COSMOS magazine

Saturday, July 5

When the federal agent had arrived at Fern's home, dressed in jeans and a blue and red sports shirt, he and three local sheriff's deputies tried to ease the tension by making small talk. They mentioned the heat, the possibility of rain, asked Fern about her peach trees, talked about the latest episode of Hog Heaven on TV. By the time they'd waited and watched for three and a half hours, they'd long since left Fern out of their dull conversation.

For almost another hour she sat at the kitchen table, expecting Wayne to come walking in at any moment. She got up, pulled her memory album from the shelf next to the entertainment centre. In several wedding photos, she and Wayne looked fondly at each other. On the following page was the birthday card he had given her five months after they got married. "The day I met you was the luckiest day of my life, darling," he'd written.

Had she done the right thing, calling the police again? Maybe it would have been better to insist that Wayne stay away. He sounded so different on the phone, so... caring, even loving... she could almost believe he'd gone back to being the same man she married. But that poor guy in the old house—

She went to the bathroom, sat on the toilet seat and put her face in her hands, blank with confusion. When she came back out, alerted by some rustle or whispering, two of the deputies and the federal stood at the windows, peering out over the back pasture. One had unholstered his ugly square pistol. Wayne had one of those. A Glock or something, German or Swiss, she wasn't sure. Fern's terrified mind buzzed with irrelevancies. Outside, someone yelled, "Stay where you are and put your hands over your head."

"Fern!" Wayne's voice, roaring from farther away. "What have you done to Fern?"

She got up to look out, but one of the deputies yelled at her, "Stay back!"

Through the half opened door, she caught a glimpse of Wayne walking steadily toward her, his dog Gretchen at his heel. Maybe it was because she had been looking at the old pictures but he looked younger than she remembered, more alert.

"Police! Stop or I'll shoot." After a moment, a deafening blast.

"Wayne! No!" Before anyone could stop her, Fern flung the front door wide and raced down the steps.

He lay on his back, blood pouring from the side of his head. When she knelt beside him, shrieking in fright, his eyes gazed up at her through the gush of blood. And it wasn't him after all. Did Wayne have a younger brother? Robbie. No, he'd drowned years ago, when Wayne was a boy. Oh my god, he's dying, she thought. Maybe the wound isn't so bad after all. Her thoughts were making no sense to her. Maybe Wayne would be okay, wherever he was. "Wayne, oh honey, I'm sorry." She took his hand and raised it to her lips. "I'm so—" She stared at the fingers with their clean new skin and dropped the hand as though it were a poisonous snake, pulled away screaming, "It's not him! It's not Wayne!"

The FBI agent touched her shoulder. "Mrs. Elliot, please, go back to the house, right now." Other cops stood back in the pasture, guns still warily drawn.

Fern turned, shaking with fright. "This is not my Wayne. He lost the last two fingers of his right hand when he was a boy." But it was him, she knew it, however impossibly.

The agent took Fern's arm. "You need to come away now, Ms. Elliot."

"Wayne! No, don't leave!" Furiously, in great distress, she jerked her arm free and put a hand on the dead man's chest. It was still; she could feel no sign of breath or heartbeat. Intelligence, life, were gone from the brown eyes.

Sunday, July 6

Mrs. Delia Clarke Munson especially requested Bruce Blick's presence as a guest of honour at the $1000 per plate Nature Forever dinner party, to take place in her own antebellum Greek Revival mansion in Charlotte, North Carolina. Bruce regretfully declined but sent James Branigan in his stead, with instructions to pay particular attention to Randy Hartnet, CEO of Terralink Computers, a company that had previously used the Green theme in their advertising strategy.

During pre-dinner cocktails James dutifully sought out Hartnet. They had met once before, when Randy himself visited BlickPharm's executive offices to coordinate the delivery and installation of eight hundred Terralink PCs. James had re-read Hartnet's profile before coming to the party:

42 years old

wife, Nicole, 34

2 children, Tracey, 12, Randall, Jr., 10 years old

enjoyed college football

invented the slogan "Save a tree, use e"

The file included a photograph of a youthful man, well-tanned, apparently thirty-something, with longish, sun bleached hair, relaxing on the deck of his Maui beach house, a cascade of green leaves in the background. James waited until Hartnet walked across the room alone, and crossed his path as if by chance. "Hi! How's the computer business?"

"Great! Wonderful!" It was clear Randy had no idea who James was. Probably expecting Tom Gebhardt.

"Glad to hear it," James said enthusiastically. "BlickPharm couldn't be happier with the job your people have done."

Light dawned. "What I love to hear from customers. Is Bruce here tonight?"

