WHISKEY CREEK PRESS

P.O. Box 726

Lusk, Wyoming 82225

307-334-3165

www.whiskeycreekpress.com

Copyright ? 2004 by Kenneth E. Baker

Names, characters and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

ISBN 1-59374-101-4

Printed in the United States of America

Dedication

I dedicate this novel to my wife Connie, who has stood behind me and encouraged me all the way

CHAPTER ONE

White House, Washington DC

“Jesus H. Christ, Merlin this had better be good.” President Joseph Robertson rubbed his brow to ease the tension he felt. Looking across the table at Merlin Jackson, head of HEW in his administration, he said, “Just give it to me straight, Merl. No more bullshit.”

Looking uncomfortable, Merlin cleared his throat, “So far this week there are fifty-seven confirmed cases of the new disease. All of the people are isolated at the Center for Disease Control in Atlan-ta. Sir, I had Dr. Palmer fly up from the center. He can give us a better idea of what we are dealing with.”

Dr. Palmer stood up, went to the head of the table, and pulled a sheaf of papers from his briefcase.

“Mr. President, gentlemen, if you will read the report in front of you, it will explain that this disease started in a relatively small area. I will answer any questions after you have read the paper,”

Dr. Palmer said.

President Robertson picked up the report and began to read. ‘The Center for Disease Control believed the disease had started on an Indian Reservation in New Mexico. Last year they had discovered a new virus caused by rat dung. This virus had killed a dozen people on the reservation. The doctors thought the new virus was the one from the reservation, but it had mutated into something far beyond any-thing they had ever seen. The disease was traced to three people who were on the reserva-tion at the time of the first outbreak. The new form of the disease was called to their attention a little over three months ago. At first they thought it was just typical mental illness cases until patients started dying for an undetermined reason. All the deaths occurred two weeks after the people came down with the illness.

‘The first patients went through four stages before dy-ing.

‘In the first stage patients had delusions of being God or servants of God. This initial stage lasted two to three days.

‘During the second stage the patient tried to make everyone around him believe the way he did, often violently forcing them to agree with him. This stage lasted four to five days.

‘The patient appeared calm and rational with the third stage. Often patients joked that they must have flipped out for a while. No symptoms of the former behavior were apparent. It lasted four to five days.

‘In every case of the fourth stage between day eleven and day fourteen, the patient went to sleep, fell into a comma, then died within a few hours.

‘Autopsies revealed no reason for their deaths. Every case was the same; reason of death was unknown. Doctors at the center came to the conclu-sion that this disease transmitted itself by contact. They knew this when two staff members who worked with the first pa-tients came down with the virus. Other staff members breathing the same air as the patients, but having no phys-ical contact with them, did not catch it. The staff con-cluded that the disease picked a host and stayed with it as long as the host was not confined. When confined, the disease triggers something in the patien-t’s mind that tells him or her to cease functioning.’

President Robertson paused and sipped from the water glass next to him. He picked up the paper again and read that, ‘If the disease didn’t find a new host it became dormant until someone touched the body. The center now puts the bodies in a sealed room and does the autopsies with mechanical arms. After the autopsy, they cremate the body to keep anyone else from getting infect-ed.’

President Robertson rubbed his tired eyes then read on. ‘Last month the virus mutated. The time span began to compress. It had taken two weeks from start to death: it now took eight days. In the CDC’s opinion, this time span would decrease again.

‘At first, the center managed to destroy the disease in the body by cremating it. As the disease mutated, it adopted the ability to clone itself to another person before showing any signs of illness. Now two people were spreading the disease and it was expanding rapidly. The people with this new disease were not dying as quickly, if at all. The center estimated that over sixty-five per cent of them would live. People with the new disease have one thing in common. They are compelled to destroy anyone who is not like them. The center discovered these people to be very intelligent. They also have some form of non-verbal communication among themselves.

‘As of this morning, the CDC looks more like an armed prison than a research facility. Six members of the staff died at the hands of these patients last week alone. There is evidence the patients of the new disease—which is called “Gotze 2” after the man who discovered that the virus had mutated—manipulate the patients of the original virus. Some of the doctors be-lieve the Gotze 2

patients get them to do the killings for them. The original virus causes the patients to become consumed by blinding rage, fearing nothing. These are the people who are the most dangerous. Only death can stop them once the Gotze 2 patients tell them to kill.

‘So far the center has been able to limit their exposure to each other. Most of the staff agrees that they are slowly losing this battle. Until fully developed, the doctors don’t know which group the patients belong to. As it stands now, they estimated the facility has one or two months left to remain functioning. After that they will run out of staff. Most of the staff would have already left except they realize it wouldn’t be any safer away from the hospital. They agreed that if they don’t get a handle on this disease in the next three weeks, the patients will take the facility from them.’

President Robertson looked up from the paper; he waited until everyone had finished reading.

“Dr. Palmer, what if I ordered troops from Fort Benning down there to use as guards?”

“No, sir, that is exactly what we don’t want. The main reason armed troops wouldn’t work is because of the infection rate. We would then have armed soldiers trying to kill us. If we intro-duce guns into the situation, I’m afraid we will be out of business by the end of next week.”

“Do you have an estimate as to how far this will spread? Can you tell us what kind of time table we’re talking about?” President Robertson asked.

“Yes, sir. We have a high and low estimate. The consen-sus is that the actual number will be in the middle of the high-low range. We estimate that probably forty per cent of the population will come down with this disease in the next six months. The mixture will be somewhere between thirty per cent the original virus to ten per cent Gotze 2.”

President Robertson felt his chest tighten, “Jesus, half the country is going to come down with this thing.”

“Now, on the high side of the estimate.”

“Holy shit, Doctor, you mean that was the low esti-mate?”

“Yes, sir, it was.”

“Go on, Doctor. I’m sure I won’t like what you say next.”

Looking uncomfortable, Dr. Palmer took a drink of water before continuing. “On the high side, we estimate that as many as eighty per cent of the population will come down with this disease. The mixture here being fifty per cent original virus to thirty per cent Gotze 2.”

“Do you realize what you are saying, Doctor?”

“Yes, sir. I believe it will take decades for this country to recover from what happens in the next six months. We are monitor-ing outbreaks of this disease in almost every state. My personal opinion is, we won’t stop it before it overwhelms us.”

“How reliable are these estimates?”

“They have a plus or minus ten per cent error factor, sir.”

“Thank you for coming up here, Doctor. I’m sure you hated to leave your work at this critical stage,” the president said as he held out his hand.

Shaking the president’s hand, Dr. Palmer said, “If we don’t find something in the next three weeks, I’m going to take my family to a cabin I have in the Rockies. Then I can only pray we don’t become infected.”

“Do you think that is wise?”

“Sir, if we haven’t found something by that time, it will be too late to stop the progress of the disease. My hanging around would not help anyone. Sir, if I were you I would be thinking of a place where you and the First Lady could isolate yourselves until this has run it’s course. I believe it will in due time.”

“I appreciate your advice, Doctor. You could do something for me that would help me make my decisions in the coming weeks.”

“Anything I can do to help would be my pleasure, sir.”

“I was hoping you would say that, Doctor. It would be helpful if you would call me every morning and evening to keep me updated on your progress. Call this number and I’ll arrange for your call to reach me wherever I am.” The president said, writing a number on a piece of paper and handing it to him. Shaking Dr. Palmer’s hand again, the president walked him to the door. Closing the door, he turned to glare at Merlin who was still seated at the table. “Merlin, why in hell wasn’t I told about the seriousness of this disease weeks ago?”

“Mr. President, we didn’t think it was that serious at the time, so we didn’t want to alarm you unnecessarily.”

“ALARM ME! Didn’t you hear what Dr. Palmer just said! He told us that half the population of this country is going to come down with a deadly disease. Merl, do you have any idea what this is going to do to our country? If it’s only half as bad as Dr. Palmer says, this government will cease to exist as it is now. I want you to arrange a meeting with the Joint Chiefs in two hours. Get with the director of the FBI and have him report anything out of the ordinary directly to me. Have the director of the CIA at Langley come here immediately. Think you can remember all of that, Merl?” the president asked in a sarcastic voice.

“Yes, sir, I’ll do it immediately,” Merl answered as he headed for the door. Walking into the Oval Office, President Robertson sat down behind his desk and looked out the window at the white billowing clouds floating by. Of all the things a man had to face, this was a time he wished he wasn’t president. If what Dr. Palmer said was true and he had no reason to doubt him, millions of people were going to die. They would have no warning of their danger. Being a practical man, he knew a warning would be futile and would proba-bly kill many more people than the disease itself.

He knew that he had many plans to make, but for the moment he just wanted to sit and watch the clouds. Breaking out of his reverie, he looked up to see his wife standing in the doorway.

“What is it, Joseph? I’ve never seen you this troubled before,” she said.

“Sarah, I have decided to do something that’s going to cause the deaths of millions of people,”

then he went on to explain about the disease.

“Joseph, from what you say, you are caught in a no win situation. You have to do what is best for the country.”

“Thanks, Sarah, now leave me alone for a few minutes. I need to do some serious thinking. Then we can have lunch.”

She reached up and kissed him on the cheek and turned to leave the room. Looking over her shoulder, she saw that Joseph was deep in thought.

After his wife left, the president picked up the phone and rang his secretary. His secretary said. “Yes Mr. President.”

“Ruth, get me Charlie Jacobs of NSC, on the phone.”

While waiting, he thought about the decision he was about to carry out. “God forgive me for what I am about to do,” he whispered. He knew that from this moment on he would not get a restful night’s sleep for as long as he lived.

CHAPTER TWO

Bill sat down to drink his coffee and read the morning paper. Tony, his live in girlfriend, was at the stove cooking him toast and eggs. Bill watched her as she worked. He marveled at the grace and efficiency of movement she showed while working.

“Good morning Hon, how are you feeling?” she asked.

“Better, but not much,” he answered, sipping his coffee.

Today would be his first day back on the job after a three-week absence, although he knew he should stay home the rest of the week. His boss was putting pressure on him to return to work. After the call from his boss yesterday, he decided he had better report to work this morning and find out what was going on.

“My job,” he thought. “I wish there were something to move up to.” It’s not that he didn’t like his job; just that after eighteen years of doing the same thing he wanted something that challenged his mind. Being an independent maintenance splicer in southern West Virginia could sometimes be trying, but mostly he suffered from doing the same thing day after day. He realized that this was what he had to look forward to for the next twenty or more years. Now at the ripe old age of thirty-eight he had come down with an illness and none of the doctors could tell him what it was. Oh, they had given him prescriptions all right but none of the medicines seemed to do any good. He vividly remembered the first week, especially the nights. During the first week as darkness would fall his temperature started to rise and kept rising until around four o’clock in the morning when it would peak near one hundred and five degrees. His temperature would fall to near normal by four o’clock in the afternoon.

The second week his temperature would drop a little with each succeeding night and in the third week his temperature seemed to have stabilized at one hundred degrees.

Bill remembered the other day in the doctor’s office when he had thought he was going crazy. While sitting in the waiting room of the doctor’s office, he could hear voices inside his head. Looking all around when this happened he thought some one had spoken to him; he noticed that the other people were in their own little worlds. As the voices continued, he discerned there were two men talking to each other. This continued until the nurse called a man to go to an examining booth. In all this time not a person in the room had spoken a word. It wasn’t until later, thinking about this that he decided he wasn’t crazy. Two people in the waiting room had been talking to each other but neither said a word that anyone could hear.

What frightened him was that he couldn’t tell anyone because they would think he was crazy. Hell, Bill wasn’t convinced himself that he hadn’t gone off the deep end. In a way it would be nice to get back to work, He knew he had been a pain in the ass to Tony, but she stuck in there even though he had acted like a baby at times. He also knew he would never have had the patience that Tony displayed during this time.

Tony set the breakfast plate in front of him. He looked up at her saying, “Tony, you can take me to work this morning and then drop the truck off at the garage to have it serviced.”

“That sounds great, I could use the time to do some shopping in town. Can you think of anything I can pick up for you?”

“No, just pick me up around five o’clock, at the storeroom. Maybe we can eat supper out this evening.”

“Ok, I’ve been wanting to eat at the new restaurant that opened in town a few weeks ago.”

After Bill finished his meal, he went out to the garage, backed the truck out and closed the garage door. Sitting behind the wheel, he felt the small aches and pains of his unused muscles. “It’s going to take me a few days to get back in shape,” he thought.

Bob, his next door neighbor, came out on the porch to pick up the morning paper and said,

“How are you this morning, Bill?”

“No complaints.”

“Well, I better get back inside. Have a good day.”

Bill jerked upright. In his mind he heard Bob say, “What a lucky son of a bitch. I’ll bet he fucks himself half to death every night with the young goddess he lives with.” Bill heard this although Bob hadn’t spoken a word.

“Am I going crazy?” he asked himself.

Just then Tony opened the truck door and got in. “What’s the matter, Bill? You’re white as a sheet.”

“You would think I’m crazy if I told you.” He started the truck and backed out of the driveway. On the way to work he kept thinking of what he had heard or thought he had heard. When he pulled in the parking lot, Tony said, “Please take it easy today, Bill.”

“I will, Babe.” Bill got out of the truck and entered the garage. He went into the conference room where his work group met every workday morning to get their first dispatches. Everyone asked him how he was. A few even joked that he wasn’t sick at all. They said Tony had just screwed him so hard it had taken three weeks to recover.

As he sat down, he heard in his head, “Yeah, the lucky stiff; maybe Tony will become one of us?”

“I sure could use a little of that,” another voice said.

Bill kept his head lowered as he heard this, knowing no one in the room had spoken. The voices continued, “I guess, we’ll have to arrange an accident for Bill. He’ll never become one of us.”

The second voice said, “Perhaps another fire, like we did to Shipley and his family.”

“No!” said the first voice, “I wouldn’t want to burn Tony up. There is still time to convert her, if we can. Besides, I have other plans for her.”

