One

Ultimately, Cotter knew, little in life is as disturbing as stumbling across a dead child.

He gazed at the video monitor in front of him, absently rubbing his chin.

Cotter knew, of course, that Charles Hitton, a.k.a. Cat, had never been officially pronounced dead. The case remained open. Everyone expected it to stay that way. That was how kidnappings involving children usually played out, a fact he’d had to come to terms with almost two decades before.

If a victim isn’t found within forty-eight hours, his fate will almost certainly remain unknown. It was a rule rarely broken, and then most often by sheer dumb luck. Cotter’s own son, Sandy, had been taken twenty years before. There had never been a resolution; never any closure. All that was left of his boy was a picture in his wallet, a picture of a nine-year-old boy in a Little League uniform, bat poised over his shoulder and a big smile lighting his face.

The image was an old wound, never fully healed; an invisible, internal, endless ache people like Tom Cotter shared with people like the Hitton family.

Their son’s case file lay flat on Cotter’s desk. Opening it would be an exercise in futility. He already knew every word it contained. Most were his.

Thirteen boys and girls had been taken over a six month period in four contiguous red states. Some of the ransoms demanded were paid; none of the victims were returned. The crimes terrorized the entire mid-West, spawning a political disaster for both the Bureau and the Homeland Security Agency. Cotter knew that dumping the case on his Special Events Team had been Director Offenbach’s desperate last gamble at saving his job. Too little, too late: by the time Offenbach acted, the White House had already lined up his replacement.

In the end the SET shut down the kidnappers in a brutally conclusive fashion, though at no little cost. Five agents on the SET roster were murdered by the kidnappers, dying in the line of duty. The bad guys expected no quarter, and received none.

In the end, in a truly bizarre twist, the gang’s ringleader was discovered to be one Melissa Cutler, a widowed housewife and PTA chairwoman from Duluth. Her sturdy, middle-class lifestyle made the kidnappings even more newsworthy by contemporary standards. Cotter put the cuffs on her himself, and became the hero of the hour.

Against all odds, three kids were still alive when found in the basement of the Cutler home. Cotter brought them home to their families in a veritable sea of media attention. Book deals and movie treatments were inevitable.

In all justice, Director Offenbach should have received some of the credit for ending the Cutler reign of terror, but he was already gone when the final arrests were made. The SET was pretty much the only success story the Bureau could boast of when the new Director moved into the corner office on the top floor.

Cotter quickly learned that the new Director, Admiral Justin Hayward, USN (rtd) appeared dissatisfied with everything the Bureau had done since J. Edgar Hoover died. More specifically, Hayward was very dissatisfied with Cotter’s close relations with the Fourth Estate.

Hayward thought Cotter far too reckless to be allowed off the leash. With his well known disregard for his own personal safety, he could easily end up shot dead in some nickel-and-dime back alley drug bust. The new Director could not countenance such a thing happening, at least not in the opening days of his regime. A jump in pay grade, a dramatic promotion, a prestigious office, all left Cotter both pleased and bemused.

For their part, Hayward’s people did their level best to insure that the worst threat the new Deputy Assistant Director might face would be a paper cut.

The SET was disbanded, its members reassigned. Promotions and commendations accompanied each transfer but shutting down the team was hardly the expected outcome of its unquestioned success. Still and all, the SET agents were all career FBI; they took their reassignments and moved on without question.

There were few practical alternatives.

Cotter complained about being taken out of the field, but not all that much. Just past 55, he figured he’d seen it all, heard it all, and possibly even done it all. It was time to think about retiring, hanging up his badge, and settling down. He still itched to resolve the four remaining cases but that door was closed tight and for good reason.

Six of Cutler’s victims were found dead and buried in woods less than a mile from the Cutler home.

Four remained unaccounted for. Shortly after flatly refusing to provide any information about the missing children, Melissa Cutler was killed while en route to a safe house. Still in FBI custody, she was shot to death by the father of one of her victims. Several issues regarding the specific circumstances of the shooting made it seem prudent to end any investigation as quickly and unobtrusively as possible.

