by Dane Hartman
Keating had told him the land he’d installed the shelter on was located off the beaten path, but he hadn’t indicated just how far. Harry drove along a narrow twisted road that tended to peter out at intervals into mudbanked flats. There was no sign hereabouts to say one was getting close to anything. But tire tracks showed up clearly enough.
Off to his left, he spied the wreck of a car. Rust was gaining on it. It looked like it had been sitting there, on the very edge of the road, such as it was, for a good long time. Harry didn’t realize the presence of the rusting hulk had a special meaning.
The meaning, however, became clear within a moment.
There was a loud explosion. The clear surface of Harry’s windshield clouded over in a myriad of cracks. In the middle of the cracks, a perfect hole had been formed. The bullet had entered on Harry’s side, but ended up in the cushioned seat behind him, because it had quite obviously failed to hit him.
He swerved the car to the left as a second shot was fired. The sniper had evidently not anticipated the sudden motion of the car and the bullet impacted in the door on the passenger side, with a loud metallic clang.
Harry concluded that outsiders were not especially welcome, and that continuing on the way he was might reasonably be considered suicidal. So without troubling himself to turn around, he began backing up as fast as he could. There were no additional shots.
As he neared the end of the road, close to where it joined the main highway, he glimpsed two men in hardhats, with 30-30’s cradled in their arms, standing directly in his path. When they raised their weapons, there was no mistaking the seriousness of their intent.
He decided, all things considered, he’d stop and see what these men wanted. He took the precaution of removing his .44 from its holster, though he made sure to keep it out of sight.
Only one of the men approached him. The other stood back, regarding him warily, still holding his 30-30 on him.
The man who desired to speak with him, rapped on the window for Harry to roll it down.
“What can I do for you?” he asked in a voice that sounded downright neighborly. “You looking for someone in these parts?”
Harry smiled brightly at him. “Just happened to be taking a drive and got myself lost is all.”
The skeptical expression on the man’s face indicated he was having trouble believing him. “You had to go out of your way to get lost, seems to me. This here is private property. You should’ve paid attention to the sign.”
“What sign? I didn’t see any sign.”
The man considered the possibility of this. “Mmmmmm, well, sometimes a big storm like we got last night comes along and blows it down. But that’s no excuse.”
“Absolutely right. I beg your pardon.”
Though he wasn’t satisfied with Harry’s apology, he saw no point in pursuing the subject. “All right, then, you just follow the road, and you’ll get to the turn-off.”
Harry thanked him. The man stood there for several seconds, watching Harry with unmitigated suspicion.
Harry did as he was told. He started back toward San Francisco, heading south on 12. It was growing late in the day and the western sun had turned the road a blazing orange.
Approximately twenty minutes after leaving the homestead of Saving Remnant, he happened to notice a car speeding in the other direction. It went by very fast and with the light so intense it was difficult to see, but there was something about this car that gave Harry pause. He kept driving on, trying to figure out what it was.
Then it came to him. Right away he did a U-turn, startling the other drivers in the vicinity, and raced back the way he’d come. He was certain that the other car had been a pink MG and that it was occupied by three people—a man and a woman up in front, and another man in back. He could be sure of nothing else. The car had been going too quickly for him to make out whether one of the men was white and the other black. But how many pink MG’s could there be, especially on a road which led to the same destination all the previous kidnap victims might have taken?
Of course, he couldn’t retrace his route if he wanted to avoid getting blasted out of existence. Well, he thought, I’ll just have to find another way in. That didn’t necessarily guarantee him freedom from being blasted out of existence though, in fact, it didn’t guarantee him anything but a long hike.
C H A P T E R
S e v e n
The doctor, whose name was Jonas Pine, said he’d once done time himself. Gallant asked him what his crime had been. Said Dr. Pine, “I performed a hysterectomy without a proper license.”
“I see,” Gallant muttered. “And what happened to the patient?”
