The Fury and the Terror (16 page)

"Thank you. Of course, I'm still committed to the Aegis Two Option, more than ever now that I'm, umm, where I am." Dunbar smiled tensely and had another go at his now-inflamed scalp. "This psychometric stuff—that was a movie, wasn't it? Sissy Spacek's eyes got big and then kitchen drawers opened and she sent all the cutlery flying at her demented mother. What happened after that? The house burned down, I think."

"Mr. President, quite frankly
our
house—as a metaphor of the government of the United States—is on fire and in danger of burning down if we do not act quickly and without compunction."

"You have some evidence?
Can
solid objects be moved through the, the power of the mind?"

"I've recently reviewed film and audio tapes from Carsten Burrows's personal archives, all of it more than twenty years old. They concern startling experiments MORG did with a young psychic named Robin Sandza. The experiments made a believer of me. No doubt that the boy had inhuman powers. Burrows later received information from a CIA Supergrade that Sandza had died in a fall while trying to escape from Psi Faculty, shortly after his fifteenth birthday. It happened the night that Childermass, whom we have to thank for Multiphasic Operations and Research Group, also died, in his bathtub."

"Heart attack, wasn't it?"

"No. His body was bled out. A gruesome death. But it wasn't suicide. I spent years investigating Psi Faculty, what went on there. As you know, we still maintain a MORG watch section at the Bureau, with sixty agents assigned. We have two bunker warehouses filled with intelligence. But the most significant breakthrough in our understanding of what is going on at MORG came only this week."

"That's why you're here," Dunbar said with a tense grin as he furiously worked his fingers into his scalp.

"That's why I'm here. Excuse me for just a moment while I prepare this."

Hyde got up and opened a laptop computer on a round table a few feet from where he'd been sitting. He booted it up, then inserted a CD-ROM that he took from an attaché case equipped with the kind of security devices that meant instant death to any would-be intruders not in possession of the unlocking codes. He changed the angle of the laptop on the table so that Dunbar could easily see the screen.
Click
. A boyish image appeared, a young man in a snapshot, leaning against an iron fence atop a stone wall, looking back over one shoulder as if someone had just called to him. There was a river in the background and, distantly, tall red-banded smokestacks.

"This is Robin Sandza. A Polaroid photograph found in the effects of Dr. Irving Roth, former director of Paragon Institute on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Paragon was an entry-level research facility for young people with psi ability. The photo was taken across the street in Carl Schurz Park. Dr. Roth apparently got on the bad side of Childermass, who was notoriously paranoid. Roth simply disappeared one day. No trace of him has ever been found."

The image of Robin Sandza was enhanced, then replaced with an artist's likeness. Moments later another face appeared, beside the image of the red-haired boy.

"And we know who this is," Hyde said, smiling slightly at the effect the juxtaposition had on Allen Dunbar.

"Uncanny resemblance. But can you be sure?"

"No doubt at all, sir." The two portraits, man and boy, were diminished in size on the active matrix screen. Below each face a fingerprint appeared.

They were slowly enlarged until the loops and whorls were easily distinguished. An overlay of technical analysis completed the montage. "The print on the left is from the index finger of Robin Sandza. We took it from the taped handle of a baseball bat stored in the attic of the house in Lambeth, Virginia, where he spent his boyhood years. The print on the right is from the same index finger. It came from a table microphone shortly after the adjournment of a special Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing this past Tuesday. Victor Wilding almost never appears in public, as we know, but occasionally he has to show up where the money is. During the course of the hearing he was seen to adjust the microphone by one of our agents, who acted as soon as Wilding and his entourage left the chamber.

"Matching fingerprints aren't all we have, however. We also have realized a significant DNA match, coming up now on screen. Hairs removed from a Daffy Duck stuffed animal that Robin Sandza slept with as a child. And, ah, residue from a urinal that Wilding used in the men's room during a recess in the recent hearing. The urinal failed to flush, and one of our men was on the spot with his handkerchief as soon as Wilding walked out."

