The Discrete Charm of Charlie Monk

by David Ambrose

  But in her heart she knew that a question such as this, once posed, would brook neither evasion nor subterfuge. It was, frankly, a relief that the decision to challenge her father’s truthfulness, and with it a dauntingly huge part of her own life’s authenticity, was now in Charlie’s hands instead of hers.

  She had a quick breakfast with Christopher, after which she had promised to go riding with him. Her protest that she was years out of practice had met with his insistence that she try out the sweet-natured old horse that Michael had selected for her. And besides, Michael would be coming with them, so what could go wrong? Her main fear (that things would start to happen when she and Christopher were too far from the ranch itself) had to remain unspoken; but she made a quick calculation of the earliest time Charlie could get to them, assuming all went according to plan, and decided that a brisk early ride would present no problem.

  Buzz had to be persuaded to stay indoors. He’d been reluctant to obey, but a quick trip to Mrs. Hathaway’s kitchen for a bone had taken care of that. The ride was pleasant, the air clean and bracing. Susan enjoyed the experience more than she had anticipated, grateful for the distraction from her preoccupation with what might happen in the next few hours. It was a relief not to have to talk much, aside from telling Christopher that, Yes, this had been a great idea; and yes, the horse was just as good-natured and easy to handle as Michael had promised; and yes, Christopher’s own horsemanship was even better now than the last time she’d seen him mounted. She found herself laughing out loud more than once, forgetting for a brief moment the threat that hung over them.

  Michael rode with them, keeping a respectful distance and on the whole not speaking unless he was spoken to. Nonetheless, she had the impression of being accompanied by an armed guard, even though he carried no weapon that she could see; but somehow his demeanor, the watchfulness she sensed in his pale blue boyish eyes, the phone strapped to his waist like a handgun, all combined to remind her that despite the easy superficial atmosphere of this place, she and Christopher were prisoners.

  A clattering sound broke the silence. In the distance the helicopter rose above the trees, hung suspended for a moment, then tilted and moved off in the direction of the airport.

  “That’s Joe going to pick up Grandpa,” Christopher told her with the authority of someone who knew the ropes around here. He waved at the departing chopper.

  Susan, too, watched it out of sight, as though in some strange way it carried all her hopes—not just of escape, but of understanding certain mysteries so intimate that, until now, she had never suspected their existence.

  Latimer West was finishing breakfast in his private apartment. It was behind the office where he had frequently interviewed, argued with, and more recently reached a kind of understanding with Susan Flemyng. The apartment, like his office, was comfortable and spacious, a penthouse running two-thirds of the length of the main building and with a wide balcony on two sides.

  The first sign of trouble came when he heard voices below, men shouting in confusion. Then an alarm went off. West got up from his chair, wiping his mouth fastidiously on the corner of his white linen napkin, and slid open the glass doors to his balcony. Looking down, he saw guards running. A security patrol car raced around a corner and screeched to a halt. More men piled out. Before he could discover what was happening, a phone started ringing in his apartment. He went back in to answer it, leaving the glass doors open.

  The call was from Morris, the chief of security. “Monk’s broken out, got over the fence before we could do anything.”

  West felt a prickly chill run down his back. “How, for Christ’s sakes? How could he possibly break out?” His voice was suddenly an octave higher than usual, his heart beating fast.

  “They were escorting him to the gym for his morning workout. Three guards with him, two in the corridor. There’s a semi-blind spot down there, but we got part of it on video. He just took ‘em all out faster than you could count. Nobody dead, but a few broken bones.”

  “Five of them? Why didn’t anybody stop him?”

  “Some malfunction in the electronic restraint system. I’ve spoken to a couple of them—they zapped him repeatedly, but he didn’t respond.”

  “They had guns, for God’s sake!”

  “The way that guy moves, nobody gets time to both pull the gun and fire a shot.”

  “Then you should have had ten men down there! This is inexcusable!”

  West was shrieking now. The security chief continued his report in a monotone, professionally impervious to his boss’s anger, proof only that West feared being held responsible by higher powers for this situation.

  “He took two guns and a clip of ammunition, shot out three security cameras, which is how we lost him. But we found where he went over the fence, because he dropped one of the guns.”

  “How long’s he been gone?”

  “Three minutes—nearly four.”

  West groaned miserably.

  The chief continued. “We have all available vehicles and men covering the surrounding area. I need your okay to call the police department.”

  “Not yet. I have to get clearance. I’ll get back to you if we want the police involved.”

  He hung up. Outside, through the open doors to his balcony, he could hear more voices and more vehicles accelerating away. Then there was silence. West sat for a moment with his head in his hands, struggling to come to terms with the enormity of this blunder, wondering how to report it to his superiors in a way that exonerated him, or at least minimized his responsibility.

  Then he felt something on his shoulder, just the lightest of touches, hardly more than a passing gust of air. Except it didn’t pass but stayed where it was. West’s veins froze as Charlie’s voice came from right behind his ear.

  “All right, just stay calm, and let me tell you what we’re going to do….”