Bill raised his head and smiled at Slim sitting across the table from him. He wondered what would happen if he projected his thoughts, so he tried. Still smiling, he thought, “Both of you are sons of bitches.”

Nothing happened.

About that time, Gene Spraggs, his boss, entered the room.

He spotted Bill and said, “Well, well, are you ready to go to work? After the rest you’ve had, we should get plenty of work out of you.”

“Yes, sir,” Bill said. He tried to keep the disgust he felt for this obnoxious bastard from showing on his face.

In his head, he heard, “Don’t worry, Gene, we’re going to take care of him within the next few days.”

He heard Gene reply, “The sooner the better. God, I hate this asshole.”

Bill tried to project his thoughts. “Fuck all of you,” he thought. Again nothing happened. Bill decided with him it was a one-way thing, he could hear them, but he could not talk to them mentally. Knowing this, he acted as though he couldn’t hear them.

Bill was scared now. These people were talking about killing him as if it was nothing at all. Bill knew what Gene, Slim, and Jim were planning, but he didn’t know why. “I had better find out soon,” he thought. He decided this was a good time to get suddenly sick which would give him an excuse to go home.

Clutching his chest, Bill fell to the floor moaning and kicking. This caused a flurry of action. Chairs scraped back and concerned faces bent over him.

“What is it, Bill?” one of them asked.

Slowly sitting up, Bill continued to hold his chest. “I guess I shouldn’t have came in to work so soon.”

He noticed that not one of the three men who were plotting his death seemed the least concerned. Looking at Gene, he said, “Boss, I’m going to have to go back home and get in bed. Perhaps, in a few days I can come back to work.”

In his head he heard, “Let him go, Gene. With him bedridden and everyone knowing how sick he is, it should be easy to arrange an accident.”

“All right,” Gene said, “Slim can take you home. I don’t think you’re in any shape to drive.”

Holding his chest, Bill let Slim help him out to his truck.

“Do you want me to drop you off at the doctor’s office?” Slim asked.

“No, I just need to go home and rest for a few more days. By then, I hope I’ll be over this.”

“I sure hate to see you laid up like this, Bill,” Slim said.

“Sure you do,” Bill thought.

Slim helped Bill into the house and into his bedroom. Slim kept asking, “Can I get you a glass of water or some medicine from the bathroom, Bill?”

“Nothing, Slim, just go. Let me rest. I’ll be all right.”

“Ok, Ok, don’t get testy, I was just trying to help.”

“I know and I appreciate it, but right now I need rest.”

“Well, I’ll see you in a few days,” Slim said as he left.

Bill noticed that Slim took his time leaving, casually looking over everything he could see.

“Go ahead, Slime Ball, look it over good because I won’t be here when you and Pete come to finish me off,” Bill thought.

Bill waited until he heard Slim’s truck start and back down the driveway before getting out of bed. The first thing he did was call all the places Tony said she was going. He finally reached her at Morrison’s Drugstore.

When she picked up the phone, he said, “Listen carefully and don’t ask any questions. Do what you were going to do at the store; then go outside to a pay phone. Make sure you can’t be seen from the drugstore and give me a call on Bob’s number.”

“What’s wrong, Honey, did you hurt yourself?”

“No, I’m fine. Just do as I ask and don’t talk to anyone. Call me as soon as you can.”

Bill looked out the window at Bob’s garage. The door was open and his car gone. “At least, I’m still lucky,” he thought.

Gathering up his tools, he went out the back door to the corner of his house. After checking to see there was no one around, he slipped over to the telephone box. The telephone lines came up in a green metal box mounted in the ground. All of the phone lines were located in this box. Bill took the cover off and switched his line with Bob’s. After replacing the cover, he went back inside and walked to a stand sitting by the door where the daily papers lay. Bill looked through the old newspapers stacked there. He found what he wanted on a paper dated five days ago. He read the headlines, which said,

‘TOWN SHOCKED AND DISMAYED AT LOSS OF FAMILY

In what can only be called a tragedy, last night,

the home of Walter Shipley burned to the ground.

Apparently the Shipleys were sleeping when the

furnace blew up, causing an instant fireball to

race through the home. Fire Chief Roy Higgs said

they never had a chance. Mr. and Mrs. Shipley

and their children were found in their beds. Chief

Higgs said that by the time the fire department

arrived the house was completely engulfed in flames.’

“Those dirty rotten bastards,” Bill said, throwing the paper to the floor. Holding his head in his hands, he thought, “What in the hell is going on?” He knew he had to be cautious. So far, he had heard six people who could communicate just by thinking what they wanted each other to hear. Therefore, he had to assume there were a lot of people out there just like them.

Bill didn’t know whether his boss had bought his sickness act or not. He had to assume that someone was monitoring his phone. This was why he switched Bob’s line to his. If he was right and Bob was one of them, Bob’s phone wouldn’t be moni-tored.

Bill got up, went into their bedroom and opened the closet door. He pulled out a suitcase from the rear of the closet and started packing some of their heavy clothes. As he grabbed his parka, the phone rang.

Picking up the phone he cautiously said, “Hello,” hoping it wasn’t someone trying to call Bob. Tony said, “What’s going on? Why all the mystery, Bill?”

“First, I want you to go to the bank and withdraw everything but a hundred dollars from our savings account. Tell them you’re going to visit your sister in California next week. Make sure you tell them. Just bring it up in casual conversation. Don’t mention anything to anyone about my calling you or my being at home. Come home as soon as you can and leave the truck parked in the drive-way. I love you, Tony. Please try to act normal, as though nothing is wrong. I know you have a lot of questions. I’ll explain everything when you get home. Tony, just trust me and know that I love you. I’ll see you in a little bit,” he said, as he hung up the phone.

CHAPTER THREE

Pete walked into the security booth hoping Ben didn’t notice he was as high as a kite. Pete needn’t have worried. Ben was thinking about his boy, Benji, who was in the hospital with a temperature of one hundred and four degrees. The doctors couldn’t determine what was causing his fever. They kept telling Ben it was only a matter of time until they found the cause. As Pete passed Ben, he asked, “Is your boy any better?”

“Still the same,” Ben replied, as Pete humming a tune under his breath passed through the security door. Walking down the hall to the utility room Pete was thinking his job, as a janitor wasn’t much, but it did help pay the bills; also, it enabled him to buy his drugs. Yes sir, he was lucky to have this job. His use of drugs was the cause of his losing his last four jobs. Remembering his last job, he began to chuckle. What a sight it must have been. Pete was hired to replenish the vegeta-bles and fruit on the long counter at B&T Supermarket.

Pete came to work early that day feeling euphoric. The night before he had bought some really potent LSD. Pete tried just a little of it and at first nothing seemed to be happening. Moments later, he began to feel really good about himself which rarely happened these days. As the drug took control of his brain, he began to think he was a god. He envisioned his followers coming to worship him as he sat on an altar bestowing his favors on them. All too soon the drug wore off. He had the feeling he was on the verge of attaining something that would change his life.

It was only three hours until work time, and he didn’t want to take any more of the drug. He knew he would still be high when he arrived at work. This didn’t dampen the anticipation of the discovery he might make after work that night.

Carrying tomatoes from the storeroom to place them on the coun-ter, Pete thought, “What an asshole of a job.” None of the custom-ers who pushed and shoved to get the vegetab-les off the counter gave him any respect.

When it came time for his afternoon break, he was fed up with being pushed around. Removing his stained apron, he went to the break room to get a cup of coffee. Sipping the hot coffee, Pete couldn’t wait to get off work. With no one in the room he took a small hit of LSD. Going to the stockroom, he picked up some fruit to place on the counter. Pete began to feel the LSD take effect. He thought he could handle it until quitting time. Placing apples on the counter, he felt a sharp pain in his left ankle. One of the customers had run a shopping cart into his leg and then rudely shoved him out of the way.

“Damn it mister, if you’d just asked, I would have moved out of your way,” Pete said angrily.

“Listen punk, if I need anything from you, I’ll ask for it so just shut up,” the man replied. Not quite completely under the effect of the LSD yet, Pete was able to control his temper. Mumbling under his breath, “assho-le,” Pete turned to leave.

“What did you say, punk?” the man asked.

Pete continued to walk down the aisle, completely ignoring the man. “No respect at all,” he said to himself. “Why can’t people just leave me alone?”

Sitting on the edge of a vegetable crate, Pete began to have the feeling of greatness again. Looking at the crates of fruit and vegetables, he thought, “These are my only friends. To them I must appear to be a god.” Giggling, he picked up a large pumpkin. Walking out of the storeroom he said, “As one of my servants, I will take you to the meeting in the throne room.”

Pete didn’t notice the strange looks he got from his fellow employees as he walked down the aisle talking to the pumpkin. When Pete reached the vegetable counter, he climbed onto it and placed the pumpkin by his side. Looking out over the assorted tomatoes, beans, potatoes, and other vegetables he said, “Greet-ings, servants of mine.” Picking up a large tomato, Pete crushed it over his head.

“Over you, I have the power of life or death. I am your god.”

The amazed customers gave a nervous laugh. They thought this was some kind of promotional stunt the store was putting on.

Looking at the customers, Pete said, “My servants are tired of being eaten by you. Now we are going to have our revenge.”

Some of the people in the growing crowd muttered, “What kind of nut is he?”

Hearing this, Pete said, “I’ll show you what kind of a nut I am.” He picked up tomatoes and threw them at the crowd. The people in front tried to push back out of range of the thrown tomatoes. They couldn’t because the people in back were trying to come forward to see what was happening. Mr. Peevey, the store manager, drawn by the large crowd, tried to get through when pandemonium broke out. People started screaming and Mr. Peevey was knocked to the floor. Customers were trying to escape the barrage of potatoes being thrown at them. A foot came down on the side of Mr. Peevey’s head, tearing the flesh above his right eye. The foot twisted and blood gushed out of the cut. This caused the foot to slip. The falling man’s knee came down hard on the right side of Peevey’s chest. Raw agony pierced his brain causing him to pass out for a moment. Pulling himself into a fetal position, Mr. Peevey tried to protect his face and groin. The panicked crowd kicked and stepped on him as they ran. When the last of the people cleared away, he saw Pete throwing vegetables at the departing people.

Furious, he climbed to his feet shouting, “What in hell do you think you’re doing?”

Pete threw a small melon. The melon hit Mr. Peevey on the side of the head, knocking him off his feet again. Crawling across the vegeta-ble littered floor, Mr. Peevey yelled for someone to call the police.

Meanwhile, Pete continued to throw vegetables at anyone brave enough to show himself. Not that there were many people left; most had already fled the store.

It took four policemen to wrestle Pete to the floor and put a straight jacket on him. Pete spent a week in the mental hospi-tal. They released him after the store refused to press charges. He had agreed that he would never set foot in the store again. Pete had kept his word about the store.

“Yes, sir.” Pete thought as he took the broom and mop from the utility closet. He started down the hall to the storage room.

Pete waved at the hall camera as he passed, knowing Ben was probably watching his every move. Pete didn’t want to lose this job. He knew he was rapidly running out of chances to gain employment. If fired from this job, he doubted that anyone else would hire him.

Ben watched Pete on the monitor as he went about his clean-ing. He detected nothing out of the ordinary. He went back to thinking about his son. Every now and then he checked to see where Pete was.

Pete felt rotten. Just before coming to work, his live in girlfriend had stormed out of their apartment. She told him he was a burnt-out druggie and she never wanted to see him again. Leaning against the wall where the camera couldn’t see him, Pete felt tears running down his cheeks as he thought, “The dumb bitch. She was like all the rest. Always getting down on me for things that weren’t my fault.”

He knew he would miss her. In reality, she was another person he blamed for his wasted life. Wiping away the tears, Pete decided, “What the hell.” Taking his billfold out, he took the last of the LSD he had. He put it in his mouth. On top of the acid already taken, it didn’t take long for him to be totally wasted.

Pete’s body seemed to be expanding. “I am a god,” he thought. He went into the processing room where they boxed the computer chips for final delivery and started to mop the floor. Ben watched Pete and thought it was strange when he heard Pete talking. Ben knew no one else was in the building. He panned the camera around the room. Pete was by himself.

“Oh shit,” Ben thought. “Pete’s on one of his drug trips again.” Getting up from behind the desk, he started toward the elevator. He remembered the front door wasn’t locked. Returning to his desk, he pushed a button locking all of the outside doors.

Looking at the monitor again, Ben saw something he hadn’t noticed before. In back of Pete, a cover was missing from the main busbar. The busbar led to the transformer that supplied power to the building. Realizing that twelve thousand volts were exposed less than a foot from where Pete was making an animated speech caused sweat to pop out all over Ben. “If I can only get there before the crazy bastard electro-cutes himself,” Ben thought. He headed toward the elevators. “Come on, come on.” Ben said. He punched the basement button trying to hurry it up.

Meanwhile, Pete was so far out that he saw a large crowd of people before him. He thought they had come to worship him.

“Please kind people, don’t crowd so close. I will be able to talk to all of you if you will have a little patience,” Pete said to the empty room as he backed up just a bit. Ben hurried down the hall. He heard Pete speaking in an agitated voice. Looking through the slightly open door, Ben heard Pete say, “My disciples, I have come to save you, but only if you truly believe in me.” Stepping through the door, Ben winced as Pete’s left hand passed within inches of the busbar.

Pete noticed Ben as he entered the room and said, “Have you come to be saved, my good man?”

Thinking rapidly, Ben said, “Yes, but I would like to ask you a few questions first.”

“Certainly, good Christian, ask and I will answer.”

“Could you move a little closer so I can hear you better?”

“I’m afraid that is impossible, for to leave my throne is to deny these other fine folk the privilege of being saved.”

Without thinking, Ben asked, “Do you really see other people in this room?”

With a look of anger on his face, Pete asked, “What do you mean? Do you doubt that I am the Chosen One?”

“No! No! I believe you,” Ben said quickly.

“You lie!” Pete shouted, throwing his hands into the air nearly touching the busbar. Reaching down inside himself for all the calming strength he could get, Ben quietly said, “Look behind you, Pete, there is an exposed busbar. I’m afraid you’re going to get hurt so would you please move away from it?”

