Will thought Carlos had been keeping an eye on Dicks, and saw the kid hit the ground so hard he raised a small cartoon-like cloud of dust. Richards was still holding his balls and moaning, and Will kicked out at him for insurance, to get him out of the way. Will’s foot caught the man full in the face, and Richards sprawled onto his back. Will turned, his finger squeezing the trigger, bringing his gun to bear on Dicks.
But Dicks was ahead of him. One of the gray-suited man’s hands was in Jeannie’s hair, holding her in place. The gun was pressed against her right temple.
“Come on, shithead!” Dicks yelled, wrenching Jeannie’s hair. “Make a move! Give me an excuse to kill this piece of ass!”
Will froze. One on his crazy urges flashed through his mind, his ghosts whispering coldly. Kill ’em all, dipstick. Make sure every fucker here is dead, even the babe. Then disappear. End of problem. But another feeling swept over him. He blinked. His gun hand shook. He was looking at Jeannie, and she was looking at him.
Tears were rolling down her cheeks and as Dicks tightened his grip in her hair more tears fell. She raised a hand and wiped at her face. Dust and tears were mingling in her eyes. She quickly plucked out her contacts and let them fall. Will stared. Now her eyes were a wonderful shifting shade of blue. Her tears looked like jewels, flashing like liquid diamonds as they moved across her white skin.
He watched her tears fall for only a moment, even though it seemed he stood watching the desert sun flash and shimmer in them for a long, long time. I’ve seen her before, he thought. I’ve seen tears fall from those beautiful blue eyes before. This new feeling took hold of him completely. In the past he had been able to fight foolish and violent impulses, though once in a while they saved his life. Not this time. He was helpless. He wasn’t sure if what he was feeling was real or simply another disturbance in his mind caused by the lesion deep within his brain.
Will had visited a doctor years before, wanting to know what was causing him to get these strange urges, these sudden mad impulses.
As a kid he’d asked Stern that question and the old man had simply said, “That is the way God has made you.” When he’d been old enough to ask more informed questions, Stern was dead and no one at the Compound was talking. They’d send him out on jobs and he’d come back to his room. No real contact with anyone. No friends. Just lessons and jobs and his room. That was why he’d eventually left the Compound.
When the GP referred him to a neurosurgeon, Will allowed x-rays to be taken, and the images had revealed dead areas. There was a long lesion in the meat of his brain, appearing as a ghostly white streak through his frontal lobes.
The neurosurgeon said the injury appeared to have occurred a very long time ago, and he was terribly excited over the prospect of learning how this man had overcome such a tremendous handicap and learning why the injury had not been fatal. He’d wanted to perform CAT-scans, more x-rays, and a full-panel of physical and mental tests to determine Will’s present condition. He’d picked up the phone to call a colleague and the moment his eyes left Will his patient had slipped out the door, taking the envelope of x-ray photographs with him.
Will had burned the x-rays, but he still remembered the sight of the lesion, a terrible scar that appeared white and pure.
As white and pure as the sun flashing in Jeannie’s tears.
Kneeling in the dust, her hair tangled in Dicks’ clenched fist and her eyes watering in pain, Jeannie was more beautiful than anything Will had ever seen, save one old memory of beauty. Take away the pain, the tears and give her cause to smile and laugh, and she would be more beautiful still. She reminded him of someone from long ago.
It came to Will a little at a time. Sand in his underwear. Feelings of rage. A little girl crying. She had touched him and his seven-year old self had spoken softly, saying, “Nothing was or ever will be as pretty as you.”
He slipped his hand into the pocket of his jeans. The ribbon was still there, Jeannie was right here, and the one truly good feeling he had experienced so long ago was back. This was the woman, the girl, who so long ago had touched him like no one else since.
After all these years, after all the women Will had fucked and run out on and killed, he had finally found her, when he had nearly forgotten her. Something, possibly love, was swelling inside him, a feeling of such great strength and scope that it could never be ignored or evaded. A feeling of such purity that it would never die.
Dicks was losing it. “Drop the fucking gun!”