Dr. Pine didn’t say, but from the expression on his face, Gallant had a feeling he knew. It did not make him any more reassured about having this man alter his features, but Turner recommended him, and so what was he to do?
Dr. Pine began to sketch what he had in mind on a crumpled piece of paper. He depicted a bearded man with eyes that glowed with strange intensity. It didn’t look anything like Gallant, which was, he supposed, the point.
“It won’t require much surgery. There isn’t time, you see, to do anything major. Turner wants you ready in a few weeks. Otherwise, I could have reconstructed you entirely.”
For this, at least, Gallant was grateful.
“But you’ll make it so no one will recognize me?”
“Oh yes. And you will grow a beard, a very lush one I hope, and that will help. And I intend to do a slight bit of work on your vocal cords.”
“Now wait a minute . . .” The last thing he wanted was this quack sticking a knife down his throat.
“Don’t worry, it’ll be a quick and relatively minor procedure. All it’ll do will be to make your voice sound somewhat hoarser. It’s just as important no one identify your voice as it is your face. Am I correct?”
They were seated in an office in Turner’s house. The window looked out on the front lawn which in turn gave way to a densely wooded area. In back, several hundred yards away, was the rifle range, and slightly to the left was Turner’s palatial shelter connected to the house by a subterranean tunnel. It was some set-up, and it was all financed by proceeds from people who contributed thousands of dollars yearly to the Saving Remnant. Turner, Gallant thought, had come a long ways from heisting trucks full of meat.
With a squeal of tires and flurry of exhaust smoke, a pink MG pulled up in front of the house and stopped. The doors flew open and the three passengers got out. One was a vapid looking blond. Gallant regarded the doctor questioningly.
“Oh, that’s Dan and Sandy. Dan’s the dark one . . . he’s Samoan.”
“And who’s the girl?”
The doctor smiled mischievously. “Well, we’ll just have to find out, won’t we?”
Looking again, Gallant saw she was blindfolded. But far from protesting her enforced sightlessness, she was laughing, and each time she stumbled, she laughed harder. It was all a game to her apparently.
“You see,” the doctor explained, “Dan and Sandy like their fun. No one minds because they are always eager to share what they bring home.”
“How do the girls feel about this?”
“They don’t generally mind.” Here the doctor opened up his medical bag, a black leather affair, disclosing a vast sampling of pharmaceutical products. “Valium, seconal, quaaludes, amphetimines, you name it. As a rule, they are quite cooperative actually. Or else they’re too numb to care one way or the other.”
“And how does Grant regard this?” Somehow, the idea of weekly orgies didn’t exactly square with the purported objectives of the Saving Remnant.
Dr. Pine shrugged. “So long as it causes no dissension in the ranks, and it’s done discreetly, he doesn’t mind. However, he never participates. Dan and Sandy try to restrict themselves to times when Turner’s not here. Like now.”
“I see,” said Gallant who really didn’t see at all.
“You are invited to join in, if you’d care to.�
��
“I’m not sure I’m quite up to it . . .” And it was true. The night he’d spent on his murderous spree had left him so exhausted he didn’t know whether he could perform in front of a cheering section composed of soldiers of the Saving Remnant.
“Well, clearly, my attendance is necessary,” said the good doctor, snapping shut his case. “Come down to the bunker. It’s always fun to watch even if you don’t choose to participate.”
This was an offer that Gallant saw no reason to refuse. So he trailed after Dr. Pine, following through the tunnel. When they emerged, the sound of the girl’s laughter greeted them.
She was already intoxicated, on alcohol, and probably on grass and coke, and Gallant wondered whether she needed the additional drugs Dr. Pine was prepared to give her.
“Hi,” she said, taking Gallant’s hand, “I’m Sugar.”
“I bet you are.”
This caused her to erupt in another fit of giggles.
The man the doctor had identified as Sandy was leaning down to surround Sugar’s waist with his arms. Dan in the meantime was lifting her halter top away from her breasts and peering down. “What a beautiful view!” he kept saying. “What a beautiful view!”
