“Who?”
“Ah, ah, ah … In … Insolers. Man named Insolers.”
Chant quickly looked away to hide any reaction that might show on his face When he turned back, he found that Olsen had rolled away from him and was huddled on the icy concrete, his knees clutched to his chest. Chant reached out and gently gripped the man’s shoulders.
“Who’s this Insolers, Tank?”
Tank shook his head again.
“Come on, my friend,” Chant said as he moved the fingers of his right hand from Olsen’s shoulder to his windpipe. “Don’t you like breathing?”
“You’re fast, man,” Olsen whispered in a curiously childlike voice. “And you hurt.”
“Answer the question. Who’s this Insolers?”
“CIA agent,” Tank Olsen mumbled.
Chant straightened up and stood over the other man. “What would a CIA agent want with you?”
“He came to me, asked me to help him; said something funny was going on with Montsero and the group. He wanted me to keep an eye on things and report back to him.”
Chant wondered if Insolers, or someone like him, had contacted every man in the group; he strongly suspected that was the case. “Why did he choose you?”
“He said the CIA had investigated me, and they thought I was the best man for the job.”
“What were you supposed to look for?”
“He never said. I was just supposed to watch what went on.”
“Why were you told to attack me?”
“I don’t know why; I was just told to do it.” Now the big man sat up and lifted his face toward Chant. In the moonlight, Chant could see tears glistening in Olsen’s scar-framed eyes. “I didn’t want to, Neil. I liked you. But I had to follow orders.”
“It’s all right. I understand.”
“You a Russian spy?”
“No.”
“It don’t make no difference; I still blew it. Shit. I liked working for the CIA.”
“Don’t worry about it, Tank. You’re still working for us.”
“When Duane finds out I … Huh?”
“I’m not a Russian agent, Tank; I’m CIA. Duane Insolers works for me.”
“You? But why—?”
“You can’t become a CIA agent just like that, Tank. I had to test you; I had to see how loyal you were, and if you’d follow orders. Duane was acting on my instructions when he ordered you to attack me.”
“Holy shit,” Olsen murmured as he scratched his head.
“You followed orders well enough, but you failed the most important test. You should never have told me the truth just now. You know that, don’t you?”
“What was I supposed to do, let you kill me?”
“I wasn’t going to kill you,” Chant replied evenly. “I didn’t even come close. All I did was knock the wind out of you a couple of times.”
“Yeah, well, that doesn’t feel too good, you know,” Olsen mumbled.
“You think just anybody can become a CIA agent? You should have been able to take a lot more punishment than I gave you before telling me about Duane I must admit that I’m a little surprised at how easy it was for me to force you to talk. Maybe we were wrong about you.”
“Shit,” Olsen said quietly, dropping his gaze. “Sorry, Neil. I’m really ashamed of myself.”
“Look at me, Tank,” Chant said He waited until Olsen glanced up at him, then reached down and gripped the man’s good shoulder. “I’m going to give you another chance.”
The big man smiled tentatively. “You are?”
“Yes. It was probably unfair of us to expect you to hold out under torture without more training. I still think you’re the right man; I think you’re going to make a good agent as soon as you get a little more experience.”
“Damn, I know I will! Thanks, Neil This is the first decent job I’ve ever had. I just wish my parents were alive and could know; they’d be proud of me.”
“But another chance means another test.”
Olsen winced and quickly put his hands over his stomach. “What kind of test?”
“All you have to do is keep your mouth shut, Tank—like you should have done this time.”
Olsen took his hands away from his stomach and breathed a small sigh of relief “I will, Neil. You can count on me.”
“What happened just now stays between us; the fact that you told me about you and Duane working for the CIA is our secret. You don’t even tell Duane; that’s very important. Don’t mention anything to anyone about this little chat we’re having.”
Tank Olsen’s battered face wrinkled into a puzzled frown. “How come?”
