Jack leaped to the bottom of the stairs. Where was Abbot? More important, where was the car? He got the answer to both at once as Abbot, behind the wheel, brought the car screeching through the parking lot toward him. Jack gauged the car’s arrival, turned back to the stair and fired at the descending guards until his gun was empty. Abbot braked beside him, Jack tumbled into the back seat, and Abbot gunned the motor, racing between the rows toward the parking lot exit.
Jack forced his hand to be steady as he reloaded his gun. Muscle spasms in his back and shoulder made his left arm twitch in unexpected directions. Abbot turned a sharp corner, making the car rise up on two wheels before it crashed back to the pavement. The shock made Jack look up to see two white Visitor vehicles blocking the Kingsley Street exit—Abbot had swerved to avoid them at just the last minute.
At the far west end of the lot was another exit, and Abbot made it just ahead of the pursuing Visitor vehicles. He raced across Fairfield, causing cars traveling in both directions to brake wildly and honk their horns. The resulting confusion bought them a little time.
They raced south to O’Banion, where Abbot turned right with a squeal of tires, nearly sideswiping the cross traffic. A block later he turned left, then right again before slowing to a more reasonable pace. Another left and a right, and they were headed west through a residential district of single family dwellings, the houses unpainted, the lawns unmowed.
“There’s a map in the glove compartment,” Abbot said. Jack reached over the back of the seat and pulled it open. As they passed an intersection, Jack noted the street names, and within moments knew where they were.
“We’re nearly to the west edge of town,” Jack said.
“That’s fine,” Abbot told him. There was a gas station up ahead. He pulled in and parked by the phone booth. He got out to make a call, and Jack got out of the back seat and into the front.
Abbot was back in just a moment. “Just in case we don’t get back across the bay,” he said, “we’re going to make a little report to the fifth column.”
File Twenty-two: Friday Afternoon
They drove back to O’Banion on Carpenter, on the edge of town, then turned west on O’Banion and on out into the country, to an old and somewhat rundown neighborhood development that had never been completed after the arrival of the Visitors.
Abbot pulled in at what had once been the sales office. It was now abandoned, its windows broken, trash piled up on the front porch. Jack and Abbot got out of the car, went around to the back door, and went inside. A Visitor was waiting for them.
“How’s it going, Douglas?” the Visitor asked, shaking Abbot’s hand,
“Just a little hectic, Walter,” Abbot said. “This is Jack Page.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Walter said. “You look like you’ve had a little trouble.”
Jack looked down at himself. His jacket was torn and stained with oil from his roll under the truck, his slacks were ruined, even his turtleneck shirt was ripped. “Just a little bit,” he said.
“So what happened, Douglas?” Walter asked, and Abbot quickly told him about their visit.
“It’s unfqrtunate,” Walter said when Abbot finished. “Security here has been tight enough as it is, and now it’s going to get worse.”
“We didn’t have much choice,” Abbot said, “once Hickory made us.”
“I know, I’m not blaming you. Your people have been keeping us pretty well informed, so I know most of what’s been going on down in Freeport. We’re onto something big here, Douglas, and if we can just figure out what it is, and what to do about it, we should be able to make all this effort pay off.”
“We got an awful lot of stuff out of that secret prison,” Abbot said. “When we get it translated—”
“I’ve heard about it. Most of it is just prison records, interesting in and of themselves, but not of much use to us. The rest of it doesn’t make any sense at all.”
“What about the references to extra low frequency radiation?” Jack asked.
“Plenty of that, but we don’t know what it means. Look, this stuff is going to be useful, but none of the people who’ve read any of it so far have any background in that subject, or in the others covered in those documents. There may be profound secrets there, but we’ve got to get this stuff to experts, who know what it’s all about. And that’s going to take a while.”
“We’re not going to just sit back and wait,” Abbot said.
“I’m not suggesting it. We don’t know Dwight’s timetable, and he might decide to speed things up because of all the trouble you’ve caused him.”
“You think Dwight’s behind all this?” Jack asked.
“I think so. If I could prove that he was operating against policy, I could plant some suggestions that might get him investigated, possibly relieved of his responsibilities. But that would take several weeks at least. And he’s been very careful. Or else he’s really not as important as I think he is. We’ve not been able to dig up anything we could use against him.”
“Show him the photos, Jack,” Abbot said.
Jack took the copies from his inside jacket pocket. They were creased and wrinkled now, slightly tom and smudged. But the faces were still clear. Walter looked at them for a long time.
“So this is Hickory,” he said. “I’ve never met him, but I know him by reputation. He’s in intelligence, not communications. Can I keep a copy?”
“Sure,” Jack said, “I’ve got another.”
“Good. Now that we can identify him, we might be able to do something about him. I’ll pass this around.” He folded the photocopy and put it away in his uniform. “The big question is, how do all these people tie in together?”
“You’ve asked the prize winner,” Jack said. “Maybe there’s more than one conspiracy, and this is all just coincidence.”
