The God Project

by John Saul

Randy was in the woods. After lunch he had ignored his friends’ pleas for him to join in their game and gone off by himself.

  But it wasn’t that he wanted to be alone.

  He was looking for a way out.

  For an hour he had worked his way along the fence, searching for a tree that had a limb extending beyond the strand of barbed wire that topped the barrier.

  There was none.

  All along the perimeter of the property the trees had been cleared away. Here and there a remaining tree that might once have had long lower branches showed the scars of some long-ago chain saw. But nowhere was there a place where the fence could be scaled without touching it. And then, when he had only fifty yards to go to the gate, he found it.

  It was a stream flowing through a culvert that carried it under the fence. The pipe was small, but Randy was almost sure that if he hunched his shoulders together, he could get through. He scrambled down the bank of the stream and tried to peer through the culvert At the far end, he thought he could see traces of light.

  Should he try it now?

  He glanced around, wondering if anybody was watching him.

  He wasn’t sure. At first, he had always felt the eyes on him, and it had bothered him. But after those first few days, he had grown used to the watching. That odd sixth sense had become dulled, and now that he needed to know if he was truly alone, he had no way of telling.

  But one thing he was sure of. If he tried to run now and got caught, he wouldn’t have another chance. Reluctantly, he turned away from the stream and started back toward the main building. If he was going to try to escape, he would have to do it at night, and he would have to do it from the house. But the windows were barred, and there was always someone awake, watching.

  He moved through the woods slowly, trying to figure out what he could do. As he stepped from the forest onto the edge of the lawn, he saw an answer.

  On the slope of the roof there seemed to be some kind of trap door. Randy stopped and stared at it for a long time. Was it really a trap door? But what was it for? What if it wasn’t a trap door at all? What if it was just a skylight, and wouldn’t open.

  He frowned, trying to puzzle it out. And then, in his innocence, he decided that it had to be a trap door, and it had to open. Otherwise there was no way out.

  But once he was on the roof, what would he do?

  A tree. All he had to do was find a tree that reached to the eaves of the three-story building, and he could climb down it. He was about to begin searching for the right tree when he heard his name being called. He recognized Louise Bowen coming toward him.

  “Randy, I’ve been looking all over for you.”

  “I was just off in the woods, messing around.”

  She smiled at him and tousled his hair. “I was worried about you.”

  Randy’s first impulse was to pull away from her, but he thought better of it. If he was really going to try to run away, he couldn’t let anyone know he might even be thinking about it Otherwise they would watch him. He slipped his arms around Louise and hugged her. “I was just thinking about what we talked about last night,” he said. His heart began pounding, and he prayed she wouldn’t see through the lie he was about to tell her. “And I decided God must have wanted Eric to die, and what happened to him isn’t going to happen to me.”

  Louise patted him on the back. “Well, that seems very sensible,” she told him. “What made you decide that?”

  Randy looked up at her, trying to hide the fear he was feeling. “I don’t know. But I’m not scared anymore.”

  “Well, that’s good,” Louise said. But when she looked into his eyes, she saw something that told her he was lying. There was a look in his eyes and something about his smile that rang false.

  He’s going to do something, she thought He’s going to try to run away.

  “Do you think I could build a treehouse here?” Bandy suddenly asked.

  “A treehouse?” Louise echoed. What was he talking about? One minute he was talking about dying, and the next minute he was talking about treehouses.

  “You know,” Randy said. “A treehouse. All you need is the right tree and some boards and nails.”

  Louse frowned, certain that somehow there was a connection. “Where do you think you might put it?”

  “I don’t know,” the little boy conceded. “Over there, maybe?”

  He pointed toward a grove of maples near the house, and as her gaze followed his gesture, her eyes wandered to the roof of the house. Clearly visible to her, and obviously to Randy too, was the trap door that allowed access to the roof. Suddenly she understood.

  “Why, I don’t know,” she said. “Why don’t we go have a look?”

