Double Helix

by Sigmund Brouwer

  Dr. Kurt’s shoulders sagged in relief.

  “You find me cold, Dr. Kurt; don’t deny it. When I am gone, you will have second thoughts about the Institute. You may even wonder whether you will be permitted to leave at the end of your research. That fear may affect your work for us, so please remember it is an unnecessary fear. For you do not know the location of the Institute.”

  Kurt tried a tentative smile. He allowed hope to enter his eyes.

  Zwaan continued his lie. Otherwise Kurt’s work would suffer badly. “That was done for your protection as well as ours, Dr. Kurt. When your obsession for research no longer compels you to remain with us, we can safely take you back to Oregon, knowing that our location will remain hidden. And because you cannot harm the Institute by divulging its location, you in turn do not face harm.”

  Kurt closed his eyes and let a deep breath escape him.

  “There is one small, final matter, Dr. Kurt.”

  “Yes?”

  “Take off your right shoe. Then the sock.”

  “But I don’t understand.”

  “There is a sledgehammer in the corner. Surely you saw it as you entered.”

  Dr. Kurt tightened once more. Zwaan’s music began to rise in volume. Violin strings. Then the sweetness of clarinets. All of this was a nice prelude to the scheduled meeting with Dr. Roberto Enrico, who had not learned from the lesson Zwaan was about to give Dr. Kurt.

  “You see, Doctor, although you will live to continue research, I cannot let you go unpunished. Once your foot is bare, I intend to break your little toe.”

  “This... is... barbarous!”

  “Not particularly. Even if the toe doesn’t heal properly, it will not disable you. A knee on the other hand...” Zwaan shrugged.

  “I will not.”

  “There is a condition.” Zwaan continued as if he hadn’t heard Kurt’s protest. “You must not pull your foot back as I swing downward. In fact, I will break one extra toe for each time you try to avoid your punishment. I suggest, then, you keep your eyes closed during the first swing. My experience shows it simplifies matters greatly.”

  Zwaan watched Kurt carefully.

  Zwaan had found this to be a good test – the litmus paper of a man’s spirit, so to speak. If the foot was offered and the eyes closed, the man’s spirit had been successfully crushed and Zwaan rarely had a need to return. If there was still resistance, however, it never bothered Zwaan to take extra pleasure in his work.

  Kurt trembled. Tears trickled from his eyes.

  Zwaan smiled. “If you prefer the left foot over the right foot, I will not prove disagreeable. But decide quickly. Let me assure you the stupidity of forcing me to remove your shoe for you.”

  More tears fell. The symphony filled Zwaan. At this point, always, he began to feel a form of love at what the two of them would share.

  Kurt began to unlace his right shoe. By the time he had removed his sock, he was weeping openly.

  ***

  Match the spooks – secret for dark secret. Gut instinct told Del that’s all it would take to be his own man again. Whatever Clive Stewart was hiding was more than enough to cover the file of photographs spooksville held over him like a piano suspended by thread. Del was prepared to use whatever method it took, from bribery to torture, to get Clive Stewart to spill.

  Which left one simple problem.

  Find Clive Stewart.

  As he mulled through his thoughts, Del resisted an urge to stand and pace away his frustration in the hospital nurses station. Instead, he focused his attention downward and pretended interest in the Eskimos and dogsleds on page 32 of a six-year-old National Geographic. He’d never seemed impatient here in the hospital before; it wouldn’t do to start now. Who knew where the spooks had eyes in this government town? Del had told himself to make every move as if he were watched – to the point where he wasn’t even putting in an official inquiry for hospital records. If the spooks caught the faintest trace of what he was doing, he was dead. Within hours.

  Del, big as he was, shivered, actually shivered, at the thought of how death might arrive at the hands of the scar-faced, bald spook with a raspy voice and lifeless eyes. He searched for another thought.

  Where was Louise anyway? Three nurses had come and gone in the last five minutes – someone had to be here by now to take over her shift.

  Del reminded himself to look calm. Louise was sharp. Taking her to lunch was enough out of the ordinary in their relationship. She’d worry plenty if she discovered him nervous for the first time in their three years of marriage.

