The Third Gate Part 8

Rush broke into a broad smile. "Thank you, Jeremy. Nine times out of ten, the moment I mention the word 'psychic' I get the hairy eyeball."

Logan nodded. "Go on."

"The manifestations are quite broad. The bulk of our research at CTS is devoted to codifying it. That's what separates us from other organizations or universities studying NDEs. There's no pseudoscience or new age mumbo jumbo about this, Jeremy--we're using extremely sophisticated statistical algorithms to quantify it. In fact, we have developed a way to very precisely rank a person's psychic ability. We call it the Kleiner-Wechsmann scale, after the two researchers at the Center who developed it. In some ways it's not unlike an intelligence test, but extremely subtle and complex. The scale takes into account an entire battery of tests for psychic sensitivity--divination, telekinesis, cold reading, ESP, astrological prediction, telepathy--half a dozen others. Naturally, the scale compensates for such things as standard deviation, probability, and simple luck."

Rush stood up and began pacing the small room. "Here's an example of how it works. Let's say I've got five bills in my pocket--a one, a five, a ten, a twenty, and a fifty. I pull one out at random and ask you to guess what it is. a.s.suming a null hypothesis--that is, no psychic ability at all--the base success ratio would be one in five, or twenty percent. On the Kleiner-Wechsmann scale, that equates to twenty. This would be the ranking of your man on the street. On the same scale, a person with some psychic ability ranks, oh, around forty. A person with p.r.o.nounced psychic power ranks sixty. A person with psychic power developed to a remarkable degree might rank eighty--he or she would guess correctly four times out of five."

He stopped pacing and turned to Logan. "But here's what we've discovered. Of the people we've tested who've 'gone over' and returned successfully, the average ranking is close to sixty-five."

"That's impossible--" Logan began, then stopped himself.

Rush shook his head. "I know. It's hard to believe, even for you. Why would having an NDE affect one's psychic ability? But it's fact, Jeremy--we've got hard data, and the data doesn't lie. Oh, of course, it doesn't always happen. And the particular psychic gifts vary from person to person. Not everyone's going to be able to guess, for example, what kind of bill I'm going to pull from my pocket. Some are better at extrasensory perception. Others at clairvoyance. But that doesn't change the fact that the numbers we've acc.u.mulated, based on the testing of over two hundred subjects to date, show the average K-W score of a person having undergone a near-death experience is unusually high."

He sat down again. "And there's something else we've discovered. By and large, the longer the period of time the person 'went over,' the higher their ranking on the scale." He paused. "My wife Jennifer's heart stopped, her brain activities ceased, for fourteen minutes before I revived her. That's the longest period of time of anyone we've tested at the Center. And her ranking on the Kleiner-Wechsmann scale is also the highest of anyone we've tested: one hundred and thirty-five."

"One hundred and thirty-five?" Logan said. "But that can't be possible. According to the criteria you mentioned, a score of one hundred would mean a correct guess one hundred percent of the time. How can anyone beat a perfect score?"

"I can't explain that, Jeremy," Rush said. "Because we're not exactly sure ourselves. This is a new science. I can only tell you that we've checked and rechecked our findings. Basically, it goes beyond naming the bill you pull from your pocket--it means naming the bill even before you put your hand in your pocket." He shook his head, as if despite everything he still found it a little hard to believe himself. "And she's demonstrated it time and time again. Her particular gift is retrocognition."

"Retrocognition," Logan repeated. He thought a moment. Then he glanced at Rush. "And that was your wife? In the testing chamber?"

Rush nodded.

"But then what is she doing here? What use could Porter Stone have for heightened psychic abilities--even remarkably advanced psychic abilities?"

Rush coughed delicately into his hand. "Sorry. There are some things I really don't think I should tell you--at least, for now."

"I understand. This has been very interesting, thanks." More than interesting, he thought. Perhaps I'll look into this on my own.

All of a sudden, the ground beneath them trembled, as if a giant hand had seized the entire facility and given it a violent shake. In the distance came the boom of an explosion. For a moment, the two men looked at each other in surprise. Then a shrill claxon began to sound in the hallway outside the office.

"What's that?" Logan cried, jumping to his feet.

