Vortex

Chapter Twenty-four

The second showing in twelve hours of The Road Warrior was just about over in the meeting room of Bunker 17. Since the installation’s two shifts seldom corresponded with traditional “daylight” time, one showing had been held at midnight and the second began at noon Saturday.

Maj. Christian Teare had watched them both.

“Now that, Cap,” he told Heath who was sitting next to him as the credits rolled by, “was a real movie. Wish like hell we could get more like it. Enough blood and guts for ya?”

“Plenty.”

“Hey, Cap, you ever think much about what it would be like if it all came true like in the movie? You know, the world’s over and all that’s left are scattered pockets of people who might be better off as fertilizer for a garden somewhere.”

“I try not to, Major.”

“So do I but sometimes you rightly can’t help it.” Teare tugged at his bushy beard. “And you know what gets my gourd the most? A couple things really. First, that we’re the ones who’ll be right in the middle of a shootin’ war and second that, well”—Teare groped for words—“… that more’n likely we’re gonna watch the world end seventy feet under all the shit that’s goin’ down. Give me a machine gun and a belt with a million rounds and I’d be an awful lot happier.” Teare paused and Heath hoped he was finished. He wasn’t. “Hey, Cap, you ever think ’bout how the final big one’ll start?”

Heath had started to answer when all the lights in the compound switched to yellow, signaling a rise to the second highest level of alert status.

“What the fuck? …”

“A drill, Major?” Heath asked hopefully.

“Not on my authorization it ain’t. Who’s duty officer on the con?”

Heath consulted his ever-present clipboard. “Parkinson.”

They were in the corridor now, moving fast.

“Old Willie B.?” Teare exclaimed. “Shit, that dumb fuck probably misread the code. I’ll have his ass for this, Cap. You don’t fuck with the dynamite we’re packin’ here.”

Teare and Heath hurried through the circular corridors that would continue to be bathed in yellow light for the next two minutes, after which only status boards located in all Bunker 17 rooms would maintain the color. Around them, installation personnel scurried to their Yellow Flag positions, all somehow conscious that this wasn’t a standard drill. It was quite unlikely that a Red Flag alert would come unless Yellow was triggered first and now that unthinkable progression had begun, breaking the malaise and routine of the base.

“This better be good,” Teare told Heath.

“As long as it’s not real,” the captain muttered in return.

Command Central was located halfway across the installation from the Disco for security reasons. Once the launch sequence began, the missiles could either be fired or aborted from here in the event that the Disco was hit and the computers channeled the switch in time. Teare stuck his ID into the Com-center slot, waited for the green light code, then pulled it out. The door slid open.

Command Central was far more mundane in appearance than its name indicated. Besides a series of computer lights and gauges coating the walls monitoring every function of the installation, the only piece of equipment of note was a single ordinary console right in the center. The console was connected on-line to NORAD headquarters, and in the event of an emergency the only orders to be regarded were the ones that came over it. A joint numerical-alphabetical sequence flashed across the screen every fifteen minutes, usually decoding into something akin to maintenance of standard procedure.

Willie B. Parkinson sat behind the console punching in his third confirmation request code. Parkinson’s con duty had forced him to miss both showings of The Road Warrior but he had quickly forgotten his disappointment when the latest sequence had been decoded.

“It’s Yellow Flag for sure, Major,” he told Teare as the major crept behind him to check the board. “I don’t believe it but it is.”

“What you believe, Willie B., don’t mean shit here. Let me double-check.”

Parkinson shrugged and gave up his seat to Teare, whose rapid check confirmed Parkinson’s original reading.

“Jesus H. Christ… It’s Yellow Flag all right, Cap. Somethin’ must really be cookin’ up top.”

The SAFE Interceptor, a device no bigger than a shoe box hidden within the Com-center console, was now in control of the base.

“It could be a drill,” Heath groped.

“Not without informin’ the base commander first, it ain’t. Such things just ain’t done.”

“Then what are we facing here?”

“Well Cap, in the en-tire history of NORAD and its predecessors, a genuine Yellow Flag has only occurred three times. The first was the Cuban Missile Crisis, the second was back in nineteen seventy-two when someone in the Mideast farted and Nixon smelled shit, and the third was in nineteen seventy-nine when somebody in Washington inserted the wrong message tape and damn near started World War III.”

“I guess this makes four,” Heath lamented.

Christian Teare frowned, looking more like a hairy bear than usual. “Somethin’ don’t smell right to me.” Then, “Let’s head down to the Disco and see how things are shakin’.”

“We’re still a long way from the launch order, right, Major?” Heath asked as their pace picked up to a trot.

“Need Red Flag for that, Cap, and now that can only be triggered through the SAFE system. We can get confirmation a million times but if those red lights start flashin’, there ain’t no way in hell we can shut them off. That means we got our launch order. Direct to Command Central through the Interceptor. In effect, Cap, they shut me out like a screen does flies. I can’t even issue an override order.”

Heath nodded knowingly. “That sucks.”

“Yeah, well flies eat shit when they can’t get in for dinner.”

Captain Heath nodded as though he understood.

They had reached the Disco, and Teare repeated the access procedure that had gained him entry just forty-eight hours before. Inside, things were proceeding smoothly. A yellow alert was more psychological than anything else. The whole concept of a missile base was that it maintained a constant state of readiness. Yellow Flag honed this to a sharp edge to ensure that all systems were constantly being checked and updated and all personnel were on call.

Nonetheless, the tension in the Disco was thick and Teare could feel it as plainly as the beard on his face. The men and the one woman inside knew this wasn’t a drill and were going about their duties with extra precision and sweaty brows instead of light smiles, in the backs of their minds the awareness that any second could bring the Red Flag order and the missiles would be on their way. Worse, with Yellow Flag procedures underway, the base was now sealed off. There would be no entries or exits and it would take an entire armored division to crack ground level security. The people of Bunker 17, in other words, had been totally shut off from the world beyond. What hurt the most was that they all knew something must have happened above them and they quite possibly would die here without ever knowing what. It was a helpless sort of feeling there was no way to prepare for in practice drills.

