Chaingang

by Rex Miller

  “Hold it, Mr. Perkins.” He cut him off immediately. “Don't try to sell me. We're way ahead of you. We know precisely what holdings you have, who you represent, the real estate you're peddling, and so forth. You don't get the picture yet. We want you. We want a piece of ground. We're going to have you take serious cash offers to the ten individuals whose names appear in this summary.” He handed a thick sheaf of papers across the table. Sam was already shaking his head. The guy apparently couldn't understand English.

  “You're wasting your time. You've drawn a circle that cuts off prime corners of Augie Grojean's riverfront property. That ground was part of a family dispute that took four years to settle in court. That family wouldn't sell that ground for all the money in the world. I mean—Russ Herkebauer? The Herkebauers are one of the oldest families in this county. Russell's brother owns the bank here, for God's sake. That's the Genneret Ranch you've got circled. Doyle Genneret could set fire to a wet elephant with hundred-dollar bills, Mr.—” he'd already started to forget the man's name—"Sinclair."

  But within the next thirty seconds Sam Perkins knew that he'd misjudged Christopher Sinclair, and for the first time he began to believe in business miracles.

  “I hear you, Mr. Perkins—Sam, if I may? Look here, podna.” He unfolded the sheaf of papers. “All those elements have been investigated.” He tapped the sheaf with a manicured nail. It was a blur of words about a fifteen-hundred-acre property twenty-five miles to the south. “The Grojean family has just about farmed out that ground by the river. They've got problems even making a crop on some of that ground. If they doubled their present production for the next fifty years, they couldn't touch what this piece of land produces annually. We own that. We'll trade it for the ground we want. The family will fight to sign the deal. Herkebauer would love nothing more than to take his wife and go to Florida and retire. He's holding on for his two sons. Here's the figure we'll give him, and—see—look at the payout mode. The boys will each get a settlement in managed T-bond accounts, big-time trust accounts. Mr. Herkebauer will think he's died and gone to Heaven."

  Sinclair took him through the rest of the stack. Big money was behind this deal. And they'd done their homework.

  “I'm not sure you need me, Mr. Sinclair."

  “Chris, please."

  “Chris. I mean—you've already got this all engineered."

  “You know how it is, Sam. Some persons of means like to be circumspect. Careful. Keep everything nice and discreet. My party wants you to handle it because you're the known, local person to do it—you're friends with these men and women. Known most of them all your life, right?"

  “Mm-hmm. That's true."

  “And that's why you're getting cut in for a slice of the apple pie. We don't want a lot of talk and speculation about this—more than there's bound to be anyway. You know how everybody is all up in arms about foreign interests buying up ‘hometown America.’ And I think that goes for out-of-towners. Nobody wants people coming in and buying up three hundred acres when they don't know anything about the deal. Makes it all look suspicious. They'll get to wondering if somebody's gonna start burying toxic waste next door.” He laughed heartily.

  “Are they?"

  “Just the reverse. My party is into ecology. We'll clean up, not dirty up. We're going to build the most fabulous thing anybody's ever heard of.” His voice dropped even lower. A look of almost evangelical zeal crossed his face. Sam wondered if any of this was for real.

  “Might I ask what that would be?"

  “The largest ecological research and development center in America. Three hundred acres—now just farmland—that will be turned into the most beautiful man-made park in the United States. And the whole thing will be open to the public in time—like Disneyland or Epcot or Six Flags—a giant theme park dedicated to the science and art of preserving the environment. It's something you'll be proud to be a part of."

  “Wow!” Sam tried to swallow. His throat was suddenly dry. “That's quite incredible.” He didn't know what to say.

  Christopher Sinclair went on at length about some of the work that would be done at the environmental research center, and it sounded like important work. Genuinely beneficial and in fact vital research into such problems as acid rain and the greenhouse effect.

  “The project has the name ECOWORLD—at least so far. That may change between now and construction time. But because we don't want any of this to leak out between now and then, we're using a code word. When we call you—or if you call us—let's always refer to the project with this word.” He showed Sam the title sheet on the thick summary. RAMPARTS.

  “This is a great project. It looks like you'd want to promote it."

