Fatal Error Read online

  FATAL ERROR

  ALSO BY F. PAUL WILSON

  Repairman Jack*

  The Tomb

  Gateways

  Legacies

  Crisscross

  Conspiracies

  Infernal

  All the Rage

  Harbingers

  Hosts

  Bloodline

  The Haunted Air

  By the Sword

  Ground Zero

  Young Adult*

  Jack: Secret Histories

  Jack: Secret Circles

  Jack: Secret Vengeance

  The Adversary Cycle*

  The Keep

  Reborn

  The Tomb

  Reprisal

  The Touch

  Nightworld

  Other Novels

  Healer

  Implant

  Wheels Within Wheels

  Deep as the Marrow

  An Enemy of the State

  Mirage (with Matthew J. Costello)

  Black Wind*

  Nightkill (with Steven Spruill)

  Dydeetown World

  Masque (with Matthew J. Costello)

  The Tery

  The Christmas Thingy

  Sibs*

  Sims

  The Select

  The Fifth Harmonic

  Virgin

  Midnight Mass

  Short Fiction

  Soft and Others

  The Barrens and Others*

  Aftershock & Others*

  The Peabody-Ozymandias Traveling Circus & Oddity Emporium*

  Editor

  Freak Show

  Diagnosis: Terminal

  * See “The Secret History of the World”

  FATAL ERROR

  A Repairman Jack Novel

  F. PAUL WILSON

  A TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES BOOK • NEW YORK

  Table of Contents

  Title

  Copyright

  Acknowledgments

  Author’s note

  Monday

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Tuesday

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Wednesday

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Thursday

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Friday

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Saturday

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Sunday

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  The Secret History of the World

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  FATAL ERROR: A REPAIRMAN JACK NOVEL

  Copyright © 2010 by F. Paul Wilson

  All rights reserved.

  A Tor Book

  Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

  175 Fifth Avenue

  New York, NY 10010

  www.tor-forge.com

  Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

  ISBN 978-0-7653-2282-1

  First Edition: October 2010

  Printed in the United States of America

  0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks to the usual crew for their efforts: my wife, Mary; David Hartwell, Becky Maines, and Stacy Hague-Hill at the publisher; Steven Spruill; and my agent, Albert Zuckerman.

  Special thanks to Christopher Corbett—a reader known as Fenian1916 on the repairmanjack.com forum—for the title.

  And special thanks to my cyberconsultants: Clint Collins, Ronald P. Crowe, Jr., Scott Garrett, Paul Hewitt, and Jason Tabor.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  The penultimate Repairman Jack novel.

  As mentioned in the past few books, I’m ending the series with number fifteen (though Jack will be a major player in Nightworld).

  I’ve always said this would be a closed-end series, that I would not run Jack into the ground, that I had a big story to tell and would lower the curtain after telling it.

  The end of that story is just around the corner.

  Fatal Error picks up in the winter following Ground Zero, and its finale coincides with that of Reprisal. If/when you read Reprisal, you’ll understand what happened between Glaeken and Rasalom in North Carolina. (See “The Secret History of the World” at the end of this book for how everything fits together.) As with the last couple of novels, Fatal Error doesn’t tie up as neatly as we’d all like, but it sets the stage for an ass-kicking finale to the series.

  One more Repairman Jack novel remains. Working title: The Dark at the End. Appropriate, I think, considering it ends just before Nightworld begins.

  In Nightworld, the Adversary Cycle and Repairman Jack saga will merge and . . . close. The Secret History concludes with Nightworld. More stories remain to be told, but the timeline stops there.

  Hang in there, folks. It’s been a long ride, and we’ve still got a lot of wonder, terror, and tragedy ahead. I promise you’ll be glad you made the trip.

  —F. Paul Wilson the Jersey Shore

  MONDAY

  1

  Munir stood on the curb, facing Fifth Avenue with Central Park behind him. He unzipped his fly and tugged himself free. His reluctant member shriveled at the cold slap of the winter wind, as if shrinking from the sight of all these passing strangers.

