Killing Time

CHAPTER 6

It wasn't until two days later, while I was on a filthy, packed old 767 flying from Washington to Orlando, that the full impact of Max's death descended on me. Up until that time I'd been too preoccupied with police reports and hiding all traces of what we'd been doing to really let it sink in. But when I caught sight of a large man who might have been Max's double sitting three rows in front of me on that flight, I suddenly felt like I'd been hit in the chest with a mallet. To lose one's last living connection to childhood is not an easy thing; to lose him in the way I had is the kind of event that makes you want answers — and makes you capable of doing almost anything to get them.

My first stop on the road to what I was determined would be an explanation had been the offices of several acquaintances at the FBI's national headquarters in D.C. What I heard there, along with the manner in which my contacts delivered it, was unnerving: couched in ostensibly friendly terms was a firm warning to back off of any investigation having to do with the deaths of John Price and Max Jenkins. Apparently both the attorney general and the head of the Bureau didn't much like me to start with, given that I'd had the temerity, in my book, to put some of the leading figures of American history under the psychological microscope and make a modest pile of money in the process. But there was more than just personal animosity conveyed during the meetings, and by the time they were over, I was feeling disoriented and isolated. In my line of business you come to expect idle threats from local police forces, which have always viewed profilers with deep suspicion; but to have the rug pulled out from under you by the feds — well, that's a lonely feeling.

Nonetheless, I pressed on to Florida to attempt an interview with Dr. Eli Kuperman, anthropologist and convict. He was incarcerated in the Belle Isle State Correctional Facility outside Orlando, which was yet another of the country's new corporately operated prisons. The structure had originally been intended as a high school; but given the remarkable levels of violence that had come to characterize teen behavior in the increasingly ghettoized suburbs of nearly every American city, the design of high schools was not all that different from that of prisons. Thus when Florida fell into line with the rest of the country by giving the people's mania for punishment precedence over education, converting the sheer stone and nearly windowless mass at Belle Isle into a penitentiary hadn't been much of a trick.

I arrived at midday, made my request, and found, much to my surprise, that Dr. Kuperman was not only willing but anxious to see me. He insisted, however, that he would do so only during evening visiting hours on the following day. By the time I took my seat at a clear, bulletproof panel on the second floor of Belle Isle's visitors' building at seven the next evening, it was nearly dark. A guard soon appeared through a door in the room on the other side of the transparent divider, followed by a man of moderate height and similar weight who had dark features and curly brown hair and wore delicate tortoiseshell glasses: Eli Kuperman. He recognized me as quickly as I did him and proceeded to sit eagerly opposite me. The guard switched on an intercom that allowed us to talk.

"Dr. Wolfe," Kuperman said with a smile. "It's an honor. I've read your book — fascinating, really." The fact of imprisonment seemed to be having no effect on him at all.

"Dr. Kuperman," I said, acknowledging his compliment with a nod. "I've read a great deal about your work, too — though I'll admit I can't quite figure how it's landed you in this place."

"Can't you?" Kuperman asked, again very pleasantly. "Well, you'll find out soon enough. Oh, that reminds me—" He unbuttoned the cuff of his sky blue shirt, revealing a small, flexible keypad adhered to his skin. Touching a few of the keys, he then rebuttoned his cuff with another smile and looked back up. "There. We have a few minutes yet. How would you like to pass them?"

I assumed that the "few minutes" he was referring to was the balance of the time I'd been allowed with him, and so I put my query bluntly: "Suppose you tell me what your brother had to do with John Price's death."

Kuperman waved me off cordially. "Oh, plenty of time for that later. And Malcolm will be able to explain it much more thoroughly than I can."

"Malcolm?"

"Don't worry, you'll understand. I'm sorry about Mr. Jenkins, by the way. We'd hoped he'd come along, too."

"Come along?" I said, now completely at a loss.

"Yes." He moved closer to the glass. "I know you're confused, but try to keep up some kind of a conversation, will you? Otherwise the guard—"

Kuperman suddenly stopped talking when we began to hear an extraordinary noise: a deep, rumbling hum that seemed to come from all directions at once, even from inside my own head. It grew in volume and intensity at a quick but steady rate, until the metal chairs and tables in the room began to vibrate noticeably.

Looking up at the ceiling, Kuperman checked his watch again. "Well," he said, strangely unconcerned. "That was quick. They must have been closer than I thought…"

As the hum grew louder, I dashed to the only window in the visiting room and looked out into the darkness. There was precious little to be seen save the lights atop the prison walls, and then something appeared to blot even those beacons out. Moving above and across the walls was a dark mass, perhaps as long as a pair of train cars and twice as high.

