The Deep Zone: A Novel Read Free Page B

in rusting sconces. Massive iron rings, affixed to walls and ceiling, scabbed with brown rust. The smell in the room was stomach-turning, heavy with filth and mold.
    The stone floor sloped down toward a central drain. Mr. Adelheidwalked to the drain, drew on his cigar. The tip flared red. There was the buzzing of the fly again, louder now, closer to him. For an instant he thought that he might have felt the brush of tiny wings on his lip, but he saw nothing in the gloom. He could not take his eyes off the drain.
    “In rooms like this, Captain Sadler took his pleasure. An underground passage led to the Potomac. Still does. Bodies were carted down and consigned to the river, which carried them to the sea.”
    “Why did you bring me here?”
    “You know why. This is a very serious thing, this new realm you now inhabit.
Caveat venditor
.”
    Let the seller beware
.
    Mr. Adelheid glanced around the chamber one last time. “Remarkable place, isn’t it? The kind from which you do not emerge unchanged. Nor ever forget.”
    Upstairs again, they walked to the front door, which began to open as they approached.
    “One more thing you should know.” Mr. Adelheid drew on his cigar, peered through blue smoke. “You will have company at BARDA.”
    “You mean other … observers?”
    “Yes.”
    “Doing the same thing I am?”
    Mr. Adelheid tilted his head, exhaled smoke. “Enough to know that they are there.”
    Observing
, he thought.
Observing
me.
Is that what he means?
    He needed to know something. “How do you find … people like me?”
    Mr. Adelheid drew a red line in the air with his glowing cigar tip. “You find us.”
    “But I never did anything. You reached out to me first.”
    “We have done this for a very long time, and we are exceedingly patient,” Mr. Adelheid said. “Not unlike you scientists. A few unguardedwords. An indiscreet letter. Financial transactions of a certain kind. These and other things.”
    The word came to him: “Signals.”
    “Indeed. And the strongest signals are those of distress.”
    Like a moth caught in a web
, he thought.
    “Adou will drive you back. You will hear from me. For now, go and live the days of your life.” Mr. Adelheid disappeared into the mansion.
    The guest stepped out onto the porch and almost bumped into Adou. The place had been ablaze with light when he arrived, but now the porch was as dark as the deck of a slaver on a black Atlantic night.
    He could just discern Adou’s outline, shadow against dark. Then a lighter clicked and Adou touched fire to the tip of his cigarette. He had taken off the sunglasses. One empty, ragged eye socket flared red in the yellow flame.
    “Come.” It did not sound like a request this time. Adou moved off, as sure-footed as a midnight cat. He came behind, stumbling into the darkness.

THE BULLET HIT FATHER WYMAN BEFORE HE HEARD THE AK-47 report. No surprise, that. Haji’s AK rounds traveled a mile in two seconds,
way
ahead of their sound. You never heard the one with your name on it. So to Father Wyman’s way of thinking, only fools and ground pounders ducked and flinched in firefights. When they were Oscar Mike, he stood tall in his up-armored Humvee turret, head on a swivel, hands on his fifty-cal’s oak, cigar-shaped grips, thumbs on the butterfly trigger.
    Father Wyman was not a priest. He was a heartland patriot less than three years out of high school, but he loved to read his Bible and to hold prayer meetings for the other troopers, so that was what the men in Viper Company at Combat Outpost (COP) Terok had taken to calling him. Wyman’s was not a foxhole conversion. He’d inherited from his father and mother an unshakable belief in the Book’s literal truth. It was not an ancient tome of mystic parable,but practical wisdom by which they lived their lives, day by day. They trusted it as farmers trusted their land and wealthy people their money. They read it more often than newspapers. They had no faith in soiled