“Christ. ”
“What did you learn from Salsbury? Who were those men in the helicopter?”
Leaning against the wall, Paul said, “His partners. One of them was H. Leonard Dawson.”
“I’ll be damned.”
“The other one is a general. United States Army. His name’s Ernst Klinger.”
Scowling, Sam said, “Then this is a government project?”
“Surprisingly, no. Just Salsbury, Dawson, and Klinger. A bit of private enterprise.” Paul took three minutes to outline what he had learned about the field test and the conspiracy behind it.
Sam’s scowl disappeared. He risked a slight smile. “Then we have a chance of stopping it right here, for good.”
“Maybe.”
“It’s just a simple four-part problem,” Sam said. He held up one finger. “Kill Dawson.” Two fingers. “Kill Ernst Klinger.” Three fingers. “Destroy the data in the computer at the house in Greenwich.” Four fingers. “Then use the key-lock code to restructure the memories of everyone in town who’s seen or heard anything, to cover up every last trace of this field test.”
Paul shook his head. “I don’t know. It doesn’t sound so simple to me.”
For the moment at least, positive thinking was the only sort of thinking that interested Sam. “It can be done. First… where did Dawson and Klinger go when they left here?”
“To the logging camp.”
“Why?”
Quoting Salsbury, he told Sam about Dawson’s plan to organize a search in the mountains. “But he and Klinger won’t be at the camp now. They intended to fall back to the mill and establish a sort of field headquarters there once the manhunt was underway. There are about eighty or ninety men working on the night and graveyard shifts up there. Dawson wants to post a dozen of them as guards around the mill and pack the rest of them off to join the search beyond the logging camp.”
“Any guards he posts are worthless,” Sam said. “We’ll use the code phrase to get past them. We’ll move in on Dawson and Klinger before they know what’s happened.”
“I suppose it’s possible.”
“Of course it is.”
“But what about the computer in Greenwich?”
“We can deal with that later,” Sam said.
“How do we get to it?”
“Didn’t you say Dawson’s household staff is programmed?”
“According to Salsbury.”
“Then we can get to the computer.”
“And the cover-up here?”
“We’ll manage.”
“How?”
“That’s the least of our problems.”
“You’re so goddamned optimistic.”
“I’ve got to be. So do you.”
Paul pushed away from the wall. “All right. But Jenny and Rya must have heard the shots. They’ll be worried. Before we go to the mill, we should stop back at the church and fill them in, let them know where we all stand.”
Sam nodded. “Lead the way.”
“What about — Salsbury?”
“Later.”
They left by the rear door and started across the parking lot toward the alley.
After a few steps Paul said, “Wait.”
Sam stopped, turned back.
“We don’t have to sneak around the long way,” Paul said. “We’re in control of the town now.”
“Good point. ”
They circled around the municipal building and went out to East Main Street.
Klinger stood in the velvety darkness, two-thirds of the way up the bell tower stairs, listening. Voices drifted down from above: two men, a woman, a child. Edison. And Jenny Edison. Annendale and his daughter…
He now knew what was happening in Black River, what the carnage at Thorp’s office signified. He knew the extent of these people’s knowledge of the field test and of all the working, planning, and scheming that lay behind the field test — and he was shocked.
Because of what he had heard, he knew that they were motivated to resist, at least in part, for altruistic reasons. He didn’t understand that. He could easily have understood them if they had wanted to seize the power of the subliminals for their own. But altruism… That had always seemed foolish to him. He had decided a long time ago that men who eschewed power were far more dangerous and deadly than those who pursued it, if only because they were so difficult to fathom, so unpredictable.
However, he also knew that these people could be stopped. The field test wasn’t an unmitigated disaster; not yet. They weren’t going to win as easily as they thought. They hadn’t yet brought him or Dawson to ruin. The project could be saved.
Overhead, they finished discussing their plans. They said good-by to one another and told one another to be careful and wished one another luck and hugged and kissed and said they would pray for one another and said that they really had to get on with it.
In the perfect darkness, without a flashlight or even a match to show them the way, out of sight around two or three bends in the long spiral staircase, Sam Edison and Paul Annendale started down the narrow, creaking steps.
Klinger’s own hurried descent was masked by the noise that the two men made above him.
He paused in the whispery, echo-filled nave of the church, where the walls and the altar and the pews were no more than adumbrated by the meager nocturnal storm light that shone through the arched windows. He wasn’t certain what he should do next.
Confront them here and now? Shoot them both as they came out of the stairwell?
No. The light was much too poor for gunplay. He couldn’t target them with any accuracy. Under these conditions he would never bring down both of them — and perhaps not either of them.
He thought of searching quickly for a light switch. He could flip it on as they entered the nave and open fire on them in the same instant. But if there was a switch nearby, he would never find it in time. And if he did find it in time, he would be every bit as surprised and blinded by the light as they would be.
Even if, by the grace of one of the saints depicted in these stained-glass windows, he did somehow kill both of them, then he would have alerted the woman in the tower. She might be armed; she almost certainly was. And if that was the case, the belfry would be virtually impregnable. With any sort of weapon at all — rifle or shotgun or handgun — and a supply of ammunition, she would be able to hold him off indefinitely.
He wished to God that he were properly equipped. He should have at least those few essentials of behind-the-lines combat: a pretty damned good machine pistol, preferably German-made or Belgian, and several fully loaded magazines for it; an automatic rifle with a bandolier of ammo; and a few grenades, three or four. Especially the grenades. After all, this was no ladies’ tea party. This was a classic commando operation, a classic clandestine raid, deep in hostile territory.
Behind him, Edison and Annendale were unsettlingly close, on the last twenty steps and coming fast.
He dashed along the side aisle to the fourth or fifth row of pews where he intended to hide between the high-backed seats. He tripped over a kneeler that some thoughtless member of the congregation had forgotten to put up after saying a prayer, and he fell with a loud crash. His heart hammering, he scrambled farther along the row toward the center aisle, then stretched out on the bench of the pew, flat on his back, the Webley at his side.
As they came into the dark church, Paul put one hand on Sam’s shoulder.
Sam stopped. “Yeah?” he said softly.
“Sssshhh,” Paul said.
They listened to the storm wind and to the distant thunder and to the settling sounds that the building made.
Finally Sam said, “Is something wrong?”
“Yeah. What was that?”
“What was what?”
“That noise.”