“I don’t believe that for a minute,” Walter said. “Let’s look at what we know. Dwight, Vincent Kline, and Charles Anthony Oswald were in fact conferring, in secret, illegally, in Freeport. That’s not coincidence, that’s deliberate.
“Secondly, Dwight has been actively involved in developing communications systems. That’s not his department, though it can be justified in terms of human-Visitor relations. But this studio you just messed up has nothing to do with humans. He was also one of those who worked to try to get permission to build a similar studio down in Freeport.
“Third, somebody is conducting some kind of experiments involving extra low frequency radiation, and they’ve been doing it in Freeport. Dwight is involved with that, but is he in charge? We don’t know. Hickory is also involved, and it seems more likely that the connection is through him, as an intelligence officer.
“Then, we have the unproven but obvious fact that Freeport’s police department, and city government, are in some kind of collusion with organized crime down there. There’s nothing confusing or unbelievable about that.” “Taken individually,” Jack said.
“Exactly. Oswald and Kline. Fine. Crime pressures government, gets the freedom to operate. Government uses crime, ensures its power. No problem. Oswald and Dwight, no problem. We could assume a straightforward case of espionage and treason. Dwight and Kline could work together, there’s a fortune to be made in the black market, for both of them, though that situation would be a little more complicated than just that. It’s all three of them together that doesn’t make sense.”
“A highly unlikely triumvirate,” Abbot agreed. “And it poses the further question, which one is really the boss?” “Let’s drop that for the moment,” Walter said. “That’s old. The new element is this ELF business.”
“There was something,” Jack said, “about ELF’s effects on the human body and mind. What have you learned about that?”
“Not much, we don’t understand that jargon. It seems that ELF does have an effect, both physiological and psychological. Depending on how this radiation is applied, it can make a person nervous, or calm, or excited, or lethargic, or sick, or mas
k sickness. It can make them drowsy, or alert. What we’re lacking is any clear indication of the objectives of this research.”
“It still sounds like mind control to me,” Abbot said. “Mood control, perhaps,” Walter said, “but surely not thought control.”
“Mood control could be very effective,” Jack said, “in and of itself.”
“Agreed, but what mood? To what purpose? We don’t know enough yet to form a reasonable hypothesis.” “Then let’s forget it,” Jack said, “until we know more. How does that studio at the Fairfield Mail tie in?”
“So far as I can tell,” Walter said, “it doesn’t. But you were there, how did it seem to you?”
“It’s a penny-ante setup,” Abbot said. “It looked just like any other small-town station I’ve ever seen.”
“They didn’t try to hide anything from you? No secret studios, no concealed equipment?”
“About the only thing we didn’t see,” Jack said, “were Dwight’s offices and the bathrooms. Debra Walston was completely open with us. I believe she would have bought whatever Abbot might have offered her, if she could.” “So you agree, then, that that station is just a false trail.” “I would,” Abbot said, “if TV didn’t figure into this whole business so many times already.”
“Now wait a minute,” Jack said. “One of the things Carpentier told me was that she was reluctant to talk about doing that job because of technological secrets of some kind.”
“There was nothing at Fairfield that fits in with that,” Abbot said. “1 recognized every piece of equipment there. ” “Then what kind of technology would Carpentier be afraid to talk about?”
“I don’t know, but it’s a good point. I think we ought to talk to her again. Maybe, now, we can convince her to tell us what she knows.”
“If,” Walter said, “she’s not just covering up some personal indiscretion.”
“If she is,” Abbot said, “then we’d better find out about it, so we can eliminate it. What I’m concerned about right now, however, is finding out where Dwight is. He might not be the mastermind, but he’s the key, I’m sure.”
“I agree,” Walter said. “He’s the one whom we can tie, one way or another, reasonable or not, to every other element. There’s nothing between Kline and TV, for example.”
“That we know of,” Jack said. “But I know for a fact that he was the one who kidnapped Emily Velasquez, even if she wound up in a Visitor prison. Kline’s the one who sent his heavies after me, to find out about those photos. He’s the one who’s the chief of a secret empire, and in many ways stands to gain or lose the most from any disruption of government or change in relations between Northampton and Freeport.”
“You may be right,” Walter said, “but I still think Dwight is the key. And we’re going to do our best to find him. In the meantime, have you been able to do anything about Oswald? Or about Kline for that matter?”
“Not much,” Abbot admitted. “We don’t have extensive contacts in the first place, and everybody seems to be slacking off for some reason. I got only two out of nine people to help break Miss Velasquez out of that prison. Can you believe it? We do have some people we can trust on the police force, and they’ve been helpful already. And we know we can trust the assistant city attorney, and we’re trying to get him what he needs so that he can initiate an open investigation without fear for his life. But we’ve not been able to do anything with the mob at all. It’s been very frustrating.”
“I’m sure it has been,” Walter said. “But keep on trying. Now look, it’s getting late, and you’re going to have to get back to Freeport.”
“We’ve spent too much time here already,” Jack said. “I want to make sure Emily’s all right, and we’re not going to be able to go back the way we came.”
