“This is a Hallenger S-27 automatic pistol,” the Dark Man pointed out. “It carries a twenty shot capacity in two parallel magazines and, while not well balanced, can spray all twenty throughout this room in less than one second. I can also fire one individually, Mr. MacDonald. It may not kill you, but if it doesn’t the spin on it will keep you hospitalized for months.”
Damn! MacDonald swore to himself, everything except the specter in front of him fading from his mind. Finally I’m face to face with the bastard and I don’t even have my pants on!
Angelique just stared at him in horror, her joy and commitment crumbling within her.
“How did you find us?” MacDonald asked the strange enemy. He was trying to place the voice, but, while it might be electronically altered, it really didn’t sound like anyone he’d ever met or known.
“It was extremely difficult, I admit,” the dark one replied. “Frankly, we felt we had blown it. Your organization is far more efficient than we had dreamed or planned on, Mr. MacDonald. Of course, there were twin objects to the exercise. One was allowing Angelique to both sink into savagery and see what it was like to exist like that in the modem world. To dismantle the last of her civilized ego, as it were, showing the futility of flight and leading to this moment, where we demonstrate the futility of true escape. The second was the hope that she would lead us to parts of your organization, which we’d been otherwise unable to find or penetrate. Still, you led us a merry chase. When that seaplane vanished into thin air after leaving Ensenada air space, we were thrown into a panic. The odds were good after time passed that even if we found you, it would be too late for our ends. I’m very happy to see that it is not so. We would not have been so hesitant to act.’’
“I’ll bet. And yet you did track us down, even to this place.”
“Believe me, we did not and could not. When we missed you at the house and discovered no one left knew where you were going or even what direction, it was almost as bad. We had to sit, and wait, and keep the pressure on, and, sure enough, it broke. Oh, don’t worry about our little Angelique here being kept in the dark, as it were. She understands what I say as well as you—although not what you say, sadly.”
There was a sharp double knock on the motel room door that startled them but didn’t faze the Dark Man. He reached over and turned the knob on the door, but MacDonald already had figured out who was there before Maria walked back in, looking quite wet and not at all happy about it. For Angelique, though, it was a crushing blow, worse in a way than the appearance of the Dark Man.
She closed the door behind her and stood there next to the Dark Man, looking at the pair on the bed with a grim expression.
“Miss Iscariot, I believe,” MacDonald said with a sneer. “If you were his all along, why wait until the last moment? Just rubbing it in?”
“I wasn’t—his,” she replied, sounding nervous and miserable. “I just—figured it all out—that’s all. After I saw— her—in that parking lot, I realized just what she had become and what I had become. There’s an eight hundred number you can call that will route your call to the Institute. You know that. After I called you, I thought and thought, and then I called it.”
“Pretty lousy response time for you, Blob Boy, isn’t it? It took you almost three hours to hit the house.”
“A message routing problem of sorts. It took a while to get the information to the right people, round them up, and get them in the right place to act without official interference. Still, you acted with even more efficiency than we did. That cost us. Then we had to wait. Wait until our little Maria decided to call again—either the number or the house. She finally called the house this morning from here. After that, it was mostly a matter of timing.”
Angelique stared at Maria, appalled. “Why, my daughter? Why? After so much and after all we have been through…”
Maria answered slowly in English, but it was clear that Angelique could hear and understand whoever and whatever the Dark Man chose.
“Because I knew. They were either gonna kill you or lock you in like that forever, and I never figured on Greg actually going through with it. Even when he did, I thought about it. Like that, forever, always on the run, never being human—it was horrible, and you were dragging him down with you. I couldn’t let that happen, but I couldn’t let those cold blooded leeches blow you away, either. And for what? They said it’d only slow ’em down a little, not stop ’em. It was for nothing! So I called ’em. We made a deal, that’s all, and you won’t be stuck and neither will he and nobody will die.”
Angelique felt tears coming to her eyes. “More will die because of what you did. To save one, or two, you may massacre millions!’’
“Yeah, well, I don’t know those millions and they never did anything for me that didn’t benefit them more. I know me, and I know you two.”
“And do you think he’ll keep that deal now?” MacDonald asked her. “Why should he?”
“A proper point, and at this late stage rather beside the point,” the Dark Man noted casually. “However, we keep our bargains when we can. I must say it’s rather nice to finally see you in the flesh, Mr. MacDonald. I must confess I’m rather glad you escaped our rambling and crude friend, which I wouldn’t have sent in the first place, and I was quite impressed that you managed an effective escape from the island. You are a courageous, resourceful, and most dangerous man, MacDonald.”
“I appreciate the flattery, but it seems that fighting gallantly isn’t enough to win the war. I’d rather be less impressive, get some breaks, and win.”
“Breaks. Fate. Such silly words to avoid any act of faith, any compromise with materialistic principles. Scientists ignore what they can not explain away, or create new theories to explain away problems that are more difficult to believe than the supernatural. One theory now says that the universe was created spontaneously out of nothing, with no cause. Don’t you find that a violation of rational science in the name of science? Don’t you find that concept even more absurd to the rational mind than the idea of a creator’s will? George Orwell once saw a ghost and described it in great detail, yet he dismissed it in the end as some sort of hallucination because, in spite of the scientific evidence of his own eyes and experience, it violated his world view. He could not accept it. Neither, really, can Maria, here—or you.”
“Spare me the lectures, eh?” MacDonald snapped. “What comes next?”
“Next? The most vital part comes next, and it is up to Angelique. She must return to us, willingly, with a vow to submit to her destiny.”
“I will never do that!”
“Oh, really? Now, consider your position, my dear. You are coming, willingly or not. You know that. But if you come willingly, and submit to us, I will not use this exquisite piece of precision weaponry on Mr. MacDonald.” The Dark Man moved closer to them, so close that MacDonald would be within reach of that pistol with one quick move. He didn’t think—he just acted, and nothing happened. He was stuck to the bed, his muscles simply not obedient to his commands no matter how hard he tried. After a moment, he gave up, resigned to it.
“Go ahead and kill me,” he invited the Dark Man. “I’m not exactly thrilled at the prospect, but it sure won’t get you what you want out of her.”
“No!” Maria almost screamed. “He’s mine! You promised me!”