The Death Gods (A Shell Scott Mystery) (51 page)

“
As promised, I notified
the proper authorities, plus maybe some improper ones, of what you
discovered—part of what you discovered, specifically the
Vungers—immediately after your phone call to me on your way here.
As I mentioned to you, it was essential that certain actions be
initiated—such as dispatching a number of concerned citizens to
Omega—prior to such notification. Also, Sheldon, I did not desire
that uniformed enforces of law and order be galvanized into action
so prematurely, that they might find you, or your corpse, illegally
within the research facility.”

“
Thanks. But if I was a
corpse, wouldn’t I be relatively disinterested in—?”

“
I know you are concerned
about your friend, Dane Smith. And the whereabouts of Dr.
Wintersong and Mr. Belking. We all are. There are now nearly two
dozen of our people looking and searching for them, in appropriate
areas, so far without result. But I am confident—”

His phone rang. He grabbed
it quickly, listened, said something in rapid Spanish, hung
up.

“
Anything about Dane? I
asked.

He shook his head. “From
one of our people who just went to Omega. One of those who have
already left.”

“
Left?”

“
Ten men and two women who
successfully vanished in one of the trucks, along with considerable
valuable evidence, before the deputies—and police officers, I did
not know L.A. police would be there also—put in their appearance.
All the others are still at Omega, being arrested.”

“
In this particular, and
perhaps unusual circumstance, how do you define ‘evidence’? And how
many citizens did you send out there? I passed one truck going in
as I was driving the hell away from Omega, but—”

“
One was close to arriving
even as you were leaving.”

“
Yeah. But there were only
maybe twenty or thirty of them, some holding signs. I managed to
read part of one—I was going pretty fast—that said ‘End Cruel and
Useless’ something or other. Reminded me of Hank Hernandez, for
some reason.”

“
Yes. They were some of
us.”

“
Us. Hank, I think I just
had some kind of psychic vision, of me behind bars, in a
worse-than-useless dungeon, and you—”

“
Oh, yes. I expect we will
all be arrested. You, me, ninety or more at Omega,
plus—”

“
You expect? Expect? Do you
also expect we should just sit here, waiting like dummies for the
Army, Navy, Air Force and—”

“
We must wait here. This is
headquarters. And I do not expect...believe any indictments will be
issued until tomorrow—no, until the next day, Monday.”

“
Hank, I think we’re in
trouble.”

“
You, as you yourself might
say, Sheldon, do not know the one-half of it.”

“
If I don’t know the half
of it, maybe you’d better give me the other half. At least. And
now.”

“
Yes, it is time. Besides,
you are as ready as I can ever get you, plus you have seen Omega.”
He sighed. “And there is nothing more for us to do except wait.
Wait for the unfolding of what has been set in motion, for calls,
visitors, reports, whatever is to occur.”

“
Like the Army and Navy
and—”

“
Plus NASA, and most
dangerous of all, the deadly FDA. And also AMA. I will fully inform
you now, Sheldon. But first....”

“
Ah, I get it. You’ll tell
me all, but first, and then second, and then—”

“
No, no. It is only that I
am possessed by curiousness, and wish to dissolve it, them, before
I commence the informing of you with thoroughness.”

“
Okay. Get to
it.”

“
First did you truly, and
without difficulty—as you said, no problem—overpower all three of
those ruffians, leaving them bound and gagged,
helpless—”

“
Taped and gagged, Hank.
Well, yeah, it wasn’t really any...well, at the end it was no
problem.” I paused. “Look, all I left out was the non-essential
stuff. Like, well, I got the first guy to tape his own ankles, same
as with Kell, but when I started to tape that first guy’s hands,
the other creep hit me with something.”

“
Something? This other, he
was not bound and gagged?”

“
You can only do one of
these things at a time, Hank. No, he was not. Anyway, maybe he hit
me with a table. Or it might have been the TV set, although I did
keep hearing twanging after that. What happened, I had to kick the
bastard, then get up and knee him in the groin, and break his
collar bone, and hit him two or three times, and then I taped him
to a chair, finished doing the first guy and flopped them and their
chairs over sideways on the floor so they couldn’t even
hop...”