  At least he hoped they were strangers.

 
; Please let no one who knows me pass by. Or, Allah forbid, a policeman.

  He stretched its flabby length and urged his bladder to empty. That was what the madman had demanded of him, so that was what he had to do. He’d drunk two quarts of Gatorade in the past hour to ensure he’d be full to bursting, but he couldn’t go. His sphincter was clamped shut as tightly as his jaw.

  Off to his right the light at the corner turned red and the traffic slowed to a stop. A woman in a cab glanced at him through her window and started when she saw how he was exposing himself. Her lips tightened and she shook her head in disgust as she turned away. He could almost read her mind: A guy in a suit exposing himself on Fifth Avenue—the world’s going to hell even faster than they say.

  But it has become hell for me, Munir thought.

  He saw her pull out a cell phone and punch in three numbers. That could only mean she was calling 911. But he had to stay and do this.

  He closed his eyes to shut out the line of cars idling before him, tried to block out the tapping, scuffing footsteps of the shoppers and strollers on the sidewalk behind him as they hurried to and fro. But a child’s voice broke through.

  “Look, Mommy. What’s that man—?”

  “Don’t look, honey,” said a woman’s voice. “It’s just someone who’s not right in the head.”

  Tears became a pressure behind Munir’s sealed eyelids. He bit back a sob of humiliation and tried to imagine himself in a private place, in his own bathroom, standing over the toilet. He forced himself to relax, and soon it came. As the warm liquid streamed out of him, the waiting sob burst free, propelled equally by shame and relief.

  He did not have to shut off the flow. When he opened his eyes and saw the glistening, steaming puddle before him on the asphalt, saw the drivers and passengers and passersby staring, the stream dried up on its own.

  I hope that is enough, he thought. Please let that be enough.

  But he was not dealing with a sane man, and he had to please him. Please him or else . . .

  He looked up and saw a young blond woman staring down at him from a third-floor window in a building across the street. Her repulsed expression mirrored his own feelings. Averting his eyes, he zipped up and fled down the sidewalk, all but tripping over his own feet as he ran.

  2

  “Gross,” Dawn said, turning away from the window to pace the consultation room. “What is it with people?”

  “Pardon?” Dr. Landsman looked up from where he sat behind his desk, scribbling in her chart. “Did you say something?”

  Dawn Pickering didn’t want to talk about some creep peeing in the street, she wanted to talk about herself and her baby. She ran her hands over her swollen belly, bulging like a watermelon beneath her maternity top.

  “Can’t you . . . like . . . induce me or something?”

  She’d been reading up on labor and delivery lately, and was so not looking forward to it. A cesarean would be totally better—knock her out and cut her open. She wouldn’t feel a thing, but then she’d have a scar. Well, a scar was a small price to pay for simply waking up and having it all over.

  Dr. Landsman shook his head. “The baby’s not ready yet.”

  A balding, fiftyish guy, he’d just done a pelvic exam, followed by her umpteenth ultrasound. Then he’d left her and waited here in his office for her to dress and join him.

  “Isn’t the ultrasound supposed to give you a clue?”

  “It is, and it says he’s not ready yet. But it won’t be long. Your cervix is soft. Your body’s getting ready to deliver.”

  “But I was totally due in January and here it is February.” She rubbed her cold hands together. “Something’s wrong. You can tell me.”

  “Ten months is unusual, yes, but nothing’s wrong.”

  “Then why won’t you ever let me see the ultrasounds?”

  He did the scans himself instead of his tech, and never allowed anyone else in the room except Mr. Osala, her self-appointed guardian. The doctor had started giving her appointments on Mondays and Thursdays. Why? He had no office hours and no staff at all those days. Was that what he wanted? And during the ultrasounds, he always kept the monitor screen turned away from her. For some reason, he never seemed to tire of looking at her baby.