For the first time in his life Will had found someone whose death would hurt him more than his own. Never before would he have considered what he was doing now, lowering the gun, tossing it away, leaving himself defenseless before his enemies. He had a gentle smile on his face, and it appeared both shocking and wholly appropriate.
Jeannie saw Will toss his gun away. She could read people pretty well after a while, and he was the cold type. Ruthless. A man who could kill like a machine if he had to, and not be bothered by his conscience. Not the kind of man who would do what he just did. It didn’t fit him at all. He smiled, and Jeannie watched him through her tears, feeling a growing sense of wonder.
Ignoring Dicks, looking down at Jeannie, Will said, “The world may as well end now. No one was or ever will be as pretty as you.”
Even though she was in pain Jeannie couldn’t help realize she’d heard those words before.
Dicks saw the target smiling like he thought he was some peacenik saint or something. Fucking freak, Dicks thought. He pushed Jeannie out of his way and took a step toward Will. Even with the gun in his hand he felt a momentary chill when their eyes met. Dicks felt his scalp and scrotum crawl simultaneously and tried to shake off the feeling that the target just might be the most dangerous man he had ever encountered.
Richards had finally gotten to his feet, and he kidney-punched Will savagely. Will stumbled forward. With a rigid hand Richards chopped at the base of Will’s skull. Richards watched the guy’s ball cap fly off his head, watched the guy collapse. He danced around Will in a black rage, kicking at stomach, ribs, face and back. Then he caught his breath and looked over at the cop. The Deputy Sheriff was lying on the far side of the patrol car. Richards could see his unmoving legs and a shitload of blood.
Dicks joined Richards. Holding a bloodied handkerchief against his nose he pointed his automatic at Will’s heart. Richards held out a hand.
“Hold off on that. This prick says he saw some shit about us in a Bureau file. Let’s get out of here, take him someplace secure. We can find out what he knows.”
Richards thought of how good it would feel to finally finish this job, and he was glad they wouldn’t need the entire body as proof. Mondani wanted Hill’s brain, so they’d keep Hill’s head and ditch the rest. They had a hacksaw and a big cooler full on ice in the trunk.
They grabbed Will, handcuffed his hands behind his back and shoved him into the back seat of the Taurus.
Richards looked at Dicks. “What the fuck happened to your nose?”
Dicks probed his nose delicately and was glad to see the bleeding had finally stopped. “Bitch nearly bit it off. I oughta kill her.”
Richards grinned. “Good thing you didn’t ask her to suck your dick.”
“What about them?” Dicks asked, ignoring Richards’ attempt at hilarity and pointing to Jeannie and Carlos. She was holding Carlos’ head in her lap.
Richards thought a moment. “Fuck the wetback. Chances are good that the tin star over there called for backup and the Compound may not have intercepted it. Leave your weapon near the beandog and with luck he’ll be blamed for plugging the jig. What about the twat?”
“That’s Jeannie Norman. Remember the pictures at the end of Hill’s file? We just scored big-time.” Dicks thought about how good the bitch’s hot little ass had felt under his hands. He was also thinking about how good it would feel to smash her face in with his fists. Mess up that pretty little mouth.
Richards looked at Jeannie. “I don’t know
... I don’t remember the face.”
“Who’s looking at her face?” Dicks asked. “Trust me, it’s her.”
Richards nodded and gestured with the gun. “Let’s go, girlie. In the car.”
Jeannie eased Carlos’ head to the ground. Then she stood and walked to the Taurus, feeling a twinge in her bloody knee. She was about to climb in beside Will when Dicks said, “No, darling, you’re riding shotgun.”
Richards went to the police patrol car, took the keys out of the ignition, and threw them as far as he could.
Jeannie settled herself in the passenger seat as Dicks slid behind the wheel. She looked over at Carlos, hoping he’d be okay, wishing he had never met her. He was a sweet kid who deserved better than this.
Richards got into the back seat beside the unconscious Will. “Kicked your ass, didn’t I?” To Dicks he said, “When this job is done I’m heading back to Washington.”
