Veil

by George C. Chesbro

  Then he collides painfully with a hard surface that he knows must be.

  Chapter 26

  ______________________________

  The floor of the hospital room.

  Veil struggled to his hands and knees, then tried to stand. The room spun around him, and he crumpled back to his knees. He leaned on his thighs and shook his head, trying to clear it. His mouth was dry and filled with a strong medicinal taste. His forearms stung where needles had been torn from his flesh.

  Some recovery, he thought.

  Sounds of struggle came from somewhere across the room, slightly to his left. Veil lurched to his feet, staggered backward, and came up hard against a hospital gurney. His vision cleared slightly, and he found himself leaning over the empty gurney where he had lain. Parallel to it was the bed on which Pilgrim lay. Pilgrim was still unconscious, but his smile of rapture was gone. At the head of the bed was another gurney holding Sharon's still body.

  Twenty feet away, Ibber and Perry Tompkins were rolling on the floor, their legs wrapped around one another as they struggled for control of a set of electric paddles connected to a portable emergency cardiac unit. Perry was losing; Ibber had the angle and was pressing the paddles inexorably closer to the sides of Perry Tompkins's head as the painter struggled to keep the other man's hands apart; veins popped and writhed in Perry's blood-flushed neck and forehead.

  "Gun!" Tompkins gasped through clenched teeth. "On the floor under the bed!"

  Veil started to lean over and almost passed out. Even if he managed to find the gun, he thought, there was no certainty that he could control his vision and movements well enough to aim it properly. Besides, there was no time; the live paddles were now barely an inch away from Perry's temples, and the artist appeared close to the point of physical collapse. When the steel paddles touched Perry's temples, Ibber would press the red buttons on their handles and send a deadly current through the other man's brain.

  Veil pushed off the gurney, reeled across the room, and fell across the cardiac unit. He grabbed the heavy cables connected to the paddles and yanked. Flames arced, and sparks flew from the empty sockets, but the rubber insulation on the cables protected Veil from electric shock. He wrapped the ends of the cables around his wrists and yanked again, hoping to catch Ibber off balance. But Veil had no strength. Ibber, who had already pulled away from Perry's grasp, yanked back on the cables, pulling them away from Veil. Then he hit Perry on top of the head with one of the paddles, knocking the other man unconscious.

  Veil swayed, partially supporting himself by leaning on the unsteady cart as Ibber, whirling the paddles by their cables like bolos, advanced on him. Suddenly Veil lunged forward, ducked under the paddles, and drove his forehead into Ibber's chest. Ibber grunted with surprise and fell backward as Veil wrapped his arms around the man's waist and fell with him, hoping to pin Ibber until more of the anesthesia passed out of his system and his strength returned, or until help arrived.

  Ibber's fists pounded against the back of his head and neck, and into his kidneys; Ibber twisted one way, then another, until finally Veil's grip was broken. Ibber pushed Veil off and away from him, then rose to his feet. Veil, desperate to prevent Ibber from getting to the gun under the bed, clutched at the man's ankle.

  But Ibber was not even going to bother searching for the gun; he didn't need it. The KGB agent disdainfully pulled his ankle out of Veil's grasp, then settled himself down on Veil's chest and reached out for the exposed throat before him. Veil barely managed to raise his own hands in time to momentarily shield his windpipe; it was a hopeless, desperate move, leaving him vulnerable to a dozen other deadly strikes, but he had no other alternative.

  Ibber, however, seemed content to strangle Veil. Sweat glistened on the man's high forehead and in the hairs of his mustache, but his eyes were cold as he methodically pried Veil's locked fingers apart, then reached under the palms and wrapped the fingers of his right hand around Veil's throat.

  Veil caught a movement out of the corner of his eye, over Ibber's left shoulder, and he shifted his gaze in that direction.

  Pilgrim's body was twitching. The twitching stopped, and a moment later Pilgrim abruptly sat up in bed and clutched at his chest.

  Ibber slowly tightened his grip on Veil's throat. Veil bucked beneath the other man's body, but Ibber had him firmly pinned. He could no longer breathe, and his own fingers were growing numb. He clawed at Ibber's hands, but the pressure on his windpipe steadily increased.

