16
Ed Burleson was the first through the door left ajar by Con
nor Harrigan. Two more men followed, snapping the safeties
off their automatic weapons, and fanned out inside, directed
by a wave of Burleson's hand. Burleson, like Harrigan,
knew at a glance that the house was unoccupied. He touched
one man's shoulder and pointed to the sliding patio doors at
the far end of the living room. The man crossed and opened them, allowing Michael Biaggi and the man called Peterson
to enter.
Behind Burleson, in the driveway, Duncan Peck sensed it
too. He brushed off the restraining hand of an agent sta
tioned near the gate and walked slowly toward the door, dis
appointment keen on his face. Ed Burleson heard his
footsteps on the gravel and turned to intercept him.
“It's not safe yet, sir,” Burleson told him quietly.
“Our friend has flown the coop, I take it?”
“It would seem so, sir. The house looks abandoned, but I
suggest you wait until my men secure it. It could easily be
booby trapped.”
Peck allowed himself a sigh. “Your men couldn't secure this house if they had a week and a fleet of minesweepers to
do it. No offense, Edward, but I know this man.” Peck
walked past Burleson and through Sonnenberg's front door.
Peterson, with Biaggi following, was already on the sec
ond floor. The two moved quickly from room to room, open
ing doors and bursting through in a crouch, or trading hand
signals that argued over who would be the first to turn a
blind corner. Peck heard the stomping sounds above him and
the crack of a lock being kicked open. He winced at the
damage being done to so fine an example of Colonial archi
tecture. And as he winced, he was struck by the clear and
certain feeling that he was not alone in his reaction. Peck
folded his arms and let his eyes wander along the walls and
ceiling of the center hall. He smiled and raised a hand
toward Burleson.
“Clear them out, Edward,” he ordered.
“The search isn't completed, sir. Sonnenberg may have left some sign of where he's gone.”
Peck waved aside what he knew to be an idle hope. ”A message doubtless awaits us, Edward. We'll find it without
enriching the local plasterers and painters.”
“Well said, Duncan.” Sonnenberg's voice seemed to float
in front of them.
Burleson's gun barrel snapped up at the words and
trained on the ceiling. Peck patted his shoulder and gestured the weapon away. He pointed toward a smoke detection de
vice that seemed more than a bit overlarge and had a slit two
inches square cut into it.
”I take it, Dr. Sonnenberg, that we're to play hide-and-
seek for a while.” He spoke directly to the smoke detector.
“If that amuses you, Duncan. However, you may correctly
assume that I'm out of harm's way, even if my woodwork isn't. Please do as your master asked, Mr. Burleson. Send
away your various androids so my friend and I can chat.”
Burleson looked questioningly at Duncan Peck, who was busy scribbling a few lines on a piece of paper. This he tore off a pad and handed to Burleson. Burleson read it and, still doubtful, placed two fingers against his teeth and whistled.
Peterson appeared at the top of the stairs, followed by Biaggi, then two more from the kitchen and study. Burleson
huddled briefly with the four, brushing aside their questions,
and directed them to positions outside the doors they'd orig
inally entered. Biaggi left more reluctantly than the others. Burleson remained.
“This one is to stay, I take it?” Sonnenberg asked.
“If it's quite all right.”
“I'm delighted,” said Sonnenberg expansively. “Wel
come, Mr. Burleson. Your invited presence suggests either
that Mr. Peck would trust you with his life or that he fully
intends to take yours when all is said and done. I suspect the
latter. What was on the little note, by the way?”
Burleson folded his arms over his Uzi but offered no
other expression.
“Gentlemen don't read each other's mail, as they say,
Doctor,” Peck answered. “Obviously, however, it contained
instructions. What to do next, where else to look for you,
that sort of thing.”
“Well, if you'd asked, I'd have been more than happy to
give you a hint. But you've been rude, so I won't. And as for
this Dr. Sonnenberg business, you know perfectly well who
I am. Or was. Back then, at least. One of these telescanners, incidentally, is installed in my study. By all means choose a comfortable place to sit and we'll have a long and frank dis
cussion about old times and new. And I shall be frank, Dun
can. I shall even be Blount.”
