Wanless’s croaking voice had risen from its original soft pitch to a broken-voiced old man’s shout-but it was more peevish than magnificent.
“Listen,” he said to Cap. “For once, listen to me. Drop the blinders from your eyes. The man is not dangerous in and of himself. He has a little power, a toy, a plaything. He understands that. He has not been able to use it to make a million dollars. He does not rule men and nations. He has used his power to help fat women lose weight. He has used it to help timid executives gain confidence. He is unable to use the power often or well… some inner physiological factor limits him. But the girl is incredibly dangerous. She is on the run with her daddy, faced with a survival situation. She is badly frightened. And he is frightened as well, which is what makes him dangerous. Not in and of himself, but because you are forcing him to reeducate the little girl. You are forcing him to change her conceptions about the power inside her. You are forcing him to force her to use it.”
Wanless was breathing hard.
Playing out the scenario-the end was now in sight-Cap said calmly, “What do you suggest?”
“The man must be killed. Quickly. Before he can do anymore pick-and-shovel work on the complex he and his wife built into the little girl. And the girl must also be killed, I believe. In case the damage has already been done.”
“She’s only a little girl, Wanless, after all. She can light fires, yes. Pyrokinesis, we call it. But you’re making it sound like armageddon.”
“Perhaps it will be,” Wanless said. “You mustn’t let her age and size fool you into forgetting the Z factor… which is exactly what you are doing, of course. Suppose lighting fires is only the tip of this iceberg? Suppose the talent grows? She is seven. When John Milton was seven, he was perhaps a small boy grasping a stick of charcoal and laboring to write his own name in letters his mamma and daddy could understand. He was a baby. John Milton grew up to write Paradise Lost.”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” Cap said flatly.
“I am talking about the potential for destruction. I am talking about a talent which is linked to the pituitary gland, a gland which is nearly dormant in a child Charlene McGee’s age. What happens when she becomes an adolescent and that gland awakes from its sleep and becomes for twenty months the most powerful force in the human body, ordering everything from the sudden maturation of the primary and secondary sex characteristics to an increased production of visual purple in the eye? Suppose you have a child capable of eventually creating a nuclear explosion simply by the force of her will?”
“That’s the most insane thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Is it? Then let me progress from insanity to utter lunacy, Captain Hollister. Suppose there is a little girl out there someplace this morning who has within her, lying dormant only for the time being, the power to someday crack the very planet in two like a china plate in a shooting gallery?”
They looked at each other in silence. And suddenly the intercom buzzed.
After a moment, Cap leaned over and thumbed it. “Yes, Rachel?” Goddamned if the old man hadn’t had him there, for just a moment. He was like some awful gore-crow, and that was another reason Cap didn’t like him. He was a go-getter himself, and if there was one thing he couldn’t stand, it was a pessimist.
“You have a call on the scrambler,” Rachel said. “From the service area.”
“All right, dear. Thanks. Hold it for a couple of minutes, okay?”
“Yes, sir.”
He sat back in his chair. “I have to terminate this interview, Dr. Wanless. You may be sure that I’ll consider everything you’ve said very carefully.”
“Will you?” Wanless asked. The frozen side of his mouth seemed to sneer cynically.
“Yes.”
Wanless said: “The girl… McGee… and this fellow Richardson… they are the last three marks of a dead equation, Captain Hollister. Erase them. Start over. The girl is very dangerous.”
“I’ll consider everything you’ve said,” Cap repeated.
“Do so.” And Wanless finally began to struggle to his feet, propping himself on his cane. It took him a long time. At last he was up. “Winter is coming,” he said to Cap. “These old bones dread it.” “Are you staying in Longmont tonight?” “No, Washington.”
Cap hesitated and then said, “Stay at the Mayflower. I may want to get in touch with you.”
Something in the old man’s eyes-gratitude? Yes, almost certainly that. “Very good, Captain Hollister,” he said, and worked his way back to the door on his cane-an old man who had once opened Pandora’s box and now wanted to shoot all of the things that had flown out instead of putting them to work.
When the door had snicked closed behind him, Cap breathed a sigh of relief and picked up the scrambler phone.
7
“Who am I talking to?” “Orv Jamieson, sir.” “Have you got them, Jamieson?” “Not yet, sir, but we found something interesting at the airport.” “What’s that?”
“All the pay phones are empty. We found a few quarters and dimes on the floors of some of them.” “Jimmied?” “No, sir. That’s why I called you. They haven’t been jimmied, they’re just empty. Phone company’s going crazy.” “All right, Jamieson.” “It speeds things up. We’ve been figuring that maybe the guy hid the girl outside and only checked himself in. But either way, we figure now that we’re looking for a guy who paid with a lot of change.” “If they are at a motel and not shacked up at a summer camp somewhere.” “Yes, sir.” “Carry on, OJ.” “Yes, sir. Thank you.” He sounded absurdly pleased that his nickname had been remembered.
Cap hung up. He sat with his eyes half closed for five minutes, thinking. The mellow autumn light fell through the bay window and lit the office, warmed it. Then he leaned forward and got Rachel again.
“Is John Rainbird there?” “Yes he is, Cap.” “Give me another five minutes and then send him in. I want to talk to Norville Bates out in the service area. He’s the head honcho until A1 gets there.” “Yes, sir,” Rachel said, a little doubtfully. “It will have to be an open line. Walkie-talkie link-up. Not very-““Yes, that’s fine,” he said impatiently.
It took two minutes. Bates’s voice was thin and crackling. He was a good man-not very imaginative, but a plugger. The kind of man Cap wanted to have holding the fort until Albert Steinowitz could get there. At last Norville came on the line and told Cap they were beginning to spread out into the surrounding towns-Oakville, Tremont, Messalonsett, Hastings Glen, Looton.
“All right, Norville, that’s good,” Cap said. He thought of Wanless saying You are forcing him to reeducate the little girl. He thought of Jamieson telling him all the phones were empty. McGee hadn’t done that. The girl had done it. And then, because she was still up, she had burned that soldier’s shoes off, probably by accident. Wanless would be pleased to know that Cap was going to take fifty percent of his advice after all-the old turd had been amazingly eloquent this morning.
“Things have changed,” Cap said. “We’ve got to have the big boy sanctioned. Extreme sanction. You follow?”
“Extreme sanction,” Norville said flatly. “Yes, sir.”
“Very good, Norville,” Cap said softly. He put the phone down and waited for John Rainbird to come in.