"Emergency alarm." Rush was also on his feet, reaching for the portable two-way radio clipped to his belt. Even as he did so, it began beeping shrilly.

"Dr. Rush," he said, bringing it to his lips. He listened for a moment. "My G.o.d," he said into it. "I'll be right there."

"Let's go," he said to Logan, clipping the radio back to his belt.

"What's happened?"

"Generator two is on fire." And Rush ran out of the office, Logan at his heels.

15.

They ran at top speed out of Maroon, through the welter of corridors that made up Green, and then out into the large, echoing marina. The piers, which had seemed so sleepy and deserted the day before, were now crowded with people. There was a confused overlap of conversation, shouted orders. Logan could smell acrid smoke in the loam-heavy air.

He followed Rush as he raced down a gangway leading along the far wall and out through the wall of camouflaged netting. Suddenly they were outside, on a narrow walkway that angled into the swamp and disappeared around the corner of the vast pontoon structure supporting the marina. It was three o'clock, and the sun felt like a burning blanket across Logan's neck and shoulders. Above the netted roofline of the marina, he could see clouds of thick black smoke rising into the blue of the sky.

They rounded the corner of the pontoon and there--some thirty yards ahead--Logan could see the generator. It was a large, hulking structure, suspended above the swamp on floating pilings. Angry flames shot from a grille on its near side and licked upward, coating the metal housing in heavy soot. Men on Jet Skis surrounded the platform, directing streams of water toward it from portable tanks on their backs. Even at this distance, Logan could feel the heat of the inferno come over him in waves.

There was a commotion behind them, and Logan turned to see Frank Valentino and two men in coveralls coming up fast. One of the men held a heavy-duty drainage pump; the other had coils of industrial hose draped over one shoulder.

The three ran past, toward the small knot of workers bunched together at the end of the walkway. "Hurry up with that pump!" Valentino ordered.

Kneeling, the first engineer placed the pump on the metal of the walkway and flung the intake hose down into the Sudd, while the second engineer affixed the other end to the pump's spigot. Gingerly inching closer to the generator, the man aimed the hose at the flames, while the other pulled the pump's starter. Its engine coughed into life and a thin stream of brown, viscous water looped toward the flames.

"Affanculo!" Valentino shouted. "What's the matter?"

"It's this swamp," one of the engineers said. "It's too d.a.m.n thick!"

"s.h.i.+t," Valentino muttered. "Go get a number three filter--hurry!"

The man dropped the hose and ran back down the walkway.

Now Valentino turned to a tall man of about sixty with thinning blond hair who seemed to be in charge. "What about the methane in-link?" Logan heard Valentino ask.

"I've checked with Methane Processing. The relief valves in each wing are closed, the safety protocols fully engaged."

"Thank G.o.d for that," Valentino said.

Rush had begun walking closer to the knot of people at the end of the walkway, and Logan instinctively followed. Suddenly, he stopped dead in his tracks, as abruptly as if he'd encountered an invisible wall. Without warning, he'd become aware of a presence, hanging over the generator and its immediate surroundings: a foul, malignant, evil thing, ancient and implacable. In the heat of the swamp and flames from the generator, Logan s.h.i.+vered with a sudden chill. The foul stench of a charnel seemed to fill his nostrils. He sensed somehow that the thing--ent.i.ty, spirit, force of nature, whatever it might be--knew of his presence, of all their presences, and felt a deep and abiding hate for all: a hate almost l.u.s.tful in its strength and depth. He took an instinctive step backward, then another, before mastering himself.

Logan took a deep breath and stifled this sudden reaction; he had long ago learned that his sensitive gift had the capacity to produce either scorn or fear in others. He concentrated on listening to the conversations around him.

"Christ!" Valentino was saying. "The auxiliary tank!" The chief turned and shouted at one of the men on Jet Skis. "Rogers, quick--go uncouple and float that aux tank free before the heat ignites it!"

