As the last part of the novel opens, Tom Purdue has gotten in touch with some of the composers who'd been at Iowa's White Hill Artist Colony back when Trazmo disappeared. With the discovery of this new piece of music by a young Missouri student named Dexter Shoad, there's a new and unexpected wrinkle to throw into the mystery: Tom recognizes a theme he'd been working on when he was at the colony, and one of the other composer identifies musical ideas he and another of the composers had written at the same time. But how could Shoad know them to plagiarize them, music that was written before he was born and, in Tom's case, nothing that had been published to steal? Tom really needs to hear from Dr. Kerr...
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[Chapter 25, continued...]
“No news is still no news.” Tom puttered around the kitchen, putting the lunch things away. “Good news would be nice.” There was also the question whether “no news” was preferable to “bad news.” He had almost forgotten about yesterday's mysterious trespasser, the one Mrs. Danvers reported, and wondered if that was a good thing. This was more immediate, if the intruder came back, something he could prepare for if not control: was he in danger? Whatever the man was after, it was here, not thousands of miles away. His eyes trailed momentarily to the painting in the study, the one where Uncle Max had hidden his old wall safe, a preposterous place to have installed it, he thought, the most obvious cliché. If the intruder was familiar with the cabin (which he seemed to be), why wouldn't he go right to the safe?
Fortunately, during Tom's visit for Max's funeral, Burt, now the new owner, told him how as a teenager he'd discovered Grandpa Hiram's locked vault beneath the desk, this small iron trunk under the floorboards. So, in the middle of the night, Tom decided to transfer Cousin Emaline's manuscripts to the vault for even “safer” keeping. Whoever his mysterious visitor was and whatever he's looking for, what else could Tom knowingly have under his roof worth stealing? Again, these obvious questions gave rise to a proliferation of other, unsettling possibilities.
As he'd already done with any possible Shoad and Trazmo connections, Tom began to sort through additional issues he should consider: how did the intruder know about the box and where to find it? The man was on his way to it when Mrs. Danvers followed him right to the closet where it had been. So, as she explained it, she hadn't told the intruder where it was; she only knew there was an old box stored in the closet, there; how would he know what was in it? Even if she knew about the safe (he thought it likely she would have, since she probably noticed it while cleaning), she couldn't know the combination (naturally, Tom changed it when he took possession). Had Burt ever, for any reason, told her about the small vault hidden under the floorboards (that wouldn't have seemed likely)?
So how did this guy know where the box was supposed to be? He'd said Kerr asked him to retrieve it but isn't that really unlikely? “Wouldn't Terry have just called me, instead?” He hadn't told her what specifically he was looking for, just “the box,” which Terry last knew was in the dining room. After they'd left for Iowa, Tom figured he'd move it out of the way, somewhere safer, so rather than dragging the thing back upstairs to the closet, yeah, the safe was a logical choice.
It could be valuable – it was to him, more than just family history and genealogical curiosity. “And,” he'd remembered thinking, “who's going to steal this stuff, anyway: who else even else knew about it?” Apparently, somebody did, because two days later, this guy showed up out of nowhere, while Tom was out of the house.
But after the intruder's visit, Tom decided perhaps the wall safe wasn't safe enough, the most obvious place somebody would look. He also decided to wait until well after dark when he'd be alone. In the middle of the night, he made sure the drapes were closed, the only light coming from the banker's lamp. He'd pried the floorboards up, unlocked the trunk and carefully slipped the papers into it before tamping the boards back down and replacing the rug. Then he'd gone to find some relaxing music video...
The intruder – Tom stopped, annoyed by constantly referring to him as “The Intruder.” He needed a name, preferably noncommittal, not too friendly like... well, like 'Caspar'; not too evil and unsettling, either, like 'Creeper.' Perhaps Caliban or... since he disappeared into thin air, maybe Ariel – or Wraith. Rafe? (Too familiar.) No – what about... “Mr. Wormwood”?
Anyway, with that solved (and feeling he'd at least accomplished something), Tom wondered how Wormwood knew about Terry, knew he was visiting or had anything to do with the manuscripts in this mysterious box? He also apparently knew he'd left but hadn't taken the box with him. Did he know why Terry left and why, presumably, he would send someone to “retrieve” it if he'd left it behind? Though it had sat unattended for days in the dining room, Wormwood waited but still hadn't known where it really was.
While the question about his knowledge the box existed was one thing, Wormwood hadn't indicated he knew anything about its contents, so “what was he looking for?” was a separate issue to be considered. And Wormwood hadn't confronted Tom about it: saying Dr. Kerr was interested in it was enough to get past Mrs. Danvers. But Tom never recalled he'd discussed the manuscripts on the phone: he'd waited till Kerr arrived, then showed him the collection. Because phones could be tapped, he rarely discussed anything “sensitive” over the phone.