"He couldn't make it, regretfully. We're quite impressed," James said crisply, as Randy's gaze wandered across the room, "with your latest advertising campaign."

"Green's a popular colour this year."

"Right, we've bet big that the environment will continue as a hot topic. We're about to launch a major ad campaign against genomic research."

Randy looked at him. "Can't agree, man. We're selling a lot of crunch to the genomics people."

"Well, of course," James told him blithely, "every kind of business will suffer if two thirds of the population gets wiped out by a super bug plague."

The other man recoiled slightly. 'That's just conspiracy theory bullshit."

"Bruce doesn't think so." James shrugged. "By the way, we've been thinking of upgrading the units we haven't already replaced with Terralinks."

"Randy!" A breathless young woman with a Barbie-doll figure appeared from somewhere behind James and grabbed Randy's hand. "I didn't know where you'd gone. You have to come and pose. The Time Magazine photographers are here."

"Duty calls." Randy did his patented Maui-tan grin. "Hey, Jim, call you Monday."

James Branigan relaxed; half the evening's business accomplished. He was moving around the room, engaging here and there in meaningless conversation, when Patricia Newfoundland Blick made her entrance, unescorted. She noticed him at once but made a point of greeting her hostess and talking to several other guests before she casually approached him.

"James!" Pretended surprise. "How nice to see you again." An extremely attractive woman, even at the age of sixty-three, she wore a tightly fitting black dress cut low to reveal firm breasts. Her shoulder length blonde hair shone, her smooth face glowed with good health. Rumour said that as well as the fashionable rounds of cosmetic surgery, she had undergone treatments with genetically engineered growth hormones.

"Mrs. Blick." He took the hand she offered. "Where's the Senator?" Patricia Blick and Senator Burcham Huber had been seen together in public so often, for so many months, that it was no longer worthy of gossip.

"He was unable to come tonight. Too much work. How is Bruce?" Patricia drifted toward an empty corner of the room, and James followed her.

"As well as could be expected."

"Does he ever mention me?" When she smiled, her lips trembled slightly.

James shook his head regretfully. "With me, he never speaks about his personal life. Only business. Perhaps it was different with Tom."

"I was talking with... someone last week who mentioned that Bruce is enthusiastic about our campaign against genetic research." Patricia had been instrumental in the creation of Nature Forever, and it was no secret that her views on environmental issues had lately influenced Senator Huber, who had surprisingly adopted a new position in the debate.

"Of course," James told her. "Bruce is very concerned about the danger such research poses to all of us."

"Yes, it's terribly serious. As I was telling Burch yesterday, if it isn't stopped now, we'll be looking at epidemics that make AIDS look like a picnic. Not to mention the possible allergy problems associated with genetically engineered food." She shook her head in pained disbelief, and her lustrous hair swung. "And if those Frankenscientists actually manage to extend the human lifespan the way they claim—imagine the drain on resources!"

For a sardonic moment James considered asking how much guilt she suffered over the resources she had drained during the course of her life, but kept his face politely attentive.

"Indeed," he said. "It's completely immoral that some people want to live past 80 or 85 when so many people in the world starve to death before they're half that age."

"We ran a petition in support of the law that will strictly control that sort of thing." Mrs. Blick paused, waiting for approval.

"Yes, Bruce is very pleased about that," James assured her.

"So he's been keeping track of what we're doing?" For a moment her smile looked sincere. No doubt it was. Clearly the Senator kept his contacts with Blick close to his manly chest.

"Oh, absolutely. He thinks what Nature Forever is doing is very important. Weren't you aware that he donated $150,000 last month?"

"I didn't know! It's so like Bruce to do it anonymously. He's always been modest."

"I'm sure he pays close attention to what you're doing. Keep up the good work, Mrs. Blick."

"We will, we certainly will." Her perfume's slightly metallic scent made James want to back away as she leaned close. "I've tried to phone him, James, but he never returns my calls. I don't know—maybe he hasn't gotten the messages I've left. Could you tell him you saw me and that I'd like to talk to him?"

"Surely, Mrs. Blick. Please don't take it personally if he doesn't get in touch with you. He's just not seeing anyone. I take care of almost all North American business for him, but even I mostly communicate with him by email."

Sad, she nodded, shrugging her beautifully preserved shoulders. "I can't help but wonder. If I'd been there for him, maybe—"

"Mrs. Blick, Bruce used to tell me not to waste time regretting this, or wishing I'd done that. We have to take the world as it is." Take the world is right, some sardonic part of his mind thought. That's what Bruce Blick has planned.