Patrick swallowed. Where had his saliva gone? But if Romy was in this and willing to take the risks, how could he stand here next to her and back out? What kind of a man would that make him?
Perhaps a man who’d live to a ripe old age.
“What about if I decide I don’t like what you’re up to? If I want to walk, I want be able to do so with no strings.”
“Of course. As long as you understand that you’re not walking away from the confidentiality agreement.”
Hoping he wouldn’t regret this, he managed a shrug and a nod that conveyed a lot more bravado that he felt.
“Fair enough. I’ll give it a try. Do I have to sign in blood?”
Zero shook his head. “Your word is enough.”
He raised his hand and a TV flickered to life on the far side of the room. Diagonal lines danced across the screen, then the Reverend Eckert’s face appeared.
“Jerk!” Patrick said.
“Give him a listen.”
Eckert’s face looked grave, anguished. His voice was at least an octave lower than his usual ranting tone.
“My friends…I have just heard that a number of sims—nineteen of them, I’m told—have been killed. Poisoned. These were the sims who were trying to unionize. This is very disturbing. More than disturbing, it’s a terrible, terrible thing, and I hope, I pray to the Good Lord that no one in my flock is responsible. Because if one of you is, then I must shoulder some of the blame. It might have been my words that drove one of you to this terrible deed. If so, then I have been misunderstood. Terribly misunderstood.
“So hear me now, friends, and hear me well.
“I wish no harm to any sim. I have never, ever preached violence against them. I have said they were created by evil, Satan-inspired science, and I know that to be true, but I have never said the sims themselves were evil. They are not. They are the innocent products of unnatural science who should be allowed to live out their lives in peace.
“Violence toward sims is not the way. If you kill sims, you only give SinGen the excuse to produce more. We want SinGen to stop producing sims. We must use the law—the law, my friends—to cut off the supply at its source by piercing the beating evil heart of the problem. And that heart is the devil corporation that subverts the Laws of Creation by fashioning creatures that are not part of God’s design.
“Please. I beg of you: Do not harm sims. That is not the answer—it is, in fact, counterproductive. Spreading the word, boycotting businesses that lease sims, endlessly harassing SinGen in court until it finally surrenders. That is the way, my friends. The only way.
“And to continue fighting that battle, I need your support…”
The screen went blank.
“His standard request for contributions follows,” Zero said.
“When did he broadcast that?” Patrick said.
“He hasn’t. He rushed it into production and it’s going out to replace his previously scheduled message.”
“How’d you get it?”
“The Reverend Eckert is part of the organization. One of its major contributors, in fact.”
For the second time tonight Patrick found himself speechless.
Romy smiled, her first in too many hours. The pearly enamel within her smile caught the light, giving her a Cheshire Cat look.
“If only you could see your face! Oh, God, I wish I had a camera!”
16
SUSSEX COUNTY, NJ
NOVEMBER 14
As soon as Luca stepped into the room, the usually listless Sinclair-2 rose from his seat and came toward him. He looked like he’d slept in his clothes; his face flushed as he started shouting.
“It was you, wasn’t it! You killed those sims! You monster! You monster !”
“Calm down, Ellis,” Abel Voss said, putting an arm around the man’s shoulders. “You can’t go makin wild accusations like that.”
“I can!” Sinclair-2 cried. “I know this man’s methods. And if he didn’t do it himself, he sent one of his hired thugs!”
No, Luca thought. I did it myself. A one-man op. That’s what you have to do sometimes if you want to be sure a job gets done right.
It had taken Luca about a week after the Saw Mill River Parkway debacle to put all the pieces in place. Two nights ago he’d made his move.
But the op developed an early hitch: a tail. If he hadn’t been looking for one, he never would have spotted it. But he’d been prepared.
