Silence. The dog groaned softly at her feet,, his rear legs twitching.
There was another noise, this time at the far end of the barn, like weeds or bushes scrabbling against the retracted aisleway doors—coming toward the doorway. She panicked and ran out of the barn, across the barn enclosure and up toward the house. But when she got to the hedge passage, she stopped abruptly, grabbing the post of the grape arbor to stop herself. The walkway between the hedges, which was nearly fifty feet long, was in deep shadow. She looked over her shoulder at the barn, but there was nothing coming or moving-yet.
She looked back into the gloom of the hedge passage and back at the barn. There were fences on either side of the hedge passage. She was in her uniform skirt and low heels.
That fence would slow her down-a lot. The hedge passage was a direct shot to the house-unless there was someone in there, someone who could reach through the hedge and grab her. A night breeze swept gently through the tree branches over her head. The barn remained silent.
She made her decision: Get to the house; get to a phone.
She took off again, straight through the hedge passage, staying low, bent over as she ran, grateful for every day of-her workouts, her right arm held up, her hand balled in a fist.
She erupted from the other side of the passage and sprinted the remaining hundred feet to the front porch in about six seconds. She hurtled through the front door, spun around, slammed and locked it. She leaned back against the door as she recovered her breath. Phone. Get on the phone. Call the cops . No. Call Train. Where was that card? In her pocket.
Call his car phone. Get him to turn around and get back here.
Then she realized the house was dark. There was enough starlight coming in to see the furniture and the walls but not much else. Turn on the lights, hunny.
They had been on when she left.
She held her breath as she slowly moved her hand over to feel the bank of switches by the front door. Three of the four were up, in the “on” position.
The power. The power’s out. Someone’s cut the power She swallowed hard and moved sideways into the living room, feeling her way through the familiar shapes of furniture. She stopped when she reached the phone at the far end of the couch, then listened carefully. She thought she Sensed a foreign presence in the house, then wondered if it was just her imagination. Her mouth dry, she settled into the couch and put her hand on the telephone.
If he’d cut the lights, he might have cut the phone, too.
Please, please let it be working.
With Train’s card in one hand, she lifted the handset. But she couldn’t see the numbers in the darkened living room.
This was no time to mess around. She couldn’t bear to see if there was a that tone or not. She took a deep breath and punched 911. Then she put the handset to her right ear and held her breath. Her heart sank when she did not hear a ringing sound.
Commander Lawrence, a voice whispered.
She nearly dropped the phone. Someone was on the line, and it sure as hell wasn’t the 911 operator.
I know you’re there, Commander.
The voice seemed disembodied, a hoarse, machinelike whisper with a faint echo, but it was unm istakably right there, right in her ear. Where the hell was he? Oh my God, the phone didn’t ring: He’s here; he’s in the house. She fought back another surge of panic, the overwhelming urge to bolt back out of the house.
“Who is this? What do you want?” she said, her voice coming out in a dry croak.
That’s not your normal voice, Commander. Funny how adrenaline can do that. Are you a fraid?
She looked around the darkened room and swallowed again. If she just put the phone down and kept very quiet she could make it to the front door.
Depending on where he was. There were extension phones in the study, the kitchen, and the upstairs bedrooms. Get out of the house. Get to one of the cars, and a car phone.
Pay attention, Commander. Stop trying to figure out where I am or how to get help. I’m not here to hurt you. If I wanted to hurt you, I would have put a razor wire about neck-high between those hedges. I didn’t hurt your old dog, did I? I could have snapped his neck. But I used ether, right? So sit still. And pay attention. This is important.
“Who are you?” she asked, her voice a little stronger.
She eyed the front hall, gathering herself, and then thought about getting the door locks open, and about the distance to the garage.
I think you know who I am. The voice definitely sounded as if it was machine-generated, not human.
“Galantz?”
That’s not my name anymore. Marcus Galantz is dead, remember? But here’s the deaclass="underline" You’re beginning to interfere in something that doesn’t concern you. You and your friend Lurch there.
She swallowed but said nothing.
I want you to back out. Go back to being a professional second-guesser in room 4C646 in the Pentagon. There’s a future in that. There’s nofuture in what you’ve been doing lately. None at all. Do you understand me?
Did you kill them?” she asked. “Elizabeth Walsh? Admiral Schmidt?”
No. He did. Your precious pretty boy with the golden sleeves.
“I don’t believe that,” she said. “He’s not a killer.”
Oh yes he is. You have no idea, Commander. He kills people, especially people who depend on him. He kills people who are close to him. And you are getting close to him.
Dangerous place to be, Commander. Very dangerous, in my recent experience. Others would-agree-if only they could That silenced her. She tried to think, but that whispering voice was starting to mesmerize her-the repetitive phraseology, the short chantlike bursts of speech.
The urge to bolt was diminishing. Instead, she found herself wanting to talk to him, to pay attention to the whispering sound in her ear.
You don’t believe me, do you, Karen-n-n-n?
Suddenly, the whisper was much louder as he let the final syllable of her name linger in the earpiece, the echoing voice like a prolonged hiss from a large snake. Using her name now. Focus: He’s using a machine to do this.
I do believe you. But she was thinking it, not saying it.
Karen-n-n-n. Here I come. Karen-n-n-n.
She realized then that she had stopped breathing and that she was holding the earpiece against the side of her head hard enough to hurt.
No. Don’t come. I believe you. But she was still thinking it, not saying it.
Karen-n-n-n. The volume was diminishing.
Please. Don’t come. I believe you.
He said her name again, the volume very low now, as if he had put down the phone.
And was coming. I She dropped the phone and lunged across the living room, I knocking over a table and then a lamp, caroming off an I upholstered chair before reaching the front vestibule, her hands clawing at the dead-bolt handle, the door handle, and then she was out on the front porch and flying across the driveway to the garage, its right-side door still open, thank God, to the first car, any car, and then she was inside the Mercedes, batting at the switches for the door locks.
Keys. Oh God, I don’t have my keys!
She whirled around in the seat and looked back at the open garage door.
The door transmitter was mounted to the dash. Close it? Or leave it open?
Close it and be in total darkness. Open it and he gets in, if he wants to.”Men she remembered the car phone.
She smashed down on the remote transmitter button and the big garage door started to lower behind her. She stabbed the power switch on the car phone. There was a tone, and the little screen lit up. Locked, it read, as if mocking her.