“I know the numbers are high, there were almost five hundred missing kids reported in Sarasota County the last year I was on the cops there, but the majority—the great majority—are kids who come back on their own.” Tim was thinking of Robert and Roland Bilson, the twins he’d spotted on their way to the Dunning Agricultural Fair in the wee hours of the morning.
“That still leaves thousands,” she said. “Tens of thousands.”
“Agreed, but how many of those disappear leaving murdered parents behind?”
“No idea. I doubt if anyone’s done a study.” She turned her attention back to Luke, who had been following their conversation with his eyes, as if watching a tennis match. His hand was in his pocket, touching the thumb drive as if it were a lucky rabbit’s foot.
“Sometimes,” he said, “they probably make it look like accidents.”
Tim had a sudden vision of this boy living with Orphan Annie in her tent, the two of them listening to that late-night kook of hers on the radio. Talking about the conspiracy. Talking about they.
“You say you cut your earlobe off because there was a tracking device in it,” Wendy said. “Is that really the truth, Luke?”
“Yes.”
Wendy didn’t seem to know where to take it from there. The expression she looked at Tim said Over to you.
Tim picked up Luke’s empty Coke can and dropped it into the take-out bag, which now contained nothing but wrappers and chicken bones. “You’re talking about a secret installation running a secret program on domestic soil, one that stretches back God knows how many years. Once upon a time that might have been possible, I suppose—theoretically—but not in the age of the computer. The government’s biggest secrets get dumped onto the Internet by this rogue outfit called—”
“WikiLeaks, I know about WikiLeaks.” Luke sounded impatient. “I know how hard it is to keep secrets, and I know how crazy this sounds. On the other hand, the Germans had concentration camps during World War II where they managed to kill seven million Jews. Also gypsies and gays.”
“But the people around those camps knew what was going on,” Wendy said. She tried to take his hand.
Luke took it back. “And I’d bet a million bucks the people in Dennison River Bend, that’s the closest town, know something’s going on. Something bad. Not what, because they don’t want to know. Why would they? It keeps them going, and besides, who’d believe it, anyway? You’ve still got people today who don’t believe the Germans killed all those Jews, as far as that goes. It’s called denial.”
Yes, Tim thought, the boy is bright. His cover story for whatever really happened to him is loony, but he does have a ton of brains.
“I want to be sure I have this straight,” Wendy said. She was speaking gently. They both were. Luke got it. You didn’t have to be a child fucking prodigy to know this was how people talked to someone who was mentally unbalanced. He was disappointed but not surprised. What else could he have expected? “They somehow find kids who are telepaths and what you call teleki-something—”
“Telekinetics. TK. Usually the talents are small—even TK-pos kids don’t have much. But the Institute doctors make them stronger. Shots for dots, that’s what they say, what we all say, only the dots are really the Stasi Lights I told you about. The shots that bring on the lights are supposed to boost what we have. I think some of the others might be to make us last longer. Or…” Here was something he just thought of. “Or to keep us from getting too much. Which could make us dangerous to them.”
“Like vaccinations?” Tim asked.
“I guess you could say that, yeah.”
“Before you were taken, you could move objects with your mind,” Tim said in his gentle I’m-talking-to-a-lunatic voice.
“Small objects.”
“And since this near-death experience in the immersion tank, you can also read thoughts.”
“Even before. The tank… boosted it higher. But I’m still not…” He massaged the back of his neck. This was hard to explain, and their voices, so low and so calm, were getting on his nerves, which were already raw. Soon he would be as nuts as they thought he was. Still, he had to try. “But I’m still not very strong. None of us are, except maybe for Avery. He’s awesome.”
Tim said, “Let me make sure I have this straight. They kidnap kids who have weak psychic powers, feed them mental steroids, then get them to kill people. Like that politician who was planning to run for president. Mark Berkowitz.”
“Yes.”
“Why not Bin Laden?” Wendy asked. “I would have thought he’d be a natural target for this… this mental assassination.”
“I don’t know,” Luke said. He sounded exhausted. The bruise on his cheek seemed to be growing more colorful by the minute. “I don’t have a clue how they pick their targets. I talked about it one time with my friend Kalisha. She didn’t have any idea, either.”
“Why wouldn’t this mystery organization just use hit men? Wouldn’t that be simpler?”
“It looks simple in the movies,” Luke said. “In real life I think they mostly fail, or get caught. Like the guys who killed Bin Laden almost got caught.”
“Let’s have a demonstration,” Tim said. “I’m thinking of a number. Tell me what it is.”
Luke tried. He concentrated and waited for the colored dots to appear, but they didn’t come. “I can’t get it.”
“Move something, then. Isn’t that your basic talent, the one they grabbed you for?”
Wendy shook her head. Tim was no telepath, but he knew what she was thinking: Stop badgering him, he’s disturbed and disoriented and on the run. But Tim thought if he could break through the kid’s cockamamie story, maybe they could get to something real and figure out where to go from there.
“How about the take-out bag? No food in it now, it’s light, you should be able to move it.”
Luke looked at it, his brow furrowing more deeply. For a moment Tim thought he felt something—a whisper along his skin, like a faint draft—but then it was gone, and the bag didn’t move. Of course it didn’t.
“Okay,” Wendy said, “I think that enough for n—”
“I know you two are boyfriend and girlfriend,” Luke said. “I know that much.”
Tim smiled. “Not too impressive, kiddo. You saw her kiss me when she came in.”
Luke turned his attention to Wendy. “You’re going on a trip. To see your sister, is it?”
Her eyes went wide. “How—”
“Don’t fall for it,” Tim said… but gently. “It’s an old medium’s trick—the educated guess. Although I’ll admit the kid does it well.”
“What education have I had about Wendy’s sister?” Luke asked, although without much hope. He had played his cards one by one, and now there was only one left. And he was so tired. What sleep he’d gotten on the train had been thin and haunted by bad dreams. Mostly of the immersion tank.
“Will you excuse us for a minute?” Tim asked. Without waiting for a reply, he took Wendy over to the door to the outer office. He spoke to her briefly. She nodded and left the room, taking her phone from her pocket as she went. Tim came back. “I think we better take you to the station.”
At first Luke thought he was talking about the train station. Putting him on another freight, so he and his girlfriend didn’t have to deal with the runaway kid and his crazy story. Then he realized that wasn’t the kind of station Tim meant.
Oh, so what? Luke thought. I always knew I’d end up in a police station somewhere. And maybe a small one is better than a big one, where they’d have a hundred different people—perps—to deal with.