Strange Prey

by Chesbro, George C. ;

  From where she was standing, Pam could not read the text of the photocopied newspaper article, but she could make out the distinctive masthead of The Guardian. It was enough. She knew she was lost, knew she would be leaving Cassady College that afternoon with her field work incomplete. She lowered her gaze, backed away a step. “No,” she said quietly, “I don’t deny it But that was written a long time ago.”

  “Do you deny that you wrote that all religion is superstition that may have served a useful purpose in ordering primitive societies, but that is now an evil and murderous and outmoded thing responsible for more death, cruelty, and wasted lives than any other facet of human existence? Did you not describe God as a ‘kind of Santa Claus for grown-ups’?”

  Only when she was certain that she could speak without a sob in her voice did Pam look up. “Yes,” she said in the same soft, even tone. “But I wrote those things 15 years ago, and I believe I manage to be more objective now. The anger you detect in that article could have to do with the fact that the white tribe that once ruled my country used its own brand of religion to justify its every outrage and cruelty, including the brutal whipping of a little black girl who became separated from her servant mother and got lost in a Whites Only area. If you deny me the fruits of my research, I may have to return to a place that only holds bad memories for me.”

  “Then you’d best pray for God’s help, dear.”

  Pam felt her rage rising within her until she could taste it like bile at the back of her throat “I know who gave you that article, Mrs. Cassady!” she snapped.

  “Who?” Richard Cassady said in a puzzled tone as he turned to look at his wife, who had stiffened slightly.

  “The same man who’s talking to your father up in his tower right now, Reverend,” Pam said quickly. “The same man who brought your father the money. I don’t know what he’s told all of you, but he’s not who he says he is.”

  Rita Cassady flushed with anger, while her husband simply stared at Pam, the same puzzled expression on his face. “You know Mr. Denkler?” the man asked.

  Pam smiled thinly. “Mr. Denkler?”

  “William Denkler.”

  “And what is it that Mr. Denkler claims he does for a living, Reverend?”

  Rita Cassady said quickly, “That’s none of you business.”

  Richard Cassady said, “He owns a factory that makes ladies’ undergarments.”

  “I love it,” Pam said with a short, bitter laugh. “Your mysterious Mr. Denkler’s real name is Perry Parker, and he works for the Department of Defense in their research and development division. He gave that letter to Mrs. Cassady to discredit me. I don’t know why, but I can assure you that it bodes no good for your father, or for Cassady College.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” the woman said curtly. “This article was sent to me anonymously by someone who obviously wanted us to know that you’re against religion, and against us.”

  Richard Cassady glanced at his wife, then back at Pam. He shook his head slightly. “What would someone from the Defense Department want with my father, Dr. Marishee? For that matter, what did he want with you? How do you know him?”

  “You’ll have to ask him what he wants with your father, Reverend. As for me, he’s been trying for the past three years to get me to accept DOD funding for my research into common patterns of thought in fundamentalist religious groups; they seem to think my work could be important to what they call ‘defense planning strategy.’ That could mean anything. I’m more than a little suspicious of government-sponsored research and development. I refused, because acceptance of their money would mean they could control my research and its publication. Perry Parker and I are old … acquaintances. I don’t know what he’s up to now, but he’s no philanthropist, and the interests of the Department of Defense aren’t necessarily yours. I just wanted to study you; he wants to use you for some purpose.”

  “Enough of this nonsense!” Rita Cassady snapped as she abruptly walked forward into the room, brushing past Pam. She went to the desk, snatched the questionnaires from Pam’s briefcase, collected the others from the desktop, then strode stiffly back to where her husband was standing. “We’d like you to leave the campus today, Dr. Marishee,” she continued as she took her husband’s arm and turned him forcefully toward the door. “Goodbye.”

  Richard and Rita Cassady really had no right to abort her program or order her off campus, Pam thought as she listened to the couple’s footsteps receding in the hallway outside her office. It was Horace Cassady who had invited her. Still, under the circumstances, she knew it was useless to argue or fight against the combined wills of Richard and Rita Cassady, and the deviousness of Perry Parker. There was nothing to do but go home—which might not be home for much longer.

