He climbed looking upward toward the gaps in the roof squinting against the rain in his face. There was no point in looking for handholds; he couldn’t see them anyway. The climb had to be made solely by feel. He was looking for Dyce, hoping to see him peering down in the next flash of lightning to give Becker time enough to do something to save himself. There was little he could do but let go of the wall and fall to the ground below. He might break a leg in the fall, but at least it was an action, something better than clinging to the stones like a fly to be swatted.
Becker’s hands reached a wide flat space and he pulled himself into a hole in the wall that had once encased a window. He sat there for a moment to rest. arms and legs dangling. His muscles were dancing from the strain. He was halfway up.
The technician from the panel truck was trying to explain, but Hatcher was no longer interested.
“It was that last bolt of lightning, the one that was so close. It screwed up all the electronics.” The technician had his mouth close to Hatcher’s ear to be heard over the storm.
“I’ve lost the signal,” the technician said. “I don’t know if it’s the beeper that got hit or my equipment, but it’s dead flat.”
“I’m not concerned with your excuses,” Hatcher said.
“It was the lightning.”
“What you’re saying is you’ve lost him,” Hatcher said.
Reynolds had signaled a halt and vanished into the darkness in front of the convoy just as the technician ran forward to rap on Hatcher’s car window. Hatcher felt the operation turning bad in his hands. Things involving Becker always seemed to turn bad; it had to do with the man himself. He would not submit to control.
“Christ,” Hatcher thought, “if he gets Dyce here, if he gets him in a place I’ve already looked-if I’m not there when it happens…” He didn’t want to think about it, but there would be plenty of necks on the chopping block in front of his if things did go rotten. This technician’s, for one.
Reynolds reappeared, his thin beam of light pointed at the ground, approaching Hatcher’s car.
“It’s Becker’s car,” Reynolds said, leaning in through the window. Water dripped from his head and nose onto Hatcher’s pant leg. “He left it about ten yards ahead and to the right. The driveway to the farm is just past that.”
They all huddled around Hatcher’s car now, awaiting instructions. Hatcher was the only one still dry as the others hunched their shoulders against the ram.
Hatcher grabbed the binoculars and slipped their battery pack around his neck.
“We don’t need your beeper,” Hatcher said to the technician dismissively, as if the faulty equipment had been the man’s idea.
Lightning cracked close by and Hatcher winced, then recovered himself, wondering if the others had noticed.
“I’ve got a feeling Dyce is here,” Hatcher said, getting out of the car. “Let’s go find him.”
Tee watched the white blur in the darkness that was Dyce move around the framework of rafters, looking for something or someone coming at him from the ground below. “Your friend is here,” he had said. Did he mean Becker? Please, God, let it be Becker. The hope was almost enough to overcome the lethargy that gripped him, and Tee renewed his efforts to move his foot. It was so strange; he felt as if he could move, he could sense the movement within his limbs like an itch-but nothing moved. As if his nerves had been severed but not deadened. They wanted to move but could not relay the message.
Dyce moved close to Tee now and Tee could see the whites of his eyes standing out starkly within a small. dark circle Dyce had missed with the talcum powder. In a burst of lightning Tee could make out something in Dyce’s hand, small and glistening. A hypodermic syringe. Tee remembered the needle in his own arm, but by the time he glanced down to see if the blood was still dripping from it, the light was gone.
Dyce had looked down within the cavern of the house when the lightning flashed, and Tee recognized the fear in his face. The snowy shape hovered close to Tee for a moment and Tee was certain that the hypodermic was intended for him, but then the shape moved off with surprising agility across the rafters and Tee understood that the needle was meant for Becker.
Tee prayed that the stories he had heard about Becker’s prowess were true.
Hatcher scanned the area slowly with his night-vision binoculars, seeing the invisible yard come into view in shades of eerie green. Stored heat from the day made the barn glow slightly in the infrared sensing binoculars. Hatcher scanned toward the house, seeing only variations in emanated heat but no movement. And then, leaping out at him from the roof of the house like a flame from a sea of green, the shape of a man, arms upraised and gesticulating.
“Got him,” Hatcher muttered triumphantly. “Bring up the vehicles and fan them out with their headlights pointing toward the farmhouse. We’re going to need light, but none until I give the word. Not so much as a spark, you got it?”
“Got it,” one of the agents replied.
“Do you see Becker?” Reynolds asked.
Hatcher returned to the binoculars but the man was gone. There was no movement to be seen anywhere at the farmhouse.
“Maybe he’s lost in the corn,” said Hatcher.
Becker was heading toward a gap in the roofline that he had seen during the last flash. Moving laterally was even harder than going up. The wind screamed and slashed him with sheets of rain. Becker’s foot settled on a small stone used as filler, and it tore at his flesh before pulling loose and tumbling to the ground twenty-five feet below. His other foot, yanked off balance, lost its hold, and Becker was slammed into the wall by his own weight. He clung to the stones with his fingers as his feet scrambled for a hold-then froze completely as a ghostly figure appeared in the gap in the roofline five feet above his head.
Dyce peered into the darkness, waiting for lightning to show him the world beyond an arm’s length. Becker held his breath and willed himself not to move, even though his arms were trembling with the strain of supporting his own weight. Dyce had not seen him yet, he was certain of that, but the slightest move on Becker’s part would give his presence away now; they were too close for the darkness to give any protection. He was alive simply because Dyce had not thought to study the stonewall itself.
His fingers screamed for relief then his left hand went into spasm, the muscles jerking in protest against the strain.
“The vehicles are in position.” The agent’s deep voice rumbled close to Hatcher’s ear.
“Becker’s here,” said Hatcher, hoping the disappointment didn’t sound in his voice.
Against the green field of the binocular’s vision. Hatcher could see the glowing form that he knew was Becker, going straight up the side of the house. Like a goddamned spider. Christ, straight up a wall. The things they said about him must be true. Despite himself, Hatcher felt a sense of admiration for the man. Teamwork would have served better, of course. A little organization, a little planning, but still-the bastard had found him and was climbing a wall to get him.
Hatcher saw Becker pause, then stop abruptly as another form leaped suddenly into the binoculars’ vision, almost atop Becker. Neither shape moved for long seconds, and Hatcher could not tell if they were looking at each other or staring into the darkness that surrounded everyone but Hatcher and his infrared vision.
Beams of light suddenly hit the house and Becker cursed under his breath, sensing immediately what had happened. I will kill Hatcher, he thought as a loudspeaker crackled against the storm.
He could see Dyce clearly now, the man’s eyes wide and startled by the headlights, squinting momentarily as the beams struck him in the face, then looking down at Becker, seeing him for the first time. Dyce looked more pleased than surprised.
“I was wondering,” Dyce said, looking straight at Becker. The rain caught Dyce as he stood in the gap in the roof and the white of the powder seemed to explode off his body where the drops hit him.