“Keep blasting.” Abrams had begun playing the game next to her. “This is a good one. Enemy missiles are falling on my cities.”
“Sounds charming. Is there a counterespionage game?”
“No… too hard to program… oh, damn it, there goes Pittsburgh.”
“No loss. How do I stop these little green men?”
“Keep blasting… ” Abrams stared at his video screen and took his hands off the controls. Missile after missile arched and whistled across the screen, vaporizing the cities in video mushroom clouds accompanied by a loud audio blast. He said quietly, “You know, sometimes I think that the real world doesn’t exist to any greater extent than that world exists. Human destiny may be determined by a video game tape played by colossal beings on a twenty-thousand-foot screen. The history of mankind could be a series of programmed possibilities stored in a memory chip; a few moments of idle recreation for other beings. The end of this world will come when the quarter runs out. Or perhaps the tape will break… we might see a big black rip in the sky, a short, snappy jerk. The End.”
She looked at him. “You’re in a philosophical mood.”
He turned away from the video games. “Running excites my brain… Let’s head out.”
They left the mall and walked to the BMT station on Bay Parkway. Katherine said, “We’ll run Prospect Park, then that’s it.”
“Well, I hope Thorpe can join us there.”
“Yes, this is the last possible rendezvous point. He’s done the park with me a few times and knows the route.”
“Good. We’ll keep a sharp eye out for him.”
She glanced at him as they descended the stairs of the subway station.
They stood well back from the edge of the platform and waited for the train. Abrams scanned the few people on the platform. After a minute of silence he said, “There’s always that one percent chance he’s working solely in the interests of the United States government.”
She replied in a low voice, “I give it a fifty-fifty chance.”
“You’re very generous. But the net result is the same — as long as I’m not a hundred percent certain, I won’t summarily execute him.”
She turned to him sharply. “You will not do that under any circumstances.”
“Why not?”
“Because you have no proof. It’s not your right—”
“Hold on. You’re the one who told me you would kill your best friend if he turned out to be Talbot.”
“Peter Thorpe is obviously not Talbot… he may be an accomplice… Anyway, people like Peter, if they have turned, are interrogated, not shot.”
“Well, I think it should be the other way around. I’d think you’d want to talk to Talbot and find out what he’s been up to for these last forty years or so. Thorpe, on the other hand, is low-level. Also, his behavior defies anything we know about human abnormality. Because he’s not…”
“Not what?”
“Not abnormal. I’ve seen his type before. Picture a psychiatrist trying to cure a lion of his nasty habit of ripping living things apart. The lion is confused. His behavior is instinctive. The lion does not believe he is nuts. And he isn’t. He’s a lion, doing his thing. And if he’d been raised in a penthouse on Park Avenue, it would make no difference in his behavior. If you dropped in to chat with him when he was hungry or cross about something, he’d rip you apart and not lose any sleep over it. Lions are not guilty of murder, and some people with strong killing instincts are not guilty either. Nonetheless, a bullet in the heart is the correct way to deal with dangerous animals. The person who fires the bullet should not lose any sleep over it either.”
Katherine said softly. “Do you believe that?”
“I believe I believe it. But I’ve never acted on it.”
“Don’t. Not unless your life is in danger.”
“It is. That’s the point.”
“I mean immediate danger. Clear and imminent danger, as we say in law.”
“Ah, we’re back to that split second.”
“It always returns to that.” She glanced at her watch, then put a lighter tone in her voice. “Teach me how to play Space Invaders.”
“That takes a long time.”
“Good.”
He nodded, then said, “First things first. Right?”
“Right.”
The train pulled into the platform and they boarded.
38
West’s hand found the butt of the revolver. Simultaneously, he heard the air crack around his ears and a burning pain seared his bare shoulders. West raised the pistol with one hand, but could not summon the strength to squeeze the trigger.
A second crack of the long whip raked his neck. The gun exploded in his hand and the room was filled with a deafening roar.
Behind him he heard Eva scream.
West’s hand contracted again to squeeze off another round, this one aimed at Thorpe’s face a few feet from his. West’s fingers tightened and his trigger finger pulled back, but there was no explosion. West focused on his hand. The gun was gone and he realized it had recoiled out of his numb and nearly paralyzed hand, though he still felt its presence in his grasp.
Thorpe slid forward and retrieved the revolver. He steadied himself in a kneeling position and leveled the gun at West. “You… shit… ”
West felt the room spinning as he tried to stand. He heard the whirring sound of the whip again but barely felt it as it sliced across his chest.
Eva struck again, three times in quick succession, until West dropped in a heap to the floor.
West turned his face quickly away from the smell.
Eva grabbed his ear and turned him back toward the smelling salts.
West’s eyes opened and he found himself looking down at the floor. Slowly he realized he was lying on the gurney again, facedown, his head hanging over the edge. His calves were strapped, but there was no strap restraining his upper torso. Tentatively, he raised himself to his hands and knees.
He felt a ripping flash of pain across his shoulder blades, and collapsed. Another strike of the whip fell on his buttocks and he felt the warm blood trickle over his cold skin.
Thorpe’s voice, shaky and tremulous, reached him through his pain. “So, Nicholas… so… you are much smarter than I thought… and braver than I imagined… Why do I always underestimate you?”
West turned his head and saw Thorpe sitting in a chair, his color ashen, and his clothes and hair disheveled. He noticed again that Thorpe’s light trousers were stained with wetness. West wondered how long he had been unconscious, then the pungent smell of cordite registered, and he knew it hadn’t been very long. He also noticed that there were no wires leading from his body, that all the equipment had been pushed well away from the gurney.
Thorpe said, “Eva will practice her specialty for a while.” He stood. “I’ll be back in a few hours with Katherine. It’s been my experience that people who can endure pain and hold out under torture crack very quickly when someone they’re close to is being tortured. You’ll see what I mean.”
West swallowed several times, then found his voice. “Be sure… be sure to clean yourself… before you go… ”
Eva struck with the whip and West howled.
Thorpe smiled, then said to Eva, “I want him alive and conscious when I return.”
Eva replied, “He will be a different man when you return.”
Thorpe moved toward the door.
West called out, “Peter… you blew it, Peter… you’re an amateur… You’re not as smart as you think… ”
Eva raised the whip, but Thorpe held up a hand and stared at West. There was something in West’s voice that he didn’t like. “What are you talking about?”
“They’ll kill you for letting me die.”
“You’re not going to die. Yet.”
“Yes. I’m going to die. Now.” West suddenly yanked a small tuft of hair from the top of his head and stuffed it in his mouth.