“
What is this
catabox?”

“
Cat box. Don’t you
understand plain Ingles? Actually, it was just a cardboard box, but
it had a cat in it—hell, still does. Precious is out in my Cad, in
the catabox.”

“
Precious?”

Of course, I had to tell
him the whole thing then. Hank was hugely excited by my report of
the four cat collars, and insisted I get them—and also bring in the
cat. “Give him to Eleanora for now, she will feed him if he’s
hungry.”

“
She. You ever hear of a
boy cat named Precious?”

“
I have not heard of a girl
cat named Precious.”

Well, he had me there. I
got my cardboard box from the Cad, and surrendered the four collars
to Hank. He immediately returned to his office and began making
phone calls, while I handed Precious to Eleanora, who smiled and
scrunched up her face and made female noises. A little of that goes
a long way with me, so I went back into the office, and sat in my
chair again.

Hank hung up the phone,
nodding slightly and saying, “Bueno, mucho bueno.” Then, looking
soberly at me, he said, “Now, the third of my curiousnesses. And
last. Tell me all, all about Rusty.”

CHAPTER
THIRTY-TWO

“
Hank,” I said, “I’ve
already told you most—”

“
Everything. The little
parts in the middle, all.”

“
Well, O.K. I was even
thinking when you get back the enlargements of those snapshots I
took, there’ll be a couple I took of Rusty’s...of Rusty. I was
thinking, maybe if I removed those two before you—”

“
No, Sheldon.” He spoke
quietly, but firmly. “We do not diminish ugliness by looking away,
pretending it is not there. We only allow it to grow, breeding more
of itself in darkness. I will see your photographs of Rusty, and I
wish to hear all. It is necessary.”

So I told him. All of it.
When I finished he was silent for a while, unmoving except for a
finger flicking one side of his gray mustache. Then he nodded once
briskly and said, “Thank you, Sheldon. I wish to assure you, in
ending Rusty’s torture, you did only what I would have wished you
to do. What I, too, would have done. And do not burden yourself,
ever, by thinking you took his life. His life was taken by
Wintersong. I will no longer use the honorable title, Doctor, with
his name.”

I didn’t say anything, but
I appreciated Hank’s comment, and the simple fact that he’d made
it, in an attempt to make me feel better.

None of what Hank was
undoubtedly feeling showed on the surface, however. After a few
seconds, he leaned forward, placing both arms on the desktop,
clasped his hands together, and gazed intently at me. “I begin” he
said, “Or, rather, I finish. Finish what I began with you yesterday
morning. All I told you then and since, plus all you have read in
the big folder I gave you is true. But it is only a small part of
the truth, like the first few letters of an alphabet.” He paused,
but added, “Call them new letters replacing those in what is now an
alphabet of death—as you will soon see, if you have not done so
already. I will, if there is time, inform you of much more, but
first I will tell you the full truth about POCUEH and our
determined plans, for you are entitled to this now.”

“
POCUEA?”

“
POCUEH.” He spelled it,
then waited, raising an eyebrow.

I mentally went back,
fumbled around. “Yeah, Physicians Opposed to...Cruel and
Useless...ah, Experiments on...H? H? What happened to Animals?
H...Humans? Humans?”

“
Hermosissimo! Beautiful,
Sheldon! Verdad, Humans is the H—you, me, us and everybody. But in
this larger POCUEH group, all nine thousand of us, the P stands for
People instead of Physicians. Only we have not publicized this—yet.
This will be one small part of the attack.”

“
Attack? Sounds like a
war.”