Cotter had no choice but to agree. Even so he did his quiet best to keep the four orphaned cases from being irretrievably dead-filed. The Bureau owed the victims at least that much, he believed, the victims and their families. Each month he called for the folders, initialed them, and returned them back downstairs. On rare occasion he would get a phone call or email from a mother or father, telling Cotter his efforts were appreciated, even if they came to nothing.

Knowing someone seemed to care meant a lot to these four families.

Today, though, was different. On the screen in front of him was an image forwarded from the Felon Identification Group out of Quantico. The image originated from the Bureau’s Salt Lake City office. Cotter didn’t know the bureau chief out there, but he gathered the image had been acquired under questionable circumstances.

Its provenance was of less interest to him than its contents.

The face in photo belonged to Cat Hitton. The photo was three weeks old.

The next morning went pretty well. He had little to say to Joanne, which meant they had little reason to argue. That was fine with him. There’d been too many arguments with his wife in the recent past. Sometimes he wondered why they even stayed married.

He was booked on a noon flight to Salt Lake so he went in to his office a little earlier than usual. He wanted to clear off his desk before leaving on what he had spent the night half-convincing himself would prove to be a wild-goose chase. More than likely this was a mistake of some sort. By this point, young Hitton was most likely little more than bone fragments and scraps of cloth, carelessly dumped in a drainage ditch or buried in a shallow unmarked grave.

News of the photo could raise false hopes, though, and attract unwanted attention from the media. The best way to prevent that was to look into it in person. Anyway, that was the least he could do for the Hitton family. From his own point of view, he had no speaking engagements scheduled until the following week. Even a trip to Utah was better than sitting around the office.

He was pushing through the piles of paper that seemed to grow out of the wood of his desk when his desk phone chirped. Crap, he thought. He straightened his tie and clicked on the video feed. Naturally, it was Director Hayward.

“Cotter,” Hayward said, squinting at his end of the video link. “Is that you?”

“In the flesh, Admiral,” he replied. “What can I do for you?”

“Stop over here for a moment, would you? I want to talk over some items with you.”

“Okay,” he said, a little uneasy. This couldn’t be good. “I’ll be right over.”

The screen went blank. Never wastes a word, Cotter thought. Hayward was as tight-lipped as a clam’s ass.

It was a short walk to Hayward’s office, located catty-corner to his own. He nodded amiably to some of the agents, mostly younger types Hayward brought with him from the National Security Agency, his last posting. A good enough bunch, Cotter figured, but not really FBI material, not in his opinion. Their loyalty was to the Director, personally, not to the Bureau. That was always a problem in an established bureaucracy.

He also suspected they brought some of their “spook” ways with them from the NSA. To some of them the law seemed more an inconvenience to be gotten around, or ignored entirely, than a rule and guide for their careers.

Cotter knew a lot of people in the Bureau would be astonished to hear him talk like that. He, himself, had skated on the thinnest of legal ice more than a few times during his career. He never deluded himself, however, into thinking that he, or even the Bureau itself, was above the law. Hayward’s people had a different perspective. On the other hand, in many ways they were a welcome shot in the arm compared to the old boy’s club attitudes of a lot of the more senior agents.

How this would all work out remained to be seen. Cotter considered it academic in his case. He would most likely be long retired by the times things sorted themselves out, no matter if he wanted to go or not. The word was out; so was Tom Cotter.

Nothing about Hayward, of course, was ever cut and dried. The man had more angles than a billiard table. He nodded when Cotter walked in and got right to the point.

“What is this Utah thing about? Do you have some reason to be looking into the Sternlight Group?” 

Even at this early hour the Director was nattily attired, an odd description Cotter had come across in a fashion magazine. Cotter had made the cover of Newsweek when the Cutler arrests were made, was described as the most violent FBI agent in the nation. That was the same month Hayward made the cover of GQ. He was featured in a split picture with actor Pierce Brosnan. The caption was “separated at birth?”

