“Anything else?”
“Yes, call the police chief who’s investigating the jail break in Tallahassee. His number’s on my Rolodex. Ask him for a detailed description of Slim, who escaped with Donna. We have a facial photo of him, but we don’t have a full-length one. If you can get a full-length picture, please take it to the nurse who gave us the description of the phony cop to determine if it was the same guy. Also, ask her to check Slim’s arms very carefully in his full length picture.”
“His arms?” Jim thought he wasn’t hearing Fred correctly.
“Yes, I’ll explain it later, it may be nothing.”
“Okay, Fred, you take care.”
“Thanks, Jim, and you please be careful as well.”
Fred’s last comment was not just issued as a polite phrase. He really wanted Jim to be diligent. He recalled that Jim was not part of the group who had been directly involved in Donna’s capture four years earlier. Therefore, she should not be seeking revenge on him. But she was acting so indiscriminately in her killings, anything was now possible.
* * *
Around noon the next day Fred received a call from Jim.
“Fred, I obtained a full length picture of Slim. The Tallahassee police chief had to get it from a reluctant family member. I took the picture to the nurse. Frankly, Fred, she said she had a hard time remembering the police officer who was with Donna. She said she recalled vividly that he had auburn hair, actually more of a bright red, and a sweet, in her words, mustache. I guess she was so taken in by his hair and his mustache she ignored the rest of him. But, of course, we already knew what features he had, based on her earlier description. Oh, yes, something else—she said the guy in the picture didn’t seem to have the same muscular development in his arms as the guy she saw at the hospital; but she couldn’t be sure about that. Otherwise, she said they seemed to be about the same height, to the best of her recollection.”
“Any information coming in on Slim yet?”
“No, the Tallahassee chief called me a couple of times. Local police still have a watch on his parents house in case he comes back. That’s about it. Sorry I couldn’t have helped more.”
“Thanks, Jim. Catch you later.”
Chapter 59
A week had passed and Fred felt he had physically healed well enough to get back to work.
“Honey, I’ve decided I have to return to Sarasota to lend my hand to Donna’s capture.”
“What will happen to me in the meantime?”
“I’ve talked to Shade, he’s agreeable to letting you stay here. You’ll be safe here. This might be the most protected area in America, and I will return as soon as I can.”
“I thought you wanted me to go further north.”
“Well, I don’t have the feeling that your life is in danger here anymore. I guess it was just a gut feeling that I had at the time, but it’s gone now.”
“How is your head?”
“Great, I’m as sexy as ever.”
“I don’t know, I always had a thing for someone with a bandage on his head instead of hair. I really think the bandage was becoming to you. Maybe you should dye it a nice blue color, though. I’ve always thought you wear blue well.”
Fred didn’t want Maureen to know, but in truth, his head was aching. He had hoped that in the last few days he would be healed to the extent that his intense pain would diminish. But so far, each morning that he woke up, the pain was more extreme than the day before.
“Fred, I worry about you going back there,” Maureen said. “Donna scares me, and she’s already killed so many people.”
“Don’t worry, hon. You forget that now I’m Donna’s equal.”
“That may be. But she killed Atwell and, according to you, he had stronger powers than she did. “
“Yes, but I suspect he was not expecting her; I’ll be ready.”
* * *
Fred took the next Amtrak back to Florida. The end of the line was Sanford, Florida, a few miles to the north of Orlando. Jim was waiting for him when he got off the train.
“What’s the latest with your operation?” Jim asked.
“Not much, I guess I’m healing all right.” Fred didn’t want to burden Jim with the details.
“And how about your psychic abilities?”
“They’re still being tested, but I certainly have some ability I didn’t have before the operation. And, no, you don’t have to put a police check on my house while I’m back in Sarasota.”
Jim said, “What in hell are you talking about?”
“Actually, I picked up on the thoughts in your mind. I wasn’t prying, but sometimes it comes to me unexpectedly.”
“God, Fred, that gives me the chills; I guess in the future I won’t try to keep a secret from you.”
“Jim, my sole reason for having the operation was to help me capture Donna. Frankly, this new ability I have is a pain in the ass. Is there any news about her?”
“None at all. Do you think she has fled the area?”
“No, I’m certain of that; she won’t leave until she gets what she wants, and what she wants is me in the morgue.”
Chapter 60
Many of the coalesced images that Fred had initially experienced shortly after his operation had disappeared. He now could selectively focus whenever he chose to engage his powers. He could, by simply observing someone, retrieve their mental signatures and affix it to his memory. After that, as long as he wasn’t too far from the subject, he could enter a person’s mind at will. He quickly created an effective mental filing system that facilitated instant retrieval. He didn’t understand how his powers operated; but like Donna, he was satisfied that they just did.
He collected the mental signatures of almost a quarter of his subordinates, and he randomly violated their privacy by determining what they were doing, what their hobbies were, how they voted and how and when they made love to their wives and partners. No segments of their lives were held sacred to him any longer. He could ease into their minds gently without their knowledge, or he could gain entry forcefully, causing pain and distress to his subjects. Normally, he would be disturbed with the way he was violating what was previously his strict value system, but that no longer caused him concern. His old value system was progressively being displaced as his powers grew.
