In a moment the man's hand was on the latch. He tried it. Found it locked.
With the girl standing watch, the man opened his duffel bag and removed a small hydraulic jack and two twelve-inch lengths of iron pipe. He screwed the pipes together, making a two-foot bar. This he attached to a fitting he had welded to the head of the jack. He positioned his creation horizontally, running from one side of the door frame to the other, just in front of the lock. Then, with a crank he had fashioned in his workshop, he began to turn the jack. The jack lengthened until it held itself in place. It extended some more. As pressure increased, both sides of the door frame strained and creaked. Soon the ancient wood began to split. Slivers popped out like tiny switchblades. Within moments the vertical door frames started to bow, screeching as the wood bent outward.
When the man tried the door again it opened easily, now too narrow for its widened frame.
Slowly, carefully, the man collapsed the jack and removed his apparatus from the doorway. He disassembled it and returned it to the bag.
Then he and the little girl entered the building.
They stood in the center of a long unlighted corridor that ran left and right the entire length of the building. The closed door directly in front of them probably led to the main hall.
Following a powerful instinct, the man ignored this nearby door and went left. He knew they'd quickly find a stairway that would take them upstairs and almost to the room they were looking for.
Rapidly he led the girl along the shadow-crowded corridor. They were in luck! Everything was exactly as he'd imagined.
They climbed the steps as quickly and quietly as they could. At the top they stopped and peered through a doorless opening that would admit them to a dimly lighted hallway.
As the man transferred the duffel bag from one hand to the other, the pipes it contained clanked together. He stepped back quickly, his heart pounding.
In French, a woman's voice said, "What's that? Who's there?"
The man held his breath as a white-garbed figure carrying a flashlight and a stethoscope scurried toward them.
He grabbed the little girl and threw her out into the corridor. She stumbled, her bare feet skidded, and she hit the floor. There she began to cry softly. The white-clad figure hurried to assist her.
"What's this?" said the nun. "Who are you, child? What are you doing here?"
From the shadows, the redheaded man watched the nun kneel to comfort the fallen child. "What has happened here, little one? Oh my heavens, you're filthy dirty! Come, child, let me clean you up."
The girl lifted her head until she faced the nun.
Seeing the child's ruined face, her blackened eyes, her grotesquely distended lips, the nun recoiled in surprise. At that moment the man seized her. His left arm coiled around her neck, jerking her upright. His right hand slapped across her mouth. He spun her around and pushed her headfirst against the rock wall. Her knees gave out. As she slumped, he snatched his duffel bag and slammed it against the back of her head.
Then the man and the little girl ran down the corridor toward Father Mosely's room.
Hobston, Vermont
The persistent electronic beep wrenched Father Sullivan from a troubled sleep. This was his first night at St. Joseph's rectory and he'd never been able to sleep well in unfamiliar surroundings.
When the electronic trill sounded again, Father Sullivan realized it was the telephone. "What's the matter with good old-fashioned bells?" he mumbled. "At least a man can tell what he's listening to." Before summoning the energy to open his eyes, he groped for the bedside lamp. His floundering hand knocked over the half-full glass of water on the bedside table. He knew the tumbled glass had emptied its contents into his slippers.
"Damn," he muttered, and begrudgingly let his eyes open—just a slit—to discover it was already light in the bedroom.
The phone rang.
Sullivan poked at the various objects on the table looking for his watch. He found It on his wrist. Ten after six in the morning!
He flopped back on his pillow, thinking how great it would be if he could just sleep another couple of hours.
The phone rang.
This time he managed to grab the receiver without lifting his head from the pillow. "Yes? Hello? Good morning?"
The voice spoke in French. It sounded a long way off. "Hello, Father Sullivan?"
"Yes."
"This is Sister Marie from Hospital Pardieu in Montreal . . . ."
"Yes, Sister. Good morning."
"I am calling for Father LeClair. Can you wait please?"
"Yes, Sister, of course." They wake me up and put me on hold! Where is the justice?
Sullivan heard the familiar French-accented tones. "Father Sullivan? Bill? It is Gaston LeClair. I am sorry to have awakened you at this hour, Bill. But . . . well, we have had the strangest thing happen. Of course I am aware of your interest in Father Mosely, so I have called you at once."
"Something's happened to Father Mosely?"
"Bill, he is gone—"
"Dead?"
"No. He is gone. Vanished. Someone broke in here last night and took him—how do you say?—kidnapped him."
"Kidnapped him? That's crazy."
"Yes. Crazy. The police are here now."
"Didn't anyone see what happened? Didn't you hear anything? I mean to kidnap an old man in a coma . . . ?"
"Sister Elise was hurt—"
"Oh good God. How bad?"
"She is unconscious. The doctor is with her." Father LeClair's voice cracked, "They were brutal, Father, and she is not a young woman. They . . . they smashed . . . with her head . . . against the stone wall. Made her unconscious. Her nose is broken. Teeth, too. She will be scarred, Father, disfigured . . . ."
"Dear God."
"Bill, the police want to talk to you. They want to know if you have any idea who could have done such a thing. And why? What reason can there be to kidnap an old man in a coma?"