Teare scanned the Disco and noticed the king for the day was a man he had only moderate faith in. The major checked his watch. Just twenty minutes more until this shift expired and the man would be replaced, Teare hoped by Kate Tullman. Woman or not, she was the best Bunker 17 had. Teare found her in front of one of the six tangent monitoring consoles.

“Kate T.,” he said, stepping up behind her. “What’s the T stand for?”

“Trouble,” Kate Tullman replied, cracking a slight smile.

“How’d you like to be Disco queen until further notice? Could you handle two staggered nine-hour shifts?”

“Just keep the coffee coming, Major, and I’ll do fine.”

“That’s what I wanted to hear,” Teare said and he moved back toward Heath.

“I still don’t get it, Cap. Somethin’ ain’t right here.”

“All routine as far as I can see.”

“I mean with Yellow Flag comin’ out of nowhere.”

“Isn’t that where you would expect it to come from?”

“Maybe. I guess I never figured we’d ever face a real shootin’ war.”

“Who says we are? It’s only Yellow Flag now. Somebody in the Mideast might have farted again.”

“Not with this president. He don’t screw around.”

“All the same, Major, if a shooting war ever did happen, don’t you think this is just the scenario it would start with?”

Teare tugged at the knots in his beard, unconvinced. “Then why didn’t they program us to Red Flag right away?”

Heath thought for a moment. “Preparation, psychological and otherwise like the book says.”

“I don’t give a shit about the book. In a shootin’ war there wouldn’t be time for all that crap. Unless …”

Heath felt suddenly queasy. “Major, you’re not suggesting—”

“A first strike, Cap. Maybe that’s what they’re gettin’ us ready for. Somethin’ none of our drills really take much note of.”

“But Bunker 17 is defensive in nature.”

“There ain’t much defensive ’bout thirty-six MX missiles totin’ ten warheads each.”

Heath shrugged.

“All systems got flaws, Cap. A smart man can figure how to scratch his ass even in a strait jacket. You know what the most popular movie in the whole NORAD system is, Cap? Dr. Strangelove, where one man goes crazy and destroys the world.”

“The system’s been built to prevent that, Major.”

“Flaws, Cap, flaws.” Teare nodded to himself. “I’m not about to disregard orders, Cap, and if we get to Red Flag I’ll plant my ass on the button if that’s what it takes to launch. I just wanna be sure we ain’t gettin’ sideswindled here.”

“How?”

“To begin with, I want you to rig me somethin’ through the main feed lines that’ll let me spend some time monitorin’ civilian broadcasts to see if there’s somethin’ goin’ on up top we should know about.”

“That’s against the rules, Major.”

“Rules ain’t gonna mean shit, Cap, when farm dirt in Pawtawnee County, Georgia, catches fire.”

Heath shrugged. “Let’s hope there’s nothing unusual on the civilian bands then.”

“In which case, Cap, I’d be obliged if somebody told me what the hell we’re doin’ at Yellow Flag.”

Chapter Twenty-five

Arthur Jorgenson sat impatiently, high in the upper level of Landover, Maryland’s Capital Center. Below on the court, the New York Knicks were soundly trouncing the Washington Bullets in a game that held no interest for the chief of Clandestine Operations. He had picked up the ticket Bane had left for him and found his seat well before the game got underway. He had expected something closer to courtside with more people in the area. As it was, he and Bane had virtually the whole section to themselves which, now that he thought about it, would be exactly what the Winter Man wanted.

Jorgenson was a nonpartisan department head who handled projects beyond the scope of the traditional intelligence community. Clandestine Operations was composed of soldiers mostly, field men whose assignments were aimed at tilting the balance of power toward the U.S. or at the very least maintaining it where it was. Sabotage, espionage, assassination, terror tactics — all were known to the men of DCO, while DCO was known to only a handful. It was the last organization to operate under a veil of secrecy, though its days there were severely numbered, which had made Jorgenson increasingly nervous well before this particular mess had begun.

He had been ready to retire five years ago but hadn’t because no other man could run DCO at the standard he had created. The powers of the job defied conscience, and Jorgenson knew that power abused was power lost. He preached moderation at DCO, while he knew other men would use the organization’s vast resources and blanket charter to meddle where they had no right to, and would create conditions of international strife where otherwise none would have existed. So he had stayed on at DCO and probably would until his death at which time he hoped the organization would be disbanded, having fulfilled its purpose.

“Enjoying the game, Art?”

Jorgenson turned to see Bane taking the seat beside him. He thrust an open bag toward him.

“Peanut, Art?”

Down on the court, half time was approaching.

“You’re late.”

Bane cracked a shell and popped its contents into his mouth. “Hardly. I’ve been here long enough to see you arrive. Just playing it safe. Besides, I saw nothing wrong in making you sweat a little. It’s not so bad once you get used to it.” Bane’s voice tightened. “Like in New York yesterday.”

“If anything that should show you how important it is that we work together.”

“What do you know about COBRA, Art?”

Jorgenson felt a slight tremor of fear pass through him. “What do they have to do with this?”

“Everything. It was Colonel Chilgers who tried to have me taken out yesterday.”

“Chilgers? Why?”

“Because I stumbled upon his prize operation. Because a friend of mine saw a 727 disappear thanks to his technological magic, and my friend ended up dead a few days later.”

“Josh, you’ve got to slow down,” Jorgenson said anxiously. “None of this makes any sense to me.” He pushed back the fear rising in him again. Somehow Project Placebo was connected here; he knew it was.

“Of course it doesn’t make sense. One giant corporation with enough power to activate its operations without government sanction or even knowledge. Nope, no sense there.”

“Josh, what are you talking about?”

“Vortex.”

“Vortex?”

The buzzer sounded ending the first half down below. Bane and Jorgenson sat silent while the few fans seated in their section moved into the aisle toward the refreshment stands.

“You’ve never heard that term before?” Bane wondered.

“Not that I recall. What’s it all about?”

“Something to do with making objects disappear and then reappear. My involvement began with a Flight 22 into Kennedy eight days ago….” And Bane went on to tell him about Jake Del Gennio’s vanishing 727 and the events of the subsequent days. Putting all the facts together at once made the story seem ludicrous. If he wasn’t telling it himself, he never would have believed it.

