by Dean Koontz
"And when I get chilly," said the man in the eyeglasses, "I always have to go to the bathroom."
"Shut the fuck up," said the smallest of the three. He had a thin, nasty voice.
"Well, that's not unusual, is it? Cold air makes lots of people want to go take a piss."
"You're a real hypochondriac. You know that? First it's pneumonia. Then it's bladder problems," said the smallest man.
The tall man said, "Will you two cool it?"
A moment later the porch light came on, blinding them for a second or two, and the door opened.
A tall, beefy, rather good-looking man in his late thirties scrutinized them through the storm-door screen. He had a broad, reddish face with a granite-block chin, sharp mouth, Roman nose, and quick dark eyes under bushy eyebrows. He kept his eyes as narrow as paper cuts while he studied the three of them. "What is it?"
"Are you Carl Altmüller?"
"Yes. Who're you?"
"CIA," the tall man said.
"What do you want here?" Altmüller asked, surprised.
The tall man held his agency credentials up to the screen where Altmüller could see them. "We'd like ten minutes of your time to ask you a few questions."
"About what?"
"A case we're on."
"What case?"
The tall man sighed. "Could we come in and discuss it, please? It's damned chilly out here."
"Amen," said the agent who wore eyeglasses.
Unlocking the storm door and pushing it open for them, Altmüller said, "I don't know any damned thing that could possibly interest the CIA. Now that's a fact."
Stepping inside and following Altmüller down a narrow pine-floored entrance hall, the tall man said, "Well, sir, quite often people know things of which they aren't aware. It's quite likely that something you might find inconsequential, something you saw and which meant nothing to you at the time, will be the exact clue that we've been searching for all along."
In the comfortably furnished living room, an attractive blonde was sitting on one end of the couch. She was wearing a tight blue sweater and a short white skirt; her legs were long and well tanned. She took a sip from an icy drink and smiled at them.
"This is my fiancée," Altmüller said. "Connie Eaton."
"Good evening, Miss Eaton," the tall man said. "I'm sorry to interrupt."
She glanced at Altmüller and then back at the agent. "Oh, that's all right, Mr.—"
"Buell," the tall man said. "Ken Buell."
"Now what's this about?" Altmüller asked, offering them neither chairs nor drinks.
Smiling at the woman, Buell said, "Would you mind going out to the kitchen for a few minutes?"
"Not at all." She stood up and quickly pressed her skirt with her one free hand.
Turning to the agent beside him, Buell said, "Keep Miss Eaton company for a few minutes." When Altmüller started to speak, Buell turned to him and said, "What I've come here to see you about is a top-secret matter. Miss Eaton must not listen in on us. And you must not discuss this with her when we've gone."
Altmüller frowned and said, "I don't understand this."
The woman squeezed his arm and said, "It'll be all right, Carl." She smiled at the agent who wore eyeglasses and said, "The kitchen is this way, Mr.—"
He did not pick up on the cue as Buell had done. Instead, he said, "God, it's nice to be in a warm house! The heater isn't working in our car, and I feel like an ice cube." He followed her across the dining room and into the kitchen. He closed the kitchen door behind them.
"Would you just have a seat on the couch, Mr. Altmüller?" Buell asked.
As Altmüller perched on the edge of the couch, the third agent put down the attaché case which he had been carrying and opened it on the coffee table. He took from it a bottle of rubbing alcohol, a cotton pad, a small vial of yellowish serum, and a hypodermic syringe wrapped in a sterilized plastic envelope.
Altmüller's eyes widened. "What's this?"
With that reassuring manner common to the best and worst medical doctors, Buell said, "Mr. Altmüller, you really have nothing at all to worry about. I'm certain you can understand that in a matter like this, with the national security hanging by a thread, extraordinary measures are required."
"What are you talking about? What the fuck are you talking about? What could I have to do with the national security?"
"In time, Mr. Altmüller. I'll explain in time."
Altmüller stood up. "Explain now."
"In a situation like this, when the future of our country is in doubt, we can take no chances," Buell said. "We must—"
"You're talking nonsense," Altmüller said. "I'm not a spy. I'm a nobody. There's nothing I know that—"
"With so much at stake," Buell said, raising his voice slightly, "we must be absolutely sure that you're telling the truth."
