The God Project

by John Saul

  General Carmody nodded and turned to Randolph. “The Department has a very large investment in this project, Paul. I—we expect you to do everything you can to protect that investment. Is that clear?”

  “Very.” Paul Randolph sighed. “Do whatever you think is best.” In his heart, Randolph knew that he had just agreed to the murder of a nine-year-old boy.

  “I don’t get it,” Mark Malone said. “None of this makes any sense at all.” He stood up, stretched, then poured himself yet one more cup of steaming hot coffee. Taking a careful sip, he glared malevolently as Carl Bronski gulped down half a cup of his remaining supply of cold brew. “Did you know that cold coffee causes cancer?” he taunted.

  Carl ignored the bait. “What doesn’t make sense? It seems to me it’s all coming together.”

  “It is,” Malone agreed. “And that’s what I don’t get. According to Sally, CHILD chose all these kids for their survey practically on the day they were born. They assigned the numbers, and the numbers show they assigned the children to the groups right away. And with three of the groups, there’s nothing special. But look at Group Twenty-one.”

  Jim Corliss repeated what all of them had known for hours. “All the girls are dead. Every one of them, and all before the age of eleven months, and all of SIDS.”

  “But nobody knows anything about SIDS,” Malone said doggedly. “It was only a year or so ago that the University of Maryland correlated hormone T-3 with the syndrome, and they still aren’t sure whether the high level of T-3 is a cause or effect. So how did CHILD know those girls were going to die?”

  “Maybe they didn’t,” Lucy offered. “Maybe it’s coincidence.”

  “It’s no coincidence,” Sally told her. “It can’t be. The odds are astronomical. And it’s not Just the girls,” she reminded them. “It’s some of the boys too. Particularly in the first few years. And then the boys stopped dying, but the girls didn’t.”

  “And everywhere you look,” Lucy replied, “it seems to come back to Dr. Wiseman. He was the obstetrician for all forty-six children in Group Twenty-one.”

  “About four a year,” Sally mused. “I wonder how many babies he actually delivers each year?”

  “It was twenty-seven last year,” Malone replied. His voice suddenly turned grim. “Twenty-seven new little patients for me, and now this.”

  A silence fell over the group as, once more, they tried to figure out what it could all mean. Then, as Sally started to speak, the intrusive sound of the telephone interrupted her. Jim Corliss picked it up, spoke for a moment, then handed it to Bronski.

  “Bill? Is that you?” Bronski asked.

  “Yeah,” the desk sergeant said. “Where the hell did you get that list of names?”

  “Never mind. Have we gotten any replies?”

  “From all over the place,” the sergeant replied. “And it’s weird. How many names were on that list?”

  “Twelve.”

  “Twelve, huh? Well, eight of ’em are listed as runaways. From towns all over the country.”

  “Runaways?” Carl echoed. Lucy Corliss unconsciously moved closer to her ex-husband.

  “That’s right All those cases are still open, and none of them have turned up in the morgues.”

  “Give me the names and the dates they disappeared.” As the desk sergeant droned out the list, Bronski scribbled names and numbers on a piece of paper. “Got it,” he said, handing the paper to Malone, who immediately started annotating the correlation sheets. “Thanks a lot, Bill, and if any—”

  “Carl, there’s more,” the sergeant interrupted. The timbre of his voice had changed. Bronski felt his body tense.

  “What is it?”

  “The rest of them are dead.”

  “Dead?” Bronski repeated. “With police reports on them? You mean homicides?”

  “Apparently not I told you it was weird. It seems like your other four boys were found dead in public areas.”

  Bronski suddenly knew what was coming. “Tell me about them,” he said softly.

  “I got reports from all over the place—Washington State, Kansas, Texas, and Florida. The bodies were found in parks, playgrounds, vacant lots, that sort of thing.”

  “And?”

  “And nothing. No marks on them, no signs of foul play or violence. Nothing. The coroners ruled the same in all the cases.”

