So he was looking forward to cranking up the new Voivod CD when he stepped out into the living room, toting his huge beer can. The last thing in the world he expected to see was a man standing by the coffee table, training a gun on him. He was so startled he let the Foster’s drop. Beer spurted and spumed onto the floor.
“Don’t move,” said the man. He was slender, well built with short, businessman’s hair and pitted cheeks. He was dressed in a grey silk suit and a tie.
“Who—who the hell are you?” Tim managed to say.
The man stepped forward carefully but confidently. “I got the gun, I ask the questions.”
“You don’t look like a burglar.”
“No, I’m no burglar.” He looked down toward the bedroom. “Your girlfriend here, Reilly?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Tim. With immediacy and certainty, he knew that his fears had come true. This whole UFO business was leading someplace dark and dangerous, and here was that darkness in flesh and gunmetal.
“Don’t fuck with me, bozo,” said the man, eyes flashing as he grabbed Tim by the shirt. He drew Tim so close that he could smell the peanut butter on the man’s breath. Tim could feel the tensile strength in just the guy’s arm, and fear made his bowels feel all liquid. But he said nothing. “Where’s Diane Scarborough?”
Tim swallowed. “Diane. Well, I guess Diane’s at her apartment.”
“She’s not there, shithead, I’ve just been there. Where is she?”
“I’m not her keeper,” said Tim. The man brought the gun across Tim’s face, and he felt a momentary splash of stars. Throbbing pain poured in with returning consciousness. Something thick and wet dripped down from his nose and mouth. Tim tasted blood. The man kept him upright.
“You wanna live, asshole? You tell me where she is!”
“Hey! I don’t know, okay?” Blood bubbled from his lips. “Who wants to know?”
The man flung Tim across the room. He fell over the coffee table, hard, onto the floor. The man leaped easily over the table, put a knee into Tim’s chest and stuck the automatic into his mouth.
“I’ll tell you who wants to know. My fucking gun wants to know.” The man thrust it further down, so that Tim started to gag. Then he pulled it out, rattling the metal hard over his teeth. “Diane Scarborough. You tell me where she is, asshole,” the pockmarked man said, moving the gun-bore down to Tim Reilly’s crotch. “Or I’m gonna make sure you don’t fuck her or any other woman again!” The gun dug painfully into his groin.
Instinctive terror flooded Tim Reilly, and he almost spouted out the truth, that he knew where Diane was, she was at the Y, doing a long yoga session, and then she was going to go visit a girlfriend for the night and cool out over the day’s events. But he bit down on his fear, and called up all his Irish anger and stubbornness. There was something about this man in an expensive suit that was off kilter, that was unhinged. He was a professional, no question, clearly used to interrogation. But there was a fury at the back of his eyes that was Tim’s chance to save Diane before he pried the information out of him.
“You want to know about the UFO, don’t you?” whispered Tim.
The gun moved away from Tim’s jeans and the man turned and stared down. “Yeah.”
“I can tell you what you want to know. You don’t need Diane,” he said in a croaking rasp.
“You can, huh?” the man pulled off his knee and lifted Tim up. “Yeah, I suppose you can, asshole. You were with Diane Scarborough, weren’t you?”
Tim nodded, wiping blood from his face. “Yes, that’s right. What happened to her, happened to me.” As he talked, his right hand reached out in the direction of the base of a stained-glass lamp on the side table.
“You might as well tell me where she is, Reilly. I’ll get it out of you one way or the other.”
“Okay,” he gasped, feigning weakness. “Okay, I’ll tell you.” He leaned over as though to communicate better. “She’s—” Next from his mouth were not words, but a glob of spit and blood that splattered into the man’s eyes.
“Wha—” said the man, and Tim quickly grabbed the lamp and flung it against his head. Then he leaped on the man and bore him down on the ground, pummeling his face with blows. The man dropped his gun.
