We were afraid that Kit’s Jeep might be easily recognized by now, so we borrowed Carole’s Chevy 4x4. We were at Dr. Kroner’s
before nine-thirty. If he and Jilly were home, they’d be up. I remembered seeing Henrich at the McDonoughs’ the night Frank
had been murdered. Another coincidence? I doubted it.
The lights of the expensive and grossly oversized mountain “cottage” were shining brightly. Henrich Kroner’s triple-black
Mercedes convertible was parked in the drive.
The two of us walked up a flagstone pathway. We stood outside the screen door and rang the front bell a couple of times.
Nobody came at first. I could see into the living room: pine furniture and brightly colored throw rugs. Audubon prints, Shaker
doors, wide-board pine floors. No Henrich and Jilly, though. A little scary. Everything was now.
“Dr. Kroner,” I finally called. “It’s Frannie O’Neill. Henrich Kroner. Jilly. Are you in there? Is anybody home?”
Total silence in the house. Only the loud shrilling of crickets and cicadas in the yard.
“Let’s go round back,” Kit said. He started around the edge of the house. I took a deep breath and followed him. I didn’t
want to be alone. “I’m two steps behind you, Kit.”
Kit stopped suddenly and I nearly walked into him. “Oh, Christ,” he whispered. “Stay there, Frannie. Stay back, please. It’s
bad.”
I could see Henrich and Jilly from where I stood. They were lying face up on a pair of bright yellow chaise longues. Blood
was puddled around the chairs and seeping into cracks between the flagstones. Blood stained the longues as well.
I could see that Jilly had been shot in the hollow of her throat. Henrich had been shot through the right eye.
My heart constricted and my mouth was very dry. I wanted to cover my eyes, but I didn’t do it. I needed to see everything
now, to describe it if I had to. If I was going to be a witness, I might as well be a good one.
Kit lightly touched my arm. “You okay, Frannie?”
Not really. I had seen a lot of animals die, but it hadn’t prepared me for the sight of a viciously murdered man and woman,
especially people who I’d known. “I’m doing all right, I guess. Still on my feet, anyway,” I whispered.
“Two shots for each victim. Entry an inch or so apart,” Kit muttered.
“Kit, this just happened. Neither body is rigorous or discolored. We just missed the killers. Or, they just missed us.”
Neither Henrich Kroner nor Jilly had been friends of mine, but I’d known them. I didn’t like Henrich, but David and I had
come to a couple of parties at this house.
I had sat in one of these yellow lounge chairs. I wondered if Dr. Anthony Peyser had ever been here? Could he be responsible
for these deaths?
Bad thoughts were repeating in my brain. That happens under stress. I couldn’t help remembering that I saw Kroner at Frank
McDonough’s the night Frank drowned. Or that Henrich Kroner had visited my house in Bear Bluff after David was killed. It
was so awful, and none of it seemed coincidental.
“We have to go back to Carole’s,” I said, grabbing Kit’s arm. “We have to get her and the kids out of there now.”
They were killing all the witnesses.
K
IT WAS AFRAID, but he was trying not to show it for Frannie’s sake. He pulled over at a 7-Eleven on Baseline Road in Boulder.
The last twenty-four hours were testing everything he’d learned as an agent, and some things he hadn’t. He did remember an
old saying from his training at Quantico:
Fall seven times, stand up eight.
“I’ll be quick,” he said as he ripped open the 4x4’s door. “I’m going to try to talk to Peter Stricker at the FBI. I’ve got
to make him believe me, which might not be so easy.”
“Okay,” Frannie said, “but please hurry. I’m worried about Carole and the kids.”
Kit walked quickly toward the pay phone outside the brightly-lit convenience store. He was still feeling alone in all of this.
That’s just the way it was. Realistically, there was only so much one agent could do. Why in hell had they shut him down?
It made no sense and it was scary as hell.
He didn’t want to call Peter Stricker. Not even now. It was like asking to be insulted and browbeaten and turned down again.
It had been going on for more than a year. The same thing, over and over.
Even though it was past seven in Washington, he decided to try Stricker at his office first. He had Stricker’s home phone
number—they had been friends, right?—but calling there was a last resort. Not a really good move.