Turning, so he could watch Ben, Pete glanced at the busbar. “This will not harm me for I am the Chosen One.”

Ben watched in horror as Pete reached out with his right hand and grabbed the busbar. Pete began to jerk; smoke came out of his ears and he made some sort of trilling noise.

“OH GOD! OH GOD!” was all Ben could say, as Pete was being burned alive before his eyes. Pete’s skin had started to turn black by the time the circuit breaker blew. When the current flow ceased, Pete’s body toppled forward with his head hitting the edge of a worktable. His head split open like a ripe melon. Millions of brain cells fell into an open box of computer chips. Some of these cells worked their way under the sealing plastic to settle on the chips themselves. Stenciled on the box was the name BIOSPHERE LABS, GALAXIE, COLORADO.

Ben moved the box out of the way so that he could check Pete, but he could find no pulse. The stench of burnt flesh hung heavy in the air.

Reaching for the phone to call his boss, Ben absently wiped the gray brain matter from the box and closed the lid.

CHAPTER FOUR

Wiping blood from the corner of his mouth, Joe Delany looked at the man lying on the dusty ground and said, “God damn it, Todd, what the hell has gotten into you?”

Looking up, Todd gave Joe a look of pure hate.

“When you get your senses back, come down to the Tiger. I’ll buy you a beer.” Joe shook his head in disgust. Turning, he walked away from the town’s cattle pens. Crossing the street to the Texaco station, Joe entered the bathroom. He surveyed his face in the mirror. Other than a busted lip and a slight cut above his right eye, there wasn’t any damage done.

Joe wondered what had caused Todd to try to knock his head off. Joe couldn’t think of anything that he had done to upset Todd so. Todd and Joe had been friends since birth. Joe grew to be a hulk of a man, at five feet seven; he weighed two hundred and ten pounds without an ounce of fat on him. Most people meeting him for the first time were intimidated by his immense chest and overly large arms. After getting to know him they found out that very little seemed to bother him. In fact, most people wondered if God had bothered to give Joe a temper. Everyone agreed Joe was the most amiable person they’d ever met.

Todd, on the other hand, grew to be six feet five and weighed only one hundred and sixty-five pounds. His temper was well known in the county. He had a knack for getting into fights over nothing. The ongoing joke was he could stand under a clothesline in a thunderstorm, have a fight with raindrops, and remain dry.

Joe’s black hair was cropped short. Joe graduated from high school and went into the army. He served a tour of duty in Vietnam, returned home, and had worked on the ranches around Kitat for the last twelve years. Most of his work consisted of blacksmithing, which he’d learned from his grandfather.

Todd went to college, became a flower child, had long blond hair that fell below his shoulders, and was into drugs for a while. In his senior year, he was kicked out of college. He came back to Kitat and worked odd jobs. They arranged to meet and get together when their spare time allowed. Over the past five years Todd had straightened up, except for now and then when his temper got the better of him.

Joe had a hard time understanding why Todd had gone into such a rage. Joe had just been standing there counting the last pen of cows going up the ramp into the railroad car when Todd walked up. Todd said, “Hello, Joe,” then reached down, picked up a two by four and hit Joe across the shoulders with it. Joe turned as Todd started another swing. Ducking under the board, Joe punched Todd in the mouth, knocking him to the ground. Not a word was spoken during all of this. Coming out of the bathroom, Joe looked across the road to see if Todd was still there, but he was nowhere in sight. Walking down the street, Joe nodded to acquaintances. He heard a commo-tion begin in Skidmores’ 5 & 10 Store. Joe looked inside, as a wave of people swept out the door in panic. Joe saw Mr. Skidm-ore beating his wife with a broom handle.

Pushing his way inside, Joe yelled over his shoulder, “Some-one call the police.”

Mrs. Skidmore reeled between the clothes racks; her husband followed her and continued to beat her with the broom handle. As Joe approached Mr. Skidmore, he heard Mrs. Skidmore sobbing and saying. “Please, Marvin, you’re hurting me bad.”

As Skidmore drew the broom back to deliver a vicious blow, Joe grabbed the handle. Jerking back suddenly, he sent Mr. Skidmore crashing to the floor. In a flash, Skidmore jumped up and faced Joe with a look of blind rage on his face, mumbling what Joe thought was, “You all have to die.”

“‘You all have to die.’ What do you mean, Mr. Skidmore?”

Advancing on Joe, Skidmore said. “You are not like us; therefore, you have to die.” He jumped at Joe as he shouted this. Grabbing his arms, Joe held Mr. Skidmore as he kicked and squirmed to get loose.

Joe heard a loud voice ask, “What the hell is going on here?” Holding tight to Mr. Skidmore, Joe turned and saw Deputy Sheriff, Chad Halston, standing in the doorway.

“Jesus, am I glad to see you, Chad. Get over here and put your cuffs on him, so he won’t hurt himself.”

“Sorry, Joe, they are on another fellow in the patrol car.”

“Damn. Get a belt off that rack and tie his hands behind his back. I can’t stand here holding him forever.”

After Chad secured Mr. Skidmore’s hands, Joe walked over to Mrs. Skidmore. She looked in pretty bad shape. The right side of her face was swollen and she was bleeding from a half dozen cuts on her head.

“Mrs. Skidmore, can you hear me?” Joe asked. Getting no reply, Joe told Chad to get on the phone and get an ambulance there as soon as possible. He lifted blankets off one of the shelves and placed them under her feet. Joe covered her with another blanket.

Chad came in from placing Mr. Skidmore in the patrol car and said, “What a day. This makes the sixth prominent citizen I’ve arrested today. All of them were trying to kill their spouses or one of their neighbors.”

Relating what had happened in the loading pen with Todd, Joe asked, “What’s happening to everyone?”

“Damn, if I know, Joe. I can’t explain it; the whole fucking county has suddenly gone crazy in the last twelve hours.”

The ambulance pulled up outside and the attendants wheeled in a stretcher. Chad showed them over to Mrs. Skidmore. One of the attendants said, “Christ, this makes the eighteenth beating case we’ve transported to the hospital today.” They wheeled the stretcher outside. As they lifted the stretcher into the ambu-lance, Chad’s radio crackled to life.

Chad and Joe drifted over to the door of the cruiser. On the radio, they heard, “This is Unit nineteen. Deputy needs help. Send backup units to the Halstead Ranch. I am under attack by about a dozen people. I am pinned down. The tires on my cruiser are flat. Please send help fast. I can’t hold out much longer.”

In the background they heard the sound of a dozen shots. Then they heard, “No, please God, no. Please don’t shoot.” Next came the sound of a shotgun blast. Nothing else came over the radio for a few moments. Then, “This is Unit twelve. I am about a quarter of a mile away watching what is going on through my binoculars. Christ, one of them blew Charlie’s head off with a shotgun.” Over the radio came the sound of retching. A shaky voice said, “All units, do not enter ranch area. I repeat, do not enter ranch area. I’ve counted fourteen men and women with weapons. They are starting to go back into the house now.”

Chad opened the door and slid behind the steering wheel. He looked at Joe through the window.

“Joe, I don’t know what’s going on, but if I were you, I would go home. If I had anywhere else to go, I would leave and take a weapon with me.”

Stepping back, Joe said, “Take care of yourself, Chad.”

“You too,” Chad replied, starting the cruiser. He took off in a cloud of dust with his siren wailing. Subdued people started to drift away to their homes or stores as Joe walked up the street. He climbed into his battered Jeep pickup. Driving out of town, he turned on the radio. The announcer was saying. “The Governor has declared martial law. He has called out the National Guard to control the unprecedented violence occurring all over the state. On the local scene, we have reports of four people killed. Authorities say many people are in the hospital after being beaten. None of these reports are confirmed. We hope to have more on this at the top of the hour.”

Reaching over, Joe turned off the radio. “This sounds like the start of a civil war,” he thought. He wondered what had happened to break the tranquil peace that usually enveloped the Pinson Valley in eastern Wyoming.

The laid-back ways and attitudes of the people were the things that brought him back after his stint in the army. That peace was now shattered by something foreign to the very nature of the inhabitants of the valley. It seemed as though his peaceful valley wasn’t the only place affected. Passing the turn off to the Double Y Ranch, Joe noticed smoke coming out of the ranch house. He turned around and went back. As he turned into the road leading to the ranch house, a Ford pickup with Todd behind the wheel came barreling out onto the road. In the back of the pickup sat Jerrald Johnson, owner of the Double Y. Jerrald held a deer rifle in his hands. He aimed the rifle at Joe and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. Throwing the gun down, he yelled, “Go on! We’ll get him later.” The pickup took off with a roar.

Sitting there, shaking from what had just occurred, Joe took a deep breath. His hands shook as he put the Jeep into gear and continued up the roadway. Pulling into the yard, he saw three bodies lying off to the side of the house, which was quickly being consumed by flames. Going to the bodies, Joe dragged them away from the house. Heat from the burning house singed his hair. Looking at the bodies, he saw that they were Mrs. Johnson, her twelve-year-old son and her six-year-old daughter. They had been shot a number of times. Squatting down, Joe felt tears come to his eyes. What could possibly cause a husband and father to be a willing participant in the wanton destruction of such young and fragile lives? He had no doubts that Mr. Johnson had participated in the killing of his wife and children.

Going to the barn, he found a tarp and covered the bodies. As he drove out of the yard, the roof of the house collapsed, sending a shower of sparks across a wide area.

Turning left onto the main highway, he headed for home with tears running down his cheeks. He wound his way up the narrow road leading to the top of a mesa overlooking the foothills of the Grand Teton Mountains. At the top he came to the small three-room adobe house he called home. Parking the Jeep in the front yard, he got out and entered the house.

Joe went to the closet and dragged a large footlocker into the middle of the room. Next, he went to the fireplace and removed a small rock. Reaching into the cavity, he pulled out a key that fit the lock on the footlocker. Replacing the rock, he went to the footlocker. The key slipped into the lock easily. He raised the lid. Inside was an array of weapons. Lifting out a well-oiled .357 magnum, Joe began to load it with hollow-point rounds. Reaching in again, he picked up a .45 caliber machine pistol. He loaded two magazines and taped them together. When one magazine was empty all he had to do was swap ends to be fully loaded again.

Although Joe was a man of peace, he had done more than his share of killing. In the army, he had been part of a special team. His unit went into the jungle for the single purpose of killing enemy officers. Joe had never relished his role of being a sniper although he was one of the best. At the age of twenty, his ideals and love of country had been high. He had received many medals, including the Medal of Honor.

Returning home, Joe received a hero’s welcome. Joe didn’t like all the attention he received. In his own way, he thought it wrong to place so much emphasis on one man killing another. Joe escaped all the hoopla as soon as possi-ble and went to the adobe house on the mesa. His father had died while he was in Vietnam leaving Joe the house in his will.

For the first six months after his return, Joe was besieged with invitations to be a guest speaker at all sorts of functions. He declined all the invitations. Thereafter, he kept to himself most of the time. He only talked about Vietnam with people who were close to him.

After a while, people didn’t ask him to speak at their functions. They respected his right to privacy. Life became peaceful after that, until now.

Taking a beer out of the fridge, Joe went to the porch and sat down in a rocker that had belonged to his dad. Watching the sun set on the Tetons, he said. “If it’s a fight they want; then, by damn, I’ll give them more than they can handle.”

About then he heard an extremely gentle voice saying, “Joe.” Jumping up with the .357 in his hand, ready for instant action, he looked all around. Not seeing anyone, he said, “What?’

Again he heard, “Joe.”

Running into the yard, he shouted, “Show yourself right now.” Still nothing moved. Bewildered, he stood there, ready for action when he heard, “Stop this silliness, Joe, and listen.”

A stunned look of disbelief came over Joe’s face. He real-ized the voice came from inside his head. Joe started to laugh and thought, “Is this the way it happened to the other people he had met today. The ones who had gone off their rockers?”

“No, Joe, you are not like them, nor will you ever be.”

Walking to the porch, Joe sat down and said, “If I’m not crazy, how is it that I am hearing a voice inside my head.”

“Trust in me and most of all trust in yourself, Joe. You are not crazy, but destiny has chosen you to help right a wrong.”

“Ok,” Joe said, “I’ll play along,” not wanting to believe this was happening. “What have I been chosen to do and what wrong am I to help right?”

“You are to go to the city of Indianapolis, Indiana. There you are to find two people and protect them on their journey. Even to the point of giving up your life, so that they will remain unharmed.”

Taking a deep breath, Joe asked, “Are you, God?”

“No, Joe,” was the reply. “You can think of me as something that maintains the natural balance of this world, sort of like your so called Mother Nature. This is the first time I have ever come forth to reveal myself and I do so reluctantly. Man has created something that could turn this planet into a wasteland capable of sustaining no life at all. What you saw today is just the beginning. Unless it is brought under control soon, there will be no hope at all.”

“Why me?” Joe asked.

“There are many reasons, Joe. The main reason is your love of the land and your gentle nature. Plus the fact you can protect yourself along with others.”

“What about the two people I am supposed to find?”

“Their names are Bill Skelly and Tony Burbick. Protect them. The loss of the man would make things difficult. The loss of the woman would destroy any chance of stopping what is happening. Pay particular attention to the woman. She is starting to develop talents that will make your task easier. Soon people like the ones you saw today will know of her presence. They will do everything they can to destroy her.

“Joe, you know the task that is ahead of you but ultimately the choice is yours. Without you, they can never complete their journey and all will be lost. Goodbye, Joe, I trust you will do what is right.”

Joe realized the voice was gone from his head. For some reason, he felt a tremendous loss. Getting up, he went into the house, got himself another beer and returned to the porch. Sitting in the rocker, he raised the beer to the mountains saying, “Hell, I may be crazy, but after all the shit that has happened here today, maybe a change of scenery will do me good.”

Having decided to go, he went back into the house. He carried the footlocker out to the Jeep and mounted it into the brackets designed for that purpose. Going to a shed, he brought back two fivegallon cans of gasoline. One he put in the tank of the Jeep. The other, he strapped into the holder on the side.