  “ ‘Unknown natural causes?’ ”

  There was a short silence, then he said, “What’s going on, Carl? If you know something about all this, you better let the rest of us in on it.”

  “Just give me the names and dates, Bill,” Bronski said, ignoring the other man’s question. It would take far too long to begin explaining it now.

  Once again, the desk sergeant began reciting names, places, and numbers.

  At last Bronski hung up the phone and faced the others. “More pieces,” he said. “It seems Randy isn’t the only runaway in Group Twenty-one, and we’ve got some more deaths.”

  Sally stared bleakly at the list of names the computer had generated. Of the original forty-six, all the girls—twenty-two—were dead. Of the twenty-four boys, the nine oldest, including Randy Corliss, were listed as runaways, and four were dead. The name of the oldest boy on the list who had neither died nor run away was Jason Montgomery. As for the other eleven boys, ranging in age from six months to seven years, nothing was known.

  “But that doesn’t mean they’re okay,” Bronski said softly. “I sent out only the names of the oldest ones, the ones who could have disappeared and been considered runaways. If a kid under seven turns up missing, we usually assume foul play.”

  “Maybe now you’ll raise the age limit,” Lucy said. Then, seeing the hurt in Bronski’s eyes, she quickly apologized: “Carl, I shouldn’t have said that. You’ve been wonderful I had no right to—well, I’m sorry.”

  “It’s all right, Lucy. And I’m not really blameless, am I? Maybe if I’d believed you right away—”

  “Never mind,” Jim Corliss broke in. “None of us needs to say any of those things to each other. What we need is a plan. What do we do next?”

  Instinctively, they all turned to Bronski.

  “It’s daylight,” he said. “I think we’d better get Randy up and see if he can show us where he was.”

  “You mean go back there?” Lucy cried. “No! You can’t make him do that.”

  Jim took her hand and held it tightly. “Lucy, it’ll be all right. Carl and I will be with him. And we won’t do anything.”

  “We have to know where he was, Lucy,” Bronski added.

  Lucy opened her mouth as if to protest further, then shut it again, nodding her head. “All right,” she murmured.

  She went to the bedroom where the two boys were still sleeping, and, being careful not to disturb Jason, woke Randy. He looked at her sleepily, but let himself be led to the living room. Bronski explained to the little boy what he wanted him to do. “Do you think you can?” he asked.

  Randy looked uncertain. “I don’t know” he finally admitted. “I was scared, and it was dark, and I don’t know how far—” He broke off, as if sensing that perhaps no one really believed the story he had told last night.

  “I can find it,” he said. “I know I can.” He disappeared into his room and dressed, then returned to the living room. Five minutes later, together with his father and Sergeant Bronski, he was on his way back to the Academy.

  Sally Montgomery, Lucy Corliss, and Mark Malone silently went back to the stack of reports.

  Two hours later Mark Malone began to recognize the answer that was buried deep within the records.

  “Damn,” he said softly. “God damn it to hell.”

  Chapter 27

  THE CAR MOVED SLOWLY AHEAD, and Randy Corliss, sitting between his father and Sergeant Bronski, fidgeted nervously. It seemed to him that they were wasting time. The bridge, he was sure, was still way ahead. He twisted in his seat and peered out the back window. He could still see the diner.

  “
It’s farther up the road,” he said. “I couldn’t see the diner at all, so it has to be way up ahead.”

  “Things seem farther at night,” Bronski told him. “Besides, you weren’t on the road—you were in the woods, so you wouldn’t have been able to see as far.”

  “I just don’t think it was this close.” They came to a bend in the road, and a hundred yards farther was a bridge.

  “Is that it?” Jim Corliss asked his son.

  As Bronski pulled off the road a few feet from the bridge, Randy looked at it uncertainly. “I guess so,” he said at last. The three of them got out of the car, and Randy scrambled down the bank to stand beside the stream. Now he was sure. “This is it,” he called up to his father.