"What is that stuff?" Altmüller asked, nodding at the vial. "Is it hyoscine? Amytal? Pentothal?"
"Oh, no," Buell said. "In the agency we are able to take advantage of all the newest discoveries, the latest drugs. This is much more effective than Pentothal."
The third agent broke open the plastic envelope and took out the syringe. He soaked the cotton pad in alcohol and wiped off the membrane that capped the vial. He popped the needle through the membrane and drew yellow fluid into the syringe.
"You need a warrant," Altmüller said belatedly.
"Relax," Buell said.
"The CIA doesn't even have domestic jurisdiction."
"Relax."
His hairline suddenly beaded with perspiration, Altmüller took a step toward the agent who held the needle.
"Sit down," Buell said quietly, coldly.
Numbed by confusion and weakened by fear, Alt-müller stared at the silenced pistol that had appeared almost magically in Buell's right hand.
"Sit down."
"No."
"Don't forget your fiancée in the kitchen."
Altmüller glared at him.
"We only want to ask you some questions."
Opening his mouth and then closing it without speaking, Altmüller sat down.
"Roll up your sleeve," Buell said.
Altmüller made no move to obey.
Raising the pistol, Buell put a bullet in the back of the couch, two inches from the big man's shoulder.
Shaken, Altmüller rolled up his sleeve.
The other agent took a length of rubber tubing from the attaché case and tied it tightly around Altmüller's biceps. In seconds the dark vein bulged out of the smooth skin just above the crook of the arm. The agent picked up the syringe, punched the needle through the vein, pulled it back slightly, drew blood into the syringe where the yellow fluid turned orange, then shot the drug into Altmüller's body.
As the smaller agent began to put away the medical equipment, Altmüller looked at Buell and said, "Ask your questions and get the hell out of here."
"The drug won't take effect for another minute or so," Buell said, still covering the big man with the pistol.
A minute later Altmüller's eyelids drooped. His mouth sagged partway open. He leaned back against the couch and let his hands fall, palms up, at his sides. His voice was weak, distant: "Oh . . . Jesus . . . Christ!"
Buell put away his pistol and took a sheet of paper from his wallet. It was a list of forty names. He took a felt-tip pen from his shirt pocket, uncapped it, and held it next to the first name on the list. Standing over Altmüller, he said, "Do you know a federal marshal named Frank Jaekal?"
Glassy-eyed, Altmüller did not respond.
Buell asked the same question again, in a firmer, louder voice this time.
"No," Altmüller said weakly.
"Do you know a federal marshal named Alan Coffey?"
"No."
"Do you know a federal marshal named Michael Morgan?"
"Yes."
Buell drew a line through that name.
On the couch Altmüller began to twitch uncontrollably.
"Be
tter hurry along," the other agent told Buell.
Buell read out the remaining thirty-seven names, one at a time, until he had finished the list. Fourteen of the forty names were familiar to Altmüller. Calling the names at random, Buell went through the list a second time in order to double-check it, and he found Altmüller's responses did not change.
"It's really hitting him now," the smaller agent said.
Altmüller had fallen on his side on the couch. His eyes were wide and sightless. Clear fluid bubbled at his nostrils. He mumbled and murmured and chewed at his tongue. His body snapped and twisted like a flag in the wind.
"It's a damned good drug," the smaller agent said, "except for the side effects."
Altmüller fell off the couch and thrashed violently on the floor. His tongue was bleeding, and his chin was painted red.
"Will these convulsions kill him?" Buell asked. He watched the big man roll and twist; he was intensely interested.
"No," the smaller agent said. "Unless he was under a doctor's care, he might injure himself severely. But the drug isn't deadly."
"I see."
"But that's academic, of course."
"Yes, of course," Buell said. He drew his pistol and shot Altmüller twice. He put the gun away.
"Lets wrap him in that rag rug," the other agent said.
When they had the corpse rolled into a neat cocoon, they carried it out to the kitchen.