Unfortunately, Tim was still weak from his own beatings and the blows were not as strong as they might be. Within moments, the suited man recovered from his “stunning” and lifted Tim off of him and hurled him hard against the coffee table.
Tim Reilly barely felt the blow on the back of his head as he struck the edge.
A curtain of black fell over him, and it was the end of this particular act.
When the curtain rose again, Timothy Reilly sat in a small room. His consciousness had not been seamless. He dimly recalled nightmarish images of being carried to a car, of banging off tarmac, of the whirl of what could have been helicopter blades, of the sensation of flying, and the fear of falling, falling. ...
Now things seemed steady enough, if quite a bit blurry and smudged about the edges. The taste of blood was still heavy and salty in his mouth, and he ached like he never had before. But he was still alive, something he wasn’t entirely sure he’d be after pulling that little stunt with the man in the suit. True, he seemed securely strapped in a chair, but he was still alive, which was something.
He had the impression of a doctor’s examination room, and he was able to tum his head far enough to establish the presence of a metal cabinet, a padded examination table, complete with disposable paper-covering, a magnifying lamp, and a rolling tray, its stainless steel instruments peeking up from sterile gauze. There was the smell of disinfectant, too; the scent of needles.
The fear in him now hung like icicles. He had no sense of what the time was, and the place was a total mystery. Still, he knew the longer he kept his mouth shut, the safer Diane Scarborough would be, and that seemed to be his main priority. The extent of his nobility and courage surprised him, but he was far too upset to pat himself on the back.
He was awake and aware only a few minutes before the door opened. The man who had broken into his apartment entered, wearing a bandage over his left eye, and a short-sleeved white shirt. He had a mean little grin on his face, and Tim could tell in this better light that the man was a sadist. Following after him, was a woman in a lab coat, carrying an electronic machine, which she placed on the examination table.
“Hey, asshole;” said the man who’d brought him here. “Glad to see you’re up and about. Hope you’re rested, because you’re going to need all the energy you’ve got.”
The woman in the lab coat was frosty and pretty, even though she wore no makeup. She plugged her machine into an electrical outlet. and then started fiddling with the controls. An oscillating wave began whirling; needles twitched.
“Me, I have other methods of digging information out, but the powers-that-be have decided they don’t want any scars.” The grin grew wider. “On the outside, anyway.”
The woman turned and looked at Reilly without expression.
“Mr. Reilly, you have absolutely no control in this matter, so just relax and take what pain you must. You may save yourself a great deal of trouble and concern by answering our questions truthfully. However, there are things that we wish to know which have been screened from your conscious memory, and we must probe for them.” She nodded toward the device she had brought in. “This is just one of the machines we will use for the inquest. Others will follow.”
The man with the large biceps that stretched his short sleeves leaned over Tim. “Yeah. So tell us where Diane Scarborough is, and save yourself some grief.”
After working his jaw a bit to make sure it was still operational, Tim said, “Let me guess who we have here. Either it’s the Daughters of the American Revolution or the goon squad of the CIA.”
“How do you know it’s not the KGB or the IRA, or any other group?” asked the short-haired man. “How do you know we’re not from another fucking
planet?”
Tim tried to smile. “All those other groups don’t hire scum of your low caliber, Mr. Sphincter.”
The man raised his hand to slap Reilly, but stopped as the woman shot him an icy glare. “Please! You’ll knock him unconscious again! We don’t want that.”
The man reluctantly lowered his hand. “That’s okay, fellow,” he said in a calm voice. “You’ll get yours.”
“Mine? What did I do to get you Nazis so upset?”
The woman looked at Tim curiously. “All you had to do was cooperate, Mr. Reilly. To tell us where Diane Scarborough was. Now, I’m afraid we’re going to have to attempt to obtain the information from you that we wanted from her. Only I’m afraid that it will be more difficult with you, Monsieur.” She sighed and looked back at her machine with a glint of fascination in her eye. “Of course, on the other hand, I shall have the opportunity to utilize some new methodology, some new gadgetry. And since you have already categorized us in ‘goon’ territory ... well, we can just dispense with subtleties.” She turned to the muscle. “Thank you. You can go now.”