Peck shook his head wearily and turned to Burleson.
“That was a pun, Edward. Blount. It's the man's name. He
was Ivor Blount when he worked for me.”
“I'll bet you're just breathless to hear the story, aren't
you, Edward?”
“Ivor—”
“Call me Marcus, Duncan. Less confusing.”
“Marcus, is there a point to this? Not that I mind listen
ing to your demented chitchat while my people search for
you, but what exactly do you expect me to contribute? You
hardly expect me to bare my innermost thoughts for the ben
efit of your recording devices.”
“Not a bit of it, Duncan. There are no such devices. My
word on it.” Unless we count Connor Harrigan's own
notepad, he thought, upon which he too is doubtless begin
ning to scribble downstairs. Sonnenberg decided he'd for
give himself the small lie of omission. “In any case, I won't
ask you to admit a thing. I do, however, have a surprise for
you in just a short while. Do you mind if I pass the time
telling Mr. Burleson a story or two?”
“Would this surprise involve a lethal device, old friend?”
Peck began to envision being blown up or electrocuted if he
sought comfort in the wrong chair.
“
Absolutely not!” Sonnenberg's voice seemed appalled at
the suggestion. “You're a guest in my home, Duncan. I in
tend merely to annoy you. But there will be compensation, I
promise, in the coin of useful and valuable information.”
Duncan Peck smiled. “We'll see who annoys whom,
Marcus.” Peck strolled toward the study as he spoke, decid
ing to take Sonnenberg at his word. Burleson followed and,
after Peck was seated, chose a lesser seat for himself.
“Where to begin?” The speaker in the hall clicked off and
another beneath the study's mantel clicked on. ”I suppose, Edward . . . May I call you Edward? Thank you. I suppose
the tale begins in 1944, Edward. Back when war could be
fun. Bond rallies, patriotic songs, winning—that sort of
thing. Spying, too, had a certain grandeur to it then. The es
pionage game attracted every sort of person. Patriots, hu
manists, swashbucklers, and most reliable of all, those who
did it for the money. This was before we learned to homog
enize our spies and turn earnest young Fordham and Georgetown graduates into sociopaths like yourself, Ed
ward.
“But I digress. Duncan here, and yours truly, were once
what a chronicler of the time described as the young lions.
We fought and dared. Dared mostly. My job, under Duncan,
was to train American agents for assignment to occupied
European countries. Others taught them how to spy, to kill
silently, to kidnap, and to otherwise make mischief. I taught them how not to get caught. I taught them how to blend with any populace and how to convincingly live whatever identity
they assumed. I could, immodestly perhaps, turn a shoe
salesman into a pastry chef or a yachtsman into a truck
driver. If I am boasting, Edward, it's not entirely without
cause. No one placed in my charge was ever caught, save
two women who were deliberately betrayed by Duncan here in order to have false information torn out of them through
their fingernails. It was then that I began to suspect that
Duncan's loyalties and personal ethics were less than
rigid
.”
Duncan Peck glanced at Burleson and shook his head
sadly. Burleson nodded that he understood the occasional need for reluctant ruthlessness. He understood further, his
e
yes said, what a trial it must have been for Peck to work
with such a pansy. Peck glanced out the window. Peterson was near the front gate now. He held a device with a large
circular antenna in one hand and a transceiver in the other.
A direction finder, Duncan Peck knew. Perhaps he would
not have to endure this very much longer. But long enough to fill in a gap or two.
“After the war ended,” Sonnenberg continued, ”I lingered
on, performing a similar service but in reverse. People who
were then in need of new identities included defectors, cer
tain witnesses, agents who'd committed capital crimes more
or less in the line of duty, and the like. Since the manage
ment of such an operation requires a certain indifference to
truth and convention, Duncan Peck was naturally put in
charge. The terribly secret Relocation Service was off and
running.