“
It is war. It is also or
will be when we succeed, Medical Armageddon. We, POCUEH, and
several organizations allied with us, with publicity and lawsuits
and truth intend to destroy the monopoly of allopathic medicine
utterly, convict the FDA and AMA of criminal conspiracy with the
pharmaceutical poisoners, expose life-destroying machinations of
NIH and CDC and ACS and WHO—“

“
Por favor, doc,” I said.
“That’s DOC. I may have missed some of the letters, but I think I
got the message. It sounded as if you people—”

“
Us people, or we—you are
included. Unless, which would sadden me, you desire to be excluded
out. In which case I can tell you no more.”

“
No, I desire to be
included in. Left in whatever—dammit, it sounds as if
you—we—actually think somebody can go up against the whole shebang
of organized medicine, stick it to the bug billionaires, have even
half a chance of changing the way people are treated
by—”

“
Whole chance. No half
measures.” Hank’s eyes, I would have sworn, were getting brighter,
almost luminous, and some of that “different” vibration had grrnggd
into his voice. “This is serious business—literally, life or death
business—and many of us are willing to die if necessary, but we are
not willing to lose. We will not lose, we must and will succeed. In
the end, we will prevent the forcible immunization of newborn
infants and vulnerable children, and any others who do not choose
to be vaccinated against every new disease invented by imbeciles;
we are determined to ensure the availability of alternative
non-allopathic non-drug modalities; and we will end finally and
absolutely the murderous forced medication of drinking water by the
viciously dishonest propagandists of fluoridation.

Hank slid his chair back,
stood up behind his desk and stretched, shoving his arms up
straight and then out and down. Then Hank arched an eyebrow,
glanced at me. “You understand I have available many sources.
Anyway, it will begin Monday, you will observe. The plan is to
speed up final approval of Wintersong’s IFAI vaccine, and—because
of the urgency, the danger, there will be much talk like this on
the news programs—urge Congress to pass laws ensuring that
everybody must be protected.”

Hank looked at his watch,
frowned, lifted his phone off its hook and dialed. Listened.
“Mande? Si, si, pero digame pronto cuando...Esta bien.” Hung
up.

Looking at me he shook his
head, lips pursed. Then he said, “Nothing for you or me. Jaime, to
whom I spoke now, has enlisted nearly two dozen more of us, for
watching and looking, plus one or two other things. So, we
wait.”

He stood up, stepped from
behind his desk and began pacing slowly. After a few seconds, he
stopped about six feet from me and said, “Sheldon, I will inform
you of this quickly. It is good for you to know, but time may be
long or short so I will compress.”

Then, standing straight,
arms crossed, he commenced speaking so rapidly it was like hearing
him rattle Spanish on the phone to Eleanora—except that I
understood every word. Not only heard each word clearly but
absorbed them all easily, soaked them up, beginning to understand
even better than before.

Hank stood quite still,
looking past me at something. Or maybe at nothing. “And, Sheldon,
the same people, the kind of people, certainly the ones who have
done the same thing before, many times before, are preparing now to
do it again. And it will be the same circus it has always been,
first a terrible new disease endangering everybody and then the
same thousand voices calling for mass immunizations—mandatory mass
immunizations, three words you will be hearing in the days ahead,
over and over again, in connection with saving us all from
IFAI.”

Hank looked up at the
ceiling, clapping one hand to his forehead and crying, “Ai, what is
the matter with us that we let them continue to deceive us, to
again and again profit from poisoning our bodies and corrupting our
minds? Ai! Es impossible!” Then, looking down at me, “You, Sheldon,
you must at least begin to understand fully that there are doctors,
health professionals, officials in government agencies, who will
lie, who will cripple and kill others—even millions of others—for
personal gain. You must understand there is evil. Yes, truly there
is evil. Evil to which we blind ourselves, evil we deny at our
peril. Most men and women are good, basically good people, and they
therefore assume others must be as good as they themselves are.
When they are wrong, such people are vulnerable, easily led, easily
deceived—easily killed, if need be. Even you, who know human
depravity better than most, make excuses for monsters, saying maybe
those who invented this epidemic were merely mistaken, they maybe
believed the lies they said. This disappoints me.” He was
scowling.