“A little more insurance that we’re not the ones who are out to kill him. Specifically, he wants me.”
“You?”
Jorgenson nodded. “He’s set up a meeting for tomorrow night on his own terms. He worked under me for seven years after Nam, so I guess he figures I’m still his best bet.”
“He gave you no idea of what he’s latched on to, I assume.”
“None whatsoever. Bane doesn’t trust phone lines, no matter how sterile they’re supposed to be. The only thing we can safely conclude is that the forces behind the hit on the Center have access to the same free-lance agent pool we do and rearranged things a bit this afternoon.”
“Only a government branch or department would have that kind of access,” the President pointed out.
Jorgenson looked at him grimly.
“You’re saying someone in Washington wants Bane dead.”
“At least someone with powerful connections in Washington. The question is who? And why?”
“There’s another possibility,” began George Brandenberg from his chair. “Bane could be behind all of this himself.”
“That’s ridiculous!” charged Jorgenson.
“Is it?” the secretary of defense challenged. “Consider first that we have no evidence that the Center was actually on to something, no evidence at all, other than Bane’s unsubstantiated word in the wake of the massacre.”
“That’s good enough for me.”
“I don’t see how it could be. I’ve been going over Bane’s file for the past two hours. His personality was listed as unstable five years ago and his psychological profile lists the possibility of ‘neurotic or manic behavior’ in addition to ‘repressed violent tendencies.’”
“There was never anything ‘repressed’ about his violent tendencies,” Jorgenson noted.
“Not until he withdrew from the field perhaps. What about after?”
“What are you getting at?”
“That Bane might have taken out his escorts without provocation. That we might be dealing here with a homicidal maniac.”
“I suppose you’d also like to suggest he was behind the Center hit as well.”
Brandenberg raised his eyebrows. “You said it, Art, I didn’t.”
“Bullshit!”
“I’m not so sure.”
“You’ll need more to support such a conclusion than you’ve put forth, George,” cut in the President.
“And I believe I have it. I’ve analyzed hundreds of these psychological profiles over the years and it’s not hard to see from Bane’s what we have here is a powder keg waiting for its fuse to be lit, for something to set it off. Anything, perhaps. We’ve seen what the sudden and total loss of combat can do to a man like Bane over the long term. The effect comes slowly, building up over time. Then one day he cracks.”
“He didn’t crack,” Jorgenson argued.
“We don’t know that, do we? We’re talking about a man who, in essence, developed a second personality he used for killing, a persona partially separate from his own. I ask you now who is loose in New York, Joshua Bane or the Winter Man?”
“They’re the same person, George.”
“Don’t be naïve, Arthur. For more than ten years Bane’s only job was to kill. Period. He did it better than anyone else we ever had, and he also did it longer. Most men like Bane run out of luck long before they find a different line of work. They’re not expected to live past thirty, not by any of the rules of the Game. Bane should have died in Vietnam. Our mistake was bringing him home in the first place.”
“My God,” Jorgenson hissed, “listen to what you’re saying.”
“Just consider the kind of values he would have had to develop to play the Game successfully for as long as he did. Consider in a general sense the kind of man he would have had to become. Now what happens to that man when Bane quits? Does he simply fade away and disappear? Or does he live under the surface waiting for his chance to rise up again?”
“As long as you’re talking about Bane’s past, “Jorgenson countered, “you’d better keep in mind that he might be the greatest soldier America has ever had. Oh, there were plenty through the years who could have matched or exceeded him physically. Bane’s edge was in his mind, wholly psychological. He understood what he had to do and he may have enjoyed it because that was the only way he could keep going. But if he was going to crack, the split would have been obvious a long time ago. Bane survived the Game as long as he did because of mental, not physical, strength. Clandestine Operations puts me near hundreds of men, not just files — men like Bane — and psychologically he’s the toughest of any I’ve ever dealt with.”
“This bickering isn’t about to get us anywhere,” the President interjected firmly. “There’s a point here you both seem to be missing: an installation of this government was butchered today, and quite possibly another installation was behind it. Three people who drew treasury paychecks are dead and I can’t buy madness as the motivation. And the implications of the episode at Penn Station have got me scared as hell. Whoever was behind it must want Bane out of the way pretty badly, which makes it imperative for us to find out why, if we’re ever going to get to the bottom of all this.”
“That means bringing Bane in,” concluded Jorgenson.
“At a level of risk I find unacceptable,” argued Brandenberg. “We’re talking about Arthur’s safety here.”
Jorgenson was unmoved. “That’s a chance I’m willing to take.”
Davey Phelps woke up cold, yet in a sweat. Everything was dark around him and he was conscious of motion. But when he tried to move his arms, he found the way blocked in all directions. His feet probed about and found similar walls, then Davey had the sensation of being trapped in a coffin en route to burial.
His mind slowly sharpened and he guessed his eyes did as well, though there was no way to tell in the blackness. Blackness … That was how it had started. He remembered being in the back room of King Cong’s place with two guards. He was fiddling with the radio in the corner when all the lights went out. One of the guards told him not to move, but then The Vibes went crazy, telling him someone cold and evil had entered the room. He pushed for The Chill but without the use of his eyes he had no way to aim it. Davey heard two soft spits and then a blindingly bright light flashed in his eyes, taking his mind from The Chill for a second. A second must have been all it took for the tall figure he’d glimpsed to shoot a dart into his arm and strip his consciousness away.
And now he was here. It didn’t matter where because the sense of motion told him he was on his way somewhere else. He could have been traveling by plane, train, car — anything. It didn’t matter. Escape was the issue now.
Davey cleared his mind, fought to relax. He grabbed his cool in the blackness and took a series of deep breaths, focusing his mind on the dead-smelling box they had put him in. He saw it hinged, locked, chained. He saw himself breaking out of it.
Davey reached for The Chill.
The box creaked.
Davey pushed harder.
Metal stretched outside, scraping against wood.
Davey felt the sledgehammer switch on in his head.
The chains were beginning to give. Davey reached back for everything he had, tried to pull the locks apart.
The box trembled and he sensed it was almost ready to burst apart at the joints. He squeezed his eyes closed, fighting back the awful pain racking his head, and pushed for all The Chill could give him.
The box was really shaking now, rubbing against the floor and rattling the chains. Then there was a bright flash before his eyes and it all stopped. Davey felt nauseous. The agony in his head came and went like the ticking of a clock.