“What for?” Dicks asked.
“To cut the balls of the clerk who made up our ID cards. I know it was a rush job, but Christ almighty!”
Dicks laughed and winced when the laughter hurt his abbreviated nose. He put the car in gear and pulled out onto the highway.
A Page from the Past
The Compound (outside Vienna, Virginia), May 9, 1967
Joe was in agony!
After his jeep had broken down in the desert he’d wandered across the searing dunes for days before becoming delirious. Climbing a steep hill he had been attacked by a giant eagle with talons like razors. In trying to escape the eagle he had fallen off a cliff into a swamp and quicksand. Just as Joe had managed to pull himself free of the sucking liquid a tiger had leaped on him and again he had to fight for his life. His .45 automatic was gone, lost in the quicksand probably, but he was still able to free his knife from the scabbard on his leg and cut the big cat’s throat. Now he sprawled on the ground, exhausted. He was covered in blood, his orange coverall was torn and dirty, and he was in terrible pain. He looked beyond the dead tiger and saw a vision. She stood beyond the swamp on the edge of the dunes. Her blonde hair was glowing almost white-hot under the noonday sun. She had a nice tan, much of which was revealed by the skimpy top and extremely short skirt she was wearing. She had long, long legs and tiny feet squeezed into high heels that sunk into the sand. Her figure was unreal, she was really stacked, and Joe might have felt better about seeing her here if only she didn’t keep staring at him like that. And staring ... and staring, her wide blue eyes so blank it was as if the head behind them was full of air.
“Say something,” Joe said to the silent blonde. “C’mon, talk to me.”
The blonde just stared.
Joe was getting angry. What was this girl’s problem?
“Talk, dummy!” Joe stood, and approached the blonde. She looked scared. “Hey, you dork! Talk to me. You just gonna stand there?”
The blonde stared back.
“Okay, that’s it,” Joe said. He punched the pretty blonde in the head.
“Hey!” she cried, struggling to stand, but it was too late, Joe was completely out of control, gibbering, swearing, jumping up and down on the blonde, hammering her deeper and deeper into the sand with his U.S. Army issue combat boots—
“Stop it, you meanieeee!” the little girl screamed, a shrill note that ended in tears.
Will blinked and looked around, seeing the unused storage shed where Doc Stern often let him play. He was sitting beside his toy jeep, near a little sand ramp leading up to the wooden planks framing the sandbox. At the top of the ramp was a big plastic eagle. Below the wooden plank cliff was a hole that had been scooped in the sand, lined with a plastic bag and filled with water. Beside the hole were a worn stuffed tiger and a tiny rubber knife. Will held his orange-clad G.I. Joe in a fierce grip. Half buried in the sand was a Barbie in a midriff-baring blouse and miniskirt. The little girl who owned the Barbie was standing beside Will, tears running down her pink cheeks, each drop of moisture sparkling white in the sun.
“Sorry,” Will whispered.
She’s pretty, he thought, looking at her white hair and big blue eyes. She had a ribbon in her hair and there was a pattern of flowers in the cloth that was the same color as her eyes. She was holding a stuffed rabbit by one floppy ear.
Will gave her a dark look. A voice whispered, where’d she come from? What is she doing here? His ghosts were talking to him, and Will was wondering the same thing. This is my sandbox. It’s mine! He felt a horrible rage building inside of him, as if the thunderclouds that filled the sky in the spring and churned gray and purple with power were now inside him swirling and rumbling, pushing him to do bad things.
The doctors who were studying Will, Doc Stern among them, had no idea what was driving the boy into fits of rage, what was causing long periods of near-catatonia or urging him to commit silly pranks with a compulsive need. It was clear that the boy was experiencing frequent seizures not unlike an epileptic’s grand mal. Yet where an epileptic seizure was a burst of electrical activity that interfered with control over voluntary action, Will’s seizures seemed to awaken the dead part of his brain, driving Will to commit extremely anti-social acts.