  “And indeed we shall when the time is right. But remember—we're talking about millions of dollars being expended. Hundreds of jobs will be created. When this thing is turned over to a big agency and the PR guys start doing their thing—can you imagine what will happen to the land values?” He winked knowingly at Sam. “You of all people should be able to see the advantages of keeping this quiet for a while. And if you make a couple of extra bucks in some smart land speculation—” his big, fleshy shoulders went up “—so who's going to complain?"

  “Hmm."

  “You'll front the project for me, just as I'm fronting it for my party. I expect two things from you—discretion ... and competency. In turn, I promise you that when you make one of these deals for us, and we tell you our check is in the mail, why, that check will be in the mail overnight. And that check will float. I promise you that, too. Okay?"

  “Okay,” he laughed. “It sounds good."

  “It is good. It is golden, my new friend. You're in the real estate business, and we're funding you to buy up a bunch of it and put it all together for us, and keep it confidential and one hundred percent professional all the way. You do that—” he tilted his large, silver-maned head and grinned—and you'll never have to put together another deal. This can set you up for life, Sam."

  “I hardly know what to say. It sounds too good to be true, you know?"

  “I know. But here it is in black and white. Are you our man for this?"

  “I'll do my best,” Sam said.

  “That's what we want. And we're going to make it the best, sweetest thing you've ever been a part of.” He reached inside the breast pocket of his suit coat. “Let's start with the easy ones and work our way around to the toughies, okay?” Sam nodded. “Why don't you get Cullen Alberson on the telephone later this evening, and see if you can't get him to take this off our hands."

  “Jesus!” He couldn't help saying it when he looked at the numbers on the cashier's check.

  “We want him on our side, too,” Christopher Sinclair said, sitting back with a look on his face that Sam would later recall as “industrial-strength smug."

  The basics were laid out, and they parted company, Sam with the heavy-duty check and the thick sheaf of contracts in hand. Sinclair headed back out of town with Sam Perkins's promise.

  He would have many occasions to chew over their conversation. Many things about the deal bothered him, shook him to his core if the truth be known, not the least of which was the awesome amount of money. He was certain he'd stepped into something that was way out of his league.

  But the one thing that disturbed him the most was the “why” of it. Why would any party, Japanese, Arab, or extraterrestrial, spend major sums of cash to buy the edges of ten prime pieces of Missouri gumbo? They could buy ten times that amount of ground, better ground in reality, for a tenth of the prices they were going to pay.

  The answers, some technical double-speak about “suitability for organic research” according to “soil data” made not a whit of sense. Mineral rights—that's what Sinclair's after, Sam figured at first—until he read the contracts with care and saw that in some cases they weren't even buying mineral rights!

  Something was jarringly out of place, and though he couldn't isolate what it was, the deal was as unsettling as
anything he'd ever been involved with. And that night when he went home after an afternoon of talking with Cullen Alberson, who almost fainted when he saw the size of the check for his “corner ground,” he sat and stared for a long time at the title sheet on the summary given to him by the mysterious Mr. Sinclair.

  Even the hokey cloak-and-daggerish code word nagged him like a note scrawled on the bathroom mirror in lipstick the color of blood.

  The deal was obviously not what it was presented to be. Or perhaps Sam Perkins was suffering from a case of professional paranoia. He'd know a lot more when he found out whether that monster cashier's check was going to float or not. That kind of money had a way of speaking volumes to a man.

  4

  MARION, ILLINOIS

  “How sure are you of the security elements, Dr. Norman?” the stern, faraway voice asked.

  “Completely, I assure you.” Norman was writing as he conversed, being one of those individuals capable of more than one simultaneous act of logical reasoning. “Two hundred monitor units, that is to say assets, will be in the field.” Translation: two hundred armed shooters. “As you know, we have all the technology at our disposal. The coverage on the subject will be total, around the clock, across the compass. Now that the implant has been perfected, there is no way the subject can escape."

  “This bug thing—whatever the implant is—it can't suddenly malfunction? The battery can't die or whatever?"