No, it was all done here, either in the dining room as they'd looked over the manuscripts, or in the study. What about the times they'd gone outside and walked around in the yard? Which meant, to Tom's reluctant imagination, Wormwood must have the place bugged, but where's his listening post. Where were the bugs?
He also must've known Tom wouldn't be home, though he apparently hadn't counted on Mrs. Danvers. Was he watching the place? Worse, what if Wormwood had been inside the place, listening. Was that possible?
Unless he'd bugged each room – rather old-school by today's technology – how'd he hear them talking about Cousin Emaline's box of manuscripts? Is it possible to hack some bugging app into the cabin's wifi router?
Tom began to hyperventilate and settled into the recliner, taking deeper, longer breaths. He decided to wait for Cameron to call.
Finding a music video to listen to during the nighttime certainly succeeded in taking his mind off the consequences of Mr. Wormwood's unexpected appearance, details he had been doing a fine job of self-complicating. Between the whirlpool of Dexter Shoad and the rock of Jeckelson Hyde's Minotaur, did the way forward imply Trazmo's ever-looming return? His mind was exhausted, his body drained despite what fitful sleep he'd managed before the sunrise prodded him into reluctant consciousness. Tom lay back on the recliner again and hoped a nap might help.
He drifted off, early flowers visible through the window, those spring bulbs in a small bit of the yard under the birches, mostly blue hyacinths and daffodils (which he'd never cared for – too common). It was the constant renewal of life, this wheel of Time come 'round. “I should plant roses – Mother always liked roses.”
Odd, he thought, finding his mother, now, someone he could barely remember, snippets of events coming into focus through the dream-fog. Always idealized, she died before he'd grow up to become disappointed in her. What had been the connections? Were there connections? Irrevocable Time, we discover too late, cannot be redeemed or restored; only retrieved.
He'd been over this: was there anything between Shoad and Trazmo? If so, what? How could all this be a coincidence? He felt there had to be something. “And between Wormwood and anything else?”
If it hadn't been for Trazmo – he knew he meant the whole business of rumors associating him with Phillips Hawthorne's disappearance – how different would his career be, have been (first, let's consider the career)? Tom walked into their old rose garden, his mother's pride-and-joy (both him and the garden), where he'd sit, a child dreaming.
Humanity, its reality unbearable in the worst of times, fell back on deep cultural needs for art and our own perception: what we know, what we might have experienced, points us through the present.
“I hear other voices,” the would-be artist says, to find his own, his path. “Shall we follow them, you and I?”
Of course, we don't know (yes?) where our careers might lead, how it'll be shaped by our lives, successes and failures. Dreaming, success had their perpetual possibilities, though the odds (no?) usually favored failure.
Like “food, shelter, and clothing,” Tom had been told, there are three important generalities to a fulfilled life: career, marriage, family. When his first love – poor misunderstood Violetta Diehl, the dancer – ran off (unrequiting), he had married a friend, Susan, surprising everyone. The transition to being husband and wife soon became a challenge for them. Estrangement and a separation followed Tom's return from Iowa once the rumors began about Tom's “alleged involvement” with Trazmo's alleged disappearance. Susan didn't know how to deal with it, so she chose not to.
Tom could not say where this “still point” in his life's focus, the stability of a married life, the union of two spirits, had shattered and some future direction dissolved, as Tom remembered it, but it's possible, he admitted, it would have failed without the pressure from that Trazmo Business, though he always blamed him.
Conquering Time which time heals, incessant solitudes in which words beyond the desert howl with temptations, Tom recalled the innumerable recriminations, the final absence from his daughter, faded, fading further, dying in solitary-most suicide. Through silence come the distant cries from a funeral, patterns of sad expanses of time stretching out before us and behind.
All because, on that one day for that one moment, Tom Purdue was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He found himself hoping today would not be Time coming 'round full circle.
* * ** *** ***** ******** ***** *** ** * *
They ran down another endless hallway, chased by killer drones and who knew what else, smoke filtering through the air vents. Cameron had to wonder if he could've avoided all this if he hadn't tried that silly meditation technique which apparently backfired and accidentally sent Dr. Kerr off into the midst of another IMP crisis. Naturally, it could've been worse: what if they'd both been transported here together? At least with Bond and the other IMP agents, he was better off being among friends armed and presumably better prepared. Whatever Bond was in the midst of (she wasn't sure, herself), Cameron knew he had to make sure they rescued Kerr from whatever he'd gotten himself into, any questions of “what” and “how” aside. Even after years of working with Dr. Kerr and his Seat-of-the-Pants Methodology, Cameron admitted those pants had started wearing perilously thin.
