The Messiah Choice

6. A BRISK WALK IN THE WOODS

She was in the deep forest, the moon showing only slightly through the dense growth, yet she could see well enough. She was naked, and unadorned in any way, yet she did not realize this or think upon it. She did not, in the human sense, think at all; rather, she felt things, basic things, with an intensity she had never known before. There was caution, and fear as well of potential enemies, but there was, too, a sense of exhilaration, of being alive and one with the forest.

Sight, sound, and smell told her that the way was safe, and she got up and moved swiftly and expertly down the forest trail until it opened into a broad meadow with a big dark rock in its center. Once here, she knew, felt, that she was safe and protected.

One by one the others came as well, to run, and jump, and touch, and play with one another in the meadow that was brightly lit by the moon’s glow. They were of her own kind and she knew and loved them all, these sisters of the moonlight. They were wild beasts, sometimes on two legs, sometimes down on all fours, yet they were shaped like the others, Those Who Must Be Hidden From and Feared.

Sometimes they would scamper through the forest and reach the places where fruit trees grew. Then one or more would climb the trees as if it were an easy walk and not straight up and knock the fruit down for others to scramble for and stuff into their mouths. She always ate with them, yet no matter how much she ate it was never enough, never right. There was a hollow, empty hunger she did not understand, a craving left unfulfilled, but she lacked the reasoning ability to even guess what it could be.

And then, as the mists began to build up and the false dawn crept into the eastern sky, they scampered back into the woods, back to the safety of their own territorial places before the sun came up.

Angelique awoke to see bright sunlight creeping around the edges of the curtains, and she frowned, looked over at the clock, and saw that it was nearly time to get up. She did not feel like it, though; instead, she felt very tired, as if the dream had been real, and she quickly settled back into a deep, seemingly dreamless sleep.

In the following weeks, around the world, several small countries went to war with each other, the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. had two tense confrontations, the stock markets mostly were down, although not dramatically, and hordes of people in various major cities protested one thing or another. The business of the world went on, and even Sir Robert’s murder, its grisly and mysterious details rather well suppressed, faded from the public’s memory. There was still a bounty on the first new pictures and interview with Angelique, now one of the richest women in the world if not the richest, and there were the usual messages from the top network interviewers in the U.S., Canada, Britain, and France—as well as a host of hustlers and entrepreneurs—coming in, but on Allenby Island things seemed to lapse into calm and insulated peace.

A small squad of expert workmen and technicians managed, in a very short time, to combine the VIP quarters with Sir Robert’s old suite and remodel and remake it into a complex designed to deal with Angelique’s physical problems, and to house the new staff while also redecorating to the new owner’s tastes. Such things as lights, full or individual, as well as a satellite-fed television receiver, radio, and stereo gear, could be controlled by her voice in much the same way as she controlled her chair. Any dark corners could be instantly flooded with light at a single command. As with her chair, she kept the commands basically to one or two words in basic French, since English was the usual language of the Institute. It kept her from inadvertently giving orders when having a general conversation.

The staff brought in by the Institute was excellent, at least so far. The shift work, or on-call maid and orderly services, was performed by two Haitian sisters, identical twins, actually, named Marie and Margarete, both seventeen and both illiterate, with virtually no schooling. They were, however, friendly, attentive girls who didn’t mind the really dirty work and loved the luxury. The third shift was given to eighteen year old Juanita Hernandez, a half-Indian beauty from Venezuela, who was barely literate but made do in English. The twins also made do in English; their native French was such an odd amalgam of dialects and new and old tongues that it was virtually unintelligible to her.

Added to this was Alice Cowan, a nineteen year old Jamaican who was not merely literate but a very fast reader and a capable personal secretary. She was quite tall and very thin, with straight black hair and a light brown complexion, and while she seemed a bit more reserved than the others, she was no less anxious to please and seemed genuinely glad to have the job.

Greg lived in a small apartment down in the village, where he was among friends and felt most comfortable. Angelique had remained in and around the Institute, partly because helping redo the quarters gave her something creative to occupy her mind and also because Greg was a daily visitor.

They had almost literally taken apart and put back together her father’s old suite, then moved her into it while they remade her own. Her opinion of Greg had risen, rather than diminished as some in the Institute had hoped, during these times, heightened by a sense of mystery about just what he was doing. Staff people and even Sister Maria had gently pumped her, apparently also out of curiosity, but she could tell them very little. Convinced that he was constantly being monitored, he discussed almost nothing and used unknown means to get his information in and his reports out. It was not even clear, in fact, exactly to whom he was reporting.

Finally, though, she prevailed on him to take her down to the village, and he gave her the grand tour and some of the island’s history.

“Nobody really knows who discovered it, but the Spanish first chartered it, and the British took it from them. It didn’t really matter. Just one of the hundreds of little flyspeck islands north of Trinidad and Tobago.”

“No one lived here, then?”

“Nope. And a number of the islands you see from the mountaintop from here still have nobody on them, except maybe a lonely lighthouse keeper or something like that. The water’s in the wrong places, the thing is hell on agriculture, although with modern methods that cost more than they’re worth we’re able to grow some of the fresh fruit and vegetables up to the west of the Institute, and the lone harbor is shallow and narrow, with underwater rocks and reefs, and cost a fortune just to create the small channel that allows our twice weekly supply ship to come in at all. It just wasn’t worth any trouble.”

