Dream of a Falling Eagle

Chapter 13

My head soon began to throb again, even in my dreams, and all did not stay well with the world for long. The dreams turned to nightmares, the emerald eagles turning to black and diving for my eyes. It was difficult to fend them off, for my movements were slow and plodding, my quick reflexes gone. I had turned into a gray-faced, stumbling, drooling creature, and I felt only a dull ache in the places where the ebony raptors had torn away chunks of my flesh. Somehow I ended up in a hospital where everything was painted pink, and when Harper came to visit she screamed at the sight of me and vomited, and then ran from the room. Friends and family came to visit, but most could only stand the sight of me for a few minutes before they had to leave. Only my mother and father, ever the stoics, sat at my bedside for long hours, tears rolling down their cheeks. For my part, I just lay around in silence and drooled a lot. I desperately missed Garth, who was nowhere to be found, and never mentioned. Sometimes nurses took me out for walks on a leash. Children laughed at me and called me a zombie.

Behind or beyond the dreams was a sensation of flight, and a sound that reminded me of the steady drone of airplane engines. I would feel myself rising in the air, perhaps waking, and then I would feel a sharp sting in the arm or leg, as if someone was sticking me with a needle. Then it was back to the headache, bad dreams, and drooling.

When I did finally regain consciousness, I did not find my situation all that much improved over my nightmare dream world; some might even argue that it had deteriorated, since I was lying naked on my back on a cold marble slab of a table with my arms and legs splayed, my wrists and ankles tethered by thick leather straps attached to the sides of the table. My head wasn't restrained, so I raised it and looked around. I was not cheered by my surroundings. Garth, still unconscious but breathing regularly, lay on a similar table to my left, and he was similarly naked and strapped down. We were both spattered with blood, but it wasn't ours; apparently it had sprayed out of the bodies of the three dead Haitians, formerly Guy Fournier's little helpers, who lay on slabs to my right. Their chests had been cut open, and their hearts evidently placed in the red clay, bloodstained jars that were placed above their heads. The killings had apparently taken place within the past few minutes, for blood and gore still oozed from the gaping wounds in their chalky flesh, puddling on the brown marble and dripping to the floor.

Guy Fournier's place of power was a very large room, perhaps a loft, that had been converted into what I assumed was a voodoo temple; at least it looked pretty voodoo to me. Lighting came from red stage spots recessed in the ceiling, tinting everything the color of blood. There were dozens of veves painted on the walls and ceiling and the tile floor. I couldn't see behind me, but there were two doors, both closed, cut into the wall to my far left. On a section of wall to my right, beyond the three corpses, there hung a large set of Venetian blinds, now closed.

Our host and master of ceremonies was standing in front of me with his back turned, head slightly bowed, and chanting softly in Creole and in what I hoped was going to be a very long, solo ceremony. Guy Fournier was dressed in a long, flowing, yellow silk robe decorated with black veves. He stood before a massive altar that took up almost three-quarters of the wall space to the front. On dozens of shelves on the altar were red clay jars, carved wooden statues, veves, what appeared to be dry, withered limbs, and a collection of skulls.

I began to make a very serious effort to free myself.

I tested the bonds on my wrists and ankles, and found the straps tight. However, the strap on my right wrist seemed just a bit looser than the others. I made a fist, flexed my muscles, and rotated my wrist back and forth. There was some give to the leather. The straps were lined with sheepskin, but the blood of an unknown number of victims that had lain before me on this stone bed of death had hardened in layers that had cracked, creating a series of sharp edges. That, I thought, could work to my advantage; if I could reopen the cuts on my hands and make myself bleed before Fournier did it for me, I might be able to get a hand loose. I kept twisting my wrists back and forth, rubbing the flesh against the rough edges, staring at the back of the voodoo priest as he chatted with his bloodthirsty gods. It was a tricky business. I was drawing blood, all right, but the irritation was making my wrists swell, threatening to cancel out all my good works.