  She felt better by the time she’d showered, dressed in casual clothes, packed, and taken a taxi to the airport. In fact, she had not realized how oppressive she had found the atmosphere surrounding Cassady College until now, when she was away from it. She had mailed copies of earlier questionnaires back to her off-campus office; she certainly didn’t have anywhere near all the data she would have liked, but she might still be able to construct a valid statistical profile of the Cassady College student body, and there were the early biosamples she had obtained that could be matched against this profile.

  If she had any regrets, it was that she was leaving with personal unfinished business. As far as she was concerned, Richard and Rita Cassady and Perry Parker deserved each other. But Horace Cassady was another matter. The old man might be hopelessly dotty, Pam thought, but he had welcomed her to his home and college, and given her free rein to do her research. He deserved to be warned that the DOD was manipulating him, even if he didn’t believe it.

  Pam changed her reservation to a later flight, put her baggage into a storage locker, and went out of the airline terminal to hail a cab to take her back to Cassady College.

  She had the driver let her off at the edge of the campus, so as not to attract attention, then walked through the chill, dry, desert night air to the quadrangle. She had assumed that Horace Cassady would have returned to his living quarters, and might even be asleep. Thus, she was surprised to see that lights remained on in the dome of the tower, and that upwards of 50 students, many holding candles, were gathered around the base of the tower in what appeared to be a prayer vigil.

  It meant that Horace Cassady was still in his tower, and Pam did not understand why; nor did she understand why she experienced a sudden, unmistakable sense of foreboding. The structure had always reminded her of Key 16, the tower in the tarot deck designed by Smith and Waite, and she wondered if anyone else at Cassady College was aware of the resemblance.

  Her scars burned.

  The old man had shown her an alternate route to get into the tower, and she used that underground passageway now. She paused at the bottom of the spiral staircase that was at the core of the tower and listened, but she heard no sounds from above. Thinking that Horace Cassady might be asleep, and not wanting to startle him, Pam ascended the staircase slowly, her sneakers making no sounds on the concrete steps. She came to the top, stood in the open doorway of the largest room in the dome and smiled grimly.

  In the center of the dimly lighted room, Perry Parker sat at a small table, his face and hands brightly illuminated in a cone of light cast by a red gooseneck lamp set up on the far edge of the table. He appeared to be totally absorbed as he slowly leafed through what looked to Pam like a lengthy legal document. Suddenly, apparently sensing her presence, he stiffened, thrust the document into a thin leather portfolio, which he snapped shut, and then looked toward the doorway.

  “Pam!”

  Pam crossed her arms over her chest, stepped into the room. “Hello, Perry.”

  The man’s lips drew back into a taut smile that reflected no warmth or humor, and that did nothing to mask his shock at seeing her. “I’d heard you’d left Cuckooland.”

  “An agent who works for the R and D arm of DOD sh
ould be very careful what he describes as Cuckooland, Perry. Why aren’t you pestering some virologist to build you a new disease, or accidentally killing a herd of sheep? What the hell are you up to here, and why did you have to torpedo my research project?”

  “You came up here to try and warn Cassady about me, didn’t you?”

  “Where is he?”

  The dark-eyed, dark-haired man jerked his thumb in the direction of a closed door behind him. “He’s in there on a cot sleeping off a snootful.”

  “What?”

  “The man’s a closet alcoholic, lady. With that red nose of his, I’m surprised you never guessed. The man comes up here to drink. I think maybe that’s the real reason he built this tower in the first place; he wanted a hideout where he could booze it up without anybody bothering him. Naturally, he thinks he has God’s personal approval.”

  Pam shook her head in disbelief. “How do you know all this?”

  Parker laughed softly. “You have your means of research, I have mine. As a matter of fact, the Reverend Cassady and I have been rather close for some months now.”

