Overfall

by David Dun

  The illusion that he might yet hang on to a little power amused her and was like a narcotic for him. Apparently DuShane reasoned that if he was awake he still had some control. “One chance, DuShane. Let me put the box on you and I’ll leave the trapdoor open in the front. I’m not going to bruise my arms playing with this contraption.”

  “Damn you.” He began screaming again. “Help, somebody help me.”

  Her own miscalculation made her angry. Being very careful with her aim, she took the bear spray and shot it at his screaming throat. Then she stepped way back, her eyes stinging, and opened the bedroom door, retreating into the living room while she watched. The reaction of his body was dramatic. He turned white, then red, and looked as if he were trying to swallow the room.

  She wondered why she hadn’t thought to use the gas mask. Holding her breath, she ran to the closet and put it on. Now she could watch the spectacle in comfort. He gasped terribly.

  Although she knew he was trying to talk, it was a while before she could read his contorted lips enough to make out his words.

  “Take me to the hospital.”

  It was becoming tedious.

  After a few minutes he appeared paralyzed; all he did was breathe, and he didn’t do that very well. This time she easily slipped the box under the back of his head and closed it. There was a trapdoor in front that she opened.

  “There now. That’s much better.”

  After a half hour of reading Cosmopolitan aloud to him, the English version, he was pretty much back to normal—that is, he was starting another screaming fit.

  “Shut up or I’ll close your door.”

  He quieted, but he looked so angry she thought he might burst veins in his eyes.

  “Just tell me why.”

  “It’s simple. I want what you have. If I kill you, then your living trust provides that the trustees for the brat takeover, Marie and I would get a pittance, and we lose the company. Those jackal lawyers of yours would have us escorted off the premises.”

  “Marie would get millions.”

  “Twenty, dear. Only twenty. What is that compared to the billions you control? On the other hand, if you are incapacitated, then Marie and I are in charge. Surely you remember how and why you set it up that way. You said, I think: ‘I don’t want those bastard lawyers taking over unless I’m dead and stinking.’ Isn’t that what you said? So don’t crap your pants and die, honey.” She closed the door of his head-box and he began his muffled screaming. After a second she opened it. “Look, you get to live. If you are good, we will give you oil and some days, at least Christmas and Easter, you won’t be far off normal. Sort of like Jason. Well, a little more paranoid than Jason, but still alive.” She closed his door again.

  As a test she left the room, and noted that his words were unintelligible and the sound not particularly audible even with the bedroom door open. It was time to deliver Jacques’s vector in the manner prescribed. This was definitely an important experiment. It would be the first aerosol use and it was imperative that they know exactly the amount DuShane inhaled and that he inhale the amount prescribed by Jacques. After dosing him she would begin his education.

  The phone rang.

  She knew it would be Gaudet, and it was one of those rare occasions when he would be gleeful as a schoolboy over their progress.

  Thirty-six

  The place reminded Anna of Jason’s lodge, the way it was laid out and even the aesthetic aspects of the design. There were five bedrooms in addition to the master suite, as well as two guest houses with three bedrooms each. To further supplement the living space, a large banquet tent had been placed on the lawn near the pool. Normally it was used for summertime parties, but now it was being used as a barracks. Sam, Anna, Spring, Jason, Grady, and T.J. each took a room in the main house.

  With a grin, T.J. had won the toss for accommodations in the primary residence. That left six men to the tent and six into the two guest houses. There was a lot more coin tossing. Anna unpacked her stuff in the master suite knowing that Sam would be busy for a while with the men. Whether it was necessary or not, she knew that Sam would feel compelled to have a meeting to set things in order.

  Although laid as unobtrusively as possible, sandbags now lined the interior walls of the house, rising to window level in the living room. In the event of a full-scale assault the living room would provide the final shelter other than the safe room. More “safe” than “room,” it consisted of a large concrete-reinforced, habitation-adapted, steel safe that sat inside what had once been a utility room. If it got down to the safe room, Sam was counting on the Mounties to arrive before it was breached.

  After unpacking, Anna took from her closet a silken robe that she had acquired from Japan. She had never worn it, having resolved to keep it for a special occasion. It wasn’t a special occasion, but it felt right for the moment. Under the robe she decided to wear a silk nightgown that looked vaguely like a cocktail dress. For a second she pondered something more translucent, but dismissed the idea. A quick check of Sam’s room revealed that he was still roaming around with the boys. She should have known that he would need to mark his territory before retiring. She hoped to talk for a while before leaving him to sleep.

  She was nearly done with the biography of the Warner brothers, and decided to finish the last chapter.

  There was a soft knock.

  It was Spring.

  “Hi, I would have thought you would be asleep,” Anna said.

  “No. I have been wanting to follow up on our prior conversations. You finished the book that your friend gave you.”

  “Yes.”

  “I wondered if you figured out where she went.”

  “I have always resisted any notion that we are somehow the product of our upbringing. I like to feel like the captain of my own destiny. I don’t like introspection as much as I like goals and making choices to get where I want to go.”