“It involves one of my old cases,” Cotter said. “A lead popped up I want to check out. Probably won’t amount to anything but I can use the break. This place is beginning to get to me.”

“One of your old Cutler cases,” Hayward said, and Cotter had to nod yes.

The Director leaned back in his leather chair and crossed his arms on his chest.

“We’ve discussed this before,” he said. “I thought I made it clear I wanted you to shut down all the SET files,” Hayward glanced at the folder on his desk, “even the file on the unfortunate Master Hitton.”

“Well, yeah,” Cotter replied. “Believe me, I know. I don’t want to open that can of worms anymore than you do. It’s just that protocol requires me to follow up on it.”

“True enough,” Hayward said. “Still, you could easily have assigned this to the local SAiC, or one of your old team. There must be somebody closer than you are.”

“That would just delay things,” Cotter said. “No matter what I did, it would take longer than just flying out there and looking into it myself.” He rubbed his chin absently. “Anyway, this would probably be cheaper, even counting the airfare.”

Hayward frowned at that remark. It was common knowledge that Congress had been giving him a hard time over his proposed budget.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll sign off on it but make sure to limit your investigation to the Hitton thing exclusively. Sternlight has a lot of friends on the Senate Appropriations Committee. Don’t turn over any rocks you don’t have to.

“And I expect you back in your office Monday and I want all these files tied up nice and neat no matter what. And then, no more. I know I can’t officially close you down but from now on those files stay downstairs where they belong. Am I being clear enough this time?”

“Yes sir, Admiral,” Cotter said. “I’ll see to it personally.”

“Bon voyage, then,” Hayward said. He waved his hand in dismissal and went back to whatever he’d been doing before Cotter arrived.

For a moment Cotter almost risked asking just why Hayward was so concerned about ticking off this Sternlight Group, whoever they might be. On quick reflection, though, he kept his mouth shut. Hayward didn’t like being second guessed by anyone, least of all an old timer like him. No point to poking the bear with a stick, he decided, closing the office door behind him.

And the Admiral was most likely right in a way, even discounting the Cutler issue. There was simply no real point in spending anymore time on these cases. These kids were dead. Everyone knew it. There was no point to trying to hide the fact from their families, or from himself. He’d put this one last glitch to rest, and then start planning his last few months with the Bureau.

Joanne was talking about moving to Florida and everyone around the office said the golfing was great down there. Maybe he’d pick up some brochures to read on his flight. Maybe he’d even take some golf lessons when he got back.

Two

Trevor Parker was dreaming. That was the only possible explanation.

He stood before a featureless metal door; naked, cold and alone. He could sense something on the other side, waiting in the darkness. Waiting for him. He could smell a familiar odor; a coppery smell he knew to be blood.

He stood trembling with fear, terrified to open the door.

Terrified from knowing he was going to do just that.

His hand reached out and pressed flat against the smooth, polished surface. It was cold, colder than anything he could think of. He could feel the door vibrate at his touch, sensed an intense feeling of urgency; a strange feeling of welcome. He sensed that the door was massively heavy but it moved easily at his touch, smoothly. He took a deep breath and pushed it all the way open.

His vision blurred as a sudden, terrible white light attacked his senses and…

He lay still in his bunk, eyes searching the blank, white ceiling above him.

There was nothing.

There was no question of staying in bed. The sheets were soaked with sweat and his head hurt far too much. He sat up, legs dangling over the side of the bed. The head pain moved with him, beginning to decrease. Maybe a hot shower would help.

A half hour later, skin damp under blue jeans and a white tee-shirt, sneakers snug on his growing feet, he padded down a dimly lit hallway towards the common-room. He passed twelve sets of doors as he walked. There were thirty in all, facing each other along the corridor.

The only difference between any of the doors was the name tag fastened to it. Several doors lacked them, though he knew they’d been there. They were gone, now.

He knew the kids who’d used those rooms.

They were gone now, too.