  Pleased that she had fallen so easily into his plans, Randy skipped off toward the trees, with Louise Bowen slowly and thoughtfully following after him.

  Half an hour later, amid much planning of an elaborate treehouse, both Randy and Louise knew which tree Randy would use when he tried to escape.

  As they returned to the house, Louise Bowen tried to decide what to do. She knew she should report her conversation with Randy, as well as her suspicions, to Dr. Hamlin. And yet she couldn’t She knew perfectly well that to Hamlin, Randy was no more than an animal, and she suspected that he wouldn’t hesitate to lock the boy up like an animal. So, for the moment, she would say nothing. Instead, she would simply watch Randy very carefully. Then, when she knew exactly what he was planning, she would decide what to do about it.

  As for Randy, he was positive that the woman suspected nothing. Tonight he would run away, and he was childishly sure that he wouldn’t be caught

  Chapter 22

  THE LONG TWILIGHT of the spring evening was just beginning to fade as Sally steered her car toward Lucy Corliss’s house. She had been driving aimlessly all afternoon, intent only on staying away from Eastbury until dark, stopping only once to try to eat supper. Supper, it turned out, had been a salad that had sat untouched before her while she sipped cup after cup of bitter coffee.

  Twice she had considered calling Steve; twice she had discarded the idea. What could she say to him? That she was sitting by herself in a diner in another town, wondering if it was safe to come home? It would only confirm what he already believed.

  She had considered other alternatives. Her mother? But her mother would only call Steve. What about friends? An image of Kay Connors came into her mind. No, there was only one place to go—the place that she had named while talking to Dr. Malone a few hours before.

  And so she pulled up in front of Lucy Corliss’s house, set the handbrake, and got out of her car. She started toward the house, then paused, frowning.

  There was a strange car in Lucy’s driveway, a car with medical plates.

  Dr. Malone?

  Or Arthur Wiseman?

  Perhaps she shouldn’t go in. Perhaps they were both there, waiting for her.

  She forced the idea out of her mind. Paranoid. It was a paranoid thought, and she wouldn’t entertain it With a confidence she didn’t feel, she climbed the three steps up to Lucy’s front door and rang the bell. The door opened immediately, and Lucy drew her inside.

  “Sally—where have you been? We’ve been so worried. I was watching for you, and then it looked like you weren’t going to come in—my God, you look awful!”

  Sally instinctively brushed at her hair, and when she spoke she heard her voice quaver. “It was the car in the driveway. I didn’t know whose it was.”

  “It’s Mark Malone’s. He got here an hour ago.”

  Sally started to breathe a sigh of relief, then caught it back. “He came alone?”

  “All alone,” Lucy reassured her. She led Sally toward the living room. “He told us what happened at the hospital today.”

  As they walked into the living room, Jim Corliss rose to offer his chair to Sally, but she ignored the gesture, choosing instead to settle on the love seat next to Lucy. “All of it?”

  “All of what I saw, and all of what
you told me,” Mark Malone said. “And after you left, I went into Wiseman’s office.” A look of alarm came over Sally, and Mark quickly reassured her. “I only wanted to find out what they were doing and give you a little time. I’m afraid they were talking to your mother, explaining that if you showed up at her house, she should try to keep you there and call them.”

  “Oh, God, what am I going to do?”

  “You’re going to forget all about it for a while.” It was Carl Bronski, and the firmness in his voice puzzled Sally. Forget it? How could she? Bronski continued speaking, almost as if she’d voiced her questions. “They can’t just come and get you, Sally. They’d have to get a court order, and that involves a hearing. All that takes time, plus a lot more evidence than they’ve got right now. Also, don’t forget that there are four people sitting right here who don’t think you’re crazy at all including a doctor and a cop. So even if they’re serious about trying to commit you, it isn’t going to happen tomorrow, or the next day either. And by then, if we’re lucky, well know just exactly what the hell is going on.”

  “Then something is going on? I’m not crazy?”

