The Zul Enigma (3 page)

‘Then she started on about how miserable she was. Started shouting. I didn’t
get it. All I saw was her happy; fixing up the apartment, sightseeing, having
fun with our visitors.’

‘I gave up everything for you – my family, my friends,’ she’d yelled, and
all you do is talk down to me and treat me like… like… like some bimbo trophy
wife.’ She looked up at him, ‘but do you really care about me? How I feel? What
I think? What I say?’ she took a step towards him. ‘Oh no! I don’t think so.’
Her voice grew louder as she wound herself up, tighter and tighter. ‘Your ego’s
gotten so big, you don’t give a shit about
anyone
any more,’ she was
just inches away from him. ‘It’s all about you, you, you,’ her breath hot on
his face. ‘Well how about me, goddamn it?’ she screamed, ‘how about us?’

Carlos snatched his
dressing gown from the chair, dragged it on and knotted the belt as if he were
garrotting a cat.

‘For Christ’s sake,
Elena, you drag up the same old things every time.’

She turned away to
rummage in her wardrobe and started flinging stuff into a bag. Then she
searched for her hat and gloves and on finding them spun around to face him
again.

‘Next she started crying, saying she had nothing to do in Vienna. That’s when I
lost it and it turned into a horrible fight.’

Her eyes had glistened red and swollen. Her tears left wavy tracks down her
face and dripped off her nose and chin, staining dark circles on her maroon,
mohair scarf.

‘You’re always working.
Or away. Or out at some function. I’ve got nothing to do here. My career’s
over, and I wanna have a baby. Before you get too old,’ she was pleading now.
‘Is that so very much to ask? What
is
it with you?’ her voice cracked.
‘Why won’t you even
talk
about it?’ She rocked her head in her hands
sobbing. She was transformed from passionate, powerful woman to pathetic
whimpering child.

Carlos couldn’t stand
that little girl whining voice. Restraint forgotten, he let fly.

‘
You
say you got
nothing to do,’ he barked. ‘Well here’s an idea. Forget the yoga; the gym; the
gossip magazines; the soap operas; the shopping,’ he counted each one off on
his fingers, ‘and spend some time on the apartment. Look at this place. It’s a
mess!’

He strode towards
Elena’s dressing table kicking at her clothes lying in his path and ran his arm
across the cluttered top, clearing it in one swoop.

She didn’t try to stop
him, she just watched him, her face vacant of any emotion.

Furious now, he turned
on her. ‘
You
talk about wanting a
baby
. Well,
you
need to
grow up first! You want to walk out, hey? You really want to go?’ His arms were
in the air, gesticulating wildly. ‘Well that’s just fine with me
señora
– I won’t stop you.’

Elena kept her voice
low, her tone controlled and menacing. ‘Stop me? You can’t stop me!’ She pulled
herself up to her full five foot nine. ‘You know something? I used to think you
were so special. A strong man, decisive, loving, passionate, but over the past
year, well, I’m just starting to see you for what you really are. You’ve pushed
“macho” so far to the extreme you’ve made it an art form. You’re an anal,
controlling, selfish, arrogant prick and I’m not putting up with your crap any
longer.’

Carlos opened his mouth
to reply, but Elena just kept right on, her voice getting louder. ‘I’m sick of
the way you treat me. You’re hardly ever here, and when you are, you’re always
on your iTab or plugged in to music. It’s like I don’t exist! You have no
respect for me at all. Well, I tell you, I’m not putting up with it any longer.
I’m not putting up with
you
any longer. I’m outta here and I’m outta
here for good. You and me? It’s over. Do you hear? It’s over!’

Carlos rolled his eyes.
‘Here we go again!’

Her shriek was feral. It
jarred him into silence. ‘I TELL YOU, I MEAN IT.’

She nailed him with a
glare, jaws clenched so tightly he could see the snake of a blue vein pulsing
under the skin at her temple. ‘Don’t bother running after me this time.’ She
jabbed Carlos in the chest with her forefinger, ‘
you
, you Spanish
asshole…
you’re
fucking history!’