Peter’s secretary was still working at the office. She picked up after one ring.
“Cindy, this is Tom Brennan on the line. I have to talk to Peter. It’s an emergency.”
“Mr. Stricker is on the road,” the secretary said. “I’ll give him your message when he calls in.”
Kit yelled into the phone. “Damn it, Cindy, people are dying. You beep Peter’s number right now. I’ll hold the line. I’m not
going away this time. Tell him there have been more deaths, and it’s his goddamn fault.”
It didn’t take long for Cindy to reach Stricker, and Kit wondered if he’d been in the office all along. Probably, he had been.
He heard Stricker’s familiar whisper. “Tom, what is it?” He wished he could reach through the fiber-optic phone lines and
strangle him.
“There’s been another murder.
Two
murders. No, actually, Peter, there have been a lot more murders than that. Now let me talk, let me finish what I have to
tell. Don’t say a goddamn word.”
“Tom, where are you?”
“Not a fricking word!”
“I understand. Of course. Go on.”
“All right, well I’m
not
in Nantucket. I haven’t been in Nan-tucket. I’m in Colorado, which is where I ought to be, which is where the Bureau should
have sent me, where
you
should have sent me, Peter, if you’d listened to my warnings.”
“You’ve seen someone murdered. You said—”
“
Shut the hell up.
Yes, I just left the house of Dr. Henrich Kroner. He’s dead, and so is his girlfriend. That’s our fault. No, it’s
your
fault. Kroner used to work for Anthony Peyser.”
“All right, I hear you. Where are you now, Tom? Where exactly is Dr. Kroner’s house?”
“Forget about Henrich Kroner. Kroner is dead. I told you that. Peter, they’ve killed children. They destroyed embryos. They’re
experimenting on humans. I saw it myself. I saw the awful, horrible lab where they worked. I was
there.
”
“Tom,
where the hell are you?
” Peter Stricker finally raised his voice.
“I’m on a fucking phone in the middle of Hell, and in case you’re interested, there are 7-Elevens here! I want fifty agents
now! Get everybody from Denver. Tell them to head to Bear Bluff, Colorado. Go to what used to be the Inn-Patient. It’s an
animal hospital. They can’t miss it. Somebody burned it to the ground. I’ll make contact with them—not the other way around.
I’m running this now!”
Stricker sighed. “All right, I hear you. We’ll send people in.”
Kit hung up the pay phone and took a deep breath. That was pretty damn good.
The cavalry was coming.
I
SAW KIT GET OFF THE PHONE after a very animated conversation. He jogged back to the car, and he actually looked better. He
had some of his color back. He told me that his old boss had finally listened. “I don’t know how much he believed, but he
believed some of it. He’s sending agents here.”
The feeling I had, the crazy imagery in my head, was that I had been thrust into a real-life scenario that roughly paralleled
the one in
Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
I was beginning to think I could no longer trust anyone in Boulder or the surrounding towns.
We hurried back to Carole’s house from Boulder. Carole saw the car lights and was waiting for us at the front door.
“Everything’s cool here, Frannie,” she said. Obviously, she’d read the worried look on my face. “The kids were really good.
Nobody’s been flying or anything.”
“Yeah, except for you, Meredith, and Brigid. You’re flying out of here right now. Another doctor from the hospital is dead.
Henrich Kroner. Pack your things now.”
Carole and the girls were ready in fifteen minutes, which was a new land-speed record for them. I felt guilty about involving
them, but I knew they would be, anyway. Whoever was after me could easily find out who my sister was, if they didn’t already
know, and where she lived. Camping in Gunnison National Forest was the safest place for Carole and her girls to be right now.
We hugged furiously hard and tried not to cry. Then everybody waved sad good-byes in front of the house. My sister and her
girls drove off into the night. I prayed they would be safe, that all of us would be.
But I didn’t really believe it. Too many bad things had happened, and we knew about most of them.
D
R. ANTHONY PEYSER was slow climbing out of the slate-gray Mercedes sedan. His face showed the pain of the exertion. Peyser
was in his late seventies, and genius or not, he hadn’t been able to arrest the ravages of aging and a highly stressful life.
He walked slowly toward the men waiting for him in the small wooded clearing. He waved a greeting and looked to be a pleasant
older chap.
