by John Saul
“What the neighbors are going to see,” Sandy-hair continued, “if they’re looking at all, is us helping you out to the car. You’re not feeling so good, see? So that way, if I have to shoot you, you’ll just look like you’re feeling even worse.”
“Wh-Why?” Judith managed to ask. Her throat hurt where Black-hair had crushed her larynx, and the word was no more than a croak.
Sandy-hair shrugged. “A man wants to talk to you,” he said. “He sent us to pick you up.”
“I’ll need your car keys,” Black-hair said, his voice still carrying that eerily conversational quality that made his request sound so ominous.
“M-My purse,” Judith managed, nodding toward a small table next to the sofa.
Black-hair moved to the table, picked up Judith’s purse, then groped in it until his hands closed on her keys. Then he handed her the purse and opened the front door. “If you’ll just take my arm,” he said.
Numbly, Judith slipped her hand through his arm, and he led her outside onto the porch. Sandy-hair pulled the door closed, almost shutting out the sound of the still-ringing telephone, then fell in beside her, gripping her other arm and letting her feel the pressure of the pistol against her rib cage. Sitting outside, behind her own car, was the blue Chevy she’d seen the day before.
Black-hair opened the passenger door for her, and as she climbed into the front seat, Sandy-hair slid behind the wheel. “My friend here still has his gun,” Black-hair told her. “He’ll be driving with one hand, and he’ll be holding the gun with the other. If you make any attempt to get out of the car, or scream, or do anything else except sit there quietly, he’ll kill you.”
A moment later, after Sandy-hair had disappeared around the corner, Black-hair ambled up the driveway, got into Judith’s car, backed into the street, and shifted the transmission into Drive.
Across the street and two houses up, a woman stood watering her front lawn. As he passed her, Black-hair smiled and waved.
The woman seemed puzzled, but then she grinned uncertainly and returned his wave before going back to her watering.
* * *
Peter Langston stared at the receiver in his hand and rattled the button on the phone. “Judith?” he said. He held the button down a moment, then quickly redialed the number. He let the phone ring fifteen times, then finally hung up. “Something’s happened up there,” he told Tom Patchell, who was looking at him, his head cocked worriedly to one side. “Someone came to the door, and then they hung up her phone.”
Patchell’s eyes narrowed. “Better call the police up there.” But his words were unnecessary, for Peter was already dialing again. A few minutes later he began talking urgently to the Borrego police department.
“I’m telling you, something’s gone wrong!” He repeated what had happened, then spoke again. “I don’t know the address. She’s living at her boyfriend’s house.” He searched his memory, but couldn’t remember the name of Judith’s new boyfriend. Possibly she had never told him the name. Then he had an idea. “Look, the guy’s in the hospital. He had a stroke.” A moment later he slammed the receiver down. “I’m driving up there,” he told Patchell. “They knew who the guy was, but they said he’s some kind of kook. I don’t think they’re even going to check his place out.”
“You want me to go with you?” Patchell asked, but Peter shook his head.
“Stay here and see what else you can find out about those damned machines. Like maybe a way to disable them.”
Patchell looked at Peter, his eyes bleak. “I’ve already been thinking about that,” he said. “I’m not sure there is a way to disable them, short of destroying them. And the only way I can think of to do that is to set them off.”
Peter Langston’s eyes turned to flint. “There has to be a way,” he said. “If there isn’t …”
But he left the sentence unfinished, unwilling to accept that for all the teenagers of Borrego, there might already be no means of escape from the bombs that had been planted inside their heads.
By the end of his shift Jed Arnold didn’t have to pretend to move like a somnambulist. As he climbed the long circular staircase that led up to the top of the dam, his whole body felt numb. He’d spent the afternoon in the main shaft, shoveling debris into the conveyor belt, and his arms felt as if he could barely lift them. He took the stairs one by one, moving his legs stolidly, willing them to carry his weight upward. At last he reached the surface and emerged, blinking into the bright afternoon sunlight. He paused, sucking fresh air into his lungs, hacking and coughing in an attempt to dislodge the dust and grime of the power shaft from his throat. A moment later, realizing he was in full view of the operator’s shack at the end of the dam, he let his head hang once more and started along the dam, as though unconscious of his surroundings.
“Arnold!” Otto Kruger’s voice barked as he passed the open door to the control room.
He stopped, and slowly raised his head, keeping his expression carefully impassive. Kruger was holding a brown manila envelope out to him.
“Take this down to the communications center on your way home. Give it to the first person you see.”
It wasn’t a request; it was an order. From the way Kruger had spoken, it was clear to Jed that he anticipated no argument, no questions.
He expected that Jed would silently comply with his command.
Wordlessly, Jed held out his hand and took the thin package, then proceeded on his way to the truck, being careful not even to so much as look at the envelope.
Ignoring the rest of the crew, who had gathered around the bed of Carlos Alvarez’s old pickup to enjoy an after-work beer, he climbed up into the cab of the truck, started the engine, and pulled out onto the road along the canyon’s edge. Only when certain he was no longer within view of anyone at the dam did he pick up the envelope and look for any markings that might identify what was inside. There was nothing on it. No name, no address, not even a logo for either Borrego Oil or UniChem. It was simply a plain brown envelope.