  “Okay. There’s a path up here,” Jim replied. Randy climbed back up.

  “We have to go downstream,” he announced.

  “How far?” Bronski asked.

  “I don’t know,” Randy replied. He started down the path, with his father and the policeman following. Every few minutes he glanced down at the stream. This morning, in the bright sunlight, everything looked different. Last night the stream had been swift and deep, and he could remember its roaring in his ears. But now its sound was a murmur, and he could see that it was only a couple of feet deep.

  Maybe it was the wrong stream, and the bridge had been the wrong bridge. What if he was lost and couldn’t find the Academy? Would they think he’d lied about everything?

  As he kept walking, he became increasingly nervous. The two men with him exchanged a glance.

  “It seems like an awfully long way,” Bronski finally commented.

  Randy said nothing. Had it really been this far? He tried to remember how far he’d waded, but there were no landmarks, nothing he recognized.

  And then he heard the waterfall. He broke into a run, and the two men had to jog to keep up with him.

  “This is it,” Randy yelled. “This is the waterfall. See?” He pointed excitedly at the cascading stream and the large rock looming above it “That’s the rock I sat on after I climbed the waterfall.” He began recounting the struggle he’d had fighting the current, too afraid of the dogs to leave the stream. “Come on,” he finished. “There should be a fork just a little way farther.” He dashed ahead, and disappeared around a bend in the trail.

  “What do you think?” Jim asked.

  Bronski shrugged. “I don’t know. He found the bridge, and he found the waterfall.” Then they heard Randy’s voice floating back to them.

  “I found it! I found the fork! We’re almost there.”

  Jim and Carl caught up with Randy at the point where the stream split into two smaller channels. “Which fork do we take?” Jim asked.

  “This one,” Randy said, no longer uncertain. “Come cm!”

  The path disappeared, and the three of them began pushing their way through a tangle of laurel, keeping as close to the brook as they could.

  “It’d be easier to wade,” Randy suggested.

  “How much farther is it?”

  “I don’t know. Not much. I could still hear the dogs barking when I got to the fork.”

  And then they were there. The brook suddenly disappeared into a metal culvert, the end of which was covered by a heavy wire-mesh grating. A few yards beyond the opening of the culvert they could see a high fence. Randy stared silently at the fence for a moment, then turned to look up at his father. “We’re here,” he said. “That’s the fence around the Academy.”

  Bronski moved forward. The fence stretched off in either direction, and beyond it he could see nothing but more woods. “Where’s the house?” he asked.

  “You can’t see it from here,” Randy told him. “It’s off that way.” He started walking along the fence, but the sound of Sergeant Bronski’s voice stopped him.

  “Randy? Didn’t you say there was a dead dog right about here?”

  Randy nodded. “I threw it against the fence, and it got electrocuted.”

  “Where is it?”

  Randy stared through the fence, trying to remember exactly where he’d climbed it

  He couldn’t.

  He looked for the body of the dog.

  It wasn’t there.

  Tentatively, he reached out and touched the fence.

  There was no current.

  “But it was here,” he said. “I know it was here.” He looked up at the two men, sudden tears brimming in his eyes. “I’m not lying,” he said. “The gate’s off that way, and from there you can see the house.” Determinedly, he began walking along the fence, with the two men once again trailing after him.

  They came to the gate, and Randy stood still, staring through the bars. In the distance he could see the massive brick house, its barred windows clearly visible in the bright morning sunlight Flanking him on either side were his father and Sergeant Bronski Bronski’s eyes swept the house and lawn and came to rest on the rusted chain that was wrapped around the gates, holding them securely together.

  “Doesn’t look like there’s anyone here.”

  “But there’s got to be,” Randy wailed. And yet, as he looked at the house, he knew the policeman was right There was just something about it, a stillness, that made him sure that everyone had gone. “We could climb the fence and go in,” he suggested.

