Koontz, Dean R. - Strangers

by Strangers(Lit)

  knife a secret until you get your opening, then stab the bastard."

  "Got it," Ginger said. She grinned and shook her head.

  "Someday, I hope you'll get a chance to meet Rita Hannaby."

  "Your friend in Boston."

  "Yes. You and Rita are a lot alike, I think."

  "Me and a high-society lady?" Faye said doubtfully. "Can't imagine what

  we'd have in common."

  "Well, for one thing, you both have such equanimity, such serenity,

  regardless of what's happening."

  Putting the knife back on the seat, Faye said, "When you're a service

  wife, you either learn to go with the flow, or you go crazy."

  "And both you and Rita look so feminine, soft and dependent on the

  outside-but inside, each of you is, in your own way, tough as nails."

  Faye smiled. "Honey, you got a bit of that yourself."

  They drove the last quarter-mile of the pinion-shaded driveway, out of

  the shadows and into the midday gloom of the pending storm.

  The brown-green, stripped-down government car was still parked along the

  county road. Two men were in it. They looked impassively at Ginger.

  Impulsively, she waved at them. They did not wave back.

  Faye drove down toward the floor of the Lemoille Valley. The car

  followed.

  Miles Bennell slumped in the big chair behind his gray metal desk and

  looked bored, and Miles Bennell ambled around his office while answering

  questions in a tone of voice that was sometimes indifferent and

  sometimes amusedly ironic, but Miles Bennell never fidgeted, groveled,

  looked frightened, or became angry, as almost any other man would have

  done in the same situation.

  Colonel Leland Falkirk hated him.

  Sitting at a scarred table in one corner of the room, Leland worked

  slowly through a stack of personnel files, one for each of the civilian

  scientists who were conducting studies and experiments in the cavern

  with the immense wooden doors, where the secret of July 6 was contained.

  He was hoping to narrow the field of possible traitors by determining

  which men and women could have been in New York City during the time the

  two notes and Polaroid snapshots had been mailed to Dominick Corvaisis

  in Laguna Beach. He had told Thunder Hill's military security staff to

  do this work on Sunday, and they professed to have completed the

  inquiries and to have found nothing to pinpoint the leak. But in light

  of the screwups in their investigation thus far-including two sabotaged

  lie detectors-he no longer trusted them any more than he trusted Bennell

  or the other scientists, He had to do it himself.

  But right away Leland ran into problems. For one thing, during the past

  eighteen months, two damn many civilians had been brought into the

  conspiracy. Thirty-seven men and women, representing a broad spectrum

  of scientific disciplines, had possessed both high-security clearances

  and specialized knowledge essential to the research program Bennell had

  devised. Thirty-eight civilians, counting Bennell. It was a miracle

  that thirty-eight eggheads, utterly lacking in military discipline,

  could have kept any secret so long, let alone this one.

  Worse, only Bennell and seven others were engaged in the research

  full-time, to the exclusion of all other professional pursuits and to

  the extent that they actually lived in Thunder Hill. The other thirty

  had families and university positions they could not leave for long

  periods of time, so they came and went as their schedules permitted,

  sometimes staying a few days, maybe a few weeks, rarely as long as a few

  months. Therefore, it would be a long and arduous job to investigate

  each and determine if and when he-or she-had been in New York.

  Worse still, of the eight members of the full-time investigatory team,

  three had been in New York in December, including Dr. Miles Bennell

  himself. In short, the list of suspects currently numbered at least

  thirty-three among the scientific research staff alone.

  Leland was also suspicious of the entire Depository security staff,

  though Major Fugata and Lieutenant Helms, the head of security and his

  right-hand man, were supposedly the only security personnel who knew

  what was happening in the forbidden cavern. On Sunday, soon after

  Fugata began questioning the full-time research staff and those

  part-time researchers currently in residence, he discovered that the

  polygraph was damaged and could not produce reliable results. Yesterday,

  when a new machine was sent up from Shenkfield, it also proved

  defective. Fugata said that the second machine was already damaged when

  it arrived from Shenkfield, but that was bullshit.

  Someone involved in the project had seen reports that the witnesses'

  memory blocks were breaking down. Deciding to exploit that opportunity,

  he egged some of them along with cryptic notes and Polaroids stolen from

  the files. The bastard had nearly gotten away with it, and now that the

  heat was coming down on him, he had sabotaged the lie detectors.

  Pausing in his perusal of the personnel files, Leland looked at Miles

  Bennell, who was standing in the small window. "Doctor, give me the

  benefit of your insight into the scientific mind."

  Turning away from the window, Bennell said, "Certainly, Colonel."

