Cat's Cradle (16 page)

“I’m telling you the truth, Gordon.”

The pause grew longer. When Gordon again spoke, his voice was no more than a whisper, with Dan straining to hear. “The truth? You’re not putting me on? Mack really didn’t put you up to this?”

“I haven’t seen Mack in years, Gordon. I don’t even know where he is. Gordon, I need some help on this. I can’t fight the OSS with what I have. They’ve gotten to some people in very high places in this state. I need help bad.”

“Jesus Christ, Dan! I thought . . . I mean . . . Dan, what can I do? If just ten percent of what you told me is true, man, we’re talking heavy, heavy stuff. If just a word of the OSS being there leaks out, you’re going to have Russian agents crawling all over your little county. They’ll be coming in there as fishermen, tourists, truck drivers, backpackers—you name it.”

“It’s all true, Gordon. Every word of it. Who can you trust in the Agency?”

“Oh, those days are over, Dan. Wait a sec. Just hold what you got. Personally, I’d like to put that lousy OSS all the way out of business. Everybody thinks we’re behind it. Gives us a bad name. Can you stay put for fifteen minutes?”

“I’ll be right here.” He gave the man his office number.

“All right. I’ll call you back. You’re sure your office and phone is clear?”

“I just had an expert from the Virginia State Police sweep it.”

“I’ll call you back in fifteen minutes. Twenty tops.”

“I’ll be here.” Dan hung up and looked at Taylor. “We might have some help on the way.”

“Man, I hope so.”

Chuck grimaced and said, “Oh, no! There’s that damn libber again. I thought we were through with her.”

Dan looked up. Mille Smith was standing outside his office, looking at him through the glass. The young man by her side was the freakiest looking individual Dan had seen since the hippie heyday.

Doctor Reed thought Bennett had placed the body of Denise in cold storage. Bennett thought Doctor Roberts had stowed away the body. Goodson thought Doctor Avery had slid her into the cold box. All of them were far too busy trying to save the life of Deputy Bowie to give the dead girl a second thought.

Bowie was showing signs of going the same route as the mummy-man. Goodson was quietly but frantically studying sample after sample of skin tissue, trying to find some way, some drug,
something,
to reverse the aging process. Nothing was working. Nothing. He threw down his pen in disgust and rubbed his tired eyes. Nothing made any sense. Mickey had attacked both the girl and the deputy. One contracted a rabies-like condition, the other showed no signs of rabies, but instead had begun aging like the engineer, who was attacked by . . . what? Or whom?

That was the key, of course. Very unprofessionally, Goodson muttered, “We’re wasting our time until we find the initial attackers. They’re the carriers. They’ve got to be found.”

He left the lab and walked into the small intensive care unit. The OSS doctors were standing around Bowie’s bed, none of them knowing what to do or try next. “I’m going to take some more samples from the girl,” Goodson told Bennett. “So far I’m drawing a blank.”

Bennett pulled out the first drawer of cold storage. Nothing. He tried the other three. Same thing. Empty except for the bag containing some remains of Nick Hardy. Goodson walked over to the fourth trailer, which had been pressed into service after Al the engineer refused to die—astounding them all-and looked in on Al. The poor mummy-like man was in leather restraints, secured to his bed. Al rolled his eyes and looked at Goodson. He began speaking in a strange tongue. Almost a pleading tone in his voice.

“If I knew how to put you out of your misery,” Goodson said. “I would.”

The mummy’s brain, heart, and other vital organs had suffered horrible damage from the slugs and buckshot from the police. Then it had begun repairing itself. The doctors could but stand and look in disbelief. The creature had sustained what should have been a dozen fatal hits. But it simply would not die.

Goodson walked to the bed and looked at what had once been productive human life. “What are you?” he asked. “What in God’s name has happened to you?”

The mummy-man began speaking to Goodson. The doctor recognized the words as Arabic, but it had to be ancient Arabic.

And Goodson knew from reading the profile on Al that the man had never studied languages or been outside the continental United States.

Everything about the man was impossible. It flew in the face of science.

Could another being be inside the man? Something... something from the nether world?

Goodson shook those thoughts away. He didn’t know what to believe or think or ...

Goodson looked at the guard when leaving and said, “What would you do if the creature broke loose, son? ”

“I really don’t know, sir,” the guard replied honestly.

“I see.” Goodson looked at the man’s sidearm. “Well, Diogenes would not have been totally disappointed had he come here.”

The guard blinked. “Sir?”

Goodson shook his head. “Nothing, son. Just the babblings of an old man.” He walked away and conducted a thorough search of all the trailers. Irritated, he walked back to the main unit.

“What have you done with the girl?” he asked Bennett.

“The Moore girl?”

“Yes.”

“She’s in the cold room.”

