"It's better than listening to the racket the boy's making," Rankin replied sourly. Then, catchingKennally's glare in the rearview mirror, he laid a hand on the dog's bristling hackles. "Easy, Mitzi," he murmured. "Nothing to worry about."
Mitzi's barking subsided to a low growl, but as the station wagon gained speed and they left the town behind, Rankin could still feel the tension in the dog's muscles.
Kennallyslowed the car and made the turn into the narrow driveway that led to the sports center. He sounded the horn, but even as its blare momentarily drowned out Jeff's anguished wails, the gates were beginning to swing open.Kennally waited impatiently, then gunned the station wagon through the gap even before the gates had opened fully. As he sped through, an attendant signaled him to go around to the back of the building.
He braked to a stop in front of an open door. The harsh brilliance of halogen floodlights cut through the darkness, andKennally had to shield his eyes as he stepped out of the car. The others were on the driveway now, too, but Mitzi had remained where she was, her watchful eyes on JeffLaConner.
The white glare of the lights shone brightly through the car's windows, and the sudden illumination seemed somehow to have affected the boy, for suddenly he was lying still, his eyes clamped shut, his neck twisted at an unnatural angle-as if he were trying to escape the light.
Martin Ames, wearing a white lab coat unbuttoned down the front, only partially covering his flannel shirt, stepped out of the door and peered into the station wagon. His lips tightened into a grim line, then he glanced atKennally. "How bad was it, Dick?"
Kennallyshrugged, as if to belittle the struggle that had taken place on the hillside half an hour earlier. "Well, let's just say he wasn't too interested in coming with us," he finally answered. He gestured to the other three men. "Let's get him inside."
Joe Rankin carefully raised the station wagon's rear door.
Almost instantly Jeff twisted himself around and his legs lashed out. Rankin dodged away from the boy's flailing kicks, and with Wes Jenkins's help, pinioned his legs to the floor of the car. A moment laterKennally and Kramer had grasped Jeff's arms. With the boy still struggling to free himself, they carried him inside the building.
"In there," Marty Ames instructed, nodding to an open door a few yards down the hall. The four policemen carried Jeff into a small room, its white wallsshadowlessly illuminated by overhead fluorescent tubes. In the center of the room stood a large table with heavy mesh straps laid neatly across each of its ends. As two attendants moved the straps aside, the officers placed JeffLaConner on the table. The attendants, working quickly, bound Jeff's legs tightly to the table, immobilizing them. Only then didKennally remove the leg manacles.
The bruise on Jeff's sprained right ankle, swollen large now, had turned an ugly purple, and there was a deep mark where the metal of the cuff had cut into his damaged flesh.
"Okay," Ames said. "Let's get the cuffs off his wrists."
As soon as his arms were free, Jeff sat bolt upright and began flailing out at the men around him, his eyes glowering angrily in the bright light.Kennally and Jenkins moved in behind him, each of them grasping one of his shoulders, and managed to force him down, holding him still while his arms, like his legs, were secured to the table with the heavy straps.
Only when they were certain Jeff was immobile did the two men step back. Their foreheads were beaded with sweat, and Jenkins's arms were trembling with the strain of fighting against Jeff's strength.
"All right," Ames said. "I think we can take it from here." He moved to a small cabinet against the wall opposite the door and picked up one of several hypodermic needles laid out on its white enamel surface. One of the orderlies cut the sleeve of Jeff's shirt away from his arm, and Ames slid the needle expertly into a vein.
The drug seemed to have no effect whatever on the boy, whose eyes, wild and glazed, darted about the room as if still seeking a means of escape.
It wasn't until Ames had administered the third shot that Jeff's struggles finally began to abate. As the group around him watched, the strength seemed to drain out of him. Finally, his head dropped back onto the hard metal of the table and his eyes closed.
"Jesus," Frank Kramer finally said in the sudden silence that hung in the room. "I never saw anything like that before. And I hope I never do again."
Marty Ames met Kramer's gaze. "I hope you don't either," he quietly agreed.
Fifteen minutes later, after DickKennally and his men had left the sports clinic, Marty Ames went back to the examining room. The two orderlies were still in the small cubicle, one of them cutting away the last of Jeff's clothing as the other finished setting up a complicated array of electronic monitoring devices. As Ames watched silently, they began attaching sensors to Jeff's body. Only when they were done and Ames was satisfied that the equipment was functioning properly and that Jeff was in no immediate danger, did Ames finally start toward his office, preparing himself for the call he now had to make to ChuckLaConner.
He considered these calls the worst part of his job. But they were also part of the deal he'd made with himself five years before, when Ted Thornton had approached him about heading up the sports center Thornton had envisioned for Silverdale.
Thornton had seduced him, of course, as Thornton managed to seduce so many men, but in the moments when Ames was being completely honest with himself-moments that were becoming more rare as he approached the success that was now almost within his grasp-he had to admit that he'd been willing to be seduced. Thornton had promised him the world, almost literally. First, a lab beyond his wildest dreams, far beyond anything the Institute for the Human Brain in Palo Alto would ever be able to provide. Anything he needed, anything he wanted, would be provided.
Unlimited funds for research, and nearly total autonomy.
If he were successful, a Nobel prize was not out of the question, and certainly he would be able to write his own ticket, both professionally and financially.
Best of all, the project was a direct extension of his work at the Institute, where he had been working with human growth hormones in an effort to correct the imperfections of the human body.
It was Ames's theory that there was no reason why every human being should not possess an ideal body, no reason why some people should be undersized, or overweight, or prone to any of the myriad physical defects and weaknesses that plagued mankind.
Ted Thornton had recognized the commercial value of Martin Ames's studies and hired him away from the Institute, sending him to Silverdale. Immediately, the town itself had become his own private laboratory.
He'd limited his most advanced experiments to the children ofTarrenTech's own personnel. Thornton had decreed that early on, explaining that it was merely a matter of damage controclass="underline" they both understood that things would go wrong; some of the experiments would fail. But when such things happened, Thornton wanted to be in a position to deal with the fallout immediately and effectively.
So far it had worked just as Thornton had planned. Most of the experiments had gone well. But when things had gone awry, when some of his subjects had developed serious side effects from his treatments-extreme aggression being the most common-Thornton had kept his promise. The boys were quickly and quietly taken care of in whatever manner Ames deemed appropriate, and their families were immediately transferred out of the area, with large enough promotions and raises so generous that so far no one had so much as whispered that the financial remuneration was nothing more than a payoff for the loss of a son.
His failures had been so few-only three in nearly five years-that Ames considered his program at Rocky Mountain High a complete success. Most of the boys had responded well to his treatments, and for some of them-Robb Harris, for instance-growth hormones had not been indicated at all. Which was perfect, for it meant that Jerry Harris was able to explain exactly what had been done to his son with complete honesty.