“We’ll take the second bridge west,” Abbot said. “It will take about an hour and a half longer, unfortunately. ” “That’s what’s got me worried.”
“It’s a safe house, Jack, she’ll be all right.”
“It’s not the house I’m worried about, it’s Dahlgren.” “Now come on, you saw fit to trust him this morning.” “It’s not that, dammit.”
“It’s his being left alone with Emily.”
“Yes. Though why that should make any difference now ...”
“You can’t,” Walter said, “let your personal interests interfere with what has to be done.”
“Dammit, it was my personal interest that uncovered this mess in the first place. It was because of my personal interest that we got Emily out of that prison, instead of just picking up a bunch of documents we can’t read or understand.”
“He’s right, Walter,” Abbot said. “We’ve learned more from a few of Emily’s jumbled memories than from that other stuff.”
“Sorry,” Walter said. “But that reminds me, if she was subjected to some of our interrogation methods, it’s very likely that they may also have tried to convert her at some time.”
“There was conversion equipment there,” Abbot said. “And if that’s the case,” Walter went on, “even if it wasn’t completely successful, it could have subtle and long-reaching effects.”
“My God,” Jack said, “I never even thought of that.” “So what can we do about it?” Abbot asked. “We’re just going to have to let that pass until we take care of the situation at hand.”
“Dammit, Abbot,” Jack said, “that is the situation at hand. You admitted it yourself, we learned more from Emily than from almost anything else we’ve done. Her loss of memory of the events following her kidnapping is not typical. She has full recall of every detail prior to that, and that should be what she’s forgotten.” He turned to Walter. “Can conversion make you forget things?”
“You can be forced to forget things, as a part of the process.”
“All right then. Emily was right there. They not only asked her questions, they talked about things in front of her. Why would they do that unless they knew she would not be able to tell anybody else?”
“They thought that,” Abbot said, “because they thought she was going to remain a prisoner.”
“Then why did they mess with her memory at all?” “We don’t know that they did, the trauma of the experience—”
“Bullshit. That’s what 1 was just telling you. Trauma erases memories prior to the event. Her memory is confused after the event.”
“It works that way too, sometimes.”
“I know it, but—”
“You’re wasting your time, Jack.”
“I don’t think so,” Walter said. “Even if they didn’t deliberately scramble her memories, they could have planted something in her mind, to make her turn against you at some time. We know they released every one of their captives after a few hours or a few days. They might have had every intention of turning Miss Velasquez loose, once they had completed the conversion process.”
“So what do we do?” Jack asked.
“Emily will have to be examined by an expert and deconverted. That should also clear up most if not all of her memories. The trouble is, a full deconversion would require the kind of lab that exists only in certain places in California and North Carolina, or up on a mothership.
“But we do have access to an expert. I’ll arrange to have her smuggled down to Freeport, and we can decide what to do with Emily after she’s been examined. At the very least, we can counter the worst of the side effects.”
“All right,” Abbot said. “I guess it’s worth the effort.” “You’re damn straight,” Jack said.
File Twenty-three: Friday Evening
When they got to Freeport, nearly two hours later, Jack asked Abbot to drop him off at the Carter House hotel. “I need a change of clothes,” he said, “and I should check in with my office.”
“Can’t you just let that wait?”
“My secretary is going to wonder where the hell I am, my clients are going to be angry, and I want some clean clothes.”
“Okay, but be careful.”
&nb
sp; Feeling conspicuous in his soiled and tom clothes, Jack went into the hotel where he paid for another night. The clerk tactfully said nothing about his appearance. When he got to his room he stripped off his clothes, and at long last was able to undo the straps that held his false arm in place. He was sore and chafed. The arm was a bit dented from his roll under the truck and collision with the stair rail, but otherwise unharmed.
He took a long, hot shower, working the soreness and fatigue out of his muscles. He needed a shave, but he’d forgotten to pack his razor. Maybe the hotel could sell him one. He dressed in clean if rumpled slacks, turtleneck, and jacket, and called down to room service for shaving supplies, and ordered some supper as well. Then he called his office.
Though it was getting late in the afternoon, Mrs. McKinley was still there. “Where have you been?” she demanded. “Mrs. Turpin was furious. Mr. Skelley really needed to see you. And—”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. McKinley, 1 ran into some trouble last night.”
Mrs. McKinley was silent for a long moment. “I see,” she said at last. “I think I understand. It has to do with that phone call you got Monday evening, doesn’t it?”
“It does,” he said, knowing she was referring to Emily’s frantic call. “All I can say right now is that things are a lot worse than I expected they would be.”
“I’m sorry. Is she all right?”
“She’s alive.”
“I’m so glad. I should tell you that a Lt. LeGrange has been into the office several times today to see you. The police seem to think you had something to do with a murder, which I don’t believe for a minute.”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. McKinley, it’s true, but it was self defense, not murder, however they’re making it look.” “Oh, dear. But if it was self defense . . . ?”
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