The man kissed a fingertip and laid it on Tim’s forehead. “Have a good time, Mr. Reilly.”
“Oh my God,” said Tim, looking at the woman as the man left. “I know what this is about. Look, I’m sorry about that undeclared income last year! You’re the IRS, aren’t you?”
“Please,” said the woman, rubbing conductivity solution on the ends of electrodes. “The IRS uses far more barbaric methods than you are about to undergo, Mr. Reilly. But they told me to tell you that you’ve been given fair warning.”
Timothy Reilly closed his eyes and said a soft prayer under his breath.
The man named Woodrow Justine felt good.
No, he felt great, he realized as he made his way from the lab and tech buildings hidden in the South Iowan farm, through the smell of grass and hay and trees under the starry Midwest sky, to the farmhouse that served as headquarters and living station for the technicians of Project White Book’s Beta Station. The phantoms of his brain had been summarily booted out by Dr. Cunningham, her machines, and her lovely drugs. His confidence had been returned to him by the sweet pressing of a trigger. And now his enthusiasm had returned, singing with the elation of adrenaline, after a job well done. He felt on edge and alive now, as he entered the office and went to the phone to report in to Central. The clock on the wall said 1:15—it was not too late to call Richards directly.
The Editor—in—Chief listened to his report without comment.
“Good work, Justine. Too bad you couldn’t get Diane Scarborough, but actually, this may work out for the best. We’re still in a delicate state in regards to her father, but things are getting close to critical there, and we can’t take chances. How are you feeling?”
“I’m feeling fine.”
“Good. I want you to get some rest, because you’ve got to do tomorrow what you were going to do today when this other business sidetracked. And it’s even more important, Justine, because I’ve been doing some homework and if Captain Eric MacKenzie has got the files he may have, then chances are he’s also got the address and location of the very spot where your tight little buns are seated.”
“Damn!”
“Yes, indeedy. And if Scarborough and MacKenzie show up there—well, there’s no time to evacuate. No, Justine, we’re going to have to destroy those files. With maximum prejudice. You’ve got the address and the map?”
“Yeah.”
“You get some rest, eat a good hot breakfast, check yourself out some guns and explosives, and drive down to Iowa City tomorrow morning.”
“And what if Scarborough gets in my way?”
There was a pause at the other end of the line.
“Fuck the Publishers,” said Richards. “He’s getting to be too much of a problem. We can’t afford him or MacKenzie finding Beta. If he gets in the way, kill him.”
“With pleasure,” said Justine.
Chapter 27
The call came at 8:15. Scarborough was already up, looking at the printouts of the information that Manning had gleaned from government computers. Manning had been up since 6:30, and was working with some Air Force files on her Hewlett-Packard, running up Mac’s phone bill. Captain Eric MacKenzie was still rumbling the top floor of the house with his snoring.
The call was from Diane. She was very upset, but she was able to relay the situation. Tim was gone; there was blood on the floor of his apartment. The police were on their way. What should she do?
“Blood? How much?”
“Just a spot—but Dad, the living room was a mess.”
“Diane, now calm down. Tim’s a bit of a carouser, isn’t he? And ‘you say he went out with Camden last night? Well, there you have it. I bet there’s spilled alcohol and everything...”
“Just a beer...”
“They had too much to drink; maybe they got into an argument ... who knows. But there’s no real indication of an actual kidnapping!”
“His car ... it’s in the garage.”
“Yes, but think this out logically, Diane. If he was with Camden, they could have used his car. Am I right? Look, I’ve met Tim, and I know what he’s like. And I can surmise what Mr. Jake Camden enjoys. They went out, they picked up some women and they went back to Camden’s—”
“Daddy! Tim loves me. Tim would never do such a thing!”