Sugar giggled some more, saying, “Oh, what are you looking at? There’s nothing to look at.”
The doctor held out a pill of some kind. “Be a good girl and open up,” he said. “Very good. Now stick your tongue out.”
“Wha’s tha?” she asked.
“Something fun.”
Her face lit up in expectation. She took the pill willingly and swallowed it with the help of some straight brandy.
Parking his car way off to the side of the road, Harry began the trek through the woods, no easy trick with so much brush to contend with. The land was uneven and rocky and broken, and at regular intervals, he was compelled to ford streams whose currents were strong enough to unbalance a man. And as he proceeded farther, the consistency of the earth changed, becoming softer, murky, like a bog that threatened to suck one right in.
At last he was rewarded. In the distance, he could make out, between two gnarled and lightning-struck trees, a blur of white stone. As he approached, the whiteness defined itself. This must be the house where the Saving Remnant was waiting for the world to collapse. To the side, he discerned a large gray cement slab lying flat in the middle of a bed of grass. This would be the top of the shelter, he guessed.
The problem was that he was paying too much attention to these two structures and not enough to what was happening behind him.
“You there, turn around or I’ll blow your ass off.”
Harry knew the voice. It belonged to the man in the hardhat who’d accosted him at the beginning of the road.
Harry slowly turned.
“Hands up!”
Harry complied with the order.
“You again,” said the man in the hardhat. He sounded genuinely disgusted.
“That’s right.”
This time the man was alone. It was possible his companion was laying low not far away, but Harry doubted it.
“Who are you?”
“Traveling salesman.”
“What if I said I don’t believe you.” He kept the 30-30 leveled toward Harry, and step by step, he bridged the distance that separated the two of them.
“I’d say then you have a problem.”
The sentry glared at Harry and reached with his free hand into Harry’s jacket. Seeing the bulge in it, he appeared to know where the gun was concealed.
But he was so intent on taking the gun away from Harry, he failed to see him jerk up his knee. All at once, he registered a savage pain in his groin and he nearly blacked out. He managed to release a protracted scream which caused the birds in the vicinity to flutter in panic up toward the sky.
Harry struck him a second time with the edge of his hand, catching him on his neck. The blow stunned the man. His knees buckled and he slumped to the ground. He barely hung on to his rifle, though it was obvious he couldn’t make use of it.
Harry took hold of his .44 and brought it squarely down on the hardhat. There was a shrill ringing in response. The top of the hat was partially crushed. There was no telling what sort of damage had been done to the head underneath, but there could be no doubt of the effect. The man lay prostrate, his consciousness obliterated by the impact.
Racing forward, Harry came into the open. Several cars and a couple of vans were parked in front of the house. Among them was the pink MG he’d spotted earlier.
Although the light was not entirely out of the western sky, the tall sycamores and pines diminished it so it was difficult to see too far in the distance.
Lights were on in the house. Harry circled around until he found a door. It was locked. The Saving Remnant wouldn’t be expected to ignore routine security, Harry supposed. Legally, of course, he was on dangerous ground. To burst in without a warrant, was sufficient cause to have any possible case thrown out of court. It might well jeopardize his already precarious position in the department still further.
On the other hand, if his suspicions were correct, there was a girl inside this complex who was being expertly drugged, and more expertly raped. Harry shot out the lock.
Though he expected the detonation would have alerted the inhabitants of the house, he found he’d provoked no reaction whatsoever. The hallway he entered was empty, as were the rooms he proceeded through. The party obviously was taking place somewhere else.
As soon as one brings a pretty girl into the situation, even a dumb pretty girl, Harry thought, one’s security goes all to hell.
It stood to reason there’d be an underground connection between this house and the shelter. You never know, they might drop the bomb in the middle of the night, thought Harry. Turner would want to be able to scramble out of bed and down to his underground digs without exposing himself to a miliaria of radioactivity. But the house, now that he was inside it, was larger than he’d imagined. It required several minutes before he discovered the door leading to the tunnel that would take him to the shelter.
