Then, to his amazement, he felt himself being hauled back up. His right arm raked across the brick wall, making him cry out at the flare of pain.
Now he was being pulled back into the tower room, the grip on him released as he reached a standing position.
He fell back against the wall, breathing hard, and stared at the man across the room who held a pistol in his hand.
“A good thing that I came no later,” Modi observed with a faint smile.
Chris stared at him incredulously, then glanced down at the floor.
The heavy man was lying there, a pool of blood slowly expanding around him.
“Go down the stairs, Mr. Barton,” Modi instructed quietly. “I will follow.”
Chris said nothing, but crossed the room and walked past Modi. As he did, he glanced back and saw the two men in black regarding Modi with hatred.
“Mr. Barton,” Modi said.
Chris stopped and looked around. Modi was holding a ring of ignition keys in his raised left hand. He tossed them backward and they jingled to the floor in front of Chris.
“My car is a gray Mercedes coupe,” Modi told him. “Unlock it and get inside. I will be with you momentarily.”
Chris gulped and, bending over, scooped up the keys with his left hand. Turning abruptly, he left the room and started to descend the winding wooden steps.
He was halfway down when there was a sudden crashing noise above, a single pistol report, then another crashing.
“Run!” he heard Modi shout.
Chris bit his teeth together hard and started down the steps as quickly as he could, shoes clattering on the wood.
He had reached the bottom and was lunging out the door when something dark came hurtling down from above and hit the ground violently, making him recoil with a breathless cry.
He froze, mutely gaping down at Modi’s dead face, the East Indian’s expression one of dazed surprise.
Then he heard the two men rushing down the steps and, catching his breath, he broke into a run along the entry path to the tower. Glancing around, he saw a gray Mercedes coupe parked about thirty yards down the tree-lined road. Another car, a black Jaguar, was parked behind it.
His right arm began to throb as he sprinted along the road, shoes pounding on the hard dirt surface. He looked across his shoulder just as the two men came running from the tower, eyes searching for him. One of them pointed at Chris as they dashed for the road.
Turning back, his teeth still clenched, panting, Chris tried to run faster despite the pain in his arm.
Now he was at the Mercedes, fumbling with the keys. Jesus, why did he lock it?! he thought in a panic. His hand was shaking badly as he tried to slip the correct key into the door lock. He glanced aside. The men were getting closer. One began to raise his right arm, pointing a pistol.
Suddenly, the key slid into its slot. Chris twisted it and jerked open the door. Bending over, he practically flung himself into the driver’s seat, expecting, at any second, to hear the back window exploding inward from the impact of a bullet.
He cried out as he automatically used his right hand to slide the ignition key in and turn it. The motor started instantly and, throwing the transmission into gear, Chris jammed his foot down on the gas pedal. The Mercedes leaped forward so abruptly that he almost lost control of the steering wheel.
Then he held it tightly with his left hand, his right hand barely gripping the rim as the coupe picked up speed, roaring down the road. He glanced up at the rearview mirror. The men had tried to catch him on foot. Now, seeing him drive off, they were turning back to the Jaguar.
Where am I supposed to go? he thought. He had no idea whatsoever where he was except that he felt certain it was Rome. He looked ahead. In the distance, he saw a cluster of low brick buildings built around a courtyard. He couldn’t go that way! he thought in sudden dread. He’d be trapped.
There was a side road just ahead. He began to brake, then downshifted quickly, and raked around the corner, shifting up again. He shot a glance to his right. The Jaguar was close behind. Could he possibly outrun them? He wished to God Alexsandra was driving—
The thought evaporated. Alexsandra was a ghost, a heap of bone and dust. He snarled without a sound. It’s all insane! he thought. None of it makes any sense!
“No,” he muttered. Ahead was another building with a covered gateway leading into its courtyard. He looked around desperately. Was that a right turn up ahead? It had to be or he was finished.