  Pilgrim shook his head, then tore the needles out of his arms and looked around. His eyes met Veil's.

  Veil wanted to shout, "No, you'll hemorrhaged But no sound would come from his blocked throat. Shimmering red stripes were beginning to flash across his field of vision.

  Pilgrim swung his legs over the side of the bed, hesitated just a moment to suck in a deep breath, then lowered himself to the floor and began walking unsteadily toward them. A red blotch had appeared on the bandage across his chest, and he walked slumped forward.

  The red stripes were growing broader, then breaking up into black and gray dots that danced before Veil's eyes.

  Pilgrim was only a few feet away when he stumbled. He caught himself, then coughed spasmodically. A red mist spurted from his mouth and nose, and the blood soaking the bandage suddenly blossomed like some malignant flower.

  Ibber, startled, released his grip on Veil's throat and twisted around. He saw Pilgrim and immediately started to spring to his feet. Pilgrim coughed another spray of blood, then raised the hook that was his hand into the air and fell forward. Ibber's fist slammed into Pilgrim's chest at the same time as Pilgrim's hook penetrated the other man's skull and buried itself in the brain with a soft, curiously oral sound, like a tsk.

  Then Veil lost consciousness.

  He awoke to the feel of something cold and wet over his eyes. Veil swiped the ice pack away and started to sit up, but he was restrained by the strong arms of Perry Tompkins. He sighed, then lay back on the pillow someone had placed under his head. He was still on the floor.

  "Easy, Veil, easy," Perry said soothingly. "The doctor who looked at you said you'd just passed out, but let's wait a few minutes to make sure that's all it is before you start moving around. The way you were flopping around on that cart—"

  "Are you all right, Perry?"

  "Yeah. I've got a hard head. In fact, I'm surprised that son of a bitch was able to knock me out."

  "What doctor?"

  "Dr. Dries. This is a pretty small shop, really not much more than a clinic, so most of the time there's just a skeleton crew of nurses and orderlies on the floors. The doctors have their own sleeping quarters in chalets at the back. I had to get Dries out of bed. Anyway, he's gone to try to call the State Police. He's not going to get very far, because all the phone lines have been cut. I tried to tell him that, but he insisted on seeing for himself. He'll be back in a few minutes."

  "How long have I been out?"

  Perry glanced at his watch. "About half an hour from the time I came around; I don't know how long before that."

  Veil grunted and sat up. "I'm all right now. I guess all I needed was a nap. The anes—" Suddenly he remembered, and he gripped Perry's massive forearms. "Jonathan—?"

  Perry bowed his head, then straightened up and moved to one side so that Veil could see the two sheet-draped bodies on the floor a few feet away. Both sheets were soaked with blood—one at the head, the other over the torso.

  "He's dead, Veil," Perry said softly. "Hemorrhage; he bled to death. He did manage to put a very neat hole in Ibber's head before he died, though."

  "I know," Veil said distantly. "It happened just before I passed out."

  Veil extended his hand and let Perry pull him to his feet. He paused for a few moments to stand over Pilgrim's body, shook his head in sorrow, then walked over to the gurney where Sharon lay. The woman was absolutely still, an expression on her face of rapture, expectation—and longing. She did not seem to be in pain.

  "
Veil . . . ?"

  "It's a long story," Veil said as he reached over Sharon's gurney and picked up the electroencephalograph electrodes that had been attached to Pilgrim's scalp. "You say the phone lines have been cut?"

  "Yes."

  "Where are the residents?"

  "I rousted them out of bed and sent them into the woods. I didn't know what else to do with them."

  Veil carefully placed the electrodes on Sharon's forehead and temples, the way she had placed them on him. "They're still there?"

  "As far as I know, although by now some of them may have gone back to their chalets. I just told them it was an emergency. I was trying to move one Lazarus Person along when I got this terrible feeling that something was wrong at the hospital . . . and that you were in trouble and needed me. It's hard to describe just how strong that feeling was. I pushed the guy toward the woods, then came running up here. I'm not even sure how I knew to come to this room, but I did. Dr. Ibber was standing over the three of you. Well, Ibber has no business here at the hospice, and I knew that was what was wrong. A switch on one of the monitoring machines had a piece of red tape over it. Again without understanding why, I had this overpowering feeling that I had to get to that switch and throw it—after I took care of Ibber."

