Glenn Kleier (edit name/settings)

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The KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD & EVIL
Glenn Kleier @ 2011

Previously in the story:

Their lives together were going so well, Angela was certain she’d seen the last of Ian’s psychological ghosts. And then he suffers a relapse. This time, however, Ian is convinced his problem is of the soul, not the mind—beyond the reach of Angela’s professional expertise. Despite her misgivings he leaves for a remote abbey, hoping to master its mysticism and return to her healed and whole.
Time passes, Ian's messages grow fewer and shorter, then nothing. Angela is heartbroken. This is how he'd ended their relationship before.
But suddenly last night, a frantic call--Ian's mentor at the abbey, Father Lucien, claiming Ian has left for St. Maarten Island in the Caribbean. Angela is baffled. Ian has no contact there that she's aware of. The monk gives her an address, and before hanging up he begs her to go there right away--"before Ian kills himself!"

CHAPTER SEVEN

PRINCESS JULIANA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, ST. MAARTEN ISLAND, CARIBBEAN, NEXT MORNING

Angela raced out of the little terminal, hailing a cab. The driver stowed her bag, she slid into the back seat, and they rattled off.
She handed up a scribbled address, no idea where on the island it was, unable to locate it on Google Earth. The cabbie shook his head, dreadlocks waggling, eyes meeting hers in the mirror.
“No-no, M’um. Pretty missy like you don wanna go dere.”
“Just take me, please. And hurry.”
All she wanted was to grab Ian and go.
She’d tried to phone Father Lucien back yesterday, only to get an answering machine telling her she’d reached “a monastery where quiet is valued and silence a virtue.” Invited to leave a message, she hadn’t. And though convinced she was making a fool of herself, she’d done as the frantic monk had begged, redeyeing to Miami, island-hopping here.
Her cab exited the airport down a narrow peninsula, crossing a causeway to the main island. White sand beaches lined with palmettos, scent of salt off the breakers, puffy clouds in a bright, balmy, sapphire sky.
How she would have loved a vacation here. Never been much of anywhere outside California. No money when she was younger, putting herself through school after Dad took off. No time lately. She swore under her breath.
They passed through a seaside tourist trap into the island’s interior, reggae playing low on the radio. Hilly, scrub brush, sedge grass, small trees, cacti, sheep, goats, the occasional shack. As Angela recalled from a brochure on the plane, St. Maarten was a tiny place. Forty square miles divided in two, France controlling north, Holland south. And not a single running river.
Topping a hill, she saw below a picturesque town of pastel-colored clapboard houses and stores squeezed onto a bridge of land between ocean and large lagoon. Phillipsburg, a sign read. Her driver threaded its narrow streets and they headed back inland.
What was Ian up to that could be so dangerous? Had he sneaked away here to avoid her? Or to chase some new spiritual phenomenon? Probably both. She swore again.
Shacks began to appear along the roadside, cobbled together of rusted, corrugated metal and warped plywood. The inhabitants, all black, milled about barefoot in ragged clothes. Worse by far than anything East L.A. had to offer. Angela’s heart went out to them. She could just imagine how upsetting this must have been for the sensitive Ian.
The cab slowed and the driver switched off the radio, turning nervous eyes to her.
“Bad place, M’um. You sure you wan be doin’ dis?”
She hadn’t come all this way to turn back.
Mumbling, the man exited the highway and they jostled down a gravel road strewn with trash, scaring off seagulls and other scavengers. Angela assumed they’d reached the far side of the island, and soon they arrived at what looked to be an old industrial quarter. Corroded storage tanks, warehouses and other buildings bleached chalky in the sun.
The cab halted in front of two warehouses that abutted one another. An address on the door of the first matched the one Lucien had given her, no signs of habitation but a few cars parked near the second warehouse. Angela swallowed, gave her driver a $100 bill, and told him to wait.