  “No, we can’t,” Carl Bronski said. “All we can do is try to get a search warrant. Come on.”

  Randy started to protest “But—”

  “No buts,” Jim Corliss told his son. “Sergeant Bronski’s right.”

  “But this is where I was!” Randy insisted. “This is where I ran away from last night!”

  Bronski knelt down so his eyes were level with Randy’s. “And we’re going to find out all about it, Randy. But we’re going to do it legally. Do you understand? Otherwise tine people who kidnaped you will get off scot-free. So we’re going to find out who owns this place, and we’re going to get a search warrant Then we can go in, and you can show us all of it. All right?”

  Randy scowled. “I don’t see why we can’t just go in. If there’s nobody here—”

  “Because that’s the way it is,” Jim said, the severity of his voice leaving no more room for argument.

  They turned away from the gate and started along the driveway that eventually led them back to the main road, where a second chain blocked the drive against intruding traffic. Next to one of the support posts for the chain stood a mailbox with a number painted on its side. Bronski jotted down the number.

  Half an hour later, they were back at Bronski’s car. It was nearly nine A.M., and they had been gone from Lucy’s for nearly two hours.

  * * *

  Steve Montgomery, with Arthur Wiseman sitting next to him, pulled up in front of Lucy Corliss’s house. He switched the ignition off and set the emergency brake. “There’s Sally’s car,” he said as he opened the door.

  “And Mark Malone’s,” Wiseman added. “Has he been here all night too?”

  Having no answer for the question, and sensing that no answer was required, Steve got out of the car and, with Wiseman following, mounted the steps to Lucy’s small front porch. He rang the bell, waited a moment, then rang it again. After a moment, the door opened a crack, and a woman’s face looked out suspiciously.

  “Mrs. Corliss?” Steve asked.

  Lucy frowned, her eyes darting between the two men. The older one looked familiar. And then she recognized him. But before she could speak, the younger one was talking again.

  “I’m Steve Montgomery. Sally’s husband.”

  The door shut in his face.

  On the other side of the closed door, Lucy hesitated, then hurried into the living room where Sally and Mark were still poring over the computer printouts. “Sally, it’s your husband,” she said in an urgent whisper. “And he’s got Wiseman with him.”

  Sally’s tired eyes took on the look of a hunted animal, and instinctively she turned to Mark Malone for help. Malone was already rising to his feet.

  �
��We might as well let them in,” he said. Then, as Sally shrank into the chair on which he had been sitting, he tried to reassure her. “It’ll be all right. I’m here, and Lucy’s here, and Jim and Carl should be back any minute.” He moved past Lucy, stepped into the hall, and opened the door.

  The two men on the porch looked at him. It was Steve who finally spoke. “Is Sally here?”

  “Yes, she is.” Malone stepped back to let the two men enter, and Steve moved directly to the living room.

  “Sally-” He fell silent, staring at his wife. Her face was pale and her hair, oily and disheveled, hung limply. over her shoulders. “My God,” Steve whispered. “Sally, what’s happened to you?”

  “She’s exhausted,” Malone said. “We’re all exhausted. You would be, too, if you’d been up all night.”

  But Steve Montgomery wasn’t listening to him. He had gone to his wife and knelt by her chair, slipping his arms around her to draw her close.

  “Sally … oh, Sally, it’s going to be all right, baby,” he whispered. “We’ve found a place for you. You’ll like it there. You can rest, and relax, and stop worrying about everything. Dr. Wiseman found it for us, and he thinks it’ll only take a few weeks—”

  Sally shook herself free, the exhaustion in her eyes suddenly replaced with fury. When she spoke, her voice was low and trembling, but still the force of her words shook her husband.

  “Dr. Wiseman found a place? Oh, God, I’ll bet he did. A nice little place, is it? Pretty? Good service? And lots of nice doctors who will spend all their time making me well again? But I’m not sick, Steve.”