The man nodded, put down his hose, and moved his Jet Ski into position on the far side of the generator. But just as he was reaching toward the tank with a boat hook, a ma.s.sive explosion sent a cloud of thick smoke roiling toward them. The walkway trembled violently, and Logan was knocked to his knees. As he rose to his feet again, he could hear a desperate, ragged screaming. The smoke began to clear and he made out the figure of Rogers. The man was coated in burning diesel, his clothes and hair afire. As a half-dozen workers jumped into the swamp and began swimming toward him, he writhed--screaming--off his Jet Ski and began to sink, still afire, beneath the brown and murky surface of the Sudd.

16.

Oasis was the name of the Station's lone watering hole. Half canteen, half c.o.c.ktail lounge, it was located in a far corner of Blue, overlooking the vast, bleak expanse of the Sudd. And yet, Logan noticed as he entered the bar, the windows facing the swamp were covered with bamboo blinds, as if to obscure, rather than emphasize, the fact they were smack in the middle of nowhere.

The lounge was dark, lit indirectly in blue-and-violet neon, and almost empty. Logan wasn't surprised. In the wake of the generator fire, the mood of the Station had grown subdued. There were no bridge games that evening, no merry chatter in the mess. Most people had retreated to their quarters, as if to deal with what had happened in solitude.

Logan felt just the opposite. The overwhelming sense of pervasive evil he had felt as the generator collapsed in flames had alarmed and unnerved him. His empty lab, his quiet room--these were the last places he wanted to be at the moment.

He walked up to the bar and took a seat. Charlie Parker was playing from invisible speakers. The bartender--a young man with short dark hair and a Sgt. Pepper mustache--came over.

"What can I get you?" he asked, placing a crisp c.o.c.ktail napkin on the bar.

"Got any Lagavulin?"

With a smile, the man gestured toward an impressive array of single-malt scotches on the mirrored wall behind him.

"Great, thanks. I'll take it neat."

The bartender poured a generous dram into a gla.s.s and placed it on the napkin. Logan took a sip, admiring the heft of the heavy-bottomed gla.s.s, enjoying the peaty taste of the scotch. He took a second sip, waiting for the sharp memory of the fire, the smell of burnt flesh, to ease just a little. Rogers had suffered third-degree burns over 25 percent of his body: he'd been evacuated, of course, but the nearest burn center was hundreds of miles away and his prognosis was guarded.

"Buy a girl a drink?"

He looked over and saw that Christina Romero had entered the bar and taken a seat beside him.

"That's a good question. Can I?"

"This isn't the woman who reamed you out earlier. This is an upgrade. Christina Romero, release two point zero."

Logan chuckled. "All right. In that case, I'd be happy to. What'll you have?"

She turned to the bartender. "Daiquiri, please."

"Frozen?" the bartender asked.

Romero shuddered. "No. Shaken, straight up."

"You got it."

"Shall we move to a table?" Logan asked. When Romero nodded, he led the way to a table near the wall of windows.

"There's something I want to say up front," she told him as they sat down. "I'm sorry about being such a b.i.t.c.h, back in my office. People always tell me I'm arrogant, but I usually don't parade it around like that. I guess, your being pretty famous and all, I wanted to appear like I wasn't in awe. I overdid it. Big-time."

Logan waved a hand. "Let's forget it."

"I'm not trying to make excuses. It's just--you know--the stress. I mean, n.o.body talks about it, but we haven't found a d.a.m.n thing yet in two weeks of digging. I've got a couple of major league a-holes to deal with here. And then, these--these strange goings-on. People seeing things, equipment malfunctioning. And now this fire, what happened to Rogers." She shook her head. "It gets on your nerves after a while. I shouldn't have taken it out on you."

"That's okay. You can pay the bar tab."

"It's free," she said with a laugh.

They sipped their drinks.

"Did you always want to be an Egyptologist?" Logan asked. "I wanted to be one myself, as a kid, after seeing The Mummy. But then--when I learned how hard it was to read hieroglyphics--I lost interest."

"My grandmother was an archaeologist--but then, you already knew that somehow. She worked on all sorts of digs, everywhere from New Hamps.h.i.+re to Nineveh. I always idolized her. I guess that's part of it. But what really gave me the bug was King Tut."

Logan looked at her. "King Tut?"

