The Black Silent

by David Dun

  He realized that Khan was talking to him. "McStott thinks his guys found something."

  "So in plain English," Frick said, "what did they find?" "Anderson was making something he called an Arc regimen. And he thinks it was like a production deal, maybe for animal experiments."

  "So he called it an Arc regimen. Big deal. How's it work? What's it do?"

  "Well, if McStott knew that, he'd probably be here instead of in the lab. Right?"

  Frick tolerated the sarcasm, waiting for Khan, who seemed to have something to say.

  "What?" Frick said.

  "It seems to me that what we're doing is nearly impossible. But if we could pull it off, we'd be in the catbird seat and it would be worth a hell of a lot more than whatever you're getting paid to retrieve it."

  Funny how Khan's mind worked like Frick's own. "What's your point?"

  "Maybe we're both working for the wrong people," Khan said. "Maybe we should be working for ourselves. Could be a chance of a lifetime if there's anything to this bullshit."

  "I'll think about it. Get that weasel McStott in here."

  It took a few minutes for McStott to arrive.

  "Dr. McStott," Frick said in mock-grandiose tones, "how would you and some of your colleagues like to win the Nobel?"

  "Only if I earned it."

  Liar. McStott's beady rat eyes shifted and looked away. Truly, the man had led a despicable existence, Frick thought.

  Working in the church, he hummed Satan's tune. As for himself, at least Frick didn't question which choir practice to attend.

  It was quiet, cold, and overcast and the northwest winter damp was pervasive. Most people were off the streets and the few who were out had their necks pulled down inside their heavy coats and their hands shoved deep in their pockets. Sam had a great tolerance for cold, but the moldy damp of this wet fall had him on the verge of shivering.

  "Let's leave it here in the shadows," Sam said of Rachael's car. Other automobiles lined Warbass Street; one more wouldn't be a standout. "Leave your cell phone in it with the dry clothes and take Lattimer's car. Stay on the back streets and I'll meet you off Guard Street on Marguerite, in twenty minutes. Rachael and I will walk back to the docks.

  Good luck." He kissed Haley on the cheek.

  Sam looked at his watch. It was 6:45 p.m. Rachael walked beside him, obviously succumbing, bit by bit, to the shivers. They took their time and Sam made it a point to be somewhat aimless in his movements, stopping now and then to look at anything that gave an excuse. At the Coldwell Banker's offices he looked at the properties on the outside wall neatly arranged in a glass display case.

  Sam's mind kept returning to Ben's research. He supposed that whatever the discovery was, it would be like most new things-not as good as initially thought. Perhaps it would add a few years to a person's life or identify a new energy source that wasn't cost-effective to mine.

  For a moment, though, Sam let himself imagine something that would add hundreds of years to a human life span. Administering the elixir to large groups would be expensive because there would probably be scarcity, at least initially. That would mean rules about allocation. Who would choose who gets a long life? Literally everyone had the aging disease. Once a cure appeared, age would be the dread killer on the planet.

  It didn't take much for Sam to imagine the envy, even violence, between the haves and the have-nots.

  Would everybody with money get the stuff? Would the government try to make sure that it wasn't available to terrorists or people with violent propensities-or people who supported "evil" endeavors? Would there be some sort of test to qualify applicants?

  Would the test have a moral component? Would you give it to people on welfare?

  The more he thought about it, the more he realized how treacherous such a discovery would be.

  Ben's research had turned up more than the fountain of youth-issue, though. He was also concerned about people dying in a methane disaster, and Sam wondered exactly how imminent such a thing might be. Big meteors and asteroids would eventually strike the earth, but one hoped it wouldn't be any time soon. Underwater lava flows were not that unusual and neither were landslides and volcanoes. It was puzzling how the same scientist seemed to be obsessed by two such different research tracks. One idea was living and the other dying. Sam guessed that one could view both notions as the problem of staying alive. That and the Arc microbe seemed to connect the two. There had to be more, something they weren't yet seeing.