  Amery Hyde was in the helicopter about ten minutes from the ranch when his mobile phone rang. His pilot, Joe, couldn’t hear the conversation through the clatter of the motor and the radio headset that he wore. But he didn’t miss the way the color drained from the older man’s face. There was no doubt that this was bad news.

  Barney Cole, as the oldest and slowest member of the security team, had not been included in any of the groups out scouting for Charlie. They’d left him on gate duty because somebody had to be there, though with Charlie gone there was less need for the usual rigorous checks of every vehicle. When Barney got the call from Dr. West himself saying he was heading for the airport and didn’t wish to waste any time about it, he made damn sure that the gate was open. The car was through in a flash, West himself at the wheel giving him a wave of thanks.

  Charlie got up from the floor after fifty yards or so. West felt the pressure of the gun against his right kidney lighten—not that he had any illusions that Charlie needed a gun to make him suffer very badly if he didn’t do exactly what he was told.

  “Okay so far. You’re doing fine,” Charlie said, settling back in the passenger seat and buckling his seat belt. “Just keep it up, and you might even come out of this alive. Even better, you might come out alive—and still able to walk, talk, see, and hear.”

  He saw West flinch, and had to make a serious effort to keep a smile of amusement off his face. It was so easy to frighten people. Of course, it helped if they knew that you could deliver on your threats. Empty threats were no use at all. But Charlie knew that everybody, including himself, was aware that his threats were real.

  “You’re in for a bigger surprise than you think when we get there, Charlie,” West said, the tremble in his voice betraying the defiance of his words.

  “Not as big a one as Amery Hyde,” Charlie replied casually, with the hint of a smile.

  It was a remark that made Latimer West’s eyes almost pop out of his head.

  Chapter 50

  JUST AS THEY began a gentle gallop, Michael’s phone rang. He pulled his horse up as he took the call. Susan glanced back an
d saw his face muscles tighten. She had little doubt that the message concerned Charlie’s escape. No doubt they would be ordered back to the ranch as part of a security clampdown.

  At the same time the clatter of the returning helicopter became audible. Susan looked up and saw it in the distance, descending slowly into the trees. She would have given a lot to know whether Michael’s call was coming from that chopper or elsewhere. As though cued by her suspicion, Michael waved to her to slow and turn around. She called over to Christopher, and they both cantered back to meet Michael, phone now reinstalled on his hip, his features solemn.

  “I’m sorry, Chris—orders,” was all he said when Christopher protested this premature return.

  “But why?”

  “I can’t tell you that, Chris, because I don’t know. Auntie May says we gotta get back there right now, so that’s what we’re gonna have to do.”

  Mrs. Hathaway? Susan wondered. Or Amery Hyde? She closed her eyes to keep the pain of that suspicion at bay, but opened them when she heard Christopher appealing to her.

  “Tell Michael, Mom. Tell him you don’t want to go back yet.”

  “Don’t make a fuss, darling,” she said gently. “If Mrs. Hath- away says we have to go back, then I’m sure there’s a good reason.”

  “Better listen to your mom, Chris. Let’s go.”

  As they rode back, she watched Michael with an almost clinical interest. She’d sensed something in his reaction when Christopher started to argue that reminded her of a time she’d spent years back deprogramming cult members. There had been a very specific personality associated with many of them—the same openness and surface charm she found in Michael, but once you challenged or crossed them in any way they immediately closed up. You could see it now in his face and the whole set of his body. People like him were programmed to obey. Like Charlie.

  Except that Charlie wasn’t exactly “people.” Also he was proving to have a mind of his own, which was more than she could say for most cult members. Or, she suspected, for the strangely inhuman people who worked in this place.

  Amery Hyde was waiting on the porch when Susan and Christopher dismounted. He looked tense, but made a show of giving a big hug to Christopher and promising to play various games with him later. Then he embraced Susan. She could feel the tension in his body, and hoped it would mask the tension in hers.

  “Let’s walk,” he said, indicating with a glance that he wanted to get out of Christopher’s hearing. Luckily the dog had come bounding from the house to greet his young master’s return, and the two of them were already involved in some play of their own.

  “Something’s happened,” Amery said, slipping a hand under his daughter’s elbow, as though he was about to impart bad news and felt the need of physical contact. “We’re being moved out, as soon as the plane gets here.”

  She looked him directly in the eyes for the first time. “Moved out? Where to? Why?”

  He met her gaze. “I don’t know. I wondered if you might have some idea.”

  It was a surreal moment. Her mind was in turmoil and her heart beating so loud she thought he must hear it. She shook her head, and the gesture felt awkward and unnatural, as though she were onstage with hundreds of eyes watching her, freezing her into a state of tongue-tied embarrassment. Of course there was only one pair of eyes—her father’s. But that was worse. He knew her too well. Any false move she made would be instantly seen through, any lie immediately transparent.

  “I can’t think of any reason,” she said, clearing her throat, which was suddenly dry. “None at all. Who told you about it?”