“As it grew, Duncan found it convenient to use more and
more of these people for his own ends. I mean, what's the
use of having a political assassin on hand if you're going to let him lie fallow? Or a skillful forger. Or an extortionist.
You understand this, don't you, Edward?
You see it as a per
fectly sensible alternative to leaving the power in the hands
of the flighty electorate. I, however, was one of the flighty
ones. I thought he was wrong and said so, even threatened to
make my views more broadly known. So here you see truth
and convention rearing their ugly heads again. Having heard
me voice such alien concepts, Duncan reasonably concluded
that I was deranged. From his point of view I probably was. It was not long afterward that others in government, includ
ing an honest man here and there, began to share his con
viction. In truth, I was a bit of an eccentric. My public
behavior became increasingly bizarre, thanks to certain con
trolled substances that found their way onto my luncheon plate whenever I dined with Duncan. In a matter of weeks, Duncan managed to do such violence to my credibility that
my every pronouncement was seen as the raving of a lunatic.
It remained only to put me where lunatics go. You're famil
iar with St. Elizabeths Hospital, Edward? It's where we en
tombed the poet Ezra Pound during the war. It seems that he
recognized a random good quality in Germans and Italians
before the rest of us were prepared to embrace a similar no
tion. Ezra was allowed to rant on for years, but in my case
that simply wouldn't do.
“Two attempts were made on my life. The first involved an accidental overdose of drugs, which failed only because
I'd learned by that time to palm half of every dosage as a
matter of course. As it was, the remaining quantity left me
in a coma for ten days. For the second attempt, I was slashed in the dead of night by a deranged inmate. I survived, as you
see, but my assailant was never identified. He was a portly
fellow, like myself, but with a bent nose, and he smelled of cheap cigars.
“Well, enough was enough. Feeling distinctly unwanted
by this time, I decided to leave. Christmas was fast ap
proaching. You remember Christmas, Edward. Good will
toward men, gaily wrapped gifts, a goose spitting in the
oven? No, I don't suppose you do. In any case, it was the one
time of the year when Duncan's security was somewhat re
laxed. I had several plans in mind. The best of a bad lot in
volved setting a fire in the common room and escaping in the smoke and confusion. They allowed us to work with paints for therapy, you see, and my ward contained no end
of combustible materials. A fire would get me off the floor,
but the gates outside were another matter. My salvation
came indirectly from Duncan here in the person of Santa
Claus himself.”
In the basement room, Connor Harrigan put down his
notepad at the sound of a grunt from Baker. He snatched up
the yellow dart he'd kept in readiness and rushed to the cot
where Baker lay. With the point of the dart against the mus
cle tissue of Baker's neck, Harrigan watched his eyes as he
stirred.
“Sorry, lad,” he said softly. “And I'll be sorrier still if you
blink and I see the beastie looking back at me.”
Baker filled his lungs and winced, his fingers moving tenderly against his jaw. Frowning, his eyes still closed, he
reached inside his mouth and probed a tooth that had
l
been
l
oosend. Harrigan relaxed and drew away the dart. The soft
green eyes opened. There were no tears.
“’
Twas for your own good, lad. You're no good to your daughter dead or in irons.”
Harrigan didn't see the blow coming either. Baker's fist
caught him high on the cheek and smashed him backward
against the Morris chair. Harrigan rolled and kicked, trying
to regain his legs, but they would not hold him. He covered
his face with his arms and waited for Baker's attack. None came. Cautiously, he peeked through his guard.
Baker was ignoring him. Baker for sure. He sat on the
edge of the cot, his head still clearing, focusing now on the
familiar voice coming over the small speaker. Harrigan
climbed onto the Morris chair and sat.
“Harrigan?” Baker asked, not looking at him, “you won't
hit me anymore, will you?”
Harrigan touched his eye. “Not if this is how I'm thanked
for it.”
“I'd appreciate it.”
Harrigan leaned forward. “There's an interesting tale
being told up there. How much of Sonnenberg's history do
you know?”