“Tim’s a male, Diane. A male who drinks a good bit. You don’t know what—”
“Daddy, I feel it. He’s been taken ... I can’t describe it to you. And I’m in danger too. My intuition...”
“Okay, okay. Just calm down.”
“Daddy, can you come down here?”
“Look, I was planning on coming down tomorrow. There’s some stuff that’s come up here ... I can’t get away from it.”
“Well, I can’t stay here. I’ve got to talk to you, Dad. Any reason I can’t come up there?”
“No… no, in fact. Yes, that would be fine, Diane. You come up… there’s room here at Mac’s.”
“Okay, Dad. I’m coming up. I see the police coming now, and I’ll deal with them. I’ll get a plane reservation and then call you back. And Dad—you’re dead wrong about Tim! You just don’t know him, and you shouldn’t jump to conclusions!”
“Me! Jump to conc—”
She hung up.
Bemused, he went out to the dining room, dragging his cup of coffee with him. Lieutenant Marsha Manning, looking pert and professional as ever, glanced up from her computer. The dot-matrix printer they’d rigged up for her last night was zapping and jigging letters onto computer paper.
“Yes?” she said.
“Hmmm?”
“You look like someone put something sour into your coffee.”
“Oh. Just talked to my daughter. She’s coming up here today.”
“You don’t look terribly excited at the prospect, I must say.”
“You’re a daughter. Do you be-devil your dear father with nonsense? Do you speed the greying of his hair, teeter his chair further over the chasm, speed his dimming days toward the grave?”
“No. Actually, my father and I see each other on holidays and we get along famously.”
“You’re a good daughter then. Well, I happen to be gifted with a twenty-year-old as stubborn as I am, who’s like night to my day.”
“Or day to your night?”
“Hey, whose side are you on?”
“I’m a card-carrying member of Daughters Amalgamated, Incorporated. You fathers can be pretty tough sometimes, you know.”
“They say that daughters just want to seduce Daddy. I think mine wants to lobotomize me.”
“I take it you share different philosophies.”
“Yes, she’s a total flake. A proselyte of the New Age. A dingbat of the first water.”
“You sound like you’re very proud of her.”
He sighed and looked at Manning. She had an inquisitive expression on her face, open and curious. He felt stran
gely trusting of her. “She’s a lot like her dead mother.” Funny how you come out with private things like that when the person you’re talking to is a relative stranger, mused Scarborough.
Marsha was respectfully quiet for a long moment. “I look forward to meeting her. May I come out with you to the airport? I think I’m going to need a break about midday.”
Scarborough examined the new pages of print out. “Sure, why not. We’ll have lunch. I’ll explain the situation on the way out. So, what have we got so far today?”
“Nothing much, I’m afraid. The problem with a lot of the computer files for the Air Force is that they’re just as confusing as the paper kind.”
Scarborough picked up the sheaf of paper, and just stared at it for a moment, not reading but considering. “Lieutenant Manning...” he said. “Have you ever met Colonel Dolan?”
Manning did not look up from the monitor.
“No, I can’t say that I’ve had that pleasure, Dr. Scarborough.”
Scarborough nodded. “Everett,” he said. “Call me Everett ... or Ev, if you like.”
“Only if you call me Marsha ... Ev.”
“How very unprofessional sounding, eh?”
“Sometimes that’s the professional thing to do, Ev.” she said, and when he looked at her, she was smiling a secret smile into the monitor.
Captain Eric MacKenzie stared glumly into his computer monitor, examining the last part of chapter ten of The Immolator Number 121: Contra Flareup. Ten chapters was all that New York writer had turned in at deadline time, and now it fell to MacKenzie to finish the sucker in less than two weeks’ time, so that 100,000 hungry readers in 7-Elevens everywhere could get their slurpee-stained paws on this latest lava-and-gun-lust epic! Wasn’t it just his luck to have the thing fall into his lap, when things were finally starting to get exciting with this UFO investigation?
The UFO Conspiracy Trilogy Page 31