He’d driven into midtown Manhattan and valet-parked his car at the New York Hilton, then zipped through the lobby and out a side exit where he hailed a cab that took him to a second car that had been left for him in a lot near the theater district. He’d driven out of town immediately, directly to Westchester where he’d parked a good mile from the Beacon Ridge Country Club. He’d walked the rest of the way, ducking into the shadows whenever a car approached. When he reached the club, he’d huddled in the hedges until the sims were all in their barrack and the last human had left.
Or so he’d thought. That was when he’d almost got caught. He’d been about to step out of the bushes when he spotted two dark figures gliding between the shadows near the barrack. As he’d watched, they separated, one swiftly climbing a tree, the other disappearing into the bushes.
Someone had the sim quarters under guard. Sullivan? Cadman? No matter. That hadn’t been Luca’s destination. He was headed for the sprawling structure on the crest of the hill, the club’s main building.
Soon he’d reached his destination: the kitchen. Once he’d located the cooking pot labeled SIMS he removed a vial of clear odorless liquid from his breast pocket. A brand new compound sent down through Lister from SIRG; so new it didn’t have a name yet, only a number: J7683452.
He’d emptied the vial into the big pot and begun swirling the liquid around, coating the sides and bottom. When it dried, it was invisible. The only thing that could have gone wrong was somebody washing out the pot. But it had been hung up clean, so that was unlikely.
Amazing stuff, J7683452. He could have stuck his head into that pot, licked its insides clean, and he’d be fine. Perfectly harmless in that state. But heat it to a hundred-and-sixty degrees or more and…
Bon appétit.
As for here and now, he didn’t owe the Sinclair brothers an explanation. And they didn’t deserve one.
“Admit it, Portero! You murdered those nineteen sims!”
“Murdered?” he said with a calculatedly derisive snort—few things gave him more pleasure than getting under these twits’ skins. “They’re animals. They can be killed, they can be slaughtered, they can be sacrificed to the gods, but they can’t be murdered.”
With a hoarse roar Sinclair-2 launched himself at Luca, only to be hauled back by the heavier, stronger Voss.
“You don’t want to be doin that, son,” Voss said. “Trust me, you don’t.”
“Ellis, for God’s sake control yourself!” Sinclair-1 said.
“Listen to them,” Luca said softly.
He hadn’t moved a muscle. He’d take no pleasure in hurting Sinclair-2—it would be like fighting a woman—but he could not allow another man to lay a hand on him.
Sinclair-2 struggled a moment, then pulled free and returned to his usual spot on the sofa where he dropped his face into his hands.
What gives with that guy? Luca wondered. How can he be such a wimp?
“Did you?” Sinclair-1 said, staring at him. “Were you responsible for poisoning those sims?”
“Does it matter?” Luca said.
No one answered.
Just as I thought. They don’t want to know.
“Just tell me one thing,” Voss said. “And think very carefully on your answer: Will the perpetrator or perpetrators ever be found?”
“My guess?” Luca shook his head. “Never. But whoever they were, they did us a favor. The Beacon Ridge club has surrendered. They’re giving the sims what they want.”
“Since when?” Voss said. “I ain’t heard nothin ab
out this.”
“That’s because they haven’t made the announcement yet.”
“If that’s true,” the attorney said, his eyes widening, “it takes the matter out of the court’s hands.”
“No precedent,” Sinclair-1 whispered.
Luca watched cautious optimism grow in their eyes. He’d be sharing in that good feeling if not for a call he’d received this morning. Nothing more than a hoax, he hoped—prayed. Or maybe a wild fantasy cooked up by some drugged-out waste of protoplasm. He’d fed it to Lister who’d pass it up the SIRG ladder, but he’d keep it from the Sinclairs for now. He suspected a leak somewhere, and if he was right, the less said here, the better.
But he dearly wished he could lay it on these two. The mere mention now of what the woman on the phone had told him would snuff out the relief warming Sinclair-1 and Voss as if it had never been.
Because if this woman had been telling the truth about a sim named Meerm, it made the threat they’d just overcome seem like a pebble in a mountain gorge.
F. Paul Wilson, The Portero Method
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