“Then—all of this is my father’s doing?”

“Not quite,” he told her. “The Royal Geographic Society kept a research station going near the summit off and on until the 1890s, mostly to keep some British presence here just in case somebody else wanted it. Then, in 1894, the government sold the entire island to Lord Carfax, one of those crusty rich eccentrics they used to have in those days. He built the place as a winter resort and getaway for his own use and the use of his friends. He’s the one who built the town in a miniature replica of a Tudor village. The staff was enormous, and was brought in from British holdings and Britain itself. Some of the families here are descended from those earliest servants and workers for the old Lord.”

“Then—it has been a resort all this time?”

“Oh, no. Not since World War II, really, but some of the people had been born and raised here and they stuck it out, pretty much forgotten in the backwaters of things. The old manor house, with its tennis courts and such, burned down in forty-two, I think, and its remains are mostly overgrown now.”

“But—what did the people do during all that time?”

“Fished, mostly. Applied for every British grant they could. Took the dole. They had housing, the Lord’s old water system, bounty from the sea and a little bit of land they farmed for their own consumption. Had a few cows and sheep. It wasn’t much—outdoor plumbing that worked half the time, no electricity, no conveniences, but the old timers maintain they were happy times, often likening the period to paradise. Britain tried to give it to Trinidad and Tobago or even Guyana in the sixties, and they successfully fought that, but finally the mother country just gave up and outright pulled out and gave them to the tiny nation they don’t like and don’t feel a part of. They look upon your father as something of a savior—saving the British from the savages, as it were. The price, though, was steep—they all became Magellan employees and workers at the Institute.”

They were, however, a friendly bunch in their own little town, far, it seemed to them, from the colossus looming high above them. They reminded Angelique very much of the small-town folk of the Gaspe in spite of their far different cultural origins. And these were the folk that made it all work; who unloaded the twice-weekly supply ships and got the food and other materials up the mountain to the Institute, who repaired and drove the carts, who did the cooking, picked up the trash, and threw out the garbage, buffed the floors of the Lodge and Institute buildings, and did all the rest of the routine things that made the Institute possible at all.

For Greg MacDonald, it had been a time of frustrations and changes. He found himself thinking of Angelique now only as a friend and companion and, without really being aware of it, he no longer even thought about the wheelchair and her disabilities. Not that he ignored them—that was impossible—but he now simply took them for granted. There was something about her own spirit, her own unwillingness to let her paralysis destroy her or even limit her more than it absolutely had to that he respected. He didn’t regard her as a nuisance or a hindrance, although he’d started out thinking that might be the case, and he actually found himself looking forward to her coming down, and missing her when she wasn’t around. He felt quite guilty that her total dependency seemed to turn him on, but if he didn’t know how idiotic it was he could almost swear he was falling in love with her.

He was frustrated, too, that he could tell her so very little of what he was up to and what he’d already pieced together. On Allenby, it wasn’t paranoia to believe that every single word you spoke was recorded in some security outpost.

They went down the beach, listening to the birds and the crash of the surf, he walking, she riding, he occasionally having to push to get her unstuck from the sand. Finally, they stopped, ironically not far from where her father had died, although within sight of the tiny church. It was late in the day, and they had spent the afternoon looking over merchandise sold by the crewmembers of the small supply steamer as a sideline. Most of it was probably stolen, but some if it was quality stuff and nobody on their route, including Allenby, was likely to have the authority to make arrests and make them stick.

“You look a little worried,” she noted.

“Huh? Sorry. Yeah, got to stop thinking so much.”

“Problems? Is the Institute bothering you again?”

“No,” he assured her, “that’s all been damped down, at least for now. It’s just that something was supposed to come in with the steamer today that I’ve been expecting for some time now and it just wasn’t there.”

“Something to do with your case?”

He nodded. “Yes. A crazy hunch, if you want to call it that, triggered by what Dobbs told you. Never mind for now. What about you? You’re looking more and more tired and drained. You nodded off on me a few times this afternoon. Maybe you should go back and get some rest.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know what is wrong with me. I am sleeping more and longer than I ever have, yet I feel very tired, as if I sleep very little.”

“The dreams again?”

“Yes, I suppose, but how can a dream tire you so?”

“Depends. The mind can do funny things. Have you talked to the doctor about it?”

“Oh, yes, many times. She gives me pills or portions, but they do no real good. She says that the dreams are a textbook set, for all the time I am whole and running free in the primeval woods. They are not bad dreams, just strange ones, but every time I go to sleep and have another I feel there is a wrongness to it, that the nightmare it is just around the corner. I am a bit frightened by it.”

He looked seriously at her. “Well, you’ve been through a lot lately. Still, I’m not sure this place is good for you. You should go to some south seas island, or at least Montreal, and just get away from anything having to do with Magellan or this place for a while.”

She shook her head slowly from side to side. “I—I can not. What I fear here is nothing compared to that which I fear beyond here. I could not go out there, into the real world, without some sort of anchor, and the only anchor I have, the only friend, is right here with me.”

He just stared at her for a moment, not really comprehending.

“Greg—you will pardon me, but I really don’t know how this is done—will you… kiss me? Even if you don’t mean it and don’t really want to? Just for me?”