  "Everyone working with you knows about the classified CISG report that

  was done seven years ago. They know the terrible consequences that

  might result if we went public with our discoveries. So why would any

  of them be so irresponsible as to undermine project security?"

  Dr. Bennell assumed a tone of earnest helpfulness, but Leland heard the

  acid-sharp disdain beneath the surface: "Some disagree with CISG's

  conclusions. Some think going public with these discoveries wouldn't

  result in a catastrophe, that the CISG was fundamentally'wrong, too

  elitist in its viewpoint."

  "Well, I believe the CISG was correct. And you, Lieutenant Horner?"

  Horner was sitting near the door. "I agree with you, Colonel. If the

  news is broken to the public, they'll have to be prepared slowly, over

  maybe ten years. And even then . . ."

  Leland nodded. To Bennell, he said, "I have a low but realistic opinion

  of my fellow men, Doctor, and I know how poorly most would cope with the

  new world that would follow the release of these discoveries. Chaos.

  Political and social upheaval. Just like the CISG report said."

  Bennell shrugged. "You're entitled to your view." But his tone said:

  Even if your view is ignorant and arrogant and narrow-minded.

  Leaning forward in his chair, Leland said, "How about you, Doctor? Do

  you believe the CISG was right?"

  Evasively, Bennell said, "I'm not your man, Colonel. I didn't send

  those notes and Polaroids to Corvaisis and the Blocks."

  "Okay, Doctor, then will you support my effort to have everyone in the

  project interrogated with the assistance of drugs? Even if we get the

  polygraph fixed, the answers we obtain will be less reliable than those

  we'd get with sodium pentothal and certain other substances."

  Bennell frowned. "Well, there are some who'd object strenuously. These

  are people of sup
erior intellect, Colonel. Intellectual life is their

  primary life, and they won't risk subjecting themselves to drugs that

  might, as a side-effect, have even the slightest permanent detrimental

  effect on their mental function."

  "These drugs don't have that effect. They're safe."

  "They're safe most of the time, maybe. But some of my people will have

  moral objections to using drugs for any reason-even safe drugs, even for

  a worthwhile purpose."

  "Doctor, I'm going to push for drug-assisted interrogation of everyone

  in Thunder Hill, those who know the secret and those who don't. I'm

  going to demand General Alvarado approve." Alvarado was commanding

  officer of the Thunder Hill Depository, a pencil-pushing desk-jockey who

  had spent his career on his backside. Leland liked Alvarado no more

  than he liked Bennell. "If the general approves drug-assisted

  interrogation, and if any of your people then refuse, I'll come down

  hard on them, hard enough to break them. That includes you, if you

  refuse. You understand me?"

  "Oh, perfectly," Bennell said, still unruffled.

  Disgusted, the colonel pushed the remaining personnel files aside. "This

  is too damn slow. I need the traitor quickly, not a month from now.

  We'd better repair the polygraph." He started to get up, then sat down

  as if he'd just thought of what he was about to ask, though it had been

  on his mind since he entered the Depository. "Doctor, what do you think

  of this development with Cronin and Corvaisis? These miraculous cures,

  the other bizarre phenomena. What do you make of it?"

  Finally Bennell showed strong, genuine emotion. He unfolded his hands

  from behind his head and leaned forward in his chair. "I'm sure it

  scares the hell out of you, Colonel. But there could be another, less

  cataclysmic explanation than the one on which you've fixated. Fear is

  your only reaction, while I think it might be the greatest moment in the

  history of the human race. But whatever the case-we've absolutely got

  to talk with Cronin and Corvaisis. Tell them everything and seek their

  cooperation to discover exactly how they obtained these wonderful

  powers. We can't simply eliminate them or put them through another

  memory-wipe without knowing all the answers."

  "If we bring everyone at the Tranquility into this, tell them the

  secret, and then don't wipe their memories again, the cover-up can't be

  maintained."

  "Possibly not," Bennell said. "And if that's the case ... then the

  public will just have to be told. Damn it, Colonel, because of these

  recent developments, studying Cronin and Corvaisis takes precedence over

  everything else, including the coverup. Not only studying them ... but

  letting them have a chance to develop whatever strange talents they may

  have. In fact, when will you take them into custody?"

  "This afternoon, at the latest."

  "Then we can expect you to bring them to us sometime tonight?"

  "Yes." Leland rose from his chair again. He picked up his coat and

  walked to the office door, where Lieutenant Horner was waiting. He

  paused. "Doctor, how will you know if Cronin and Corvaisis are changed

  or not? You think there's no real chance of . . . possession. But

  if you're wrong, if they're not entirely human any more, and if they

  don't want you to know the truth, how would you possibly discover it?