Jorgenson’s eyes were bulging as he finished. “That’s incredible.”

“There’s more,” Bane told him, “all centered around a fifteen-year-old boy who has apparently developed psychic powers as a result of Flight 22.” And then he told Jorgenson about Davey Phelps, everything he knew right up to the point when Scalia nabbed him from King Cong.

“Oh my God,” Jorgenson muttered. “It’s out of control. COBRA has this boy now?”

“His body would have been with the others otherwise, and if he’d escaped, he would have found me. He’s in San Diego by now.”

Jorgenson nodded. “Chilgers will see this power he’s developed as a potential weapon to be uncovered and exploited. But you say not all the passengers were affected.”

“The ones with no outward symptoms might have been in a negligible way or one that hasn’t shown up yet, I’m not sure. The common denominator with the advanced cases like Davey is the mind. During the period that the jet dematerialized, the missing forty minutes, different parts of the brain went haywire causing depression, catatonia, madness, and in the boy’s case telekinesis in the most advanced form I’ve ever heard of.”

Jorgenson shook his head, ran his hands over his face. “You’ve got to believe me, Josh, this is the first I’ve heard of any of this. Chilgers has broken off, he’s gone mad. Only that doesn’t tell us what in hell he’s discovered.”

“We believe it has something to do with Einstein.”

“Einstein?”

Bane nodded. “Metzencroy’s background dictates that, as does the latest batch of scientists COBRA has retained.”

“Metzencroy died last night.”

“Chilgers had him killed.”

“Good God … Why?”

“To begin with, Trench told me Chilgers was disenchanted with his behavior in recent days. Trench seems to think that Metzencroy was trying to make Chilgers abandon Vortex or postpone it. The professor must have discovered something and it all goes back to Flight 22. Vortex, whatever it is, didn’t work exactly as it was supposed to. I’m betting that Metzencroy found out why, so Chilgers snuffed him and what he uncovered. The colonel will go to any and all lengths to prevent his plans from being disrupted. He won’t tolerate delays or any man who suggests them.”

“You seem to have quite a handle on him.”

“He’s the enemy, Arthur. It’s no different from Nam. You live or die by your knowledge of the enemy, intuitive and otherwise.”

“Nam’s a long way gone, Josh.”

“Maybe not.”

Jorgenson found himself unable to meet Bane’s stare. “Let’s go back to yesterday. You’re saying Chilgers had the Center hit?”

Bane nodded painfully. “Everything was coming together for him. He had a line on the boy and Metzencroy was out of the way, meaning Vortex has to be all but ready for activation. Janie, Harry Bannister, and I were the last people who could hurt him but he only got one of us. I’m betting his plan all along was to take me out after I made contact with you, using Scalia as a backup. What’s been bothering me about all this is the timing. Things have been happening too fast. Chilgers seems to be in a rush. There’s got to be a factor here I’m not considering.”

Jorgenson’s mouth dropped. Gooseflesh prickled his skin.

“Art?”

The DCO chief stared vacantly ahead. “You can’t consider it because you’re not aware of it. Oh my God, I should have known, I shouldn’t have let them agree to it.” Fear swam in his voice and eyes. “Let me give you a brief scenario, Josh, and tell me the first thing that comes to your mind. Let us assume that Chilgers has sold the President on something he calls Project Placebo, an experiment designed to monitor one missile installation’s reaction to stress up to, during, and after launch.”

“After?”

Jorgenson nodded slowly. “All similar previous tests have stopped at the crucial button pushing moment, potentially the most important period of all. But Chilgers has gotten around that. He’s fitted a new shipment of MX missiles headed for a bunker with dummy warheads that will defuse as soon as they hit three thousand feet.”

Bane’s palms felt cold with sweat.

“What’s the first thing that comes to your mind?” Jorgenson asked him.

“Flight 22. Like I said, everything comes back to it. Jake Del Gennio was vehement about the fact that the jet didn’t just vanish from sight, it vanished from the radar screen as well.”

“Precisely …”

“So if Chilgers can make a 727 disappear, he can do the same with those missiles. He’d be able to slip all thirty-six of them by our fail-safe and abort systems. They’d be on their way to Russia, the end result being a first strike on our part leading directly to World War III.” Bane paused deliberately. “The only thing that doesn’t fit into the scenario is Metzencroy. Everything’s set and ready to go when, according to Trench, all of a sudden he uncovers something and gets cold feet.”

“And then dies conveniently before he can pass the information on to anyone else….”

“We—” Bane stopped when two men squeezed by on the way back to their seats. “We can be reasonably sure of a few things anyway. To begin with, Metzencroy has been working on Vortex probably for as long as COBRA’s been paying his salary. It was under his guidance, then, that this whole operation was developed and activated. So whatever spooked him must’ve been something awfully big.”

“Flight 22 again,” Jorgenson concluded.

“As I said before, that’s the indication.”

Jorgenson thought briefly. “What it did to the people, perhaps. What exposure to the forces of Vortex did to their minds.”

“Doubtful. People have nothing to do with launching MX missiles for Project Placebo. No, the people were just an offshoot, a tangent at best. It was something else.”

“Any ideas?”

“None. But Metzencroy thought enough of it to throw away twenty years of work in addition to his life.”

“It doesn’t matter anyway, Josh, because I’ve got enough to take to the President and lay on the line for him.”

“Will he listen?”

“He’ll postpone Project Placebo which will give us the edge we need to turn the rest of Vortex up and deal with Chilgers.” Jorgenson seemed to shiver. “Project Placebo went into its first stage this afternoon, Josh, and after tomorrow afternoon we could be looking World War III right in the eye.”

“Why tomorrow?” Bane wondered.

“Because that’s when the shipment of MX missiles, loaded with God knows what, are scheduled to arrive at Bunker 17.” Jorgenson watched Bane’s eyebrows flicker. “That of any interest to you?”

“Tell me more about Bunker 17.”

Jorgenson did.

