Mr. Sandman: A Thrilling Novel

by Lyle Howard

  Perhaps if a towering wall of black clouds ten miles high, crackling with lightning, spawning tornadoes, and leveling everything in its path, filled the horizon during the summit of afternoon, reactions might have been different. Residents of the area were well aware of the impending storm, but it wasn’t anything that they hadn’t seen or heard before. The harbingers of doom always ranted and raved as the hurricane watches were posted up and down the coast, and then they continued to appeal for prudence as the hurricane warnings were declared. But for the prior twenty-seven years, no killer storms had ever materialized. The cautious ones spent this day battening down their houses with sheets of plywood, while the more foolhardy residents who believed their houses were constructed of only the sturdiest of building materials decided that strips of masking tape alone would be sufficient to prevent their windows from ex­ploding, and their homes from flying apart.

  If anyone turned on their television sets on that Sunday night, they would find that the usual selections of movies or sitcoms were all available for viewing. Occasionally, a weather brief would appear during the commercial breaks, showing a female reporter, standing ankle-deep in wet sand, screaming to be heard over the howling wind. Clad in her bright yellow raingear, she was visibly disheartened at having been rel­egated to interviewing the customary handful of unsuspect­ing teenaged surfers rejoicing in the enormity of the waves off of Miami’s South Beach. None of the kids cared that they were surfing blind, nor were they concerned about the unre­stricted onslaught of nature’s fury that bore down on them under the veil of night. They were just out to have some fun.

  As the hour of anticipated landfall drew closer, forecast­ers and statisticians at the National Hurricane Center in Coral Gables stood hunched over their charts and computerized barometric pressure printouts, all searching frantically for any signs of predictability from this colossal aberration of nature. All they could agree upon at such a late hour were the probability percentages of where landfall might occur. Home­stead Air Force Base falls into the highest category … 83 percent.

  Lance was running in place on the treadmill. He had already done seven miles, but his heart rate was only slightly elevated.

  “Absolutely remarkable,” Xavier said from the comfort of the third-story office.

  “What, that he hasn’t broken a sweat?” Carpenter asked. “You expected that from him, didn’t you?”

  “Hmmm?” the doctor absent-mindedly replied. “Did you say something?”

  Carpenter walked over to the window and looked down on the hangar floor. “You said, ‘absolutely remarkable.’ I thought you were talking about Cutter’s stamina.”

  Xavier looked up from the two index cards he was scrutinizing under a magnifying lamp. “No, no … I know what kind of shape he’s in. Just come and have a look at this.”

  As the captain stepped over to examine Xavier’s discov­ery, the entire building shook from an ear-splitting clap of thunder. Carpenter looked nervously up at the ceiling. “I haven’t heard anything that loud since Kuwait City.”

  Xavier placed the index cards above one another under the magnifying lens. “This will take your mind off of the weather, Captain, I assure you.”

  Carpenter leaned over the glass. “Two sets of fingerprints … which finger?”

  “Left index.” The captain was no expert, but he could see that the two samples were identical. “What am I looking at here? Two prints from the same finger? What’s this supposed to prove?”

  Xavier smiled. “So you would agree that, even with your limited knowledge, these two prints are one in the same?”

  Carpenter turned away from the viewer, one half of his face illuminated by the glow of the lamp. “They’re not?”

  The doctor held up his left index finger. “The bottom print came from my own hand.”

  “That’s impossible, isn’t it?”

  Xavier reached over and turned off the lamp. “The odds are astronomical for the average person, but not for either of us.”

  “Why not?”

  The doctor laced his fingers together and held them up to his chin thoughtfully. “I’m not certain really … but I’m will­ing to bet that our dental charts are similar, too.”

  Carpenter walked back over to the window again. His breath fogged up the glass in front of his mouth as he spoke. “Not even identical twins have the same fingerprints, Doc.”

  Xavier rubbed his lips. “Yessss,” he hissed, “not even identical twins.”

  Lance glanced up at the captain who was peering down on him like Moses from the mountaintop. Their eyes met and locked.