Again, he had to brake. The Jaguar was only twenty yards behind him now. He downshifted again and turned the corner of the high-walled building, tires squealing loudly.
“Oh, my God!” He gaped at the heavy metal gate just ahead, blocking the narrow road he was on. In seconds, the Mercedes would crash into it.
He had no idea what made the page appear in front of his frightened mental gaze, but suddenly it was there, as clear as if it were hanging in the air directly before his eyes—Ninja 1990 was the book (he’d read it a while back), page 65.
His feet and hands became a blur of movement as he followed its instruction. Throwing the transmission into neutral, he turned the steering wheel sharply to the left, at the same instant jerking the emergency brake into place, locking the rear wheels.
Instantly, the car began to rotate, quickly, its rear wheels leading. Chris waited a second, then released the emergency brake, threw the transmission into low gear and jammed the gas pedal to the floor. By now, the Mercedes had spun around 180 degrees and was leaping forward in the opposite direction. The maneuver—which had totally astonished him—had taken less than five seconds.
He saw the Jaguar flying past him, the sides of the two cars almost scraping as they passed each other. A moment later, he heard the grinding impact of the Jaguar as it hit the gate, then exploded. He looked into the rearview mirror to see a ball of fire enveloping the wrecked car. He winced at the sight.
Then he was turning left again, heading for the tree-lined road. Reaching it in seconds, he turned left and started back toward the tower.
At first, he didn’t know what was causing the noise above—a spasmodic, roaring sound. He pressed down on the accelerator and the Mercedes picked up speed.
He started in shock as the helicopter roared across the tree tops, passing him. It wheeled around and hovered just above the road. Chris thought he heard a voice. He lowered the window.
“Pull over, Chris. It’s finished now,” the voice instructed him through a loudspeaker.
He didn’t know what to do. Was he to meekly surrender now, after all he’d been through? But then, the helicopter might be armed with machine guns, it occurred to him.
“Pull over now,” the voice said firmly.
Chris slowed the car down and steered over to the shoulder of the road. He braked the car and waited, suddenly feeling very tired and very beaten.
He watched as the helicopter settled down in the field to his right like a gigantic insect. There was a white star on the helicopter’s side. It was an American military vehicle.
The blades slowed down. The door of the helicopter opened and a man jumped out. As he approached the car, Chris stared at him incredulously. He had to blink hard to make sure his eyes were working right.
The man was Wilson.
4
The helicopter had flown directly to Heathrow Airport where they’d helped Chris across the tarmac to a private waiting room. There, Wilson had left him with a nurse and doctor who had attended to his arm, cleaning and bandaging the wound. It had started to become infected and the doctor gave him an injection which he said was an antibiotic. Chris hadn’t questioned him—he was even too dazed to speak—though he was immediately convinced that the injection was a drug and that, after a period of unconsciousness, he’d wake up somewhere in Africa, Russia, the Far East.
It hadn’t been a drug though. It slowly sank in that the shot had been exactly what the doctor said it was. I’m not used to things being what people say they are, Chris ha
d thought.
He’d asked the doctor and nurse if they knew anything about Alexsandra but they didn’t know what he was talking about. No wonder, he’d thought. I’m asking about someone who’d never really existed anyway. How could they possibly know about her?
After they’d treated him, they gave him a sandwich and a cup of tea. He’d barely touched them as a wave of drowsiness had overcome him and he started slipping away. It had been at that moment that he was most convinced he’d been drugged again.
An hour later, Wilson had woken him and they’d left the waiting room, walking out to a Learjet. Are we going back in this? Chris had wondered. Then he’d asked.
“You’re entitled,” Wilson had told him.
Now they were inside the jet, the door was closed and they were sitting across from each other in luxurious armchairs as the jet taxied down the runway, then picked up speed and soared into the air. Chris looked out the window. Alexsandra, he thought, torn between the hope that she really existed somewhere down there and the dark conviction that she’d never been real from the start. It defied logic to believe that; she’d felt completely real. Still…
He looked at Wilson.