I kept at it, twisting and pulling, and then froze when Fournier abruptly wheeled around to face me. In his right hand he carried one of the scimitar-shaped knives previously wielded by his dead henchmen. The front of his robe, his hands, his triangular face and white hair were all spattered with blood. His dark eyes gleamed even brighter than usual, and he smiled broadly when he saw that I was awake. I was surprised to see that he had an erection, clearly visible as a bulge in his loose-fitting robe.

"Home delivery," I said. "I'm impressed."

"I'm so glad," he replied, his smile growing even broader. "A person in my position has certain prerogatives, and having the notorious Frederickson brothers delivered to me alive was one of them."

"I like the alive part. Look, I've got a splitting headache. You wouldn't have a couple of aspirin around here, would you?"

"I'm afraid not."

"So where are the chickens?"

His smile vanished. "You and your brother are the chickens, Frederickson."

"This your place of power?"

"Yes."

"Where are we?"

He hesitated a few moments, then quickly walked to the wall to my right, past the three corpses, and opened the black Venetian blinds. I raised my head as far as I could, glanced in that direction, and found myself looking out over a familiar view, the Hudson River. New Jersey, what looked to be Hoboken or Jersey City, was across the way, which put us in a warehouse or on a pier somewhere down on the lower West Side. The sun was just setting. It looked like Garth and I were going to die close to home-in prime time, no less.

"Nice digs," I continued, then nodded toward the three mutilated bodies lying to my right. "You killed them because they botched the Dickens murder?"

"I killed them because they are no longer needed. Your investigation into Haitian matters is at an end."

"That's exactly right. I take that to mean you brought us all the way back to New York so that you could surrender to us personally."

He turned back to close the blinds, and I used the few seconds to begin twisting my right wrist again. "You do have a bizarre sense of humor, Frederickson."

"You're fried no matter what happens to us, Fournier. There are copies of all our records in a safe deposit box, to be opened and immediately delivered to the commission on the death of one or both of us. Killing us is going to get you nothing but grief from two very dangerous friends of ours. Even if your outfit does manage to assassinate the president and vice president, how long do you think Kranes is going to be able to remain in office after all this business becomes public? The FBI has to be right behind us, and then there's the NYPD, Secret Service, and even the Spring Valley Police Department working on this case. We found the connections between you, the planned assassinations, and the CIA, and so will they. This whole conspiracy is going to be blown out of the water, and making Garth and me disappear is only going to speed the process. Your best bet for survival is to agree to testify and let us take you in. The FBI will put you in a Witness Protection program. Trust me; you'll prefer that to what will happen to you when our friends track you down. And they will."

"I think not," Fournier replied evenly. "When William Kranes becomes president, the FBI investigation will go away along with the commission and its planned report. The NYPD is of no more concern to us than the Spring Valley Police Department. None of the information you and your brother have developed will ever be made public, and nobody will know of the events you've been involved in. Of course, that would not be the case if the two of you were to remain alive. Your disappearance will be treated as no more than a peculiar mystery. Your bodies will never be found. Our organization will ride out this storm, and with Kranes in power there will be no more threats. In hindsight, we should have killed the two of you at the beginning. Despite your track record, we still underestimated your persistence and investigative skills. We didn't want to unnecessarily complicate things, and we'd hoped that killing witnesses would head you off and shut you down, but it didn't. Your days were numbered long before you found me, Frederickson. But since you did find me, it shall be my pleasure to personally eliminate the two of you. It may give you some comfort to know that we consider the information you've developed and the report you were preparing to be, by far, the most potentially devastating of all the work being done by the other teams working for the commission."

"You're going to depend on Paul Piggott to keep your secrets?"

"Piggott didn't have any secrets worth sharing until you two visited him. Now he's dead."

"You move fast."

"So do you and your brother."

"So will the FBI when they finally get up to speed."

