Freeman shuddered. That was exactly the sort of philosophy Mom would have had, if she'd been a social worker instead of a lawyer. If she hadn't fallen under Dad's control. If she were alive instead of dead.
"Well, I've got a job to do," Starlene said. "And if you're with Kracowski and McDonald, then I'm afraid I'm going to have to do some evil to you"
Bondurant shook his head. "Sweet, sweet Starlene. I could have put that fire of yours to such use." He glanced down the hall toward his office. "But, see, I'm a changed man, and God's servants don't get much choice in the duties for which they are chosen."
"Oh, dang," Starlene said. "Don't tell me you've had another vision? Well, I hope this one involves a chariot in the sky, because that's the only route out of this place. Or haven't you noticed the armed guards and the barbed wire?"
"God is testing us."
"One thing I know is that God doesn't send you anything you can't handle."
"Where's Vicky?" Freeman cut in. "I know she was here because I saw it inside her head."
Bondurant looked down at Freeman. "She was here. One of the guards took her away."
"They didn't say where?"
Bondurant tilted his head back as if Michelangelo's ghost had painted a mural on the ceiling. He let out a laugh that was too loud for the room.
"Where is she?" Starlene said.
"Where we all go, sooner or later," Bondurant said between cackles.
Starlene pulled Freeman back as if the crazed director were playing on a strange television quiz show, one where the wrong answer meant instant death. "Heaven?"
Bondurant rolled his reptilian eyes toward the floor and stopped laughing. This time his voice was a deranged imitation of Vincent Price's. "The other place," he said.
"The basement," Freeman said to Starlene. She yanked open the door and they ran down the hall.
Bondurant's melodramatic voice boomed after them like B-movie thunder. "Take the stairs. That's the fastest way to hell."
FORTY
The girl would be the first victim.
No, not victim… a PATIENT, Kracowski reminded himself. But with Dr. Mills involved now, there was no other way to think of her. Vicky Barnwell had passed from his caring and kind treatment into the clutches of a madman. Even in Kracowski's most self-deluded moments, he never completely forgot that the well-being of his patients was of at least secondary importance. His system was designed to heal them as much as it was to research brain function.
Mills exhibited no such concern. Mills wanted to push everything to the limits, even when those limits stretched into the bizarre. Mills exhibited far too much glee as he placed the gaunt girl in the cell. She hadn't spoken when the guard escorted her down the dim hall. She simply looked each man in the face, staring a moment longer at Kracowski than the others, and didn't resist when Mills took her arm and led her inside.
Mills closed the door and twisted the corroded slide lock into place. McDonald waited until the guard left, then said to Mills, "Let the games begin."
Mills moved to the circuitry board and the remote network computer he'd hastily installed. Two large curved panels, housing a series of superconducting magnets, stood just outside the cell door.
"Let's see what this baby can do," Mills said. Kracowski couldn't tell whether "baby" referred to the girl or the equipment.
"See, where you went wrong was in the direct application of the electrical charge," Mills said as if lecturing a mediocre student. "If you'd read my paper on magnetite in the brain and the resultant effect of misaligned electromagnetic waves-"
"I've read all your work," Kracowski said "and I learned from your mistakes."
Mills paused in his entering of the commands, He put a forefinger to his temple. "You didn't read what I carry up here. Unless you've learned to read minds, but I'm willing to bet mat you haven't subjected yourself to your own treatments. That's the difference between us, Doctor. You can't take that final leap of faith."
"I don't need faith. I believe in myself."
Mills said "By the way, McDonald you're not carrying a firearm, are you? Or any other large metal objects?"
McDonald didn't answer.
"Because the magnetic force will reach five Tesla, which is three times stronger than a typical magnetic resonance imager in a hospital. There have been reports of metal objects flying through the air in the vicinity of the fields. Sometimes it's a mop bucket, sometimes an ink pen. On at least one occasion, a policeman's pistol was pulled from its holster and flew to the head of the magnet's coil. The gun discharged. Fortunately, the bullet didn't pierce the holding tanks."
"That would be bad?" McDonald said.
"Well, the liquid nitrogen in the outer tank is 320 degrees below zero. If you don't freeze to death first, the oxygen in the room will be reduced so drastically that you'll suffocate. And the liquid helium in the inner tank is only a few degrees above absolute zero."
"That's cold, right?"
"You'll turn into an ice sculpture and probably shatter at the slightest air current."
"I never knew science could be so much fun."
"Stick around and I'll show you the meaning of 'fun.'"
McDonald put a hand inside his jacket and came out with an automatic pistol. "Glock.45. Triple safety. It won't go off accidentally. What about the steel door?"
"The field isn't strong enough to pull the door from its hinges."
McDonald looked at Kracowski, who shrugged. Kracowski said, "I'd never push the Tesla that high, and I always used lead shields to limit the exposure. But, then, I'm just an innocent bystander."
"Nobody's innocent," Mills said. "And it's time to go for some serious results."
McDonald placed his firearm in a cell two doors down the hall. "Most of the components are plastic. Is that far enough away?"
"The magnet is focalized enough that it probably wouldn't have mattered anyway. I'm being overly dramatic. The real force will be directed at the subject inside the cell."
"Her name is Vicky Barnwell," Kracowski said.
Mills flipped through a folder. "That's funny. You termed her 'Patient 7-AAC in your records. Her ESP score was pathetic, though. We'll see if we can fix that."
"I'm sure you'll do better. Compared to you, I'm just a guy who sweeps up after the lab closes."
"Then watch and maybe you'll learn something, and one day you can play 'genius,' too."
Mills entered the rest of the commands, then keyed the machinery into action. The tanks hummed and Kracowski tried to visualize the process of the electricity running through the miles of coil wire in the superconducting magnet, the helium lowering the temperature and reducing the wire's resistance. The draw on the electrical grid caused the scant lighting to grow even dimmer, until the room was cast in orange and deep blue. The whine of the machinery grew louder, and McDonald moved behind Mills's computer as if that would provide some protection in case the tanks exploded.
Kracowski looked at his wristwatch. Electromagnetic fields could impair the functioning of watches, but Mills had done a good job of isolating and controlling the direction of the field. Whatever his other flaws, he was a brilliant physicist.
Thirty seconds went by.
Kracowski expected any number of things: for Vicky to scream, for Mills to jump up the juice, for McDonald to ask what was going on. But no theory could have predicted what happened next.
Vicky pounded on the inside of the cell door with the bottom of her fist. In a calm voice, she said, "Hey, you guys. Better come see this. There's somebody in here."
FORTY-ONE
Footsteps approached from the far end of the hall. Somebody was in a hurry, Freeman thought. He and Starlene pressed into the corner. The stairwell was close enough to make a run for, but it was keyed like most of the other doors, and they'd have to go through Randy's assortment to find the one that fit.