  Veil flicked the control switch on the EEG unit. Instantly, the Lazarus Gate pattern, pronounced and steady, appeared on the cathode tube monitor. Veil sighed, reached out, and gently caressed Sharon's hair. "Ibber was a KGB agent, Perry," he said quietly, staring down at Sharon's still figure. "He was not only spying on the Army, but on Dr. Solow's projects as well. He shot Jonathan, and he would have killed all three of us if it hadn't been for you. I'm surprised he didn't manage to kill you."

  Veil felt Tompkins come up beside him; a massive arm was laid across his shoulders. "He would have if it hadn't been for you. You came out of whatever state you were in like a drunk looking for a bar at closing time."

  "Like a drunk, all right," Veil replied with a thin smile. "When you walked into the room, Ibber wasn't exactly eager for company."

  "But Ibber wasn't you, my friend. Sick or not, I can still take care of myself pretty well. He started to pull a gun on me, but by then I was already across the room and putting my fist in his face. I—"

  "Excuse me," a man in a white lab coat with a stethoscope around his neck said curtly as he pushed Veil aside and reached for the controls on the machines monitoring Sharon's life systems. "You mustn't touch anything."

  Veil's hand flicked out, and his fingers gripped the doctor's wrist a fraction of a second before the man's fingers would have touched the controls. The viselike grip held firm as the man wheeled on Veil, dark brown eyes flashing. "Get your hand off me! Who are you?!"

  "You know anything about the Lazarus Project?" Veil nodded toward the flickering white lines on the green-tinted screen above Sharon's gurney. "Do you know what that means?"

  "Well, I . . ." The man's eyes said that he didn't.

  "You don't," Veil said evenly. "In that case, I'm the man who's going to kill you if you, or any of your colleagues touch these machines or this woman before I say you can. You and I have a lot of research to do before anything's done with Dr. Solow. If she starts to fade, then treat her as you see fit—but as long as she's breathing steady and that EEG pattern remains like it is, you do nothing. Understand?"

  "Dr. Dries, meet Mr. Veil Kendry," Perry announced wryly. "Doctor, Mr. Kendry is not a man to make idle threats. Unless you want your neck snapped, I'd keep your hands off Dr. Solow and the machines."

  Dries shifted his gaze toward the dials, then again glared at Veil. "She seems stable now. You and I will talk later, Mr. Kendry."

  "Fine," Veil replied easily as he released his grip on the man's wrist. Dries walked stiffly across the room to supervise two orderlies who had appeared with clean sheets and plastic to cover the bodies on the floor.

  "What is that on the screen?" Perry asked. "I know it's an EEG pattern, but what else is it?"

  "It's a kind of signature associated with a particular—and very special—state of consciousness."

  "It has something to do with the paintings, doesn't it?"

  "Yes."

  "You've been there, haven't you? The three of you?"

  "Yes."

  "My God," Perry whispered.

  "It's a place of wonder and horror," Veil said distantly. "I'll tell you about it when we have more time."

  "How long do you want the Lazarus People and patients to stay hidden?"

  "At least until I can take the cable car across to the other mountain and make some calls—assuming those phone lines haven't been cut."

  "The police?"

  "Police, hell. I want the Army up here."

  "Why, Veil? Ibber's dead."

  "I still have a bad feeling, Perry. In a short while it will be dawn. Ibber was on the loose, whereabouts unknown, for hours before he showed up here. I'm worried about what calls he may have made before he cut the phone lines."

  "All right," Perry replied tersely. "You're the boss. I'm going back down and play sheepdog. Lazarus People don't take orders well, you know."

  "Just a minute," Veil said, touching Perry's arm as he continued to stare down at Sharon's face. "Tell me exactly what happened when you threw that switch."

  "I don't know exactly, Veil. I was slightly busy with Ibber."

  "Tell me what you can remember."

  "It was easy to see what was happening with you, even with Ibber all over me. You went crazy the moment I flipped the switch. You started flopping around like a fish. In fact, you flopped so hard that you went off the cart and fell on the goddam floor. On your head, I might add." Perry paused and smiled. "I was afraid you'd cracked your skull—which would have pissed me off mightily, considering the aggravation I was going through to save your ass from whatever trouble your ass was in."