  As he and Rachael walked down the waterfront road, Sam realized he'd lost track of his surroundings for a minute or more. He never allowed that on the job, instead striving to live keenly in the moment, aware of everything in his environment. It was how he had remained alive. This daydreaming was completely out of character. It struck him then that the notion of extreme longevity was a beguiling mistress. He saw a sheriff's boat sitting with its running lights on at the outer entrance to the moorages, where a deputy could see any passing vessel. Sam wondered whether it would be a real deputy or some Frick stooge, like the fellow who'd gotten burned at Ben's.

  Geisha, a beautiful Swan sailboat, was moored close to shore on the sprawling docks of Friday Harbor. It belonged to Sam's friend.

  "Don't look up," Sam told Rachael, watching a patrol car moving slowly up the street toward them. That meant the police were watching the harbor from the boat and an onshore lookout. Sheriff's Boat 2, usually stationed at Orcas Island, was also available at the dock. No doubt Frick had brought in mercenaries and was manpower rich. He recalled the man at Ben's who claimed to be from Las Vegas.

  He and Rachael climbed up the slight incline of Front Street toward the wharfinger's office, entering into a well-lit area. There they were spotted by a cruising patrol car.

  "They're curious about us," she whispered. "Just stay cool. You're not Haley and I'm not a big, dark-haired, scraggly-bearded guy who's maybe Mexican or Indian."

  "Your makeup may be noticeable."

  "Yeah. In good light, if you're looking for it." They kept walking to the large ramp at the head of the dock, where the cop car was now waiting. Sam walked right toward it, as if curious. "You head into the ladies' room," he said, "wait two minutes, no more, then come out."

  Sam went and stood under the streetlight near the squad car. As the officer studied him, Sam pulled out his cell phone and pretended to talk. The deputy backed up until the car was ten feet away. Deliberately Sam kept his face in shadow, using the brow of the cowboy hat, and waved as he continued talking to the imaginary caller.

  "Darling, I said you've got to do your homework before you can watch some reality show. Reality is homework. That's reality." Sam droned on like a weary father with a teenager.

  "How are you this evening, sir?" The officer had gotten tired of waiting and didn't hesitate to interrupt Sam's phone call.

  "I gotta go, you mind your aunt." Sam turned to the officer. "Pretty good. We're picking up a VHF radio on one of the boats."

  "What boat would that be?"

  "Geisha."

  "Your boat?"

  "Belongs to a friend."

  Just then Rachael came out.

  "They're interested in our travels," Sam said.

  One look at the beautiful blond Rachael in the incandescent light and recognition flashed in the officer's eyes.

  "You seen a big Indian guy and Haley, the scientist from the bike shop?"

  "Neither," Rachael said. "Is something wrong?"

  "Say, why don't you go get the radio and meet your friend." Sam made a show of shivering and hugging his coat around him. "I'll beg the deputy here for a ride back to your place."

  The deputy looked surprised. "I'm on patrol."

  "I thought you were a public servant," Sam said playfully, and winked.

  "Good night, now, folks. Call us if you see either of them." The deputy rolled up his window and left them in a hurry.

  CHAPTER 17

  F rick addressed the nine men seated around the table. These wer
e the smooth ones, all of them private detectives and none with any significant criminal record. This was a different group from the first and they looked it, both in the face and in the way they dressed.

  In the midst of his talk about their goals, the assistant interrupted. Her name was Delia and Khan had pulled her in from Las Vegas, along with the others, just for this occasion.

  She had a talent for keeping her mouth shut and knew most of these men at least enough to match a name with a face. She was fast, efficient, and smart, and Frick was happy to have her.

  "Khan's on the line and said to interrupt," Delia said.

  Frick had let Khan go over to check on Rafe's progress with Haley Walther.

  Angry at the delay, Frick walked out of the room and took the call in his office.

  "Yeah?"

  "We have a problem. This Sam character came and sprang the woman."

  "Damn it. How did it happen?" Khan told him what he'd found.