  Del gazed, out of focus, at the glossy dogsleds in his hands. He tried to reassure himself that his reasoning was correct.

  First of all, there was no doubt the caller had seen a boy, probably exactly where claimed. It had been more than a week after Del had been put on alert – and a week’s travel could have put the boy where Clive Stewart claimed to have seen him, Still that was some tough kid. The terrain was brutal on grown men in combat clothing.

  Figure the sighting then to be that far west, almost out of the mountains and into the desert. But this Clive Stewart made the call here in Los Alamos at 8:45 A.M., when it would take nearly an hour to get in from the Seven Springs area. Why not make the call from there? Why come all the way into Los Alamos to make it?

  More important, what was the significance of the location of the pay phone that Stewart used? There were easily a dozen phone booths more accessible than the one outside the hospital where they’d traced the call to. What had brought Stewart in from the Seven Springs area to the hospital?

  Del knew it had to be one of two things. Either Stewart worked here, or he had come in for medical attention. Both choices were logical.

  From what Del could guess about the spooksville operation, it had some medical aspects. It could fit that Stewart had an association with the hospital.

  On the other hand, from the warning Del had received after the escape, it was just as likely Stewart had come in for medical attention.

  Del knew what to do, all right. Check the employee records and see if anyone on the hospital payroll lived west, in the mountains. Check the emergency-room records for the same thing. And start first with the emergency records for that morning – probably the shortest list.

  Only he’d have to recruit Louise to help him. Tell her it was a drug situation, needed to be hushed and off the record because it might involve the hospital director and Del didn’t want to give any warning. It would take longer because she couldn’t just march in and pull the records, but it would be worth the extra caution.

  Yes sir, Del told himself, if he could find Clive Stewart, by whatever name Stewart normally used, it would leave some pretty good options. Keep Clive Stewart to himself, alive. Or deliver him dead to spooksville.

  ***

  Slater had just finished cleaning away his supper dishes when, through the screened window above his kitchen sink, he heard the crunch of tires over gravel.

  It crossed his mind that maybe, somehow, the police had traced him from call from the phone booth. He immediately told himself he was being ridiculous – more than two days had passed since the call, and besides, there’d been no radio, television, or newspaper reports about a missing boy, which in itself had been another worry.

  Slight as the odds were of police, Slater fought butterflies of fear as he set down his dishtowel. Unexpected visitors were unwelcome visitors, and he never expected visitors. Not here in Seven Springs.

  He reached the front door as heavy footsteps thumped onto the porch.

  “Ellis,” a voice called.

  Slater relaxed as he placed the voice. It was the booming geniality of the half-bald redhead, Jeremy – no, Josh – Burns.

  “Good evening,” Slater said, opening the door to see a wide smile on the man’s pumpkin face.

  “Evening. Joyce and me –” Josh broke off to point at the shiny-faced woman in the station wagon behind him. “Well, actually it was Joyce’s idea. We w
anted to bring over a pie, as a sort of peace offering, what with yesterday’s misunderstanding and all.”

  Slater did not see any pie in Josh’s hands.

  “It’s not necessary,” Slater said, “but thanks, it’s much appreciated.”

  Josh half-turned to face the station wagon and pumped his heavy head up and down.

  Joyce creaked the door open and began to maneuver her body out of the station wagon,

  Too late, Slater realized the station wagon’s engine had been shut off. Obviously this peace offering included a self-invitation.

  Slater forced a smile. “You want coffee along with your pie?”

  “Hey, great.” Josh pumped his head up and down for Slater’s benefit. “You’ll love the pie. Joyce cooks great.”

  Slater glanced at the station wagon to measure Joyce’s progress. She had finally made it out of the car and was bending through the rear door into the backseat. To Slater, it looked like a tight squeeze, and her pink dress could have been a curtain coming down on a play. He fought any conjecture about her underwear billowing on the clothesline like a mainsail.

  “Make yourself comfortable out here,” Slater said. “I’ll get the coffee started and grab an extra chair.”