"Sometime this evening there will be a new president, and I'm absolutely confident that the FBI will be told that their investigation into the killings of the Haitians is to be given very low priority."

"The convention?"

He smiled thinly, nodded. "The president and vice president accept renomination by their party tonight, and they will appear on the platform together. It's only a matter of waiting until the nominating speeches are over. It's a pity I don't have a television set or radio here."

"Well, I hope you have a telephone, because you'd better get on the horn right now and tell your people to call it off. After our first little chat, the first thing I did was go to the police. The FBI knows all about you and the CIA, and they know about the two murdered Supreme Court justices and your Right-to-Life shooters. If those killings take place, Congress is likely to legislate the entire CIA right out of the alphabet."

"I think you exaggerate, Frederickson. The police will defer to the FBI, and it won't make any difference what the FBI knows, or what you told them. The FBI is nothing if not committed to the chain of command, and the director will do as President Kranes orders. The new president will not want to shock the country even more, and he will not want the good name of the CIA sullied, or its good work interfered with. As for myself, I will be halfway around the world by morning."

"Our dangerous friends will find you."

"Ah, yes. Those dangerous friends. Your dossier indicates that you're probably referring to Veil Kendry, whose martial-arts students have been guarding your brownstone for the past few months, and John 'Chant' Sinclair. If Mr. Kendry chooses to do anything but continue on with his very successful career as an artist, we'll kill him too. As for Mr. Sinclair, not even we know where he is these days, but it's safe to assume that self-employed mercenary is mounting yet another sting operation against us or our friends to steal our money. I doubt he has any idea what you're involved in, and if he does he probably doesn't care. No, it's only the two of you who remain as obstacles- but not for long."

"Why schlep us all the way back to New York to kill us?"

"I thought you understood. There is great power for me in killing you myself, in a particular manner, in this particular place. I will keep your hearts in a place of honor on my altar. I shall dispose of the rest of you."

"I'm touched."

He drew himself up, breathed deeply, exhaled slowly. Guy Fournier looked immensely pleased with himself. "Now, is there anything else on your mind you'd like to discuss while we wait for your brother to wake up? As you can see, I rather enjoy talking to you."

"I'll bet you say that to all your victims. You just love to hear yourself talk."

"I can assure you that you're the first to utter anything but screams, Frederickson. I'm enjoying studying your behavior under stress. You are a truly remarkable man. When I cut you, I won't be surprised if I draw ice water."

I pretended to ponder his invitation, then said, "I guess there's nothing left except to tell you I know your secret, and I know you're a liar. I know what's really going on here."

He looked genuinely puzzled, and he absently ran a bloodstained hand back through his thick, white hair. "What do you mean, I'm a liar?"

I nodded toward the bulge in the front of his robe. "All this chitchat and the anticipation of what you're eventually going to do excites you. That hard-on you've got tells me this whole business is more about sex than power, voodoo or otherwise. You're no voodoo master. Blow out your candles, and you're just a garden-variety necrophiliac who likes to dress up and who gets his rocks off by carving people up, or ordering them carved up. Do you eat your kills?"

He didn't like that at all. His dark eyes flashed with anger, and he took a step backward. I'd put Dr. Guy Fournier in high dudgeon. "I am a voodoo master!" he announced indignantly.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. What you are is a corpse-fucker with a CIA day job. When you're not fucking stiffs, you're jerking off thinking about them. You may know a lot about Garth and me, but I also know a lot about people like you. I used to make a living writing papers and lecturing about people like you. Since you're going to kill us anyway, the least you can do is spare me all your voodoo bullshit. Probably everything else you've been telling me is bullshit too. Shadow Ops, indeed. You're just one more CIA flunky, probably a contract killer. Freaks like you are a dime a dozen. You're no different from Piggott; you may have known a little more, but the company still used both of you like Kleenex. You killed your flunkies when their usefulness was at an end, so don't be surprised if your masters dispose of you when all this is over."

Color rose on his high cheekbones. "You are wrong, Frederick-son."

