He waited in the darkness outside the administration building as a security guard rolled by in a golf cart, then hurried to the main entrance. He had brought with him the simple tools he would need to pick the lock and short-circuit the alarm system he had glimpsed earlier; however, when he glanced through the glass doors at the entrance, he could see that the red warning light on the central control box was dark. The alarm system was off.
The doors opened when Veil pushed on them. He entered the building, pressed up against a wall in the small lobby, and listened. He heard nothing. Skirting pools of moonlight, he moved across the lobby and climbed a flight of stairs to the reception area where he had been interrogated. The door to Jonathan Pilgrim's office was open. Veil stepped into the director's office. He was searching for a light switch on the wall when a wooden match popped and flared in the darkness fifteen feet away.
He dropped to one knee, snatched the .38 from his waistband, and used both hands to steady and aim it at the spot where he had seen the flame. A moment later the air was filled with the redolent aroma of cigar smoke.
"It's about time you got here, Kendry." Jonathan Pilgrim's voice was dry, laconic. "I was getting bored. You'll find the light switch just to the left of the door."
Veil remained silent and crouched.
"Hit the lights, Kendry," Pilgrim continued after a pause, a slight edge of impatience to his tone. "They can't be seen from outside. Believe me, there's nobody here but us chickens. If you were going to be messed with, it would have happened long before you got this far. Important people do come here on occasion, and I do know something about putting together a security net. How about giving me a little credit for not being a dummy, huh?"
Veil reached back over his head with his left hand and turned on the lights. Pilgrim was seated across the room with his feet propped up on his desk. Next to his hand were an open can of Budweiser and a heavy glass ashtray with three cigar butts in it. The map Veil had seen earlier was still drawn down. There was no one else in the room.
Veil slowly straightened up. As when they had first met, he experienced a sudden, eerily powerful feeling of kinship with the astronaut; it seemed the height of silliness for him to be aiming a gun at the man. "You seem to have been expecting me," Veil said tightly as he clicked on the safety and slipped the gun back into the waistband of his jeans.
Pilgrim shrugged. "I figured you'd be back, even without the invitation I extended when I let you see this map. I take it that you weren't too impressed with our show?"
"Who is Parker?"
"He really is a lieutenant—a lieutenant colonel. He's with the Defense Intelligence Agency. He's supposed to act as a liaison between the Pentagon and the Institute."
"Supposed to?"
"Parker spends half his time dreaming up and trying to run dangerous, off-the-wall experiments, and the other half trying to keep me from finding out about them."
"Most of your budget comes from the Defense Department, doesn't it?"
"Unfortunately, a big part of it."
"Were the police even called?"
"Nope."
"How did you know I'd be able to get back in here?"
"Good instincts," Pilgrim said with a broad smile. "Let's just say I had a sneaking suspicion that you're a bit more than a very talented artist who augments his income by working as a kind of 'street detective,' helping a lot of people nobody else would pay any attention to. Incidentally, I like the way you accept bartered goods and services in exchange for your help. Nice touch. You seem to get involved in more than your share of heavy cases, and now and then you'll make the papers. You have a lot of admirers in the NYPD, but a lot of other cops and city officials wish to hell you had an investigator's license just so they could pull it. I don't know about your friends, but you've made all the right enemies."
"You know a lot about me," Veil said carefully. "I don't recall providing any of that information during my intake interview."
"On the contrary, I don't think we know much about you at all—at least not some very important things. Henry's a damn good investigator, and we always do heavy research on prospective guests before we issue an invitation to come here. With you, we ran into some problems."
"What kinds of problems?" Veil asked, his voice flat.
"1963 to 1972."
"I was in the Army."
"Indeed. Henry has access to service records. Yours covers about three-quarters of a page. It says something about a six-month hitch in Saigon as a driver in a motor pool, and the rest of the time spent as trainer and adviser to various National Guard units. What do you make of that?"
"I don't make anything of it. It's my service record. I didn't have a very distinguished career."
"I think it's bullshit. They gave you a medical discharge, labeled you a psycho. Now, I can understand how working with some of those National Guard units could drive a man crazy—but I don't believe it happened to you."
"Believe it, Jonathan."
"Henry checked, and he couldn't find a single person in any of those units who'd ever heard of you. Some very heavy people have tried to erase nine years of your life. Not only were they sloppy, but they had to be in a real big hurry. It was a patchwork job; when it seemed to be working, nobody bothered to go back and do it right. Everybody involved just breathed a great collective sigh of relief and went on about their other business."
"You could have saved me a hell of a lot of trouble if you'd just told me yesterday that I could stick around."
"Why change the subject?"
"Because it's a pointless discussion. There's no mystery there, just botched records. Why didn't you talk to me yesterday? Don't you trust Ibber?"
"Oh, I trust Henry. Let's just say that I wanted to see how committed you were. Some men simply would have gone home."
"What do you want from me, Jonathan?"
