Part 45 (2/2)

'No. Not at all.'

'I'm relieved. Then who?'

Foley went for broke. 'Desmond.'

'Lynch?' belched Gault.

'I'm quite serious.'

'What are you talking about?' January protested. 'The poor man's vanished. He's probably been eaten by tigers.'

'Perhaps. But what if he had secreted himself in our midst? Listened to our thoughts? Waited for an opportunity like this, a chance to meet a despot and make his pact? I doubt he'd bid us a fond adieu before disappearing forever.'

'Absurd.'

Foley laid his yellow pencil neatly alongside of his pad. 'Look, we've agreed on several things. That Satan is a trickster. A master of anonymity. He survives through his disguises and deceptions. And he may have been trying to strike a bargain... for peace or a hiding place, it doesn't matter. All I know is that Senator January last saw Desmond alive, on his way into a jungle no one dares to enter.'

'Do you realize what you're saying?' asked Thomas. 'I chose the man myself. I've known him for decades.'

'Satan is patient. He has loads of time.'

'You're suggesting that Lynch played us along from the beginning? That he used us?'

'Absolutely.'

Thomas looked sad. Sad and decided. 'Accuse him yourself,' he said. He set his box on the table amid the fruit and cheeses. Beneath FedEx paperwork, it bore diplomatic seals printed in broken wax.

'Thomas, is this necessary?' January said, guessing.

'This was delivered to me three days ago,' said Thomas. 'It came via Rangoon and Beijing. Here's why I convened this meeting with all of you.'

Lynch's head had been dipped in sh.e.l.lac. He would not have been pleased with what it had done to his thick Scottish hair, normally parted at the right temple. Through the slightly parted lids they could see round pebbles.

'They scooped his eyes out and put in stones,' said Thomas. 'Probably while he was still alive. While he was alive, too, they probably made this.' He drew out a necklace of human teeth. 'There are plier marks on several.'

'Why are you showing us this?' January whispered.

Mustafah looked down at his plate. Foley's arms were limp upon the chair rests. Parsifal was astounded: he and Lynch had clashed over socialism. Now the bleeding heart's mouth was locked tight, the bushy eyebrows plasticized, and Parsifal realized he would wonder to his death about the courage of his own convictions. What a brave b.a.s.t.a.r.d, he was thinking.

'One other thing,' Thomas continued. 'A set of genitals was found inside the mouth. A monkey's genitals.'

'How dare you,' whispered de l'Orme. He could smell the death, sense it in the other's pall. 'Here, in my home, at our meal?'

'Yes. I've brought this into your home, at our meal. So that you will not doubt me.' Thomas stood, his big knuckles flat on the oak plank, the insulted head between his fists.

'My friends,' he said, 'we have reached the end.'

They could not have been more stunned if he had produced a second head.

'The end?' said Mustafah.

'We have failed.'

'How can you say such a thing?' Vera objected. 'After all we've accomplished.'

'Do you not see poor Lynch?' Thomas said, holding the head aloft. 'Can you not hear your own words? This is Satan?'

They did not answer. He set the horrible artifact back into the box.

'I'm as responsible as you,' Thomas told them. 'Yes, I spoke to the possibility of Satan visiting some despot tucked away in a remote wasteland, and that misled you. But isn't it just as possible Satan would have desired to meet and appraise a different kind of tyrant, say, the head of Helios? And because we met with Cooper at his research complex, does that mean another one of us must be Satan, perhaps even you, Brian? No, I think not.'

'Fine, I flew off the curve,' said Foley. 'One wild deduction should not impeach our search.'

'This entire endeavor is a wild deduction,' Thomas said. 'We've seduced ourselves with our own knowledge. We're no closer to knowing Satan than when we began. We are finished.'

'Surely not yet,' said Mustafah. 'There's still so much to know.'

Their faces all registered that sentiment.

'I can no longer justify the hards.h.i.+ps and danger,' said Thomas.

'You don't need to justify anything,' challenged Vera. 'This has been our choice from the start. Look at us.'

Despite their ordeals and the a.s.sault of time, they were not the spectral figures Thomas had first collected in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and sparked to action. Their faces were bronzed with exotic suns, their skin toughened by winds and the cold, their eyes lit with adventure. They had been waiting to die, and his call to arms had saved their lives.

'Clearly the group wants to keep going,' said Mustafah.

'I'm just starting in with new Olmec evidence,' Gault explained.

'And the Swedes are developing a new DNA test,' said Vera. 'I'm in daily contact. They think it suggests a whole new species branch. It's just a matter of months.'

'And there was another ghost transmission from the interior,' said Parsifal. 'From the Helios expedition. The date code was August 8, almost four months ago, I know. But that's still a full month more recent than anything else we've managed to receive. The digital string needs enhancement, and it's only a partial communication, something about a river. It's not much. But they're alive. Or were. Just months ago. We can't just cut loose from them, Thomas. They're depending on us.'

Parsifal's remark was not meant to be cruel, but it drove Thomas's chin down to his chest. Week by week, his face had been growing more hollowed. Haunted, it seemed, by what he had put in motion.

'And what about you?' January asked more gently. 'This has been your quest since before any of us came to know you.'

'My quest,' Thomas murmured. 'And where has that brought us?'

'The hunt,' said Mustafah, 'has intrinsic value. You knew that in the beginning. Whether we ever sighted our prey, much less brought him to earth, we were learning about ourselves. By fitting our own foot into Satan's tracks, we've come that much closer to dispelling ancient illusions. Touching the reality of what we really are.'

'Illusion? Reality?' said Thomas. 'We've lost Lynch to the jungle. Rau to his madness. And Branch to his quest. And sent a young woman to her death in the center of the earth. I've taken you from your families and homes. And every day we continue brings new risks.'

'But, Thomas,' said Vera, 'we volunteered.'

'No,' he said, 'I can no longer justify it.'

<script>