Connie Eaton was sitting on a straight-backed chair, a strip of cloth adhesive tape over her mouth. Her wrists were handcuffed behind her back. She didn't struggle when she realized what was in the rug. She didn't try to scream, and she didn't faint. Instead, all the life drained out of her pretty eyes; she stared ahead as if she were mesmerized, catatonic.
The agent who wore eyeglasses said, "No need to carry him down to the basement. I found a better place to put him." He led them across the room to a food freezer that stood in an alcove beside the back door. The freezer was practically empty. "Good?"
"Perfect," Buell said.
They dumped Altmüller's body into the frosted bin and were just closing the freezer when the telephone rang.
"Probably for us," Buell said. He went to the wall phone by the refrigerator, picked up the receiver, and "Hello?"
"Buell?"
"Yes, sir."
"This is the Spokesman."
"Yes, sir." He explained how things had gone with Altmüller.
The Spokesman said, "Too bad about the woman."
"Yes, it is."
"But why haven't you disposed of her too?"
"She must have a family."
"She does," the Spokesman said.
"And if she disappears for a few days, they'll have the police looking for her. They're bound to come to Altmüller."
"Yes. You're right. What will you do? Take her somewhere and make it look like an accident?"
"That would be best," Buell said. "Does she live alone?"
"According to my information, she does. I see what you have in mind. You can take her back to her apartment and make it look like the work of a burglar."
"Yes, sir. Do you know her address?"
The Spokesman gave it to him. "But I have another job for you, first. There's a federal marshal named William Peyser. Lives near Maryland Park. Not far from where you are now." He gave Buell the exact address. "Get to Peyser as soon as you possibly can and run him through the Altmüller program."
"Will Peyser be alone?"
"To the best of my knowledge, yes. He has no children. His wife died four months ago, so he shouldn't have a girl friend."
Buell stroked his chin with his long, pale fingers. He had a musician's hands, and he was fairly good on the piano. "Then I can leave one man here with the woman. Two of us can deal with Peyser."
"When you've had time to wrap things up in Maryland Park, I'll give you a call there. I want to know which names on that list were strangers to both Altmüller and Peyser."
"Yes, sir."
"I'll have additional instructions for you when you're finished at Mr. Peyser's place."
"Fine."
"Wait there for my call."
"Yes, sir."
The Spokesman hung up.
Putting the receiver back on the hook, Buell turned and looked at the woman.
She stared through him.
To the agent who wore eyeglasses, Buell said, "Jerry, you stay here with Miss Eaton. Jim and I have another job to take care of. It's just over in Maryland Park, We shouldn't be gone very long. When we get back we'll deal with her."
Jerry took off his raincoat and tossed it onto the kitchen counter. "She's so pretty. I wish she hadn't been here."
The smallest man said, "How do we deal with her?"
"The boss says to take her back to her apartment and make it look like some burglarkilled her." Buell watched her eyes and saw no spark of fear.
"Sounds reasonable," Jerry said.
Buell smiled. He had a sharp, saturnine face as pale as dusting powder. "I have a better idea."
"What's that?"
"We take her back to her apartment, just like the boss says. But we don't make it look like the work of a burglar." Buell paused to see if she was listening. She gave him no sign. "We make it look like the work of a rapist."
Emotion, like dark fish in a gelid sea, flickered deep in the woman's eyes.
Buell knew that look, that well-concealed but still-visible terror. He had seen it in the eyes of countless women—and men—when he'd been a rifleman in Vietnam years and years ago.
"Good idea," Jerry said, grinning.
The smallest man agreed.