The look she fired at
him could have torched a building. He stood paralysed as she turned and strode
out of the bedroom, her hair a blazing cloud.

He heard the zizz of the
zippers of her boots. Then a bang – no mistaking that noise – she’d
nearly slammed the front door off its hinges. Ping – that was the lift.
She’d be in there drumming on the door with the heel of her fist, impatient for
it to open at the basement car park. He could picture her marching towards her
car, wrenching the driver’s door open and hurling herself into the seat. He
could imagine her throwing it round the ramps while the tyres squealed and the
engine whined and gunning it up the slope to fly out of the garage and skid
onto the snowy street. Goodbye, Elena. Goodbye.

‘She stormed out. When she didn’t come back, I went after her.’

It had taken half an hour for Carlos’s adrenaline to subside. He forced himself
to drink the cold coffee and pretended to read the paper. Then he showered and
dressed and went out in his car to search for her. He knew all her usual
haunts, but she wasn’t at any of them.

As he ran out of places
to look, it struck him she might have gone further than he thought. He sped
back to the penthouse in a frenzy and burst through the front door to check her
things. It was always a nightmare trying to find anything in Elena’s mess, but
although he searched and searched he couldn’t see her passport anywhere.
Perhaps she’d taken it with her. Perhaps she’d gone to the airport to run back
to her family in the States.

She’d have missed both
the direct morning flights to Washington DC but perhaps she’d taken another
route. Or perhaps she didn’t plan to go to DC at all. Every time he called her
mobile it rang out but that didn’t mean she was still on the ground – he
always had to remind her to turn off her phone when she flew.

He thought about calling
her parents but he didn’t want to worry them. He didn’t know what to do. He
pounded his head with his fists as he paced the floor of their bedroom, unaware
he was trampling everything he’d swept off her dressing table into the rug. Why
had he pushed her so far… why hadn’t he stopped her storming off? She was a
loose cannon when she was mad and he was scared what she might do. If only he
knew where she was. If only he could just talk to her.

‘The police called me the following day…’ Carlos said, topping up their drinks.
He swallowed and blinked away the tears welling up in his eyes before turning
round to give Drew his glass, ‘… after they found her. She’d bought a ticket
for DC the next morning and booked into the NH Vienna Airport Hotel for the
night. Early evening she went down to the lounge bar. The barman remembered
her. The police interviewed him. She told him she’d broken up with her husband
and was going back to the States. He said… he said she was very flirtatious.’
Carlos screwed up his eyes and shook his head. ‘She had a glass of wine then a
well-dressed swarthy man sent her over a cocktail – a Long Island Iced
Tea. He joined her and they talked. She said how good the drink was and the man
bought her another and another.’ Carlos shrugged. ‘She never drank much –
she wouldn’t know how strong those things are. In a couple of hours she was
hammered. The barman said she nearly fell off her stool and the man helped her
into the elevator.’

The last time Carlos saw Elena she was lying naked on a mortuary slab covered
with a creaseless, white sheet. The cloying smell of formaldehyde was
overpowering. It made him more nauseous than he already felt. Although he was
alone there with the pathologist, the room felt claustrophobic. It was so cold
he was shivering and the autopsy report fluttered like a sail in his hands as
he read it from cover to cover.

The cause of her death
was multiple fractures to the skull. She had a broken nose, three broken ribs,
a broken arm and extensive bruising to the pelvic area where she’d been kicked
repeatedly. And semen deposits had been found inside her ruptured anus.

When he peeled back the
sheet it was hard to believe the body he was looking at was his wife. He
couldn’t recognise a single feature in what was once her face. But he knew it
was her. He touched her hand, now cold and stiff and white and lifeless, the
nails ripped and the fingers ragged from where she’d tried to escape her
assailant. He kissed it and started to sob. He couldn’t have felt any more
guilty had he been the one to hold her by the hair, to pound her head into the
wall, to sodomise her, to kick her and to use his fists to beat her once
beautiful face into a swollen, bloody pulp.

