One of the visitors broke away, walking straight toward John and Susan. It was a large, sturdy man in a business suit with black curly hair and a smiley face as round as a balloon.
Tony!
John let go of his Susan’s hand and raced to meet him. Tony swept him up in his arms.
“
Tony! You’re not dead!”
“
Of course not.”
“
But Father said you were.” John patted Tony’s cheek. It was all wet, but felt real, like the rest of him, not like a ghost.
Tony shifted John in his arms so they could both see the pavilion. “I’m your father, John, not him. Not that evil liar.”
Most of the twelve hundred Earthbound members living on Natural High Farms would not recognize Marilyn by sight. For those who would, without a disguise, she’d dyed her spiky hair the deepest ebony, tweezed back her hairline a quarter inch, and colored and reshaped her eyebrows to alter the appearance of her face. And beneath a new, over-sized blouse, she wore Deputy Fry’s flak jacket to thicken her torso. The jacket had the added benefit of making her sweat profusely, as if she’d been working in the fields for hours, when she’d merely slipped onto the farm at its perimeter half an hour earlier.
She approached the infirmary now, planning to present herself at the front desk using a borrowed name belonging to another Earthbound member—in case her own name had been flagged—and pretend to be nauseous from hormone injections. She anticipated being fed some Pepto-Bismol, being shown to a bed in the recovery room, and then wandering off on her own.
It made perfect sense to search the infirmary for The Wizard’s depth-electrodes and other brain surgery paraphernalia. It was the one medical facility on the farm, she’d learned. It had an operating room, she’d also learned, used to harvest the reproductive eggs. And why else would Tom Mahorn occupy a small apartment above the infirmary—Why not a lavish suite like the ones belonging to The Wizard and Bob Marsh?—if not to guard the cult’s biggest secrets?
As she reached the front door a loudspeaker on the outside wall directly above her head crackled to life. Her hand froze on the doorknob as she heard a familiar voice.
“Hello, my people, my good people, this is The Wizard speaking. I’m sorry to inform you, the End Time has arrived. I repeat, the End Time is here. The End Time is here now. Please report to your dormitories immediately. Immediately. Goodbye. Goodbye, and remember, I love you. I will always love you!”
At once people began pouring out of buildings, many of them on the run. The door to the infirmary flew open, striking Marilyn’s shoulder, and a young woman brushed past. Then another. Another. The dining hall’s double doors burst open and multitudes spilled forth. All around her, bodies rushed in the same direction, a racing, human river.
It was The End Time drill. In a matter of minutes, all buildings on the farm, and the land itself, would be devoid of human beings, except for the dormitories. It would be the perfect time to search the infirmary. All she had to do now was hide and wait.
But she did not—could not—due to a dreadful possibility. Instead, her body moved with the flow until it got swept up in the human current.
What if the police pressure’s become too much for Piper to handle?
What if this drill is no drill this time? What if twelve hundred people are about to commit suicide
?
What Piper had done to John could certainly be construed as an act of panic. So could eliminating Earthbound in one fell swoop. For all she knew, Piper was about to check out of this world himself.
On the gravel path in front of the dormitories she fought the human current until she stood just outside of it, watching more and more cult members gather inside the buildings. Bob Marsh appeared, moving door to door, delivering small brown paper sacks full of pills—white pills that would taste and smell the same, whether placebos or poison. No one would know which until it was over.
Marilyn clenched her fists and shrieked at the top of her lungs. When she’d drawn some attention she shouted: “No! Everybody stop! Don’t do this! Please don’t do this! The Wizard is a fake! A phony! A charlatan! There is no environmental holocaust! Stop! You must listen to me! All of you! I’m not play-acting, I’m not a new part of this insane drill, I’m not a test! There is no impending holocaust! I repeat, there is no impending holocaust! Don’t kill yourselves over nothing! Please!”