NINE
Kweichow Province, China
On the morning of his twenty-first birthday, Chai Po-han soared up through the familiar nightmare. In his dream he lay upon a padded table in a room with an extremely low ceiling. Every aspect of the room was white: chalky white, star-white, so fiercely white that the eye rebelled at the sight. The eye—affronted by this unnatural, unbroken, flat and glaring whiteness—attempted to peer through the ceiling, walls and floor as if, after all, they were merely constructed of veined alabaster. But the eye could not deceive itself. And what sort of place was so inhumanly white and sterile? Instantly he knew that he had died and that now he was stretched out upon a table in some celestial morgue, beyond the veil of life. Soon the gods would come to dissect his soul and judge its worthiness. His Communistic soul. His atheistic soul. Why in the name of all his ancestors had his people—and he himself—embraced Maoism? Opiate of the masses: what folly! There were gods, ultimate beings who urinated on the soul of the dead Chairman. And when the dissection was completed, when the gods saw the worm of atheism curled within his heart, Chai Po-han would suffer eternal torture. Pages from the Quotations of Chairman Mao would be ground up and mixed with dung, and he would be forced to dine on this mixture for the rest of tune. To sharpen his humiliation, he would find the dung always tasted better than the other half of his menu. Or perhaps he would be reincarnated first as a slug, then as a cockroach, then as a snake . . . And now, in the ethereal silence, the gods came: men in green gowns, green surgical masks, and green caps, men like linen dragons. They circled him. He saw one of them raise a scalpel. White light winked along the cutting edge. In a moment the dissection would begin. His dead flesh would part bloodlessly, and his stilled heart would open to reveal the worm of faithlessness. Then: one form of damnation or the other, no question about it. And the scalpel rose, descended, touched his translucent skin and grew through it like a thorn through a rose petal . . .
Chai Po-han sat up on his meager straw mattress, a scream caught like bloody phlegm in the back of his throat. Then he heard the soft, furtive rustling of sleeping men turning on their straw beds on all sides of him, and he realized where he was: the agricultural commune in the cursed Province of Kweichow, well north of the minor city of Ssunan. He swallowed the scream and felt it slide thickly down his throat.
Lying back, closing his eye
s, he tried to recover his breath and slow his heartbeat.
The night wind rattled the glass in the warped window frames of the long stablelike building.
Why, he asked the darkness, was he plaqued with this hideous, repeating nightmare?
The wind abruptly gentled down, and the window glass stopped rattling—as if the darkness were saying that it did not want to talk with him.
Was the cause of his bad dream to be found in his visit to the United States? The dream had begun immediately after that, around the middle of February, and it had been replayed nearly every night since then. In that land of unproscribed churches and cathedrals and synagogues and temples, had he begun to doubt the Maoist creed of godlessness which had freed China and made it great? No. Most certainly not. Surely a lifetime of atheism could not be cast off after one brief encounter with those who were religious. Such faith was not a bacterium that could infect a man once he had but taken a few breaths of tainted air.
But how else was he to explain this dream which he threw out each morning and which returned like a boomerang each night?
He got up and dressed in the coarsely woven gray pajama-suit which had been folded at the head of his bed, on top of the thatched box that contained his personal belongings. Although there was little light in the communal sleeping quarters, Chai made his way into the central aisle without stepping on anyone, and he walked to the far end of the building where there were several windows flanking the main entrance.
The glass was discolored and flecked with imperfections, but it was clean; and he was able to look down through the foothills to the River Wu which shimmered in the waning moonlight. A thin, pale yellow line edged the horizon: dawn was not far off.
How would he celebrate this anniversary of his birth? he wondered. Working in the terraced rice paddies? Or perhaps he would be assigned to the construction crew that was erecting—laboriously and solely by manual labor—new dormitories, barns, machinery sheds, and grain storage silos.
What a stifling place this is! What a hole!
Just months ago, during his visit to the West, he had spoken to American and French journalists who had been to China and who praised the communes. They had all seen Liu Ling Commune in Shensi and were impressed. Chai was proud of his people and had talked about Liu Ling as if he had been there. He had explained about the Chairman's enormous program which moved millions of young people to the countryside every year in order to keep them from becoming bourgeois, in order to have them "revolutionized" by the peasants, in order to have them completely "reeducated" as they could be only by sharing the simple life of the countryside. He had been so eloquent. At the time, however, he had not known that Liu Ling was a showplace, an atypical unit of the system, highly polished for the benefit of foreign newsmen and diplomats. Now, a veteran of the Ssunan Commune, Chai understood that those foreign journalists had been deceived, that he had been deceived, that most of the communes were slave labor camps where the inmates remained for the most part voluntarily because they had been made to believe that they were not slaves but heroes who were shaping the future of China.