Masquerade (37 page)

She looked at the bottle as Sid picked it up. She clamped her hand over her mouth, but it was no use. Fess pulled her hand away and forced her mouth open. Sid poured the whisky down her throat. She gagged and coughed. Then the alcohol hit her bloodstream. Warmth and relaxation swept through her. She sobbed and reached for the bottle.

Chapter 41

Dr. Levine gestured across the dining table, his eyes glowing. “Not long ago my scientific achievements would have seemed wizardry. Now they're merely part of biotechnology.” His skull-head was thrown back, savoring his successes. If Sarah hadn't been so tense, she'd have enjoyed the irony—he'd used LSD to experiment on unknowing victims, and now he was an unknowing LSD victim himself.

“Today, DNA can decode the universe, babies start life in Petri dishes, and a synthetic human-growth hormone can reverse dwarfism,” he continued. “Research was recently published claiming we'll soon know so much about replacing pieces of human chemistry we'll be able to slow aging and reverse some of its effects.” He laughed too loudly. “I could've published that myself, because it's one of the tools I've developed and have been using extensively here at Je Suis Chez Moi!”

Listening to him, knowing what he'd done, nauseated Sarah. But she had to learn how and when she was supposed to help Hughes Bremner murder the Carnivore. “What's my role in M
ASQUERADE
?”

He blinked at her, then smiled craftily. “Ah, that you'll find out soon, eh?” He laughed aloud, pleased with himself. Besides the excitement of gathering her data for his files, it seemed to her he was beginning to show the effects of the delirium. Soon the LSD hallucinations should begin, too. His symptoms could
include spasms, choking, and massive psychedelic visions. Eventually he'd lose control and love it, and then she'd have to grab her Beretta from his coat pocket and escape before the video cameras alerted security to stop her.

She said, “Je Suis Chez Moi has to be very important to Bremner. All the money it must have cost. This suite, for example. Impeccable and extremely expensive.”

Levine waved his hand dreamily. “All our suites are magnificent. Only the elite of Paris can come here.”

“Like the Prime Minister?”

“Oh, yes, especially Prime Minister Vauban.” He almost giggled. “Because of the great politician and his powerful friends, Hughes will soon give us permanent funding for a fully equipped lab in which I'll continue to push the envelope of modern science. And all because of my work with MK-U
LTRA
and you—my first complete identity transfer. Your redesign was a victory, until Gordon bungled the memory pill. But by Monday the Carnivore will be dead, and I'll never have to beg for money again!” He beamed at Sarah, on the edge of a complete ecstasy-LSD high. Maybe she could break through his defenses now.

“Monday? Is that when the Carnivore is coming in?”

“No. Eight o'clock Sunday night.
All
our worries—”

“That's tomorrow!”

“Plenty of time, now that you're here.” He arose, swaying but unaware of it. “Come, there's something you should see.”

She wanted to bash him against the wall, shatter every bone in his evil body. But she followed him out into the corridor. She looked for attendants, but there were none. Not twenty feet away she saw the massive double front doors. She had no time to see more before they turned down a side hallway.

Levine opened the first in a series of closed doors, and they entered a massage room scented with pungent eucalyptus oil. A young man was working the quadriceps of an attractive woman of about thirty. She lay beneath a sheet, and an IV dripped into her thigh. Her eyes were closed, and she appeared to be sleeping, yet there was a sunny smile on her face.

Sarah said, “I recognize her—”

Levine waved a hand smugly. “Louise Dupuy, France's most popular news anchor.”

The young masseur stared at the doctor.

“And the most powerful,” Sarah said quickly and stepped between Levine and the young man. “But she's got to be fifty years old, not thirty. And she used to have an enormous weight problem.”

The doctor clasped his small hands. “She's also an alcoholic and has a history of drug abuse. But she's been coming to me for a year. At first it was four hours a day, because her problems were so vast. Now it's only one hour. She's had cosmetic surgery. She takes no more drugs or alcohol, and she eats and rests properly. That, plus our exercise, resistance, and chemical programs have resulted in this.” He swept his hand grandly over her slender, still frame. “Now she no longer fears losing her job to a younger and more beautiful competitor, because she herself
is
young and extremely competitive.”

