Bede was incredulous. “No way, Sandy. That’s impossible.”
She sighed, seemed to collapse, and started feeling a little scared. She felt, in fact, just what Mark Spiegelman had radiated over the phone in that last, fatal coversation.
“Not if the Wilderness Organism was already in the computer, Joe,” she breathed.
Joe Bede laughed nervously. “Oh, come off it, Sandy. In order for that to be so, either somebody else would already have had to have broken the WO code makeup…”
“…Or designed it on our own damned computer,” she finished.
He shook his head in disbelief. “That’s not possible, and you know it,” he objected. “Why, that’d mean that somebody inside our own staff was behind all this.”
She was shaking now, very scared indeed. “Yeah, Joe. And Mark was killed inside the Dietrick secured labs. Imagine! A lot of trial and error, then a few combinations hit, then several—and suddenly the machine completes the model for him! My God!”
Joe Bede was looking a little nervous himself now. “Hell, Sandy, if what you say is true we’d better damned well get the hell out of here and over to your FBI friend. If they killed Mark…”
He didn’t have to spell it out.
She grabbed the phone and dialed Jake Edelman’s number. There was a click and a whirr and then a mechanical voice that said, “The-number-that-you-have-dialed-is-not-in-service-to-this-telephone. Please-hang-up.”
She slammed it down like it was an angry snake. “What’s the matter?” Bede asked nervously. “The phone.” She gasped. “I—I called Edelman on it this afternoon. To get a chance to see him.
Now it won’t connect me.”
He shrugged uncomfortably. “Probably just more of this martial law nonsense.”
“Let’s go, Joe,” she urged, getting up. “Let’s go over to the FBI Building ourselves.”
He sighed. “Okay, Sandy. Hell, I won’t look scared if you don’t.”
They grabbed their coats and walked out the door. The sentries were still there, and they nodded politely.
Sandra O’Connell suddenly felt extremely paranoid, as if unseen eyes were watching everything they said or did, as if unseen enemies were waiting to pounce at any moment.
The elevator came at last, and they got in. She pushed “G” and the doors closed and the car started up, taking an incredibly slow path by her imagination’s reckoning.
It opened and they walked out. Immediately four men converged on them. She felt panic.
One flashed a badge. “Secret Service, Doctors,” he informed them in a crisp, businesslike manner. “We’d like you to come with us for a few minutes.”
They were puzzled, but complied. It was reassuring, at least, to be in the hands of the law, she thought.
A small office door down the corridor was opened by one of the men, the other three of whom flanked them, and they entered.
“Now, will somebody kindly explain to me what this is all about?” she demanded angrily.
“This,” said one of the men, wetting down a rag from which issued the strong odor of chloroform.
ELEVEN
He was in a hazy fog, vaguely aware of what was going on but unable either to do much about it or to care very much. The drug was a minor hypnotic rather popular with the young; you floated, you felt wonderful, everything looked beautiful, and you didn’t think but were willing to be led around or do anything you were told. In the popular culture two people took it, whispered wonderful things about love or sex or something in a nice, quiet room, then acted out their fantasies until, in a couple of hours, they went to sleep and woke up feeling great.
Like most such substances, its popularity sprang from the fact that the average person’s life is simply too damned boring. And, it was true, the stuff didn’t hurt you at all—but it had one nasty little effect, being a hypnotic. You were totally open to suggestion and unfiltered outside stimuli; in wrong or, worse, sadistic hands, you were strictly at the mercy of whoever was around.
It was a handy little drug for an underground force.
So he’d cheerfully gone with the nice people, with vague, blurry memories of a long car ride to a small private airfield, and from there into a plane with numerous other people. Then he was asleep.
In between the periodic dosages administered in cups of juice or even water, there were occasional flashes but not much else. A seaplane landing, a ship pickup on the ocean, a voyage of who knew how long, a landing on some deserted shore, more flights, funny-looking people with strange languages and accents—but all of it ran together and none of it made much sense.
Sam Cornish awoke. It was a gentle awakening as if from a deep and restful sleep; he yawned, stretched, and felt really good.
He was strapped in a plane seat and was in the air somewhere. It was a very old crate; there was a lot of vibration and the interior hadn’t been maintained in quite some time.
Looking around he saw a number of other men and women in the other seats, most sleeping deeply but a few awake and looking around or just staring.
For the first time he realized that all of the windows in the aircraft had been painted jet black. He looked over at the person in the seat next to him, a black man with a few streaks of gray in his kinky hair who was still sleeping, then turned to the window. He was still wearing the clothes he’d worn in the apartment back in West Newton. They, and he, smelled pretty gamy. He fumbled in his pockets, but there was nothing there. Wallet, penknife, everything had been taken.
He had fairly long nails, though, and found after a few tries that he could scratch off a little paint with his index fingernail. It was slow and frustrating, but he didn’t have anything else to do, anyway.
Finally he produced a tiny line of glass under the paint, and he leaned over and tried to see if anything was visible outside.
Either it was night out there or else they’d painted the outside, too. All was still blackness.
He sighed and settled back. There was nothing to do but wait.
After a while more and more of the passengers came awake. Finally the man next to him stirred, blinked, and sat up, looking around at the plane and then at Sam. His expression was more thoughtful than puzzled.
“Very efficient,” he mumbled at last. “Much better than the old days.” His voice was deep and rich, and there was the slight trace of a West Indian accent in it.
“I think we could all use showers, though,” Sam said, trying to open a dialog.
The other man nodded, then smiled wistfully, as if remembering. “Even so, back in the old days we used to have to go under for weeks.” He chuckled. “I often wondered why the pigs never caught us by our stench alone.”
“Who were you with?” Sam asked.
“The Black October Brigades,” the man said. “You?”
He shrugged. “A number of different groups. Synergistic Commune Action Brigade was the last one.”
The other nodded again. “I remember that. Jim Foley and I were in Cuba for a while together a few years back. Whatever happened to him, anyway? I got a little fed up cutting sugar cane and came back, but he stuck it out. Never thought somebody like him would stay—drives you nuts.”
“He didn’t,” Sam Cornish said then checked himself. No names had been released on that California raid; he wasn’t supposed to know about Foley. A slight tinge of fear rose inside him and he suddenly realized how easily he could betray himself, and how fatal that would be. His mind raced.
“I got word from some mutual friends that he was back in action again,” he managed. “I don’t know much else, but I did hear he was back in action.”
That seemed to satisfy the other and he let it drop, looking around. “Several familiar faces here,” he noted, “and a few who might just be familiar. I think a lot of plastic surgery has been done.”