* * *
Concealed behind a third-floor window of the second ware-house stood a black man in jeans and ink-stained T-shirt, 9mm Uzi in hand. He grew agitated at the sight of the cab, alerting men operating machinery behind him.
Suddenly the cab door opened and out stepped a most beauti-ful woman! Slender, in blouse and skirt.
The man gasped. Two associates appeared at his side, one also with a gun. Their jaws dropped, too.
“Você tá zoando?” The unarmed man murmured. Then scowl-ing, he motioned to a stairwell, and the two armed men rushed down.

* * *

Angela held close to the cab as she surveyed the dismal sur-roundings, all quiet, no movement.
What has he gotten himself into this time?
But she was determined to see it through. She started for the warehouse—stopped by a loud screech. A door to the adjoining warehouse flew open, discharging two black men with guns, faces menacing.
“Mas quem é que vocês são?” one snarled at her.
She didn’t understand, but it wasn’t French or Dutch.
The sound of crunching gravel made her turn, and she pan-icked to see her cab speed off, showering her suitcase with dust. You’re a psychologist, she reminded herself, you know how to deal with intimidation . . .
Grabbing her bag, she called over to the men, “I’m late for a meeting, they’re expecting me.” And hurried on.
They shouted back, “Pare!”
She ignored them, willing the door open. It was, and she slam-med it behind her, finding herself in a dingy, ill-lighted stairwell. She climbed, relieved to hear no pursuit.
At the top was a windowless door, no sign, number or bell. She placed an ear to it. Strange beeping and voices. Not Ian’s, no one she recognized. Two men and a woman speaking English, each with different accent. Asian? Russian? French? She could make out only phrases.
“Seven degrees . . . Eee-ee-gee zero . . . Cardio zero . . .”
She tried the knob. Locked. Then gave the door a rap, and the voices ceased as the beeping continued. But no answer. She banged her fist, shouting with authority, “I’m here to see Ian Baringer! Let me in!”
A pause, and she heard the Asian-sounding man at the door, voice tense, “Private property. You trespass. Go!”
“I know he’s here—let me in or I’m calling the police!”
Muffled talk, argumentative. Then the Russian accent, “That’s it—terminate!”
More argument. Finally the door cracked, a man of slight build peering out. Asian, late thirties, medical gown, surgical mask dangling round his neck, eyes squints of fear.
“Who you?”
“Ian’s fiancée.”
Farther back in the room, the woman’s voice, “Luc Dow, you idiot! What ze hell you do?”
The Asian turned and Angela took advantage, plowing past into a large, open space. Bare, save for a nucleus of electronic equipment and pole lights clustered around an operating table, bundles of duct-taped cables snaking across the floor. Haloed in the lights was an older man with beard. Sixties, perhaps. Beside him, a younger woman, light-hair pulled back in a braid. Both wore medical gowns, staring at Angela from behind surgical masks.
She approached them, spying on the table a body wrapped in blue plastic pads dripping condensation, IV tubes everywhere. A male form, skin morbid gray, dotted with electrodes that hooked into a wall of monitors—heart, respiration, EEG—none registering activity.
Not an operation. Autopsy.
And then she saw the dead man’s face . . .
Hysterical, she rushed the table, but sturdy hands grabbed her from behind.
“You want see him alive?” the Asian warned. “Stay back!”
She tried to swing around, claw out his eyes—but his grip was too strong.
“You’ve murdered him!”
“He is not dead,” the older man said. “Yet. But you mustn’t interfere.”
Disbelieving, Angela looked to Ian. Serene and pale like some toppled Greek statue. She’d seen death before.
“You’re lying!”
But if they weren’t . . .
The man and woman stood waiting. Desperate, Angela saw no choice, giving in, and the Asian released her. He regarded her warily for a moment, then joined his comrades, and they began to remove Ian’s wraps.
“Refrigerant pads,” the Russian told her, flipping a switch to set a nearby apparatus humming. She saw a transparent tube filled with blood exiting the region of Ian’s groin, connecting to the machine and re-entering his body at the same point. “Heart-lung pump. As we circulate his blood we warm it, adding pure oxygen.”
On one of the monitors a temperature gage began to edge up—8 degrees centigrade, 9, 10 . . .
The woman injected Ian with various fluids via the IVs. “Stimulants,” she said.