  “If you are, we all are,” Jim Corliss said. “It seems there’s been another coincidence. Carl called Lucy last night about a little boy who’s disappeared from Atlanta. He’s the same age as Randy and was born here. His parents weren’t married.”

  Sally’s eyes met Jim’s, and when she spoke, the calmness of her voice told all of them that she had put her personal fears aside. “Was he being surveyed by CHILD?”

  “That’s what we don’t know,” Carl said. “I was hoping you could find out for me. Most of those statistics you pulled out of the computer didn’t have any names attached to them. They were just numbers.”

  “Well, it’s easy enough to find out,” Sally told them. “All I have to do is go down to my office—” Her heart sank as she pictured the keys to her office dangling from the key rack in the kitchen closet “We can’t go to my office. I don’t have my keys.”

  “Can’t a security officer let you in?” Bronski asked.

  Sally shook her head. “They can, but they won’t. If you don’t have your keys, they aren’t allowed to open any doors for you.”

  Mark Malone paced the room, weighing the risks of what he was about to suggest against the idea’s possible advantages. He made up his mind. “What about the hospital? Why can’t Sally and I go down to the hospital and use the terminal in my office?”

  “But they’ll be looking for me there, won’t they?”

  “They won’t see you,” Malone assured her. “We won’t even have to go through the lobby. Then well see if you and your computer expertise can figure out exactly what’s going on.”

  They rose, ready to leave, when the phone suddenly began ringing. Lucy hesitated, then went to answer it. A moment later she reappeared. “It’s for you,” she said to her ex-husband, frowning slightly. “It’s a woman.” Ignoring her faintly accusatory tone, Jim hurried into the kitchen. Moments later, he, too, reappeared.

  “That was a friend of mine in Boston,” he said, his eyes on Lucy. “Her name’s Joan Winslow, and she works for an ad agency. And I haven’t dated her for two years. Anyway,” he went on as Lucy’s eyes narrowed suspiciously, “I asked her to see if she could find out who funds CHILD.”

  “Who funds them?” Lucy sounded exasperated. “What on earth difference could that make?”

  “A lot,” Jim told her. “You don’t really think all these foundations are as independent as they claim to be, do you? Almost all of them, somehow, are funded by people with one sort of an ax to grind or another.”

  “And CHILD?” Carl Bronski asked.

  Jim looked at him bleakly. “A lot of minor grants from a lot of places. But two big Jones. Continuing support from an outfit called PharMax—”

  “Which is one of the biggest drug companies in the country,” Mark Malone interrupted. “It seems like they’d have a natural interest in a group like CHILD.”

  “It’s the other grant that intrigues me,” Jim Corliss said quietly. “It makes all the other funds, including the ones from PharMax, look like peanuts.”

  “Who is it?” Lucy demanded.

  Jim’s eyes locked on hers, his puzzlement clear in the frown that knotted his forehead. “The Defense Department,” he said slowly. “Now, why would the Defense Department be interested in a group like CHILD?”

  Jason Montgomery came home Just as the full darkness of night was falling over Eastbury. He walked the last few yards very slowly, knowing very well that he was in a lot of trouble. His father, he was sure, would give him a spanking, and his mother—well, she would just look at him, and he would know from her eyes that he’d disappointed her. That would be even worse than the spanking. Jason had found out years ago that spankings only stung for a split second, no matter how hard his father slapped his bottom. He paused, staring at the house.

  How much, he wondered, did they know? Had Joey really told on him? Maybe he hadn’t He could explain his torn clothes by saying that he’d—he’d what? He searched in his mind for a reasonable explanation. Maybe he’d climbed a fence and slipped? That was it. He and somebody else had climbed the fence around the schoolyard, and he’d slipped.

  But what if they’d found out he skipped school?

  He didn’t even want to think about that.

  Wondering if the fun of ditching school had been worth whatever was waiting for him inside the house, he slid through the front door. “Mom? I’m home!”

  From the kitchen, he heard Us father’s voice.

  “Jason? Is that you?” His father came through the dining room, his face red with anger. “Where have you been?”