  “The Hathaway woman, as soon as I got here.”

  “Something must have happened. There was no talk of moving when we went out after breakfast. Didn’t she give any reason?”

  “No. Just that the plane’s coming and we have to get on it.”

  Susan shrugged and turned away, trying to look puzzled. She thought he’d seen through her. He must have. But she couldn’t be sure. Just as she couldn’t be sure that she’d really seen through him. Was hers the greatest betrayal of all? Were her insane suspicions of him the only treason between them?

  To her surprise she felt a profound sense of relief when she saw the loose-limbed figure of Mrs. Hathaway striding toward them. She hated this woman in a strange way, a way that could be explained only by her complete failure to understand her. She didn’t believe she had ever in her life met someone whose inner reality was quite so opaque.

  “I’m starting to get Christopher’s things together,” the woman said, reaching them. “I thought perhaps you’d…”

  “Yes, of course. I’ll come right away.”

  Amery Hyde watched the two figures walk back to the house and disappear inside. He felt more than nervousness at the news he’d received from West about Charlie’s escape; uppermost in his mind was the fear that his daughter was somehow involved. If so, he wasn’t sure how far he could protect her. The only solution was that Charlie be found soon, and preferably killed. He had become too dangerous a liability to keep alive. The electronic implant that he and West had been assured was fail-safe, as good as a steel cage, had failed. Time to cut their losses. But first they had to find him.

  He walked around a corner where he knew he could not be seen from the house. Something had been nagging at the back of his mind for the past few minutes, and he suddenly realized what it was. That man Schiller and his wretched magazine— what was it called? It didn’t matter, the committee had it all on record. He’d passed on everything that Susan had told him when she’d had him send that card to Schiller. Her idea had been that Amery should find Schiller on that flight to Great Falls and tell him the whole story. The ruse might well have worked, had Amery not been obliged to betray his daughter’s trust. But it had been for her own good. Everything had been for her own good, including the staging of Amery’s disappearance afterward as a punishment. Her relief at finding him still alive had marked the beginning of what he had thought was a genuine change of heart. Now he was no longer sure that he’d been right. He even suspected now that his daughter had seen through him and had begun to treat him as “the enemy.”

  She was wrong, of course. He never would be that. Not to her. If only she knew the lengths he had gone to, was still going to, for her protection.

  He used the emergency number that he’d memorized. Even though it was Saturday, the man he wanted to speak to was on the line in seconds.

  “It’s about the escape,” Amery said. He intended to suggest that Schiller be put under round-the-clock surveillance and his phones tapped. There was at least a fair chance that if Susan was involved, she would have instructed Charlie to get in touch with him.

  “What escape?”

  “Epsilon.”

  Damn stupid code name, he’d always thought. Some Greek scholar on the committee had picked it because Charlie was technically the fifth generation of these mutants, and the first to be even partially successful. It wasn’t as though the name “Charlie Monk” would mean anything to anybody listening in. And anyway, even though this was a cell phone, the call was reliably scrambled by some very sophisticated microcircuitry.

  “I have not been informed of this.” The words were clipped and wary, with an edge of distrust.

  Amery felt himself go cold. This couldn’t be.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Tara,” Amery said. Another damn silly piece of coding, obviously by a movie buff this time. “Everest told me forty minutes ago that he’d informed you, and you had issued instructions for him to fly up here at once.”

  “Everest” was West’s code name—his own choice, Amery had always assumed.

  “There has been no report from Everest or anyone else regarding Epsilon.”

  Amery was silent, his brain racing. Suddenly it all fell into place with a logic that was perfect.

  “Are you there?” the voice said.

  “I’ve got to check someth
ing,” Amery replied. “I’ll call you back.”

  He cut the connection and immediately redialed. Seconds later he was in contact with John Wayne Airport, establishing that West had taken off twenty-two minutes ago, in great haste and with only one pilot instead of the usual two.

  Aside from that the only other person on the flight was an unidentified man traveling with west.

  Chapter 51

  BUT WHY DO we have to go?”

  Christopher’s voice took on a plaintive whining note.

  “Darling, I already told you I don’t know.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “I don’t know that either.”

  “Are we going home?”

  “Not yet. Soon.”

  She hadn’t meant to say that—“soon.” She shouldn’t have. She’d never known she was superstitious, but now she felt she mustn’t tempt fate.

  “Are we coming back?”

  “I don’t know that either. Let’s just go along with things and see what happens, like Grandpa says. It might be fun.”

  Fun? She’d staked everything on Charlie pulling this off. If he failed, the most she could hope for was that they’d never prove her involvement. Not that they’d need proof: This wasn’t a court of law; suspicion would suffice.

  But what could they do—kill her? She’d already made her decision that anything was better than just waiting to be used up and then disposed of. The big gamble was that they wouldn’t hurt Christopher—or her father, if he was as innocent as she prayed he was. Perhaps it was a gamble that she didn’t have the right to take. The thought had tortured her incessantly. Yet in the depth of her being she remained convinced it was their only chance.