"FBI thoroughness," Dunbar said admiringly; then a look of concern settled on his bony face. "So 'Victor Wilding' is the adult version of the young man with ... was it 'inhuman powers,' you said?"

"That was Carsten Burrows's evaluation, Mr. President. Having worked under Burrows, known him for the analytical and fair-minded man he was, I'm inclined to accept it. And a further judgment he made, based on a CIA eyewitness report the night of the demonstration."

"Which was?"

"He concluded in his journal that the powers of Robin Sandza had only negative implications for the well-being of our country. He quoted Boyd Huckle, who was present at the demonstration, as saying, 'I'm convinced that you had better kill the little shit-face before he causes some real grief.'"

"I sure do miss Boyd. Right or wrong, you knew where he stood."

"Huckle was entirely correct. Clairvoyants, telepaths, the psychically gifted. They represent a direct threat to us, to
your
presidency."

"Uh-huh. Uh-huh. But do you—is there evidence that Rona Harvester might have—"

"Psychic powers? No. She doesn't need them. Robin Sandza is her lover; therefore all of MORG is at her disposal. Mr. President, we
can
still deal with them. And all of those young psychics who are currently 'coming out;' destined to join forces with MORG. Like the college girl in California who made the call on the TRANSPAC 1850 crash minutes before it happened. MORG is looking for her as we speak, bet on that. But I've known about her existence for some time. She will never be a problem for us."

"I saw her on the tube today! She strongly reminded me of someone, but I couldn't recall—"

Bob Hyde nodded slightly, but not as a confirmation. It wasn't news to him how strongly Eden Waring favored her mother. He smiled, which was rare. He reached into an inside pocket of his suit coat.

"Almost forgot about this. A little gift for you, Mr. President. From myself and my son. Like you he's always been an avid collector of baseball cards."

Dunbar took the plastic case and looked at his gift. His pensive expression was transformed by awe and then glee.

"Omigod!
Ted Williams's
rookie card. Whoa! This is terrific, Bob. 'The Splendid Splinter.' I'm so grateful. Can't thank you enough. And your son, don't forget to convey my heartfelt thanks. How's the boy doing, by the way? Heard from him lately?"

"Doing quite well in his present assignment. I am expecting a call from him. Mr. President, would it be presumptuous of me to suggest another ounce or two of that excellent whiskey?"

"Not at all, Bob," Dunbar said. "I sure could use another blast. This little session of ours has been an eye-opener." He chuckled uneasily. "I'm tempted to say, a
mindblower
."

Hyde smiled again. Twice in one night qualified as an event. But he was feeling good about the way things were going. He poured the scotch for them. Three ounces over ice for Allen Dunbar. Hyde knew his habits. He knew his man. They sipped in silence, each with his own thoughts, which might have been the same thoughts.

MOBY BAY, CALIFORNIA • MAY 28 • 8:20 P.M. PDT

F
ogbound, sea-saddened, Eden walked the sand in shivering rue, silence in her mind. She wore borrowed clothes and stodgy sandals. Her bare toes were numb from inundation, the last frothy swish of each booming wave. Her hair felt stiff from salt spray. There was a nearly full moon, squash-colored, above the drifting fog, visible from time to time. And the sea had its own secret phosphorescence.

One side of her tongue throbbed as if from a hornet's sting; she had bitten it at the onset of her seizure. Hours ago. Wardella Tinch had made tea for them on arrival at her beachfront home, but Eden wasn't able to keep anything else on her stomach. Neither fully awake nor sleepwalking, she trudged along beside the great cold weight of the Pacific, yearning for her home. For things as they once were, and (she already understood) never could be again.

"Oh, shit," Eden said dispiritedly to a couple of sandpipers walking ahead of her. She found it as difficult to talk as if her mouth were stuffed with pebbles. The pipers took wing and coasted a few yards farther up the beach. But it was no weather for flying.