  Veil gently squeezed Perry's forearm. "What about Jonathan and Sharon?"

  "As far as I could tell, Colonel Pilgrim hardly moved at all. Oh, he stiffened a little when the current went through him, but that was all. Dr. Solow first started flopping around like you were, as if she were struggling. Then she stopped. I think I saw her reach out her arm, as if she were groping for something. Then the arm fell back, and she was still—just like you see her now." Perry swallowed hard. When he spoke again, there was a slight tremor in his voice. "She's trapped there, isn't she?"

  "I'm afraid so," Veil replied softly. The muscles in his jaw felt painfully stiff.

  "But you woke up right away. Colonel Pilgrim—"

  "I came back because it was what I desperately wanted to do. Jonathan came back when he wanted to, because he sensed—like you—that I needed help. I don't think Dr. Solow can get back."

  "Is there anything the doctors can do?"

  "That's what we're going to find—"

  The explosion came from somewhere down the side of the mountain, but its force was enough to shatter a window and knock plaster from the walls and ceiling of the hospital room. Veil spun around and was at the window looking down over the mountainside in four quick strides. Through the aperture he watched as a cloud of black smoke rose from the site where one of the chalets had been, smudging dawn. The acrid smell of gelignite wafted through the window. Satchel charges.

  "Sappers!" Veil shouted as he wheeled around and ran back to Pilgrim's bed. He got down on his hands and knees and began searching under the bed for Ibber's gun. "The son of a bitch did it! He called in sappers! They must have climbed up the mountain from the seaward side. He figured he'd gotten all the information he needed, so he called in a team of sappers to destroy everything—and everyone."

  Veil found the gun just as another explosion sent more plaster raining down on their heads. The weapon was an American-made 22-caliber pistol, an assassin's favorite, very effective at close range but virtually useless beyond twenty yards. Veil gripped the gun, straightened up.

  Perry was already out of the room and running down the corridor le
ading to the main entrance. Veil caught up with him at the swinging doors, grabbed his shoulder, and roughly spun him around.

  "You stay here, Perry! There's nothing you can do down there! You're the last line of defense for the people in the hospital! Tell everyone you can find to get out and run like hell for the woods!"

  "What about Sharon? Should I carry her out?"

  For a few moments Veil was paralyzed by agonizing indecision. Finally he spat out the word, "No. If she's disconnected from the machines supplying her with drugs and anesthesia, I'm afraid she'll die—or worse. I'll just have to stop them before they get up here. Don't argue, Perry! Stay here!"

  Then Veil was out the doors and sprinting down the narrow, winding path leading to Sharon's offices and a cluster of chalets. To his surprise and chagrin, Perry suddenly appeared beside him.

  "The best defense is a good offense," Perry managed to gasp as he pumped his arms and raced alongside Veil. "Dries and the orderlies will take care of the other business, and you certainly made it clear to Dries that he shouldn't touch Dr. Solow. Also, there's no way I could stop anybody who made it up there. You were just trying to protect me."

  "Damn it, Tomp—!"

  They rounded a sharp bend and saw a green-uniformed man running up the trail toward them. Two large and ominous, rectangle-shaped bundles slapped against his sides as he ran. He carried a Kalashnikov assault rifle.

  On the run, there was no way he was going to go up against an automatic rifle with a .22 pistol, Veil thought as the man glanced up and saw them. Virtually without breaking stride, the commando snapped his rifle up to waist-high firing position.

  "Veil?!"

  "Dive!" Veil shouted, squeezing off a shot as he left his feet and hurtled through the air into the thick underbrush that lined the trail to his left.

  Perry dove to the other side as the assault rifle chattered and sprayed bullets through the space where they had separated only an instant before.

  Veil fell through the brush and landed on his side, his fall cushioned by the soft loam of the forest floor. He rolled, then twisted into position behind a tree trunk as more bullets shredded the underbrush. He waited until the firing stopped, then reached around the trunk and squeezed off a round. He was immediately answered by another burst of automatic rifle fire that shredded the bark of the trees on either side of him.