  “I—I—” Jason stammered. Then, in the face of his father’s wrath, words failed him. He stared up at his father, his eyes brimming with tears.

  Looking down at his son, Steve felt his anger drain away, to be replaced by relief.

  His afternoon had not been easy. He’d left the clinic to find the car—and Sally—gone. He’d started walking home and decided to stop by the school to pick up his son.

  But even though he’d waited until the school grounds were deserted, Jason hadn’t appeared. Finally he’d gone in, found Jason’s room, and talked to his teacher.

  Jason hadn’t been at school that day.

  For the rest of the afternoon Steve had spent his time worrying alternately about his wife and his son, neither of whom came home. He’d called everyone he could think of, including Lucy Corliss, but no one had seen either of them. Several times he’d started to take his car and go looking for them, but he’d always changed his mind, afraid that one or aie other might call him, needing help, and he wouldn’t be there. So he’d waited, nervously pacing the house, willing the phone to ring, glancing out the window every few minutes in hopes of seeing one of the people he loved best.

  And at last his son had come home.

  “Where’ve you been?” he asked again, his voice gentle now. “Why didn’t you go to school?”

  Jason, sensing that his father was no longer angry at him, sniffled a couple of times.

  “ ’Cause of the fight,” he said.

  “The fight with Joey?”

  The little boy shook his head.

  “Then why didn’t you come home?”

  “ ’Cause of the fight you and Mom were having,” Jason explained. Then, as if sensing something wrong, he glanced uneasily around. “Isn’t Mom here?”

  “Not right now,” Steve replied. What could he say to Jason? That his mother had run away, and no one knew where she was? Then, for the first time, he noticed Jason’s torn clothes. “That must have been some fight you had with Joey,” he commented. “Want to tell me about it?”

  Slowly Jason began to unfold the story. “And my eye was swollen,” he finished, “and my arm was bleeding, and my clothes were torn, so I didn’t go to school. But he started it, Dad.”

  Steve nodded absently, not really hearing Jason’
s last words. Instead, he was trying to match Jason’s list of wounds with what he saw.

  His eye was swollen?

  His arm was bleeding?

  And the torn leg on his pants. Where had that come from?

  “What happened to your jeans?”

  Jason scowled. “He pushed me down on the sidewalk, and I skinned my knee?”

  “Show me.”

  Obediently, Jason rolled up his pant leg. The skin on his knee was clear and smooth. And yet, when Steve examined the jeans, he could see what looked like blood on the inside.

  “And what about your arm? Where did he bite you?”

  “Right here.” Jason touched a spot just above his wrist It showed no signs of damage either. Nor was there any blemish on Jason’s face.

  What the hell was going on? Both boys gave the same account of the fight, and Joey Connors had been a mess this morning. “Come on, son,” he said quietly. He led Jason into the kitchen, opened a Coke for the boy, then picked up the phone.

  “Kay?” he asked when the connection was made. “This is Steve Montgomery. I was just wondering how Joey’s doing.”

  There was a slight pause, then a sigh. “All right, I guess. He’s sore, and his bruises won’t go away for a couple of days, but there’s no real damage.” She paused, then added, “Has Jason come home yet? Or Sally?”

  “Jason’s here,” Steve said.

  “Is he okay?”

  “I’m not sure,” Steve said slowly. “But apparently the fight went just about the way Joey said, except that Jason insists Joey started it.”

  “Which he did,” Kay Connors admitted. “What do you mean, you’re not sure if Jason’s okay? Is he hurt?”

  “No, no—nothing like that.” He laughed, but the sound was hollow. “In fact, it seems to me he should be hurt worse than he is. I’m afraid that Joey got by far the worst of it.”

  “I see,” Kay replied, her voice noticeably cooler. In fact, she did not see at all, but privately decided that in the future, Joey would be instructed to have nothing whatever to do with Jason Montgomery. Indeed, from now on, the entire Connors family would avoid the Montgomerys. A moment later she found an excuse to end the conversation and cut the connection.