“First, Duane might not agree with my decision to give you another chance; he might go over my head to try to get you taken off this operation. Second, we think there’s a good possibility that Duane is working for the Russians.”
“Jesus Christ,” Olsen said, his eyes going wide.
“Spying is a complicated business, my friend. You’ll understand that when you’ve been at it as long as I have. Just follow my orders, and you’ll stay a CIA agent. Report to Duane like you’re supposed to; tell him about the fight at the college, but not about this talk. On the other hand, you’ll report to me everything Duane says to you. Have you got it?”
Olsen nodded eagerly “I got it.”
“You think you can pull it off, keep the fact that you and I are working together a secret?”
“I can do it.”
“Insolers isn’t stupid, you know. I don’t want him reading things in your face or voice. I don’t want to see you kicked out of the CIA, and I don’t want Insolers to know that we’re on to the fact that he may be working for the Russians.”
“I can do it, Neil.”
“I know you can Now, Montsero may not invite either of us back after what happened—but I have a strong hunch he will. If he does, you have to remember that you’re supposed to be mad at me. Stay away from me I’ll signal you if I want to meet and talk; you signal me—subtly—if you’ve spoken with Duane.”
“I can handle it, Neil. Thanks for giving me a second chance.”
Chant extended his hand to Olsen, helped the man to his feet “You all right?”
Olsen rubbed his stomach. He tentatively sucked in a deep breath, then nodded his head.
“Remember, Tank, not a word to anyone,” Chant continued “You’re my man now; you report only to me.”
“Thanks, Neil!” Olsen called as Chant turned and walked out of the small park. “Thanks a lot!”
Insolers contacted him a week later.
“So? How’d it go this time?”
Chant slowly glanced around the Village restaurant, the same one where they had met the first time, then leaned across the table. “I’m a little concerned, Duane,” he said in a low voice.
Insolers, uncharacteristically dressed casually in jeans and a hooded gray sweatshirt, narrowed his eyes and leaned back, as if Chant’s closeness were offensive to him The medicinal smell that seemed to perpetually hover about the man was even stronger this evening “Why is that, Neil?”
“I think the people we’re after may be on to me.”
“Why do you say that?”
“This big guy jumped me at the last session. He said I’d put my hand on his balls.”
“So? Did you put your hand on his balls?”
Chant affected a pained expression “No, Duane. That’s what I’m trying to tell you; the guy had no reason to come after me Do you think maybe he’s one of them?”
“One of whom?”
“One of the Russian agents.”
“I never said anything about Russian agents.”
“No, but I can read between the lines. You just said to keep my eyes and ears open, but why would the CIA want me in there if not to look for enemy agents?”
Insolers, his eyes searching Chant’s face, grunted noncommittally, said nothing.
“You think this guy was ordered to kill me, Duane?”
“If he w
as ordered to kill you, he certainly fucked up, didn’t he? I don’t see a scratch on you What’d you do, beat the shit out of him?”
Chant shrugged. “He was a big son-of-a-bitch, but pretty slow; too much muscle in too many of the wrong places.”
“Still, it occurs to me that you must be one hell of a street fighter—or maybe just one hell of a fighter, period.”
“I guess I can hold my own; to survive twenty years in prison, you have to learn to hold your own. I’m just glad I didn’t fuck up our deal—my parents would be proud of the fact that I’m working for the CIA. I was afraid Montsero wouldn’t invite me back after the fight, but he did. I got my letter two days ago.”
Insolers’s eyes kept searching Chant’s face. “I’m glad to hear that, Neil,” he said quietly.
“I’ll tell you this, though: I’m going to get even with that big, ambushing son-of-a-bitch when this is over. I’m going to set up a little ambush of my own—one he won’t walk away from so easily.”
“When this is over, you can do anything you like.”
“You still haven’t answered my question, Duane. Do you think somebody wants to kill me because they’re on to the fact that I’m working for you?”
Insolers shook his head. “I think this guy who jumped you just had his balls squeezed and thought you did it If an enemy power wanted to take you out, don’t you think they’d have found someone who’d do the job right?”
