"No one's trying to fool you."
"Oh yes you are. I know who's over there. I've known all along!"
"Who, Wayne?"
"Henry Bragg." Wayne's smile stretched wider "He's resting, isn't he? And that's why I'm not supposed to go over there."
"That's right."
"When can I see him? I want to tell him I'm sorry he got hurt."
"You'll see him soon."
"Good." Wayne nodded. He wanted to see Henry very much, to let him know what he was doing for Mr. Krepsin. Last night Krepsin had asked him to feel a lump in his neck because he was afraid it might be a cancer. Wayne hadn't been able to feel any lump at all, but said he did anyway, and that Mr Krepsin would be just fine. "I've been having that nightmare again, Mr Niles."
"Which one?"
"The one I have all the time. I thought I wouldn't have nightmares anymore, after she was dead. The snake and the eagle are trying to kill each other, and last night the snake bit the eagle in the neck and pulled it to the ground." He blinked, staring out at the horizon. "The snake's winning. I don't want it to win. But I can't stop it."
"It doesn't mean anything. It's just a dream."
"No sir. It's more. I know it is. Because . . . when the eagle dies, I'm scared something inside me—something important—is going to die too."
"Let's see you hit another ball," Niles said. "Go ahead, tee it up."
Wayne moved like an obedient machine. The ball sailed out toward another observation tower.
Niles continued to the garage, got in one of the electric carts, and drove out toward the white structure. A fly buzzed around his head in the heat, and the air smelled like scorched metal.
Niles rapped on the door. Lucinda, a short squat Mexican woman with gray hair and a seamed, kindly face, opened it at once. He stepped into a sparsely furnished living room where a fan blew the heavy air around. "How is he?" he asked in Spanish.
She shrugged. "Still sleeps. I gave him another shot about an hour ago."
"Was he coming out of it?"
"Enough to be talking. He spoke a girl's name: Bonnie. After this morning when he threw his breakfast all over the wall, I wanted to take no chances."
"Good. Mr. Krepsin wants to see him tonight. Until then, we'll just keep him under." Niles unlocked a slatted door across the room and stepped into a darkened, windowless bedroom with cinder-block walls. The boy was lying on the bed with a strap across his chest, though the precaution was hardly necessary; he was deeply asleep from the drug Lucinda had injected. The boy had been kept drugged since he'd been brought in on the private airstrip behind Krepsin's bunker several days before. Niles stood over him, felt the boy's pulse, hooked up an eyelid and then let it fall. This was the boy Wayne feared so much? Niles wondered. Why? What hold did this boy and his mother have on Wayne?
Niles said, "I'll call before I come to get him tonight. You might want to give him some sodium pentothal around nine o'clock. Just enough to keep him settled down for Mr Krepsin. Okay?"
Lucinda nodded in agreement. She was as familiar with drugs as she was with fried tortillas.
Satisfied with Billy's condition, Niles left the white house and drove back to the bunker. Wayne had started on a new bucket of balls, chopping them in all directions.
The bunker's front door was metal covered with oak, and it fit into the concrete wall like the entrance to a bank vault. Niles pressed a little beeper clipped to his belt, and electronic locks disengaged. Disinfectant filled the entrance foyer, which led to a honeycomb of rooms and corridors, most of which were underground. As Niles closed the door behind him, he failed to notice the fly that circled quickly above his head and flew off through a faint swirl of air-cleansing chemicals.
He found Mr. Krepsin in his study, talking to Thomas Alvarado, a gaunt dark-skinned man with a diamond in his right earlobe.
"Twenty-six?" Krepsin, wearing a white caftan and surgical gloves, was saying as he ate from a plate of Oreo cookies. "Ready to come across by when?"
"Next week. Thursday at the latest. We're bringing them in a truckload of uncured iguana hides. They'll have to bear the stink, but at least the federales won't poke their noses in."
Krepsin grunted and nodded. The cheap Mexican labor that Alvarado provided was used by Ten High in a number of ways, from the orange groves to the Sundown Ranch in Nevada. On the floor beside Krepsin's chair was a can of film, another gift from Alvarado, who owned a motion-picture studio that cranked out cheap westerns, horror films, and martial-arts gore-fests. "How is he, Mr. Niles?"
"Sleeping. He'll be ready."
"A secret project?" Alvarado asked.
"In a manner of speaking," Krepsin said. Behind his desk was a stack of newspapers, all carefully sprayed with disinfectant, carrying articles on Chicago's vanished "Mystery Medium" and photographs from a video tape that had been made in a burned-out vagrants' hotel. The boy's sudden disappearance from the hospital had fueled a controversy over the authenticity of that tape, and emotions were running high. Krepsin was intrigued, and wanted to know more about Billy Creekmore.
Krepsin had been explaining to Alvarado how the Falconer Crusade's assets were being transferred to Mexican banks, and how Wayne was fully in favor of the idea.
"But what about his own people? Won't they cause trouble?"
"It's not to their advantage to rock the boat, and that's what Mr Russo is telling them right now. They'll still run part of the show and draw their salaries. Every penny donated to the Crusade will first go to Alabama. In time, we'll build a television center outside Palm Springs so Wayne can continue his network ministry."
Alvarado smiled slyly. "It's a bit late for you to become a man of God, isn't it, Señor Krepsin?"
"I've always been a man of God," he replied, chewing another cookie. "God's green, and he folds. Now let's go on to the next item of business, shall we?"
60
When an amber oval moon had risen over the stark mountain peaks and Wayne Falconer was asleep in his room, Niles and Dorn came for Billy.
Floating in the darkness, unaware of where he was or how he'd gotten here, Billy heard the lock click and thought it was the woman again. He was startled when the overhead light came on, blazing into his eyes. There were two men in suits standing over him. A strap cut across his stomach as he weakly tried to lift his head. He remembered a tray of food, and the way it had splattered against the wall. The woman with the needle had said some very nasty things to him.
"Mr Krepsin wants him scrubbed," one of the men said.
The woman started on Billy with a soapy, rough sponge, and scrubbed him until blood was almost drawn. Billy had come to like the woman in a way, to depend on her. She helped him find the bedpan when he needed to go to the bathroom, and she fed him when he was hungry.
The strap was loosened.
The man who'd spoken put a finger against Billy's throat to check his pulse.
"Is Bonnie here?" Billy asked. "Where's Dr. Hillburn?"
The man ignored his questions. "We want you to stand up now. We've brought you some clothes." He motioned toward a chair across the room, and Billy made out a pair of yellow pants and a pale blue short-sleeved shirt. Something about the yellow pants jarred him—the color was familiar From where? he wondered.
"Stand up, now."
Billy did, and his legs collapsed. The two men waited until he could stand up by himself. "Need to call my mom," Billy said.
"Right. Come on, get dressed. Mr Krepsin's waiting."
Dazed and weak, Billy put on the clothes. He couldn't understand why they hadn't brought him any shoes. He almost cried because he had no shoes, and the pants were so loose they bagged around the thighs and hips. The shirt had a monogram: a scrolled W.