  "Lattimer Gibbons is gone too," Khan said. "The garage is empty. If he had a car, they probably took it."

  "Have men tear the house apart for anything like lab papers or documents, anything else of interest. When you get men started there, do the same at Ben Anderson's. You make sure you decide what is pertinent. We've got all four roads out of Friday Harbor blocked so they can't get far."

  "This happened early enough that the roadblocks probably weren't in place."

  "I understand," Frick said. "Now get to it." He slammed the phone down, wanting to kill Rafe. But in his gut he felt cold fear. Other than Haley, he considered who might know something. Then it occurred to him that they hadn't yet brought him Ben's secretary, Sarah James. The safe-deposit box had been a bust, just as he'd expected. Frick cursed himself for being stupid. He should have started with Sarah at the very beginning.

  He went and got a picture of Haley Walther to put alongside the pictures of Robert Chase and Ben Anderson, then walked back into the room, where the men were waiting.

  He forced himself to keep his cool. Utter confidence was important.

  "We've just had an escape. Add Haley Walther to the list. Anyone asks, you're plainclothes detectives over from the mainland to help out. You've already been deputized. Be polite unless you actually see Ben Anderson, Haley Walther, or this Sam character. You should all have pictures with you. Once you have positive ID, do whatever you have to do in order to follow the suspects. First, though, if you see any of them, you get on the radio and tell everybody where you are and that you've seen them.

  Give GPS coordinates just to make sure. Khan or I will make the arrest. Questions?"

  None.

  "From this moment on, your base of operations will be my home," Frick said. "You will not be returning here."

  One guy raised a hand; Frick anticipated the question.

  "If fired upon, you may fire back. Do not fire first unless you are directly threatened.

  We'd like them alive, but that is not absolutely necessary with Sam, aka Robert Chase.

  Anderson we need and Walther as well. Delia here will give you each a list of addresses where we might find Ben Anderson or the other two."

  Sure enough, the guy with the question didn't raise his hand again.

  "Let's go," Frick said, and they all headed for their rental cars.

  "FBI is on the phone," Delia called out.

  Frick came back and took it. "This is Ernie Sanders again. FBI, Washington, DC."

  "I know who you are," Frick said, "and I'm busy."

  "We don't want to interrupt you, but we do want to caution you."

  "Yeah, you are the guys who take calls from the cop killer and expect me to listen while you talk about civil rights."

  "No need to be hostile," Ernie said. "I'm just calling to tell you that it would be good if there were no more dead or wounded citizens."

  "Yeah, well, that's not necessarily up to me," said Frick. "You go back to your job and let me do mine."

  "I understand the frustration of local law enforcement when two of their number have been shot. I'm telling you that we know Robert Chase, and our experience is much different from yours. So we're not jumping to any conclusions. Under the law we have no authority to tell you to halt a murder investigation. What I can tell you," Ernie said,

  "is not to tread on the United States Constitution."

  Ben sat in what appeared to be a veterinary doctors' surgical suite consisting of one sparse room with off-yellow walls and an attached alcove on the far side of a pass-through area, where the surgical packs were kept. The room had a stainless-steel hydraulic operating table about five feet long by 2'/2 feet wide. There was a stainless-steel extension to the table to gain over six feet in total length and they apparently intended to use that for him; a monitor cart to track the various vital signs; a rolling surgical tray, where the surgical packs were opened and kept during the surgery; overhead lights of the sort common in hospitals; an anesthetic machine; and a second monitor sitting on a separate rolling cart, which looked as if it had come from a hospital.

  Somewhat depressing, there was also an electro-cautery machine. They tended to use electro-cautery on dogs to stop the bleeders in lieu of hemostats where possible, and he wondered if he would be treated more like a dog or more like a human.

  Ben had been around medical establishments, both human and animal, and was pretty familiar with everything. It all looked impressively businesslike.

  They were rigging the IV that would run the paralytic drug succinylcholine into his arm.