Down below the Bullets returned to the court, provoking a chorus of boos in the sparsely populated arena.

“Hell of an arsenal,” Bane commented when the DCO chief was finished.

“And that arsenal might be responsible for starting World War III.”

Something nagged at Bane. “Except that would have been a potential, even expected, ramification of Vortex from the beginning,” he noted. “Whatever Metzencroy uncovered must be worse.”

“Worse than nuclear war?”

“He’d still be alive otherwise.”

Jorgenson sat there blankly. “We’ve got to see the President now, Josh, immediately. I want him to hear all this firsthand from you.”

“As a matter of fact I’ve got a few things on my mind I’d like to ask him about.”

“You wouldn’t mention them if you didn’t want to talk.”

Bane’s stare went cold. “Who put the kill order out on me five years ago, Art?”

Jorgenson’s mouth dropped. “What?”

“Don’t play dumb with me.”

“I swear, Josh, this is the first time I’ve heard of it.”

“Then you deny it.”

“I can’t deny it any more than I can affirm it. Five years is a long time in government, Josh, a whole era. There were different people running things then.”

“Different from you, I suppose.”

“No better, no worse. You do what you have to.”

Bane’s eyes narrowed into somber slits of fury. “I want to know who put the kill order out, Art.”

“It may be buried.”

“Dig it up.”

“If the information still exists, I’ll find it. You have my word on that.”

Bane briefly swung his eyes around him. “You left your bodyguards in the lobby, Art. You took quite a chance.”

Jorgenson swallowed hard. “They’d only have gotten in the way. I trust you, Josh, and besides, if you wanted to kill me badly enough, a hundred of them wouldn’t have made a difference.”

“True.”

The DCO chief started to stand up. “Then let’s go see the President, Josh. It’s time to—”

Jorgenson’s head snapped backward. He collapsed back into his chair.

“Art!” Bane screamed, grabbing him.

Jorgenson’s head slumped to his chest, his eyes open and sightless. A neat hole the size of a nickel had been carved in his forehead. There was little blood but Jorgenson was dead, hit by a sniper’s bullet.

Bane eased his hands away, found they were trembling slightly. The sniper might have his sights turned on him now. Keeping his body low, Bane moved into the aisle, slipping behind a pair of men descending toward the refreshment stands. He was covered now. The sniper, if he hadn’t fled after killing Jorgenson, had no view of him. Bane ducked when he came to the archway, sped in front of the two men and rushed down the ramp toward the upper level concession stands, considering his next step. He could move toward the lobby, find Jorgenson’s men, and tell them what had happened. But that would mean exposing himself unnecessarily. The sniper could be part of a larger team and in trying to find Jorgenson’s men, he might end up being found himself. The risk was too great. Jorgenson was dead and the bodyguards weren’t about to change it. Bane would have to make contact another way from another place. He started for the stairs marked Exit, struck by a sudden surge of desperation.

The only man in Washington he could trust was dead. A man who had always been there when he needed him would be buried in two days’ time because Bane had insisted on taking precautions which had proven unnecessary. He felt distinctly alone, and the feeling bothered him more than it ever had before. Jorgenson had supplied him with a number of the missing pieces to the Vortex puzzle but he still lacked enough to put it together.

Thirty-six missiles packing ten warheads each …

Something awful’s gonna happen, Davey had said, and whatever it was would make World War III pale by comparison.

Bane found he was trembling as he stepped out of the arena into the night.

Chapter Twenty-six

“Are you ready to begin, Doctor?”

“I was only waiting for you, Colonel,” Teke said, rising from his desk chair. “Please come in.”

Chilgers entered Teke’s office. These had been in many ways two difficult days for the colonel. Things hadn’t gone as planned, unsuspected factors having entered in. How could he know Trench would cross him? The bastard had, though, and Bane had remained alive because of it. A new strategy had been called for, and Chilgers had chosen one that would allow him to deal with two problems at once. Now Jorgenson was dead and Bane had disappeared. Chilgers felt better, able to look forward to tonight’s experiment with a clear head. All other matters seemed trivial when measured against the potential of Davey Phelps. The time had come to test how far that potential stretched.

“Thank you, Doctor,” Chilgers said and took a chair, feeling immediately uncomfortable within the steel walls and tile floors of Teke’s sterile domain, missing the walnut paneling and thick carpet of his office.

“I’d better explain a few things first,” Teke began, his bald head shimmering beneath the white fluorescent lighting. “Our initial scans of the boy’s brain have found nothing unusual other than a bit of unconscious flux that reads higher than it should. This lack of findings is nothing to worry about, though, because the boy has just now begun to regain full consciousness. We’ve kept him sedated the entire time since he arrived here to avoid any harmful reactions before or during our preliminary testing. Precautions, you understand, against what we suspect the boy might be capable of.”

“I understand.”

“In any case, we are slowly bringing him around from the sedation for observation of his … abilities when in a conscious state.”

“You have a means to control him in such a situation?”

Teke shrugged, bulky shoulders cramping his thick neck. “Not quite. I’ve got a few ideas but nothing I’m totally comfortable with. It’s a catchy situation. We must allow the boy to be fully conscious before testing his powers. But if these powers are what we suspect them to be, we may be placing ourselves in a somewhat risky predicament. The boy’s power seems to be greatest when he is threatened, which the incidents in New York more than testify to. Once he is allowed to fully awaken and realizes what’s happened, I dare say we might be treated to a more thorough demonstration than we had planned on.”

“There are ways around that surely.”

“Yes,” Teke acknowledged, “but all of them involve the direct use of some kind of sedative. No matter what the level, though, strong or mild, a sedative will undermine his powers and make it impossible for us to accurately test their level. What’s more, including the time it took to deliver him, he has now been under to some degree for nearly forty hours. The possibility of permanent nerve and brain damage now begins to enter in.”

“We can’t have that,” Chilgers said flatly.

“No, we can’t. The problem then becomes how to control the boy once we withdraw the sedative and begin stage one.”

“Ah, so you’ve already developed an agenda,” Chilgers said satisfied, smoothing the corners of his suit jacket.