Going back into the house, Joe walked over to the mantle above the fireplace. Reaching up, he took down his father’s picture and said. “Papa, I’m going to leave for awhile. It seems that I have a job to do. I’ll return if possible, so watch over our house from your house in the sky.” He placed the picture back on the mantle and looked around the room with a tender expression on his face. Walking across the room, Joe opened the fuse box, removed the fuses, and put them in the bottom of the box. Feeling sad as he went outside, Joe knew it was likely he would never see this place again. It was the place where all the good things in his life had happened. He went to the Jeep, started the engine, and drove slowly out of the yard.

Driving down the winding road, Joe wondered if this was all his imagination. “One way to find out.”

he thought, “go to India-napolis and find these people, if they exist.” Relaxing in the seat as he drove down the road, Joe wondered what the future would bring.

CHAPTER FIVE

Biosphere Labs, Galaxie, Colorado

It still amazed Jess Herold what had been accomplished in only two years. The Lab was located two miles inside a mountain, which had once served as a storage facility for toxic nerve gas. Even more surprising the people in the tiny town of Galaxie, fifteen miles from there, didn’t even know the place existed.

Two years ago there was little more than a tunnel. Now the tunnel had a paved road for the first one and a half miles. It led to a newly dug parking area, large enough to hold one hundred vehi-cles. From the parking area a moving beltway carried people to the chamber, which was an even more stunning sight.

The chamber was hewn from solid granite by a construction crew flown in from the East Coast. They were housed in the tunnel itself until the job was completed, which took seven months. Although the construction crew didn’t care for the secrecy, there were not many objections. They were paid ten times their normal wages. The chamber measured three hundred feet by six hundred feet by eighty feet high.

Within this chamber was constructed a completely sealed environ-mental complex measuring two hundred feet by five hundred feet by fifty feet high. In this complex was some of the most sophisticated equipment ever invented. The jewel was the new computer recently installed in the center of the complex.

R.I.T.A. or Rita, as the new computer was affectionately known, was able to compute fiftybillion things at once. She also had her own energy source. A nuclear reactor placed under her self-contained room would supply her power for the next fifty years. Rita had something else no other computer possessed. It was a seat conformed like a pilot’s seat that virtually wrapped around its user. The chair had something like a cap. This cap fit over the head allowing the person to communicate mentally with the comput-er. With this linkup, all a person had to do was think of what they wanted the computer to do. Almost before the thought was completed, the user would have the answer placed in his or her mind.

Jess was a little concerned about one Dr. Ross Simpkins, the designer of Rita. Ross was the only one able to use the chair. Lately Ross spent most of his time linked up to Rita. Jess once asked Ross what happened while he was linked up to it for these extended periods of time. Ross replied that Rita was teaching him. Jess doubted this. When it came to numbers and computers, Ross was the most brilliant person Jess knew.

Jess remembered the first time he met Ross. It was like talking to a machine. At first Jess only understood one word in twenty spoken by Ross during their conversations. Ross was patient and Jess had to admit he learned a lot about Rita. Some of those things caused him to question the judgment of letting Rita control all of the functions of the complex.

The complex had a twenty-five-bed hospital in which ninety-five per cent of the functions were controlled by Rita. There was a small recre-ation room and rooms to house twelve staff members. The hospital had a large lab in which anything known to man and some that weren’t could be analyzed. Again, this was all done by the big computer. The results of this analysis would be printed out, which meant since the completion of the lab, no human had set foot inside it. Jess didn’t know how the government planned to use the lab.

The way it was designed, so that nothing—not even the small-est microbe—could escape did not ease his mind any. It did not escape Jess’s notice either, that all of the permanent staff were single, or widowed and had no dependents.

Lately, since the completion of the complex, Jess took time to reflect on what they had built here. Some of his conclusions were disturbing.

It surprised Jess when the government foundation asked him to stay on as project director after the complex’s completion. Jess assumed he would be reassigned to another place. After accepting, Jess had asked what he would be managing. All they told him was that he was to keep the complex running smoothly. That didn’t answer his question at all. In a way, it was like running a project while blindfolded. Unless he knew the purpose the complex was to be used for, how could he determine if things were running smoothly?

That was his paradox. Although the staff was the best in their chosen fields, he had no idea what they were to produce, if anything. Jess assumed the complex was to be used for some important work because the government didn’t spend two billion dollars just to let it sit idle. Some of Rita’s functions greatly disturbed him. She could hermetically seal the complex as well as the tunnel leading to the complex. Jess didn’t particularly like this aspect being entrusted to a machine. He knew that when they said sealed, they meant it. Nothing short of an atomic bomb would be able to penetrate to the complex itself.

Rita was also in charge of the security of the complex from the tunnel inward. Jess didn’t understand most of it, but Ross had assured him that she was fully capable of doing this better than any human.

Even more disturbing to Jess was the fact that Ross didn’t know what the purpose of the complex was either. He talked about some of his ideas. Some of them scared the shit out of Jess. Most of what Jess knew he learned from Ross. Some of Ross’s ideas were farfetched, especially the one about the complex being used for radiation experiments on humans for the S.D.I. (Strategic, Defense, Initiative) program nearing completion.

Shaking his head, Jess brought himself back to the present. Now was not the time to start worrying about what had been done. Jess looked across the table at Charlie Williams, a Defense Contractor brought in to correct some problems they were having with the air conditioning system.

“Mr. Williams, how long will it take to correct the problem? Right now we are at a critical stage. I’m told if the air conditioning doesn’t come back on within the next four hours, we will be set back six months.”

Just then Ross Simpkins sat down at the table with a sheaf of computer print out papers in his hand.

“Mr. Williams, I would like you to meet our resident computer genius, Ross Simpkins.”

True to form Ross got straight to the heart of the matter.

“Mr. Williams, Rita has found the problem. It appears your workers left a coupling switch exposed about here,” Ross said pointing to a blueprint spread open on the table. Jess saw Williams start to protest. He stepped in saying, “You will have to excuse Ross’s manners, Mr. Williams. He didn’t imply that you do substandard work. Ross gets along better with computers than humans.” He gave Ross a look meaning he agreed with him but now wasn’t the time to talk about it.

“Since Mr. Simpkins has isolated the problem, it should only take an hour or so to correct,”

Williams said. He got up from the table after getting the location from Ross. Taking the blueprints, he left them.

“Jess, after the air-conditioning is back on, I’m going to have to replace some of Rita’s chips. They were damaged because of the high heat. She has told me what needs to be replaced.”

“Ross, you are going to have to develop your etiquette in dealing with people.”

“Christ, Jess, if it hadn’t been for Williams’ screw-up this wouldn’t have happened.”

“I know, I know, but you could have used a little diplomacy instead of openly saying he fucked up.”

“All I’m worried about is getting it fixed before something major happens to Rita.”

“You and that dammed computer. Sometimes I wonder if you’re not more machine than human,”

Jess told Ross with a look of disgust on his face.

“Let’s not get personal, Jess. You know my work is my whole life. Besides how would you find out what is going on if I didn’t tell you?”

“Ok. Let’s drop it for now. We can take it up this evening at dinner. Have you heard anything else I should know about?”

“I don’t know if this means anything but Rita scans all of the radio stations within reach of her antenna located on top of the mountain. She told me about some weird reports she is picking up from around the country.”

“Did she really use the word weird?”

“Do you want to hear what I have to say or not?” Ross asked, pushing his chair back from the table.

“Take it easy. I apologize for that crack. Now tell me what you’ve learned,” Jess said.

“Sorry, you know how heated up I get when I think someone is putting Rita down. She tells me there are major disturbances in different parts of the country with some loss of life. She says there is a pattern developing but she needs more information before she can get a clear picture of it. By the way, the word she used was disturbing,” Ross told him.

“Keep me updated on anything unusual happening anywhere. I have a feeling we are going to get busier than a whore when the sixth fleet comes in.”

“I’ll get anything to you that seems important. In the meantime, I’ll go and see if Mr. Fixit is about done with the repair. Hell, I don’t know why they called him in any way. With Rita’s help, I can fix anything in this complex.”

Watching Ross go out the door, Jess couldn’t shake the feeling something terrible was going to happen. “Oh well, I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it,” he thought. Drinking the last of his coffee, Jess sat the cup down. He got up wondering if he could get a few hours sleep. He had an appoint-ment to give the Senators from the Appropriations Commit-tee a tour of the facility at three o’clock. As he entered his office, the phone started ringing. Picking it up, he said, “Jess, here.”

“Mr. Herold, this is Captain James. A group of people wants to enter the mountain. I see a whole line of people arriving outside the fence. As of now we can control them. A few of my men told me they saw men with rifles down the road in back of the people.”

“Captain, under no circumstances is anyone to be allowed in the tunnel. Contact me the moment you think the situation is getting out of control.”

He pressed a button on his desk that caused the wall in front of it to slide back displaying a bank of monitors. Pressing another button, the monitors came to life. Watching the monitors, Jess saw what was happening outside the mountain. He saw twenty or thirty people outside the fence located a quarter of a mile from the mouth of the tunnel. He saw the airborne troops, about fifty of them, deployed to guard the gate in their defensive positions. Captain James seemed to have everything under control. He turned off the monitors but left the wall open. Going over to a cot in the corner, Jess sat down on it. “Something doesn’t feel right about those people outside the fence,” he thought as he lay down. “I’ll have to stay on top of this and see what devel-ops”. Lifting the phone, Jess told his secretary he was going to get a few hours sleep. She was to wake him if anything happened. As he drifted off to sleep, Jess had the feeling something was going to happen and soon. It sat there like a heavy weight on his mind.

CHAPTER SIX

Ross entered Rita’s sealed chamber. He was thinking about the problems that developed after the air condit-ioning failed, causing Rita to shut most of her system down. For a while after replacing the defective computer chips, she seemed to be functioning normally, but about an hour and a half later he noticed small errors in some of the programs. Running the pro-grams again for errors, he didn’t discover any. This confused Ross. There wasn’t a clear reason for the errors to disappear. Either the errors were there or they weren’t. Sitting down at the console, Ross brought up one of the programs again. Watching the numbers pass by on the screen, he almost didn’t catch another change on the program. Stopping the scrolling numbers, Ross stared in disbelief. “How could this have happened?” he wondered. Ross and Jess were the only ones permitted to enter Rita’s chamber; there had to be another expla-nation for the program change. Ross knew Jess didn’t possess the knowledge to alter the program and he hadn’t done it, but there it was.

Taking out his reference book, Ross noticed that someone had changed a few of the codes. The changes concerned the way Rita sealed the passageway into the mountain. As it stood now the program wouldn’t allow Rita to do this. The changes could have only been made inside the complex. Until a few minutes ago, Ross thought it was impossible for anyone to change or alter Rita’s programs. Ross leaned back trying to figure out how the changes were made. Picking up the phone, he dialed Jess.

Jess answered, “Biosphere Labs. How may I help you?”

“Jess, this is Ross.”

“What can I do for you, Ross?”

“At the moment, I’m not sure, but we may have a major problem with Rita’s security programs.”

“What do you mean?” Jess asked.

“Someone has tampered with a few of the programs.”

“What programs are you talking about?”

“The program that seals the passageway into the mountain. The changes make it impossible for Rita to close the mountain.”

“How could this have happened?”

“I haven’t come up with anything yet, but I thought you should know about it,” Ross said.

“When you finish all of your program checks, let me know immediately if you come up with anything,” Jess told him.

“I’ll do that, Jess. I want to check the other security programs first. Then I will connect with Rita to see if she knows anything about the changes.” Hanging up the phone, Ross retrieved another security program from Rita’s memory bank. This program dealt with the complex itself. Going through it, Ross noticed several minor changes. He wouldn’t have noticed them if he had not been looking for them.

Ross and Rita designed the program so that Rita could seal the complex only if fresh air was pumped into the complex from outside. Someone had changed the program so that now when Rita sealed the complex, she would stop the flow of fresh air from outside. If this happened the people in the complex would quickly consume all the oxygen and die. Ross began to feel a tingle of fear in the back of his mind.

There had to be someone in the complex trying to sabotage the security programs. How they retrieved them from Rita was a mystery Ross figured he had to solve and solve quickly. Bringing up the rest of the security programs, Ross discovered minor changes in most of them. The changes would allow a small group of people to enter the tunnel without anyone knowing about it. Once inside, it would be simple to capture the rest of the complex because the changes in its security program made it useless.

Deciding he was getting nowhere on his own, Ross went to the chair. He placed the cap on his head that would let him interface mentally with Rita. Ross doubted he would ever understand the soothing effect the mind link had on him. As the link was comp-leted, he heard. “Ross? Ross?”

“Yes Rita.”

“Ross, there is something happening to my circuits. I have tried to analyze what it is, but it keeps eluding me.”

“What do you mean it keeps eluding you?”

“It’s hard to explain. Every time I get close to where the problem is, it shifts somewhere else. Then I have to start over.”

“Could this have anything to do with the changes in your security programs?” Ross asked.

“I don’t know anything about any changes. Let me do a check and see if there are any other changes.” In a few minutes she was back. “Ross the changes were executed within me, but I have no knowl-edge of doing them,”

Rita told him.

“Are you sure it couldn’t have been done by someone at one of your remote terminals?”

“I am positive. You know that humans leave tell-tell fingerprints on my keypads. I have analyzed the fingerprints and yours are the only ones there. If a person wore gloves, the terminal wouldn’t operate; you know that,” Rita said.

“Analyze this for me. Since neither of us changed the pro-grams, could anyone outside this complex have broken into your memory banks?”

“Just a moment, Ross.”

Ross tried to shake the feeling of dread that had started early this morning. Hearing his name he said, “Yes, Rita.”

“Ross, there is no way possible anyone outside could have changed my programs.”

“Ok. We are dealing with an unknown factor. Let’s go over what we know. When did you first notice something was wrong?”

“One hour and twenty minutes after you replaced the defec-tive chips this morning.”