I heard Garth stir. I turned my head to the left, saw that he had regained consciousness. He had raised his head and was looking around. Our eyes met, and he said evenly, "I'm going to kill that damn horse."

My laughter was loud, long, and genuine. "Now, Garth, let's not blame our ill fortune on some dumb animal."

"I specifically asked the stable manager for a nice horse. You remember?"

"Your horse was very nice. You just didn't know how to ride her. But it's all worked out. Look who we've found."

"This creep is Fournier?"

"That's him."

"How come he's got a hard-on?"

"Actually, we were just discussing that phenomenon. He's a corpse-fucker, a necrophiliac. Think Jeffrey Dahmer with a Ph.D. in a high-rent district. Guy Fournier, I'd like to introduce you to my brother, Garth."

"A corpse-fucker," Garth said, clucking his tongue. "That's interesting. Listen, Mongo, whatever plan of escape you've developed, I hope it doesn't involve horses."

"No horses. The fact of the matter is that I've been waiting for you to wake up so that you can tell Fournier here to go fuck himself."

"Me? Why don't you do it?"

"I thought you should do it."

"We'll flip a coin."

"I always lose coin tosses with you. Actually, I've been trying to convince Guy that it would be in his best interests to surrender to us."

"Any luck?"

"The jury's still out. I suspect he's thinking about it. I mentioned the fact that, sooner or later, Veil or Chant Sinclair will feed him his balls if he kills us."

"Be quiet!" Fournier snapped, abruptly stepping forward into the narrow space between the two tables and glaring down at me. The nostrils in his aquiline nose flared, and his lips were compressed in a thin line. "I already caught this act of yours back in my office, Frederickson. You couldn't fool me again, even if you were in a position to capitalize on it."

"Damn. If you won't surrender, and I can't fool you, what am I supposed to do?"

"This seeming nonchalance in the face of death, this witty banter with your captors; it's described in your dossier. It's a game you play. You're trying to throw me off guard, trick me."

"Is it working?"

Fournier's response was to suddenly extend the knife toward my brother's face, holding the tip of the blade less than an inch from his right eyeball. A chill rippled through me, and I quickly looked away so that Fournier couldn't see the terror on my face. He said, "I think you'll find the situation less amusing when I start stabbing your brother's eyes out."

"You can make us scream, Fournier," I replied quickly, turning my head back to meet his gaze. "That's no big trick, and it's been done before. That doesn't make you a voodoo master. No matter what you do to us, you're still just a corpse-fucker with delusions of grandeur."

"Yeah," Garth said evenly, looking directly at the knife tip millimeters from his eyeball. "So go fuck yourself."

The Haitian's eyes rolled back up into his head. He turned toward Garth, wrapped both hands around the elongated handle of the knife and raised the blade over his head, directly above Garth's chest. Then he began to chant softly in Creole.

My heart pounding and my breath catching in my throat, I strained with all my strength at the leather strap around my right wrist. Blood flowed, ligaments stretched, joints creaked-and suddenly my right hand slipped free. But I'd run out of time.

"Die!" Fournier shouted in English, and went up on his toes to drive the knife into Garth's chest.

Incredibly, it looked like Mongo the Magnificent was going to slip from the jaws of death one more time, escaping even this second encounter with Guy Fournier, and indeed killing at least one of the people primarily responsible for Moby Dickens' death.

Mongo the Magnificent was not impressed.