Chant pretended to think about it, finally nodded. “I guess you’re right. I didn’t think of that.”
“You’re new in the business Don’t be too hard on yourself.”
“Well, I want to learn.” Chant placed his hands flat on the table, shook his head. “You know, Duane, one thing really puzzles me.”
“What puzzles you?”
“What would the Russians—or any enemy government for that matter—want with a bunch of long-term ex-convicts?” Chant waited, but the question was greeted by silence. Finally he looked up from the backs of his hands into the cold, brown eyes of the man sitting across from him. “Do you know, Duane?”
Insolers, his gaze locked with Chant’s, still said nothing.
“I mean, think about it,” Chant continued. “I’m the only guy in that group who isn’t totally fucked up. At the first session, at least, there were what seemed like some regular guys, but they’re gone. Shit, Duane; except for me, the only guys left are really fucking crazy.”
“No offense, Neil,” Insolers said carefully, “but Montsero obviously thinks you have something in common with the others, or he wouldn’t have invited you back Maybe you managed to convince him that you’re as crazy as the rest of them.”
“Well, I’m not,” Chant said, very much aware of the fact that as the group became increasingly more selective, he had increasingly less room to maneuver in his role as Neil Alter “Most of those other guys will either be dead or back in prison inside a year They’re garbage; any one of them would knife you for the change in your pocket Nobody can predict what they’re going to do What possible use could they be to anybody?”
Insolers lit a cigarette. His movements were very slow and deliberate—a mask, Chant was certain, for the furious racing of his mind.
“There are still some things I can’t tell you,” Insolers replied at last, a low hum of tension in his voice. “Like I said, you’re new to this business, you’ll need a lot more experience before you can be fully briefed on any mission You wouldn’t want to tip our hand to anyone, would you?”
“I’d never do that, Duane.”
“Not intentionally But you wouldn’t want to risk doing it unintentionally, either Right?”
“No. I wouldn’t want to do that.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Insolers said, rising and putting on his coat.
“Hey, I told you about the fight, but you haven’t even asked me what else went on at the second session Don’t you want to know?”
“Sure,” Insolers said as he dropped a twenty-dollar bill on the table to pay for their food. His voice was distant, as if he was distracted by other things on his mind. “What else went on?”
“Except for the fight, nothing unusual—at least nothing that seemed unusual to me. There were a couple more questionnaires, but they were short. Then we spent a lot of time getting checked out by doctors. I’ll tell you, my ass is still sore from—”
“Keep up the good work, Neil,” Insolers said curtly, then turned and walked out of the restaurant.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The eleven men left in the group were taken to an abandoned Army base in upstate New York for a series of arduous physical trials. To himself, Chant called them names such as the run, field of fire and fangs, and the pit, and they were the ultimate physical tests that Montsero could devise—competitions made even more grueling by the grimness and ferocity of the men who took part in them. After the field trials, seven men had been brought back to Blake College, to a different, smaller room.
To pain.
The electricity coursed through Chant’s body like some huge, acid-skinned snake burrowing in his veins and between his muscles, locking his joints and arching his spine The pain writhed for a few seconds in the pit of his stomach, then stopped.
Montsero sat twenty feet away in a straight-backed wooden chair On a table next to him was the apparatus that generated and delivered the electricity in random bursts of steadily increasing voltage Although they were facing each other, Montsero never looked up at Chant, the psychologist intently studied the dials on the machine, then quickly made notes on a long, yellow legal pad when a meter indicated that a charge had been delivered Flashing lights from the various dials, meters, and other monitoring devices were eerily reflected across the dark surface of the man’s aviator glasses.
Cut into the wall behind and above the psychologist’s head was a large, square mirror; there was no doubt in Chant’s mind that the mirror was two-way, and that behind the glass sat the individual whose hidden presence he had first sensed during the field trials, the individual Chant had come to think of as the Watcher.