‘And they never caught the bastard?’ Drew asked.

The knuckles of Carlos’s
hand turned white as he gripped his glass, practically crushing it. ‘No.’

Drew sucked in a breath
and stood up. ‘Mate, I am so, so sorry. I… I tried to make the piss up but I
got stranded in that storm that shut everything down. I couldn’t get out of
DC.’

‘Hey,’ Carlos said
shrugging. ‘It’s… it’s…’

Drew put a big hand on
Carlos’s arm and gave it a squeeze. ‘Come on mate.’

Carlos nodded and
sighed. ‘I need to check my e-mail. Then we go.’ He walked out of the living
room and set up his iTab in the usual place on the kitchen counter. The screen
sprang open when he slid it out of its custom pocket and he up-ended the iTab
and turned on the laser to create a virtual keyboard. Using his RFId tag he
logged into the UN network to check if there was any response to the report
he’d sent earlier. There was nothing from the Network Administrator but he saw
a second e-mail from the Galactic Federation. Once again the body of the e-mail
was empty and this time a video file was attached.

Carlos opened it and an
elderly face appeared on the screen. The long, shaggy hair was silver and
thinning on top. Soft brown eyes stared out from underneath the unruly greying
brows, which looked too young, too vibrant for the old face. The nose was
strong and straight. The lips tipped up at the corners in a gentle smile. It
was a kindly face. It reminded Carlos of his father. It radiated his integrity,
his strength.

‘Hello Carlos.’

The same sonorous voice
Carlos had first heard just a few hours earlier wrapped around him like a warm
cloak. It exuded confidence and compassion. Who was this man?

‘We know you are
wondering what the Galactic Federation is and what it represents. This is
understandable. We, on the other hand, have the advantage. We have studied you
and feel that we know you. Absolutely.’

That was a strange thing
to say. Was it meant to be a threat?

‘The Galactic Federation
is a body of higher consciousness that represents the universe in which we
co-exist. The image you see on your computer screen will serve as our
communication point with you. You may name it as you wish.

‘The Federation has
information to share that we urge you to consider most carefully. The very
future of your Earth depends upon it.

‘We are sure you are
puzzling why the Federation has selected you, out of the billions of human
beings on your planet, to contact. The reason is two-fold. Firstly, you have a
background in cosmology that will enable us to communicate with you at a level
of greater understanding. Secondly, you head a member organisation of the
Earthly United Nations, a group that represents nearly every country on your
planet. This unique combination of factors can serve as a platform from which
you may evaluate the information we will pass on to you without prejudice and
which, we trust, will inspire you to take action.’

The shaggy brows rose
making deep creases across the forehead that reminded Carlos of the furrows
left on a sandy beach at low tide.

‘Carlos, we are about to
challenge the system of belief that has hitherto underpinned modern mankind’s
understanding of the cosmos. We ask you to clear your mind of doubt and
judgement and allow our words to reach you without preconception or
impediment.’

Instinctively Carlos sat
up straight as if he were back at school in a physics lesson.

‘Long ago in terms of
earthly time we learned how to integrate gravity into what you humans name the
Grand Unified Theories. We know you well understand the ramifications of such
an accomplishment.’

Carlos felt as if a
charged cattle prod had jabbed his heart and the sudden shot of adrenaline made
his pulse and brain race.

Back in the 1970s, the
Grand Unified Theories provided a breakthrough in the field of physics by
incorporating electromagnetism into a single theory with the weak and the
strong nuclear forces. It was this achievement that fuelled mankind’s obsessive
desire to expand the theory to include the final force, gravity, as well. If
realised, not only would it prove that contrary to being distinct, all four
forces were actually different forms of the same phenomenon, but it would also
satisfy mankind’s intrinsic love of symmetry. It would reveal the fundamental
simplicity and elegance at the core of the entire physical universe and allow things
hitherto deemed impossible to be achieved.