The professor was in a killing frenzy, intoxicated with his voodoo rites and sexual pathology. It would only take me a few seconds to unbuckle the straps from my ankles and left wrist, and I was sure Guy Fournier was planning to dawdle much longer than that with the business of plunging the knife home into Garth's chest, and then carving out his heart. Fournier would be dead, his neck broken, long before he finished the job. But Garth would be dead too. Not that his sacrifice wouldn't have been worthwhile. If I survived, there was still a chance I could prevent the assassinations of the president and vice president and the hijacking of the country. With what I now knew and with Fournier's corpse in tow, along with any other evidence I might find in this place, it was even possible I could take it over the top and put lots of CIA people, if not their whole apparatus, out of business permanently. With both of us dead, however, Fournier and his CIA handlers would just keep on truckin', possibly for a very long time, in a fascist America under the stewardship of President William P. Kranes. Garth's loss of life would not only serve to save mine, but also, in all likelihood, that of the United States of America. The stakes were astronomical, and so using Garth's death to save myself, kill Fournier, and put an end to all the impending brand of insanity seemed the only sane thing to do.

But Mongo the Magnificent was still not moved by the logic of his thinking. Not long before, when I had been about to throw Moby Dickens out of my office, Garth had reminded me of the things that were meaningful, and I didn't need another reminder. I found that the prospect of survival, or of William P. Kranes becoming president, or the CIA prevailing, or the prospect of a fascist America, no longer interested me at all. What was important was that I hadn't had a chance to say good-bye to my brother.

"Hey, shithead!" I shouted, reaching across my body with my free hand, grabbing a fistful of yellow robe, and yanking hard just as Fournier started to plunge the knife downward. "You've got a loose dwarf back here!"

My yank had thrown Fournier off balance and thrown off his aim. The knife blade missed Garth and glanced off the edge of the marble tabletop. At least I had the satisfaction of giving the Haitian a good scare, because he must have jumped at least a foot in the air as he uttered a high-pitched sound that sounded like the yip of a small dog. When he came back down to earth he spun around, and his eyes went wide and his mouth dropped open when he saw me clawing frantically with my free right hand at the buckle of the strap on my left wrist. I ceased my token effort and lay back down on the cold marble when Fournier pressed the knife to my throat.

"Mongo!"

"Just wanted to say good-bye, Garth! I love you, and it's been a hell of a ride!"

"Cut him and you die, sir! If that hand with the knife so much as twitches, I'll blow you in two!"

Wooaa. My heart skipped a beat or three, squeezed by both astonishment and hope. I could feel warm blood trickling down my neck, but my throat wasn't slashed, because I was still breathing through my nose and mouth as opposed to spraying blood all over the ceiling. The pressure of the sharp steel on my flesh eased somewhat, and then the knife moved away a few inches to where I could see it. I turned slightly, craned my neck a little to look behind me to where the voice had come from, and saw. . Francisco. He looked very pale, but his hands were steady. The shiny, new double-barreled shotgun he was aiming at Guy Fournier's chest still had the price tag dangling from the trigger guard.

"Francisco!" I said, giggling hysterically. "I hope you don't think that working late like this means I'm going to pay you overtime!"

"You promoted me to associate investigator, sir. I assumed that meant I was no longer working on the clock, so I couldn't qualify for overtime any more."

Garth said, "Mongo, you promoted this employee to associate investigator without consulting me?"

"Hey, I'm the senior partner, remember? Besides, the promotion was only temporary."

"Well, I suggest we make the promotion permanent."

"Agreed. Francisco, your promotion to associate investigator is now officially permanent."

"Thank you, sir."

"You're welcome. You've earned it. Now shoot this son of a bitch, will you?"

Fournier, who'd suffered his second severe shock in less than a minute, didn't seem to know quite what to make of our business discussion, although he was clearly not amused by it. Still, the expression on his triangular face was almost comical. He kept blinking very rapidly, as if in disbelief, and his thin lips were again pressed together so tightly that white, bloodless lines had appeared at the corners of his mouth. His bright, expressive eyes swam with both rage and confusion as he abruptly pressed the blade back against my jugular and moved closer to me to where he was almost lying across my chest. "Drop that gun, Francisco," he said, his deep voice quavering ever so slightly. "If you don't, this man dies right now. I'll slice his head right off."

"Then you'll die too. I'll give you both barrels right in the gut."

Francisco's tone was perfectly even, steadier than Fournier's. I was impressed. I said, "Just shoot him, Francisco."