"That was some number you did on the guy who came after you."
"Maybe it happened the way I said it did."
"Being with NASA, I never made it to 'Nam," Pilgrim said as he puffed thoughtfully on his cigar and stared hard at Veil. "Still, we got our fair share of feedback. One of the stories we heard was about a guy with a move like yours, a martial arts master who could tear out a man's esophagus with his fingers. He'd won a bucketful of medals in South Vietnam, and then he was sent into Laos to help the Hmong tribes there fight the Pathet Lao. He was supposed to be a kind of one-man army, a very serious bad-ass. To tell you the truth, I never believed all the stories until I saw what was left of Golden Boy in the locker room and realized that you were the man they'd been talking about."
"Don't ever repeat any of that, Jonathan," Veil said softly. "It's for your own good."
"There's more to the story, although details are very fuzzy. Rumor had it that the brass and politicians were drumming up a big PR campaign to publicize this guy's war exploits, to win back the hearts and minds of Americans for the war effort. Then something very nasty happened in those jungles, and no one ever talked about this guy again. It seems he'd done something to make everyone's shit list. I've always wondered—"
"Jonathan, you're not listening," Veil interrupted. He slowly raised his right hand and pointed the index finger like a gun at Pilgrim's forehead. "If I were this man, I'd warn you about the danger of idly speculating about secrets nobody wants known. Repeat what you've just said to me to the wrong people and somebody could very well come to kill you. Do you understand?"
Pilgrim continued to stare at Veil for some time, then slowly nodded. "I hear you," he said evenly. "You must have fucked somebody over good."
"Who was the man in the locker room?"
"You want a beer?"
"Sure."
Pilgrim reached down to the floor, removed a sweaty can of Budweiser from an ice bucket, and tossed it across the room to Veil. He pulled the tab on the can, then went and sat down on the edge of Pilgrim's desk.
"I promise you we'll get to Golden Boy," Pilgrim said, "but first I'd like
to ask you something. Your background notwithstanding, that guy should have had your ass. You're pushing forty; Golden Boy was young, trained constantly, and it was a situation he'd prepared for carefully. These things I know, Veil, so we can dispense with the mugger story. By rights, he should have been able to kill you before you even knew he was in the neighborhood. In exchange for information about Golden Boy, I'd like to know how you managed to take him."
"Why?"
"Just curious. Where did he slip up?"
"He didn't."
"Oh?"
"He came after me in the pool, not the locker room. I was warned."
"How?"
Veil sighed. "Jonathan, you won't believe me."
"Try me. I've been known to believe six impossible things before breakfast."
"Do you believe in a 'sixth sense'?"
"I certainly do. As a matter of fact, we've done a good deal of research here on what some people call 'sixth sense.'"
"I seem to have been born with a kind of sonic 'sixth sense.' When I'm in danger, I hear a sound inside my head."
"What kind of a sound?"
"It's like a chime ... a velvet-covered chime struck by a velvet-covered hammer. It begins very softly, as something I can actually feel, as well as hear, behind my eyes. It will grow increasingly louder as the danger increases. It's saved my life a good many times. It saved my life in the pool, since it gave me time to turn around and see the man coming. After that, I really did just get lucky."
"Interesting," Pilgrim said, and took a sip of beer.
Veil felt curiously disarmed by Pilgrim's reaction, or lack of it. "You believe me?"
Now Pilgrim seemed genuinely surprised. "Why shouldn't I believe you?"
"You're the first person I've ever told about the chime. There are times when I'm not sure I believe it myself. But it does happen."
Pilgrim shrugged. "Oh, I'm sure it does. I can assure you that I've investigated some very strange things that turned out to be true. That's what the Institute is all about. Perhaps one day we'll look into this chime thing."
"Your turn, Jonathan. Tell me about Golden Boy."
"Right," Pilgrim said, perfunctorily mashing out his cigar in the ashtray. His voice had taken on an edge. "I don't know who he was, but I know what he was. After what happened, that son of a bitch Parker was forced to tell Henry and me a few things. Golden Boy belonged to the Army. He was a member of an experimental, ultra-elite unit the Army's doing some funny things with."
Pilgrim reached behind his head and tapped the map with his hook, indicating the unlabeled gray area in the valley between the two mountains. "He came out of here," the director continued, "and there are at least a half dozen more in there like him. They're code-named Mambas, and they're assassins—probably among the best in the world. Our answer to terrorism; people sic assassins on us or our friends, we sic ours on them. They're trained in ninjitsu techniques by a couple of Japanese masters, and Parker crapped brass bars when he learned that a Greenwich Village artist who paints funny pictures took one of them out. He damn well knows that you're not the average artsy type, but he doesn't know what to do about it. Are you a CIA operative, Veil? Did they fool with your records because they had better things in mind for you than sending you out on lecture tours?"
"Don't you share your information—and guesses—with Parker?"