“Are you feeling better?” Wilson asked.
“Yes, thank you,” he said, his tone lifeless. He cleared his throat slowly. “Do you know what’s happened to me in the last seven days?” he asked. 7 steps to midnight, he thought. Was there any connection?
He hadn’t heard Wilson’s answer. “Sorry?” he murmured.
“Of course I know,” Wilson repeated. “I was in charge of it.”
***
Chris stared at him. Wilson was in charge of it?
That seemed the most insane reality of all.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“If you weren’t so modest you might have figured it out,” Wilson explained. “But you’ve never seemed to have the slightest inkling of how important you are to the project. How absolutely indispensable.”
I should be feeling pleasure at this praise, Chris thought. Why don’t I?
“I can see that you’re still not sure of it,” Wilson continued. “Just take my word for it, Chris. Without you working on the turbulence problem it would have taken years more to reach the point we’re at now.
“Unfortunately, your brain was in a rut, tired, stagnating. We needed something to break up the logjam in your thinking.”
“Are you telling me—?” Chris began, a sudden sound of appalled disbelief in his voice.
“Let me finish,” Wilson interrupted. “Then I’ll answer any question you want to ask.”
Chris stared at him. He couldn’t be saying—
“We consulted a well-known psychologist,” Wilson went on, “head of his department at a famous Ivy League university in New England. We asked him what we could do to get you out of the rut you were in.
“He examined your psychological profile and told us that he thought there was a possibility. A remote one, but a possibility.
“Noting that you devoured a huge variety of action, suspense, espionage, science-fiction and occult novels, he suggested—”
“You’re telling me it was all a trick?” Chris demanded. He felt cold fury rising in his gorge.
“Well, we thought it was,” Wilson answered. “Unfortunately, it got more complicated than that.”
“At any rate,” Wilson continued, “this psychologist suggested that we contrive to involve you in what seemed to be a real adventure the like of which you’d only read about. He felt that, in this way, your mind might be stimulated in a fresh way and be able to—”
“You’re telling me it was all a trick?” Chris repeated sharply.
“I told you, Chris,” Wilson replied. “It became more complicated than that.”
Chris slumped back against the chair, stonily looking at Wilson. I’ve been a dupe, he thought. A pathetic dupe.
“Do you want to hear about this or not?” Wilson asked.
Chris wearily exhaled and gestured with his right hand as though to say Sure, why not? Rub in the salt as deeply as you can.
“The psychologist discussed it with a committee,” Wilson said.
“A committee,” Chris muttered in disgust.
Wilson looked at him in silence for a few moments, then went on.
“They decided that you needed certain outside stresses which would divert attention from your work. Intriguing stresses, the sort you read about.”
Gotcha, Chris thought. Do go on.
Wilson took a folded sheet of paper from his inside jacket pocket and, unfolding it, began to read.
“What is required is that the patient’s environment—with its attitudes and rigidities of personality—be discarded and the patient be placed in a less enforced and restrictive environment in order to re-open his creative channels.”
Chris said nothing. He only gazed at Wilson, his expression flat.
“So they devised a scenario,” Wilson went on. “The disappearing car. The couple in your house. They thought it would be more intriguing if the man looked exactly like you but we couldn’t find or produce a duplicate on short notice, so we let it go. They thought it might be more provocative if he didn’t look exactly like you anyway.”
“And Veering?” Chris asked.
Was that a smile on Wilson’s lips? “Ah, yes, Veering,” he said. He was amused, Chris thought, tightening.
He reacted as Wilson picked up a telephone receiver and pushed a button on its base. Wilson listened for a moment, then spoke, “You can come back now.”
Chris twisted around and looked toward the front of the cabin. A door there was opening.
He tensed involuntarily as he saw the man approaching.
Veering.
He shivered, watching as the small man neared him. The old clothes and the baseball cap were gone, replaced by an expensive three-piece suit.