Pity welled up in him, along with other feelings he didn’t quite understand, but he knew what he had to do. He leaned over her and said, softly, “I’ll give you the kiss of your life.”

He had always been a very good kisser, and he had to repress the urge to do more, but the awkward angle he was forced by the chair’s presence to take was a constant reminder that she could feel no where else.

He broke it off when his back and arm couldn’t stand the strain of supporting him any longer, and he saw that she was crying.

For himself, he had very mixed emotions about the episode, but he was certainly uncomfortable. Although he’d known that she had a crush of sorts on him, up to now it had been a purely non-physical thing, and, therefore, somewhat abstract. Now, he knew, it could get more than a little awkward for all concerned, and he had enough on his mind as it was. When a cop got emotionally involved in a case, even unwillingly, he lost his objectivity and was more prone to take risks and make mistakes. This was a game in which risks and mistakes were what he couldn’t afford. The other side held most of the cards, and he had no large force or laws to back him up.

For Angelique, it was the fulfillment of a fantasy. Still very much an adolescent emotionally and desperately in need of a close companion, the father figure of the psychiatric report, she had seized upon MacDonald from the start. What was strangest and most wonderful during the kiss, though, was that she was sure she felt various other parts of her body tingle and glow as well. She wanted to shout out that she loved him, wanted him, would do anything for him, but she was afraid that she might drive him away. She had nothing really to offer him except money, and he had never shown much liking for it in large amounts. His file had said he’d been a lifelong member of the socialist New Democratic Party back in B.C.

And, of course, that was one of his attractions, at least in reassurance terms. She knew full well she’d never lack for suitors, but he was the only one that she could count on from the start not to be thinking first of the dollar signs.

So she said, “Thank you, Greg. It meant a great deal to me.”

“No, no! Any time you like! It’s in my job description. Kiss any and all beautiful women who ask me.”

She chuckled. “And am I beautiful?”

“You bet you are,” he answered playfully. “But now I think we ought to get you home.”

“Red can run me up with the dusk patrol.”

“Oh, no. I’ll run you home. We can always get a cart— they’re moving stuff up from the ship all evening. Uh—by the way, are you going to tell me about how you got all scratched up or not?”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“You’ve got little scratches on your arms, ankles, and even one up there just on the side of your face. I noticed them as soon as we met but I figured you’d tell me about them.”

She shook her head in puzzlement. “I—I did not even know of them.” She looked down at her arms, held on the arms of the chair by small, loose straps. “I can not see. Undo one and hold it up.”

He unbuckled a strap and did so, turning the arm slightly and carefully so he wouldn’t hurt anything. The scratches were there—thin, random, and small, but deep enough and old enough to have formed scabs.

“Bruises I am used to—you get them all the time like this and never really know. But these—these look deep enough that I should have at least known when they happened. You say they are also on my neck?”

“Yes—there, on the left side.”

“Funny. I have had an itch there off and on today, but I did not pay much attention to it. I shall have Sister Maria take a look at them when I get back.”

“I think you should.” He didn’t know why they disturbed him—they certainly weren’t anything serious—but their mere existence troubled him. If he’d blocked it out before, he now had no doubts that he was the principal reason that she remained on the island. He resolved that if any of his strong suspicions and hunches could be independently confirmed he’d get her off this place, even if he had to physically carry her.

And then, one night, another came to the meadow, one not like them, yet not like the Others, either. Dark he was, darker than the darkest night, yet even as he sat there upon the glassy rock no features could be determined. It was not a man, but the shadow of a man, yet it moved, and had depth and a form that was like something solid and real.

And they feared him, far more than they feared the Others, for he radiated power and fear and his confidence was absolute, yet such was that power, so hypnotic, so magnetic, that they were held, transfixed, and could not flee.

And he played for them tunes on a pipe, and the naked girl-apes danced for him and around him, a wild, frenzied dance that aroused in them all their most primal emotions, and gave within them a sense of power that overwhelmed their fear and intensified that hunger they had felt but never understood or filled.

And when their dancing had reached a fever pitch, he stopped and pointed, and they were off, no longer playful things but a wild, frenzied pack seeking a release they did not understand. They came to a road and waited, hidden in the trees and bushes, their eyes glazed, mouths foaming, waiting, waiting…

And, soon, there came footsteps along the road, and they saw that it was one of the Others, a small man with a balding head and slight goatee, dressed casually in shirt and shorts and sandals. He walked very confidently and seemed unaware that they were there.

As one they leaped out and were upon him in seconds, and he was pushed to the ground and his throat was slashed by nailed hands and biting teeth. He was dead very quickly, but they did not stop, his blood flowing warm and inviting, and they tore at the corpse and drank the blood and ate of the flesh and it filled their insane hunger.

There was a thunderclap which startled them, and then it began to rain quite heavily, drenching them all. From down the road they could hear the sound of one of the Whining Monsters, and they broke off and dragged the corpse with them, back into the woods, back along the trail in the now-driving rain, back to the meadow where the Dark Man waited.

Lightning flashed as they reached the meadow, illuminating the scene briefly as if it were day, yet the Dark Man remained the darkest black of shadows. He stood there, laughing, and gestured, and they placed the corpse on the stone, and they howled their joy and triumph over the Others and danced again around the stone with its grisly burden, danced in the mud and the lightning and the rain…

“Señorita Angel, Señorita Angel, wake up, por favor!”

