Twelve Days by Steven Barnes

Author:Steven Barnes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

CHAPTER 29

Olympia grabbed her stuff from her desk and headed into the editorial room. As they gathered, she noticed that her coworkers looked more ragged and haggard than they had just a few hours previously, as if some elixir vitae had been drained out of them.

“Thank you for coming,” Sloan said. His Bozo hair was tangled, as if he had combed it with his fingers. “Two things. First, I regret to tell you that a member of the CNS family, blogger Maria Cortez, died yesterday in a gas explosion…”

Olympia heard nothing more for at least thirty seconds. Maria … dead? What the living hell? She realized that she had started to read that story when Cody called. Olympia held her breath: this was simply too enormous a coincidence: it had to have something to do with the Salvation Sanctuary. But what?

She felt numb, sick, overwhelmed. Something about the disappearances? Was this a child abuse situation? Missing cult members?

And … dear God, Hannibal. She had almost put Hannibal directly in their hands. God only knew what they wanted.

She wanted to leave the room, to have a chance to think through all of this. She had an almost overpowering urge to talk to Terry about it. He had been at that first meeting. He would have an opinion. But she had ordered him from her house and bed. She couldn’t.

But he loved Hannibal. He would want her to …

The ongoing chatter pulled her back to the room.

“… will keep you posted as to the time and location of memorial services.

“Now on to other business. We received a note that the president will be making her … last public statement before…”

He couldn’t quite bring himself to say it. Before she gets twisted into a knot? Before the end of the world?

“Does anyone have any idea at all…”

The television screen flickered. The seal of the office of the president of the United States appeared. And then it disappeared, and the POTUS herself appeared. She looked wan, hollow-eyed, as if she hadn’t slept in a month.

“My fellow Americans,” Correll began. “The message I have to give you is unique not only in my own life experience, but so far as anyone knows, in the entire history of the human race.”

“Shit,” Joyce Chow whispered.

You have no idea, Olympia thought, remembering the White House briefing and the professor’s metaphysical theory.

“As you know,” the president continued, “ten days ago, a message was published on an Indonesian Web site. The origin of the message is a matter of intense speculation by intelligence agencies around the world, but so far, at this time, no one has been able to identify the source.”

“I don’t like where this is going. Come on, we must know something,” Joyce said.

Did she, Olympia, know something? Could the pieces she held be anything but insane supposition? Was it suicide to speak, or murder not to?

“… some unknown form of assassination technique has been employed. The following illustration is the current best guess. I offer this theory for a variety of reasons.

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