“Amazing,” Sarah said, taking Levine's arm as the masseur again stared. “There can't be more than this.”

“More?” The doctor swayed, then laughed aloud. “I'll show you more. Come on.”

They returned to the empty hall. He reached out to balance himself against the wall, his face puzzled.

“Did you change Louise Dupuy's personality?”

He pushed himself upright, nodded vigorously. “An attitude adjustment, you might say. I've discovered chemicals that cause certain personality traits, and from that I've developed drugs so I can perform mental makeovers. Each client gets a standard neural sculpting, which includes patterning them to return here daily and to feel robust and self-confident, plus whatever idiosyncratic changes they or we want. Not so difficult now.”

He opened the next door, and they entered a twilight room of tubes, blinking lights, and the soft whoosh and click of various machines. The air smelled of antiseptic and soap. In the center was a cot on which lay a white-blanketed man with an IV dripping and various attachments to heart, forehead, wrists, and ankles.

There was no attendant in this room. The doctor's hand trembled as he touched the man's forehead, but the caress was so gentle it seemed almost loving. The man's eyes stared at the ceiling as if he were seeing a distant land.

“Gerard,” Dr. Levine asked in French, “how do you feel?”

“Joyeux. Robuste. Intelligent. Constant. Vive La Grandeur!”

“You see, Sarah, our Gerard is a tycoon who owns many companies. His workers threaten to strike because of low wages, long hours, and poor working conditions. And of course there are the new, very high taxes.” He translated for Gerard. “Correct?”

“Absolument!”

The doctor hesitated, trying to construct his next thought. Then: “But Gerard is aware of the greater good, and so he is holding steadfast—
constant
—and refusing to give them what they want. Therefore, most will surely strike on Monday,
non
?”

He again translated, and Gerard agreed.

“But why not give them something of what they need?”

“Some of our special clients are vital to Hughes. All had to learn certain ‘attitudes.' The neural circuits responsible for ideas or attitudes are slow to act in the beginning, but once the idea is practiced over and over—much as you experienced as you assumed the identity of Liz Sansborough—the brain reorganizes itself and changes the neural circuitry to embed the idea. Aided by pharmacopeia, the process is infallible, and the payoff is, of course,
La Grandeur
—”

He froze. Sarah tensed. The doctor doubled over, head nearly at his knees. He made a hoarse sound in his chest, deep and painful, and straightened instantly upright. He swayed back and forth as if caught in an earthquake, then lurched around the dim room knocking down machines, smashing equipment, holding to anything he could. He turned his head to stare at Sarah, seeming to understand something was amiss. He whacked over the IV and crashed into the cot, throwing Gerard naked to the floor.

Sarah yelled up to a camera, “Medical emergency! Hurry! Medical emergency!” She grabbed a long white lab coat from a hook on the wall and quickly put it on, an impromptu disguise.

Levine lurched, stared at her. “What's wrong with me?”
Bewilderment stretched his skull-face in a grimace. Then his features transformed: He grinned, happy, euphoric, and abruptly collapsed. Sarah grabbed him, turned his back to the cameras, and slipped her Beretta from his coat pocket. Then she let him fall to the floor and jumped behind the door.

She could hear feet pounding down the corridor. She steeled herself—she had to be tougher this time.

Six people burst in. Two, with stethoscopes jammed into the pockets of their white coats, ran to Levine and Gerard. Two more, who looked like nurses or orderlies, joined them. The fifth, a female attendant with a gun, stood over the others. The sixth held an automatic in front of him with both hands and swiveled all around the room. He saw Sarah and her Beretta. She felt herself hesitate.

“Who are you!” His finger tightened on his trigger.

She had no choice. She shot, and he slammed back against the female attendant with the gun. Sarah dashed into the corridor. She waited, nerves frayed. The female attendant ran out, gun up but off-balance. Sarah slammed her Beretta across the woman's face. The woman sprawled unconscious, and Sarah tore off toward the front corridor.