“No, she is not,” Goodson said.

Bennett looked at Roberts. “Didn’t you put her in the vault?”

“No. I thought you did.”

“Are you sure she’s missing?” Bennett asked Goodson.

“Goddamnit, man! I’m not in the habit of confusing the living with the dead. Of course, I’m certain.”

Fear touched Bennett’s eyes, disappearing as swiftly as it came. “Well, she couldn’t have
walked
out of here.”

Goodson met his eyes. “I wouldn’t bet on it,” he said.

“Game time is all over, Sheriff,” Mille said with a smirk. “I’m going to lift the lid off your slimy little coverup and blow you out of the water.”

“Oh, Ms. Smith? That’s interesting. Where did you get the idea we were covering up anything?”

“Don’t insult my intelligence and I won’t insult yours, Sheriff.”

“All right, Ms. Smith. You seem to have the floor. So proceed.”

Mille looked at her notepad. “In 1965, Sheriff, in New York City, there was a rash of murders. Same M.O. as what’s been occurring in Ruger County. In 1940, the same thing occurred in New Orleans. Same M.O. In 1915, it happened in St. Louis. Same M.O. It was 1890 in Boston. Same M.O. In 1865, in England. Same M.O. Are you going to sit there and tell me that you and the rest of the cops were not aware of that?”

Dan did a little work on his adding machine. “Twenty five year difference in all those dates, Ms. Smith. Twenty year difference in ’65 and ’85. How do you account for that?” Dan recalled Mike’s words. Was it possible? Had the rest cycle been disturbed? Was the religion real after all? What were they dealing with here in Ruger?

“I don’t know,” Mille said. “But there are too many similarities to be coincidence.”

“You may be right, Ms. Smith,” Dan surprised her by saying. “But, no, I was not aware of all those murders.” Dan was doing some fast thinking and stalling. Gordon was due to call back at any moment. And as much as he disliked Ms. Mille Smith, he would not have consider handing her over to Lou Lamotta.

Maybe there was another way? Dan had run her. He knew from the computer printouts about her brother. He knew the young woman was mentally warped when it came to her thinking about police officers. Dan was anything but a fool. He knew there were a lot of rogue cops in the U.S. And he had never adopted the attitude that so many cops form: that everyone is guilty and must be proved innocent. He did not practice nor tolerate a double-standard of justice. No person was above the law. The wealthy of Ruger County had not supported Dan’s bid for sheriff. Never had. They knew the man would come down as hard on them as he did on anyone else. And did just that.

No, the average man and woman had put Dan in office, and were keeping him in office. And that was the overriding reason this coverup rankled Dan so.

He lifted his eyes and looked at Mille. “I’ll make a deal with you, Ms. Smith.”

She recoiled as if hit with a stun gun. “I’d sooner make a deal with the devil!”

Dan smiled without mirth. “That ... might be closer to the truth than you realize, Ms. Smith.”

“What?”

“I want you to sit on this story, Ms. Smith. In return, and I’ll put it in writing, I will give you first shot when it’s time to break the news.”

She shook her head. “I don’t believe you, Sheriff. You’re lying.”

“No, Ms. Smith. I’m trying to level with you. I’ve got ten thousand men, women, and kids in this county to worry about. Ten thousand reasons to make a deal with you.”

Mille cocked her head, staring at the man, trying to visually find a chink in his armor. “You’ll give me exclusive interviews, and that is including yourself?”

“Yes.”

“How long do I sit on it?”

“That, I can’t say for sure. But I don’t think it’s going to be a very long wait.”

Mille stared at Dan for a long half minute. Finally she said, “I want you to level with me, Sheriff.” Something about this hick cop struck a responsive chord deep within her. The man sounded so sincere. Big ol’ basset hound eyes. Crap! Mille would never admit it aloud, but she had run up on one or two pretty decent cops in her life. Well, maybe three or four. “You tell me the whole story. The truth-all of it. In return ... sort of a guarantee, I guess you could call it ... insurance ... you can write up an arrest warrant against Kenny and me. We’ll sign it. You can say . . .” She sighed. She reached into her purse and tossed a small bottle on Dan’s desk. “That’s full of coke. Give him yours, Kenny.”

Kenny looked like he was about to shit. But he did as Mille instructed, tossing a similar container onto Dan’s desk.

Dan smiled and shook his head. He looked at the bottles of white powder. A lot of lines in those bottles, he thought. Why do they do it? he asked himself the age-old question that straight cops have asked for years. Young and successful and they want to ruin their lives. He shrugged it off and pushed the bottles back to the young woman and man. He stuck out his hand.