“Not much. Just what he told me. Probably none of it's
true.”
“Why don't we listen together now that we're friends
again. Do you have any notion of where Sonnenberg might
be lurking, by chance?”
“Probably on his boat. It's all rigged for this kind of stuff.
He's probably talking from the middle of Long Island
Sound.”
“If that's the most logical guess, I suspect that it's exactly where he isn't. Hush, lad. We're about to learn of his adven
tures with Santa Claus.”
“Sure enough,” Sonnenberg's voice was saying, “on Christ
mas Eve the jolly old elf appeared, distributing presents
from room to room. My Yuletide gift was a jar of Beluga caviar, Iranian, of course, which I presumed to be teeming
with botulism. That presumption was based largely on the
fact that Santa happened to be a portly fellow like myself
who had a bent nose and smelled of cheap cigars. We chat
ted for a while of the joys of the season, and he sampled
some fudge that I'd made in another of my therapy electives.
The fudge was double chocolate with walnuts and, I'm
afraid, most of my unused sedatives. Poor old Santa went to
sleep in the middle of a swallow. Then, not wishing to de
prive the other inmates of their Christmas goodies, I took up the baton, to say nothing of Santa's costume, and went about
distributing gifts until a fire alarm cut short my rounds. It
seems the portly fellow was smoking a cigar in a bed on
which he'd carelessly spilled a can of paint thinner. A dread
ful accident. Went up like a dried-out Christmas tree, they tell me. In my room. In my bed. The authorities could be
forgiven for assuming that poor old cracked Ivor Blount was
no more.
“But you ask, Edward, why no positive identification was
made. Dental work and the like. The answer is that Duncan
here was entirely convinced that his assassin had done his
work. Duncan had even come by St. Elizabeths to make sure
this time. How do I know? Because after a helpful orderly
escorted me to the courtyard and I approached the main
gate, whom to my wondrous eyes should appear but Duncan
Peck, his face fairly glowing with anticipation behind the rolled-down window of a car parked at the curb. He ques
tioned me with a look and I reassured him with a wave. He
then drove off with the peace of the season in his heart.
Sadly, his good humor lasted only a matter of a week or two, when it became clear that his bent-nosed Santa had vanished
like the Spirit of Christmas Past. How long, Duncan? How
long did you endure the nagging thought that something had
gone seriously askew? How many more Christmas Eves
went by without a visit from Santa before you gritted your teeth and exhumed your overdone assassin?”
Peck looked at his watch and made a show of yawning.
“Oh dear me, I'm boring you. But
it won't
be much
longer. How long can it take your men to triangulate these
radio signals? Indulge me, Duncan. It's been such a long
time.”
“I'm afraid you really are becoming tiresome, Ivor.”
“Marcus.”
“As you wish.” Duncan Peck pushed to his feet and wan
dered to the window facing front. Peterson was still in the
driveway, a radio at his ear. He saw Peck watching him and
signaled that he needed more time. Peck turned and faced
another smoke detector that was mounted above a corner
cabinet. “Your self-righteousness, Marcus, is tedious most
of all. You sit at what I presume to be a safe distance mock
ing me and mocking Mr. Burleson here. You mock men who
have purpose to their lives while you play at yours. You es
cape from a mental institution in which you assuredly be
longed and then for the next two decades you send me
Christmas cards signed ‘Santa’ with a little smiling face. It was a childish and arrogant act, Marcus. It was also the act
of a man who is really quite mad. Whether or not I later
chose to put you out of your misery, the papers committing you to that institution were entirely legitimate.”
“Hmmm,” the voice answered. “Duncan, I don't suppose
you see an ethical paradox in that last sentence? Never mind.