She had been in a post-seizure stupor as they approached the house on Deep Creek Road, with a terrible headache and no memory of what had happened to her after they'd left the, cemetery in the ratty old pickup truck. At which point the medium, seeing the crowd around the Warings' gate, the TV news vans with their satellite uplinks, pushed Eden down in the seat and held her there, showing the strength of arm gained from decades of playing her Titano free bass accordion. Not an instrument for wimps, Wardella avowed.

"I felt that it was in your best interests not to have to face inquiries just then. And those news people can be so obnoxious. So I drove right on past your gate and headed for Moby Bay. I do hope you're not angry."

Eden lacked the energy to be angry. She slept again after their arrival at Wardella's seaside abode, waking up after dark to find that her much-abused graduation dress had been whisked away. Wardella had washed and dried the dress and her bra; but the dress was no longer wearable. A change of clothes had been provided for Eden: dungarees, a fisherman's sweater, and the chunky homemade sandals of saddle leather and brass rivets.

She hated what she saw in the bathroom mirror. There was a comb on the sink that looked clean and a new, unwrapped toothbrush. Eden did what she could with the comb and passed on brushing her teeth, her tongue hurt too much.

It was a boxy prairie-style house, catty-corner at the brink of a rocky headland, showing a blank wall to the ocean view and often-violent winds. There were two bedrooms and a parlor downstairs. Kitchen windows overlooked a protected English garden: hedges and lots of trellises for climbing roses and wide-mouthed amapolla. Fog-muted cypress fronted the road.

In the kitchen Wardella Tinch was hosting her Saturday-night poker group. Four other men and women, all about her age, budding septuagenarians. Wardella had made gingerbread, which was cooling on a sideboard.

"Oh, that
stinks
," one of the ladies said, throwing in her hand when confronted with three kings.

"Mrs. Tinch?"

Wardella was wearing a green plastic eyeshade. She turned and smiled at Eden, shuffling the cards meanwhile.

"Hello, dear. Why don't you call me Wardella? Do Chauncey's things fit you?"

"Pretty much. Thank you. Wardella. Who is Chauncey?"

"A lovely young friend of mine who lives north along the cove about a mile. She's dying to meet you. Maybe she'll drop by later. And these are some of my other friends."

Everyone around the table nodded amiably as Mrs. Tinch introduced them. "And the one who's sulking right now because Fred called her bluff is my sister-in-law Daphne Yawl."

"I am
not
sulking, Wardella. If I
were
sulking, I'd have all your pots and pans hanging over the stove banging around like tone-deaf church bells."

Wardella smiled indulgently. "Hope blooms eternally. But even so, someday you'll learn not to draw to an inside straight, lovely."

The old gent named Fred winked at Eden as if they were about to share a joke. He looked at the cards Wardella had shuffled. One of them popped out of the deck, circled the table leisurely a couple of times, like a miniature flying carpet, then dropped face up in front of Daphne Yawl. It was the seven of clubs.

"Oh,
there
it is," Daphne said, and they all laughed.

"We don't use our powers when we're playing poker," Wardella reminded them. "Besides, since I'm not witchy, the rest of you have me at a considerable disadvantage." She gave Fred a look that flared slightly, as if she were warning him. "And you won't impress Eden with dopey card tricks."

Eden had backed up a step in the doorway. Her pulses were pounding away. Wherever she was, she didn't need to be there.

Wardella looked back at Eden. Her expression was sympathetic.

"Just block them all from your mind, dear, if it would make you feel better."

"H-how?"

"Try closing your eyes. Take a deep breath to relax yourself. Count back, slowly, from five to one. On
one
, open your eyes. All there is to it."

The suggestion seemed benign. Eden tried it. When she opened her eyes again, Wardella Tinch was seated alone at the kitchen table doing needlepoint. She looked subtly different to Eden. Younger. Reminiscent of someone. It was a comforting familiarity to Eden.