  “No.” Norman stopped writing and looked at the phone in wonder. He was genuinely offended by idiocy. “The implant is guaranteed to outlast the life of the subject.” He went on, seemingly oblivious to the joke he'd made. “It's a perfect opportunity for first-generation research."

  “I suppose so. I understand the need for the school, but the idea of letting a killer loose and observing him under field conditions seems ... I don't know..."

  “Insane?"

  “Right. Insane!"

  “Sir, every revolutionary idea has appeared to be insane before it was proved. The first airplane, the first firearm, these things always seem implausible until they work. Look, if I may say so, what are the options? Our resources are not what they once were. The country is being swallowed by foreign interests. We've had to wage costly, terrible wars because of one or two madmen. Had we been able to call on expert assassination teams, we could have saved thousands of American lives. If we must sacrifice a few lives now, to save a great many—perhaps even change the destiny of our country—in the future, then that is a price we have little choice but to pay. Don't you agree?"

  “In theory, one agrees. But in actual practice things go wrong. This could explode in our faces. Equipment malfunctions. Computers make errors. Human beings make mistakes. Things happen."

  “All those things have been factored in. Just remember this, sir, we're dealing with an art or science that is relatively virgin territory. The subject gives us the chance to study a Bundy, a Green River Killer, a Gacey, a Son of Sam, and the Boston Strangler all wrapped up in one execution machine.

  “The implant will function flawlessly. We can obtain instant recovery or—if need be—termination at any moment during the operational phase.” Norman could hear the party on the outbound end of the distant connection attempt to voice another cautionary note, and the shielded long lines hissed in disgust.

  “When are you planning to do the surgery?"

  “Very soon. One more test with the Alpha Group II drug, and we'll bring in the brain implant team from Walter Reed."

  “Umm."

  “The new drug has been remarkable so far. In fact—” he couldn't help but smile—"there's a curious side effect on the subject. It almost renders him—dare I say it—normal for brief periods following the IVs!"

  “Outstanding."

  “Yes,” the doctor agreed.

  They'd come to him nearly a quarter century ago, when he'd been a young doctor with a brilliant future, and they'd challenged him to give them unstoppable killers. He'd put his career on the line for the mysterious agency USMACVSAUCOG, working with his phenomenal find—a subject unlike any other. Everything he'd worked for, every program he'd managed to put in place, had brought them to this point.

  He countered a few more flimsy objections, helping another witless bureaucrat to rationalize the impossible and think the unthinkable: they were building a school for covert executions, and the central program would be the study of a mass murderer unchained and allowed to kill or—perhaps—be killed.

  For all the man's unknowledgeable questions, he'd learned nothing of the doctor's real agenda, nor had he learned of the secret that would, in fact, control the subject when all else failed. These components would remain as guarded as the equipment that carried and secured their conversation: the OMEGASTAR mobile tracker, which was the electrolink between the COMSEC and NEWTON SECURE systems. These were Norman's trump cards.

  “We're good to go,” the man finally said, into the ultracomplex guts of the Omni DF MEGAplex Secure Tranceiver Auto-lock locator Relay unit and movement-detection monitor. Diode detectors buzzed, freq-counters purred, high-gain preamped scanners searched, mag-field finders countersurveilled, feedback loops engaged, timesharing codes interfaced, spectrum analyzers pulsed, servomechanisms clicked, microcircuitry fed, diffused, flattened, bled into parallel bug-jammers that probed and pried and silently shrieked through subaudible white-noise generators and whose battery would not die!

  He inserted a patient history form into his typewriter and typed up the brief notes on a subject always near and dear to his heart:

  CONFIDENTIAL AND PRIVILEGED INFORMATION

  NOT FOR DISCLOSURE TO INMATE

  FACILITY: Marion

  PATIENT'S D.O.B.: estimate 1950

  PATIENT'S NAME: Bunkowski, Daniel Edward Flowers

  REGISTER NUMBER: none/see rider

  RACE: Cauc.