"Yup. I grew up in South Bend. When the King Tut expedition came to the Field Museum, my whole family drove to Chicago to see it. Oh, my G.o.d. My parents had to tear me away. I mean, the death mask, the golden scarabs, the treasure hall. I was only in fourth grade, and it haunted me for, like, months. Afterward I read every book about Egypt and archaeology I could get my hands on. G.o.ds, Graves, and Scholars; Carter and Carnarvon's Five Years' Explorations at Thebes--you name it. I never looked back."

She grew more animated as she spoke, until her green eyes practically flashed with excitement. She wasn't pretty, exactly, but she had a kind of inner electricity, and a refres.h.i.+ng candor, that Logan found intriguing.

She finished her c.o.c.ktail with a mighty slug. "Your turn."

"Me? Oh, I became interested in history my freshman year at Dartmouth."

"Don't be evasive. You know what I'm talking about."

Logan laughed. It wasn't something he usually talked about. But, after all, she had sought him out, apologized. "I guess it started when I spent the night in a haunted house."

Romero signaled the bartender for another drink. "This isn't going to be bulls.h.i.+t, is it?"

"Nope. I was twelve. My parents were away for the weekend, and my older brother was supposed to look after me." Logan shook his head. "He looked after me, all right. He dared me to spend the night in the old Hackety place."

"The old, haunted Hackety place."

"Right. It had been empty for years, but all the local kids said a witch lived there. People talked about strange lights at midnight, about how dogs avoided the place like the plague. My brother knew how stubborn I was, how I could never resist a dare. So I took a sleeping bag and a flashlight, and some paperbacks my brother gave me, and I went down the street to the deserted house and sneaked in a first-floor window."

He paused, remembering. "At first it seemed like a breeze. I laid out the sleeping bag in what had been the living room. But then it got dark. And I started to hear things: creaks, groans. I tried to distract myself by looking into the books my brother gave me, but they were all ghost stories--it figures--and I put them aside. That was when I heard it."

"What?"

"Steps. Coming up from the bas.e.m.e.nt."

The c.o.c.ktail arrived, and Romero cradled it in her hands. "Go on."

"I tried to run, but I was petrified. I couldn't even stand up. It was all I could do to switch on the flashlight. I heard the footsteps move slowly through the kitchen. Then a figure appeared in the doorway."

He took a sip of scotch. "I'll never forget what I saw in the gleam of that flashlight. A crone, white hair wild and flying in all directions, her eyes just hollows in the glare. My heart felt like it was going to explode. She started walking toward me. And then I started to cry. It was all I could do not to wet my pants. She stretched out a withered hand. That's when I knew I was going to die. She'd hex me, and I'd just shrivel up and die."

He paused.

"Well?" Romero urged.

"I didn't die. She took my hand, held it in hers. And suddenly I--I understood. It's ... it's hard to explain. But I realized she wasn't a witch. She was just an old woman, lonely and scared, hiding in the bas.e.m.e.nt, living on tap water and canned food. It was as if I could ... I could feel her fear of the outside world, feel her miserable existence in the cold and dark, feel her pain at having lost everyone she cared about."

He finished his drink. "That was it. She retreated into the dark. I rolled up my sleeping bag and went home. When my parents got back, I told them what happened. My brother got grounded for a month, and the cops checked out the Hackety place. She turned out to be Vera Hackety, a mentally handicapped woman whose family had been taking care of her. Her last surviving relative had died eighteen months before. She'd been living in the bas.e.m.e.nt ever since."

He looked at Romero. "But a funny thing happened. Something about that encounter changed me. I became fascinated by tales of real-life ghosts, of haunted mansions and treasures with curses, and Bigfoot, and everything else you can imagine. And one of those books--the ghost stories my brother had so thoughtfully given me to scare me even worse--turned out to be a book by E. and H. Heron called Flaxman Low, Occult Psychologist. It was a book of stories about a supernatural sleuth."

"A supernatural sleuth," Romero repeated.

"That's right. A kind of Sherlock Holmes of the spirit realm. As soon as I finished that book, I knew what I wanted to do with my life. Of course, it usually isn't a full-time job--hence the professors.h.i.+p."

"But how did you develop your--your skills?" Romero asked. "I mean, there aren't exactly any graduate courses in enigmalogy."

"No. But there are lots of treatises on the subject. That's where being a medieval historian comes in handy."