"That"s impossible."
"That"s what you say now, but you"ll remember."
"Why would I forget?"
"Because if you had not been made to forget, you might have revealed something about an extremely sensitive matter. Any of you."
"Any of us? Of who?" of us? Of who?"
"The cla.s.s!"
"I don"t remember this cla.s.s, Mrs. Denman, so I need you to explain it, please."
"David, the cla.s.s is now a.s.sembled at the clinic. They will appear to be patients."
"Appear to be? Mrs. Denman, please. What am I getting into?" Mrs. Denman, please. What am I getting into?"
"David, when you"re at the clinic, you"ll remember more on your own, and there will be somebody coming soon who"ll help you remember everything."
If there was one thing he could not handle and had never been able to handle, it was helplessness. He needed to be in control of his life, and that was at the core of his willingness to take this job. He wouldn"t be under control of a hospital administration, he would control one-or so he had thought.
"This is an outrage."
"Yes, it is, David. I admit it. You were always the only candidate for the job."
He could not turn back, that was clear. He did not relish ending up on the street just now. The world was starving and there was no recourse. Professionals were clawing for food alongside beggars.
"You"ve lied to me. In effect, kidnapped me."
"And who"re you gonna call? The FBI?"
He waved the report. "I hope I"m not expected to deal with supply problems and survival issues, because this looks like a horrific disaster. Something way beyond the Acton Clinic."
"You have been trained to navigate us through this. You are uniquely qualified."
"I"ve had one cla.s.s in disaster management. I treat psychiatric disease."
"You will remember. Trust me on that."
"Trust you you?"
"You must understand-"
"I don"t understand a thing!"
"Shut up, boy!"
"I will not shut up! I don"t understand and I need to understand because you"re dropping me into an incredibly challenging situation and at the same time telling me that I"ve somehow forgotten all the d.a.m.n rules. Come on!"
The jet shuddered.
"Oh, G.o.d," she said. "I loathe air travel."
"It"s starting to land, that"s all. What am I supposed to remember?"
"David, let"s please just get through the landing!"
"What in h.e.l.l h.e.l.l am I supposed to remember?" am I supposed to remember?"
She sighed. In her eyes he saw something beyond desperation, the expression of an animal that is dying and knows it has run out of options.
But then again, that was apparently the definition of the entire world, if this doc.u.ment of hers was to be believed. Everyone had been a.s.suming that it would be like this another few weeks or months. Surely it would get better.
And surely it would. Earth wasn"t descending into h.e.l.l ... was it?
As they banked, David could see the trees over northern Maryland brushed with fragile early spring leaf, a dusting of green not quite thick enough to camouflage the reality on the ground, of burned-out houses and strip malls, and abandoned vehicles along the roads.
Off to the west, he saw a large estate, a complex of shale roofs in lovely, manicured grounds. He could see figures on the grounds, a man riding a lawn tractor, two others walking along the curving driveway.
"Is that it?"
She jabbed the intercom. "How much longer, d.a.m.n it?"
"Five minutes, Ma"am."
She regarded David. "I don"t want to die. Isn"t it odd? An old woman like me. So selfish."
He wasn"t interested in her anxieties. "It"s human nature," he snapped, causing her to blink and set her jaw. Well, let her be offended. "I need to get to the bottom of this," he continued. "Tell me about this cla.s.s. And if I"m suffering from an amnesia, what was responsible or who? Was I underage? Did my parents consent?"
"Of course they did! Your father brought you to the cla.s.s."
"I"m taking this job as a clinician, not a survival expert or whatever it is you expect me to be. I"m a psychiatrist and that"s all I am."
"Think of yourself as a shepherd."
"All right. That"s valid. But not a disaster expert."
"You"re our Quetzalcoatl."
How tiresome. Since it had been realized that December 21, 2012, actually did have some significance, everyone was an expert on Aztec and Mayan civilization, and their dreary, complicated, and unforgiving G.o.ds.
"I am so tired of that stupid fad. Those d.a.m.n G.o.ds didn"t mean a thing."
"They had meaning."
"Come on on!"
"Not in the way people think, of course. They represent scientific principles that have been lost. Human personality types, hidden powers. But you understand all this. You just need to remember, David."
"Remember what what?"
They came in low over the estate, then banked again, this time quite sharply, resulting in an excellent view of the property.
Behind the shale roofs of what was obviously a very large mansion, stood an austere modern building. The whole establishment was surrounded by high brick walls.
"Is that razor wire on the walls?"
She peered out the window. "Looks like it. We have an excellent security organization. I"m sure it"s there for good reason."
"I"m sure."