  “And Rita Cassady put you next to him, didn’t she?” Pam asked in an even tone, watching the man’s face. “She may be a bitch, but she’s no actress. She damn well knows who you are; I could see it in her eyes when I challenged her about that old Guardian article you slipped to her. Whatever’s going on, you two are in it together. Are you sleeping with her, Perry? Is that how you set this up?”

  Suddenly the smile vanished from Perry Parker’s lips, and a hard light glinted in his black eyes. “Easy, Pam, easy,” he said softly. “Let’s keep this friendly.” He paused, glanced at his watch. “You should be leaving; it’s for your own good. Old Horace isn’t going to believe anything you have to say. You may be a pretty face, but I’m the one who supplies him with his Scotch malt whiskey.”

  “Perry, it’s very hard to be friendly toward you when what you’ve done is likely to get me shipped back to South Africa. I need my data from here to round out my statistical profile.”

  Parker abruptly rose from his chair. He put the leather portfolio under his arm, went to the closed door and listened for a few moments, then walked over to Pam. “You’ve got only yourself to blame,” he said with quiet intensity. “You kept turning down our requests to have first access to your raw data. If you’d listened to me, you’d never have had any problems with funding, and you’d have had your green card by now.”

  “But why, Perry? You’ve always known how I feel about DOD-sponsored research; it’s what comes from being born the wrong color in a country that insisted on keeping live smallpox virus in stock just in case we ever got too uppity. Since when have you people been interested in anything but the hard sciences anyway? Why pick on me? I’m not the only one studying fundamentalist sects. You can pick up dozens of sociological journals and read about people like this until you go blind.”

  Again, the tall man with the cold, dark eyes smiled thinly. “Ah, yes, but the DOD isn’t interested in reading speculations on a ‘fundamentalist temperament,’ or being told that zealots tend to link religious ideology to national identity, or that they use sacred scripture to justify violence. And we certainly know how effective these movements are at organizing popular anger. We know all about that. So do you. You’ve been less than truthful with us, Pam. You’ve always been after bigger game. You’ve been hunting in Nobel Prize territory, trying to establish that there’s an actual genetic basis, a kind of disease model, for religious faith. You want to demonstrate that some people—fundamentalist types, in particular—come down with religious fervor like others come down with Huntington’s chorea, or Tay-Sachs disease. You intend to demonstrate that religious faith is actually the result of a kind of physical affliction. That would be most useful information, particularly if an actual genetic marker could be found.”

  Somehow he knew, Pam thought, and she felt the blood drain from her face. “You bastard,” she breathed.

  Parker shook his head. “The tragedy—or farce—of you refusing to accept our funding is that it was actually cheaper for us to bribe the laboratory technicians who are doing your blood work and urinalysis to keep us clued in on exactly what kinds of tests you were ordering up. Then, of course, we put some of our own people to work on the same kinds of tests. By the way, it seems your disease model is correct. Building on your work, and using a Cray computer you’d have had access to if you hadn’t been so stubborn, we’ve found what we think is the genetic marker for religious faith; we think it’s somewhere on chromosome four, very close to the marker for schizophrenia.”

  “It’s my work, Perry,” Pam whispered, hoping the defeat she felt in her heart couldn’t be heard in her voice. “I wont let you get away with just stealing it.”

  “I’m afraid you have no choice. You’ll be returning to South Africa eventually, and when you get back to your university you’ll find that much of the data you’ve collected over the past few years is now classified; you cant get at it”.

  Pam bit the inside of her cheek to keep from shouting—or screaming. “God, Perry, what are you going to do with the information?”

  “Now that’s a question that might better be answered by a medical researcher, a virologist or biologist, no?”

  “Are you going to kill more sheep, Perry?”

  “A lot of these sheep are killers themselves, Pam, as you’re well aware. They blow up airplanes, march their kids across minefields, use poison gas, and think it’s all just dandy because they have a special dispensation from God. They take hostages and torture them. It might not be a bad idea at all for someone to try and come up with a biochemical agent—a vaccine, if you will—that would enable us to herd these killer sheep in a different direction.”