“You would have expected something different, Colonel?” Teke cracked a small smile which vanished quickly. “I’ve broken this particular operation into three stages: gauging the general extent of the boy’s power, isolating its location in the brain — point of origin, that is — and finally learning what caused it, our goal being the eventual recreation of the effect in our own subjects.”

“Splendid,” Chilgers beamed genuinely. “Let’s take them by the numbers.”

Teke glanced at his notes. “Stage one is in many ways the easiest but similarly the most crucial. Our preliminary testing has already confirmed that whatever psychic powers the boy now possesses are directly related to his ability to generate an extremely strong energy concentration of alpha waves. The waves are channeled from his brain outward not unlike the way a television signal is beamed from satellite to living room or, even simpler, the way electricity moves from socket through cord to create live juice. In this instance, the ‘juice’ originates in the boy’s head and is jettisoned outward in an amazingly high energy burst which can be measured with some modifications on our standard monitoring equipment.”

“You have something specific to monitor, I assume.”

Teke nodded. “Just as electricity has its limits, fuse overloads and such, the unstable energy at the core of the boy’s power must as well. Across the hall in the laboratory, I have arranged for six eight-foot-square slabs of six-inch, lead-reenforced steel to be placed along with a similar number of extra-thick window panes. Simply stated, Colonel, we will gauge the boy’s power by finding out precisely how much lead-steel it takes to negate his energy waves. It’s my guess he uses only what he has to in a given situation and calls on vast reserves when the task proves greater, as your men witnessed in New York. Stage one will allow us to see how deep these reserves go and what energy levels the boy exerts in summoning them.”

“Good,” Chilgers nodded. “And stage two?”

“A bit more involved, I’m afraid. We cannot isolate the exact location of the boy’s power until we’ve fully gauged it. And then to achieve complete accuracy, we must have a constant exertion and single focal point. Based on preliminary testing, this will entail utilizing a human subject.”

“A human subject?”

Teke nodded again. “It is here where the boy’s powers, his energy waves, are most focused and thus most easily traced to their precise point of origin in his brain. The exact procedures on our part will be almost identical to those of stage one, with a few mechanical variations, of course. The difference lies in making the boy change his target from inanimate matter to a living being who can resist his power.”

“Target,” echoed Chilgers.

“In stage two, we ask Davey Phelps to repeat for us the power he exerted on Trench’s man in New York. That should give us the precise origin of his alpha waves. Of course, we’ll have to come up with a way to have the subject threaten Davey. Otherwise, his energy resources will never become fully active.”

Chilgers seemed unperturbed by the implications of what Teke was suggesting. “And then?”

“Stage three: we determine how to recreate the effect of the boy’s alpha waves, how to medically implant other living beings with such an energy field. It might be as simple as magnetizing a microscopic portion of the brain or so complicated it is like putting a jigsaw puzzle together with only half the pieces.”

“Which proves considerably easier when you know what the final picture is supposed to look like.”

“But not where to find it necessarily,” Teke explained. “Davey Phelps could be a one-in-a-billion shot. Remember, what we did to that jet affected only him in this way. It could take us years to determine precisely what sparked the surge of these alpha waves and the development of the boy’s personal energy field.”

“Something makes him different,” Chilgers reflected. “Something sets him apart. Find it and you’ll have your answer.”

Teke hesitated. “That may mean stage four.”

“You said there were only three.”

“I held the fourth one back because it is to be used only as a last resort, a last chance because once we resign ourselves to it there can be nothing else after.” Teke held the colonel’s stare. “Stage four is the removal and subsequent microscopic dissection of the boy’s brain to search for cellular irregularities and possible alterations.”

“See that it doesn’t come to that, Teke.”

“I told you it would be used only as a last resort once we’ve exhausted all other options.”

“We have plenty of time, Teke. Vortex will give us all the time we need.”

Teke checked his watch. “In that case, let me inform you that the boy is due to be given another sedative in fifteen minutes time which will necessitate a four-hour delay in the activation of stage one … unless we find a way to control him without needles.”

“I think I have an idea,” Chilgers said smiling.

Davey Phelps awoke slowly, realizing first that he wasn’t in the bed where he had spent the last day and second that he wasn’t even in the same room. His vision cleared and the smell of alcohol burned his nostrils. He was in a large white room filled with gadgets, gauges, machines, and the sound of computer tapes whirling in the cool air. He was turning behind him toward most of the noise when something tugged at his head.

“You’ll find this much easier if you stay still,” said a voice he couldn’t place among the ones he was familiar with here, wherever he was.

Davey turned slowly to his right and faced the owner of the voice, a medium-sized gray-haired man wearing a three-piece suit. Then he realized for the first time there were others in the room, a dozen maybe, but they were all dressed in white lab coats. And Davey sensed there were even more manning the mindless machines behind him.

Consciousness snapped all the way back home, and he found his arms and head were covered with probes attached to wires running to the various machines, especially on his skull. There must have been fifty wires running in a crown from his forehead, down his temples to his chin, and then around back and up, finishing eventually at the machines to his rear.

“Please don’t jar the wires,” came another voice from beside him, one that Davey recognized.

He turned ever so cautiously to find the stocky, bald man who had spent so much time hovering over him in the room they had put him in. The nameless bald man stuck his hands in the pockets of his white lab coat.

“Ready whenever you are, Colonel,” he said to the one in the three-piece suit who, Davey saw, was holding a small black box about the size of a transistor radio in his hand.

His mind cleared further and a picture of Joshua Bane filled it.

Help, Josh, help!..

“Power surge just registered,” from a voice behind him.

“Vitals fluctuating,” from another.

Davey watched the one called Colonel smile slightly and move his thumb just a bit. The boy then felt a jolt to his groin that nearly lifted him off the chair, as if someone was yanking him by the balls. His teeth smacked together and his breath left him in a rush. He felt his legs shaking and couldn’t stop them; then he tasted blood and realized a few of his front teeth must have pierced his tongue. The horribly corrosive smell of burnt plastic reached his nostrils, and he noticed for the first time a pair of thick wires running from under his white hospital nightshirt. He shifted his unsteady legs just a bit, felt a slight pull in his groin, and knew then where the wires were attached.