"I can't do that without risk of hitting you, sir. The shells are loaded with buckshot. I don't know much about guns, and I didn't want to take a chance on missing the target if I did have to shoot."

"If you'll pardon the expression, Francisco, I can live with that risk. He won't back off because he has everything to lose, and we can't hang around here all night. That's what he wants. He knows that the longer you stand there holding that big gun, the heavier it's going to start to feel. The muscles in your hands and arms will begin to cramp. He figures that sooner or later you'll lose your aim or drop your guard. Then he'll slit my throat and try to duck away behind the tables. So drop the bastard now while you've got the chance, before your muscles start to get sore. I'm your boss, and I'm ordering you to stop worrying about me and pull the fucking trigger."

"Belay that order, Francisco," my brother said quietly.

"You didn't have to tell me that, Garth," Francisco said dryly. "Now that I'm a permanent associate investigator, I have to make critical decisions like that myself."

I watched Fournier's Adam's apple bob up and down. "He's as insane as the two of you," he said in a strained whisper.

I grunted. "Must be something in the air at the brownstone."

"He makes clever remarks when you're about to die!"

"No, he makes clever remarks when you're about to die."

The pressure of the knife blade against my throat increased ever so slightly. "Make him put the gun down, Frederickson," he whispered hoarsely, his mouth close to my ear. "Otherwise, I'll slaughter you like a pig. If he does put the gun down, I'll leave here without hurting you."

"Go fuck yourself, Professor. First of all, you lie, and even if you weren't a liar I don't want you going anywhere. You're the voodoo master; you make him put the gun down. Cast a spell on him. If you were really a voodoo master instead of a weirdo who jerks off thinking about dead bodies, that's what you'd do. Go on, Fournier; voodoo him."

Fournier lifted his head away from my chest and stared down at me. Strange shadows moved in his midnight eyes, and his expression changed. I couldn't tell what he was thinking, but the razor edge of the knife blade remained pressed snugly against my carotid artery.

"Be careful, shithead," Garth said, chuckling. "Watch out for my brother. I'm telling you he's a silver-tongued devil. He can talk people into anything, and right now he's trying to talk you into getting yourself killed."

"Shit, Garth," I said. "There you go again, letting the cat out of the bag. You take all the fun out of things."

"I just like to see you fight fair, Mongo. You're the only sorcerer in this room, but this shithead doesn't realize it. I just thought he should be given fair warning of who he's up against."

"You're such a spoilsport."

"Fournier, I'm warning you that you'd better think twice before you do anything my brother suggests, because, even strapped to that table, he has more personal power and will than you've ever had, or will have. All you've got is a knife, a hard-on, and a line of bullshit. Let him into your head, and you're a goner."

"Spoilsport, spoilsport."

"So let's stop fucking around here, Fournier. As things now stand, two of us are going to die here tonight-Mongo, when you think the time is right and you suddenly cut his throat, and you when Francisco shows you what a mistake you've made and blows a hole through your chest. That will leave just Francisco and me to put an end to this assassination business and then spread the word that Dr.

Guy Fournier, renowned hero to millions of Haitians, was never more than a flunky murderer for the CIA and a corpse-fucker, and really stupid to boot. There's no point in killing my brother, because it means instant death for you. What's the point? Give it up. You'd have saved yourself all this extra aggravation if you'd just followed my brother's suggestion in the first place and surrendered. Like Mongo said, we'll see that you're safely tucked away somewhere. Just think of how much fun you'll have testifying before Congress and curling the toes of all those pompous, chickenshit politicians."

Somewhat to my surprise, the Haitian appeared to be giving it some thought. "It's too late to stop the assassinations," he said at last in a throaty whisper. "There won't be any congressional committees to testify to. They'll kill me."

