the guns and see the blood again in his memory. In these almost psychic moments, he was both amazed and dismayed that the same hands were accustomed to mundane
Besides, he reminded himself, these are the 1970s. This is the age of science and technology when a man often is required to act with the implacable and unemotional savagery of the machine. For better or worse, in these times gentility is becoming less and less a sign of the civilized man and is, in fact, very nearly an obsolescent quality. You see gentility, most often, in those who are least likely to survive wave after wave of future shock.
Lowering his hands he said, “In the classic paranoid vein, it’s us against them. Except that this isn’t a delusion or an illusion; it’s
Jenny seemed to accept the need for murder as quickly as he had accepted the fact that he might be called upon to commit it. By this point in her life, she had experienced, as had all but the most gentle people, at least the flickering of a homicidal urge in a moment of despair or great frustration. She hadn’t accepted it as the solution to whatever problem had inspired it. But she was not incapable of conceiving of a situation in which homicide
She said, “Even if we could bring ourselves to kill in order to stop this thing… Well, it’s still too much. To stop Salsbury, we need to know more about him. And how do we learn anything? He’s got hundreds of bodyguards. Or if he wants, he can turn everyone in town into killers and send them after us. Do we just sit here, pass the time, wait for him to stop around for a chat?”
Returning the hardbound volume of essays to the shelf from which he’d taken it, Sam said, “Wait a minute… Suppose…” He faced them. He was excited. All three of them were tense, twisted as tight as watch springs. But now a glimmer of
“Grabbed for her,” Jenny said.
“Wrong.”
Bitterly, Paul said, “Ordered Bob to kill her.”
“Not that either. Remember, he would expect her to be another one of his — zombies.”
Sucking in her breath, Jenny said, “He would use the code phrase on her, the system he talks about in the article. He’d try to open her up and take control of her before she ran away. So… Rya must have heard the code phrase!”
“And if she can recall it,” Sam said,
6
3:15 P.M
Dr. Walter Troutman entered the police chief’s office. He was carrying his black leather satchel in his right hand and a chocolate candy bar with almonds in his left. He appeared to be delighted with the world and with himself. “You wanted to see me, Bob?”
Before Thorp could answer, Salsbury stepped away from the windows and said, “I am the key.”
“I am the lock.”
“Buddy Pellineri is waiting in the room across the hall,” Salsbury said. “You know him, don’t you?”
“Buddy?” Troutman asked, wrinkling his fleshy face. “Well, of course I know him.”
“I’ve told him that we’re afraid he’s picked up a very bad germ and that you’re going to give him a vaccination so he won’t get sick. As you know, he’s not especially bright. He believed me. He’s waiting for you.”
“Vaccination?” Troutman said, perplexed.
“That’s what I told him to keep him here. Instead, you’ll inject an air bubble into his bloodstream.”
Troutman was shocked. “That would cause an embolism.”
“I know.”
“It would kill him!”
Salsbury smiled and nodded. “It had better. That’s the whole idea, doctor.”
Looking at Bob Thorp, who was seated behind the desk, then back at Salsbury, Troutman said miserably, “But I can’t do a thing like that. I can’t possibly.”
“Who am I, doctor?”
“You’re — the key.”
“Very good. And who are you?”
“I’m the lock.”
“All right. You will go across the hall to the room where Buddy is waiting. You’ll chat with him, be very pleasant, give him no cause to be suspicious. You’ll tell him that you’re going to give him a vaccination, and you’ll inject an air bubble into his bloodstream. You won’t mind killing him. You won’t hesitate. As soon as he is dead, you’ll leave the room — and you will remember only that you gave him a shot of penicillin. You won’t remember killing him when you leave that room. You will come back here, look in the door, and say to Bob, ‘He’ll be better in the morning.’ Then you’ll go back to your house, having forgotten entirely about these instructions. Is that clear?”
“Yes. ”
“Go do it.”
Troutman left the room.
Ten minutes ago Salsbury had decided to eliminate Buddy Pellineri. Although the man had experienced the night chills and nausea, and although he had been partially brainwashed by the subceptive program, he was not a good subject. He could not be fully and easily controlled. When told to erase from his memory the men he had seen coming down from the reservoir on the morning of August sixth, he might forget them forever — or only for a few hours. Or not at all. Had he been a genius, the drug and the subliminals would have transformed him into the ideal slave. Ironically, however, his ignorance condemned him.
It was a pity that Buddy had to die. In his own way he was a likable brute.
But I’ve got the power, Salsbury thought. And I’m going to keep it. I’m going to eliminate as many people as have to be eliminated for me to keep the power. I’ll show them. All of them. Dawson, good old Miriam, the bitches, the holier-than-thou college professors with their snotty questions and self-righteous denunciations of my work, the whores, my mother, the bitches…
Rya sat in bed, yawning and smacking her lips. She looked from Jenny to Sam to Paul — but she didn’t seem to know for certain who they were.
“Do you remember what he said?” Paul asked again. “The man with the thick glasses. Do you remember?”
Squinting at him, scratching her head, she said, “Who… am this?”
“She’s still dopey,” Jenny said, “and will be for a while yet. ”
Studying the girl from the foot of the bed, Sam said, “Salsbury knows he’s got to deal with us. As soon as he’s decided