“Pain is a great persuader, boy,” said the man holding the box. “It provides control.”

Davey narrowed his eyes at the one called Colonel, feeling that hate surge through him and spill over. The man’s face was still fixed in a slight smile, the black box an extension of his fingers. Well, Davey could show him.

He started to push for The Chill.

“All levels rising,” a voice sounded.

“Extreme power surge registered,” from another right after.

Chilgers’ head for a brief instant felt as though someone had stuck it in a vise. He found the red button just in time.

Davey Phelps’s body jerked spasmodically, his face turning purple. A trickle of urine ran down his leg.

Chilgers felt the pressure subside, steadied himself, waited for the boy to recover from the shock fully before speaking.

“We know about your abilities,” the colonel said. “In point of fact, boy, that’s why we brought you here.” His right hand made a twisting motion. Davey flinched involuntarily, tightening his features. “Relax, boy, I’m not going to press the red button and I won’t again unless you give me reason to. However, I have raised the shock level to three times that of what you just felt. As you’ve certainly figured out, we’ve attached the electrodes to an extremely sensitive area of your body. But you need feel no more pain. Cooperate with us, do as we say, and we will spare you further agony. Is that understood? Don’t speak, just nod.”

Davey did, glancing down at a white-jacketed figure wiping up the warm piss that had soaked his leg.

“What we are going to ask of you is quite simple,” Chilgers continued, “and you have no good reason not to follow the instructions you are given.” Chilgers held the black box out toward him. “This contains unspeakable agony that can drive you to hell and back again in a single instant. I hold it in my hand now only as a reminder. Beside you stands Dr. Teke, a far more mellow sort than I, who is about to give you your instructions. If you do not do precisely as he says, I will be forced to use the box again, and each time I shall increase its potency threefold. Is that understood, boy?”

Davey nodded again.

“Good. Proceed if you will, Dr. Teke.”

Davey felt a cold hand grasp his shoulder in a facade of warmth. The hand squeezed his flesh tenderly, sickening him, making him bite his lip to force The Chill down because he feared the horrible promised pain in his groin. The wires felt tighter around his balls and the cooling piss still soaked his leg. He’d do whatever they told him.

“Davey,” the bald one said, fondling his shoulder. “I want you to listen carefully.” He nodded at someone to his right. “I’m going to ask you to do something for me, quite simple really and it won’t hurt. Understand?”

Davey nodded, watching two men wheel a huge slab of shiny steel six feet before him. Then something else was stationed behind it but Davey couldn’t tell what.

“I’m going to ask you to use your power in a moment, Davey,” Teke said, finally taking the terrible hand away, “but before I do I must warn you to focus it only as I instruct. Otherwise the colonel will be forced to use the black box again and I’m sure we don’t want that, do we? You will limit the concentration of your power to the boundaries I give you. Understood?”

Davey nodded again.

“Good. Then let’s begin.” Teke backed up slightly, beyond Davey’s peripheral vision. “Placed behind the steel slab is a window pane of very thick glass. I want you to destroy it. I want you to focus your power directly through the steel and shatter it.”

Davey glanced quickly at him.

“Delays, boy, will prove costly,” said the one called Colonel, sliding his index finger over the red button.

“The power, Davey, use the power,” said Teke.

Davey looked at the steel slab and through it. The window pane locked onto his consciousness.

He tried to make The Chill.

Nothing happened.

His features tensed, eyes squinting. He tried harder.

Still nothing.

“I am growing impatient, boy,” the colonel snapped and his index finger started to move.

Davey made The Chill, hard and sure. His spine quivered with the icy touch.

Behind the slab of steel, the window pane shattered in a sudden blast. Men in white coats lurched back, trying to avoid flying slivers. Davey noticed a number of others writing things down feverishly on clipboards.

“What was the level?” Teke asked.

“Seven-point-two,” came the answer.

“My God,” Teke muttered. “That’s bare minimum.” Then he moved toward Chilgers and started whispering. “The boy’s power, as I speculated, is apparently most effective when he is threatened. You were going to jolt him again, yes?”

“My finger was on its way,” the Colonel acknowledged.

“The boy sensed your intention. That’s what brought the power out.”

“Your conclusion?”

“That the boy’s power originates at the subconscious level. It was at this level he sensed your intentions and activated his alpha waves.”

Davey felt a dull pounding in his head. He hoped the men were through with him but he knew they weren’t.

“We’re going to try it a second time, Davey,” the bald one told him gently, “this time with two steel slabs. I will give you ten seconds to use the power. If after that period you haven’t…” Teke turned his gaze toward Chilgers and the black box.

Davey watched the lab assistants slide a second steel slab behind the first, then another window pane was wheeled into place.

“Okay, Davey, shatter the glass again.”

Davey concentrated hard. The Chill eluded him.

“Only five seconds left, boy,” warned the colonel.

That was all he needed to hear. Davey made The Chill.

The glass shattered, breaking along lines identical with the first pane.

“Incredible,” muttered Teke, as men in white coats feverishly recorded information on their clipboards again. “Levels?”

“Seven-point-five,” came a voice from behind Davey.

“Good God! Barely no change at all.”

“What’s that mean?” Chilgers wondered.

“That we haven’t even begun to tap into his power level yet. This is absolutely fantastic. The concentration of energy waves this boy is able to call upon defies belief. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

The dull pounding had grown to a throb in Davey’s head. A snake tightened around his neck muscles and his back seemed to lock out. The worst of the pain rotated from one temple to the other. He wanted to make them stop, tell them he couldn’t go on anymore. But when he opened his mouth, there were no words.

“Are you all right, Davey?” the bald doctor asked him softly.

Davey swallowed some air. “My head. It hurts.”

“Just a little more. I promise, we’ll be done in just a few minutes.”

“Please …”

“Two more slabs this time,” Teke instructed his assistants, and Davey found himself staring at a row of steel two-feet thick.

“Do you think you can manage it, Davey?”

“Later. Please, later.”

“Now,” came the colonel’s resounding voice. “Now or you’ll feel the fury of the box, boy.” And his finger crept onto the red.