One of the front doors was open, and a voice spoke loudly from outside to an attendant who looked down from the doorway. “But my dear! No one refuses Blount McCaw. Tell your guru doctor he'll really,
really
want to talk to me!”

Oh, God! It was the unmistakable voice of her old friend and informant, Blount McCaw. He slid past the attendant and turned down the hall toward Sarah. He was wearing chinos and photographer's vest, no shirt, waving a tape recorder. Two more attendants ran past Sarah toward him. They were the young couple from the Café Justine! Bremner's people! Both had guns out, but in their haste they'd seen only the white lab coat Sarah wore and had not noticed who she was.

Blount saw their weapons and froze in terror.

Sarah yelled, “Blount! Get out of here!”

“Sarah? My God, Sarah, is that you? What have you done to yourself? You used to look so original, and now . . . your face! It's
ordinary
! You look like a
celebrity
!”

A mournful beep began to pulse all around them. It was the security alarm, rising and falling with the hypnotic insistence of “Bolero.” For a split second, Bremner's agents were confused. The woman fired at Blount, who had turned to run.

Blount's head exploded. The shot had entered from behind and exited out his nose, taking off the top part of his face and leaving his lips peeled back in terror.

“Blount!” she screamed. But she knew he was dead, and she knew she had to save herself.

The man had seen her face and recognized her. His weapon focused on her heart. She didn't hesitate. She shot him three times. He fell, blood geysering from his chest. As she charged to the doorway she shot the woman's leg out from under her. The attendant at the door dove for cover.

Sarah sprinted past the unarmed attendant and the body of Blount McCaw and out into the warm night air, the “Bolero” alarm relentless and maniacal behind her. The long lab coat flapped against the backs of her legs as she picked up speed.

Then, a sudden, needle-sharp pain pierced her brain. A bullet had sliced across her left shoulder. Blood streamed out onto the white lab coat. Tears rose in her eyes, but they were more for Blount than for herself. She had no time for tears. She tore down the sidewalk as if all the hounds of hell chased her.

Within seconds a half-dozen Je Suis Chez Moi attendants cascaded through the door. She reached the rue Vivienne still holding her Beretta, with no money, no passport, no car, and too many trained killers in hot pursuit. She sprinted through traffic to the other side of the street. Horns blared. Drivers cursed. She pushed panic from her mind.

She saw the older gentleman with the straw Panama and red tartan band back at his outdoor table at the Café Justine. The hat was pulled low over his eyes, and the stem of his pipe was sticking up from his shirt pocket. In the haze of her mind it almost seemed he stood up and gestured to her.

Before she could sort it out, a huge force threw her explosively against a shop wall. A thunderous roar deafened her. She ducked and wrapped her arms over her head as bricks and stucco pelted down from the buildings above.

When at last it seemed safe, she stood and looked back. The front of the Greco-Roman mansion that housed Je Suis Chez Moi had disappeared behind a thick cloud. One stone column remained standing, rising above the smoke. Thick gray vapors billowed out into the street.

It had to have been a bomb. Did someone have some kind of vendetta against Je Suis Chez Moi? Or . . . another thought . . . perhaps it had been intended to kill her!

Chapter 42

At the explosion, cars had slammed and crashed into each other all along the rue Vivienne. People shouted. Smoke spread. Residents ran out of apartments and cafés to see what had happened. Sarah noticed the man in the straw Panama strolling away, newspaper rolled under his arm, hands buried deep in his pockets as if nothing had happened. There was a jaunty air about him, and it seemed to her he was whistling.

Suddenly three bullets sang past her face so close she felt their hot draft, and a man in a white attendant's uniform limped toward her from out of the smoke and dust. She ran in a twisting course, around corners and along dark streets, for five full minutes before she glanced back over her shoulder. He was still chasing, and now there was a second one! A big man who appeared to be injured and a muscular, armed woman.

Sarah put on a burst of speed. Who'd set the bomb? And why? The man in the straw Panama might have had something to do with it. Otherwise he'd have stopped at the curb with the other gawkers to enjoy the thrill of the spectacle, or he'd have joined in the rescue operations. Had he gestured to her? Maybe tried to warn her? Or to point her closer so she'd die?