"No. Let him use his own investigators. If he's made any connection between you and that other business I mentioned, he didn't say anything to Henry or me. He certainly didn't send Golden Boy after you, which makes him one very confused and worried man."
Veil thought about it, decided that Pilgrim was probably right. If Parker had somehow been involved in the assassination attempt, for whatever reason, he certainly would not have told the director and the Institute's investigator about the Mambas. "So," he said at last, "the Institute trains assassins."
Pilgrim flushed slightly. "We don't train them, the Army does."
"The land in the valley belongs to the Army?"
"They lease it from the Institute."
"If you don't like what they're doing, why don't you throw them out?"
"It's not quite that simple. Keeping the Institute functioning properly requires me to whore a little. Without Pentagon money, this place wouldn't be half of what it is. A lot of valuable work wouldn't get done. It's a trade-off—except that Parker and a few other officers over there are constantly stepping over the lines drawn in our contract. The original deal was that I'd allow the Pentagon to set up a compound on leased land, and they would have the right to monitor the experiments we conducted. Well, Parker is in the habit of using raw data he gets from here to set up his own experiments, and he thinks I'm a pain in the ass for demanding to know things he considers none of my business. Well, it's my operation—although some people over there would dearly love to force me out."
"Can they do that?"
"Not legally. That doesn't keep them from constantly pressuring me to step aside, or allow them greater latitude to use our facilities and staff as they see fit. There's been quite a power struggle going on here for the past few years."
"Why is the Institute so important to them?"
"We're in the business of finding out more about human beings; we're the cutting edge of that research, acknowledged by virtually everyone to be the best overall facility in the world. Armies—all armies—are in the business of controlling people. Information is power, of course, and so they see all our work as being of potentially great military significance. They couldn't duplicate our research because—as a straight military operation—they wouldn't be able to attract the subjects or research scientists we do. The Pentagon would very much like me simply to act as a front for them, and I won't do that. For now, at least, the integrity of the Institute is only as solid as my personal integrity."
"You still haven't explained what it is you want from me, Jonathan."
"Are you CIA?"
"I was," Veil said after a long pause. Pilgrim had been very candid, and Veil knew that he would have to begin to respond in kind if he were to get the information he had come for. His life probably depended on it. "It was a long time ago—in another lifetime. Now you could say that our relations are a bit strained."
"Strained enough for them to want to kill you?"
Veil didn't answer.
Pilgrim nodded and waved his hand in a gesture of dismissal, as if the answer were now self-evident. "It's no big surprise that you're agency-trained, you know. Not after what you did."
"Why not KGB?"
"Ah. That possibility is what worries Parker. Rest assured that there are Defense Intelligence people waiting to pick you up at La Guardia. They want to take you someplace of their own choosing where they can really question you."
"It makes sense."
"I never said that Parker isn't logical."
"You don't worry that I might be an enemy agent?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Good vibes bother you?"
"The possibility that you've managed to drug me bothers me. From the first, I've felt as if I've known you all my life. There are people I've known for years, and I can't think of any circumstances under which I'd admit to them that I'd once worked for the CIA. I told you and it was easy. There's a strange chemistry between us, Pilgrim, and I'm not sure if I like it. It makes me uneasy."
Pilgrim laughed as he put a match to another cigar. "I think you're showing a little residual paranoia. Under the circumstances, that's not hard to understand. I can't say why you feel free to talk to me, but I can give you my reasons for trusting you. For openers, you're an artist; you spend too much time by yourself, or with the wrong people, to be an effective intelligence agent. When you're not painting, you're helping an odd assortment of people less sensitive souls might consider real losers. I mean, how many state secrets can you extract from bag ladies, Bowery bums, jugglers, and street musicians? Finally, the only reason you're here at the Institute is because I inv
ited you. That's the end of my case."
"Except that you still haven't told me what you expect to happen now."
"What I want from you is the reason that man tried to kill you. Do you think the CIA used him to try to settle this mysterious old score you won't tell me about?"
"It's possible."
"How possible?"
Veil shrugged. "I can't quote odds. Keeping me hanging is part of the punishment; I can be executed at any time, in any place. But, when they do take me out, they won't want to leave a trace; I'll just disappear. They've already waited years, so it wouldn't make much sense for them to move on me here, in a swimming pool. There's another possibility, and you're not going to like it."
"Try me."
"Whoever recognized me, or knew I was coming here, thought, like you, that I might still be working for the agency. They assumed that my job was to put them out of business, so they decided to move on me first."
Pilgrim grunted with annoyance. "It means the Institute has some unwelcome guests."
"Right. I can't be certain, but I don't think the guests are CIA. Golden Boy was a double agent, but he was still just running an errand for his controller. That man or woman is still here, and I have to find out who it is; it could make a difference in my future plans."
"Shit," Pilgrim said. He sipped at his beer, grimaced. "It's not bad enough that the Pentagon is trying to screw me; now I've got foreigners lining up on my ass too. Did you recognize anyone at the reception?"
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