  “So you’re captain of your ship. And who is captain of Sam’s?”

  Anna laughed at that. “Oh, I have a sneaking suspicion that he feels the same way I do. But then you will say: If Sam is in the grip of his past, then who is to say that I’m not? Is that it?”

  “I thought all this contemplation might have provided a bit of insight.”

  “Into what?”

  “Into your situation with Sam. Maybe I’m just a meddling mother interested in Sam. If so, I’m sorry.”

  “It’s a confusing situation.”

  They talked for an hour and ended with Anna’s poem, which she had not recited since junior college. Spring had her repeat it.

  “And you are close with your mother now?” she asked.

  “I think so.”

  “When you wrote this poem you seemed to be flirting with a feeling that you don’t really express.”

  “I never liked day care. The place smelled bad and they ignored me.”

  “And what did your mother say?”

  “About what?”

  “Day care.”

  “We’ve never discussed it.”

  “What if you one day showed her the poem?”

  “It’s no big deal. After all these years it would be mean. Don’t you think?”

  “There is a Tilok story that I would like to tell you and I would like to tell it to you while you wait for Sam.”

  “I’m not admitting to waiting for Sam in a silk robe and a nightgown.” Anna smiled.

  Grady was thinking about Clint and the strange exhilaration of getting to know her father. And his strange nature. Clint was out in the guest house, Anna’s room was to the right of her, and to the left was her father’s, and nothing had ever felt quite so bizarre. She hated to admit it, but she wasn’t sure how to actually build a relationship with her father and she was equally confounded by a man like Clint. There probably wasn’t a large chance that Clint didn’t know about the strip club and that, in a way, made it easier, because if they became friends she would need to tell him before they became lovers. />
  On the other hand, she wondered if any invitation to friendship that she might venture would be tainted by a thousand other invitations, a thousand other clever lines echoing like old words in a prison hall.

  In this beautiful house she wished for her Panzy, the ultimate feline source of comfort. She’d seen that each of the rooms was equipped with a computer and access to the Internet. She could check her AOL account for any messages from the Critter Sitter. The rules set down by Sam for e-mails and the Internet, however, were clear. She was not to access her computer at the apartment because it might be traced. Also she knew she had to view her e-mail through the previewing function and could not per se open it. Under no circumstances could she send an e-mail anywhere, nor could she enter a chat room of any kind. Curious, she turned on the machine and used the password taped to the inside of the Microsoft Guide.

  She punched an AOL icon, dialed in, and used her screen name and password. Aside from the junk mail, she had two messages: one from Guy and one from the Critter Sitter, with an urgent subject line. The heat of adrenaline-fueled worry coursed through her body as she thought about Panzy. Maybe sick. Maybe dying. She could not call anyone anywhere except Jill and her other friends at Sam’s office without special clearance, and then the answer would probably be negative. Although certain it wouldn’t hurt, she decided not to even preview the e-mail without asking Sam. It would only take a minute to find him. As she rose, she saw her father standing in the doorway, looking a little uneasy.

  “Jason,” she said, still not used to calling him Dad. “You don’t look well.”

  “The Nannites. I’m sorry. I don’t want you to see me like this, but I just wanted to look at you for a moment. To see that there is some good in the world.”

  “Anna will give you some oil.”

  “Yes. I’ll find her.”

  “Anna says Nutka will be here soon and she can give you a regular massage.”

  “They keep saying that” He raised his hand. “What are you doing?”

  “I miss my cat.”

  “Panzy, right?”

  “Yeah. I am worried about her. I was going to find Sam to ask him something.”

  “About cats?”

  “Not exactly. I need to get into some e-mail. I’ll be right back, okay?”

  “Sure. The Nannites aren’t going anywhere. Neither am I. The little bastards.”

  Jason desperately needed Nutka. But Anna could give him oil and that would cure the Nannite nerves. He also needed the board that they were now putting together so he could work equations, and he needed his computer. Grady was his only consolation. He had never wanted to get near her for fear the Nannites would commence their plague. But now she was here and it wasn’t his doing and he wanted to know her.

  He walked over to the computer and squinted at the screen. AOL. An in-box of sorts. Someplace called the Critter Sitter had sent an urgent e-mail regarding Panzy. No wonder Grady had been distraught. Clicking the mouse, he opened it.

  Need immediate treatment authorization for Panzy. We have detected a large sarcoma tumor in her abdomen. Surgery may save Panzy if performed immediately. Please respond by e-mail so that we have a record of your authorization.

  If it were his pet, Pasha, he knew what he would do. He wrote:

  Take all necessary steps to save Panzy. You have my full authorization for any and all treatments.

  He sent it and felt better immediately. Then he got an idea. Perhaps he could call Grace Technologies and access his own e-mail. It would be fun to send Chellis a message. He clicked out of AOL and thought how he might access the satellite. Then he considered all of the weird goings-on and how Sam and Anna had traveled and seemed to be hiding. Better to wait and discuss it with Anna.