His room was number 13. The name on his door read Trevor Parker.

Below it was the name of the company that owned this place, the Sternlight Group.

They had told him, Dr. Sisco and the others, that Trevor Parker was his name.

He had no reason to doubt them. It was as good a name as any. He just couldn’t be sure if it really was his or not. He couldn’t remember. That was why he was here, the twenty-fifth diagnosed case of whatever the hell he was suffering from.

At some point they might even have told him what his condition was called.

He couldn’t remember. Two more kids showed up after he did, bringing the number of known cases up to twenty-seven. Eighteen remained. No one would say where the other nine had gone, or what had happened to them. After a while none of the remaining kids even asked the question.

Inside, all of them feared they knew the answer: the nine were the first to forget how to be alive.

Two others were in the common-room when he got there, a boy about his age, the other a girl a little older. The girl was crying.

“Eleanor is off,” the boy said. That was what they called it among themselves.

Taking off. Like going off on a trip or a vacation. Except nobody ever came back.

Trevor felt sick. He liked Eleanor a lot. The tough little Bronx girl had the dirtiest mouth he’d ever heard and she never held back. Trevor had tried to befriend her, tried hard, but she was just too angry all the time, especially when she was dealing with Doctor Sisco and the rest. Even so he’d had hopes they might get together before, well, before this happened to one of them.

“Shit,” he said, and the others nodded.

“Shit,” he said again. He sat down with them. Suddenly, he felt like crying himself. He wondered if he was crying for Eleanor, or for himself. Or maybe for all of them.

“Shit.”

Somehow the three teens wound up huddled together on the bench, holding each other tight, as if physical contact was all that would keep them from blowing away in the wind. That was how Pat Merrin found them. She sat down nearby without saying a word. After a few moments the three drew apart and looked at her.

“I’m sorry about Eleanor,” she said. “They took her out of here late last night.” She stopped at that. There wasn’t much else to say anyway. She never talked about what happened to the kids who left. Only that they were gone.

“What happened?” Trevor asked, knowing she wouldn’t tell him.

“Dr. Sisco called me earlier,” she said. “She died during the night, while the rest of you were sleeping. He seemed pretty upset, for once.”

Her comment surprised Trevor. This was the first time she had said anything even the slightest bit critical of her boss. Was losing patient after patient without explanation getting to her? Nobody would accuse Sisco of any sympathy or concern for his patients, but his staff appeared totally loyal to him, regardless. This was the first crack Trevor had seen in that wall. For some reason he found that interesting.

He thought about that as he got some warm cereal from the automatic dispenser. He just toyed with it for awhile. He had no appetite to speak of. The food was just a way to avoid conversation. He didn’t feel like talking. There was nothing to say, anyway.

Over the next half hour the rest of the kids made their appearances, five girls and nine boys. Each reacted to the news in much the same way. After allowing them some time, Merrin got them up on their feet and running around the perimeter of the facility.

It was almost a ritual by now, when someone went off; a run and a rose.

Miss Merrin believed physical effort could only help; she seemed right about that, as she was about a whole bunch of things. She once told the kids that a long run gave her time to think, to puzzle over whatever was troubling her.

It was an interesting insight, considering that each morning she seemed to cover more distance. Trevor thought she just might be getting fed up with the whole situation. If it had been him, he would have already run out of space to run.

The kids weren’t maintaining too fast a pace and Merrin trailed them slightly. She liked to make sure none of them simply wandered off. Nobody minded when she finally blew her gym whistle, signaling a halt. She waited patiently while they dropped back and gathered around her.

All around them men and women went about their own business, walking along the halls alone or in groups, sometimes silently, sometimes caught up in impassioned discussions. When he first found himself at the site Trevor had wondered what all these very busy people were doing. This was a research center, after all, or at least that was what they had been told.

Still, no one volunteered anything about what that research might be. Hell, most didn’t even seem to notice them at all. Of course, that made some a little careless with what they said. Trevor Parker had exceedingly sharp ears and the will to use them.