  Besides the fancy workout apparel they had outfitted Lance with, they also equipped him with a headset and microphone so he could communicate with them upstairs. As Lance jogged his eleventh mile, he pressed the small red button on the mouthpiece. “How far do I have to run before I can speak with Julie?”

  Xavier joined Carpenter at the window. They were both wearing microphones similar to Lance’s, only theirs didn’t have headsets and were clipped to their lapels. The doctor pressed his to speak and his voice filled Lance’s earphones. “Relax, Lance. Ms. Chapman is unharmed and being at­tended to by Officer Lincoln elsewhere in the hangar. She will remain safe as long as you continue to cooperate.”

  Lance sped up. “I’m running as fast as I can.”

  The doctor motioned for him to slow down. “Take it easy, Lance; this is an endurance test, not a test of speed.”

  The wind outside pounded at the metal walls like a giant wanting in. Lance pressed the red button again. “Either of you gentlemen ever been through a hurricane?”

  Xavier marveled at the fluidity of Lance’s gait and wondered if he himself was that smooth. “Weather is just that, Lance … weather. Like everything else in life, this storm shall pass.”

  Lance was on his fifteenth mile and, for the first time, a bead of sweat trickled off the tip of his nose. He reached for the small towel hanging over the treadmill’s display, and wiped his face. “I want to ask you a question.”

  Xavier shook his head. “I said I would talk to you after we are through with the testing.”

  Lance draped the towel around his neck. “This question has nothing to do with my past.”

  Xavier nodded as though he were enjoying holding court like this. “Ask your question.”

  Lance was starting to feel the strain. His words came out between heaving puffs of air. “With the weather being the way it is outside, why didn’t you just whisk me away to Washington for all of these tests? It seems like it would have been a helluva lot more convenient for everyone involved, wouldn’t it?”

  Carpenter’s eyebrow furrowed. It was a good question … one that he hadn’t thought of.

  Xavier stood quietly for a moment, considering his an­swer. “Okay, Lance,” he finally said, “I’ll tell you: there are just too many people asking questions about my research back in Washington. I wanted these tests to be done in secrecy, with a staff in whose confidentiality I could depend on.”

  Carpenter turned his back to the window. “That isn’t the real reason, is it, Doc?”

  More thunder rocked the hangar, shaking the aluminum decking below everyone’s feet, and throwing almost every­body inside off-balance.

  “If there are no more questions,” Xavier added, “the sooner you finish with your tests, the sooner we will talk in depth.”

  Lance nodded and stepped off the treadmill, allowing a technician to take his pulse.

  Xavier and Carpenter both stepped away from the win­dow. “I was right, wasn’t I, Doc?” the captain asked. “That was a line you were handing, Cutter, right?”

  The doctor stepped behind a metal desk and began sifting through a pile of computer printouts. “Did you actually expect me to tell him that he wasn’t going to leave this building alive?”

  Carpenter’s eyes narrowed. “You couldn’t care less about him, could you?”

  Xavier looked up and shook his head. His eyes were the color of t
he sun, but they held a darkness deeper than two bottomless pits. “No … I couldn’t.”

  Carpenter slipped his hands into his pockets and looked at Xavier the way one would study an abstract painting. “You know something, Doc? I think I’m finally beginning to see what this entire fiasco is all about!”

  Xavier sat down and leaned back in his chair and waited. “Suppose you tell me.”

  “This isn’t about Lance Cutter at all. This whole side show is being held for your benefit. You probably lived your entire life thinking that you were one of a kind. You thought you were the pinnacle of Dr. Adolph Xavier’s genetic experi­mentation in the fifties and sixties … a regular one-man wreck­ing crew. But there were parts of the puzzle that didn’t fit. You told me already that you’ve spent most of your life studying what was left of the late doctor’s notes. Somewhere along the line, you came to realize that everything that Xavier’s notebooks said that he had achieved, wasn’t in your physical chemistry. Then a few days ago, you get hold of a newspaper article and … knock … knock … Lance is standing at the front door ready to spoil your party.”

