Watchers (38 page)
“Because of something they’ve done to you.”
Yes.
Travis’s heart raced. They actually were communicating, by God, not just in broad strokes, and not just in the comparatively crude way he and Einstein had communicated the night that the dog had formed a question mark out of Milk-Bones. This was communication with extreme specificity. Here they were, talking as if they were three people—well, almost talking— and suddenly nothing would ever be the same again. Nothing could
possibly
be the same in a world where men and animals possessed equal (if different) intellects, where they faced life on equal terms, with equal rights, with similar hopes and dreams. All right, okay, so maybe he was blowing this out of proportion. Not
all
animals had suddenly been given human-level consciousness and intelligence; this was only one dog, an experimental animal, perhaps the only one of his kind. But Jesus.
Jesus.
Travis stared in awe at the retriever, and a chill swept through him, not a chill of fear but of wonder.
possibly
be the same in a world where men and animals possessed equal (if different) intellects, where they faced life on equal terms, with equal rights, with similar hopes and dreams. All right, okay, so maybe he was blowing this out of proportion. Not
all
animals had suddenly been given human-level consciousness and intelligence; this was only one dog, an experimental animal, perhaps the only one of his kind. But Jesus.
Jesus.
Travis stared in awe at the retriever, and a chill swept through him, not a chill of fear but of wonder.
Nora spoke to the dog, and in her voice was a trace of the same awe that had briefly rendered Travis speechless: “They didn’t just let you go, did they?”
One bark.
No.
No.
“You escaped?”
Yes.
“That Tuesday morning I found you in the woods?” Travis asked. “Had you just escaped then?”
Einstein neither barked nor wagged his tail.
“Days before that?” Travis asked.
The dog whined.
“He probably has a sense of time,” Nora said, “because virtually all animals follow natural day-night rhythms, don’t they? They have instinctive clocks, biological clocks. But he probably doesn’t have any concept of
calendar
days. He doesn’t really understand how we divide time up into days and weeks and months, so he has no way of answering your question.”
calendar
days. He doesn’t really understand how we divide time up into days and weeks and months, so he has no way of answering your question.”
“Then that’s something we’ll have to teach him,” Travis said.
Einstein vigorously wagged his tail.
Thoughtfully, Nora said, “Escaped . . .”
Travis knew what she must be thinking. To Einstein, he said, “They’ll be looking for you, won’t they?”
The dog whined and wagged his tail—which Travis interpreted as a “yes” with a special edge of anxiety.
An hour after sunset, Lemuel Johnson and Cliff Soames, trailed by two additional unmarked cars carrying eight NSA agents, arrived at Bordeaux Ridge. The unpaved street through the center of the unfinished housing tract was lined with vehicles, mostly black-and-whites bearing the Sheriff’s Department shield, plus cars and a van from the coroner’s office.
Lem was dismayed to see that the press had already arrived. Both print journalists and television crews with minicams were being kept behind a police line, half a block from the apparent scene of the murder. By quietly suppressing details of the death of Wesley Dalberg in Holy Jim Canyon and of the associated murders of the scientists working at Banodyne, and by instituting an aggressive campaign of disinformation, the NSA had managed to keep the press ignorant of the connections among all these events. Lem hoped that the deputies manning these barriers were among Walt Gaines’s most trusted men and that they would meet reporters’ questions with stony silence until a convincing cover story could be developed.
Sawhorses were lifted out of the way to let the unmarked NSA cars through the police line, then were put into place again.
Lem parked at the end of the street, past the crime scene. He left Cliff Soames to brief the other agents, and he headed toward the unfinished house that appeared to be the focus of attention.
The patrol cars’ radios filled the hot night air with codes and jargon— and with a hiss-pop-crackle of static, as if the whole world were being fried on a cosmic griddle.
Portable kliegs stood on tripods, flooding the front of the house with light to facilitate the investigation. Lem felt as if he were on a giant stage set. Moths swooped and fluttered around the kliegs. Their amplified shadows darted across the dusty ground.
Casting his own exaggerated shadow, he crossed the dirt yard to the house. Inside, he found more kliegs. Dazzlingly bright light bounced off white walls. Looking pale and sweaty in that harsh glare were a couple of young deputies, men from the coroner’s office, and the usual intense types from the Scientific Investigation Division.
A photographer’s strobe flashed once, twice, from farther back in the house. The hallway looked crowded, so Lem went around to the back by way of the living room, dining room, and kitchen.
Walt Gaines was standing in the breakfast area, in the dimness behind the last of the hooded kliegs. But even in those shadows, his anger and grief were visible. He had evidently been at home when he had gotten word about the murder of a deputy, for he was wearing tattered running shoes, wrinkled tan chinos, a brown- and red-checkered short-sleeve shirt. In spite of his great size, bull neck, muscular arms, and big hands, Walt’s clothes and slump-shouldered posture gave him the look of a forlorn little boy.
From the breakfast area, Lem could not see past the lab men and into the laundry room, where the body still lay. He said, “I’m sorry, Walt. I’m so sorry.”