"What the hell?" was all I could whisper; and then I noted Kuperman's shouting voice coming over the intercom and just cutting through the ever-intensifying hum:

"Dr. Wolfe! Dr. Wolfe, move away from the window, please!"

I did as he said, and just in time, too; for the bars outside the window, loosened by the mounting vibration, suddenly broke free of their anchors and flew away, while the wired glass panes did not so much shatter as explode. I ran back to the partition and saw that Kuperman's guard, clutching his ears, was screaming in terror.

"What is it?" I shouted through the intercom. "Kuperman, what's happening?"

Kuperman smiled; but before he could give any explanation the wall behind him began to shake violently. In just a few seconds it collapsed, the stone falling away and revealing a ten-foot-square passage into the night air. Once the dust had cleared, I could see, outside this gaping hole, what appeared to be a metallic wall about three feet from the violated stone edifice of the visitors' building; and over the insistent humming I began to make out the sound of gunshots coming from the prison yard below.

"It's all right, Dr. Wolfe!" I became conscious of Kuperman saying through the amplified intercom. "Don't worry! But try to get under one of those tables, will you?"

Once again my prompt observance of Kuperman's order saved me from being severely injured, this time by flying fragments of the transparent partition that had divided us. When I emerged from under the table and returned to Kuperman, I found him waving an arm and urging me to climb over the remains of the partition and join him. I did so, only to find myself faced by Kuperman's guard as well as a second officer. Both had their guns drawn, prompting Kuperman to turn to his man and cry out earnestly:

"Mr. Sweeney! Please! You don't really think that's going to do any good, do you? If you and Mr. Farkas leave now, I promise no harm will—"

Before Kuperman could finish we were presented with yet another extraordinary sight: the sudden delineation, by a series of small green lights, of a doorway in the metal surface outside the hole in the building's wall. Then, with a decompressing hiss, the door opened rapidly; in fact, it seemed to my eyes to almost disappear. Beyond the vanished portal was a dimly lit corridor in which stood a group of figures: four male, one quite distinctly female. The men wore coveralls; the woman was sheathed in a gray bodysuit that clung to her with what I might, under other circumstances, have called enticing tenacity.

With marvelous agility the young woman leapt through the three feet of open air and into the prison, the light of the room making two extraordinary things immediately apparent: first, the straight, chin-length hair that framed her delicate features was a strange silver color; and second, she held in her hands a device — presumably a weapon — that was obviously more complex and sophisticated than any handgun I'd ever seen.

The woman trained the device first on one officer and then on the other. Kuperman's man, Sweeney, had the good sense to drop his gun and head for the still intact doorway out of the room. But the second guard, Farkas, was foolish enough to let off a round from his pistol, even though his apparent fear made an accurate shot impossible. The bullet struck the wall above the woman, and she ducked for an instant; then she fixed her dark eyes on the guard with what seemed as much amusement as anger. Leveling the device in her hands at the man, she appeared on the verge of firing; but then she suddenly turned and trained the weapon on a desk that sat near the room's exit. She pulled what looked like a trigger, and then, without much of a sound, the desk was bombarded by a series of high-speed projectiles, reducing it to mere bits.

Had it been the guard's body she'd targeted, it would have completely disintegrated — just as John Price's had done.

Sensibly accepting this warning, the guard Farkas dropped his automatic and raced for the exit. Once he was gone, the woman pointed her weapon in the air, shifted her shapely weight to one side, and smiled at Kuperman and me.

"Doctors," she said with a nod. Then she touched the high collar of her bodysuit. "It's all right," she said, looking at the ceiling. "I've got them." Turning to us again, she nodded toward the hole in the wall. "I hate to rush you, Eli, but—"

"Rush me all you want, Larissa!" Kuperman shouted, bolting for the broken wall and then leaping through it and into the metal doorway beyond. "Hurry, Dr. Wolfe!" he called once he was safely aboard what I now realized must be some sort of vehicle or vessel.

"Yes, do hurry, Dr. Wolfe," the woman said, approaching me coyly. "My brother's been anxious to meet you — and so have I." She studied my face and smiled in a puzzled, slightly amused way. "You're not quite as attractive in person as in your author's photo, are you?"

Still stunned, I could only say, "Who is?" which prompted the woman to laugh delightedly and seize my hand.

"Can you make the jump?" she said. "Or do you want us to maneuver closer?"

I shook my head, finally getting a grip on myself. "I can make it," I answered. "But what—?"

"The jump first," she answered, pulling me at a run toward the hole in the wall. "After that, everything will make a lot more sense!"

And with her delicate but strong hand holding mine, I leapt out over the narrow corridor of open air beyond the prison wall, leaving the world and reality as I had always known them behind me forever.