Jed dropped the envelope on the seat beside him, then sped up, enjoying the wind in his face as it blew through the open window. He slowed the truck only when he came to the part of the road that switchbacked down the shoulder of the mesa, then sped up again as he started back up into the canyon itself.
Four hundred yards into the canyon, in the shelter of a thick stand of cottonwoods, he pulled the truck to a stop. He got out and stripped off his shirt, then splashed water from the stream over his face and torso. Finally he went back to the truck, pulled a ragged towel out from behind the passenger seat and wiped himself dry, removing the worst of the sweat and grime from his aching body. Only when he’d put his sticky work shirt back on did he finally pick up the brown envelope again, this time testing the flap to see if it was sealed.
To his surprise, it wasn’t.
And yet, he reflected, why should it be? It was obvious they were certain he would simply do as he was told, and show no curiosity at all about what might be in the envelope.
Well, they were wrong.
Quickly he opened the envelope and slid the single sheet of paper out far enough so he could see what it was.
It was a list of the men he’d been working with all day, the men who had disappeared in groups of four at various times through the morning and afternoon, sent down to the hospital to receive their “flu” shots.
Beside each name there was a five-digit number.
Except for the list of names and numbers, the envelope was empty. Jed stared at the sheet for a few seconds, then rummaged in the glove compartment of the truck until he found a stub of a pencil and a crumpled paper bag.
He copied the names and their corresponding numbers, then shoved the bag and pencil back where he’d found them. He slid the sheet back into its envelope and carefully flattened the metal fastener.
Ten minutes later he pulled up in front of the communications center and climbed out of the truck.
He hesitated.
He wante
d to see more of the building than simply whatever lay just inside the door. As he looked at the cars in the parking lot, an idea came to him. He hurried from car to car, until he found what he was looking for. Lying on the dashboard of a blue Buick was an envelope, addressed to someone named Stan Utley. He checked the other cars, but they were all locked, and he found nothing useful. He would have to gamble on the Utley envelope.
Making his face expressionless once more, he walked through the gate and into the building itself.
A girl he didn’t recognize looked up at him. “Give me the envelope,” she said, exactly as if she were talking to a robot rather than a human being.
Jed shook his head. “They said to give it to Utley,” he said. “Stan Utley.”
The girl stared at him for a moment, then nodded her head. “In the back,” she said. “Go through the door into the transmitter room. He’s in there.”
Jed stifled a sigh of relief as he followed the girl’s instructions. He stepped through the door, and almost immediately the temperature dropped as he came into the cavern that formed the back chamber of the building.
It looked to Jed like a control room. There seemed to be computer monitors everywhere, and at several of the monitors, blank-eyed, expressionless people sat tapping data into keyboards.
Jed stopped, his head down but his eyes darting everywhere, taking in everything he could. On a desk a few feet from him, propped up by one of the monitors, was a list of names and numbers. On the screen of the monitor, more numbers were flashing.
Suddenly a man in a technician’s coat appeared in front of Jed. “I’m Stan Utley,” he said. Nothing more.
Jed handed him the envelope.
“That’s all,” Utley said. “You can go home now.”
Silently Jed turned and started out of the room, but as he reached the door, he heard Utley’s voice speaking to someone else. “Get these entered, and have them matched to the Parameter B frequencies.”
As he left the communications center a few seconds later and started driving back down the canyon, Jed was certain he’d found the source of what was being done to the people of Borrego.
The communications center wasn’t broadcasting to other UniChem offices at all.
It was broadcasting to the town.
Chapter 29
Peter Langston hurried up the walk in front of the nondescript cinder-block house and rapped sharply on the door. Darkness had already fallen, the first stars beginning to glimmer in the sky, and Peter shivered, though he wasn’t sure if it was the chill of the evening that had brought on the sudden tremor. He was about to knock again when the door opened and a teenage boy, dark-complected, with fine planes in his face and startlingly blue eyes, looked out at him. Despite his dusky complexion, the boy’s face looked pale and seemed almost expressionless, and as Peter remembered Judith’s description of her “affected” students, he felt a pang of apprehension. But if this was Jed Arnold, he couldn’t possibly be feeling the effects of a shot he hadn’t had.
“Jed?” he asked. “Jed Arnold?” A hint of a frown creased the boy’s brow and he nodded warily. “I’m Peter Langston, Judith Sheffield’s—”
Jed’s face came to life, and he quickly pulled Langston into the house, closing the door behind him. “Where’s Jude?” he demanded. “Isn’t she with you? She wasn’t here when I got home and—” His words faded away as he saw the look on Langston’s face. “Oh, Jesus,” he breathed. “Something’s happened to her, hasn’t it?”
Peter nodded. “I think she’s been kidnapped. I know it sounds crazy, but—”
Jed shook his head. “Nothing sounds crazy around here anymore. What happened?”
For a moment Peter hesitated. What, after all, could a teenage kid do? He should go to the police, put the whole thing in the hands of people who would know what to do. But as Jed’s eyes fixed on him, Peter changed his mind. There was a strength in Jed he’d never seen before in someone as young. Quickly he told Jed what had happened.