I cleared my throat. "Oh, don't be such a pessimist, Professor. I think Garth has made some excellent points. The president and vice president may already be dead, but don't forget that William P. Kranes isn't going to remain in office very long once Garth and Francisco leave here and the whole story comes out. Maybe I won't talk you into killing yourself after all. Why don't we all just walk out of here together, and Garth and I will introduce you to some of our FBI acquaintances. Garth's right; they'll fall all over themselves when they hear the dirt you have to dish on the CIA. And we promise not to tell anyone you're just a silly old corpse-fucker. What do you say? Ollie Ollie in come free?"

He didn't have anything to say, at least not for some time. Finally he leaned close once again and whispered in my ear, "You and your brother make fun of me. You don't think it can be done, do you?"

"Uh … I don't think what can be done?"

Fournier, still keeping the knife blade pressed to my throat, straightened up and turned toward Francisco. "You're Roman Catholic, aren't you?"

"Yes," Francisco replied evenly.

Fournier very slowly reached across my body with his free hand, pressed my right arm back down on the marble, closed the leather strap around my bleeding wrist, and buckled it tightly. "Do you know that I'm a Roman Catholic priest, Francisco?" His voice was once again confident and steady, low and soothing.

"You were a priest. I don't think the Holy Father would approve of your activities."

"Once a priest, my son, always a priest. No matter what your reason, kill me and you'll burn forever in the fires of hell. You'll have committed a mortal sin in killing me, a sin made even more grievous by the fact that the man you murdered was a priest. There can be no forgiveness."

Incredibly, Guy Fournier-prodded by Garth's masterful, if off-the-wall, goading-seemed to be taking up my challenge to persuade Francisco to put down the shotgun.

"Watch out, Francisco," I said through clenched teeth, drawing in my chin as far as I could in an effort to ease the pressure of the knife blade on my carotid artery. "He's making a run at your head."

"I'm aware of that, sir."

"Shoot him, don't talk to him."

"Not yet, Francisco," Garth said softly. "He's still too close to Mongo."

"I know, Garth."

"Do you want to burn in hell, Francisco?"

"You're to drop the knife, release those restraints, and then move away from the tables. Then nobody has to die."

"You're also homosexual, aren't you?"

Francisco did not reply.

"That, too, is a mortal sin. But I can forgive you, Francisco. I can give you grace."

"I don't need your forgiveness, Mr. Fournier. My parish priest is homosexual."

"Which of these men do you love, Francisco?"

"Both of them, but not in the way you mean." Our new permanent associate investigator paused, then added wryly, "They're not my type."

"Sexually, you mean. Am I your type?"

"Are you propositioning me, Mr. Fournier?"

"I'm offering you the best sex you've ever had, Francisco, but also so much more than that." He paused, used his free hand to slowly raise his robe to expose his priapic condition, then continued, "I offer you forgiveness."

I said, "That's very droll, shithead. You call your dong 'Forgiveness'?"

He ignored me. He continued to stare hypnotically at Francisco, speaking in a tone that was reassuring and sensual. "I can give you orgasms, Francisco, but I also offer you more power and money than you can imagine. You can travel the world with me, and never have to worry about any physical, emotional, or sexual need ever again. The organization I'm part of will provide you with everything. I think you realize how powerful we are, because you've been helping your employers try to expose just a small part of our activities. Do you believe that I'm telling you the truth?"

"I'm aware that you work for a very powerful organization," Francisco replied in a flat tone.

"Good. I'm asking you to join me in that organization, be at my side. The price is betrayal of these men you love, but that's nothing compared to what you will gain. Betrayal is not only the price of power, but the very essence of power itself. I will replace them. You will love me, as I will love you. Just think about it for a moment. Think of what I am offering you. Help these men now, and they will only become more rich and famous-while your life will remain the same. Help me, and wealth and power will be yours."

Francisco said nothing.

"Francisco. .?"

"You have to be more specific, Mr. Fournier. I believe you can provide me with these things, but how do I know you will? How do I know I can trust you?"