"I don't know, Father. I have no idea. But I promise you this: I intend to find out."
Boston, Massachusetts
At exactly twenty-three hundred hours the automatic timer locked Dr. McCurdy in his office.
The precise metallic click of the mechanism jolted him from his reverie and reminded him that he was the only person in the Academy building.
Metal window blinds clattered shut, his FM radio switched off, the electric circuits to his office—all save one—disconnected. A single electronic tone told him the telephone line was inoperative. No incoming calls, none going out.
Although he couldn't hear it, he knew that low-frequency electromagnetic waves were eliminating any possibility of electronic surveillance.
His pulse throbbed in the bandaged stub on his left hand. Nervously he picked at the white surgical tape.
"Okay, boss," he said to himself. "You're on."
He pressed a good half of his cigarette against the marble ashtray and brushed an accumulation of ashes from the front of his cardigan.
Standing up, McCurdy stretched, yawned, then walked away from his desk, moving to the computer terminal that was appearing from behind a rising panel on the far side of the room.
Eleven o'clock had also activated a communications program McCurdy was required to use once a week for exactly one hour. He knew that messages originating at either end of the hook-up would be temporarily saved, scrutinized electronically, then deleted a character at a time as they were transmitted in nonsequential patterns, millicharacter after millicharacter. The entire process, hidden among scores of inconsequential data, would be dispatched immediately if urgent, or randomly and intermittently if routine. Routine transmissions—the simple manipulation of data—took place over the seven-hour period between midnight and seven o'clock in the morning, exactly one electronically measured hour before the office officially opened. McCurdy's coded message would arrive hundreds of miles away. And somewhere within the Pentagon, each tiny character would become an electronic needle hidden
within billions upon billions of electronic haystacks.
It was safe, a foolproof system that couldn't be detected, much less decoded.
Message or no message, security required Dr. McCurdy to remain locked in his office until midnight, when a precise electronic timer would unlock his office door, restore telephone lines and electrical circuits.
McCurdy sometimes wondered who, exactly, he was communicating with? Was there really a human being on the other end of the line, sitting in some dark air-conditioned office before an identical keyboard? Or was he communicating with the machine itself, holding cryptic conversations with some experimental data bank equipped with a state-of-the-art artificial intelligence program?
If the truth were known, might McCurdy discover these late-night hour-long sessions were actually a test or some kind of verification procedure? Were his reactions, thought processes, reasoning ability, and general awareness being probed and examined by some phantom federal employee at the other end of Bubb's long extension cord? He didn't know. And in truth, it didn't matter. The bottom line was that he was doing his job. It wasn't his responsibility to question, to agree, or to disagree; it was his responsibility to do. Exactly as ordered. Period. The annual renewal of the grant money made it all worthwhile.
Still, McCurdy was certain of one thing: there were many secret checks and balances built into the system, enough to verify beyond doubt that the user in Boston, Massachusetts, was, in fact. Dr. Ian McCurdy.
Since security did not allow him to know the various check mechanisms, his single great fear was to inadvertently trigger one. If the machine believed him to be an impostor, the office would not unlock, and there would be no way to abort Bubb's CONTAIN command.
McCurdy stared at his reflection in the empty screen. While he waited, he hypothesized about the various "'check and verify" systems operating at the Academy. He enjoyed guessing, although he didn't know much about what he called "gadget technology," the electronic instruments of surveillance. One device, he guessed, might have to do with how much he weighed. Every Monday, without exception, the nurse took his blood pressure and recorded his weight. This weekly routine was part of ESRP—Esrep—their bogus Executive Stress Reduction Program. Maybe his desk chair, or the chair at the computer terminal, weighed him and compared.
Or maybe it had something to do with his car. His instructions were most emphatic: he was always to park the Academy's car in the spot reserved exclusively for him.
But no, these seemed clunky and imprecise.
Then again, perhaps one of the keys on his computer terminal could recognize his fingerprint. But which key? And which finger? Whoa! Realization struck with a jolt of adrenaline—he no longer had a print on the little finger of his left hand! What if—
His attention locked on the CRT as it began to glow neon purple, a color out of some flashy science fiction film. Or, as his trainer had remarked three years ago in a rare display of humor, "It's just like the color of a bug-zapper." Right now McCurdy didn't like to contemplate the irony in that statement.
Although these weekly contacts were boringly repetitive, not to mention routinely uneventful, there was always a moment of suspense as the computer's logo—BLZ-28/22—appeared at the center of the screen.
McCurdy could never anticipate exactly what information might be required of him, or what instructions he might receive. But tonight, more than usual, he had an idea of what was coming.
A white smoky image began to take shape on the monitor. It undulated and solidified, assuming the characteristics of a human hand. A left hand, with a truncated little finger.
McCurdy couldn't believe it. How? How did they know?
But he knew the routine. He placed his left palm on the video screen, directly over its mirror image. When he took his hand away, its hazy outline remained imposed upon its video twin. In the center of the electronic palms, a message had appeared:
MCCURDY VERIFIED
The two words blinked twice. They vanished and were replaced with:
INFORMATION
REQUEST
TO FOLLOW
He waited, oddly tense, nearly certain of the next display.