If Cameron had gotten him into the place, however that had happened (besides, how could he explain it to the IMP?), he knew it was his responsibility to get him out, somehow, and fast. It was only Bond's call that solved the “where,” yet it was a big building with numerous situations becoming increasingly dangerous. He knew he couldn't hijack Chief Inspector Bond's mission, initially intended as reconnaissance only, to turn it into a rescue effort, but it wasn't every chase scene you get asked out on a date.
Of course, the situation could also have been worse – far worse – if Dr. Kerr had disappeared not only into Room #12 but into Room #12 in 1983 without any clear way to get back. If Terry were stuck in 1983, would he know to hang around and wait for Cameron to show up in 2016? Wouldn't that mean Kerr'd be almost a hundred years old, since he would age all those years while he was waiting? Plus, how would Cameron know to be here waiting if they'd never met?
Agent Senn signaled they turn down yet another hallway no different from any of the other hallways they'd been running through.
And that was when the call came in: Dr. Kerr's ringtone! “He's back!”
“Who,” Bond asked, “Kerr?”
“Yes – he must be back in the motel room. How else would he have gotten his phone?”
Unfortunately, between running down the hall, prodding Dr. Haradov to keep up with them, and trying to see through the growing smoke (Senn had not thought the fire would spread beyond being a distraction), Cameron, unable to retrieve the phone from his pocket without fear of dropping it, let the call go directly to voice-mail.
“So,” Shendo asked, “that means, what... he's somehow escaped from the building and he's no longer here? How'd he get out!?”
Cameron was well aware the others had stopped looking for him long ago.
He kept on running, tempted to stop and check the call, but he knew if he did that he might end up becoming a victim of these Mobots Agent Sam had been talking about. And how would he respond, type a text like “sorry, gotta run, later”? And how exactly did Kerr manage to survive?
Shendo suggested this unmarked door on the left. “No,” Senn warned him, “don't: that goes back into the central lab complex.” At the next turn, the hallway started dropping lower. “Okay, it's going underground.”
Bond wondered if Cameron thought whether it really was Dr. Kerr or had someone else from the motel found his phone?
Leading the way, Sam asked Cameron, “so, who is this Dr. Kerr, anyway?” Bond began to explain about his being a consulting music detective for the IMP, not quite what Sam had been thinking.
Only seconds after Cameron's voice-mail signal rippled, Dr. Haradov's wrist-phone burbled with an incoming text, coming from al-Zebani: “Where u? – Z.”
As a case in point, Bond wondered if that meant somehow the Aficionati had located Kerr's phone – had they captured him, found the room key? And now they were trying to locate Cameron's whereabouts?
Haradov slowed down to read the message but held it out to Cameron and Mbira as if it were burning him. “Take this thing off,” he shouted. “I'm not interested in work with them!”
Sam stopped and turned in amazement. “What? Are you saying you'll help us?”
“Absolutely, yes!” After seeing how they were utilizing his discovery, Haradov decided he wanted nothing further to do with Osiris's project. “That,” he protested vigorously, “is not science; whatever they're doing, it is the vilest rebirthing of Nazi racial supremacy – it's inhuman.”
They'd reached a dead end. Sam desperately searched the wall for a hidden panel but found nothing that would open it.
Haradov glanced over his shoulder. “Get me the fuck out of here – please!”
Mbira, yanking Haradov's watch-phone off, smashed it against the wall. A door slid open. Without hesitation, they all slid through it.
Wherever his allegiance lay, he was with a group targeted by al-Zebani and as a result, he will die with them. He mumbled something unintelligible and bowed his head, offering up a hasty prayer.
The other agents looked at each other, not a clue what he'd said, until Agent Hurdie mumbled something back equally unintelligible.
“Brooklyn girl,” she said, regarding her colleagues confusion. “Learned Hebrew for my bat-mitzvah.”
Surprised, Haradov looked at her and smiled, comforted to know there's a fellow Jew in their midst, and then he explained.
“These Mobots we'd designed, miniature drones – tiny flying robots, 'Killing Bugs' – have been let loose and I'm afraid they'll find us because I have this... thing which attracts them – and then they'll kill us.”
“He's right,” Senn added. “We've seen them at work. Dr. Haradóv designed this thing, a pheromone that acts like a lure. It's how Graham Ripa died. It was terrible. I'm afraid there's no escaping...”
But Calliope-Jane was the first to notice them.
“Ya think?”
Behind them came ten of them, clearly not “tiny.”
“What the...?!”
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©2022 by Dick Strawser for Thoughts on a Train
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