“No! …”

The two lab men were just easing the dolly holding the window pane into position when Davey made The Chill. The glass ruptured over them, digging into the exposed flesh of their arms and face, the larger slivers jabbing through their clothing. They dropped to the floor writhing in agony.

“I didn’t mean it!” Davey screamed. “I didn’t mean it!”

“I know, Davey, I know,” comforted the bald doctor, patting him on the shoulder again. “Get those men to the infirmary on the double. You two, move up here and replace them.” Then, to the monitors at Davey’s rear, “What was the level of that one?”

“Eight flat.”

“Effortless,” muttered Teke. “What about the energy concentration ratio?”

Another of the technicians consulted his clipboard. “Ninety-two-five. Up from eighty-six flat.”

Teke’s eyes bulged. “There must be some mistake. That’s impossible.”

“That’s what the gauges read, Doctor.”

“Why is it impossible, Teke?” Chilgers asked.

“Because on an energy scale equivalent, the power it should take to shatter these panes is comparable to that used by a jet plane to take off. But the amount of energy expended by the boy remains under ten — the amount it would take you or me to tie our shoes.”

Chilgers smiled faintly. “Let’s try it with all six slabs then, shall we?”

“No,” Davey moaned.

“Rather feel the black box, boy?”

Davey tried to shake his head.

Teke moved back toward the boy. “Give me input on the vitals.”

“Blood pressure up forty percent and climbing.”

“Pulse rate up same.”

“Blood pressure stabilizing, beginning to drop “

“It doesn’t make sense,” Teke said to himself. “Low energy expenditure and distinct rise in metabolic rates. Stress factor?” he called behind him.

“Settling down,” a voice returned. “Needle has yet to enter the red.”

“I want to know immediately if it does.”

“Let’s get on with it,” Chilgers ordered.

“No, don’t make me!” Davey pleaded. “I can’t! …”

Teke thought briefly. “Colonel, it may be best to call it here until tomorrow.”

“Concerned for the boy, Teke?”

“No, for the experiment. We’ve entered a new realm here. The figures aren’t as I expected them to be. Too many inconsistencies. I need time to evaluate the data.”

“Now you’re talking like Metzencroy,” Chilgers charged.

Teke noticed the boy was still trembling. “Colonel, I must suggest we hold off on any further testing until tomorrow.”

“We finish the experiment, Doctor, with or without you.”

Teke leaned over toward Davey. “Just one more time and it’ll be over.”

“My head,” the boy muttered. “Feels like it’s coming apart. Don’t make me. I can’t.”

But the two new lab assistants were already wheeling the final two slabs in place. Then the window pane was moved behind them.

“Just one more time,” Teke assured.

“No,” Davey moaned. “I can’t.…”

“The clock’s ticking,” Chilgers snapped and Davey watched his finger crawl over the red button. “Ten seconds.”

Davey tried for The Chill and his head seemed to split.

“I can’t!”

“Five seconds.”

“Levels rising, sir,” a lab technician shouted to Teke. “Eight-four, eight-five, eight-six …”

“Four,” said Chilgers, “three …”

“Stress needles into the red!”

“STOP! …”

“Two …” Chilgers’ finger settled on the button.

“Energy concentration ratio one hundred, one-oh-one …”

“Power levels at eight-eight, eight-nine, nine-flat. Still climbing.”

“NOOOOOOOOO!”

“Time’s up,” said Chilgers and he pressed the red button.

“Ahhhhhhhhhh…”

Davey’s scream punctured the room. The window pane didn’t shatter, it melted into nothing, just wasn’t there anymore.

The gauges popped, cracked, glass shattering over needles suspended forever in the red. Smoke rose from the machines’ backs. Red and green indicator bulbs exploded.,

“Sedate him! Sedate him!” Teke screamed and two lab technicians rushed forward only to be blown back as if struck by a hundred-knot gale. The syringe dropped by Davey’s feet. Teke crawled for it.

Chilgers tried to work the red button but he too had been blown backward against a row of knobs and dials which struck his spine low and hard, tearing his breath away. He slid slowly down, a grimace stretched across his face.

Teke reached out for the needle.

The fluorescent ceiling lights blew out, the sound like machine-gun fire. They showered hot sharp glass down on the technicians who had dived for cover or been dropped as they stood.

Teke grasped the syringe in a trembling hand. He was queasy and unsure of motion. Glass and broken equipment had clogged the air vent, turning the lab into a steam bath with practically no oxygen. Teke started to raise the needle toward the boy’s arm.

Davey just sat there, wires still running from his head but attached to nothing now. His eyes bulged, unblinking, though his stare remained vacant. He gazed ahead seeing nothing, unbothered by the destruction wreaked about him.

Teke touched the syringe to his arm.

Davey swung toward him. Their eyes met and Teke felt his skin scorch, starting to melt. He screamed horribly because of the terrible pounding of his own heart and jammed the needle home.

The boy’s eyes dimmed and his head slumped forward to his chest. Teke grabbed his wrist and checked his pulse, finding it incredibly near normal. Then the doctor struggled to his feet and moved toward Chilgers, who through it all had never lost consciousness.

“We pushed him too far,” Teke said, helping the colonel rise and then supporting him.

“No,” Chilgers countered between labored breaths. “We pushed him just far enough.”

Chapter Twenty-seven

“Anything new, George?”

Secretary of Defense Brandenberg reentered the Oval Office to find the President with his face smothered in his hands. The early morning darkness was broken only by a single lamp on the chief executive’s desk. Its light cast thin shadows in the room and made it seem smaller.

“We’ve received confirmation that Arthur was killed by a sniper shooting from the other side of the arena in a section of seats closed for repairs,” Brandenberg reported.

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“Art and I went back a long time, George.”

“I know.”

The President gazed up emptily. “What the hell happened there?”

Brandenberg sat down. “There’s only one man who can tell us that.”

“Bane …”

“And he’s disappeared again, with good reason I’m afraid.”

“What are you implying?”

