The Book of Daniel

As usual, Daniel had nothing to say as we walked. He was silent and brooding. I guessed it had something to do with the secrets he was about to reveal.

After a while, we came upon what looked like the door to a large vault. I expected Daniel to talk to it, but instead he whistled the little tune he'd been humming earlier as we were riding. It shook and creaked, and finally swung open to reveal a large room bathed in greenish/yellow light. That incessant humming sound grew instantly louder, closer.

"It's been a long time since anyone's been in here," Daniel said quietly. "There really hasn't been any need. Please, come inside."

I stepped past him, turned and gasped. I was looking into the face of some deformed baby floating in a cube of liquid. It looked asleep. Obviously, mercifully, it had never been born. When I looked more closely, I could see that it was neither male nor female. It seemed to have no sex at all.

"One of my father's failures," Daniel informed me impassively.

I didn't respond, and he looked at me sharply. "He had to experiment, Emmit," he told me flatly. "They were all clones."

"All?" I looked around as my eyes adjusted to the light and realized that the room was stacked from ceiling to floor with liquid cubes, each containing a bloated, deformed embryo at one developmental stage or another.

I felt slightly nauseous.

"They were never really alive," Daniel told me matter of factly. "And just think of all the wonderful things they made possible."

I wasn't really in the mood for sarcasm. "Daniel," I breathed, "this is unbelievable."

"This is unbelievable?" Daniel arched his brows and smiled. "Just wait."

"I don't know," I began uncertainly. "I'm not sure I want to know."

"Too late," Daniel said. "I gave you that chance. Besides, Emmit, I'm not going to let anything hurt you. You're not going to end up like that, if that's what you're afraid of."

His words stung my pride. I swallowed and threw off the sick feeling in my stomach and head. "I'm not actually afraid of anything," I told him. "I'm just not sure I want to see this stuff."

"Oh," Daniel laughed. "You'll want to see this stuff, my friend. Trust me."

To my relief, we were finally moving out of that macabre room. I couldn't help feeling sorry for those floating, sexless infants. Their only chance had ended up no chance at all. It was sad. Pathetic. And Daniel's callousness about it made it worse. All clones. Apparently no one had ever really cared for them at all.

My relief was short lived. We immediately entered what looked like a chamber of horrors. These cubes were much larger. The beings floating in them appeared to be fully grown. Their hands were clawed, as though they had died in pain. Hair was drifting, long and wispy around them - over their faces, across their arms and chests. The general impression was that they had suffered - and maybe they had suffered long. Their faces were masks of agony.

"Oh, Jesus," I moaned. "What the hell is this?"

"More failures." Daniel took my arm and pulled me up close. "Don't look too long," he advised. "You may see something you don't like."

He was basically keeping me moving pretty quickly, but I did see several faces going by. I could have sworn I saw Jacqueline - or was it Daniel? But then, they were so grotesque. I was imagining things. I thought I must be. That room left me jittery, and I didn't care if he knew.

"Let me catch my breath." I pulled away from him as we crossed the threshold into a small hallway. "That was horrible, Daniel. Why do you keep them all?"

"What am I supposed to do with them?" he asked simply. "Dump them in the river? Toss them in someone's field? I figured they were better just left alone."

I saw his point. "I told you to remember," he said softy, "that was all a long time ago. Come on, let's go."

"Wait a minute." He reached for my arm, and I yanked it away. "Tell me first, so I'm prepared, does it get worse than that?"

"No," he shook his head. "No, Emmit. It actually gets much better from here."

I smiled thinly. "I sure hope so."

***

"Remove the clone of Genghis Khan," I repeated slowly. "Exactly what does the word 'remove' in that sentence mean, Daniel?"

"Whatever you want it to mean," he replied airily. "You're a man of free will. It can mean, 'do away with,' as in 'murder;' or, it can mean 'take as your lover in an apartment on the east side.' It could mean to 'take prisoner,' but then he'd be a burden, and we don't need that, do we, Emmit." Daniel smiled at me. "I think, though, of all those meanings, the first suits me best of all. How about you?"

"It depends on who you're expecting to do the murdering." I had a bad feeling about this. At one time, I would have killed for Daniel; now, I wasn't so sure.

"Oh," Daniel grinned at me. "Actually, I was hoping it would be you. In fact, it has to be you, because only you can get in to see him."

"Where is he? What's he doing there, and how am I getting in?" I decided to play along for the time being, until I could think of something to do.

"He's staying at the Plaza Hotel," Daniel told me. "He is preparing to depart to the Far East as America's youngest Ambassador ever. He is brilliant, well trained and deadly. This will dictate the course of future events in ways they can't hope to anticipate. They believe they can control him; they're wrong."

"And what do you want me to do?" Despite myself, I was getting involved.

"Pull one of your strings." Daniel nodded toward the phone. "Get an interview with him - a private interview. You'll remove him then."

"How?"

"With this." Daniel held out his hand and opened it to reveal a handsome NYU Class Ring. "Look." He pointed to a tiny protraction at the bottom of the ring, so small that I wouldn't have noticed it if he hadn't shown it to me. "This will be coated with the slightest amount of an extremely deadly poison," he told me. "When you meet and shake hands, all you need to do is squeeze hard. The poison will take care of the rest."

"It seems cowardly," I said, surprising myself.