She groaned and managed to open her eyes and blearily see the face and form of Juanita Hernandez standing there, holding a tray.

“Go away, Juanita, please,” she managed, barely getting the words out. Her throat was sore and she was sure she was coming down with something.

“But, Señorita, it is well past noon. It is not good for you to sleep all the day. If you wake up I will feed you some breakfast.”

She groaned again. “No, nothing, please. Just some coffee to help me wake up. I’m not at all hungry.”

They were on the small fishing pier in the village, just watching the sea birds and watching the ocean. It was a rough surf, thanks to the storm the previous night, and that made it dramatic, plumes of waves sometimes striking the pier, rising up and threatening to get them drenched.

She had not been able to get the nightmare out of her mind. “It was a horrible dream, the nightmare that I felt was coming.”

“You told nobody else about it?” MacDonald asked her, concerned.

“No. I had enough with psychologists at the Center. They would say that my fears and insecurities were causing it, that my frustration at this handicap was coming out in that wild experience, and that killing the man was in some way the resentment against my father expressing itself. But the man was a total stranger! I can see him now, describe him.”

He frowned. “Go ahead. Describe him to me.”

“But it was just a nightmare.”

“That’s all right. Real people show up in dreams all the time. Go ahead.”

She did so, hesitantly, not wanting to remember too much. Is it—somebody real?”

“I think so. It sounds a lot like Jureau. He’s the NATO security representative here—a Belgian. Even more unpleasant than Ross, but you don’t see much of him.”

“Then I have met him?”

“You must have, although I didn’t know he was back, or even if he was coming back. He’s been in Brussels since shortly after your father’s death. He’s a stiff-necked by-the-book martinet that nobody likes.”

“Greg—you will see this Jureau? Find out if he is actually here, yes? Find out if…”

He stared at her in disbelief. “If what?”

“If—he is—still—alive.”

He sighed in disgust. “Come on! You’re not starting to believe this, are you? That somehow you’re turned into a beast-girl every night and go out with the other beast-girls to prowl?”

“I—I don’t know what to believe any more. When you consider my father, the way in which he died, what is impossible here? Don’t you see? If you see him, talk to him, it will disprove it!”

“All right, all right. I have to go up to the helipad this evening and meet the chopper coming in anyway. Just don’t go spooky on me. That’s how these cults, these superstitions of fear, get you. If you start believing in it, they got you.”

“And that is what this is? Some kind of devil cult?”

“I didn’t say that, but now that you’ve asked, that is involved in all this.”

“And if this Jureau is dead, what then?”

“He’s not. If he were dead, or even missing for more than five minutes, there would be a hue and cry around here not seen since your father’s death. But even if he was, it wouldn’t mean anything. There are all sort of drugs and hallucinogens that can be slipped into food without anybody knowing and would have you believing the sky is pale yellow and horses rule the world. You’re particularly vulnerable to that sort of thing, remember, and your money and power are real tempting targets. I think it’s time you got away from here. I think maybe it’s time I did, too.”

“Go? Where?”

“There’s a little coastal fishing town on Bessel Island about forty miles due west of here. It’s still in the country, but pretty remote. An American friend of mine named Art Cadell has a place there. Not much, but it’s a little white stucco cottage facing the sea with a very nice beach. My hands have been tied here, and I’m thinking of moving over there to get a little breathing room. No bugs that aren’t alive and a little freedom to ask questions without Big Brother listening in. We could use that while we make arrangements for a more civilized move, maybe to your father’s place on Puget Sound, which I understand is pretty nice. I could arrange for security for you, and then see a few folks I have to see in person to ask a few more questions.”

She stared at him. “Greg—do you know who killed my father?”

“I think so. I’ve known for some time. The trouble is, I need confirmation of my suspicions and fragments of information to do anything, and even then it’ll be hell to prove or even act. In the meantime, I don’t want you falling under their control.”

He stood up and gestured back at the mountain, partly shrouded in mist. “Come on,” he said as lightly as he could. “Let’s get you home for now.” But not home for long, he added to himself.

He couldn’t contact Jureau. In fact, the security boys were adamant that the Belgian had never returned from Brussels and was off on a new assignment somewhere. They didn’t know where, and didn’t care, as long as it wasn’t here.

That bothered him more than any stalling or lame excuses. If Jureau had never returned, then Angelique could not ever have seen him. And if she’d never seen him, how could she describe him so correctly, down to a silly outfit MacDonald knew the Belgian favored?

The hell with the renovations, he decided. No matter what did or did not come in on the chopper tonight, he was getting her out of here as soon as possible. He had the place for a getaway, and he had the means, the first time her crush on him would come in handy. He was going. If she wished, she could come with him. If not, she might be here alone and never see him again. He was pretty sure she’d move, only he wanted it to be as sudden as possible. No company helicopters, which were fast but which couldn’t be set up on short notice without tipping his hand. No, in two more days the ship was due back, and it would go from here to Port of Spain, from which transportation would be far more easily, and quietly, arranged.

For now, he could do nothing but go down to the Institute’s helipad and wait for the executive chopper to come in and hope that what he was waiting for was on board.

