Koontz, Dean R. - Strangers

by Strangers(Lit)

  continuing, she moved from the bed to one of the comfortable chairs and,

  only then, glanced at the author's photograph on the back of the jacket.

  Her breath caught in her throat. Fear filled her.

  For a moment she thought the photograph was going to be the kicker that

  knocked her into another fugue. She tried to fling the book aside but

  could not, tried to stand up but could not. She drew deep breaths,

  closed her eyes, and waited for her pulse rate to sink toward normal.

  When she opened her eyes and looked at the author's photograph again, it

  still disturbed her, though not as badly as it had at first. She knew

  that she had seen this man before, had met him somewhere, and not in the

  best of circumstances,

  though she could not remember where or when. His brief biography on the

  jacket flap informed her that he had lived in Portland, Oregon, and now

  resided in Laguna Beach, California. As she had never been in either of

  those places, she could not imagine when their paths might have crossed.

  Dominick Corvaisis, about thirty-five, was a striking man who reminded

  Ginger of Anthony Perkins when that actor had been younger. His looks

  were compelling enough that she could not imagine having forgotten where

  she had met him.

  Her instant reaction to the photo was strange, and some might have

  dismissed it as a meaningless fillip of an overwrought mind. But during

  the past two months she had learned to respect strange developments and

  to look for meaning in them, no matter how meaningless they seemed.

  She stared at Corvaisis' photograph, hoping to nudge her memory.

  Finally, with an almost clairvoyant sense that Twilight in Babylon would

  somehow change her life, she opened it and began to read.

  Chicago, Illinois.

  From University Hospital, Father Stefan Wycazik drove across town to the

  laboratory operated by the Scientific Investigation Division of the

  Chicago Police Department. Though it was Christmas Day, municipal

  workers were still cleaning last night's snowfall from the streets.

  Only a couple of men were on duty at the police lab, which was located

  in an aging government building, and the old rooms had the deserted

  feeling of an elaborate Egyptian tomb buried far beneath desert sands.

  Footsteps echoed resoundingly back and forth between the tile floors and

  the high ceilings.

  Ordinarily, the lab did not share its information with anyone from

  outside the police and judicial systems. But half the police officers

  in Chicago were Catholics, which meant that Father Wycazik had more than

  a few friends on the force. Stefan had importuned some of those friends

  to make petitions in his name and to pave the way for him at the SID.

  He was greeted by Dr. Murphy Aimes, a paunchy man with a perfectly bald

  head and walrus mustache. They'd spoken on the telephone earlier,

  before Stefan left the rectory

  for University Hospital, and now Murphy Aimes was ready for him. They

  settled on two stools at a laboratory bench. A tall opaque window

  loomed in front of them, decorated with dark streaks of pigeon dung. On

  the marble top of the bench, Aimes had laid out a file folder and

  several other items.

  "I must say, Father, I'd never compromise case information like this if

  there were any possibility of a trial arising from the shootout at that

  sandwich shop. But I suppose, as both perpetrators are dead, there's no

  one to be put on trial."

  "I appreciate that, Dr. Aimes. I really do. And I'm grateful for the

  time and energy you've expended on my behalf."

  Curiosity ruled Murphy Aimes's face. He said, "I don't really

  understand the reason for your interest in the case."

  "I'm not entirely sure of it myself," Stefan said cryptically.

  He had not revealed his purpose to the higher authorities who had made

  him welcome at the lab, and he did not intend to enlighten Aimes,

  either. For one thing, if he told them what was on his mind, they would

  think he was dotty and would be less inclined to cooperate with him.

  "Well," Aimes said, miffed at not being taken into Stefan's confidence,

  "you asked about the bullets." He opened a manila envelope of the type

  that ties shut with a string, and he emptied its contents into his palm:

  two gray lumps of lead. "The surgeon removed these from Winton Tolk. You

  said you were particularly interested in them."

  "certainly am," Stefan said, taking them in his own hand when Aimes

  offered them. "You've weighed these, I suppose. I understand that's

  standard procedure. And they weigh what .38 slugs should?"

  "If you mean, did they fragment on impact-they did not. They're so

  misshapen they must've impacted bone, so it's surprising they didn't

  fragment a little-or a lot-but in fact they're both intact."

  "Actually," Father Wycazik said, staring at the slugs in his hand, "I

  meant were they underweight for .38s? Malformed ammunition, factory

  mistakes? Or were they the right size?"

  "Oh, the right size. No doubt of that."

  "Big enough to do plenty of damage, terrible damage," Father Wycazik

  said thoughtfully. "The gun?"

  From a larger envelope, Aimes produced the revolver with which Winton

  Tolk was shot. "A snubnose Smith and Wesson .38 Chief's Special."