Stern liked to say Will’s ghosts were speaking to him when he was in the grip of these spells, referring to the damaged portions of his frontal lobes which occasionally flickered with life as his phantom brain came awake, tickling and twitching with awareness just as a man who had lost his legs might later report feeling his toes tingle with pins and needles after sitting still for a long period of time.
Will was hearing his ghosts now. Smash her stupid crying face in! Kick her in the butt! Pull her stupid white hair until it bleeds!
The little girl stared at the boy, watching him shake, hearing his teeth chatter, wondering why his eyelids were fluttering. He had a fading bruise on the side of his face, and a purple welt ran down the left side of his neck, disappearing under his dirty T-shirt. She saw the lingering remains of other bruises on his arms and hands and one high on his forehead. Seeing this made her sad. She knelt beside him and took one of his clenched fists in her small hands.
Will was struggling to keep calm, to stop from hurting the little girl. She was just a kid like me, he thought, why should I hurt her?
Cause she’s one of them! She’ll hurt you and take things away from you and laugh at you and try to hide her hate behind smiles!
Will’s eyes opened wide and his ears popped. The voices were fading. He felt a little better, a little less angry. The calming feelings seemed to be coming out of the little girl’s hands and he was soaking up that calm as if drinking from a garden hose on a hot day.
“Are you okay?” The girl was looking at him with concern.
Only the Doc had ever looked at him like that. Like she cared.
“Yeah. I’m sorry about your doll. Sometimes I get angry.” She was still holding his hand, but he didn’t feel stupid or gross even though she was a girl.
“You know what?”
She shook her head.
“The world might as well end now,” he said. “Nothing was or ever will be as pretty as you.”
The little girl made a face. She didn’t like yucky kissy talk.
“Hey,” he said, off on a completely different track. “You got a needle too, huh?”
The children had identical red marks on the insides of their left forearms.
“Yeah,” the girl said. “I got a booster shot.”
“Me too.”
“I’ve never seen any other kids here,” she said. “What’s your name?”
Will was about to answer when he saw mean old Eicher stomping toward them.
“There you are!” Eicher hissed. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you!”
Eicher was furious that she had left her designated play area, but the model 333X2 tracking module that had recently been injected under her skin impressed him. The transmitter/receiver in the surveillance room had pinpointed both her and Stern’s thawed-out little monster. That wa
sn’t much range to make it a test worth bragging about, but it seemed to work fine. The miracles of miniaturization, he thought.
Eicher’s mind turned to the letter received from the Oval Office this morning and he grew angry again. He had been demoted, his assistant Zane put in charge of the Compound on a temporary basis. Temporary, hah! Zane had already hired his own assistant, some boy fresh out of college, a sycophantic geneticist named Mark Mondani— just as Eicher had hired Zane when Stern had been temporarily retired due to his stroke.
There were rumors from the White House that Eicher’s clone works might have to be destroyed as the heartless Lyndon Johnson had finally found out about the girl.
If only I had hidden her as well as my first clone has been hidden by whoever whisked that child away, he thought. Well, this is one work they will not destroy, one work that will be molded to a state of perfection elsewhere. Then I will have something to show the world! Old Stern’s child is safe only because of the boy’s madness and violent outbursts. These fools think they can groom the boy and use that violence for their own purposes, but he will destroy them all. The boy is pure evil! Stern replaced the life in his frozen husk, but did he replace the soul?
Eicher considered the other child born out of the Compound cloning program not long ago, his first clone, and his skin crawled. No, he corrected himself. Stern’s boy is not evil, he is an unstable explosive. Anything might set him off. The dark child however, it had been evil. I saw the evil in those eyes before it disappeared. I hope it does not still live within these walls. I hope it has been destroyed ...
Eicher’s irrational line of thought fell apart and was replaced by pure rage again as he approached the children.
He grabbed the little girl by the arm and shook her violently. “What are you doing here?” Eicher shook the girl again and she started to cry. Her hand slipped out of Will’s grip and the ribbon fell out of her hair.
Made in the U.S.A.: The 10th Anniversary Edition Page 10