Greg MacDonald used company couriers checked out and approved by his bosses for much of his information-gathering work. His biggest frustration, and largest stumbling block, in the investigation was his inability to use the vast telecommunications power the island represented, nor any means that could be sensed by that network. No matter what else he knew or didn’t know, he was certain that anything done through computer or telecommunication lines at any point would, if traced to him, make its way to his quarry through SAINT.

He was in the unique position of being the very real leader of a large investigative team and also the decoy and the bait. So long as he remained on Allenby, they felt reasonably safe and secure, for he was the enemy they knew.

The helicopter was due in at 20:45 Atlantic time, and the fact that it was now very late worried him. He had seen Angelique safely to her quarters, and now all he could do was cross his fingers and wait.

They told him that they’d had only spotty radio communications with the chopper almost since it had started out. The pilot reported something like a large electrical storm with buffeting winds and downdrafts all around, yet the weather report and their own weather radar indicated nothing at all. He had been unable to fly out of it or around it, and by 22:10 they were telling MacDonald that the helicopter had turned back for now. He was just about to give it up when he heard the Whomp! Whomp! Whomp! of rotor blades together with the whine of the turbine and saw the landing lights for the chopper just to the south.

“Man must be a damn fool or damned crazy to try it with what he was reportin’,” a ground crewman, who was also about to pack it up and leave, noted.

The helicopter seemed a bit wobbly, and as it landed, pretty hard and off the mark, they could see a trail of black smoke coming from the rear and could also see, in the spotlights, places where the aircraft’s paint seemed blistered or burnt.

The pilot cut the engines and went back to get his passengers off as fast as possible, as technicians raced forward with special fire gear. It didn’t take long for the pilot and passengers, both of them, to get off and away, but all seemed more than a little shaky. One of them, a slender, small woman in a loose-fitting dress, looked around, spotted MacDonald, and made her way shakily to him. She was carrying a small briefcase handcuffed to her wrist.

“Jesus!” she swore as she reached him, looking a little green and more than a little like she was about to throw up. “I don’t care what anybody’s payin’ me. I wait and take the boat back!”

“Rough trip, huh?”

“Rough ain’t the word! Lightning and swaying and everything horrible that anybody can imagine in a helicopter and then some! Only reason we made it was that lightning struck the interior electrical system knocking out most of his instruments and all his navigation. Somehow he managed to spot a landmark and made for here, since he knew how to get here blind easier than gettin’ back to someplace else. I tell ya, it was awful. Weird, too. Soon as we got close to the island here it cleared up like it wasn’t doin’ nothin’ at all. Stars, clear air, everything. Pilot managed to jury rig the landing lights. Only reason I ain’t throwin’ up on you is ’cause there ain’t nothin’ left!”

He reached over to the handcuffs, brought up her arm, and placed a thumb on a small metal plate in back of the cuff that was attached to her wrist. The cuff snapped open and he took the case. “I think maybe they wanted to stop this from getting to me,” he told her grimly. “As usual, they used a cannon to swat a fly and muffed it.”

She stared at him. “You mean somebody caused all that?”

He nodded. “I expected something of the sort when I found that Martinez hadn’t reboarded the ship when it left St. George’s.”

“He’s dead,” she told him. “They found his body in the hills. Carved up like a ripe melon from all reports. Ugly.” The idea, however, seemed far less unpleasant to her than the storm she’d just gone through. “Cops said it looked almost like a ritual murder.”

He nodded. “Well, I think you’ll be safe now. You were just brought in for this one trip and don’t know enough to make you a target. The ship’s just left, so you’re either here for three more days or you can take the trip back to Trinidad by chopper tomorrow. I know what your feelings are now, but I think you’ll find it much smoother going the other way.”

She looked dubiously back at the helicopter, its rear panel off, the technicians having stopped the fire now looking at the mess. “Well, maybe. Can’t give me a hint as to what this is about?”

“Sorry. You want to be safe—or dead?”

“Safe every time. But—what about you? Aren’t you a sitting duck now?”

“I doubt it. If they haven’t tried for me by this point, I doubt if they’ll do it now. There’s the tram for the Lodge. Take it with the pilot and the other passenger.’’

“Aren’t you coming?”

“No, I’ll catch one going downhill from here to the village. Say—what’s your name?”

She grinned, seeming to have fully recovered now. “Kristy. I’m from San Diego.”

“O.K., Kristy of San Diego, you just go up and relax. The doc up there will give you something for the stomach if you need it.”

“Thanks. You take care, now.”

“I will,” he called to her, then watched the tram leave. He knew that there would be a routine late tram from the Lodge in about half an hour, and he decided to wait for it. He didn’t want to go up to the Lodge with the contents of the briefcase unread and unstudied, and he didn’t feel like making his way back down the hill in the dark, even though it was an easy walk. If they could whip up that kind of reception for the chopper, how hard would it be to have somebody waiting for him with a good, stiff blackjack?

There were bright lights on at the helipad, four techs still working on the chopper, and there seemed no reason not to sit down at the edge of the pad and take a look now at what he had. He took his keyring out of his pocket, found one out of the perhaps twenty or so keys, stuck it in the lock, then opened the clasps. If you didn’t open them just so, a fairly loud alarm and a canister of tear gas went off, though he didn’t really think that was much of a deterrent.