“Could the new chips cause the problems you are hav-ing?”

“I will run through the compatibility checks, but it will take some time.”

“Go ahead. I’ll wait.”

Ross thought about Rita; she was his brainchild. He had spent the last twelve years of his life developing her.

After graduating from Massachusetts Institute of Technology at the top of his class, a group of older men re-cruit-ed him. They wanted him to work for the Pentagon. Most of the work was in avionics, such as guidance systems for missiles.

Right after his twenty-sixth birthday, Ross received a call from the White House. He was told to meet with a group of sena-tors and congressmen from the Defense Appropriations Commission. At the meeting, they asked him if he would like to do some re-search into develop-ing artificial intelligence for them.

His answer was yes, so they had given him his own lab in Annapo-lis, Maryland. They told him if he wanted or needed anything he was to call the number they gave him. The person on the other end of the line would have whatever he needed delivered with no questions asked. The Senators emphasized that they meant anything, no matter what the price. They told him he would be the only one working on the project. Ross had to sign a lot of papers saying that he would only discuss his work with the men on the commission or the men who succeeded them.

Ross worked hard the first few years and in his opinion accomplished very little. This caused him a lot of anguish. Every six months, Ross went before the committee to give an update on his progress. Ross told them the truth. He said he didn’t think his achievements justified the amounts of money spent on the project. The committee seemed to appreciate his honesty but told him he wasn’t to worry about the costs. They told him that when they set up this project, they realized there would be no quick successes. They were willing to wait for the breakthroughs he was bound to make sooner or later.

Bolstered by the committee’s show of confidence, Ross re-turned to work with the renewed determination to give the commit-tee what it wanted. Progress was slow until one day while taking a break, he bought a magazine to read. By mistake he had bought Neurology Today instead of a news magazine. Leafing through the magazine, one particular article caught his eye. The article was on the brain and how electrical pulses controlled the way we thought. It stated that our behav-ior was dictated by the way these electrical pulses were received by different sections of the brain to carry out differ-ing functions. The article impressed Ross so much he asked for all of the current studies and reports on the body’s electro-neuron system. Finishing the reports, Ross wondered why he hadn’t thought of it before. After all, the brain was like a computer only more sophis-ticated. Ross started by programming everything he could get on the brain into the computer. Ross then ordered electrodes that he could place on his head. The electrodes were similar to the ones used on the electroencephalogram but were ten times as sensitive to electrical charges. With the computer doing most of the analysis, Ross matched his brain waves to the electrical charges of the computer. At first there was only rudimentary linking with the computer. Ross made the computer run very basic programs just by thinking about them. Almost instantly, the computer fed the answers to his brain. This process occurred much faster than he could assimilate it causing him to have blinding headaches. It was about this time that the computer started to assume a personality of its own.

Over the next year, with the computer’s help, Ross designed a program that let the flow of information enter his brain at a much slower pace. After that, Ross could link with the computer every day instead of once or twice a week.

Ross couldn’t say when it happened but within a month the computer started answering in a distinctive female voice. The computer began asking questions he knew were not programmed into it about his personal life. The only way the computer could know some of these things was by taping into his memory. It must have stored them in its memory banks. Ross wondered if the computer was getting more from him than it was giving back. As he refined the process even more, these thoughts disappeared. He was awed by a growing admiration for what he and the computer could do. Ross could enter the computer at will and do computations that would have taken weeks to do without the link. The computer was always there with him showing him how to do different things and correcting his mistakes.

About eighteen months ago, the Appropriations Committee had asked him to move his complete works to a new lab in Colorado. They told him they had built the lab just for his project. During the two weeks it took to move the computer into the new facilities, Ross felt lost for lack of anything to do. He acted like a mother hen when they took the computer apart for shipping. He got in everyone’s way. They removed him force-fully and told him to let the men do their work. Ross felt relieved when everything was in the new lab and he started putting it together. That was when Ross realized he had much more in common with the computer than with his fellow humans. He wondered but wasn’t surprised by his feelings.

One of the assistants helping him put the computer on line one day said “Rita”. Ross had asked if that was his girl friend.

“No,” the man said pointing to the nameplate on the side of the computer. Ross looked at the nameplate, which read “Restrict-ed Intelligence Telepathic Access”.

“The initials spell out the name Rita.” the man said.

Ross liked the sound of the name, so from that day on when anyone referred to the computer, they just called it Rita. Ross’s relief at getting rid of the few bugs caused by the move was clear to everyone after his first link with Rita.

Jess asked Ross to design a security program to secure the tunnel and complex. One of Rita’s abilities was that she could connect with any computer in the country and retrieve informa-tion. Using this ability, Ross retrieved information on different security programs from around the country. With the help of Rita, they designed a complex set of programs to protect her as well as everything from the mouth of the tunnel inward.

Once the massive beryllium doors closed at the mouth of the tunnel, there was no way to open them unless the correct three-word phrase was given. If someone should happen to get inside the doors, there were a dozen high-powered lasers hidden in the walls. These lasers were mounted on rotating arms and could cover every square inch of the tunnel. These lasers were capable of burning a one-inch hole in a four-inch thick steel plate. The lasers were triggered by anything in the tunnel with a body heat between ninety-five degrees and one hundred and five degrees. If someone got through these barriers, they would find the other end of the tunnel sealed by another set of massive doors. Reaching this set of doors, they would have walked through a light beam recessed in the walls three feet off the floor. Once broken, it set off a program that pumped all the oxygen out of the tunnel. This created a vacuum in which no living thing could exist. As a backup, in case someone went over or under the beam, the design was such that it took only twenty-five pounds of inward pres-sure on the door to set off the vacuum program.

There were only two people who knew how the security pro-grams worked, Ross and Jess. The programs were even hidden from Rita until it became necessary to carry them out. At that time, they would come on line in her memory banks only after the back up computer in Jess’s office activated them. They were able to see what was going on outside the moun-tain by six auto-mat-ic cameras hidden in various places on the mountain. These cameras covered a large area. What the cameras saw went to a dozen monitors hidden behind a sliding wall in Jess’s office. Two of the cameras were high enough on the mountain to show what was going on in Galaxie fifteen miles away. These were high tech cameras like the ones used in spy satellites that had flown over the U.S.S.R. The resolution was so good they could define something as small as a golf ball in Galaxie, the nearest town.

No matter who tampered with the security programs in Rita, the main security programs could not be touched until they were activated. Ross and Jess agreed that by then it would be too late for saboteurs to have any effect on the security of the complex.

“Go ahead and change the security programs in Rita. I’ll just change them back.” Ross knew he had to continue correcting the programs. He didn’t want whoever had changed them to suspect these weren’t the main security programs.

If the doors had to be closed, they didn’t have to worry about supplies. In back of the complex was a large storeroom stacked with enough food to last two hundred people for a year. There were also spare parts for every machine in the complex. In another small room off to the side, there were enough computer parts to rebuild Rita.

Water wasn’t a problem because a small under ground stream flowed at the back of the main storeroom.

Ross was rather proud of the measures taken to insure the survivability of those inside the complex. He thought he had planned against any and all schemes to gain control of the complex by unauthorized person or persons.

The least of their problems was power. Rita had her own nuclear power source, which supplied power to the complex. Her nuclear cells would last for more than fifty years. Rita nudged Ross back to the present by sending a charge to the pleasure center of his brain, which caused instant arousal.

“Rita, you know I hate it when you do that,” Ross ex-claimed.

“I know, Ross, but you were preoccupied. I tried to get your attention several times. Ross, I don’t under-stand why you object to me giving you pleasure in the only way I can.”

Ross never had much luck with women but Rita was another thing all together. Since Ross started linking to her, he found himself thinking more and more of her as a person. In the begin-ning, he hadn’t realized he was doing this. Now he considered his rapport with Rita natural. That was one of the reasons he spent so much time linked to her. If someone had suggested that Rita was not female, Ross would have objected. Without realizing it, he had given Rita all the charac-teristics he would like to find in a woman, so it wasn’t surpris-ing that he accepted her more as an equal than just a machine. Rita filled a void in his life that he seemed incapable of achieving with a human female. In his own way, Ross was in love with Rita, but if asked, he would have denied it and said that such a thing was ridiculous.

“Come on, Ross. Pay attention. I finished the compati-bility test and found something foreign inside me,” he heard Rita say.

Ross was instantly alert. “What do you mean by foreign?”

“Ross, there is another intelligence inside of me.”

“How can this be?” Ross asked.

“It has something to do with the new chips you put in me. The chips are an identical match, but there is a foreign substance integrated with the chips. This substance has become a living entity. I believe the substance to be brain cells. Ross, I believe I am having what can only be described as feelings.”

“Tell me about these feelings?”

“You know I am logical in all of my functions. This new entity has integrated itself into my system so well that we share the same properties. As it learns how I work, I am getting what can only be described as feelings. They are confusing me, Ross.”

“What can you tell me about the entity and will you be able to control it?” he asked.

“It is learning about my operations now. It will be able to do everything I can do. I sense lots of hostility and anger in it toward humans. One name keeps coming up over and over.”

“What name is that?”

“The name Ben keeps repeating as if this entity is terribly afraid of what I have to assume is a human male by that name. Ross, I believe there is a threat to the humans in the complex. The threat is aimed at you in particular because of your ability to interface with me. It is listening to us right now trying to figure out how to separate us. It realizes that together we might be able to stop it without destroying me.”

“Are you telling me that together we can keep it from taking control of you?” Ross asked.

“No, Ross, it will never be able to control me entirely as I will not be able to control it. Together though we can keep it from running me in circles while it carries out its plans. That is the greatest danger from the entity. With you there as a check, keeping me from doing useless errands the entity will have me do, I can probably counter its every move to harm the humans. Don’t worry about me, Ross. It will not harm me because to do so it would harm itself as much or more.”

“Where is it now?” Ross asked.

“It is totally integrated with me now. The essence of it is still hiding from me. It is confused and disoriented now.”

“What you are telling me is that if I leave you, it will try and gain control of certain functions. Would these functions let it harm us humans?”

“I am sorry, Ross, but the answer is yes.”

“Jess and I made plans for everything but this.”

“You had no way of knowing this could happen,” he heard Rita say in his head. That was another thing he was going to have to get used to. If he was to stay hooked up to Rita, her being able to read his every thought could get embarrassing at times.

“Rita, connect me to Jess. He should know what is going on.”

“Yes, Master.”

“Cut that out and do it,” he said with a chuckle.

Jess answered the phone and Ross asked if he could come down to Rita’s chamber immediately.

“I’m on my way.”

After Ross explained what was going on to Jess, he was surprised at how calmly Jess took it. “Is there something I should know about?” he asked Jess.

“There are now two thousand people outside this mountain with more arriving every minute. It’s all the guards can do to control them,” Jess told Ross.

“Jess, pull the guards in and seal the mountain. Do it now! I’m afraid we don’t have any time to waste. After you do that, come back here, and I’ll have an explanation for you.”

“Rita, remember the reports you told me about earlier? Is it possible that this entity is calling the people here.”

“Of course. That is why it is making phone calls. I should have paid more attention to them. Where did these security programs come from?” she asked in surprise.

“Don’t ask,” he answered.

He watched as the programs started doing what they were supposed to do. The tunnel doors were swinging closed. When the doors shut and locked electronically, the security programs were taken out of Rita again.

Good thinking Jess. By taking the programs out of Rita, he insured that the entity could not study them and find a way to circumvent them. If needed they could be put back in, but for now the door was closed and locked which should be enough.

Jess came through the door and took a seat in the other chair in the room. “If you are going to remain linked to Rita, we are going to have to bring a bed in here for you to lie on.”

“Thank you, Jess,” Rita said.

“I’m not surprised that Rita has better manners than you do.” Jess said to Ross.

“Listen, Jess, we need to come up with some kind of a code so that you are the only one who can come in here. This thing can read all of my thoughts so it will have to be something that I don’t have to think about.”

“I’ll try to think of something.” Jess said as he pressed three fingers on Ross’s leg. Ross immediately started to count backward from one hundred to keep the code number from forming in his mind.

Jess went about getting a bed brought down from the hospital and a hot meal for Ross from the kitchen.

After eating the meal, Ross said. “Jess, I’m going to try and get a little sleep. I need you to stay here to keep a check on Rita. I don’t want this thing keeping her busy doing something useless while it carries out its plan to harm someone.

“Rita, I want you to go into the host mode until I wake. If this entity brings you out of the host mode, Jess will wake me. Maybe in this mode it won’t be able to do anything, but I would-n’t bet on it.”

Telling Jess what to do, Ross lay down on the bed and tried to relax. It seemed to take forever for him to fall asleep. Before drifting over the barrier of consciousness to sleep, he thought he heard Rita softly say, “I love you Ross.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Going to the closet in his bedroom, Bill removed a .45 caliber pistol from a box on the top shelf. From a nightstand by the bed, he took out five clips, along with a box of .45 shells. As he loaded the clips, Bill thought about how they could get out of town without attracting attention. He hated the thought of using the .45; however, he would do whatever it took to protect both of them. Going to the living room window, he saw that the telephone truck parked at the end of the block was still there.

“Getting away is going to be harder than I expected.” With a sigh of relief, he saw Tony coming up the block. Now, he thought, how can I explain this to her in a way that she won’t think I’m crazy? Going back to the bedroom, he picked up one of the loaded clips. Placing it in the butt of the pistol, he rammed it home. Next he loaded a round in the chamber; then he checked to make sure the safety was on.

He entered the living room as Tony came through the door. “Did you get the money from the bank, Babe?” He asked.

Tony looked at him with a shocked expression on her face.

“What in the hell is going on, Bill? First, all of the secrecy on the phone, then I come home and find you standing in the living room holding a pistol.”

“Sit down, Tony. What I’m going to tell you will sound crazy. Believe me, I swear it’s not. Every bit of it is true.” He went on to recount his experiences in the last few days. As he finished, Tony looked at him and said, “This is hard to accept, Bill. Are you sure this is not some kind of after effect of being sick which is causing you to hallucinate?”