Fournier abruptly dropped the hem of his robe, then glanced down at me. There was a smirk on his face and a gleam of triumph in his eyes. He took the knife away from my throat and dropped it on the floor, where it landed with a loud, metallic clatter. "I've dropped my knife, Francisco," he said softly. "Now you lower your shotgun. I will show you that you can trust me. I want to hold you in my arms, have you hold me. I will do things to you. Then you'll know."

Fournier moved out of my line of sight, his bare feet padding on the floor as he walked toward Francisco. I counted six steps before the deafening roar of both barrels of the shotgun being fired boomed in the chamber. Pieces of Guy Fournier splattered over me, and I screwed my eyes shut and spat. When I opened my eyes again I found an ashen-faced Francisco beside me reaching out with trembling hands to unfasten the leather strap buckled around my left wrist.

"I may be Roman Catholic and homosexual," he said in a low voice that now quavered with shock, "but I'm not stupid."

"Nicely done, Francisco," Garth said. "Very nicely done."

When my wrists were free, I sat up and began unbuckling the straps around my ankles as Francisco turned and started to attend to Garth. I asked, "How the hell did you find this place?"

"Information about it was on the computer diskette, sir. It was one of the first things the Slurper found and decrypted. Fournier kept an online diary, along with records of everything he did here-dates, names of victims, even photographs. He paid his rent and utility bills electronically, so there was an address listed, along with the combination to the electronic lock on the main entrance. Now I think he must have kept the diary and pictures for sexual purposes." He gagged slightly, turned his face away. "My God, I've murdered a man."

"It's called pest control, Francisco," I said, swinging my legs over the side of the table and rubbing my wrists and ankles as Garth, now free, did the same. "It's also called self-defense. A man like Fournier knows lots of ways to kill a man, and, if you hadn't shot him, he'd have broken your neck the second he was close enough to get his hands on you. Besides, he was threatening you with a knife."

"But he'd dropped the knife, sir. I shot him in cold blood."

"My blood was hot enough for both of us. Besides, I didn't see him drop the knife. Did you see him drop the knife, Garth?"

"I certainly did not," my brother replied in a firm tone. "You have to get used to being a hero, Francisco. How'd you know we were here?"

"I didn't. It was the only place I had to look."

"The last time we spoke, Mongo and I were on our way to Idaho."

"But you didn't check in like you were supposed to. The protocol, remember?"

"We were always forgetting to check in."

"This time was different. You were supposed to check in within forty-eight hours, and almost twice that much time had passed. I just knew you were in terrible trouble. I felt sick. I didn't know what to do. Then the Slurper decoded the diary and the references to this place in it, and I thought maybe you'd been brought here. I had to do something, and coming here was the only thing I could think of. I bought the shotgun and shells on the way."

"Bless you, child," Garth said, abruptly grabbing Francisco under the armpits, lifting him up off the floor and planting a loud, wet kiss on his forehead. "Mongo, I think our new permanent associate investigator has already earned a raise."

"I think he deserves profit-sharing."

"Agreed."

"Thank you," a thoroughly embarrassed Francisco said as Garth set him back down on the floor.

I said, "Speaking of protocol, Francisco, why didn't you call Veil? That was the first thing you were supposed to do if you thought we might be in trouble."

"Veil wasn't home. I couldn't wait; I had to get here as soon as possible."

"And not a half second too soon. What about the police?"

"I did call the police. They didn't take your disappearance seriously; they said the two of you were disappearing all the time, and the only people I should be worrying about were whoever you'd disappeared with. They said they were going to send a detective around to look at the photographs from Fournier's computer files, and then consider getting a search warrant for this place, but I couldn't wait for all that to happen."

"You do nice work, Francisco. Thank you."

"Thank you, sir."

"All right," I said to Garth as I hopped down off the table to the floor, "rest time is over. Fournier said the president and vice president were probably already dead, but that doesn't make it so. We've got to find our clothes and a phone, not necessarily in that order."