The Cold Smell Of Sacred Stone

was no sign of Garth, but after about half an hour Tommy Carling and Sister Kate, both wearing green jackets, emerged from inside the bathhouse to talk with the people. My hands trembled slightly as I removed the binoculars I was carrying from around my neck and handed them to Potter.

'Dane,' I said, 'I want you to scan the people over on the sidewalk and let me know if there's anyone you recognize.'

Dane Potter put the binoculars to his eyes, slowly moved his head back and forth. Suddenly he stiffened, reached out with his right hand and clutched at the sleeve of my parka.

'That's Marilyn-the woman I was telling you about! What the hell is she doing in a nun's outfit?!'

'Are you sure that's her?' I asked tightly. 'You told me that the woman who helped you escape from the hospital and took you home with her had blond hair. That woman's hair is red.'

'Then she must have been wearing a wig,' the boy said breathlessly as he continued to stare at Sister Kate through the binoculars, 'or she's wearing one now. That's her, Frederickson! I'm sure of it. I'm not about to forget the face of the best piece of ass I've ever had just because she turns out to be a nun.' He lowered the binoculars, looked at me. His eyes were wide. 'She wasn't all in my mind, Frederickson, was she?! Marilyn's real!'

18

'Nine-six-seven-forty.''

'This is Robert Frederickson. I must speak with Mr. Lippitt immediately. This is Valhalla priority.'

There was a whir, a click, another whir, and then Mr. Lippitt came on the line. 'What is it, Mongo?'

'Tommy Carling is a K.G.B. officer, Lippitt. He was Slycke's controller, and maybe the man who entrapped the good doctor in the first place. The man's a virtuoso spy, and he's been playing me like I was the entire Guarneri Quartet.'

There was a pause of a beat or two. 'You're certain of this, Mongo?'

'I'm certain there's a woman posing as a nun in this operation who's been working with a most unholy devotion at having me killed from the moment Garth began to respond to stimuli. I say that makes her K.G.B., just like the two operatives who'd been planted at Prolix. She had to be plugged into everything that was happening up in the clinic-but she wasn't actually there. Someone else was.'

'Slycke.'

'Sure, Slycke; but he'd been set up from the beginning to be the fall guy in order to mask the real spider up there. I hear from someone whose opinion in these matters I trust that Carling and this woman are close buddies, and have been for some time. I say that makes Carling K.G.B. too. When you start to noodle that possibility, a lot of very scary things begin to fall into place.

'From the very first time Garth began to show any signs of awareness, Carling planned to cut me out so that he'd have Garth all to himself, without any interference from me. He certainly knew about Mama Baker's pathological hatred of dwarfs, and on the very first day I walked in there he set up the situation where Baker would know who-and what-I was, and kill me if he ever got the chance. But first Carling tried to kill me by having his girl friend manipulate a psychotic kid from the children's hospital. When that failed, and when I countered his move to have me barred from the clinic by filing a seventy-two-hour notice for Garth's release, he set up the trap in the clinic, with Slycke as the sacrificial bait. He'd removed Garth the night before, along with Marl Braxton-probably for the reason he gave me: Garth wouldn't leave without Braxton. It was Carling who doped up the patients before forcing Slycke to call me. Then he let everybody loose, ambushed me, and left me up in the clinic to die. The way he figured it, he'd be able to observe Garth's behavior at his leisure-and maybe run a few drug experiments of his own-without any interference from anyone. He fooled me good, Lippitt.'

'Us, too-if you're right.'

'I'm right. He knew you'd get the goods on Slycke, and assume that was the end of the matter. Incidentally, the phony nun I mentioned-'

'I assume you're talking about Sister Kate,' Lippitt interrupted in a somewhat distant tone.

Stunned, it took me a few seconds to react. 'How the hell do you know she calls herself Sister Kate?!'

Again, there was a pause. I'd known the answer to my question almost as soon as I'd asked it. Lippitt was thinking about something else-probably the same thing I was thinking about. When he finally spoke, I could hear the tension-and a trace of fear, for Garth-in his voice.

'We began monitoring the situation as soon as we found out where Garth, Braxton, and Carling were, Mongo.'

'You've got a man in there.'

'Yes. The circumstances of Garth's illness and behavior have always had national security implications, as you're well aware.'

'Sure. But you might have told me you had somebody keeping an eye on him.'

'Perhaps you're right-although I'm not sure what difference it would have made. The two of you were obviously estranged from each other. I care a great deal for Garth personally, but he didn't appear to be in any danger. The D.I.A.'s concern was professional.'

'Yeah, okay.' I paused, shook my had as I recalled Tommy Carling's words when I had asked him about financing for the reconstruction of the bathhouse. 'God provides, bullshit,' I continued tightly. 'It's the K.G.B. which has been providing. I love it; Russian taxpayers have been paying to help feed New York City's hungry and homeless. We'll probably never know for certain how much of this business that's grown up around Garth was spontaneous, and how much was engineered by the Russians. Do you think the K.G.B. knocked off those two TV preachers, just to get the ball rolling a little faster?'

'It's quite possible, maybe even probable. We both know there are assassination techniques that will mimic strokes, or cause them. I don't see that it makes any difference, or why they bothered-if they did. Even before those sanctimonious cretins kicked off, the K.G.B. had everything going for them. At the beginning, they were able to monitor firsthand the effects of a new and potentially very powerful mind-control agent. Tommy Carling observed this closely, and then improvised brilliantly-I wish he worked for me. Now he and this woman have virtually complete control of a worldwide messianic religious movement which has its roots in the United States.'

'Carling also picked up on a few very sensitive secrets along the way.'

'Indeed,' Lippitt said distantly. He was thinking again.

'How tightly wrapped is the cover story about Orville Madison dying in a hunting accident?'

'Pretty tight. What they've learned about Madison or the Valhalla Project isn't important right now.'

'Agreed.'

'Do you know about Garth's disappearance, and the announcement he's supposed to make tomorrow night?'

'Yes. I had a lengthy chat with Harry August-which is how I got on to Carling and the woman.'

'Could Harry August be K.G.B.?'

'No.'

'Are you sure?'

'I'm sure. I'm aware that August's claim that Garth healed him really kicked off the whole thing, but he had his own reasons. He's just a very sad human being, not a K.G.B. plant.'

'Mongo,' Lippitt said tersely, 'you must make every effort to find Garth and take him out. Before tomorrow night.'

'My thoughts exactly. You agree that he's in danger?'

'Most definitely.'

'This business about Garth going into retreat to prepare himself for some announcement that he really is the Messiah is bullshit; it's contrary to everything Garth has said and done up to this point.'

'Precisely.'

'It's why I called; I was hoping you could help me. Does your man have any idea where Carling could be keeping Garth?'