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.
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?"