Some of the files inside, though, were dynamite. He didn’t worry that they were mostly computer printouts; he knew that this had not been run through any computer connected up to a master system.

Old Reggie, for example, had quite an interesting background. Second son of the Earl of Halsey, who went broke during the sixties when Labour was attacking the old ancestral seats of wealth. Eaton, Oxford, all the best—but that was before. Older brother hanged himself in a London flat in ’76, attributed to depression and heavy drug use, particularly hallucinogens. Reggie theoretically inherited, but there hadn’t been much to inherit. In fact, by then he’d been a big wheel in mainframe computers and apparently he and his brother hadn’t been close. Reggie could have easily bailed out the family financially and covered his brother’s debts—indeed, he could have bought back the ancestral home from the American who had purchased it from the bank—but he hadn’t.

Reggie’s passion was computers—his knighthood, the only title he didn’t refuse or surrender—was for his work in helping set up the British intelligence computer network.

All this, of course, was known and easily available in SAINT’s own files. Also not new was the revelation that his brother had gotten rather strongly involved with a London-based cult, and that this cult seemed to be a bunch of devil worshippers. They did the drugs and the Black Mass and the ceremonies and were considered quite round the bend. They were also suspected in a number of grisly murders that had made the tabloids’ day off and on for a couple of years, but their link was never proven and they were never brought to trial. The identities of most of the members, however, were known to Scotland Yard and they were always under close watch, which seemed to have stopped the murder spree for the past few years.

What was new, however, was the discovery of some old records and the writings of some now dead cult members that indicated that Reggie was just as deep in it as his brother, and might, in fact, have gotten his brother involved as a public shill, masking Reggie’s own involvement and acting as his surrogate. The security boys at Cheltenham had thought Reggie might be involved in some sort of cult stuff, but because it was entirely British and seemed apolitical, and because he never attended any rites or got directly involved with them, and, also, because he knew they knew of his interests, and therefore was unlikely to be blackmailed over it, they let it pass.

There had also, in fact, been an inheritance from his brother. Tons, it seemed, of ancient and modern books and pamphlets on Satanism, devil cults, anthropological studies of worldwide religious beliefs and ceremonies, and all the rest. Where his brother, who’d made his living at the end as a London tour guide, got the money to accumulate such a massive library was unknown, but Reggie had accepted it and had himself seemed rather taken aback by the sheer volume of material. He had, however, had it moved up to his house and had reviewed and meticulously cataloged it. After three years, he’d turned it over to an auction house to be broken up and sold, the money going to various charities, and that had seemed the end of it.

Reggie, however, had been a co-developer of the fax system of input storage, the parent of the machines now in the library at the Lodge. One just used it like a copier, only instead of giving a print-out, it read data, changed it into digital form, and sent it to computer storage files. He’d had no less than six of them at the house during those three years, and all were connected to large mainframe computers. He had also, during that period, employed no less than a dozen people privately, almost all young men and women who passed security muster, some as gardeners and handymen, others as apprentice technicians.

It had taken weeks to get those names and vital statistics out of British work records, and to track down those people today. All had at one time or another either been connected with some typically British nut cult or another or had at least been patrons of occult bookstops and paraphernalia stores.

Then the shocker. All of them—to a one—now worked for Magellan, either directly or through a subsidiary. And five of them were now on Reggie’s staff at the Institute.

Where were the others? Seattle, Montreal, Kingston, Port au Prince, Caracas, Port of Spain… None were really high up, but all worked with computers and all had access to the corporate telecommunications network.

Old Reggie had been both patient and busy. He was the spider, sitting at the center of it all, removed and relaxed here on Allenby, Middle of Nowhere, Caribbean, but with today’s computers and satellites he was as good as in the center of London. Better, for he was insulated from outside pressures and prying eyes, and privy to whatever secrets were developed here on “his” computer. How large his network might be was unknown, but it was possible, suggested the report. that it could be in the hundreds, perhaps in the thousands, by now. The man who taught you how to play championship poker never told you quite everything he knew. The man who more than any other individual designed and created the latest two generations of super computers might not have told his bosses everything about his creations. Who would know? Who could tell?

Only, perhaps, the Japanese geniuses with whom Reggie had studied and upon whose pioneering, Nobel-winning work Reggie based his own creations. Even they might take years to discover the tricks their British protege had added to their creations, and both of his mentors were old men unlikely to either make the trip or undertake the effort—or survive the undertaking.

Reggie had never gotten the Nobel, mostly because he was quite deliberately anonymous to the world and his work almost entirely with national security systems, but there was no sign he ever resented the fact, partly because there was no question of his receiving one when sufficient time passed to make his work public enough to be recognized by his peers.

It was beginning to fit together very well indeed. Sir Robert’s interest in Satanism and the occult shortly before his death was only the final nail in the coffin.

All they lacked was any shred of proof that Reggie was doing anything at all improper. The problem was, he was quite obviously doing it through SAINT, and only through demonstrating that fact could anything be brought out. The classic catch twenty-two, as the Americans liked to say.

The only one who could nail Reggie with hard evidence was Reggie.