The attention she’d won quickly evaporated, and all but two or three listeners proceeded into their dorms. In desperation, Marilyn raced inside the nearest dormitory, arriving just as the inhabitants were popping their pills together.
“No!” she cried. “Spit them out! Spit them out!” She pinched the cheeks of a large, Native American woman, and dug two fingers inside the woman’s mouth. Nothing. The Native American pushed her, and Marilyn fell backwards. Someone caught her and spun her around by the shoulders.
“Welcome back,” Tom Mahorn said. His grip was tight around her biceps.
“What’s going to happen to them?” she asked, eyes searching left and right.
“Relax, it’s just a drill. The interesting question is: What’s going to happen to you?”
“The Wizard himself,” John said, dry-eyed now, seated on the side of his bed with his feet on the floor. “He ordered me to kill Captain Switzer. And Tom Mahorn witnessed everything, and told me what to say afterwards, including the telepathy part.”
Eddie paced the parquet floor, nodding to himself once before speaking. “That way the court treats you like a nutcase, and The Wizard, he can’t be charged with anything. But at the same time, his message to the police comes through loud and clear. ‘Stay away. Or else.’ ”
Ezra had risen from the straight-back chair. He stood over John now and gave him a shoulder pat. “Atta boy, Inspector.”
John kept swallowing too much air, great gobs of it, as if he were hyperventilating. Maybe he was. He searched for Doctor Jones, before remembering that she’d left to make her rounds.
“You okay?” Ezra said. “You need a break?”
“No,” John said. “Let me get this part of the story over with.” He paused, inhaled too deeply again, and expelled his breath. “Tom and I drove to Switzer’s house. I remembered where it was from a Christmas party last year. When Switzer came to the door, I recall Tom standing next to me, on my left. But I don’t remember him being inside the room until . . . until it was all over. Then he suddenly appeared behind me, spoke to me.”
“After concealing the neurostimulator in his pocket, no doubt,” Eddie said.
John sprung from the bed and paced, feeling like a caged wildebeest, bumping Eddie’s shoulder, the shade of a floor lamp, the corner of a dresser. “I want The Wizard! Tom Mahorn too!”
Days of denial had evolved into hours of grief and now minutes of anger. Faces of the dead floated in front of his mind’s eye. Captain Switzer. Fred Ames. Esperanza Chavez. His mother. His father.
“Take it easy, John,” Ezra said.
“Where’s the Doc?” John said. “Where’s Marilyn?”
“A motel in Visalia,” Eddie said. “You ratted her out, didn’t you?”
“Yes, dammit. Thank God she got away. But what’s she doing down there still?”
“Sneaking back on the farm by day, searching for evidence.”
“What! We can’t let her do that! She’s just a psychologist for Christ’s sake!”
“Just a psychologist?” Eddie said. “Guess who cracked this case wide open.”
“Get her home!” he said.
“She won’t leave. She knows we need hard evidence. She thinks The Wizard’s operating room is somewhere on that farm.”
John smiled ruefully and shook his head. “Good looks, brains, and balls of brass. If only I were ten years younger. And thirty pounds lighter. And much more handsome. And fifty IQ points smarter. And completely over my cheating wife.”
“She’s been telling us all about that cult,” Eddie said. “What a sick atmosphere. You didn’t have to eat shit, did you?”
“Eat shit?”
Eddie told him the story Marilyn had related. Meanwhile, John searched the dresser for his clothes. But the drawers were all empty. What he’d worn before his arrest had been taken as evidence, he realized. He straightened and spun back to Eddie.
“I need to buy me some clothes.”
Ezra stepped closer. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“After Piper,” he said.
“Um, John?” Eddie said. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”
“What?”
“You’re incarcerated, that’s all. Charged with Murder One. And, needless to say, on suspension from the force.”
“Well, fix that shit!” He yanked open the top dresser drawer and slammed it shut again for emphasis. “Get the charges dropped. Get me off suspension. You’ve got the evidence.”