  Obviously, they could defeat a lie detector or any truth serums we

  have."

  "That's a puzzler, all right." Miles Bennell stood up, jammed his hands

  into the pockets of his lab coat, and began to pace energetically. "My

  God, it's a real challenge, isn't it? We've been working on the problem

  ever since we learned about their new powers from you on Sunday. We've

  been through ups and downs, despair, but now we think we can deal with

  it. We've devised medical tests, psychological tests, some tricky damn

  stuff, and we think that all of it taken together will accurately

  determine whether or not they're infected, whether or not they're . . .

  human any more. I think your fears are utterly unfounded. We thought

  infection . . . possession was a danger at first, but it's been more

  than a year since we learned we were wrong. I think they can be

  entirely human and still have these powers. Are entirely human."

  "I don't agree. My fears are well founded. And if Corvaisis and Cronin

  and the others have changed, and if you believe you can get the truth

  out of them, you're kidding yourself. If they've changed, they're so

  superior to you that deceiving you would be child's play."

  "You haven't even heard what we've-"

  "And something else, Doctor. Something you haven't thought of but which

  I must consider. Maybe this will help you appreciate my position, with

  which you've thus far had little sympathy. Don't you realize I have to

  be suspicious and scared of more than just the people at the

  Tranquility? Ever since we've learned of these recent developments,

  these paranormal powers, I've been scared of you, as well."

  Bennell was thunderstruck. "Me?"

  "You've been working here with it, Doctor. You're in that cavern nearly

  every day, doing lab work every day, probing, testing every damn day for

  eighteen months, with only three brief vacations. If Corvaisis and

  Cronin were changed in a few hours of contact, why shouldn't I suspect

  you've been changed after eighteen months?"

  For a moment Bennell was too shocked to speak. Then he said, "But this

  isn't the same at all. My studies here were after the fact. I'm

  essentially a . . . well, a fire marshal, a guy who came in after the

  blaze to sift through the ashes and figure out what happened. The

  potential for possession or infection-if it ever existed-was at the

  beginning, in the first hours, not later."

  "How can I be sure of that?" Leland asked, staring at him coldly.

  "But under these lab conditions, with safety precautions-"

  "We're dealing with the unknown, Doctor. We can't foresee every problem

  that might arise. That's the very nature of the unknown. And you can't

  take precautions against something you can't foresee."

  Bennell shook his head violently in denial of the very possibility. "No,

  no, no. Oh, no."

  "If you think I'm exaggerating my concern just to irritate you," Leland

  said, "then you might ask yourself why Lieutenant Horner sat in that

  chair so alertly during our long conversation. After all, as you know,

  he's an expert in polygraphs, and he could have gone and repaired yours

  while you and I talked. But I didn't want to be in a room with you

  alone, Doctor Bennell. Not alone. No way."

  Blinking, Bennell said, "You mean, because I might've somehow . . ."

  Leland nodded. "Because if you have been changed, then you might have

  been able to change me, too, by some process I can't even begin to

  imagine. Alone, you might have used the opportunity to attack me,

  infect me, arrange for me to be possessed, pour the human spirit out of

  me and pour something else in." Leland shuddered. "Hell, I don't know

  how to put it best, but we both know what I mean."

  "We even wondered
if two of us were enough to insure our safety,"

  Lieutenant Horner said, his voice rumbling through the low-ceilinged

  room and vibrating vaguely in the metal walls. "I kept a close eye on

  you, Doctor. You didn't notice my hand was always near my revolver."

  Bennell was too astonished to speak.

  Leland said, "Doctor, you may think I'm a suspicious bastard who's too

  quick on the trigger, an unregenerate xenophobic fascist. But I've been

  put in charge of this not merely to keep the truth from the public but

  also to protect them, and it's part of my job to think of the worst and

  then to act as if it will inevitably happen."

  "Jesus H. Christ!" Bennell said. "You're total, off-the-wall

  paranoids, both of you!"

  "I'd expect you to react that way," Leland told him, "whether or not

  you're still a full-fledged member of the human race."

  To Horner he said, "Let's go. You have a polygraph to repair."

  Horner went out into The Hub, and Leland started after him.

  Bennell said, "Wait, wait. Please."

  Leland looked back at the pale, black-bearded man.

  "All right, Colonel. Okay. Maybe I can see why you've got to be

  suspicious, why it's just part of your job. It's crazy nonetheless.

  There's no chance that I or any of my people could've been . . .

  inhabited by something else. No chance. But if you were ready to kill

  me if I aroused your suspicion, would you also kill everyone working

  under me if you decided they'd all been taken over?"