  “Don’t go to so much trouble,” Josh said, “we’ll just follow you inside.”

  “Too hot in there,” Slater said. He’d caught Josh craning for a better look in the house and was beginning to wonder about the authenticity of the pie as a peace offering. “You just hang tight.”

  Before Josh could protest, Slater had pushed him toward one of the two chairs on the porch. Slater made sure the door shut behind him and returned within seconds with a third chair. Joyce was still struggling to pull herself from the backseat of the car. Slater assumed when she finally did, she’d be holding a pie.

  “Tell Joyce to make herself comfortable too,” Slater told Josh. “The coffee won’t take but a second.”

  From the kitchen, as he measured the coffee grounds, Slater saw movement at the screen of his front door. He shook his head in mild amusement. The woman did make plenty of shadow. And she wasn’t shy with her curiosity either. Her face was almost pressed into the screen.

  “How you doing?” Slater called. “Give me a second, I’ll come introduce myself.”

  When he reached the porch, he discovered she was tall too. Nearly as tall as he was. Poorly dyed blonde hair and greasy skin gave Slater a whole new sympathy for the blustering Josh Burns. Slater figured he would probably have listened, too, if Joyce had told him to go visiting with a shotgun.

  “Slater Ellis.” He extended his hand. “Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

  She examined him, squinting suspicion as she did, a movement that tightened her cheeks into fat balls.

  “Slater Ellis,” she repeated as if doubting him.

  “My wife Joyce,” Josh said with an nervous half-chuckle.

  Slater drew a deep breath. The next half hour, or however long it took for his uninvited guests to leave, promised to be awkward. Long ago, he’d learned a way to deal with such circumstances: pretend he was an invisible observer and find amusement in the entire situation. After all, if this were happening to someone else, it would be plenty funny.

  Joyce didn’t take long to cut to the chase. She grunted as she lowered herself onto a chair, took a breath, and spoke to Slater.

  “Josh here tells me you had your boots stolen.”

  “Sure did.”

  “Well, I been talking to folks up and down the road, and it appears we ain’t the only ones to have things missing. The Oxfords lost stuff from their clothesline too. Shirley right next door to the Oxfords swears she was one bag of groceries short by the time she finished unloading – takes her five or six trips from the car to the house, she says. The Byrnes allowed that some of their garden tools are pretty scarce.”

  Slater nodded.

  “Any idea what’s happening?” Her question came out like she was hacking him against the wall.

  Slater shook his head.

  “Let me catch whoever’s doing it, and they’ll be sorry.”

  “I’m sure they will.” Slater kept a straight face.

  The fat woman glared at him, unsure how to take it.

  “Coffee’s probably ready,” Slater said.

  He returned a minute later with a tray of cups, plates, forks, and knives and cream and sugar. As he stepped onto the porch, Joyce abruptly ended a whispered conversation with her husband.

  They watched in silence as he cut slices of pie.

  “Cherry,” Josh finally said. “Joyce here does a mean cherry pie.”

  Joyce hardly waited for her first forkful of pie to begin again. “Where’d you tell Josh you were from?”

  Slater realized this fat woman had probably been asking and speculating about him while discussing the mysterious thefts with others in the neighborhood. Slater discarded most of the answers that came to mind, and finally, politely said, “I never got around to it.”

  Her chin jutted forward. “You weren’t here last summer.”

  “No, ma’am. It sure is nice here, too, isn’t it? I haven’t regretted a day.” Slater would take pleasure in making her work to satisfy her curiosity.

  “Where you from then?"

  Slater had misjudged. It didn’t bother her the slightest to be pushing in areas anyone else would understand he was trying to avoid.

  “Out east.”

  “Where out east?”

  Slater realized if he didn’t answer, it would give her more ammunition during her next speculations with the neighbors. On the other hand, he’d worked hard to disappear here in Seven Springs.

  “Boston,” he lied.

  “You can’t be retired.”

  Slater shrugged, knowing it wouldn’t unimpale him from her dark mean eyes.