Perhaps we are a bit bonkers, both of us. I think I'll hold to
the view that my form of lunacy is more engaging than
yours. And a great deal more fun. You're quite right, Dun
can. I play at it. I've had wonderful times and I've done
some quite wonderful things with the human mind, as I hope
to demonstrate shortly. And it's all quite to the good. So many of my people are now so much more than they were
before. Your people invariably become less. Look at this pa
thetic robot, Burleson. You took a bright-eyed collegian and
did this to him. Show me the joy in his soul, Duncan. Show me the pleasure he finds in this lofty purpose of which you
boast.”
“Jared Baker is hardly a barrel of laughs, Marcus.”
“True enough,” Sonnenberg acknowledged. “Jared is
troubled. Jared is in turmoil. But the best evidence of Jared Baker's humanity is that he has the capacity for inner tur
moil. He'll sort it out with my help or without it. You can't have him, by the way.”
“We'll see about that, Marcus.”
“We will, Duncan. We will indeed.”
”I don't suppose you'd tell me whether there are more like him. Perhaps even how you plan to use these people
who are so much better than we are.”
“Don't mind at all,” Sonnenberg answered agreeably. ”I
gather the triangulation process isn't going very well.”
“We can't expect too much from robots, Marcus. What about the other Bakers. Do I assume there are more?”
“Nope. He's one of a kind. I have a near miss or two running around, but Baker is my first real success. As for
my master plan, the truth is that I really didn't have one
until you showed signs of mucking things up. Oh, granted I
had all sorts of schemes in mind from time to time. Real
mad-scientist stuff. A race of supermen and women. Gov
ernment within a government. An army of Jared Bakers. To
morrow the world, that sort of thing. But as you
perceptively suggested, I play at it. I have neither the heart
nor the low boredom threshold necessary for a sustained conspiracy. And in any case, my people have an irritating
way of thinking for themselves at inconvenient times, un
like your doomed innocent here. In my loonier states I sup
pose I've teetered on the brink of a Messiah or Napoleon
complex, but I really think I lack the power drive that would
have made me sally forth from my little Elba here.
Hmmph.” Sonnenberg chuckled. ”A pun leaps to mind.
Elba was I ere I saw Abel. Hmmph. That's really quite apt. Sorry, Duncan. Inside joke.”
Harrigan listened in fascination, his attention punctuated by
short periods of unreasonable fury that subsided before the
anger could express itself. Even Baker was listening intently
now, no less worried about Tanner Burke and Tina, but
calmed past the point where he would have rushed uselessly
and recklessly to find them.
“It sounds like the girl was right,” Harrigan whispered
appreciatively. “If you can believe Sonnenberg, all this time
he's just been bumbling along enjoying himself.” He mo
tioned toward the pins on Sonnenberg's map. “Is it possible
that all those people out there are sitting around waiting for
a signal that Sonnenberg doesn't ever mean to give? And why, by the way, is he letting me see where they are?”
“They're not Sonnenberg's people,” Baker answered.
“The pins are in the wrong places.”
Harrigan raised an eyebrow. “He wouldn't have gone to
that trouble just to mislead anyone who saw a map they wouldn't even know about. Why wouldn't he just take the
damned thing down? And what're those two pieces of crepe over Denver and Kansas City?”
“If you want a guess”—Baker shrugged—“I'd say
they're Peck's people. Sonnenberg wouldn't have much
trouble finding anyone Peck hid.”
”I know. He wrote the book. What about the crepe?”
Baker suspected but he did not know. For reasons he
wasn't sure about, he thought of Howard Twilley. Gifted, frustrated, angry Howard Twilley, who, Baker knew, was convinced that a purpose existed behind the talent Sonnen
berg had developed in him. A purpose he was eager to fulfill
and a talent he was impatient to use in a way more signifi
cant than in the suppression of bar-room troublemakers. It
would have been only a matter of time before Sonnenberg
could no longer contain him. In a way, Baker thought, Peck
might have solved a problem by becoming a nuisance when
he did.
”I think it might be the demonstration Sonnenberg men
tioned a few minutes ago. I think he means to teach Peck a
lesson.”
“How, lad?” Harrigan's brow darkened.
“Just listen.” Baker pointed to the speaker.