He found that he no longer held Donna in disdain; in fact he thought, I tend to respect her, she is far more like me than Maureen is. He even played with the idea of using Donna as his partner, sharing their unique superior experiences together. But he reasoned that wouldn’t work. At her first opportunity, he thought, she would attempt to kill me for the sole purpose of revenge. And, in fact, he knew that they were not equal. He was sure that Donna did not have the refined ESP powers that he now possessed, powers that had been developing rapidly. He realized that he would have to kill her in order to protect himself. That was too bad, he felt, because she was likely the only other person on earth who even began to have the same breadth of ESP powers as his, and the only person he could fully share that understanding with.
He also knew that if Donna lived, Maureen’s life would be in danger; but that, for some reason, no longer concerned him. Many of the stronger emotions and values that he had held dear prior to his operation were fading and being replaced with rawer, baser emotions.
Love, loyalty, honesty, and higher qualities were becoming virtually nonexistent to him. Yesterday he had realized that he no longer loved Maureen; in fact he wondered if he ever had. He suspected he had never loved anyone in his life, including his parents. Yesterday, the emergence of this realization had troubled him; today, it didn’t bother him in the least.
* * *
Back at the CIA unit, Maureen was missing Fred deeply. She wanted his caring arms around her, his passion, even the emotional storm she encountered when he was near her. She missed his tenderness, his empathetic concern for her well being. God, I need him, she thought, I really need him near me. I would give anything if he were her
e, if he were holding me and making love to me at this very moment.
But a thousand miles away, Fred was now positive that his past love for Maureen was nothing deeper than the release of nature’s cocktail of chemicals. His “love” had been initialized by testosterone; it was kept vibrant by the neurotransmitters of adrenalin, dopamine and serotonin.
He remembered once when Maureen, referencing what she had learned during her psychology classes, had explained to him that his rapid pulse, which he believed was a function of his love for her, was simply a function of the copious amount of adrenaline his body was releasing. She had added that his constant thoughts of her were caused by the chemical serotonin, and dopamine was the fuel for his passion and desire. At the time, he had rejected all of this as scientific garbage. Now he was sure she had been correct.
He recalled a conversation he once had with Dodd, the Science Director at AU. Dodd believed that the evolutionary emergence of ESP capabilities was going to be a positive step forward for man. Fred knew that wasn’t true; because once one possessed this amazing ability, they needed to eliminate any other person that might also possess it. Fred recognized that this was no more than an extension of Darwin’s theory of survival of the superior species.
The raw emotions that now guided his life were incompatible with social group functions of negotiation, compromise, and sharing. For now, he would continue to work with Jim and his subordinates to attempt to find and ultimately kill Donna. But after that he would no longer need them for anything. As inferiors, Fred knew that they would be of no value to him any longer, neither professionally nor socially. He needed no one.
When he returned home, Molly and Who Knows enthusiastically greeted him at the front door with tails wagging. He harshly pushed them aside with his leg.
Before he retired for the night, he responded to their irritating whining by scattering their entire month’s supply of dog food on the floor. After today, he decided, I may not even feed the little bastards. Bewildered, both Molly and Who Knows retreated into a corner of the living room, no longer able to recognize their master, wondering who this impostor was who possessed his same unique chemical smell.
Chapter 61
Donna drove past Fred’s house. She wasn’t sure how to deal with Fred; she had been able to eliminate Atwell relatively easily, despite all of his special abilities, by employing the element of surprise. She knew that things were different with Fred; he would be on the outlook for her, so surprise would be difficult, perhaps impossible.
As she drove by the house she saw one car in the driveway—a red Miata. Fred has to be home, she thought. There was no police car in the vicinity, so she suspected that Maureen was still hiding out at the CIA compound. Donna’s goal had been to get rid of Maureen first; but as long as she stayed protected, that would prove too difficult. She thought that maybe she should just kill Fred, get it over with and forget about Maureen. She needed to get on with her life.
She parked her car about two blocks from Fred’s house. She decided to key into his mind; but she recalled the last time she tried, that she had been repelled by disturbing images and unsettling energy flows. She blamed that on a defect in her device. Damn it, she thought, if Anderson wasn’t dead I could have him check it out, now I have no one to go to. Maybe the integration site in my brain still needs to heal more, she rationalized.
She started to receive strong mental signals from Fred. Now it was just a matter of executing the process of entry, she thought.
The moment she crossed his mental portals, Fred sensed it as the attempted invasion of an alien link. Now Fred started mentally engaging Donna, almost as a fencing match would have proceeded. Donna jabbed, just subtle enough, she thought, to enter Fred’s brain without his recognition of her presence. Fred parried, blocking and defecting her entry.
Fred entered Donna’s mind; she could not establish any defense for his superior powers. He witnessed through his entrance into her primary visual cortex what she was seeing at this very moment in a muted black and gray display. He viewed a large park; a black and gray sign identified it as dedicated by the town elders for a children’s playground.
Shit! He suddenly realized; it’s the park that’s only two blocks from my house. My God, she’s here!