  "You've examined it, test-fired it?"

  "Yes. Standard procedure."

  "No indication that anything's wrong with it? Specifically, is the bore

  poorly machined or is there some other anomaly that'd result in the

  bullet leaving the muzzle at a much slower velocity than it should?"

  "That's a peculiar question, Father. The answer is no. It's a fine

  Chief's Special, up to the usual high standards of Smith and Wesson."

  Putting the two expended bullets back into the small envelope from which

  he had seen Aimes take them, Father Wycazik said, "What about the

  cartridges these bullets came from? Is there any chance they were

  filled with too little powder, that they carried an inadequate charge?"

  The SID man blinked. "I gather one thing you're trying to find out is

  why two .38s in the chest didn't do more damage."

  Stefan Wycazik nodded but offered no elaboration. "Were there any

  unexpended cartridges in the revolver?"

  "A couple. Plus spare ammunition in one of the gunman's jacket

  pockets-another dozen."

  "Did you cut open any of the unexpended shells to see if maybe they

  carried an inadequate charge?"

  "No reason to," Murphy Aimes said.

  "Would it be possible for you to check one of them now?"

  "Possible. But why? Father, what in the world is this all about?"

  Stefan sighed. "I know this is an imposition, Dr. Aimes, and it

  behooves me to repay your kindness with an explanation. But I can't.

  Not yet. Priests, like physicians and attorneys, must sometimes respect

  confidences, keep secrets. But if I'm ever at liberty to reveal what

  lies behind my curiosity, you'll be the first to know."

  Aimes stared and Stefan met his eyes forthrightly. Finally the SID man

  opened another envelope. This contained the unexpended cartridges from

  the dead gunman's .38 Chiefs Special. "Wait
here."

  In twenty minutes, Aimes returned with a white enamel lab tray in which

  were two dissected .38 Special cartridges. Using a pencil as a pointer,

  he commented on the disassembled elements. "This is the case head in

  which the primer assembly is seated. The firing pin strikes here. This

  opening on the other side of the case head is the flashhole that leads

  from the primer packet to the powder compartment. There's no problem

  with this, no manufacturing errors. At the other end of the cartridge,

  you've got a lead semiwadcutter bullet with a copper gascheck crimped

  onto its base to retard bore leading. The tiny cannelures around the

  bullet are packed with grease to ease its passage through the barrel.

  Nothing out of order here, either. And in between the case head and the

  bullet is the powder compartment-or it's sometimes calldd the combustion

  chamber-out of which I've taken this small pile of gray, flaky material.

  This is nitrocellulose, a highly combustible material; it's ignited by

  the spark that comes through the flashhole from the primer; it explodes,

  ejecting the bullet from the cartridge. As you can see, there's enough

  nitrocellulose to fill the powder chamber. Just to be sure, I opened

  another round." Aimes pointed the pencil at the second disassembled

  cartridge. "There was nothing wrong with this, either. The gunman was

  using well-made, reliable, Remington ammunition. Officer Tolk was just

  a lucky man, Father, a very lucky man."

  New York, New York.

  Jack Twist spent Christmas in the sanitarium room with Jenny, his wife

  of thirteen years. Being with her on holidays was especially grim. But

  being anywhere else, leaving her alone, would have been grimmer.

  Although Jenny had spent almost two-thirds of their marriage in a coma,

  the years of lost communion had not diminished Jack's love for her. More

  than eight years had passed since she had smiled at him or spoken his

  name or been able to return his kisses, but in his heart, at least, time

  was stopped, and she was still the beautiful Jenny Mae Alexander, a

  freshfaced young bride.

  Incarcerated in that Central American prison, he had been sustained by

  the knowledge that Jenny waited at home for him, missed him, worried

  about him, and prayed each night for his safe return. Throughout his

  ordeal of torture and periodic starvation, he had clung to the hope that

  he would one day feel Jenny's arms around him and hear her marvelous

  laugh. That hope had kept him alive and sane.

  Of the four captured Rangers, only Jack and his buddy Oscar Weston

  survived and came home, though their escape was a near thing. They had

  waited almost a year to be rescued, confident that their country would

  not leave them to rot. Sometimes they debated whether they would be

  freed by commandos or through diplomatic channels. After eleven months,

  they still believed their countrymen would bail them out, but they no

  longer dared to wait. They had lost weight and were dangerously thin,

  undernourished. They had also suffered unknown tropical fevers without

  treatment, which had further debilitated them.