Chant assumed it was Insolers, who had not contacted him since their second meeting.
Another shock came, knifing through his bowels and genitals, flashing up through his stomach and into his chest Chant suppressed the urge to vomit, then forced himself to turn his thoughts elsewhere so as not to waste energy in trying to anticipate when the next shock would come.
Another jolt flashed through him, and he bucked in the chair He knew that he had already surpassed the pain levels endured by the other men, but wanted to score as high as he possibly could He assumed that Montsero would stop the test before the machine generated a shock powerful enough to do physical damage; however, he could not be certain of this, and after another shock that clenched his jaws shut and made his eyeballs roll back in his head he abruptly stood up, breaking contact with the electrodes planted in the arms, legs, seat, and back of the sweat and urine-stained leather chair in which the subjects sat.
“That’s it,” Chant said evenly.
“First of all,” Montsero said tightly, “I’d like to congratulate you seven men on completing the entire battery of tests in the experimental project. It takes some big balls to stay in this group until the end, and I think it’s only proper that you should be suitably rewarded.”
The psychologist seemed uncharacteristically nervous and unsure of himself, Chant thought, and he wondered why. Despite their much smaller number, they were assembled in the large lecture hall where the group had first met, with Chant and the others dressed in the navy blue jumpsuits they had been issued at the beginning of the field trials. Montsero, dressed in a charcoal-gray suit, stood at the lectern at the front of the hall, leafing through a stack of papers with quick, bird-like motions.
“The testing is finished, gentlemen,” Montsero continued. “However, we’re not finished with you; I’m about to make a proposal which I think all of you will find most attractive.” The psychologist paused
and, for the first time since he had been with the group, removed his glasses to clean them, revealing large, protruding eyeballs. He put the glasses back on, then nervously licked his lips before going on. “First, though, there’s another matter to be dealt with. Mr. Alter, will you please step into the room behind me? There’s someone who’d like to speak with you.”
Chant experienced a sudden premonition of danger. However, he rose without hesitation from his seat and walked past the lectern to the door directly behind Montsero. He turned the knob and stepped into what turned out to be a small, windowless office. Then he grunted softly, and slowly closed the door behind him. Unfortunately, Chant thought, his charade was over.
It was certain that Neil Alter was about to be summarily expelled from the group, and possible that he would be summarily executed.
Although two decades had passed since Chant had last seen him, the man sitting behind the desk in the office was instantly recognizable. He had a heavily scarred, triangular-shaped face with a fleshy lump for a nose, which had been broken far too many times to ever be reset properly. There were scars on his patchy scalp where hair had been torn out by dying men locked in a deadly embrace, and the graying tufts that were left were worn long and combed back over his head. His green eyes were unnaturally bright—intelligent, reptile-cruel, and quite insane.
Standing, the other man would be just under six feet, with a barrel chest and thick legs evident even under his finely tailored suit However, despite his brawn and manifest ugliness, the man’s most striking physical feature would be his arms—powerful, like the rest of his body, but grotesquely extended, almost simianlike in their length, to a point only a few inches above his knees.
According to Army legend, Tommy Wing had acquired his nickname as a fifteen-year-old juvenile offender in Otisville, New York State’s maximum-security facility for minors; clubbed into semiconsciousness by two guards intent on rape, and forced to perform fellatio on one, Wing had proceeded to bite off the man’s penis Unlike Tank Olsen, Chant thought, whose mutilated face was the result of poor fighting technique, Tommy Wing’s ruined features were a matter of choice, the price he casually paid for a particular style of combat that was devastatingly effective on both the bodies and minds of his hapless opponents: Wing was a biter His octopus arms and powerful buck teeth were the only weapons he cared to use. Like some mindless fighting machine that did not feel pain, Wing would absorb any degree of punishment necessary to get him inside the circle of an opponent’s flailing fists; once there, Tommy Wing would use his long arms to grasp the opponent to him And then he would begin to chew.
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