Fred flew out of his front door, not taking time to close it. He was running at a full pace toward his Miata parked in the driveway; at the same time he issued a full psychic slashing attack, releasing all the mental energy he could in the direction of Donna.
Her reaction was immediate, she was pushed hard into the back of her car seat. Her vision temporarily became a cascading conglomeration of intensely colored dots, both large and small. At the same time a piercing sound of incredible decibels invaded the auditory section of her brain. This time she didn’t black out. She recovered quickly; and with all the energy she could muster, she pushed her accelerator to the floor. Her car snake-tailed back and forth across the narrow neighborhood street.
I have to get some distance away from him, she thought, where his power will be weakened. Now she understood why he had been at the CIA headquarters; they must have put a duplicate paranormal device in him. And over her washed the cold realization that whatever he had it was much stronger than hers. For the first time since her escape from prison, she felt pure fear. She knew she no longer held mental superiority over him; now Fred had suddenly become the predator, and she his prey.
The psychic energy he had released caused Fred immediate enervation. He pulled back to give himself time to replenish. As he reached his car, he saw something disturbing; the light flaps which covered his headlights were in a raised position. It meant that he had not turned his lights off since he returned home early yesterday evening. He got in, turned the key and—nothing. The battery was stone dead.
He remembered Maureen still had her aging car in the garage. Fred released the emergency brake on his car, pushing it into the middle of the road to allow room for the larger car to exit the driveway. He hated to do that because his beloved car was now vulnerable to being struck from either direction. I have no choice, I have to move quickly, he thought, as he opened the garage door and got into Maureen’s sprawling vintage 1982 Ford Victoria. He backed out of the driveway with his accelerator floored. Then he felt it—a large thud; he had just backed into his Miata!
“Damn her, damn her!” he cried out, as he redirected the unwieldy lumbering machine in Donna’s direction.
Donna had a head start and was driving a smaller and more nimble car; once she gained control, she negotiated the small city streets with ease. Fred was quickly losing time and distance from her. He hated to use any segment of his psychic powers because they had been so drained; but he desperately needed them to locate her.
He placed his revolver on the seat next to him. Ever since he graduated from the academy, he had hated to use his gun to either kill or wound. But now he was thoroughly enjoying the thrill of the chase. He was ready and excited about the approaching seminal moment. He wanted to capture Donna and then he needed to eliminate her; he wanted to do that badly. It was no longer the fact that she was after Maureen, it went well beyond that. He had a hunger for the pursuit and the glory of his eventual kill. There are others out there who need to be killed as well, he thought. My new life will be exciting and adventuresome.
Fred’s neighborhood was a virtual forest of live and silver oaks, and it was a daytime playground for squirrels that used the trees as their primary food source. A young squirrel ambled across the street in front of Fred; Fred swerved not to avoid it but to kill it. He missed; “Damn it!” he screamed.
Fred had been conditioned to the maneuverability of his tiny sports car, but now he was driving a vintage automobile limited by its obsolete technology, worn shocks and non-existent springs. As he struck the protruding speed bumps marking the end of his neighborhood, the car oscillated rapidly like a human heart’s final fluttering moments. He was trying unsuccessfully to maneuver five thousand pounds of an u
nmanageable wallowing machine.
Donna was steadily losing him in her more contemporary small car. . She reached the Tamiami Trail, turning a sharp right while skidding across the congested traffic lanes. She was heading at full speed to the next northern town of Bradenton.
Fred’s mental facility had experienced a dissipative process when he had directed all of his psychic force at Donna. He was now using residual psychic energy to invade the visual-processing sector of her brain to attempt to determine where she was headed. Through her eyes, he spotted the Sarasota-Bradenton Airport sign. He knew where she was; he was about five minutes behind her.
Maureen had been telling Fred to get a tuneup for her car for several months, but Fred kept putting it off. Now he regretted his procrastination. He couldn’t get the old beast beyond sixty, a speed wholly inadequate to overtake Donna.
Donna was in a panic mode and no longer possessing clarity of thought. She reached a major intersection in Bradenton and took a sharp left, heading toward the Gulf of Mexico keys.
Fred found that he could try to locate Donna by simply linking to her mental signature. He found that effort was much less enervating than using any other segment of her brain.
Then Donna made her second major mistake. At the intersection of Bradenton Beach she turned right, onto a road which would ultimately lead to the end of the keys and directly to the entry to the Gulf of Mexico.
Fred’s signal was weaker than when he started his pursuit; but it held firm when he passed the intersection where Donna had turned left. Now they were both headed due north but on parallel roads. Fred periodically checked for Donna’s mental signature—the strength of the signal remained at the same level. Fred assumed he was remaining the same distance from her; but he assumed incorrectly that they were both traveling on the same highway.
Donna drove onto the last barrier island at seventy miles an hour, barely missing an elderly downtown shopper who was attempting to cross the narrow street. Within a minute, Donna slammed on her brakes, screeching to a sudden halt in front of a small cement wall. She was now at the end of the island, looking into the tranquil waters of the Gulf of Mexico with no place to go. She considered backtracking and heading back south to the adjoining key, but she knew she would be exposed if Fred spotted her going in the opposite direction.
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