“Name was Teel Porter. His dad Red Porter and I been friends twenty-five years. Red just retired from the department last year. How am I going to tell him? Jesus. I’ve got to do it myself, us being so close. Can’t pass the buck this time.”
Lem knew that Walt never passed the buck when one of his men was killed in the line of duty. He always personally visited the family, broke the bad news, and sat with them through the initial shock.
“Almost lost
two
men,” Walt said. “Other one’s badly shaken.”
two
men,” Walt said. “Other one’s badly shaken.”
“How was Teel . . . ?”
“Gutted like Dalberg. Decapitated.”
The Outsider, Lem thought. No doubt about it now.
Moths had gotten inside and were bashing against the lens of the klieg light behind which Lem and Walt stood.
His voice thickening with anger, Walt said, “Haven’t found . . . his head. How do I tell his dad that Teel’s
head
is missing?”
head
is missing?”
Lem had no answer.
Walt looked hard at him. “You can’t push me all the way out of it now. Not now that one of my men is dead.”
“Walt, my agency works in purposeful obscurity. Hell, even the number of agents on the payroll is classified information. But your department is subject to full press attention. And in order to know how to proceed in this case, your people would have to be told exactly what they’re looking for. That would mean revealing national defense secrets to a large group of deputies—”
“
Your
men all know what’s up,” Walt countered.
Your
men all know what’s up,” Walt countered.
“Yes, but my men have signed secrecy oaths, undergone extensive security checks, and are trained to keep their mouths shut.”
“My men can keep a secret, too.”
“I’m sure they can,” Lem said carefully. “I’m sure they don’t talk outside the shop about ordinary cases. But this isn’t ordinary. No, this has to remain in our hands.”
Walt said, “My men can sign secrecy oaths.”
“We’d have to background-check everyone in your department, not just deputies but file clerks. It’d take weeks, months.”
Looking across the kitchen at the open door to the dining room, Walt noticed Cliff Soames and another NSA agent talking with two deputies in the next room. “You started taking over the minute you got here, didn’t you? Before you even talked to me about it?”
“Yeah. We’re making sure your people understand that they must not talk of anything they’ve seen here tonight, not even to their own wives. We’re citing the appropriate federal laws to every man, ’cause we want to be sure they understand the fines and prison terms.”
“Threatening me with jail again?” Walt asked, but there was no humor in his voice, as there had been when they’d spoken days ago in the garage of St. Joseph’s Hospital after seeing Tracy Keeshan.
Lem was depressed not only by the deputy’s death but by the wedge that this case was driving between him and Walt. “I don’t want anyone in jail. That’s why I want to be sure they grasp the consequences—”
Scowling, Walt said, “Come with me.”
Lem followed him outside, to a patrol car in front of the house.
They sat in the front seat, Walt behind the steering wheel, with the doors closed. “Roll up the windows, so we’ll have total privacy.”
Lem protested that they’d suffocate in this heat without ventilation. But even in the dim light, he saw the purity and volatility of Walt’s anger, and he realized his position was that of a man standing in gasoline while holding a burning candle. He rolled up his window.
“Okay,” Walt said. “We’re alone. Not NSA District Director and Sheriff. Just old friends. Buddies. So tell me all about it.”
“Walt, damn it, I can’t.”
“Tell me now, and I’ll stay off the case. I won’t interfere.”
“You’ll stay off the case anyway. You have to.”
“Damned if I do,” Walt said angrily. “I can walk right down the road to those jackals.” The car faced out of Bordeaux Ridge, toward the sawhorses where reporters waited, and Walt pointed at them through the dusty windshield. “I can tell them that Banodyne Laboratories was working on some defense project that got out of hand, tell them that someone or something strange escaped from those labs in spite of the security, and now it’s loose, killing people.”
“You do that,” Lem said, “you wouldn’t just wind up in jail. You’d lose your job, ruin your whole career.”
“I don’t think so. In court I’d claim I had to choose between breaching the national security and betraying the trust of the people who elected me to office in this county. I’d claim that, in a time of crisis like this, I had to put local public safety above the concerns of the Defense bureaucrats in Washington. I’m confident just about any jury would vindicate me. I’d stay out of jail, and in the next election I’d win by even more votes than I got the last time.”
“Shit,” Lem said because he knew Walt was correct.
“If you tell me about it now, if you convince me that your people are better able to handle the situation than mine, then I’ll step out of your way. But if you won’t tell me, I’ll blow it wide open.”
“I’d be breaking my oath. I’d be putting my neck in the noose.”
“No one’ll ever know you told me.”
“Yeah? Well then, Walt, for Christ’s sake, why put me in such an awkward position just to satisfy your curiosity?”
Walt looked stung. “It’s not as petty as that, damn you. It’s not just curiosity.”
“Then what is it?”
“One of my men is dead!”
Leaning his head back against the seat, Lem closed his eyes and sighed. Walt had to know
why
he was required to forswear vengeance for the killing of one of his own men. His sense of duty and honor would not allow him to back off without at least that much. His was not exactly an unreasonable position.
why
he was required to forswear vengeance for the killing of one of his own men. His sense of duty and honor would not allow him to back off without at least that much. His was not exactly an unreasonable position.
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