Point Blank

he must look like. He would have to have a bath before he was seen.

He stood up. The third floor was as silent as the first and second. Soot trickled out of his hair, and for a moment he was blinded. He propped himself against a statue while he wiped his eyes. Then he looked again. He was leaning on a stone dragon, identical to the one on the ground floor. He looked at the fireplace. That too was identical. In fact …

Alex wondered if he hadn’t somehow made a terrible mistake. He was standing in a hall that was the same in every detail as the hall on the ground floor. There were the same corridors, the same staircase, the same fireplace … even the same animal heads staring miserably from the walls. It was as if he had climbed in a circle, arriving back where he had begun. He turned around. No. Here was one difference. There was no main door. He could look down on the front courtyard from the window. There was a guard leaning against a wall, smoking a cigarette. This was the third floor. But it had been constructed as a perfect replica of the first.

Alex tiptoed forward, worried that somebody might have heard him climb out of the fireplace. But there was no one around. He followed the corridor as far as the first door. On the first floor, this would lead into the library. Gently, an inch at a time, he opened the door, It led into a second library—again, the spitting image of the first. It had the same tables and chairs, the same suit of armor guarding the same alcove. He ran an eye along one of the shelves. It even had the same books.

But there was one difference—at least, one difference that Alex could see. He felt as if he had strayed into one of those puzzles they sometimes printed in comics or magazines: two identical pictures, but ten deliberate mistakes. Can you spot them? The mistake here was that there was a large television set built into a shelf on a wall. The television was on. Alex found himself looking at an image of yet another library. He was beginning to feel dizzy. What was the library on the television screen? It couldn’t be this one because Alex himself was not being shown. So it had to be the library on the first floor.

Two identical libraries. You could sit in one and watch the other. But why? What was the point?

It took Alex about ten minutes to discover that the entire third floor was a carbon copy of the first floor with the same dining room, living rooms, and games room. Alex went over to the snooker table and placed a ball in the middle. It tolled into the corner pocket. The room was on the same slant. A television screen showed the games room downstairs. It was the same as in the library: one room spying on another.

He retraced his steps and climbed the stairs to the fourth floor. He wanted to find his own room, but first he went into James’s. It was another perfect copy: the same sci-fi posters, the same mobile hanging over the bed, the same lava lamp on the same table. There were even the same clothes strewn over the floor. So these rooms weren’t just built to be the same—they were carefully maintained. Whatever happened downstairs, happened upstairs. But did that mean there had been somebody living here, watching every movement that James Sprintz made, doing everything he did? And if so, had somebody else been doing the same for him?

Alex went next door. It was like stepping into his own room. Again there was the same bed, the same furnishings, the same television. He turned it on. The picture showed his room on the first floor. There was the CD player, lying on the bed. There were his wet clothes from the night before. Had somebody been watching when he cut through the window and climbed out into the night? Alex felt a jolt of alarm, then forced himself to relax. This room—the copy of his room—was different. Nobody had moved in here yet. He could tell, just by looking around him.

The bed hadn’t been slept in. And the smaller details hadn’t yet been copied. There was no CD

player in the duplicate room. No wet clothes. He had left the closet door open downstairs. In here it was closed.

The whole thing was like some sort of mind-bending puzzle. Alex forced himself to think it through. Every single boy who arrived at the academy was watched. All his actions were duplicated. If he hung a poster on the wall of his room, an identical poster was hung in an identical room. There would be someone living in this room, doing everything that Alex did.

He remembered the figure he had glimpsed the day before … someone wearing what looked like a white mask. Perhaps that person had been about to move in. But all the evidence suggested that, for whatever reason, he wasn’t here yet.

And that still left the biggest question of all. What was the point? To spy on the boys was one thing. But to copy everything they did?

A door swung shut and he heard voices, two men walking down the corridor outside. Alex crept over to the door and looked out. He just had time to see Dr. Grief walk through a door with another man, a short, plump figure in a white coat. They had gone into the laundry room.

Alex slipped out of the duplicate bedroom and followed them.

‚…you have completed the work. I am grateful to you, Mr. Baxter.'

‚Thank you, Dr. Grief.'

They had left the door open. Alex crouched down and looked through. Here at last was a section of the third floor that didn’t mirror the first. There were no washing machines or ironing boards here. Instead, Alex found himself looking into a room with a row of sinks and a second set of doors leading into a fully equipped operating room at least twice as big as the laundry room on the first floor. At the center of the room was an operating table. The walls were lined with shelves containing surgical equipment, chemicals, and—scattered across the surface—

what looked like black-and-white photographs.

An operating room! What was its role in this bizarre, devilish jigsaw puzzle? The two men had walked into it and were talking together, Grief standing with one hand in his pocket. Alex chose his moment, then slipped into the outer room, crouching down beside one of the sinks.

The second set of doors was open. From here he could watch and listen as the two of them talked.

‚So … I hope you’re pleased with the last operation.' It was Mr. Baxter speaking. He had half turned toward the doors, and Alex could see a round, flabby face with yellow hair and a thin mustache. Baxter was wearing a bow tie and a checked suit underneath his white coat. Alex had never seen the man before. He was certain of it. And yet, he sensed he knew him. Another puzzle!

‚Entirely,' Dr. Grief replied. ‚I saw him as soon as the bandages came off. You have done extremely well.'

‚I was always the best. But that’s what you paid for.' Baxter chuckled. His voice was oily.

‚And while we’re on that subject, maybe we should talk about my final payment.'

‚You have already been paid the sum of one million dollars.'

‚Yes, Dr. Grief.' Baxter smiled. ‚But I was wondering if you might not like to think about a little … bonus?'

‚I thought we had an agreement.' Dr. Grief turned his head very slowly. The red glasses homed in on the other man like searchlights.

‚We had an agreement for my work, yes. But my silence is another matter. I was thinking of another quarter of a million. Given the size and the scope of your Gemini Project, it’s not so much to ask. Then I’ll retire to my little house in Spain and you’ll never hear from me again.'

‚I will never hear from you again?'

‚I promise.'

Dr. Grief nodded. ‚Yes. I think that’s a good idea.'

His hand came out of his pocket. Alex saw that it was holding an automatic pistol with a thick silencer protruding from the barrel. Baxter was still smiling as Grief shot him once, through the middle of the forehead. He was thrown off his feet and onto the operating table. He lay still.

Dr. Grief lowered the gun. He went over to a telephone, picked it up, and dialed a number.

There was a pause while his call was answered. Then …

‚This is Grief. I have some garbage in the operating room that needs to be removed. Could you please inform the disposal team?'

He put down the phone and, glancing one last time at the still figure on the operating table, walked to the other side of the room. Alex saw him press a button. A section of the wall slid open to reveal an elevator on the other side. Dr. Grief got in. The doors closed.

Alex straightened up, too shocked to think straight. He staggered forward and went into the operating room.