  The captain paced back and forth in front of the desk with his hands clenched behind his back. Everything had suddenly become so clear to him. “So what goes through your mind, Doc? You don’t say to yourself, ‘I can’t believe that Cutter is still alive’. You reason to yourself that since every one of Adolph Xavier’s experiments was built upon the results of the one proceeding it, that Lance Cutter must be superior to yourself.” Carpenter was beginning to enjoy this, putting some extra barbed emphasis into the word “superior.” He didn’t look up from his pacing, but he could hear Xavier starting to squirm in his chair. “So you quickly plan to set up this facility down here in Homestead, where you know no one will follow you, since there’s a storm bearing down on the place.”

  Xavier leaned forward in his chair interested in what Carpenter was saying.

  “You know what?” the captain went on, “I’m willing to bet that no one in the defense department even knows we’re all down here. I mean, if you brought Cutter to Washington and proved he was coldblooded in front of the top brass, then he’d be the star of the show at the Pentagon and you’d be deported to some musty office somewhere in the sub-basement level. Lance Cutter was Adolph Xavier’s crowning achievement and you’ve known it since the minute you laid eyes on his photo in the newspaper, didn’t you?”

  Xavier slid open the top drawer of the desk. His eyes were glazed over and he spoke in that familiar hiss, as though his thoughts were suddenly shrouded in a fog. “You’re right, Captain. I have my father’s handwritten recordsss right here.”

  Carpenter stopped in his tracks as Xavier pulled out an automatic pistol from the drawer and aimed it at his heart. “Thiss is ssstill America, Captain, go ahead and finisssh exercisssing your right of free ssspeech. Tell me what elssse you think about my intentionsss.”

  Carpenter held up his hands. “Take it easy, Doc. Don’t ruffle your feathers, or whatever else you tend to ruffle. I was just spouting off. You know … crazy talk.”

  Xavier motioned with the barrel of the gun for Carpenter to take a seat in front of the desk. “You sssseem to have me all figured out, Captain, pleasssse continue.”

  A bolt of lightning hit the hangar as the edge of the storm reached the Florida shoreline less than ten miles away. The bank of lights suspended above the hangar floor flickered briefly as the emergency generators powered up. One by one, each of the technicians monitoring the computer equipment began looking at one another for some sign for justification for what surely seemed to be mass suicide. Lance sat up on the incline board where he had been doing leg raises and adjusted the earphones on his head.

  The captain’s mouth had gone bone dry and suddenly words were hard to form. “I … I saw the operating room that you’ve set up down there. All you really want to do is to perform a transfusion so that you can get his blood flowing through your body. You…you just want to find out what Cutter’s capabilities are, so that you can have them for yourself. He’s expendable once you’ve drained his blood, isn’t he?”

  Xavier held up two fingers an inch or so, apart. “You were sssso close, Captain, sssso close … until the end.”

  Carpenter tried to swallow but it felt like there was a hard-boiled egg stuck in his windpipe. The gun was now trained between his eyes. “So, tell me what I’m missing.”

  Xavier stood up and walked over to the window, hiding the pistol from Lance’s view below. He stood silently for a moment as another technician slipped a blood pressure cuff around Lance’s bicep. “I have no interessst in filling my veinsss with Cutter’s blood. My body would mossst certainly reject it. I do, however, want it for further sssstudy and experimentation. It will be a pity to lose the brother I never knew I had in the first place,” he said, staring out the window, “but, like so many laboratory rats before him, Lance Cutter would have given his life for the advancement of ssscience.”

  Carpenter frowned. “Not to mention the advancement of your career.”

  Xavier smirked. “Yesss, of course, that, too.”

  Carpenter turned to face the doctor. “So, what now?”

  The doctor pumped a round into the chamber of his gun.