Just what could Reggie tap from his personal interface with SAINT? The answer was, almost anything. Virtually all of the sophisticated computer network maintained by the United States, Britain, Canada, and even NATO in Brussels was at least supervised by him or based upon his ideas and designs. He could not tap the nuclear fail-safe codes. That, thank God, was on a proprietary system isolated from anyone not directly in the chain. Outside of that, though, his power at the center was almost unlimited. World economics was at his mercy.

International banking and trade were too, no matter what codes of their own they used. Smaller, weaker nations in Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia were potentially his pawns. He could probably start wars, and stop them. And there were a million subtler things.

MacDonald recalled that someone once suggested that one could do in New York as effectively as dropping a nuclear device on it by simply turning all the traffic lights in the city green in all directions at the same time and cutting the power to the subways. The wrong weapons could be diverted to the wrong nations. Banks might cancel vital credits to companies while giving them to the wrong ones. Nations dependent on foreign shipments of grain or even pesticide might starve and be driven to desperate measures.

The possibilities for doing mischief were limitless, and the incredible thing was that, simply because of his manner and his background and breeding, no one before had put this all together and discovered how much of an omnipresent figure in today’s modern world Reggie had become.

Until, that is, Sir Robert McKenzie had somehow stumbled upon it. What had alerted him at the start would probably never be known. Reggie, perhaps, did something that Sir Robert discovered and traced back to him, perhaps. Whatever happened, Sir Robert had come to the same point that he, MacDonald, was at now. He had the facts but did not yet have anything concrete to act upon. Sacking Reggie wouldn’t have done much good. It was a sure bet that, no matter what they did with SAINT after he left, anyplace Reggie was with a telephone and a terminal and modem he could access the special files and special commands that were certainly buried there. At this stage, SAINT couldn’t be shut down without bringing Magellan and perhaps a lot more down with it, at least not right away. Sir Robert had sacrificed everything, even his daughter, to Magellan.

But, then, why knock off the old boy at all, let alone in such a spectacular way? Unless, of course, SAINT, aided by the massive files and profiles on practically everyone including Sir Robert, had concluded that it was either the old man or Reggie…

It certainly wasn’t anything MacDonald really knew, but he supposed, just supposed, that SAINT discovered evidence that Sir Robert had in the past played the ultimate hardball game. That, at least once, the old boy had taken out a contract and had someone in the way killed when he could remove the obstacle no other way? If so, to anticipate SAINT’s way of thinking, there would be but one logical conclusion. Either kill Sir Robert before he gets the chance to set up the hit, or be killed.

As simple, and as basic, as that.

But why kill him in such a showy and elaborate—not to mention risky—manner? A demonstration of power, a fear inducer—all these were part of it, but not the real cause.

A self-aware computer sees its maker in mortal danger. Could it, given its compulsory programs, act on its own? Might it choose a time and method for reasons very logical to it, but not to a human?

Greg MacDonald suddenly felt queasy. SAINT knew, or deduced, what these papers contained and the conclusions he would draw from them. It tried to stop their delivery by conventional means—arranging the murder of Martinez—and that didn’t work. It tried by somehow causing that terrible storm-like power to crash that helicopter, or at least turn it back, and it failed. And now he was sitting here in the shadow of the damned thing reading the material!

He quickly got up and turned around and saw that he was alone. He had been so deep in his thoughts that he hadn’t really noticed. The helicopter was still there, silent now, but everyone else had left for the Lodge. At that moment, somebody turned off the helipad’s lights and he was instantly plunged into near darkness. He felt uneasy, unnerved by it, although it was quite natural for the lights to go out when their use was no longer necessary.

There had been no sign of a tram going down to the village. He pressed the light stud on his watch and saw that it was long overdue. He’d been sitting there for close to an hour!

Slowly, his eyes grew accustomed to the dark, which was not total. The moon came out from behind the clouds, and up on the hill the lights of the Institute lit up the night sky. Even the road down was illuminated with small battery powered orange lanterns to guide night walkers and drivers.

A breeze rustled the tops of the trees nearby, and he was engulfed in the sounds of the night, the insects and other creatures of the dark. Far off he could even hear the distant pounding surf. Nothing was abnormal, nothing was out of the ordinary, except that the tram hadn’t come.

He debated going up to the Lodge, which was not very far although the climb was steep, but something prevented him from doing so. True, there were friends, even innocents, up there, but Reggie was there as well, and SAINT controlled everything from the lights to the air conditioning and saw and heard practically everything.

Better the village, where between a quarter and a half of the population was native or had been hired by Sir Robert directly and predated SAINT. The village itself was independent of the Institute in power and the like and its construction predated all of them.

Sir Robert, with far more light, had been trying to make the village, too. Well, the old boy had been lured to the meadow by something SAINT had printed out with his morning papers. There was no reason for Greg MacDonald not to stay on the road, and he’d walked it, day and night, hundreds of times.

He got up and started down the switchbacked road, walking at a moderate pace. He was scared and nervous, but he did not want to panic and do the job for them—if they intended to do a job at all. After all, he was as much a prisoner to SAINT and its crazy master as everyone else was.

The first switchback below the helipad took him out of sight of the Institute but within sight of the village that seemed so far away below. Then they both came into view again, and he stopped and stared, sensing a wrongness somehow and not being able to put his finger on it. Nerves? No, something else. It was quiet. Too quiet.

There were no insect sounds, no sound of breeze or surf. It was as if a cone of silence had descended upon him, out in the middle of nowhere, where it couldn’t possibly occur.