  “You mean manipulate them; killer and non-killer alike.”

  “As you like. You know R and D’s motto: Do unto others just in case they’re trying to do unto you.”

  “And you intend to use the students and faculty of Cassady College as laboratory animals to help DOD search for the religious gene marker and develop means of exploiting it. Just how long do you think you’re going to be able to fool that old man in—” She suddenly stopped speaking as a chill went through her. She pointed to the leather portfolio under the man’s arm. “That’s a will you’ve got in there, isn’t it? You’ve sold him some kind of story, and now you’re waiting for him to come around so that he’ll sign it. It’s his death warrant Oh, my God.”

  “Leave now, Pam.” Perry Parker said in a low voice.

  “Did you kill Joseph Cassady so that his brother—and, most important, his wife—could inherit this whole operation, Perry? Is that how you plan to turn this college into a DOD research facility?”

  “We’re not assassins, Pam.”

  “Spare me.”

  Parker smiled, shrugged. “I’m not an assassin.”

  “Then don’t kill the old man, and don’t let anybody else—.”

  She stopped speaking when she saw the distressed look on Perry Parker’s face as he stared at something behind her. She turned, and was startled to see a thoroughly bewildered-looking Richard Cassady standing in the doorway. He glanced back and forth between the two of them, then down at the pistol in his hand.

  “I, uh … I thought I heard voices up here. I’m sorry about the gun. After what … happened to Joseph.” He paused, looked up again. Now suspicion glinted in his pale eyes. “What are you two doing up here? Where’s my father?” Pam glanced at Parker, who gave a brief shake of his head—a clear warning, which Pam intended to heed; suddenly she was very much afraid of this man.

  The click of a woman’s high heels on the concrete staircase was faint at first, growing louder as the footsteps came closer. A few moments later Rita Cassady, head down and apparently deep in thought, entered the room. She stopped, looked up, gasped and clutched the small beaded purse she carried to her chest.

  “Perry?” she said in a hollow voice. “What’s happened? What’s g
oing on?”

  “Jesus H. Christ,” Parker said, and turned his head away in disgust.

  “Perry?” Richard Cassady said, slowly turning to his wife. “Why did you call this man ‘Perry’?”

  Rita Cassady swallowed hard repeatedly, and then looked at Perry Parker. For the first time, Pam could clearly see the madness in the woman’s eyes, marbled with panic.

  “You have to do something, Perry,” Rita Cassady said in a hoarse whisper.

  The agent from the Department of Defense merely shook his head.

  “Give me that!” The woman shouted, and abruptly grabbed for the gun in her husband’s hand.

  And then Pam realized the truth. “No!” she shouted at the gaunt man in the dark suit. “If you give her the gun, she’ll kill your father and me! That’s why she’s here! If you look in that purse she’s carrying, I think you’ll find the same knife she used to kill your brother! She wants you to inherit your father’s operation, because she’s sure she’ll be able to control it! She and this man planned it together! If you don’t believe me, ask her to show you what’s in the purse!”

  Richard Cassady stared wide-eyed at Pam, clearly shocked; but he held the gun away from his wife when she grabbed for it again.

  “You fool!” Rita Cassady screamed, starting to beat at her husband’s head and shoulders with her frail fists. “There are tens of millions of dollars at stake here! If you let your father keep pissing it away in that hole in the ground—!” She abruptly bit off the sentence, and her face, when she turned back, reminded Pam of the expression on a child’s face when the child has been discovered in a particularly shameful act. “Help me, Perry,” she whispered in a voice that was barely audible.

  Parker grunted, and started walking toward the door. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, lady. I’m gone.”

  “Wait!”

  Pam wheeled around, and was startled to see the disheveled, haggard figure of Horace Cassady standing in the open doorway of the room where he had been resting. In his right hand, he held a thick, heavy cross that was the color of gunmetal. After her initial shock, Pam’s reaction was to wonder how much the man had overheard; the haunted look on his face was her answer.