“Nothing. I’m merely continuing a theory I set forth yesterday afternoon. Let’s say Bane blamed Arthur for the fiasco at Penn Station. Tonight’s meeting then becomes an elaborate setup for him to gain revenge.”

“He was sitting right next to Arthur when the sniper fired.”

“I believe Bane hired the sniper. Why else wouldn’t he have been taken out as well? Besides, the idea of using someone else to kill Arthur furthers my theory that two distinct personalities are alive within Bane. One honestly and desperately believes it’s on to something catastrophic. The other has created the illusion of this coming catastrophe and has been behind everything, from the hit on the Center to Arthur’s murder, to reenforce it and justify the emergence of the Winter Man again.”

“In which case we’d have an extremely dangerous man on our hands, George.”

“In more ways than one. Bane’s got enough information stored in his head to make Watergate look like back-page news. If he talks, he could bring this entire government down, send it whirling out of control.”

“A perfect time for the Russians to force the issue,” the President reflected.

“My point exactly.”

“Then you don’t think we should even try to bring Bane in.”

Brandenberg shook his head. “The risk would be too great. Let him live and sooner or later he’ll talk to someone. We can’t live with that over our heads. Bane’s unsalvageable.”

“How I hate that term….”

“It’s accurate in this case, I’m afraid. Bane’s too dangerous to bring in, sir. We wouldn’t be able to control him. He honestly believes the shadows he’s boxing are real. Destroy that illusion and he becomes a hundred times more dangerous.”

“So instead we destroy him.”

Brandenberg wet his lips. “We declare him unsalvageable, sir. The rest will take care of itself.”

“Don’t hide behind words, George,” the President snapped, his features springing suddenly to life. “You want me to sanction a man’s death which amounts to the same thing as holding a gun against his head and pulling the trigger. The fancy terms don’t mean a damn thing to me. They didn’t when I ran for this office and they sure as hell don’t now. I’ve got a conscience to think of.”

“And a country.”

“I hesitate to think what the country has come to if men must die without due process to preserve it.”

“Bane’s become a liability to that same preservation.”

The President rose and leaned over his desk. “And what if we’re wrong about all this? What if Bane went to Arthur with something so big that somebody had to kill the chief of Clandestine Operations to keep it quiet? If we just assume for one moment that it wasn’t Bane who took Jorgenson out, then who did? What did Art learn that mandated his elimination?”

Brandenberg said nothing.

“Maybe we’re thinking just what our real opposition wants us to,” the President continued. “They’ve isolated Bane, set him up as a scarecrow in a cornfield and we’re buying the outfit. That might explain why his body wasn’t left next to Art’s tonight. If they had killed Bane, that would have confirmed he was on to something. Instead, they want to leave us with a red herring. If we kill Bane our troubles will be over, right? But maybe they’ll just be beginning.”

“We can’t leave him out there, sir. If he talks, he could bring this whole government down.”

The President held his eyes closed for a long moment. “Then we’ll do it your way, George. But God help you if you’re wrong…. God help us all.”

“You’ve got the Bat,” Harry’s voice greeted.

“Harry, its—”

“Josh, where the hell are you? What the hell went down tonight?”

From his room in the Hotel Washington, Bane sensed the Bat’s panic. He started to speak but Harry’s words drowned him out.

“You’ve been declared unsalvageable.”

“What?”

“I was digging up some more info on that Einstein connection when word came in over the intelligence channel of the computer. I eavesdropped. Almost shit my pants when I ran the code through.” Harry paused. “It’s open season on you, Josh. Every hitter in the book’s got a free shot and you can bet they’ll take it. Better get back to Jorgenson and have him get you off the hook.”

“Jorgenson’s dead.”

“Oh shit…”

“A sniper took him out at the Capital Center. Somebody’s got me pinned for the hit,” Bane realized.

“Terrific.”

The sweat forming on Bane’s hand glued the receiver to his flesh. “It gets worse. Jorgenson put it all together for me tonight. COBRA’s planning to start World War III and that’s just for starters. Now I can’t even get the information to the White House because every schmuck with a.38 will be in the streets by breakfast.”

“Sounds like it’s time to make it back to the city that never sleeps, buddy boy, and I might have something to make the trip worth your while. I took your advice about looking for a link between Einstein and Metzencroy,” the Bat explained, “and I found one: they both worked for the Navy Office of Scientific Research in the early forties. Metzencroy’s career was just starting out while Einstein’s was drawing to a close. Then I did some cross-checking and found a third name in the group: Dr. Otto Von Goss. Einstein, Metzencroy, and Von Goss must’ve been pretty chummy but their direct association ends on all records as of the middle of 1943 with something called the Philadelphia Experiment.”

“What the hell is that?”

“According to the Navy lines I broke into, it doesn’t even exist. I found it mentioned in passing on all three dossiers circa 1943. It’s the only link between our three scientists.”

Bane thought briefly. “One thing’s pretty obvious: Einstein wouldn’t have been working for the Navy in World War II on Tinkertoys. They must have retained him for weapons research.”

“I smell a connection with whatever COBRA’s come up with that makes jets pull a disappearing act.”

“Good for your nose, Harry. But we won’t know for sure until we find out what the Philadelphia Experiment was.”

“We’re stonewalled from my computer end. But it just so happens that Dr. Otto Von Goss is still very much alive. He’s a professor over at Princeton. Dropped out of active research after a lab accident, something to do with his hand.”

“Maybe I should make Princeton my next stop.”

“Don’t rush. Von Goss disappeared yesterday.”

“COBRA?”

“No, it was orderly. Witnesses saw him packing up his car. Looked like he planned to stay away awhile.”

“Sounds like he’s hiding out, Harry. He’s afraid what happened to Metzencroy will happen to him too, which means he must share at least some of the late professor’s knowledge, possibly lots. You’ve got to find him, Harry.”

“Way ahead of ya, Josh. I’ve already put Trench onto it.” The Bat chuckled but there was no trace of amusement in the sound. “You know, Josh, I still hate that fucker for what he did to me, but I trust him. I trust a goddamn killer who blew my legs to hell and I don’t even trust my own government. Lord fuck a duck, what does that mean?”

Bane didn’t have an answer.