When they landed, what looked to David like an unusually heavy black car appeared, some sort of Lincoln, he thought. Andy the waiter opened the jet, dropping down the door and lowering the steps. David checked his watch. They"d been in the air for thirty-eight minutes, a journey that would have taken six hours by car, a.s.suming the roads were open. But with all the disabled vehicles around nowadays, it could have easily taken a week, or proved to be impossible.
As they went down the steps, the pilot appeared.
"We need to keep moving," he shouted over the whine of the engines.
Andy was already putting David"s bags in the trunk. Mrs. Denman had no bags. She was returning tonight.
David gazed off across the airport. There were a couple of Cessnas in tie-downs. The wreckage of two personal jets-newer than this one-lay piled alongside the runway.
"Get in the car!" Andy barked. David realized that he"d taken on a new role. In the air, he was a servant. Here, a bodyguard.
David jumped in. A moment later, the trunk slammed, the pilot returned to the jet and it took off, making the car shake violently as its exhaust hit the vehicle.
"Jesus, they"re in a hurry!"
"There can be shooters," Mrs. Denman muttered.
"How dangerous is this place?"
She looked at him as if he was some sort of a lunatic for even needing to ask. Andy, now driving, did his job in silence.
"I have two hours. The plane will fly a pattern, then meet me back here. Not a good idea to keep it on the ground."
"No, I suppose not."
The car swayed, then picked up speed as it approached the town of Raleigh itself. David had never been here before, but had been told that it was a prosperous and settled community of upscale commuters and local gentry.
By the time they reached the outskirts of the town, the car was doing at least sixty. They accelerated as they went along the main street, tires screaming as they rounded courthouse square.
Buildings raced past on each side as Andy leaned on the horn and they shot through one red light after another.
"What"s going on?"
"We call it "running the town.""
"But-Jesus ..."
"There"s a lot of inappropriate resentment."
At that moment, the car turned and slowed as it began moving, once again, through the countryside. "Cigarette?" Mrs. Denman asked, holding out a pack.
"I don"t smoke."
She put it away. "Neither do I." She sighed.
Soon, David saw ahead of them a pair of enormously imposing gates. They were iron and easily twenty feet tall at their peaks. Across the top were four iron finials. On the finials, David recognized gryphons with their eagle"s wings and lion"s bodies, familiar, leering forms from the walls of Gothic cathedrals. Gryphons were guardians of the gates of heaven. Worked into the iron of the gates themselves were images of Mesoamerican deities-which was odd, given the age of this place. In the early twentieth century, they"d hardly been known.
"Are these gates new?"
"They"re original to the estate."
As they opened and he saw the great house standing off across the rolling, exquisitely kept lawns, he was struck as if through the heart with the most poignant deja vu.
"You"re as white as a sheet, Doctor." She put the back of a long, spiderlike hand to his forehead. "No fever, at least, young man. Memory can bring fever."
"Stop the car."
"Ignore him, Andy."
"Stop the car! I"m not taking this job. No matter what, I"m going back to New York."
The car didn"t even slow down, and as they approached the great redbrick house with its wide colonnade and broad terraces, the sense of deja vu, rather than fading, became more acute.
"You feel it, don"t you?"
"I feel very strange and I do not want to go ahead with this. I don"t know what"s going on here."
She laid a hand on his wrist. "Just relax and let yourself feel it. Memory will return." She leaned back and gave him a smile as broad as a child"s. "You"ll thank me, young man, when you do remember."
"Just tell me, for G.o.d"s sake!"
"You have to make the connections yourself or they"ll have no meaning. No emotional resonance. You need to find your commitment to your mission in your own heart. I cannot do it for you."
"But you know."
"I know that the cla.s.s existed but not what you were taught in it. And I also know that you just this moment remembered being here. It"s written on your face."
They pulled up before the portico. David opened the door of the car, which was so heavy that it felt like pushing open a safe.
Walking toward the great house, he found himself profoundly drawn to the sense of order and permanence that pertained everywhere. The docile clicking of the lawn sprinklers, the early green of the trees, the grand apple tree just by the south wall in full bloom-it all spoke of a world that elsewhere had already slipped into the past, replaced by the sense of the posthumous that was coming to define modern life.
But it was also part of his his past. His own personal past belonged in some way to this place. past. His own personal past belonged in some way to this place.
Aubrey Denman opened the front door using a fingerprint detector. He"d half expected the great door to be swept open by some sort of butler. Instead, an armed security man in a blazer and tie greeted them. Obviously, his orders were to wait until the fingerprint reader had released the lock.
"Where are the-" David"s voice died. He had been about to ask where the patients and staff were, but the splendor of the room he had just entered silenced him. He found himself looking across a wide hall with a magnificent inlaid floor depicting a hunt in full cry. It was marquetry, and yet not too fragile for a floor.