He moved stealthily. Surely, he believed, somebody would be standing guard even if it meant missing the entertainment. But he got all the way to the end of the tunnel without seeing anybody. A door faced him. At its base was an electrified mat and as soon as Harry placed a foot on it the door automatically drew open. But as it did so it set off a loud buzzer and a red light overhead that blinked frantically to register the new arrival.
“Must be Turner,” he heard someone say.
He heard someone else correct him.
A round smashed into the cinderblock wall behind him. He dropped to the cement floor. It was very cold down there. A second round sped over his head and into the metal door he’d just come through. When it closed, the buzzer and the blinking light had both shut off. Not that it mattered, they’d already done their mischief.
Harry stayed where he was for several moments, listening to the commotion that his intrusion provoked. Men were shouting orders at each other. Harry had the feeling no one quite knew how to handle the situation in the absence of their commander.
Harry plunged ahead, capitalizing on the lack of organized opposition. He suddenly found himself in a room unlike any he’d ever seen outside of a museum. Though there, there wouldn’t have been so much clutter. There were antiques of all kinds surrounding him: silver sauce tureens, Heeplewhite dining chairs, Queen Anne side chairs, cherrywood reverse-serpentine chests, Chippendale walnut clocks, Sheffield tea urns, Regency walnut bombe commodes, silver julep cups and wastebowls dating back to the Eighteenth Century, Delft vases and plates and Chinese Trade porcelain tea sets, and even a portrait of a Miss Tillie Mead, painted in 1831. Smack in the middle of these collectibles was a canopied bed on which lay a nude woman, her legs spread wide apart. Her thighs were pummeled bright red and the tips of her breasts were moist with saliva. Her eyes were heavily lidded—it seemed she could barely keep them open—and her lips were parted. Sh
e was mumbling something Harry could not hear. There was no indication she was aware of Harry’s presence until suddenly she raised her head slightly and said in a soft hoarse voice, “Hi, I’m Sugar, what’s your name?” before lapsing back into unconsciousness.
There was no sign of her attackers. Harry could still hear them though. They were hastening away, presumably toward another exit farther into the shelter.
Ignoring the lavish display of antiques, memorabilia, and paintings that were exhibited in every one of the several rooms that constituted this strange shelter, Harry forged ahead, determined to apprehend at least a couple of these fuckers for his trouble.
Not all of them had fled. An elegant vase burst just to his right and he threw himself to the floor once again. Although he couldn’t spot his assailant, he was able to get a fair idea of his location by looking into an ornate gilt-framed mirror that hung on the opposite wall.
There, in the unusually dark surface of the glass, he could distinguish the reflection of a man’s shoulders. Harry had only to make a few simple calculations to pinpoint his position behind an Eighteenth Century Dutch crib which resembled an armoire. Harry sighted his Magnum on the crib and fired. Between the crib’s front and back wall there was nothing but space. The bullet easily penetrated both, scattering a multitude of expensive mahogany fragments, some of which struck the man using the crib as a cover. He cried out with pain and involuntarily shifted his stance. Harry now held a better view of him in the mirror. He saw the man had let down his guard to inspect the cuts he’d sustained and to pluck out a couple of splinters from his arms and neck.
Harry rushed forward before the man had the opportunity to prepare for him. While he managed to retrieve his gun, the shot he fired went awry, smashing a Delft plate and something crystal. Harry lurched to the left to avoid the fire and let off a single shot. The man was lifted off his feet and crashed into the already bullet-riddled crib, demolishing it entirely. It wasn’t the .44 that gave him his fatal wound but a long razor-sharp splinter of wood on which he was impaled. When Harry approached him, he saw the splinter had pierced his bowels at such an angle that it had driven out his stomach just below the sternum. He wasn’t quite dead, but in writhing about in a futile attempt to extricate the wood, he quickly died.