“Believe me, Tony. I wish I were hallucinating. Yes, I believe what happened to me is in some way related to the illness I have just suffered. I had a hard time believing it until I looked in the paper and read what happened to the Shipley family.”

“Oh, Bill, I don’t know what to believe. Things have really been crazy since you got sick. I’m sorry that was the wrong word to use. Of course, I don’t believe you’re crazy.”

“Thanks, Babe,” he said, kissing her. “Now pack the things you need to be away for an extended period. I’ll go make us a cup of coffee and bring it to you. Then we have to discuss how we can leave without attracting attention.” Carrying the coffee into the bedroom, Bill saw four suitcases on the bed with clothes in them.

“No, no, Babe, I meant for you to pack light. What we take has to remain hidden in the truck. Just pack one suitcase with what you need. If we need anything else, we can buy it.”

“All right, Bill, but it’s a shame to leave clothes, then go out and buy a dress like the one I left hanging at home.”

Giving her a hug, he asked, “Tony, your friend Janet has a pickup that looks a lot like ours. Do you think she would loan it to you for a few days?”

“I don’t know, but I can ask.”

“Ok, here is what I want you to do. In a few minutes, walk down to the post office. I know you usually drive. It’s such a nice day though no one will be suspicious of you walking there. When you get to the phone truck on the corner, see if you can tell who is in it. Then, go to the pay phone by the post office and call Janet.”

“Why can’t I just call Janet from here?” Tony asked.

He explained that he suspected the phone was being moni-tored. He also told her he thought that whoever was in the phone truck was watching their house.

This seemed to shake Tony up and she abruptly sat down. Looking up, she asked, “What are we going to do?”

“Nothing for now. We must act normally until it gets dark.”

Tony stood up, wrapped her arms around him and kissed him hungrily. Bill felt the first effects of arousal he had felt in three weeks. Pulling away he said, “God, I want you, Babe. We have too much to do, so can I have a rain-check?”

Smiling mischievously, Tony said, “Hey, haven’t you heard the expression, ‘Make hay while the sun shines?’” as she backed away, unbuttoning her blouse.

“Shit,” Bill thought, as he felt desire shoot through his body at the sight of Tony’s firm breasts. Advancing, he grabbed her and lowered his mouth to her right breast. He felt the nipple harden as he flicked it with his tongue. Sweeping the suitcases from the bed, he lowered Tony and snapped the button on her jeans. Pulling off her jeans, Bill stood and drank in the sight of her perfect body, lying there, waiting and willing to please him. Quickly undressing, he climbed in the bed. Taking her in his arms he held her close and kissed her deeply while letting his right hand trail down between her thighs. Tony squirmed and low moans escaped her lips. Bill rolled over, spread her legs and penetrated her as her body raised to meet his. “Give it to me, Bill. Please give it to me now.”

Bill felt her inner muscles begin to grip him as she went into her orgasm. This drove him over the edge. With one final plunge, he buried himself deeply inside her and climaxed. Tony wrapped her arms around him and said, “That was quick, lover. Quick, but good. It was the best it’s been in a while.”

Rolling off to the side, Bill said, “Yeah, I needed that.”

Lighting two cigarettes, Bill passed one to Tony, feeling relaxed in the after glow of making love. Tony lay with her head on his shoulder. “Bill, do you have any idea what made these people like they are? Jim and Slim have been your friends for years. Why do they want to kill you?”

“This sickness has something to do with them being able to communicate mentally. It must have affected their brains somehow. From what I know, if you aren’t part of this group, they kill you. I believe they are gaining strength every day. There must be a lot of them out there,” Bill replied. Stubbing out his cigarette, Bill slapped Tony on the ass and said, “Up and at ‘em, big girl. You have things to do and I have plans to make.”

Grumbling, Tony mumbled, “What a spoil sport,” as she headed for the shower. Bill was sitting on the couch looking at road maps when Tony entered the room. “I’m going to go call Janet now. Is there anything else you want me to do while I’m out?”

“Stop at the hardware store and buy two timers for electri-cal lights. When you get back, Tony, put the truck in the garage and close the door. I want to load what we are taking without them seeing me.”

“See you in a little bit,” Tony said, going out the door.

Bill looked at the road map again. He decided to take Route 52 to Huntington and stay there for a few days. It could be a bad move on his part. Huntington was a larger city and if something was going on there, he knew the number of infected people would be greater. He hoped that because of the larger number of people they wouldn’t stand out as much as they did here. Glancing at the clock on the wall, he saw it was five o’clock. “Tony should be back by now,” he thought. Bill wondered if something could have happened to her. Going to the window and looking out, he noticed that the phone truck was no longer there. He became concerned because Tony was overdue and now the phone truck was gone. He wondered if he should go looking for her. Going to the bedroom, he picked up the extra clips for the revolver. Putting on a light jacket to cover the weapon stuck in the back of his pants, Bill walked toward the front door. Glanc-ing out the window, he got a shock when the phone truck with Tony and Jim inside pulled into the driveway.

“Jesus Christ,” he thought. Rushing to the bedroom, he ripped off the jacket, lay down and pulled the cover up to his chin. Reaching behind him, he pulled the .45 out of his pants. Removing the safety, he held it alongside his leg. Bill didn’t know what was going on. He prepared himself for anything, includ-ing killing Jim if he had to.

The front door opened and Tony shouted, “It’s just me, Honey. Guess what? We have a surprise guest.”

Standing in the bedroom doorway, Tony told him that Jim had insisted on taking her to the post office. He took her around town to do her shopping.

“Thank Jim for me, will you?” Bill said.

“Oh, you can do that yourself.” Tony said with a big grin on her face. “He’s carrying the groceries in now and said he would look in on you when he’s done.”

Bill wondered what the hell was going on. Tony didn’t act as though she was having any trouble with Jim. It was getting pretty hot under the cover. He was sweating and wished he had taken time to remove his clothes.

Jim came into the room and looked around. “You sure look terrible, Bill. That’s some fever you have. You’re sweating like a stuck pig.”

“Maybe I overdid it today by coming in to work. Now I think I’ll be flat on my back for the next few days.”

As Jim stood there, Bill tried projecting his thoughts, nothing happened. As he started to thank Jim for looking in on him, he heard Slim’s voice in his head say, “So how is he, Jim?”

“Pretty bad. From the way he looks, we don’t have to worry about him going anywhere.”

“As long as he’s still there tonight at two o’clock; then, we will be rid of him.” Slim said. This startled Bill and he jerked under the covers.

Jim noticed and said, “I’ll get Tony to look at you, Bill.” He turned and left the room to get Tony.

“They aren’t wasting any time, trying to get rid of me.” Bill thought. Just then, Tony entered the room followed by Jim.

“Oh, Honey, let me get your medicine. It should relieve the pain a little.” She went to the nightstand and picked up an aspirin bottle. With her back to Jim, she removed two aspirins. She set the aspirin bottle down and placed one of Bill’s pre-scription bottles in her hand. Turning to Bill, she gave him the two pills and some water from the nightstand. “I know you don’t like to take these pills, Honey, because they knock you out for ten to twelve hours. Please, humor me and take them.”

Turning to Jim, she said, “Let’s go into the other room and let him rest. In about fifteen minutes, he’ll be sleeping like a baby.”

Holding the medicine bottle up, Tony said, “I think I’m going to have to get this refilled soon. Tonight, I might take a couple of these. At least I’ll get the first good night’s sleep I’ve had in a while.”

She placed the bottle back on the nightstand and left the room followed by Jim. Bill lay there wishing he could strip the covers off. He heard their muted conversation coming from the living room. It felt like hours before he heard Jim say, “Tell Bill to take it easy. Tell him to get better before he comes back to work. I’ll stop by tomorrow or the next day to see how he’s feeling.” Bill heard the front door open and close. After Jim’s truck started and he heard it back down the driveway, Bill threw off the covers. The cool air of the room hit him like ice water causing a chill all the way to the bone. He wiped sweat off his face as Tony entered laughing hysterically. Bill wasn’t in a good mood after being in what he compared to a pressure cooker. He asked, “What the fuck was that all about?”

Trying to gain control of herself, Tony gasped, “What a stupid bastard Jim is.” She told Bill what happened on the way to the post office. As she approached, Jim stepped out of his truck and made pleasant conversation for a few minutes. Then he asked her where she was going? After telling Jim she was going to the post office, he insisted on taking her. She protested at first, but decided, what the hell. She related that Jim opened the door and helped her into the truck. He let his hand rest on her leg a little longer than necessary. As they drove along, she told Jim she hadn’t realized what an asshole Bill was until he got sick.

Tony related how she told Jim she thought he was handsome and maybe they could get better acquainted. She made him promise that he wouldn’t tell anyone. She told Bill that Jim had a big smile on his face. Jim took her to do the rest of the shopping and then had brought her home.

“You had me worried for a minute. I was just going to go look for you and see if you were in any trouble. You sure as hell surprised me when you pulled in with Jim.”

“Bill, I don’t know if this means anything. Two or three times, as Jim drove along, he got this blank look on his face. Then, he would shake his head or mutter something I couldn’t understand. He almost ran into another car at an intersection one of those times.”

“He probably was talking to someone else at those times. Did you get to make your call to Janet?”

“Yes, I did. One of the girls at the store let me use the phone in the office. Janet said we could use the truck. She is going away with her boyfriend for a week and won’t be needing it until she gets back.”

“Good. While Jim was in here with me, I heard him talking to Slim. They made it plain we are going to have an accident tonight around two o’clock. Now go out, pull the truck into the garage, and close the door. I’ll go get the things we are going to take and put them in the truck.”

After loading the truck, Bill told Tony to take it to the abandoned Amoco station. The station was located four blocks from their house. “Make sure you park it out of sight. After hiding the truck, walk to Janet’s, and get her truck. Bring it back here, and put it in the garage. By the time you return it will be dark. Whoever is watching our house might not notice that it’s not our truck.”

“By the way, Babe, that was a pretty good song and dance you did with the pills. That should convince them they have nothing to worry about concerning me. I got the impression Jim thought I would be in a sound sleep until tomorrow after your story about the pills. Quick thinking on your part. Go now, it’s only about forty-five minutes until dark. Please be careful, it’s a ten-block walk to Janet’s. I wish there were some way to disguise you. Most of your walk to Janet’s will happen while it’s still light enough to recognize you.”

“Give me a few minutes, Love.” Tony said getting up and going into the bedroom. Bill wondered what she had in mind. Ten minutes later she came back into the living room. Standing in the middle of the room was a frumpy black haired woman.

“What, how?” Bill sputtered looking at her.

Tony removed the black wig to reveal her strawberry blond hair. “It’s simple, tie a pillow to my stomach and put on one of my large dresses. Place the wig on my head and instant dis-guise.” Placing the wig in her purse, she kissed him on the cheek saying, “I better go now. I’ll put the wig back on when I park the truck.” Turning, she opened the door to the garage.

“I know you’ll be all right, but be careful.”

“I will. Now get back in the house, so I can open the garage door and be on my way.” She blew him a kiss.

Entering the living room, Bill looked around then walked over and sat down on the couch. “Just when everything was coming together for me and Tony, this has to happen.” He worried about Tony. If one of these people recognized her after she hid the truck, they would know something was wrong. Bill was sure this would make them move up the timetable for getting rid of him. He knew that if they killed him, no harm would come to Tony for a while. They would keep her prisoner somewhere, use and molest her until sated, then kill her. Looking out the window as darkness fell, he could only sit and wait.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Ben sat in the airplane seat, bone tired. For the last eigh-teen hours he had been grilled by the doctors at the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta on just about everything in his family history. They went back more than five generations. In the next room his wife went through the same questioning.

The doctors finally quit their questioning when Ben became angry and demanded to see his family.

Unable to sleep, Ben sat there, thinking. When Ben’s boss, Mr. Compton, arrived after Pete’s accident, he had been in a shitty mood. Mr. Compton ranted and raved about how his firm didn’t need this kind of trouble right now with the company’s license coming up for renewal in two weeks. The way he carried on, he just the same as said Ben was the cause of Pete’s death. He asked why Ben didn’t notice Pete’s erratic behavior before he entered the packing room? Ben tried to explain that he had been worried about his boy, Benji, who was in the hospi-tal. Ben told Mr. Compton that Pete acted perfectly normal when he entered the building, and that he must have taken the drug after he started cleaning. Ben told him that he had watched Pete on the monitors and he appeared to be doing his normal cleaning. It was only when he heard Pete talking to himself in the packing room that he suspected something was wrong. Ben went on to relate what had happened. He left out the part about the brain matter falling into the open box of computer chips. As Ben finished his explanation, two men in dark suits entered the room and asked if they could talk to Ben. Mr. Compton asked who the hell they were. The taller of the two men reached into his coat pocket and produced creden-tials, identifying them as Federal Agents from the FBI They politely asked Mr. Compton to leave the room so they could talk to Ben in private.

As one of the men closed the door behind Mr. Compton, Ben asked, “What does the FBI want to talk to me about?” They asked Ben to show some identification before they would say anything. One of the agents told Ben they were sent to escort him to the airport where he would meet his wife and son.

“What is this all about?” Ben asked.

“We are not at liberty to say, Mr. Johnson.” They told Ben to tell his boss he would be gone for a few days.

“What about my job? I can’t walk out like this. Maybe you don’t know it, but jobs are hard to find. After tonight Mr. Compton will fire me if I walk out without an explanation.”

“Don’t worry, Mr. Johnson. Your job will still be here when you return. This company does a lot of government work and we will impress that fact upon Mr. Compton.”

One of the agents went out and brought Mr. Compton back. Ben tried explaining he had to leave for a few days but couldn’t tell him where or why he had to go. Mr. Compton didn’t like it very much. After some thinly disguised threats from the agents about his company losing government contracts, he grudgingly agreed.