  SEX: M

  HEIGHT: 6 feet 7 1/2 inches

  WEIGHT: 475

  HAIR COLOR: Brn

  FACIAL SCARS OR DEFORMITIES: wounds. see GSW diagram for adult head

  BODILY SCARS OR DEFORMITIES: see childhood burns, wounds

  HISTORY OF ALLERGIC REACTIONS: none

  HEMOPHILIA CHRONIC ALCOHOLISM DRUG ABUSE DETAILS: psychotrophic drugs incl Haldol, Thorazine, Sinequan et al. Have been ineffective in trtmnt of antisocial, aggressive acts. Drugs such as sod. Pent., Amytal, the paradyzines et al ineffective (hypnosis therapy: See notes re Alpha Group II.)

  FUNCTIONAL IMPAIRMENT: nonapplicable/morbid obesity

  MENTAL DYSFUNCTION: schizophrenia, paranoia

  EMOTIONAL DISORDER: psychoses not resp. to med. trtmnt.

  DETAILS: see rider note that patient is graded Level 7/Violent

  CURRENT PROBLEM UNDER EVALUATION: require brain implant of loc. device

  SERVICE: Neurosurgery—Walter Reed

  CLINICAL RECOMMENDATIONS AND FINDINGS: require implant be undetectable by patient

  NOT FOR DISCLOSURE TO INMATE

  CHIEF MEDICAL

  ADMINISTRATOR AUTHORIZATION: Norman

  PRIMARY CARE PHYSICIAN: same

  RECOMMENDED PATIENT STATUS (CHECK)

  OUTPATIENT X INPATIENT

  NATIONAL SECURITY RIDER

  The following is SECRET AND SENSITIVE and is not to be disclosed, divulged, copied, or disseminated:

  A prefrontal lobotomy is not indicated although patient cannot be controlled by drugs, due to field requirements. Patient is rendered submissive and potentially nonaggressive by IV admin. of ALPHA GROUP II. A locator implant (laser) is needed.

  See attached X RAYS, LAB WORK, CULTURES, CHILDHOOD PATIENT HISTORY, SPECIAL EQUIPMENT REPORT (on implant device)

  DISCLOSURE OF ANY OR ALL PARTS OF THIS DOCUMENT IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED BY THE NATIONAL SECURITY ACT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

  5

  WATERWORKS HILL

  All afternoon it had looked like it was going to rain, and Royce Hawthorne was not about to sit in his tiny, cramped cabin like some victim,
hung and blasted and hurting. He was lurching out the door, still half-ripped, but the shock waves of reality had him moving up the hill paths in the direction of The Rockhouse, as soon as he remembered the impending deal.

  He'd slept until nearly 1:00 P.M., coming awake, in search of Darvon. His head was a swamp. There were too many gators and snakes loose in there. He downed two Darvon capsules, washing them down with warmish Olympia Light. By the time he popped the top on his fourth Oly, the Darvon had kicked in and he thought he might live after all.

  The stash was empty. There was nothing in the pantry. He put on the shirt he'd worn the night before and extracted a small vial, which was nearly empty. He tapped coke out, straightened it into a line, and did it, rubbing his gums with residue and licking his finger.

  That's when he suddenly remembered the deal, and the pressure of it snapped him into action. He had fourteen dollars in his greasy blue jeans. He found a crisp hundred in the dictionary (i-MUR-jen-see: Noun. An unforeseen set of circumstances. A pressing need). When he realized that in the entire world he owned the cabin, a half acre of worthless hill, and the awesome sum of $114, he realized what a world of trouble he was in and lurched out into the depressingly wet day.

  October spruce trees stood alongside the pathway up Waterworks Hill, boughs heavy with moisture. Hillside milo, russet and golden, seemingly untended, fought to stand tall in fields of rampant blotches of relentless weeds.

  Gray clouds the size of aircraft carriers trailed damp tendrils over the upturned face of the Missouri countryside that flanked the hill above the small town waterworks.

  Royce Hawthorne had a guy who wanted weight. David Drexel—money in el banco. Drexel was so frightened of copping burn, he'd come to Royce for the connect. Homeboy Royce with a rep for dealing and using, emphasis on the latter. Drexel had not blinked at the tab.

  Royce could buy weight from Happy. Keep a piece of the rock for recreational usage, turn the balance for a solid profit. Free enterprise in microcosm—right? On the surface it was too cool.