  “Josh says he seen computers and stuff through your window when he was waiting for you the other day. Is that what you do?”

  “Integrated software products,” Slater said. He hid a smile, knowing how he’d deal with her now. “Take the computer in the corner. Color screen. Hard drive storage at 540 megabytes. Added a card to get 16 meg of RAM. With a modem, I can tap into any main across the world, process those bytes at about –”

  “You married?” she interrupted. “I ain’t seen a woman around here.”

  Tough crowd, Slater thought. I’m down three nothing and fading fast.

  “Why, you got someone in mind for me?” he tried a light-hearted change of subject.

  “Or maybe you don’t prefer women,” she said, not to be deflected.

  Josh, at least, had the grace to wince.

  “Ma’am, last time I tried to tell the story, I broke down and cried halfway through. She was a good woman, and I’m doing my best to forget, if you don’t mind.”

  That snapped her mouth shut, and the story was close enough to the truth too.

  “How about this cherry pie?” Josh asked.

  “Love it,” Slater said. “Glad you stopped by.”

  Joyce was a marvel to watch. Silent, she became an eating machine. She finished her first helping of pie within seconds and was reaching for the pie plate as Slater stepped back inside to get more coffee.

  Halfway to the kitchen, he stopped at his computer and flicked on the power switch. He continued to the kitchen, grabbed the coffeepot, and stopped by the computer on his way back. It had booted up by then, and he spent less than thirty seconds in front of it, coffeepot in his left hand, computer mouse rapidly moving in his right hand. His last adjustment was to move the volume of the computer as high as possible.

  Satisfied with his work, he resumed his trip out to the porch.

  “Nice night, huh?” Slater said.

  Josh nodded. Joyce concentrated on her pie.

  Slater delayed pouring more coffee. The computer should be –

  Bing. Bing. Bing. Bing.

  “Nuts,” Slater said, “looks like I’ve got some incoming e-mail. I’ve been waitin
g for it all day. You don’t mind if I...”

  “By all means,” Josh said. “We ain’t in no hurry.”

  Slater shook his head. “This will take a couple of hours, I’m afraid. Maybe some other evening?”

  “Sure,” Josh said.

  “I really wish I could walk you out to the car.”

  Joyce was trying to push herself up from the chair.

  “Just leave the dishes on the porch,” Slater said. “I’ll get them later.”

  Slater backed away, nodding and smiling as he did so. Once inside, he shut the screen door and immediately approached the computer. Fat lady, he thought, will probably take one final glance inside the house.

  He studied the computer screen, reading the message that accompanied the warning bings. CAN’T FIND PRINTER. MAKE SURE CONNECTION IS IN PLACE. That had been simple, commanding a document to print but not turning on the printer.

  After a minute Slater shut down the computer, but his movements were automatic and absentminded, for he could not as easily shut down his growing concern for the obviously abandoned kid.

  The boy was still out there, staying in the area, scavenging like a coyote. Yet it appeared the authorities and media had no interest and no one else knew about him.

  Was the boy a runaway who needed help? If so, why was he determined to remain feral? And why was he afraid to seek help? If the boy was a delinquent, why hadn’t he stolen Slater’s truck or the wallet and expensive electronic toys inside?

  All of this spelled weird.

  There was only one way to get an explanation. But first he had to successfully answer another question: How did a person go about trapping another human being?

  ***

  “I had no idea when I left New York yesterday that I would enjoy the end of my week so much,” John Hammond said. “I’m truly sorry, however, that we had to meet under these circumstances.”

  Paige smiled, uncertain how else to respond. After their meeting the day before, Hammond had flown to Houston for a meeting. He rebooked his return flight to bring him back through Tampa before going on to New York. He had insisted on taking her for this early supper and had treated her with kindness and respect – not unbearable sympathy and cloying flattery. Dessert and coffee was about to arrive. The last hour had flown in minutes. She had yet to broach some of the questions she decided would justify spending time with this single man, and she felt deep guilt for having enjoyed the quiet meal in dim light; grieving widows should not dally with attractive millionaires.