“This is Dr. Albert Veering of the Princeton Psychology Department.” Wilson introduced the man.
“I know how angry you must feel,” Veering said. “Betrayed. Cheated. But, believe me, it was necessary if your mental state was to be improved.”
Chris didn’t want to speak to the man but he had to know: “Why all the unreality shit?” he asked.
There was a faint stirring of Veering’s lips as he repressed a smile. “Simple,” he said. “You’re too intelligent a young man. You would have begun to see through the overall artifice if it had been confined to an espionage adventure. It was my suggestion that we add the larger dimension of the wager in order to give your intellect more to cope with.”
“I see.” Chris’s eyes were dead as he regarded Veering. “And that included Rome, and Alexsandra?”
“It did,” Veering answered. “A recognition of your taste for novels dealing with the occult and the supernatural.”
“I see.” Chris’s voice was barely audible. He felt a heavy weight in his chest and stomach and couldn’t tell if it was rage or sickened despair. “I presume, then, that Alexsandra isn’t her real name.”
“Her real name is, I believe, Jane Malcolm.” Veering told him.
It was rage he felt; he knew that now. Rage at being made to look like a total fool. At being made so vulnerable. At being terrified again and again.
“At any rate,” Veering continued, “exclusive of that, the remainder of the ‘adventure’ was relatively simple—”
“Except for the complications,” Wilson broke in.
“Yes.” Veering nodded gravely. “They were most unfortunate.”
What complications? Chris wondered. He felt too bound up with resentful fury to ask.
“The initial mysteries were, as I say, relatively simple to orchestrate,” Veering told him. “The missing car, the couple and the changes in your house. The two so-called agents. Unfortunately, the first one had a rather vile temper, not to mention an old knee injury incurred while playing football. He disliked you intensely and rather overplayed his part.”
“Speaking o
f overplaying the part—?” Wilson began, amused.
“Yes,” said Veering with a smile, “The other agent, Nelson, didn’t dislike you but he did have some difficulty getting you to wrestle him for the gun and ‘kill’ him.”
“Twice?” Chris asked.
“That’s what Mr. Wilson meant about overplaying,” Veering said. “Nelson—” He turned to Wilson. “That is his name, isn’t it?”
“Carter,” Wilson replied.
“Ah.” Veering nodded. “Well, at any rate, the man apparently does quite a bit of work in little theaters. He’s a real ham. Couldn’t get himself offstage, as it were.”
Wilson chuckled. “Served him right to break his shoulder bone when he fell from the car.”
Glad you two are enjoying this, Chris thought. Thank God he didn’t have a gun in his hand right now.
“Of course there were contingencies all along the line,” Veering went on. “Nothing was left to chance. If you hadn’t picked me up on the highway, or if you hadn’t believed that you were responsible for Nelson’s—Carter’s—death, we would have had an alternate method to get you on that flight to London. That was a must.”
Chris felt cold and empty now. He wanted to be out of there but obviously that was impossible. And his brain persisted in being curious.
“What about my sister?” he asked. “My mother?”
“That wasn’t your sister you spoke to,” Veering said. “We had a cut-in line to her telephone. We didn’t tell your sister or your mother what we were planning to do, on the logical assumption that they probably would have refused to help. As it turned out, your mother’s behavior was most helpful to us.”
So they made a fool of her too, Chris thought. He could not recall ever experiencing such poisonous hatred before.
“And Gene Wyskart?” he asked.
Veering got a grim expression on his face. “That was where the complications began,” he said.
“What are you talking about?” Chris asked.
“We didn’t realize, at first, that there was an information leak in the project,” Wilson told him. “Your friend Wyskart was actually the one who found out about it. After he’d agreed to help us, he phoned some insiders he knew in Washington and they found out that at least one group already knew you were coming to London and was preparing to pick you up there. Wyskart tried to stop you before you left, the group got wind of it and killed him, to make sure you’d leave the United States.”