"Get out of the way. Let me see what we've got. Boy, there isn't much. But there's two less for lunch, and Brother Persival and Brother Alvor will be back later on with fresh supplies."
"Who's down on the gate??'
"Brother Sammy, I think."
"Should somebody take something down to him?"
"He can eat after he's relieved."
'I don't even know who runs the duty roster."
"Brother Chuck? mostly. Unless Brother Persival wants something done different. Have you been studying your book?"
"The Loving Heart? It sure isn't easy reading."
"You can say that again. You know, there are parts I have to skip every time."
Vhat I was thinking, if I could read some of it
The Green Ripper into a tape recorder, one of those little ones I saw, I could learn it faster."
"Oh, I can get you one of those. We've got two in our trailer. And lots of empty tape. Want it right now?"
"Why not7"
She gave me a warm look and a loving smile and went trotting off, leaving her pack, weapon, and belt in the corner of the kitchen area. I moved close enough to it to see that the Uzi clip was full up. They get used to having you around. Good old McGraw. He's getting plenty of exercise, enough food. We've got his money and we're supposed to be hunting for his daughter. Keep an eye on him, of course, but nobody is exactly worried about him.
I had tried to give myself another advantage too. During the field exercises I had tried to keep going when it called for endurance, but I had dogged it when it was something calling for quick. I had blundered around when the order was for silent approach. When we ran the improvised obstacle course, I arranged to finish almost last every time. In unarmed combat, I let the men drop me with a certain amount of fuss and trouble. I was rounding off into top shape, putting on a nice edge. As I clumsied along, I studied each of them to see their flaws. Barry was muscle-bound from too much body building. Haris was very quick but without adequate physical strength. Sammy was too wildly energetic. He didn't plant himself for leverage, and he tried to move in too many directions at onch Ahman was quick and strong and crafty, once he had made up his mind, but he was prone to fatal hesitations. Chuck was the best of them, without a weakness except perhaps a tendency to exhibit more grace than was required, to turn his best profile toward an imaginary camera, to leap a little higher, spin more quickly than the exercise required.
Stella came back with a little cardboard box, silver-colored and battered, and repaired with tape. The Olympus Pearlcorder and accessories were in a jumble inside the box, along with extra tapes and batteries.
'everybody will have to use one when we get the assignments," she said. tow?',
66You have to memorize every word of your assignment, and you have to be able to start anywhere, in the middle, toward the end, anywhere. So what you do is read it onto the tape, and then before you go to sleep and when you wake up, you play it and say it right along with yourself, over and over and over. It has to be so much second nature that you don't have to think about it when you go out on an operation. They're very, you know, compiete. You will get off at the corner of Main and Central. You will wale quickly north on Main on the right-hand side of the street. When you get to the bus stop at the southeast corner of Main and
The Green Ripper
Pearl, you will wait there until precisely fourteen hundred hours. You will turn and enter the General National Bank Building, take the first available elevator, and ride up to the fifteenth floor. You will turn left when you exit the elevator, follow the corridor to the fire door at the end.' And so on. That was only part of a practice operation I did. There were two more pages of orders. By the time I started it, I never had to think of what to do next. I knew. I was like some kind of machine, you know?"
I took the recorder back to T-6 and left it on the bunk and came back and helped her with the meal. Since it was the last day of the year, Persival had canceled all afternoon exercises and given orders for solitary meditation and rest. I acquainted myself with my tape recorder. There was an attachment to screw onto the bottom of it which worked as a voice-actuating device. I tested the sensitivity. I put a tape in and read some of The Loving Heart.
"Just as white reflects all colors and black absorbs all colors, the Lord both reflects and absorbs all the thoughts and desires which pass through our mind. When you know that your thoughts are turning negative, that you are losing faith in your own faith, you must become one vith a trusted Brother or Sister who loves you, and through that person renew and restore each other to the positive glory of the Church."
I listened to it come back, with little clicks where it had turned off by itself and come back on again at the sound of my voice, sometimes eliminating the first syllable after the pause.
It amused me to think of what Meyer would say about this mishmash. Though perfectly willing to pursue the philosophical concept to the furthest thicket of his mind, he has no patience with imprecision of thought, looseness of expression.
I read the tattered Pearlcorder manual again and pondered where to place the device. Persival and Alvor were the ones I wanted to tap. Alvor had a little square cement house of his own. It resembled him. Persival lived in the most elegant accommoda- tion of an, a fat tan motor home with bulbous rounded corners and six soft but not flat tires. In the evenings he would confer with Chuck or Alvor or both of them in his motor home. It had obsolete Arizona plates and was not readily visible from the broad flat area of the stony plateau.
One side of one tape was good for thirty minutes. Planting the machine was no good if I had no way to retrieve it.
The quality of the light had changed. I opened my door. Snow was falling, big fat flakes, melting as they fell, coming down in ever greater quantity,
The Green Ripper dimming the sky. As I stood there I heard the van coming. It stopped near the warehouse, and I went out to see if I could help, shoving the recorder into my pocket. There were some small heavy wooden boxes in addition to the supplies they had gone after. Chuck appeared, and as he and Alvor carried the boxes into the warehouse, I was detailed to move the provisions to the kitchen. It took four trips, and when I went back to the van, Brother Persival was standing, grimacing with pain, beside one of the small boxes which had fallen into the snow.
"I shouldn't have tried to carry it," he said. '~Would you take it to my quarters, please, Brother Thomas? I'll be along in a few moments."