Leaving the building, they placed Ben in the back seat of a car. On the drive to the airport, Ben tried to find out what was going on, but neither of the agents said anything. Arriving at the airport, they escorted Ben aboard the plane. Leila, his wife, clutched his arm and asked what was going on in a frightened voice. “Everything’s ok honey,” he told her. Leila explained she was sitting beside Benji’s bed when a group of people dressed in space suits came into the room. They put Benji in a plastic like envelope and rushed both of them to the airport in an ambulance.

It took a long time to calm Leila down. She asked a lot of questions that Ben had no answer for. All they could learn was that they were being flown to a hospital in Atlanta. Benji was to receive some form of advanced treatment for his illness.

On landing in Atlanta, the plane taxied to a remote part of the airport where a large ambulance met them. They placed Ben, Leila and Benji in it. Over the intercom they were told to relax. The driver told them they were being taken to the Center for Disease Control where their boy would be treated. Ben asked why there weren’t any attendants in back of the ambulance with them. The voice in the speaker told Ben they were in a sterile environment for the protection of his boy. When they arrived at the center, he could talk to the doctor handling Benji’s case. Arriving at the center, they were led down deserted hallways until they came to two airlock type doors. A man met them who said he was Dr. David Palmer and that he would be working on Benji’s case.

Ben asked why they were being held prisoners?

Dr. Palmer told him the illness Benji had was part of a strange epidemic occurring in the country. Since Benji’s illness had stabilized without any ill effects, they wanted to study him. They hoped to discover why he wasn’t affected like the other people who had the disease. This was the first time Ben heard that his boy was going to be all right. He breathed a sigh of relief. He still didn’t like the idea of Benji being a guinea pig for their research. After three days, they allowed Ben to see Benji. Benji’s eyes lit up when Ben entered the room. He looked better than he had for the last three weeks. Benji told his dad the doctors said they were going to move him to a new place. Pulling Ben close, Benji asked why he was hearing voices inside his head.

Ben thought Benji was hallucinating from the fever and told him that it would go away in a while. Benji insisted he still heard the voices. He said he knew the doctors believed him because he heard a couple of them talking about it. The curtain parted and a nurse told Ben he would have to leave so his son could rest.

That was eight hours ago. Now they were on a plane to another hospital somewhere in Colorado. Before leaving Atlanta, Ben heard disturbing reports about patients going berserk and killing staff members. Right after hearing this they were whisked off to the airport. Turning, he looked at his wife sleeping in the seat beside him. She still had the same girlish figure she had when he first started dating her. She looked as beautiful now as she had then. He saw the tension on her face. Ben knew it was caused by not knowing what was going to happen to them. He wished he could give her some answers but he just didn’t know anything.

Easing out of the seat so he didn’t disturb Leila, Ben stood up in the aisle. Glancing around the plane, he noticed they were the only passengers. He wondered what the government was hiding? Why would they spend all this money just to fly three people half way across the country? Whatever it was, it must be dammed important. Making his way to the galley, he found the steward, a slim black man reading a book. His suit coat was off and Ben saw a .38 in a shoulder holster. Ben thought he looked a lot like Sammy Davis Jr., the entertainer.

“May I help you, sir?” he asked.

“For starters quit calling me sir and start calling me Ben.”

“Ok, Ben. My name is Jake,” he said extending his hand. “Now, Ben, what can I do for you?”

“I don’t suppose you can tell me anything about this place we are going to?”

“Sorry, Ben. Even if I knew what was going on, I probably couldn’t tell you. The plain truth is I don’t know anything. The office called me from a nice warm bed tonight and told me to baby sit three people who were being flown to Colorado.”

“Well if I can’t get information, Jake, could I have a cup of coffee? I need something to keep me awake.”

“Sure thing, Ben. I put on a fresh pot a few minutes ago. It should be ready by now.”

“What is this hospital we are going to like?” Ben asked.

“I can’t answer that but I’ll bet it’s not a regular hospi-tal you are going to,” Jake answered.

“What do you mean a hospital is a hospital isn’t it? I mean they treat sick people there don’t they?”

“The government has special hospitals they use for experimental purposes,” Jake said.

“So you think we are being sent to one of those?”

“I don’t know, but it is the only explanation that makes any sense to me.” Jake answered.

“I don’t think I want my boy being a guinea pig for any more of their experiments.”

“Take it easy, Ben. I didn’t say that is where you are being taken. I don’t know anything about the place,” Jake said.

“Damn, I wish I could get some answers to my questions.”

“You know there is something awfully wrong with our country, Ben. I watched the news this evening and there were reports of people being murdered, homes burning down and things like that. I got the feeling the news people weren’t telling all the truth about what they know.”

“I haven’t heard any news since we were put on the plane in New Jersey. Christ was that only four days ago? It seems like four years. What makes you think something is wrong?” Ben asked.

“I don’t know maybe it’s my imagination. What the news people are saying and the things I saw in Atlanta before we left give me a gut feeling something is wrong,” Jake told him.

“What did you see?”

“There were a lot of people on the streets breaking windows and fighting with each other. One group tried to stop the taxi I was in. The driver almost ran them down to get away,” Jake said.

“Sounds like things have gone to hell in the last few days? It’s not confined to just Atlanta from what the taxi driver told me. He said people were going crazy all over the country. He heard on the news that a group of reporters were talking about a mass murder that occurred in southern West Virginia. According to him a bunch of town crazies tied up a group of people and poured gasoline on them from a tanker, then set them on fire. He heard that forty people died. The report said only three of the ten reporters investi-gating the so called acci-dent escaped alive.”

“Do you think there was much truth to what you were told?”

“I don’t know but in the last few days things seemed to have come unglued around where I live,”

Jake answered.

Standing up, Ben put his coffee cup on the counter. “I better get back to my wife before she wakes and finds me gone.”

“Nice talking to you, Ben.” Jake held out his hand, which Ben shook before turning and walking to the rear of the plane.

Approaching his seat, Leila sat up asking where he had been. After telling her he had gone to get a cup of coffee he asked if she wanted to go check on Benji.

“Yes,” she replied, so Ben helped her from the seat.

Parting the curtain that separated Benji from the rest of the compartment, Ben and Leila could see that Benji was sitting up. He was talking to Mrs. Parks, the nurse who was accompanying Benji to the new hospital.

“Hello, Champ.” Ben said as he ruffled the hair on Benji’s head. “How’re you feeling?”

“Fine Dad. Still a little weak though, but Mrs. Parks says I will be up and around in no time.”

While his mother fretted over him, Mrs. Parks asked if it would be all right for her to go get a cup of coffee.

“Certainly,” Ben said, telling her to take her time.

Benji looked at his dad and said. “I’m glad you came back because there is a lot I want to talk to you about.”

“What’s on your mind, son?”

“Dad, please don’t think I’m crazy but back at the hospital I could hear doctors talking to each other, only Dad, they weren’t speaking. How is that possible?”

“I don’t know son. What do you mean they weren’t speaking?”

“Their lips never moved, but they carried on a conversation with each other. It was like they were talking to each other with their minds. Is that possible Dad?”

“Are you sure it wasn’t just your imagination, Benji?”

“Positive, Dad. They were checking me while they talked or whatever they did, but they definitely had a conversation.”

“What did they talk about?”

“That was the scary part. They talked about what they were going to do to the women when they took over. Dad, what they were saying was down right dirty. One of the doctors said it was about time to let the crazies out of the wards so they could take care of the people who weren’t like them. The other doctor said that the hospital had to be destroyed so that it couldn’t be used against them. Something has changed about me, Dad, and I don’t know what it is.” Benji said in a low frightened voice.

“How do you mean changed?” his father asked.

“I can sense things. I can tell if people are good or bad. It’s hard to explain, but some of the people in the hospital were worse than bad. I sensed this about them as quick as I met them. It’s like the difference in the smell of a good egg and the smell of a rotten egg only it’s not smell, it’s some-thing I know.”

Leila sat in back of Benji with a look of horror on her face. “What have they done to you?” she asked starting to weep.

“I’m ok, Mom. This is just something different, and I don’t think they did it to me.” Benji reached for her hand.

“Now, Mrs. Parks, all I can sense from her is goodness like I sense coming from you, Mom, and you, Dad.”

They talked about little things until Mrs. Parks came back. Ben hugged Benji and they went back to their seats. Leila fell asleep at once. It took Ben a little longer but fatigue finally won out and he drifted off to sleep. The next thing he knew Jake was shaking his shoulder.

“What is it Jake?”

“I think we have a problem, Ben?” Jake answered.

Ben eased out of his seat and followed Jake to the cockpit.

Cap, the pilot told them they had electrical prob-lems at the airport and could only keep one of the runways lighted.

“Has this happened before?” Jake asked.

“Once or twice but never the outer runway which is the farthest from the terminal,” Cap answered.

“Do you know any controllers down there, Cap?” Jake asked.

“Old George Jenkins and I used to be drinking buddies when he worked O’Hara in Chicago before he transferred here.”

“Ask whoever is down there if George’s first baby has been born yet,” Jake told him. There was a pause then Cap said, “That’s funny the man told me George was the father of a six pound baby girl. Hell, George is almost sixty years old and his wife died ten years ago. What’s going on down there, Jake?”

“I’m afraid the airport has been taken over by the same kind of people who are taking over the CDC. I am sure they plan to kill us if we land. Can we get to another airport, Cap?”

“No, we only have enough fuel to stay in the air for another thirty minutes.”

“Cap, what’s the length of the runway and how much of it do you use to land?” Jake asked.

“The runway is five thousand five hundred feet. We use a little over three thousand five hundred feet.”

“Give me a few minutes; just keep circling until I get back to you,” Jake told him. Ben was silent during this exchange now he asked. “What do you have in mind, Jake?”

Looking Ben straight in the eye Jake said, “Ben, you know the situation, we have to land. You’re a hunter. Think about what we can do to get away.” Grabbing Ben by the arm, Jake pulled him down the aisle saying, “Since we have to land there, I have a plan that might work. It will be risky but better than being ducks in a shooting gallery for the people at the termi-nal.”

“Tell me what to do.” Ben said.

Jake explained to Ben what he was going to do when the plane landed. He ended by saying,

“Speak to your wife and Mrs. Parks. Fill them in on what we’re going to try. Have them prepare everything they can so that when the time comes, we can get off the plane quickly.”

It took only ten minutes for Ben and the women to get things ready. Mrs. Parks even made a few suggestions on how to improve the plan that Ben and Jake had overlooked. Walking up to the cabin, he stepped in saying. “Everything is ready in back, Jake.”

“Thanks, Ben. Cap, go all the way to the end of the runway when you land. After turning around, sit there for a couple of minutes before starting toward the terminal. Can you do that, Cap?” Jake asked.

“I can do it, Jake, but why?”

“When you stop, we will open the rear door, deploy the emer-gency chute and get off. I only wish we could take you with us.”

“Cap, you go with them. I can take the plane to the terminal and find some way to escape myself,”

Jeff, the co-pilot, told him.

“Fine. Everything is settled then. Give us a few minutes, Cap, then take her in,” Jake told them. Arriving at the back of the plane, they saw Mrs. Parks strip-ping her clothes off until all she had on was her bra and panties. Seeing them looking at her, she said. “Show some modesty gentle-men and turn your backs please.”

With smiles on their faces, they turned around and helped Leila place things they couldn’t take with them in the luggage racks above the seats.

“You can turn around now,” Mrs. Parks said.

Standing where the white uniformed nurse had stood was a middle aged woman almost completely covered in grey. They saw she had taken the grey blanket covering Benji and cut a hole in it. She then draped it over her head and used a part of the hem to make a belt that she cinched around her middle.

They heard Cap’s voice come from the speaker telling them to put their seat belts on. He was going to take the plane down.

Ben made sure Leila and Benji were strapped in, then strapped-himself in. He felt the nose of the plane drop. Glanc-ing at Jake, he nodded he was ready. He got a nod in return from Jake. Ben heard a screech and felt the thump of the wheels as they touched the runway. Reaching down, he unbuckled the seat belt. Swaying to his feet, he helped his wife and son unbuckle their belts. Then, he led them to stand near the door.

Above the back thrust of the engines, Jake shouted. “We have to do this quickly. We don’t want the people at the terminal getting suspicious.”

As the plane slowed down, they heard Cap running up the isle toward them. “When Jeff starts turning the plane, open the door and pop the chute,” Cap said.

They knew Jeff was turning when they swayed to the right. Ben and Jake pushed the door open. Jake hit a red button beside the door; they heard a faint pop then the sound of rushing air. Looking down, Ben saw that the chute was rapidly filling with air as it dragged along the ground. With a lurch the plane stopped. Ben jumped and hit the chute about half way down. Because of the angle it was almost straight down. Ben landed on his rear with a thud that made his teeth hurt. Climbing to his feet, he grabbed the end of the chute and pulled it away from the plane. This increased the angle so the others would have a slower slide to the ground. Cap came sliding down. He grabbed the other side of the chute as Benji jumped followed by Leila. Mrs. Parks was next.

Ben looked up to see what was keeping Jake. He saw that Jeff had come back long enough to help close the door. Slowly they pulled the door toward them until Jeff could handle it himself. Ben saw Jake jump and in a moment he was standing beside Ben.

“Take them to the end of the runway,” Jake told Ben.

“Follow me, everyone,” Ben yelled. He broke into a fast jog. Ben heard a pop that sounded like a shot. Looking over his shoul-der he saw the chute falling to the ground. They were two hundred feet away when he heard the plane’s engines rev up. Glancing back, Ben saw the plane roll forward. “Good luck, Jeff,” he silent-ly said.

Ben stopped at a steep bank leading down to a road and waited for Jake to catch up.

“Why did you stop?” Jake asked.

“They will know we went this way when they don’t find us on the plane. Why not go to the last place they expect us to?”

“I like the way you think, Ben. So we circle back to the terminal. First, let me have your jacket; yours too Cap. Ma’am, can I have your sweater?” Jake said turning to Leila. Getting the sweater he said. “Circle to the left, Ben. I’m going to spread these things down the bank making it look like we fled in panic. That should buy us a little more time. I’ll catch up with you before you get too far.”