  “Grady, listen carefully. No way do you access your e-mail. You are going into AOL over an eight hundred line?” Sam asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Did you open anything or send anything?”

  “No, I would never do that without asking.”

  “If it is a trap, if they’ve figured out about your cat, the second you open that e-mail they’ll know you’ve called the account and that could be the beginning of the end for us. Responding with your own e-mail would without question give away our location unless we did a whole lot of programming that hasn’t been done here.”

  “They can find that out?”

  “A corporation like Grace would make up some bullshit story and they would be able to easily discover the local carrier that put that eight hundred call through. AOL has to keep track of all eight hundred calls for billing purposes. The local carrier will know the physical address of the phone that placed the call. Or in this case the modem. We use these techniques all the time.”

  “God, Big Brother.”

  “I’ll send someone to check on your cat. Don’t worry about it.”

  “There is no way I can read that e-mail?”

  “Too risky even to do that. Let’s not take chances.”

  Grady returned to her room and found her computer displaying the desktop icons and her AOL screen gone from the monitor. Certainly her father knew about computers, so he probably went off on the Internet or something. It was just as well. She wouldn’t have to look at that e-mail again. She shut down the computer and looked at the clock. She would read the book that Anna had given her. Oddly she seemed to find herself the subject of every chapter. It was called Where Did He Go? Where Did She Go?

  Thirty-seven

  Anna found Sam bent over a desk strewn with maps of the house and grounds.

  His room was large to accommodate three walls full of oil paintings, a king-size bed with a massive oak headboard, and a big-screen television mounted in a mahogany entertainment center. Although the room had several lights, Sam worked by a single desk lamp, and so the cream and faux gold walls were softened and enriched by the man-made twilight.

  “Secluded homes often don’t make good safe houses. Bad guys can hide in the woods.”

  She nodded, looking at the maps.

  “But this place is perfect. We are in the middle of a two-acre lawn manicured with flower beds and low-lying shrubbery. There is a fence all the way round, three dogs, and good electronic security. It’s the summer retreat for a contractor who builds nuclear plants and he likes his peace and doesn’t want to be disturbed by environmental activists.”

  “You really had me going with the yacht story.”

  Sam smiled and turned around in his seat. “You and my mother have been talking incessantly.”

  “She told me a story.”

  “Yeah?”

  “An Indian girl grew apart from her husband and ??about a single man to take as a lover. Many nights she sneaked across the stream. To make it easy she planted large stones and learned to dance across and keep her moccasins dry even in the dark. Then her lover took a wife and left her alone. Every day she looked at the stones and was reminded of him. One night she danced across the stones and found her husband waiting. After that meeting, so the legend goes, they prospered and had many children and every night her husband waited for her at the other side of the river. Over time the story of the stones got around the village and dancing across them in the dark became a game amongst the young women, and soon they placed more stones and made more elaborate crossings.

  “Have you heard this story?” she asked Sam.

  “Yes,” he said. “But keep going. Sometimes my mother’s stories have a fork in the road—which fork depends on the traveler.”

  “Then you know that as time passed, crossing the river on the stones became a wedding ritual for brides, who would find their husbands waiting on the other side to take them off to a secret place.

  “Then one day a Talth went to the people and said this ritual was not right because the stones were a memorial to treachery and should not be part of a wedding celebration. Wanting to keep the tradition, the people went to the chief and inquired about the message of the Talth.

  “The chief s
aid that time for love must be stolen from the cares of life or it will fade. So the ritual was good because it taught an important lesson.”

  Sam smiled as if he understood the point. “And what did you get out of the story?”

  “There is something about escaping cares and commitments and just stealing time for love that perpetuates it. For a lot of people, it’s sort of in the blueprint for marriage that duties are more important than love.”

  “But?”

  “Love seems dangerous. If you don’t want to feel it you can escape it, but you then become emotionally unavailable.”

  “She really is getting to you.”

  “Are you feeeee ... ling something, Sam?” she asked teasingly. “You won’t get this overnight. How did your mother tell the story to you?”

  “It was the same story with a different emphasis. It was all about the path in your mind that not trusting makes. You know, it leaves a trail like the stones. She was telling me that my dad left a trail in my mind. Of course the moral had to be that it’s up to me to give the stones a new meaning. In the story the woman’s husband and the whole tribe gave the stones a new meaning. With the new trust came new feelings. It’s a versatile story.”

  “Funny. I wrote this poem. It seems like she would have told me the meaning she told you. The part about reinterpreting something that happened in the past.

  “Anyway did the story soften you up, Sam?”

  “Give me a break. What man with any balls is going to be softened by a story?”

  The phone rang. It was T.J.

  “We got an e-mail. They’re ready to talk at Harvard.”

  “Okay. We’ll come to the scrambler and place the call.”

  Sam turned on the speakerphone and everyone but Sam, Anna, Grady, and T.J. cleared the office area that had been set up in the house’s spacious library.

  “I think we have it licked,” Fielding began. “We elected George to explain it.”

  “I don’t know how much you want me to try to cover on the phone.”