Owen sucked in a cold breath. He felt something close inside him, the last open chamber of his heart.
“You never told me any of the things you told Sam… I would never have broken your trust and you never once gave it to me.”
Owen slumped forward, then reared back, the room closing in upon him.
“Is this what you saw, Dad?” Eric taunted him.
Owen clutched his left arm. He felt one side of his face draw down, pain exploding everywhere, shooting tongues of fire through every vein and artery.
“Is this what you saw in that kid’s eyes?” Eric sneered.
Owen dropped to his knees.
Eric towered above him, staring down in spiteful triumph. “A stroke, right? The moment of your death? That’s why you always hated me. You knew I was the last thing you’d ever see.”
In the fading light, as the curtain fell, Owen realized that it had all come to nothing, all his cruelty and lies, his long train of crimes. He had sown the wind, and reaped the whirlwind of a son who would do no better, reach no higher wisdom, find no better life than his own sorry round of days. Oh, he had made a mark in the world, he thought as he tumbled forward at Eric’s feet, but it was only the mark of Cain.
Tom and Becky Clarke stopped at the receptionist’s desk. “We’re here to see Jack Barlowe,” Becky said.
A moment later, he stepped out into the room, a man who’d named himself Jack Barlowe, though Jacob’s features remained unmistakable. He was twenty-eight years old now, but he looked much older, already frail and losing his hair.
“My, God, Jake,” Becky breathed.
Jacob drew Becky into his arms, held her briefly, then did the same to Tom.
They sat down on a bench in the lobby.
“I read about your crop circle,” Jacob said. “The peace sign. Very funny.”
Tom smiled. “Not to Owen Crawford.” The smile widened triumphantly. “I wanted him to know he’d messed with a good Texas family.”
Becky touched Jacob’s face. “We thought with him gone, we could risk coming to see you.”
Jacob shifted the subject from himself. “How’s Mom?”
“Still feisty,” Becky replied. She glanced toward the reception desk, noticed how the woman behind it glanced away. “That woman, the receptionist.”
“Carol,” Jacob said.
Becky placed a finger at each side of her head. “I’m sensing something,” she said, pretending psychic powers.
“Really?” Jacob said with a shy smile.
Becky looked at him knowingly. “So, Jake, how long have you been going out with her?”
Eric stared contemptuously at the new sign that adorned his father’s old office. Lt. Colonel Marty Erikson.
“Eric, thanks for coming,” Marty said as Eric came through the door.
Eric gave Marty one of his father’s smiles. “You’re the boss.”
“How’s the new baby?”
“Fine,” Eric said, faking a bright cheerfulness. “Mary gets cuter every day.”
Marty’s tone turned serious.
“Listen, Eric,” he began, “I’ve got to say something here. This kind of thing has a way of coming out and I just want to clear the air between you and me about it.” He paused briefly, then went on. “I was always, not to speak ill of the dead, I was always a little afraid of your father.”
“He had that way about him.”
“Yes, he did,” Marty said. “You remember my friend Howard Bowen?”
“He was with my mother when she died.”
“That night, Howard told me he was driving your mother to a clinic in Minnesota,” Marty said. “For rehab.”
“Well, Howard and my mother were… close.”
“That’s not the way I remember it,” Marty said coolly. “Your dad took a car from the motor pool that night. When he returned it, the car had four hundred and seventeen new miles on it.”
Eric lifted his head slightly, as if to receive a blow.
“That’s the exact round-trip distance from Groom Lake to the spot where Howard and your mother were killed.” Marty waited for Eric to respond, then continued when he didn’t. “They were both killed with Howard’s service revolver. He lost that revolver two days before he died. I remember him asking me if I’d seen it. He said he’d left it in his desk drawer and it just disappeared.”
Eric felt it all come together, his father’s work, his mother’s murder. Almost to himself, he said, “She was drinking a lot. Threatening to expose his work.”
Marty did not deny it, and in that lack of response, Eric felt that he’d finally reached the truth not only of what had happened to his mother, but also what had to happen next. “Thank you for telling me this, Marty,” he said. “I appreciate it.”
Eric left the office, but only after shaking Marty’s hand with a hearty flourish.
It didn’t take long to decide how to do it, and by nightfall, Eric had chosen the two MPs and put them in position.
He stepped out of the shadows when Marty approached. Once again, he offered his father’s smile.
“I checked the motor pool records, Marty,” he said. “The night my mother was killed, you checked out that car, not my father. That makes you an accomplice. Accessory before the fact.”
Marty stared at him, stunned.
Eric motioned the two MPs forward. “These men will hand you over to the civilian authorities in Carson City,” he added. “I’m sure your fear of my father will be taken into account, as well as your service record.”
“And you’ll be stepping up to take over the project,” Marty said.
Eric nodded. “Who better?”
“The acorn doesn’t fall far, does it?”
Eric’s smile lay like a dagger across his lips. “Not this time, no.”
PART FIVE. Maintenance
Chapter One
Jacob Clarke felt his boyhood return to him as the old Pacer joggled along the dirt road that led to his mother’s house. His brother Tom was at the wheel, and in the backseat, Carol, his wife, and their seven-year-old daughter, Lisa. A warmth came from each of them, one that reached out and touched him, palpable as a hand. A normal life, he thought. A normal life was a treasure beyond price, a life where things came and lingered for a time, then passed away according to the iron laws of earth. A life punctuated by the usual triumphs and misfortunes, within a fixed range both predictable and unpredictable, a life where darkness brought only night, and light brought only morning. It was all he wanted or had ever wanted, and briefly, as he closed in upon the old home place, he thought it might actually lie within his grasp.
“What are you listening to?” Tom asked cheerfully.
“What?” Jacob said.
“I was talking to Lisa,” Tom said. He glanced toward the backseat, where Jacob’s daughter sat, listening to a first-generation Walkman.
Carol laughed. “She can’t hear you,” she said, pointing to the headphones.
Tom mouthed the words slowly and with maximum expansion.
“The Ramones,” Lisa answered brightly.
Tom turned back to the road and nodded toward the old farmhouse as it came into view
“Look like you remember it?” he asked.
Jacob nodded. “Exactly. It doesn’t change much.”
Once they parked, Jacob got out of the car and stared silently at the house. The years had taken their toll, as time… and experience… always did. It needed paint and new screens for the windows and the rusty gutters no doubt leaked badly. It looked like a thousand other run-down houses, and thus gave no hint of the unearthly things that had happened in its rooms, or within the old, tumbledown shed that still stood in the distance, or beneath the trees that edged its dusty grounds.