It was very heavy for the size of it and contained, according to the label, some sort of electronic equipment. The motor home was locked. I rested the box on the step. Just to the left of the door there was a metal grid held in place by simple plan tic thumbscrew devices, two of them. I guessed it was to vent heat from the back of the refrigerator. I took out the recorder, set the sensitivity, put it on Automatic Record, undid one thumbscrew, pulled the flimsy metal out a few inches, and shoved the recorder into the small space inside and closed the grid again. It had been an almost instinctive reaction. I did not know how or when I was going to retrieve the recorder. I did not know if it would do me any good. Maybe, if the refrigerator was run ning, I would merely get thirty minutes of compressor effects. If Stella wanted the recorder back, I would have to say I lost it in the snow or the creek, or somewhere.
Within moments I was wishing I had it back, but Brother Persival came along to open the door. He did not invite me in. He told me to reach in and set the box on the Boor. He thanked me, and I went away. I went to a spot where I could see who might be going in and out of the motor home. First Alvor and then Chuck. Then Alvor came out and went to his own place. Chuck stayed inside until it was time to start fixing the evening meal. Celebration. Among the supplies was a batch of barbecued chickens, needing only to be heated up. And there were several half-gallon jugs of Gallo Hearty Burgundy, and ice cream packed in dry ice. End of the year. Hooray for the New Year. Hooray for terrorism, for death and fire and confusion. We were all smiles and fun as we ate. Even Ahman was pleasant to me. Persival and Alvor ate at the big table with the rest of us. The snow was staying on the ground.
With no better plan, I managed a wine drunk. I sang. I kissed the ladies. I was a figure of fun. McGraw, the funny fisherman. Dads, we call him. I whacked Alvor on the back. It was very like whacking the side of his little cement house. And it got just as much reaction.
Suddenly I stopped and stood, weaving back and
The Green Ripper forth, a hand clapped across my mouth, eyes wide with consternation, cheeks bulging. I plunged to the door and went out into the snow, leaving them laughing.
I made sure I left erratic tracks, but the tracks took me right to the motor home. I had just fastened the thin metal grille back in place when Sammy yelled, "You! Hey! Get away from therel What are you doing?"
I wheeled around and stumbled toward him, arms wide. "Good al' Brother Sammy. Never knew I was gonna have a Chinese brother."
He tried to elude me, but I embraced him and began a horrible retching cough that panicked him. He struggled free and I fell to my hands and knees and said, "Gotta go home. Help me, old buddy. Can't find old T-Six. Somebody moved it on me."
He helped me up, and I staggered a zigzag course along the direction in which he was leading me. I mumbled thanks and crawled into my trailer. Five minutes later, when I looked out, there was no one in sight. I undressed and got into the bunk un- der the blankets. The tape had been used up. I rewound it. I used the ivory ear button to listen to it.
It was very indistinct. I experimented with the volume controls, trying to clear it. The voices sounded too much alike. It was Alvor, Persival, and Chuck, talking about people I didn't know. And they were too far from the recorder.
Alvor left the conversation. I could more readily distinguish between Chuck's and Persival's voices.
They both were muffled, but Persival spoke in slower cadence. " three more here... Ireland... woman thirty... late January..."
" about another vehicle?"
'later. Maybe at the same time."
Mumble "..."
~ tentative approval... liked the basic idea. Oil tankers too... longer delay... arrive tomorrow... description of McGraw... take a personal look... coming up from... go back with him... you in charge."
And that was all I could get out of the half hour. The rest was all fragmentary, blurred, distorted. I played those parts over and over, trying to get another word or two. Somebody was coming on New Year's Day to take a look at their Mr. McGraw. As a card-carrying pessimist, I could expect nothing good from that. With such a big, careful, patient, rich organization, they would have sent somebody to check out the expired Florida driver's license with my face thereon. Probably sent the license itself. Maybe their Mr. Toomey or Mr. Kline took a look at the license. I had been too tricky. Always keep things simple as possible.
It meant I would have to choose one of my sorry options sooner than I had expected. The most attractive one was to take off in the snowstorm while they thought me drunk. Get to a phone somehow.
The Green Ripper
Call the number memorized at the request of Max and Jake. Hope they would believe me. Hope they would move fast enough.
I dressed warm. Poncho on last. I moved to the door, and just as I got there, it opened and Stella came in out of the snow and ran right into me.
"Hey, where are you going?"
Ie? I'm going back to the party."
'~hat party's over." She grinned. "And now we've got our own private one. You know, there isn't supposed to be this much snow here this time of year, staying on the ground." She gave me a push. "Back to the sack, lover. I got taken off the gate detail, and Nena has some company, so I've got to stay. Here, let me help you get that off, Brother Tommy. Honey, are you too drunk to make it? We'll find out. Don't worry about it. I got lots of ways to help you. Sit down, sweetie. 111 get your shoes off. There. Don't you worry about a thing."
When I saw the first faint pallor of dawn at the window, I made my move. She was asleep on the inside, face to the wall. I had to believe she had been told to stay close to me until tomorrow's visitor could check me out. I got up as quietly as I could and began dressing. Sudderdy she rolled over and sat up and said, "Hey? Where you going?"
I held my finger to my lips and shushed her.
Vhat's going on?" she whispered.
I leaned close as if to whisper in her ear. When she lifted her chin, I popped her on the corner of the jaw with a right that traveled about six inches. In my tension and apprehension, I had hit her harder than was necessary. It bounced her head off the wall behind her and she sprawled face down into the pillow, motionless. I ripped her heavy twill shirt into Strips, tied her up securely, poked a wad of shirt material into her mouth, and used the last strip to hold it there, with the knot at the back of her neck.