“We haven’t caught up with her yet.” Harding Thomas spoke before he did.
“So it would seem,” the doctor said and smiled thinly. “Well, I’m not surprised. Under different circumstances, I might even
be pleased with the results. She had avian instincts for survival and flight, and the clever intelligence of humans. She is
superior to all of you, and she’s proving it, isn’t she. Of course she is. What a supergirl.”
“We’ll get her,” Thomas said.
Peyser nodded and pursed his thin lips. “I have no doubt of it. She’s sought out help, and the humans will be her downfall.
She’s finally made a mistake.”
Harding Thomas nodded. As usual, the doctor was right.
“Bring her in alive if you possibly can. She’s worth a small fortune,” Peyser said. “But if that fails, bring her in dead.
And that goes for anyone else who’s seen her. The good that will ultimately come will justify everything. The most important
days in history are almost here.”
W
E SLEPT FITFULLY at Carole’s house and we were all up before dawn. Kit needed to go to the Inn-Patient and we decided it was
best if we all stayed together.
Help was supposedly on the way. FBI agents would meet us at the Inn-Patient. Kit had already checked around midnight, but
they hadn’t arrived yet.
We left Carole’s before four and it was incredibly dark and eerie on the back roads. There were no streetlights out in Radcliff,
or in Bear Bluff for that matter.
We were close to the Inn-Patient by four forty-five. We traveled up the familiar road, but Kit passed right by the place.
He checked it out as we drove by.
“I don’t see anybody. Maybe Stricker didn’t believe me after all. That asshole.”
We turned around and drove back. Everything looked dark and deserted. The FBI wasn’t there yet.
“Pull in, Kit. I have to look at my house.”
This had been my home and I couldn’t just let it go. No one was there yet. Kit turned into the driveway.
I grabbed his flashlight. “I’ll be quick.”
I hurried out of the Jeep and climbed the front steps. My charbroiled front steps. I was oblivious to everything except that
this was my house, my workplace, and my poor animals had been trapped inside, cruelly burned alive.
The building was still smoldering and the heavy, acrid smell of the fire was overpowering. My house was no more. I barely
recognized it.
I got a surprise when I worked up the nerve to finally look inside. I moved the flashlight around and… the animals were gone.
Someone had let them out before they started the fire. I was relieved and also thankful.
“Frannie.” Kit was suddenly there behind me. “You okay?”
“I had to see it,” I whispered as my throat began to close up. I covered my nose with a handkerchief, but it didn’t help much.
A thick, dry taste like charcoal was on my tongue.
The fire had devoured everything. The furniture, rugs, and curtains were blackened rags and could never be salvaged. The walls
and ceilings were blistered black.
Kit held me from behind. He knew the thing to do. I turned and looked into his eyes.
“Kit, maybe it’s not the same people. Whoever burned my house let the animals loose. Those bastards at the School wouldn’t
have done that.”
“Maybe some of the doctors from Boulder started the fire,” he offered, “instead of the guards, the hunters.”
“Maybe those young army guys, like the ones we saw yesterday.” I offered a paranoid thought of my own.
“Let’s go outside,” he whispered softly. “We’ll wait there. There’s nothing here anymore.”
“I know. Thanks for letting me see my house,” I whispered. I let him pull me out of the blackened shell of my house, away
from my life for the past few years.
We made it out onto the porch. We stopped moving.
They
were waiting for us. Not the FBI—the hunters, the guards from the School. Half a dozen of the home burners, the child murderers,
were standing in my driveway. They had Max and the other kids.
T
AKE YOUR HANDS THE HELL OFF them!” Kit called down from the porch. “They’re just kids. They’re children.”
I liked that, loved it, actually. They had rifles and handguns and here was Kit, barking orders. He was standing up to them.
The two guards holding Ozymandias and Max actually let them go, and even took a few steps back. They were dressed like local
outdoor types—workboots, wrinkled and stained khakis, hunting vests. There was no way to identify who any of them were. Army?
FBI? Mercenaries? I’d never seen any of these particular men at Boulder Community Hospital, anyway.
“Come down here off the porch!” The man who spoke was broad-shouldered, in his late forties or early fifties. His face was
scarred and pitted, his eyes black marbles.