Sit down, will you? We have to talk, and your wandering around gets on my nerves.”
    Pickens was a dozen years older—mid-fifties—red-faced and balding. He had his suit jacket off, revealing black suspenders. Most of the men Nelson knew who wore suspenders were fat, and Pickens was no exception. His suit was of only slightly better quality than Brother Bradsher’s, but at least he’d had the good sense to choose a jacket with side vents to accommodate his girth. He’d let himself go the past few years, developing a big gut that stretched his shirtfront.
    Nelson prided himself on not gaining an ounce in the past decade. He still had a thirty-two-inch waist and a healthy head of dark, gray-free hair. Clean, righteous living did it—no meat, lots of fruit and veggies.
    â€œLook,” Pickens said when Nelson had settled himself, “this panacea thing of yours was all fine and good when it was just some theory you were investigating on your own time. It’s been all speculation, all cloud-cuckoo-land stuff till now. But last night changes things. You ran an op—and an illegal one, at that—without clearing it. You should have come to me first.”
    Nelson repressed a smile. Pickens’s bald statements about things they both knew perfectly well made it obvious he was recording the meeting. Fine. Nelson understood and appreciated CYA. So why not help get Pickens off whatever future hooks might come his way via Nelson Fife?
    â€œThe reason I didn’t clear it was I knew you’d quash it.”
    Pickens blinked at having been handed the proverbial Get Out of Jail Free card, then visibly relaxed.
    â€œWell, I … I think we could have found a legal path. By the way, is this place you were at the same as the fire I heard about on the news this morning?”
    Nelson nodded. “Unfortunately.”
    â€œLook, Nelson, it’s time we laid some ground rules. I know you caught this bug from your uncle who was, as I’ve said many times before, a fine, fine field agent. But Jim Fife had this obsession—”
    â€œIt exists, sir. The panacea is real. My uncle saw the cures.”
    â€œI know he thinks he did, but…” He leaned back and took a deep breath. “Let’s just say for the sake of argument that a panacea exists. Why is this cult keeping it secret?”
    â€œThat was what I was hoping to learn from Hanrahan. But it’s pretty much a truism, isn’t it, that cults don’t have to make sense, and it’s wrong to expect them to. People believe the strangest things. Look at Dormentalism’s core beliefs. You wonder how anyone can buy into that stuff about aliens, but it has thousands of devoted followers. I would guess offhand that these panaceans—”
    â€œIs that what they call themselves?”
    â€œFrankly, I don’t know