The moon ducked behind a cloud as he looked back at the Institute, and the hair on the back of his neck began to rise. He could clearly see the road leading all the way back up to the Lodge, outlined by the battery powered orange lanterns.

Now, one by one, those lanterns were going out.

And now there was a sound, in the distance but growing closer. It was a hollow sound that seemed to echo, the sound of some great feet coming down, marching in an unearthly cadence, as if hitting not the road but some great snare drum.

He began to walk faster. The pace behind him didn’t increase, but clearly it was progressing toward him quicker than he was moving, and he became painfully aware of just how many switchbacks there were in the road and just how close the turn up top was to the road turning back just beneath. What was the reach? Fifteen feet? Twenty feet? Could it survive jumping down between the switchbacks as it had so easily survived jumping from the cliffs to the beach, an even greater height?

Greg MacDonald started running.

He ran as fast and as hard as he could, but the thing kept coming on, coming faster although still at a deliberate pace. If it had any sense at all it would begin jumping to insure capture—or would it? Would it really care if it had to go into town or not to get him? He was running towards a harbor and town that was essentially a cul de sac. It had no need to hurry, for there was no place he could run.

He turned a corner and spotted not far below a lone man on horseback. For a moment he feared that they were coming at him to block him in, but then he realized that it was Red.

The chief constable stopped suddenly and his horse began to act up. He shook his head and tapped on his ear. as if wondering if he’d abruptly gone deaf. The horse grew more and more skittish, and he tried to calm and control the animal, and so he was still there when MacDonald rounded the switchback turn and practically ran into him.

“Red!” he shouted, breathing hard and feeling a little dizzy. “Red—get me down from here and fast! Whatever killed Sir Robert’s coming right down this road!”

Although the man was shouting, his voice was so muffled it was difficult to hear him, while the sudden sounds of the hollow footsteps of some great beast hit them both. The chief constable stared at him, then looked up at the Institute. Although the road lights seemed out up above and were progressively winking out below that as he watched, he could clearly see the Institute and something of the road in the moonlight. Clearly there was nothing there—nothing large, anyway.

“What the bloody hell is going on here?” he shouted at MacDonald.

“No time for explanations now! Let me get up on the horse with you and get us both back down. That thing’ll be here in another minute and a half!”

In the distance, through the eerie muffling of natural sound, the breathing of some great beast could be heard along with the footsteps. Red reached down and almost pulled the younger man up, then turned the horse and started back down as fast as he dared.

“But there’s nothing back there!” the old cop protested. “I can see there ain’t!”

“The damned thing’s invisible!” MacDonald told him. “That’s why it didn’t care about the beach in the daylight!”

Red didn’t much believe in invisible things, but he was too nervous to argue right now. “Where’ll we head? Surfs too rough to do us much good in the water, and I’ll let it get me before I’ll lure that fucker into town!”

MacDonald’s mind raced, trying to think. The decision had to be made in a matter of seconds. He peered forward and saw the steeple of the little chaple, removed from the town by about a hundred yards. Not much, but it was something.

“The church!” the younger man yelled. “It’s not much of a chance, but they’re devil worshippers, Red!”

They were there only a minute later, and both men jumped off as quickly as they could, then as Red pushed open the door to the church MacDonald looked back up the mountainside. Red was right—he saw exactly what he expected to see, except for the completely extinguished battery lights outlining the road. Still, he could hear the footsteps, very close now, and almost feel the hot breath on his face. He turned and followed Red into the church.

The lights didn’t work, but they managed to find a few things to pile up against the only door, including some of the back pews. The pews were all bolted to the floor but these had come loose years ago and nobody had ever gotten around to fixing them.

Red groped for MacDonald in the dark. “So now what do we do?”

“I wish I knew, Red. This may be it. You haven’t got a gun, have you?”

“ ’Course not. What the bloody good would it do against that anyway? Listen to it!”

It was clearly right outside now, and had stopped. They could hear its massive body rustle and the snort from its nostrils. They held their breaths and waited for what came next.

The creature or whatever it was seemed equally confused as to that question, almost as if, after confidently tracking its quarry without hurry or worry, it had suddenly and inexplicably lost the scent.

Suddenly the entire chapel shook and the windows rattled as it pounded on the walls, again and again, with tremendous force. The shock waves sent everything loose tumbling, and, after a while, the altar in the rear collapsed with a crash. They could hear the bell in the steeple above start to clang, but it was so muffled by whatever it was that surrounded the thing that it could barely be made out from within the church and certainly would not be heard by anyone in town, although that may have been all to the good. The pounding ceased for a moment, and they heard Red’s horse give a terrible, unnatural cry outside and then all was silent once more.

After a minute or so, the pounding resumed.

“Sweet Jesus, forgive me my sins and save our poor souls,” Red whispered quietly to himself as he crouched down in the center of the building.

MacDonald, crouching beside him, eyes now accustoming themselves to the greater darkness, huddled and looked around and hoped that nothing was above them that would come tumbling down and do the monster’s dirty work for it. The pounding went on and on, like a rhythmic earthquake, and both men wondered just how long it would be before the little building gave in to the brute force being applied to it.

Poor Angelique! MacDonald thought, resigned to fate. Who is left to save you from them now?