  “You wouldn’t understand what you were seeing.”

  She resented that. She might be only eighteen—turning nineteen next month—but she was no dummy. She’d been accepted to Colgate and would be there right now if she hadn’t screwed up her life.

  “You could point things out to me.”

  “The baby is fine. You feel him moving, don’t you?”

  “Like crazy.”

  Some days she felt like she had a soccer camp inside her.

  “Well then, I’ve told you he’s a boy and you know he’s healthy. What more do you need?”

  “I need to see him.”

  “I’m not sure I understand your eagerness to see a baby you’re giving up for adoption upon delivery. A baby you tried to abort, if I remember correctly.”

  She had nothing to say to that. She’d totally changed her mind about the abortion, but she was so not ready to raise a child—especially this child, considering who the father was. Someone else would give him a good home and raise him better than she ever could. No way she was ready for motherhood.

  He pulled out an old-fashioned pocket watch and popped the lid.

  “Your friend, Mister Osala, should be calling soon.”

  “He’s not my friend.”

  “Well, he’s very concerned about you and your baby.”

  Maybe too concerned.

  The design on the lid of his watch caught her eye. Following the lines made her eyes cross.

  “That looks old.”

  He smiled. “It’s been in the family for almost two hundred years.”

  “What’s that design? It’s weird.”

  “Hmm?” He glanced at it, then quickly pocketed it. “Oh, that. Just a geometric curiosity.”

  A phone rang. He dug out his cell and checked the display, then glanced up at her. “It’s him. Excuse me.”

  “Sure.” She knew who it was. “Don’t forget to ask him how high.”

  He gave her a puzzled look, like he didn’t get it.

  “Jump,” she said. “How high you should jump.”

  He still didn’t get it. For such a supposedly top-notch OB man, he could be so dense at times.

  Osala hadn’t been around much lately. He used to come to all her appointments but now he was involved in some project down south that kept him away a lot. But he stayed in close touch with Dr. Landsman.

  She felt the baby kick and shook her head. Sure felt like he wanted out. And she wanted him out. Not like she had back in the summer, when she’d tried to end the pregnancy. She’d been determined to get an abortion, and then Mr. Osala had told her, You want this child . . . You will do anything to assure its well-being, and everything changed, just like that. She couldn’t believe now that she’d wanted to kill her baby.

  But that was totally different from wanting the pregnancy over and done with. She simply wanted to be back to normal size. She’d never been skinny, but this was ridiculous. She couldn’t seem to find a comfortable position anywhere, even in bed. She’d give anything for a full night’s sleep.

  And once her pregnancy was over and the baby born, maybe Mr. Osala would let her leave his home. She’d been a virtual prisoner there since last spring—almost her entire pregnancy. Could she complain about a Fifth Avenue duplex penthouse where she wanted for nothing? Yeah, she could, because although she could have anything material, she couldn’t have what she wanted most: contact with the outside world. Because Mr. Osala feared that might lead the baby’s father to her. That was the last thing she wanted, too, but it seemed to her Mr. Osala had taken precautions to the extreme.

  She wanted a life.

  “Yes, I know it’s overdue,” she heard Dr. Landsman say. “I was just discussing that with Dawn when you called.
But the baby’s healthy and, frankly, how do we know this isn’t perfectly normal? It’s not as if we have any precedents to follow.”

  Those kinds of comments popped out every so often and never failed to sour her stomach. She’d learned not to ask about them, because Dr. Landsman only stonewalled her.

  But she was convinced something was wrong with her baby. Dr. Landsman could tell her it was healthy till he was blue in the face, but that look in his eyes when he watched the ultrasound screen said he was looking at something he didn’t see every day.

  And then there was the thing about the ultrasound images—Mr. Osala made the doctor delete them after every session. And when he wasn’t here, his driver Georges made sure they were history. Georges was almost as scary as his boss.