There was some sort of top secret computer research taking place all around them, something that had all these scientists excited. What he couldn’t figure out was what that might have to do with him. Eventually he figured out the answer had to be nothing.

The kids and the scientists coexisted in the same place, but there was no contact; no interaction. Pretty much the only adults the kids dealt with were Dr. Sisco and his staff, which more or less included Pat Merrin.

“Okay,” she was saying. “Some of you were slacking off.” She looked pointedly at two of the older boys. “Remember, you can’t con a conman. Now head for the classroom. I want to go over yesterday’s quizzes.” She turned and headed back towards their section of the facility, the kids falling into line behind her, feeling a little better despite themselves.

The good feeling didn’t last very long; Dr. Sisco was standing outside the classroom when they got there. The pasty faced balding man with the oversized head seemed a wax statue, staring blankly at something no one else could see. Trevor and most of the other kids referred to him as Dr. Sicko.

Trevor knew why the boys called the man that; he wondered why the girls did. “Good morning, Doctor,” Merrin said, ushering the patients into the classroom. Going through the doorway Trevor kept as distant from the man as possible. Dr. Sisco was just too touchy-feely during their weekly physical exams. Complaints to Dr. Voss, Sisco’s boss, went nowhere; apparently Dr. Sicko answered to a higher authority.

“Merrin,” Sisco replied, nodding. It amazed Trevor, watching life appear in the man’s when he had to talk to someone. Everyone had noticed that quirk and it still made some of them uncomfortable. Trevor was looking for a seat when he heard his own name.

“Tell me, Merrin,” Sisco was saying. “Have you noticed any problems with Parker? Any unusual symptoms? Odd behaviors?”

“No,” the woman replied. “No, I can’t say I have.” She glanced into the room, saw Trevor standing just within earshot, listening. Sisco couldn’t see him but Merrin looked directly at him as she spoke.

“He cried over the Mitchell girl,” she said. “but several other boys did also. Other than that, nothing.

“Oh,” she continued. “He did mention a problem with headaches. He seemed worried about it. I was going to talk to him about it today but the Mitchell situation made me hold off.”

“Headaches?” Sisco said. “Why didn’t you mention it in your daily notes?” “Because I didn’t have enough data to write a note,” she answered. “These are growing children, Doctor. Odd aches and pains are a normal part of puberty. The boy has grown over two inches and increased his body mass significantly over the last few months. It takes time to adjust to physiological changes of that nature.” She winked at Trevor as she spoke, making him feel like a participant in some obscure conspiracy.

“Still,” Sisco said. “None of these children are normal, at least not as we define it. You really must let me know of anything like this as soon as you learn of it. Anything might help break this thing. As it is, we’re no closer to a cure after three years than when we started.”

“Science,” she said, “has studied AIDS for over half a century. No one has found a cure for that either.”

“Science, as you so glibly refer to it,” Sisco said, “doesn’t have our resources. If there is anywhere on earth this can be dealt with, this is the place. Once we get this sorted out, maybe then we’ll take a shot at AIDS.” He left then and Merrin stepped into the classroom, closing the door behind her. Sisco’s last words still rang in Trevor’s ears. The man couldn’t be joking. He didn’t know how to joke.

Trevor couldn’t help but think the man meant it exactly the way he said it. What was there about this place that made him think that way? Be so arrogant? What were all these people really doing here? For that matter, what were Trevor and the others doing here? What kind of computer research would have anything to do with how human brains worked? Or in their cases, slowly ceased to work.

Parker wondered about his odds of getting that answer while able to remember why he asked the question. He was afraid the odds weren’t all that good. 

He stepped away from the door and took his regular seat. He noticed someone had made a little origami rose and placed it on the desk Eleanor had used.

The other part of their farewell ritual. Nobody knew how it started, or why.

A rose was a symbol of beauty, and transience, two concepts that marked them all. The paper rose, Parker had come to believe, was a recognition that they were a beleaguered community; alone and isolated from the larger society.

And threatened.