“We’ve got to have some trust in this, Ms. Smith. You’ll understand why I say that after you learn everything that’s going down. But right now, I would like for you to go with Captain Taylor.” Seeing the sudden suspicion on her face Dan quickly said, “It’s not what you think. I’m expecting a phone call from a friend. In government. Federal government. He may agree to help us on this matter. If he does, he’ll be putting his job, his career, up for grabs, and possibly be facing a prison sentence just for helping us. Not to mention putting his life on the line.”

The suspicion faded from her face. She said, “Has to be someone in the CIA. Super spook.”

Very quick, Dan noted. She’s smart as hell. Without changing expression, he said, “Captain Taylor will lay it all out for you. Then when I’m free, you can ask me any questions you like. Deal?”

She shook his hand. “Deal, Sheriff.”

Chuck looked very dubious about the whole thing.

Kenny looked at the chief deputy and inwardly shuddered in disbelief. The deputy looked ...
freaky
!

* * *

Denise stood naked in the woods outside the terminal compound fence. She looked down at the yellow cat which sat at her feet. The cat rose and walked away. Denise followed. The sharp briars that grabbed her bare feet and calves did not bother her. She was long past feeling any pain. Birds flew away at her approach. Squirrels and other woods animals remained motionless in their hiding places until she passed. She never blinked her eyes. They stared straight ahead. Her eyes were a curious shade of yellow.

Denise walked through the woods until a very faint bubbling sound reached her. She turned toward the source, following the putrid smell that wafted from the ground.

A small pool of liquid had appeared in the ground. She knelt down beside it and drank deeply from the hand-sized bubbling pool, the cat beside her, lapping at the foul-smelling liquid.

When they had drunk their fill, Denise and the cat rested for a time by the pool.

* * *

Eddie Brown had cautiously made his way into town during the night. He now lay in the dusty darkness of a church basement. A cat sat on a boxful of old worn church hymnals. The pair waited.

For the call.

* * *

Mickey Reynolds had moved from the shopping center back to the school. Some primitive sense of survival had told him the school would be the safest place. The hunters would not likely look for him there. Not again. He made his way to the basement of the school, crawling behind some boxes and crates. He looked up through the darkness. A cat sat on a box, looking back at him.

They waited.

* * *

Alice Ramsey and Emily Harrison sat in Alice’s lovely home, drinking coffee.

“Do you have any idea what in the world is going on?” Alice asked.

“Only that it has something to do with the reopening of that old truck terminal outside of town.”

“Something, well, very strange is going on. Quinn actually snapped at me this morning when I asked him about his ... abnormal behavior of late. He’s never, ever, done that before.”

“You have any binoculars, Alice?”

“Why . . . yes. Quinn does. Of course. What? ...” Her face brightened. “Oh, yes, I see. Do you?”

“Yes.”

Alice looked at her watch. “We’ll have to change into outdoorsy clothing. I’ll meet you back here in an hour, all right?”

“I’ll be here.”

* * *

“Here’s what I can do, Dan,” Gordon said. “I’ve been authorized to take a short leave. Short, depending on how long it takes to wrap this up. Give me an hour to pack some things, and I’ll be on the road heading for your location. I’ll be bringing a female operative with me. June Pletcher. I have to stress this, Dan: we have no official power. None. You know the rules. Lamotta doesn’t know either of us. We’re coming in as IRS field agents.” He laughed. “If Lamotta does check us out, he’ll find that it holds up. We’ve worked that angle before stateside.”

Dan smiled. He knew that a certain section of the CIA paid about as much attention to the law forbidding their work inside the borders of the U.S. as a hog does to table manners. “Shame on you, Gordon.”

“I know, buddy. I pray for guidance every night before bedtime. See you mid-afternoon.” He hung up.

Dan felt a slight sense of relief. Gordon would be coming in under specific orders. If there was a possible way to end the power-play by the OSS, Gordon would find it and do it. And if it had to be concluded with gunplay, that was fine with Gordon.

Dan motioned for Taylor, Mille, and Kenny to come inside his office. When they were seated, Dan looked at the young woman.

“You’ve been briefed?”

“Yes.”

“Now you see why we’re sitting on this thing, Mille?”

Mille sighed. She looked at Taylor, then lifted her eyes as Chuck entered the room. “Is this on the level, Sheriff? I just can’t believe you people are serious. I mean, I can’t believe any of this.”

Dan shrugged his shoulders. “Believe this, Mille: I wish it was all a bad dream. Unfortunately, I can’t show you the pictures we took of the victims. The OSS stole them out of this office.”

Mille’s smile was as thin as weak ice. “You mean the brotherhood of the badge was violated?”

Taylor grunted. “Lamotta is no cop, girl. I don’t know what exactly what he is.”

Dan said, “Let me stress this, Mille: don’t get crossways with Lamotta.” He looked at Kenny. “Either of you. The man is a psycho. He’s vicious.” He told them about Lou’s threats. “See what I mean?