going to tell me. He’s just going to do things by himself. As usual.
“Can you get a chopper in here in the morning?” Becker asked, gazing straight ahead.
“Do you know how expensive that is?”
“No. How expensive is it?”
“What do you need it for?”
“Where did he put the cars? He’s ditched two of them, his and Tee’s.”
“If he has Tee,” Hatcher said. “We don’t know…”
“There are acres and acres of corn around here; you’ll never find the cars from the ground unless you stumble over them.”
“I’ll see if we can afford a chopper.”
“And I want to be left alone, you understand that.”
“This is my operation,” said Hatcher.
“I won’t interfere with your operation. Don’t you get in the way of mine.”
Hatcher noticed Becker’s clothes for the first time. He was wearing black chinos and a navy blue turtle-neck. The sweater would be black by night, too, and the long neck would roll up to cover most of Becker’s face. Hatcher remembered seeing it the day Becker went after the assassin, Bahoud, in New York. It was his killing outfit.
Hatcher crossed his arms over his chest, tucking his hands under his armpits.
“Have it your way, since you will anyway. I won’t interfere.”
Becker turned to face Hatcher. Hatcher felt he was uncomfortably close in the little car.
“You nearly killed me once,” Becker said.
“That wasn’t my fault,” Hatcher said. “Some of the agents got overzealous…”
“Not again.”
“There was a full report on the Bahoud thing, I was cleared…”
“Not again,” Becker repeated. He turned away from Hatcher and started the engine. Dismissed, Hatcher got out of the car.
Becker drove down the county road and caught sight of the farmhouse from atop the hill. He could make out the general layout of the place before the road flattened and he lost sight of it over the corn. Driving at a normal speed, he took the approach road, his eyes taking in every detail as he drove past the Cohen farm and off into the distance. He had not seen much but it would be enough to orient himself when he returned by night.
Thunder rumbled ominously in the west. The cloud cover was now so thick that it was already prematurely dark, as if dusk had come two hours early. Whatever he was going to have to do, Becker reflected that he would have a good night to do it.
Tee woke from what had seemed an endless dream in which a beautiful woman had tied him to the bed and left him, subdued but eager for what was to follow. When she returned he arched to meet her, but she smiled at him with fangs and walked to the bed on six stalklike legs. His eyes fluttered open to see Dyce leaning over him.
“You’re doing fine,” Dyce said in a voice so soft Tee could scarcely hear it above the rush of wind outside.
Dyce’s bearded face vanished for a moment, although Tee made out his form as a darker shape against a dark background. The lightning flashed again and Tee suddenly saw everything in a second, as if in a photograph.
He was lying down, close under a roof in an attic of a house that looked as if it had not survived an air attack. There were gaping holes in the roof, and rafters without crossboards gave way to emptiness below. Dyce was sitting astraddle a rafter, legs dangling into space, and just behind him, several feet away over the void, was a small island of intact flooring just large enough for a man in the fetal position to lie on. On the island was a brown grocery bag, a bottle of spring water, a small container that looked familiar but which Tee could not immediately identify, and a gallon jug.
What held Tee in the air he could not tell, nor could he be sure what Dyce was doing to his arm.
Tee tried to speak but couldn’t, but felt no surprise. He had known somehow on waking that he could not speak and could not move. It didn’t bother him too much; he was more curious than frightened.
Lightning flashed again and Tee could see Dyce massaging his upper arm with his thumb, although he could feel nothing. A dark liquid dripped from a needle in Tee’s arm into an empty spring water bottle.
“We have to speed things up with you,” Dyce said, as if sensing Tee’s curiosity. “I’m sorry to rush things, but we probably don’t have much time. We’ll both just have to do the best we can in the situation.”
Tee realized then that it was Tee’s own blood that Dyce was massaging from Tee’s arm and into the water bottle. The bottle was nearly full and Tee had no idea if it was the first. He felt his heart lurch violently in his chest and for the first time felt the panic of fear.
Dyce kept droning on in his soft, patient voice.
“You’re not really right, of course. I mean, you just don’t really look right. That’s not your fault, of course. It’s nobody’s fault. You’re here-and I can’t tell you how hard it was to get you up the ladder-I nearly gave up, but I couldn’t leave you in the cornfield, you can understand that. And you’re here now, that’s the important thing, and I can’t very well get anyone else under the circumstances, but that young Nordholm was perfect, just perfect. Your friends took him away from me. You can blame them for that.”
Dyce scuttled back across the rafter with surprising agility and put the full bottle of blood on the island. He returned with a fresh, empty bottle and began to massage Tee’s arm once more, pressing his thumb into the vein and sliding it down to the needle.
Tee’s heart lurched again and his eyes widened; he was certain it was about to give out. Dyce stopped and placed his ear on Tee’s chest. His hair bushed against Tee’s chin.
“You’ll be all right, I think,” Dyce said. “That happens sometimes when it goes too fast; that’s why I like to take it slowly. We’ll just stop right here. Now listen to me. Are you listening to me?”
Tee stared at Dyce. His features had become clearer as Tee’s eyes adjusted to the darkness. Dyce put his hand lightly over Tee’s nose.
“If you’re listening, just hold your breath for a count of six… Good, all right, you can breathe normally now. Now listen very carefully. I would normally give you another shot now to keep you quiet, but considering your heart and everything, I think I’d better not, so you’ll just have to cooperate. All right? What you must do is lie very, very still. Even if you feel some sensation coming back to your arms and legs, you must not move a muscle. If you do, first of all you’ll fall and hurt yourself-it’s a very long way down-but also you’ll destroy the illusion and then we’ll just have to start over. Do you understand? Hold your breath if you understand… Good. Keep your breathing as light as you possibly can. I don’t want to see your chest heaving up and down; that makes everything silly. And your eyes have to stay closed the whole time. All right? Now that you’re conscious you’ll be tempted to want to see, but you must avoid that, all right? Hold your breath if you understand… Very good.”
Lightning flashed and thunder followed it so quickly from so nearby that the house seemed to shake. Tee saw the ladder tucked into the space where the roof met the walls. If I could move at all, he thought desperately, if I could nudge the ladder with my foot so it would fall, do something, anything. But he felt so weak and tired, horribly tired.
“It will take me a minute or two to get ready,” Dyce said, propelling himself across the rafter with his hands. “You can keep your eyes open until I tell you.”
Straining his eyes to the side, Tee could see Dyce on his midair island begin to undress.
Becker turned off his headlights before he was halfway up to the crest of the county road. He drove in darkness, his eyes fixed not on the road invisible in front of him, but on the silhouette of the farmhouse that stood against the dark sky.
Coasting with his foot off the gas, he counted seconds from the moment the car started downhill. It had taken a count of twelve when he did it in the daylight. At eleven he geared down into second, using his handbrake to slow the car so that the flash of red brake lights would not betray him. His right front tire slipped over the edge of the roadside ditch, and Becker compensated accordingly with the wheel, pulling the car onto the access road. He was moving beneath the shelter of the corn now and was hidden from the view of the house, but still he drove with his lights out. If he turned them on, they would splash off the corn and into the air like a warning beacon for Dyce. If Dyce was there.
Becker waited for a flash of lightning, fixed the path in his mind, and drove straight ahead until the image