Angela observed all in riveted horror.
Once the temperature reached 27, the Russian withdrew electrical paddles from the front of another machine, rubbing them together. The woman removed electrodes from Ian’s chest, applied a lubricant, and the man positioned the paddles near Ian’s heart, calling, “Clear!”
Angela held her breath and cringed.
Boom!
It was as if the current entered her. She jolted too, grimacing as his body arced on the table only to collapse into stillness. Moaning, she watched the man recharge the paddles to send another volt surging. Again Ian bucked—this time a blip on the monitor’s flat line. Then another! Another! Quickly followed by stronger spikes!
Angela breathed again, feeling faint.
“He has the constitution of a horse,” the Russian said, taking a handkerchief to his brow. “Mark five minutes, twenty-three seconds.”
The woman recorded in a logbook, and Angela brushed past, sobbing, dropping to Ian’s side, taking his hand in hers. It felt deathly cold. He was still unconscious, but she thrilled to see color return to his face.
The strange team continued its work, checking vital signs, administering unknown substances through IVs, and Angela glared up at them.
“What the hell is going on!”
The Asian calmly replied, “NDE.”
Near Death Experience. Angela was familiar with the phenomenon, though she’d never investigated it. Not uncommon in cases where individuals seemingly die, life functions ceasing, only to revive a short time later. She presumed Ian’s intent was to sneak through death’s door to confirm the existence of the Afterlife, expecting to be resuscitated before it closed permanently.
The damned fool. No wonder he hid it from me!
Stifling her outrage, she spoke to him soothingly, squeezing his hand, feeling it grow warmer. He remained unresponsive—though he groaned when the woman removed the tubes from the vessel in his groin. And again when she closed the incision with a few stitches. Angela found the intimacy of the procedure repugnant.
“Who’s in charge here?”
The older man dropped his surgical mask. He had an intelligent bearing. Average height; gray, bushy hair and beard; fair complexion; eyes dark and close-set.
“Dr. Emil Josten,” he said, “formerly of the Kharkov Institute for Cryobiological Studies. These are my colleagues, Dr. Yvette Garonne, Université Pierre et Marie Curie. And Dr. Luc Dow Hodaka, Universität Würzburg. We specialize in the science of suspended animation.”
Angela felt a flush of anger. “You call this science? Experiment-ing with a man’s life? This is criminal! This is, is—Mengelean!”
Josten remained calm. “I assure you, our work is perfectly legal here.”
“And that makes it right? What about brain damage! What about Ian’s mind!”
“Ze risks not so great,” Garonne said. Angela turned to see her scribing figures on a chart. “Even outside ze lab, sometime people survive death forty minute, no complication.”
Josten added, “Frigid-water drownings, for example. We’ve simply taken a natural occurrence and refined it. Improved the odds.”
“Much improve,” Hodaka said, gesturing to the array of equipment and pharmaceuticals. “Thanks to Meester Baringer.”
Angela was no less appalled. “How many times has he done this!”
“Once before,” Josten said. “A three-minute test earlier this week. We were prepared for ten today—before you interrupted.”
“And you can be damn thankful I did. You could all be facing murder charges!”
Garonne snatched Ian’s hand from her, checking his pulse. “No. More ze assisted suicide. Also legal here. Regardless, he sign ze paper for liability.”
“Did he waive your medical ethics, too?”
The woman turned to her, raising a brow. Light blue eyes, golden skin. Pretty. And she held herself as if aware of it. “Under ze circumstances, eet would be unethical not to help heem. He was determined to do zis, no idea how. If he deed not find us, he would have keeled himself. And thanks to heem, we advance our technique. What we learn weel save lives.”
“Not at the expense of his,” Angela snapped. “Once he’s recovered, I’m taking him home!”
Garonne bent close to Ian’s face, drawing back his eyelids, flashing a penlight. Then with wry smile, she sniffed, “Not zis man. Not after what he claim to see . . .”

 
THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD & EVIL
 
“Take a journey no living person has ever made. Learn a Truth hidden from the world since the dawn of creation . . .”
 
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