  “Now, Captain Carpenter, I think that you have outlived your usefulnessss. You were brilliant in remembering Of­ficer Lincoln’s name from the newspaper article, and you did a marvelousss job recruiting him to help convince Lance not to run off. But now,” he said, tipping his head sarcastically from side to side, “you know too much for your own good. Sssso … .as they would say on the late show, I think the time hasss come to say au revoir.”

  THIRTY SEVEN

  12:01 A.M., MONDAY, AUGUST 24th

  Lightning danced around the outside of the hangar with the speed of a concert pianist’s fingertips. Inside, Antoine Xavier was overjoyed at the prospect of finally getting rid of Captain Carpenter. The doctor had found the military man obnoxious and offensive from the first moment they had met. Most important of all, Carpenter had served his purpose and was no longer needed. As with everyone else that was involved with this project, the captain was scheduled to be killed to prevent him from divulging the results of the operation, only the captain would now have to die earlier than originally intended. As much as Xavier hated to admit it, sometimes one must deviate slightly from one’s initial strategy to thoroughly achieve one’s objective.

  “So you’re just going to shoot me like this, point-blank?”

  The doctor raised the gun. “That isss my intent.”

  Carpenter batted his eyelids like a young girl who had just been asked on her first date. “And just when I thought that you didn’t care!”

  Xavier moved away from the window. “A comedian until the end … a characterissstic I can’t empathizzze with, but one that I must admire.” He shook his free hand. “Now, ssstand up!”

  Carpenter did as he was ordered. “What about the noise? You just can’t kill me up here. Someone will hear the report.”

  Xavier pointed the barrel of the pistol around the room. “Not to worry; these officesss were built to shut out the noisesss of the jet aircraft being repaired in the hangar below. I can assure you Captain, thisss office is completely sssoundproof.”

  Carpenter winced like he wasn’t too sure. “I wouldn’t quite bet my mortgage on that assumption, Doc.”

  Xavier froze.

  “Did you get all of it, kid?” Carpenter asked, leaning his mouth into the microphone on his lapel.

  Lance’s voice came in loud and clear over the speaker on the office wall. “Yes, sir, Captain, you were right. He’s confirmed all of your allegations. Thanks to you, I think I finally have all of the answers I need.”

  Xavier’s eyes widened as though he had just lost a winning lottery ticket. He bolted for the window and looked down to the floor below. Lance was leaning against the stair climber, removing his earphones. Standing by his side were Abe Lincoln and Julie Chapman. “No,”
he screamed, “thisss can’t be!”

  Carpenter sat on the rim of the desk with his hands folded in his lap. “Say adiós to a few more characteristics you can’t empathize with, Doc: love, loyalty and patriotism!”

  Fuming like a erupting volcano, Xavier threw his gun across the room and grabbed Carpenter around the throat.

  “A gun would be too quick and painlessss for ssscum like you.” With the strength of ten men, he lifted the captain off the ground. “You’ve betrayed me … now, I’m going to take immense pleasure in sssnaping your back in two.”

  Carpenter kicked and flailed, but nothing seemed to intimidate Xavier. His unrelenting grip was tight­ening around the captain’s throat like a vise. In his head, Carpenter could feel his pulse beating like a jungle drum. His consciousness was beginning to slip away like the retreating tide, and with the same certainty as the ocean, there was nothing he could do to prevent it.

  The world around him began to sway. Carpenter thought it was just the lack of blood getting to his brain, but no, the world was truly beginning to wobble. Xavier staggered to keep his footing steady as the floor below him shifted. With his right hand, Carpenter reached out and clawed at Xavier’s face. He remembered the flap of skin he had noticed on the doctor’s neck, and tore at the loose parcel of flesh. The skin peeled off in his hand with the ease of an adhesive mailing label. It turned out not to be skin at all, but some sort of latex plastic.

  Xavier’s hands instantly released their tenacious hold and Carpenter fell to the ground, coughing and gagging to catch his breath. The doctor groped at his face trying to probe for the special make-up that was partially missing. “What have you done?” he screeched.

  Carpenter held up the torn strip of flesh-toned plastic in his outstretched hand. “Is this what you’re looking for?”