INDICATE STATUS
EMPLOYEE
NUMBER U-7734
+++
NAME: CHANDLER, JEFFREY.
The instruction faded; controlled choices appeared.
YOUR ASSESSMENT OF
PROMOTION POTENTIAL
1: SATISFACTORY
2: UNSATISFACTORY
PLEASE RESPOND:
McCurdy marveled at how simple it seemed. For Jeff Chandler, without his even knowing it, the entire world had suddenly been reduced to two one-word states of being on a tiny computer screen. The simple words were almost Zen in their austerity. Either could connote complicated life situations, motives, reasons, rationales, explanations, layers of subtlety, personal drives, loves, ambitions, interpersonal affections. Here, any Imaginable complexity of situation had been reduced through electronic objectivity to a simple binary, a simple choice: one or two, A or B, true or false, right or wrong, bad or good, light or dark, on or off, life or—
Briefly, McCurdy wondered what would happen if he lied. Should he try it? Should he hit number two? THE EMPLOYEE IS UNSATISFACTORY, UNSATISFACTORY, UNSATISFACTORY . . .
For a moment he speculated that if the machine knew enough to ask the question, it probably knew the answer as well. In fact, this entire exercise could be phony, a setup, nothing more than one of security's seemingly motiveless checks and balances.
But what if the proper response really couldn't be communicated by a simple one-word answer? Suppose he wanted to reply more completely than either choice would permit?—I found I actually like Jeff Chandler. He impresses me as an oafish, six-foot kid, a lovable, charming clown who'll never appreciate the full responsibilities of his position here. Jeff impresses me as a small-timer, not even one hundred percent security cleared—
He didn't dare test his hypothesis. Fearful to wait any longer, he reached forward—remembering to hold down the asterisk anytime he entered data—and pressed "1" on the keyboard.
YOUR SATISFACTION IS NOTED,
DOCTOR MCCURDY.
The thirty-six letters tumbled away into the screen's purple infinity. Where they vanished, more appeared.
YOU HESITATED.
WHY?
PLEASE RESPOND:
McCurdy tensed. Never before had his behavior—not even his response time—been questioned by the machine.
*because i understand the consequence of my answer
AND KNOWING,
DO YOU STILL HESITATE?
PLEASE RESPOND:
*no
GOOD.
PLEASE VERIFY.
McCurdy typed:
* new employee, number u-7734
* chandler, jeffrey:
* evaluation rated satisfactory.
THANK YOU, DOCTOR MCCURDY.
PLEASE PREPARE FOR DISCUSSION TO FOLLOW.
McCurdy prepared, knowing he would have to read rapidly as words flashed in hypnotic pulsations on the purple screen.
DOCTOR MCCURDY, THE WORK YOU DO
HAS GREAT VALUE. IT HOLDS THE
PROMISE OF AFFECTING PEACE AND
HARMONY IN A TROUBLED WORLD. YOU
UNDERSTAND THAT YOU WERE GIVEN
THIS R&D PROJECT BECAUSE
—YOU ARE A SKILLED ADMINISTRATOR
—YOUR MILITARY RECORD IS WITHOUT BLEMISH
—YOUR RELIGIOUS BELIEFS DEMONSTRATE THAT YOU ARE SINCERE IN YOUR DESIRE FOR A PEACEFUL WORLD
—YOUR UNDERSTANDING OF THE NATURE OF EVIL IS THE ONLY UNDERSTANDING THAT CAN LEAD TO ITS EXTINCTION.
PLEASE RESPOND:
Respond? What was he supposed to say? For an instant he thought he had to choose among multiple responses.
DOCTOR MCCURDY, PLEASE
ACKNOWLEDGE THAT YOU UNDERSTAND.
PLEASE RESPOND:
PLEASE RESPOND:
* I understand<
br />
THANK YOU. I HAVE BEEN INSTRUCTED TO INFORM
YOU THAT THE NATURE OF
YOUR ASSIGNMENT WILL SOON BE
MODIFIED. IT IS TIME FOR US TO MEET.
I WILL CONTACT YOU BEFORE THIS
TIME NEXT WEEK.
PLEASE RESPOND:
* yes, understood
* question: where am i to meet you?
DOCTOR MCCURDY, I WILL CONTACT YOU.
THAT IS ALL. TRANSMISSION TERMINATED.
The screen went dead. A tone told him the electrical and communication circuits were operative again. He heard the whir and clatter of the metal shutters uncovering the windows.
McCurdy didn't rise from his desk, though a metallic click told him the door was unlocked and he was free to go. Instead, he sat staring at a paneled wall where the keyboard and CRT had been. Doubt flickered somewhere in the back of his mind. His mangled hand began to itch.
Had he been dialoging with a machine or with a human being?
McCurdy's heart jumped against his chest as he prayed silently, moving his lips without speaking, Oh my dear Lord Jesus, let this be the beginning . . .
Invaders
Hobston, Vermont
Friday, June 24
Bingham Creek Road ended at a turnaround in Daisy Dubois's dooryard.
The Reality Conspiracy Page 15