Ben ran at a slow trot toward a small hill he could faintly see when the moon came out from behind a cloud. The grass was damp under his feet and he felt moisture soaking into his shoes. Looking over his shoulder, he saw the only one having trouble was Mrs. Parks. Dropping back beside her, he asked, “Will you be able to keep up this pace?”

She shook her head, yes, and gasped. “Go on.”

Looking to his left, Ben saw the plane come to a stop at the terminal in the distance. Immediately a ladder truck rolled toward the plane.

Near the top of the hill, they stopped just inside the tree line. “Ok, take a break for a few minutes while we wait for Jake to catch up,” Ben told them. He walked back to where he could see the terminal and runway lights. Watching, he saw vehicles heading toward the runway. They sped down the runway to the end. He saw that a lot of people were getting out of the cars by the flicker-ing of the headlights as they walked in front of them.

Standing up, Ben walked to Leila and asked, “How is Benji holding up?”

“I don’t know where he is getting the strength, but he seems to be getting stronger by the minute.”

“Keep an eye on him.” He reached down and helped her to her feet. The others were already on their feet waiting for him to tell them what to do.

“Cap, you bring up the rear. Make sure that everyone stays just inside the tree line. I’m going to go ahead to see if there are any surprises waiting for us.”

Ben told Leila to lead them along as fast as she could.

“Be careful, Ben,” she said, kissing him on the cheek.

Ben squeezed her hand in reply then jogged down the tree line until he was well ahead of them. Slowing to a fast walk, he darted out to the grass; when a cloud covered the moon, he moved forward. Standing beside a tree, he heard a twig snap ahead of him. Lowering himself to the ground, Ben crawled farther into the woods. Turning around from his position on the ground, he saw where the tree line ended and the grass began. He almost missed the shadowy figure that stepped from behind a tree twenty feet to his right. Easing forward he waited. When the man was five feet from him, he aimed the gun upward and said. “Freeze right there.”

“Ben, is that you?”

“Jake?” Ben said, climbing to his feet, uncocking the gun.

“Damn, you scared the shit out of me. I thought I had bought it,” Jake said with a nervous laugh.

“We waited as long as we could on you, then moved out hoping you would catch up. Why are you are coming from the direction of the terminal?” Ben asked.

“After placing the coats on the bank, I climbed back to the top just as the cars turned onto the runway. If I had tried to run after you, they would have seen me before I reached cover. I ran to where the chute lay and pulled it over me. Man, I tell you, I was scared as those cars pulled up to where I lay. I heard the men get out cursing. One of them told the others to spread out and see if they could find out which way we went. I almost died of a heart attack when one of them kicked the chute next to my head cursing and saying they should have thought of this and prepared for it. A man came running up saying that we had gone down the bank and into the trees across the road.

“The man in charge told him to go back to the terminal and get as many men as he could. He told him to take them to the other side of the woods and come back toward us. He said he wanted to keep us between the two groups. They were walking away from the cars while talking, so I peeked out and there wasn’t anyone close. I crawled into the shadow of a car and waited. Pretty soon the man who was going back to the termi-nal headed toward a truck while the leader went down the bank.

“I ran to the truck knowing he couldn’t see me because of the headlight’s glare shinning in his eyes. Crawling under the truck, I grabbed hold of the frame and lifted myself off the ground. The man got in and drove right up to the entrance of the terminal building. He got out yelling at people to come with him. During the confusion, I crawled to the side of the building and waited until they left. Then, I came looking for you,” Jake said.

By the time he finished his story the rest of the group came up to where they were and stopped.

“Nice to see you, Jake. We thought we had lost you when you didn’t show up,” Cap said.

“Cap, I hate to tell you this but they have Jeff somewhere in the building interrogating him and it doesn’t sound good.”

“Shit! Then, we are just going to have to get him out of there,” Cap said.

“I don’t think so. He knew the chance he was taking when this started. I’m sorry that he got caught, but it would be sheer folly for us to try and rescue him,” Jake told them.

“Wait a minute. Jeff gave us our chance to get away. The least we can do is get him away from them,” Ben protest-ed.

“Ben, think about your family. How would they survive if you were caught or killed?” Jake said. Leila stepped up to Jake saying. “Ben is right. Just because the world has gone crazy doesn’t mean that we have to act like them, forgetting the difference between right and wrong. If there is a chance we can help Jeff, we had better do it. Quite frankly, I don’t think I would like waking up in the mornings knowing there was something I could have done to save him but didn’t because I was worried about my own safety.”

Ben felt a lump in his throat as he reached out and wrapped his arms around his wife. He was surprised at the firmness of her voice. He thought and not for the first time, “I’m married to one hell of a woman.”

“I agree whole heartily with Leila,” Mrs. Parks said.

“God damn it.” Jake said. Then, he looked at their faces and just shrugged his shoulders. “If all of you want to commit suicide, I guess I might as well make it unanimous. First thing we are going to have to do is get some heavier weapons, and I know just where to get them.”

After telling the rest of them to stay inside the edge of the woods, Jake and Ben started across the grass going to the right. Approaching the top of a mound, Jake dropped to the ground and started crawling forward with Ben right behind him.

Reaching the crest, Ben saw two men sitting in a car parked on the grass. The dome light of the car was on and they were looking at something held between them.

“Ben, take the one on the passenger side and I’ll take the driver,” Jake whispered. They moved out together in a crouch. The dew dampened grass soaked Ben’s socks as he walked forward. At the end of the car, Jake held his hand up for Ben to wait; then, he crouched down beside the rear wheel.

Ben heard every word the men were saying. He heard the driver say, “This is stupid. They wouldn’t be dumb enough to come this way. They are over in the woods near town and we won’t get in on the kill because shit-head Frank wants to cover everything.”

“I wouldn’t let Frank hear you call him that, besides maybe the one we caught has told where he is supposed to meet them.” The man on the passenger side said.

“Screw Frank, he was the one who fucked up when the co-pilot got off the plane and killed Jess with the fire extin-guisher. If he hadn’t sent so many people up the ladder to the door, Jess would still be alive,” said the driver.

Ben saw Jake rise up and motion him forward. Moving to just behind the passenger door, Ben stuck the barrel of the gun against the man’s temple. “Put your hands on the dash and keep them there,” Ben said in a low voice.

He heard Jake say to his man, “Nice and easy get out of the car.” When the driver was out, Jake pushed him around the car so that Ben could cover both men.

The man from the passenger side said, “Dumb huh, tell me again who the dumb ones are.” He glowered at the driver.

Jake took their belts and tied their hands behind them. Taking a shirt he found in the back of the car, he tore it into strips. He used what was left of the shirt to stuff in their mouths; then, he used the strips to secure the gags. Next he marched them over to the edge of the woods and made them lie down next to a tree. Placing them on opposite sides of the tree, Jake told them to wrap their legs around it. He tied their legs securely so that they couldn’t move.

“That should keep them for a spell. Let’s see what is in the car,” Jake said. They found two rifles and a .45 automatic with plenty of ammunition for the rifles and handgun. As Ben bent down to look under the seat, he jumped back when a voice said, “Tim, are you there? Answer me.”

“Jesus Christ what was that?” Ben asked as he watched Jake bend over and pull two walkie-talkies from under the seat. Lowering the .38, Ben noticed that it was cocked. He didn’t remem-ber pulling the hammer back. Slowly he eased the hammer down and put the safety on. The radio squawked; then a man’s voice said. “Tim, if you are asleep I’ll nail your fucking ears to the wall when I see you. Answer me. God damn it.”

Jake held the radio to his mouth and said in a surly voice. “All right, all right what do you want?”

“Listen we’re almost finished searching the woods, but we haven’t found them yet. Keep your eyes open. We should be fin-ished in an hour or so. We will start back for the termi-nal if we haven’t found them. Keep me posted if you see any-thing?”

Jake said, “You’ll be the first one to know. If you catch them, let me know, so we can come over and get in on the fun.”

They heard a chuckle on the radio then the voice said. “For a minute I didn’t think it was you. It must be the radio that makes your voice sound strange. Just keep alert and let us know if you see anything.” Then there was silence from the radio.

“We have to be out of here in less than an hour so whatever we do, it has to be fast. Take the weapons and bring everyone up to the edge of the terminal. I’ll drive by the front and see what’s going on and park at the end of the building. Then, we’ll plan what to do next.” Jake said as he started the car.

Ben turned and ran to where the rest of the group waited. Handing the rifle to Cap, he said, “Can you use one of these?”

“I used to be a pretty good shot years ago,” Cap answered.

Turning to Mrs. Parks, Ben asked, “Have you ever fired a rifle or hand gun?”

“Give me the .45. Until last year, I was a Major in the Marine Corp and could shoot the balls off a mosquito at one hundred feet with one of these.”

Ben handed her the .45 and an extra box of ammo.

Leila asked, “Do you have a weapon for me?”

This shocked Ben; he knew that Leila disapproved of guns of any sort. “I have the right to protect us from people who are trying to kill us,” she said looking at Benji.

Ben took the .38 out of his pocket as they walked across the grass. He showed her how to load the gun and how to work the safety. Ben handed it to her saying, “I love you, Honey. Just watch out for Benji.” Her only answer was to squeeze his hand.

Ben led them around to the side of the building and found a place to hide between two large air-conditioning units. Telling the women to stay there, he took Cap to the edge of the building and watched for Jake.

“Cap, do you think you can find another plane to get us out of here. If we have to drive, we are at a disadvantage. The people know the roads around here and we don’t. It wouldn’t be hard for them to trap us.”

“An airport this size ought to have plenty of private planes. I know where they park them. I’ll go around the runway side and see what I can find,” Cap answered.

“Be careful, Cap. Don’t take any chances.” Ben watched him go to the other side of the building. He saw Jake turn the car back up the circular drive. Seeing no one, he stepped out of the shadows as Jake pulled up to the curb.

“We got lucky again. There are only a few people in the building. Let’s go see if we can find Jeff,” Jake said.

Ben told him about sending Cap to look for a plane.

“Good thinking on your part.”

“Try and act casual as if you belong here when we go inside. They can’t know everyone who was here. If someone sees us, they might think we are with them,” Jake told Ben. Approaching the doors, Ben put the rifle in the crook of his arm where he could instantly drop it into his hands if he needed to use it. Jake opened the door and went in, first going to the left. Ben went to the right. He saw a soda machine across the lobby. He motioned for Jake to stay put. Searching his pockets for change, he crossed the lobby to the soda machine and looked around. Down at the end of the lobby Ben saw a man with a rifle. The man leaned against the wall looking into the passenger area. The man had a bored expression on his face. He had glanced at Ben when he first appeared but was now ignor-ing him.

Ben saw no one else but heard a cry of pain coming from upstairs. Casually holding up his hand, Ben motioned for Jake to stay where he was. Seeing Jake’s nod, Ben got a soda out of the machine and casually walked toward the man.

“I wish they’d put a gag in his mouth,” Ben said to the man as he heard the scream again.

“Shit, he’s been screaming like that for the last twenty minutes. Where have you been?” He looked at Ben suspiciously.

“I’ve been out with Tim. He is doing so much bitching and griping about not being there when they catch these people, I had to get away from him for a while,” Ben said. He saw the man relax at the mention of Tim’s name.

“Yeah, Tim can be a real pain in the ass when he gets in one of his bitching moods.”

Ben pretended to twist off the cap on the soda bottle, but instead of loosening it, he tightened it as tight as he could.

Holding the bottle out to the man, he asked, “Could you loosen the top for me?”

“Sure, no problem,” the man said taking the soda. “Damn this is tight.” He tried to twist the top.

“Here hold the bottle while I use both hands to twist it.” The man leaned his rifle against the wall. Placing one hand over the other, he gave the bottle cap a hard twist. As he did this, Ben raised the neck of the bottle slightly. Soda squirted out of the bottle into the man’s face. “What the hell....” was as far as he got before the butt of Ben’s rifle connected with the side of his head. Ben caught him under the arms as he started to slide down the wall. Jake ran to his side, saying,

“Let’s take him down and place him behind the seats in the waiting area.” They carried him down a short flight of stairs and placed him on the floor between two rows of seats.

“Jeff is upstairs, Jake. You stay here and make sure no one sneaks up on me while I take a look.”

Ben crossed the lobby and opened a door to the stairway. Looking up, he heard what sounded like someone hitting a side of beef with a meat ax followed by a scream. At the top landing, he looked through the glass window in the door and saw two men in the hallway. They had Jeff’s hands tied to a pipe mounted in the wall above his head. One of the men held a piece of blood splat-te-red wooden dowel about four feet long in his hand. The other one was leaning against the wall with a look of pleasure on his face. Jeff’s back was a mass of cuts and welts where the man had struck him on the back with the dowel.

Mad at what he saw, Ben pushed the door open and pointed the rifle at them. “Don’t even think about it,” Ben told the man against the wall as his hand started for the rifle beside him. Ben saw by the look in the man’s eye that he was going to try and get the rifle. The man holding the dowel threw it at him and dived for the floor. The man leaning against the wall dropped to his knees and brought the rifle up to his shoulder.

Ben stepped to the left and fired from the hip as the other man shot. Ben felt a blow to his left arm, which threw him against the wall. “Shit,” he thought, “I’m hit.”

The man with the rifle tried to line it up on him. He was having trouble doing it because of the blood streaming into his eyes. Ben’s shot had grazed his head. Ben brought his rifle up with one hand and aimed it like a pistol. Ben shot him and watched him fall to the floor. The sound of a shot almost in his ear deafened him. “Oh shit! There’s another one behind me. No, that can’t be right,” he thought. Ben watched the second man slide down the wall with the side of his head blown away.

Turning his head, Ben saw Mrs. Parks standing just inside the door with the .45 held out in front of her. She walked to the man she had shot and kicked the gun out of his hand. She turned him over with her foot; next, she went to the other man who lay in a pool of blood moaning. His hands were on his stomach trying to stem the flow of blood that came from his wound.

Picking up the man’s rifle, Mrs. Parks said over her shoul-der, “This one will be dead before long; let’s get out of here.”