  Their only opportunity for escape was during one of their regular visits

  to the People's Center for Justice. Every four weeks, Jack and Oscar

  had been taken from their cells and driven to the People's Center-a

  clean, well-lighted, unwalled, unbarred institution in the heart of the

  capital-a model prison meant to impress foreign journalists with the

  current regime's humanitarianism. There, they were given showers,

  deloused, put in clean clothes, handcuffed to prevent gesturing, and

  seated before videotape cameras to be politely questioned. Usually,

  they answered questions with obscenities or wisecracks. Their answers

  did not matter because the tape was edited, and answers they had never

  made were dubbed in by linguists who could speak unaccented English.

  Once the propaganda film had been made, they were interviewed over

  closed-circuit television by foreign reporters gathered in another room.

  The camera never provided closeups of them, and their answers were not

  heard by those who asked the questions; instead, once again, unseen

  intelligence men, stationed at another microphone outside the camera's

  range, answered for them.

  At the start of their eleventh month in captivity, Jack and Oscar began

  making plans to escape the next time they were transported to that far

  less secure, less heavily guarded propaganda facility.

  The once-formidable strength of their young bodies had been leached

  away, and their only weapons were shivs and needles made of rat bones,

  which they had painstakingly shaped and sharpened by rubbing them

  against the stone walls of the cells. Wickedly sharp, those instruments

  nevertheless made pathetic weapons; yet Jack and Oscar hoped to triumph

  over gun-toting guards.

  Surprisingly, they did triumph. Once- inside the People's Center, they

  were remanded into the custody of a single guard who escorted them to

  the showers on the second floor. The guard kept his gun holstered,

  probably because the facility was a detention center inside the larger

  detention center of the capital city itself. The guard was certain Jack

  and Oscar were demoralized, weak, and unarmed, so he was surprised when

  they suddenly turned on him and, with shocking savagery, stabbed him

  with the bone shivs they had concealed in their clothes. Pierced twice

  in the throat, his right eye skewered, he succumbed without producing a

  scream that might have drawn other police or soldiers.

  Before their break was discovered, Jack and Oscar confiscated the dead

  guard's handgun and ammunition, then made bold use of the hallways,

  risking notice, alarm, and capture. But it was, after all, a minimum

  security "reeducation" center, and they were able to make their way to a

  stairwell and down to a dimly lighted basement, where they progressed

  swiftly and stealthily through a series of musty storage rooms. At the

  end of the building, they found the loading docks and a way out.

  Seven or eight large boxes had just been off-loaded from a delivery

  truck, which was backed up to the nearest of the two big bays, and the

  driver was engaged in an argument with another man; both of them were

  shaking clipboards at each other. Those two were the only men in sight,

  and as they turned and headed toward a glass-enclosed office, Jack and

  Oscar raced silently to the recently unloaded boxes and from there into

  the back of the delivery truck, where they made a nest for themselves

  behind the as-yet-undelivered packages. In a few minutes the driver

  returned, cursing, slammed the truck's cargo-bay door, and drove away

  into the city before the alarm sounded.

  Ten minutes and many blocks from the People's Center, the truck stopped.

  The driver unbolted the rear doors, took out a single package without

  realizing Jack and Oscar were inches from him behind a wall of boxes,

  and went into the building before which he'd parked. Extricating

  themselves from their burrow, Jack and Oscar fled.

  Within a few blocks they found themselves i
n a district of muddy streets

  and dilapidated shanties, where the povertystricken residents were no

  fonder of the new tyrants than they had been of the old and were willing

  to hide two Yankees on the lam. After nightfall, supplied with what

  little food the slum-dwellers could spare, they departed. for the

  outskirts. When they came to open farmland, they broke into a barn and

  stole a sharp sickle, several withered apples, a leather blacksmith's

  apron and some burlap bags which could be used to fashion makeshift

  shoes when their shabby prison-issue eventually fell apart-and a horse.

  Before dawn, they had reached the edge of the true jungle, where they

  abandoned the horse and set out on foot once more.

  Weak, poorly provisioned, armed only with the sickleand the gun they had

  taken off the guard-without a compass and therefore required to plot a

  course by the sun and the stars, they headed north through the tropical

  forests toward the border, eighty miles away. Throughout that nightmare

  journey, Jack had one vital aid to survival: Jenny. He thought of her,

  dreamed of her, longed for her, and seven days later, when he and Oscar

  reached friendly territory, Jack knew that he had made it as much

  because of Jenny as because of his Ranger training.

  At that point he thought the worst was behind him. He was wrong.

  Now, sitting beside his wife's bed, with Christmas music on the tape

  deck, Jack Twist was suddenly overcome with grief. Christmas was a bad

  time because he could not help but remember how dreams of her had

  sustained him through his Christmas in prison-when in fact she had