  It had no painkilling properties whatsoever and would serve only to leave him staring at the ceiling, able to hear, feel, and see the world around him, but unable to so much as spit over his chin. The man with the Arabic accent-who, Ben could now see, was tall and had long black hair-was showing him a stainless-steel bowl that looked rather like a large salad bowl.

  "This is the bowl into which we will put your intestines. We will open your belly, tie off the bleeders, carefully lift out your innards from just below the duodenum to the middle of the large bowel, everything pretty much remaining intact and still connected, and then we will put them in here. We are putting on these straps because when we give you the antidote to the sux, you will be able to move, and we don't want you moving around and opening up bleeders. Once we have neutralized the succinylcholine, you will be able to talk, and if you start talking about important things, we will initiate a spinal block to dull the pain. Realize, please, that if you tell us everything, we will immediately anesthetize you, carefully put your intestines back inside your abdomen, and sew you up. However, I'm sure with your education, that you have determined that this is not a surgical suite designed for humans and there is a real risk of infection even if I do good work."

  Ben could barely comprehend what they intended. It was clearly worse than anything he might have imagined.

  "Would you like to speak now and spare all of us the surgery?" the man asked.

  "Why don't you fry them," Ben said. "Tripe's actually quite good, I understand."

  The man looked at him with amusement in his eyes. He knew who would win, and Ben now believed that they would disembowel him. Suddenly his joke didn't seem so clever.

  "We'll have you take off your shirt and the rest of your clothes and lie down there. We'll begin a sterile prep, start the IV, and get you on the ventilator."

  Ben stood feeling like the next few steps were the death walk. He glanced at Stu.

  "Hey, man, you don't want to do this," Stu said.

  "Gas pains worse than green apples?" With that, Ben now believed himself to be clinically insane, laughing at his own demise.

  Stu, Ben, and the Arab watched while Ben removed all his clothes.

  "Get on the table," the Arab said. Ben just stood there staring at the gleaming stainless steel and the round holes in the perforated surface that would allow his blood to run down inside the table. He wondered where the blood went. "We can do it the hard way,"

  Len said

 
; "Go to hell," Ben said.

  Someone threw open the door to the exam room.

  "Wait a minute!" another man said. "We're going to get Sarah James. The boss says to use her for the rough stuff. Anderson won't be able to take it and he'll be more coherent that way than with his guts in a bowl."

  The Arab man sighed and turned away. "That is a complete change of plans."

  Ben felt a new level of fear at the mention of Sarah's name. Was this true? Was it a choreographed act? A bluff?

  "We'll be taking Dr. Anderson to her location," the new man said. "You can do it there.

  She's by herself in her house. We'll have her in minutes. Unless, of course, Dr. Anderson wants us to stop, wants to spare her the terror."

  "We may take out her uterus first. See how he likes that," the self-styled surgeon said.

  "Animals," Ben said.

  Ben took a closer look at the newly arrived man. He carried a small automatic rifle and wore a camouflage suit. His face triggered a faint glimmer in Ben's memory.

  CHAPTER 18

  Sarah James sat in the kitchen of her cedar home in a wooden chair that was not as comfortable as the chairs or sofa in the great room. But she had no interest in relaxing or watching more of Flick's manufactured history on the evening news. She had turned out the lights, believing it was safer. She worried about Ben.

  The great room off the kitchen had a high-prow point that looked out into the second-growth forest, but it did not provide a view up the driveway. For that, she would need to stand and look out the kitchen window. In the dark, though, the lights of any approaching vehicle did illuminate the interior of the kitchen, turning the cedar golden.

  So she waited for the tiny photons to arrive in their inexplicable waves.

  She wore a dress for Ben; he was old-fashioned enough to like them, although on her he never seemed to notice-at least until recently and then she wasn't sure. It was painful but true and she didn't believe in kidding herself. Her romantic interest in Ben had been relatively recent and very secret and frankly had surprised her. He was twenty years her senior and she hadn't known that she could feel such physical love for an older man until one day she was looking at him and wanted to go crazy on his desktop.