“The antenna,” Jed said as soon as Peter was finished. “That’s where they’re sending the transmissions from.” His eyes darkened. “And I know where they’ve got Jude too.”
“Then let’s call the police,” Peter said.
Jed seemed to think about it for a moment, then shook his head. “No,” he said. “It’ll take too much time. Even if they believe us, it’ll be too late. We’ll do it ourselves.”
Without waiting for Peter to argue further, Jed grabbed his jacket and headed out the back door. A second later Peter followed him.
Judith strained against the heavy straps that held her to the bed, her wrists and ankles already abraded from her struggles against the thick leather bonds. From the chair a few feet away, Black-hair watched her indolently. “It won’t do much good, you know,” he said in that infuriatingly conversational tone. “You might just as well lie there and enjoy yourself until Mr. Kendall gets here.”
Judith wanted to scream, but wasn’t about to give Black-hair the satisfaction.
She didn’t know how long it had been since the two men had appeared at her house and calmly taken her away, a gun in her back, with no one apparently either knowing or caring. She’d known where they were taking her as soon as they started up the road into the canyon. They’d brought her into one of the cabins at The Cottonwoods, tied her up and gagged her. A little while later an orderly had appeared, and, as Judith’s heart pounded with terror, administered a shot to her. She’d expected to fall asleep then, but when nothing happened, her terror only grew as she realized that the shot could have been only one thing—a dose of the micromechanisms that had already been administered to nearly all the teenagers in town.
But finally, as the hours went on, her terror had given way to cold fury, and when Black-hair had at last removed the gag, she’d screamed out at him in rage, not fear.
He’d only chuckled quietly, settling himself back into a chair. “Scream all you want,” he’d told her. “Around here, I guess that’s what people are supposed to do, isn’t it?”
Since then she’d remained silent, but still struggled against the bonds, knowing even as she did that she wasn’t strong enough to break them.
Even if she were, Black-hair was still there, and she had no doubt that if it became necessary, he would kill her. Indeed, she was certain that he would even take pleasure in the act.
After a while the door opened and Greg Moreland entered the room. Nodding to Black-hair, he came over to the bed and looked down at Judith, his eyes glittering with cold anger.
Judith stopped struggling and glared up at him.
“Why?” she demanded. “Why are you doing this?”
Greg ignored the question. “I want to know where you got that sample of my flu inoculation.”
Judith said nothing.
“Look, Judith,” Greg told her, speaking exactly as if they were conversing at a cocktail party, rather than in a room where she was being held prisoner, “I don’t know how much you’ve discovered about what I’m doing, but I can assure you that at this point, it won’t make any difference. What I want to know from you is how you got your hands on one of our syringes. And you did get hold of one of them. There isn’t any other reason why you’d have gone down to the Brandt Institute yesterday.”
Judith’s mind raced. He didn’t know. So far, he was still just guessing. If she simply refused to speak—
It was as if Greg had read her mind. “You’ll tell me, you know. The question is whether you tell me now or tomorrow morning.”
Judith’s eyes betrayed the sudden surge of panic that gripped her.
Moreland smiled. “I gather you figured out what was in that shot the orderly gave you a while ago. Actually, I considered having them put some sodium pentothal in it too, but the trouble with that is that you might have slept through the night. And I wouldn’t want to deprive you of the experience of being realigned.”
Judith stared balefully up at Moreland. “Is that what you call murdering peop
le?” she asked, her voice trembling with both fear and anger. “Realigning them?”
Moreland’s voice hardened. “Judith, you haven’t the slightest idea of what it is we’re doing here, but I can assure you that it has nothing whatever to do with killing people.”
Anger overrode fear in Judith now. “Then what happened to Frank Arnold, and Max Moreland, and Reba Tucker?” she demanded.
Greg shrugged as if what Judith was saying had no importance. “You could call them victims of research, I suppose,” he replied.
“Dear God,” Judith breathed. “You’re playing with people, just like you played with your puppy …”
Greg’s face paled. “So Aunt Rita told you about that, did she? She always hated me after that. She always looked at me as if I was some kind of freak. And she wasn’t the only one. She told everyone what I did, you know. That’s why everyone’s always hated me …”
His voice went on and on, but Judith had heard enough to understand the truth.
He was paranoid, certain that everyone in Borrego hated him. And it would have been the same anywhere he’d gone. Everywhere, he would have felt people watching him, listening to him, plotting against him.
But here in Borrego he’d found a way to vent his insane rage, to get even for the imagined hatred he’d felt.
Only when the stream of Greg’s words died away did Judith speak again. “You don’t even know what you’re doing, do you?” she asked.
Greg’s expression hardened, and Judith realized she’d struck a nerve. “You don’t, do you?” she pressed. “You’re just striking out blindly, seeing what will happen.”
“Don’t pretend to be stupid,” Greg snapped. “You’ve already seen the beginnings of what we’re doing. And if you think about it, you’ll realize that it isn’t so bad. Haven’t you noticed that your classes have been better behaved the last couple of days? And don’t some of your students concentrate on their work more than they used to?”