Eddie shook his head. “C’mon, John, you know what the DA’s going to say. He’ll say the CAT-scan print-outs are doctored. He’ll say all we’ve got is theory, unless we dig those electrodes out of your head, or out of the corpse of Esperanza Chavez, if we ever find her body.”
“Start digging!” He tipped the top of his head in Eddie’s direction, then Ezra’s. “Take me to the surgeon. Now.”
Eddie shook his head again. “Hate to tell you this, buddy, but that won’t help much. You’re political poison. You’ve been all over the newspapers and the TV these last few days. Even if we clear you of the murder charges, you won’t see your badge again until you’ve completed six months of psychotherapy, whether you need it or not.”
“It’s for the best,” Ezra said to John. “You’re in no condition to go back to work.”
John cinched the belt on his bathrobe, and he and Eddie stepped into the hallway. It was ten p.m., and by now the floor was empty of doctors and patients and visitors. They approached the exit door, where the guard sitting beside it rose from his stool.
“Evening, buddy,” Eddie said to him. “I know there’s no smoking in here, but I’ve got a couple of Cubans on me, and we’d like to go out to the courtyard for a few minutes and smoke ’em, if that’s alright with you.”
The guard didn’t even glance at the cigars Eddie held in his hand. “No can do, Inspector. I’m afraid only authorized personnel can escort a patient outside the secure unit.”
“Oh,” Eddie said. “Well, we don’t want to cause any problems, do we, John?” John shook his head. Eddie gave the guard’s outfit the once-over. “Say, that uniform is pretty sharp. You like it?”
“Yeah,” said the guard, suddenly at ease. “I like it. Especially ’cause I don’t stand out so much when I commute to work. I use public transportation.”
“Yeah, that’s nice,” Eddie said. “You know, the sleeves look a little too short on you.”
“They do?”
“Yeah. Know how you can tell if they’re the right length?”
“How?”
“Let your arms hang straight down, with your wrists outward, like this.” Eddie demonstrated. “Now, the end of the sleeves should be perfectly even with the start of your hands. Like with mine. Go ahead, try it.”
As the guard tried the test, John quick-stepped forward. One hand threw back the left side of the guard’s jacket, and his other hand ousted the pistol from the guard’s shoulder holster.
“Hands up!” he said, stepping back, gripping the weapon in both hands. “Both of you!” Up went Eddie’s hands. Up went the guard’s hands. John moved behind Eddie, crooked an arm around his neck, and pulled the tall man back a step.
“John!” Eddie said. “What the hell are you doing? You must be out of your mind!”
“Listen up,” John said. “We’re all going back to my room, nice and quietly.” He pointed the pistol barrel at the guard, who was scowling. “You first,” he said. The guard didn’t budge.
“Do what he says,” Eddie told the guard. “He’s crazy. In his condition, he’s liable to kill us both.” The guard grimaced. Then he took a step forward . . .
In his tiny bathroom, John ordered the guard and Eddie to sit on the floor on opposite sides of the sink. He looped the guard’s handcuffs over a pipe beneath the basin, then cuffed both men by the wrist, securing them to each other as well as the plumbing.
He took Eddie’s pocketknife and cut a pair of twelve-inch strips of cloth from his bed sheet. Next, he removed the guard’s shoes and socks, rolled up the socks together in a ball, and jammed them into the guard’s mouth. He tied a cloth strip around the head to hold the gag in place.
“That ought to muzzle you,” John said.
“Why are you doing this?” Eddie said. “Why?”
“World’s coming to an end,” John said. “Only The Wizard can save us now. I’ve got to get back down there and help him.”
“I thought we cured you of him.”
“You thought wrong.”
Eddie turned to the guard and twirled an index finger in little circles around his own ear, using the universal sign for
crazy
. “The Wizard’s his cult leader.”
“He’s not a cult leader,” John said, removing Eddie’s shoes and socks. “He’s a prophet.”