Death Dream (34 page)

CHAPTER 25

Dan spent most of the day at the F-22 simulator that stood silent and unmoving in the hanger down by the airfield.

Appleton stayed at his elbow as Dan climbed up into the cockpit, checked out all the wiring, and powered up the control consoles. The only thing he found different from his earlier years was that a bank of electrical heaters now sat on the concrete floor, ringed around the simulator, whirring and clanking noisily.

"Guess I ought to see Ralph," he said to Doc toward the end of the afternoon.

Appleton nodded grimly. Everyone who worked at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base said that the base hospital was the best one in the entire Dayton area. Dan had his doubts; but as he followed Dr Appleton along a maze of corridors he realized that the hospital was at least big and well-staffed. Crisply-uniformed nurses, serious-looking doctors, orderlies and technicians everywhere; some were scurrying, most strode the hallways with the purposeful assured look of competence. The corridors were sparkling clean, smelling of antiseptic and whatever that particular odor is that all hospitals everywhere have in common. When he saw Ralph Martinez, Dan realized what that odor was: Pain. And fear.

Dan stood in front of a window that separated the intensive care unit's central monitoring station from the beds laid out in a semicircle around it. The monitoring station looked like NASA's mission control, bank upon bank of display screens. Three nurses, one of them male, sat before the flickering screens. Only four of the beds were occupied. Martinez's was over at one end, screened off from the others.

He had a clear plastic breathing mask over his face, but even through it Dan could see how horribly distorted his face was, constricted on the left side so badly that his lips were pulled back from his teeth like a growling feral beast. His left eye was squeezed shut, but his right glared red hot pain and fury. His right arm lay atop the bedsheet, his hand slowly clenching and unclenching like a man enduring torture.

"Can he talk to us?" Dan whispered to the Indian physician standing with him and Appleton.

Chandra Narlikar looked startled by the question. His big liquid eyes flicked from Dan to Appleton and back again.

"He cannot speak at all," Narlikar said. "His vocal abilities are totally gone."

"But he might recover his speech, mightn't he?" Appleton asked, almost pleading.

"Doubtful," said Narlikar, shaking his head sadly. "Extremely doubtful. His condition is deteriorating. He might not even last the night."

"Jesus," breathed Dan.

"If he could only tell us what happened in there," said Appleton. "Adair died without regaining consciousness. If Ralph could tell us what happened to him in the simulation . . ."

Dan put a hand on the older man's shoulder. "Come on, Doc. There's nothing we can do here."

Appleton nodded, his shoulders sagging. "I'll drive you over to the BOQ."

Dan had never been in the bachelor officers' quarters before. It was like a moderately plush dormitory: individual rooms that were small and spartan, but clean and good enough for a visiting Air Force officer or civilian employee. High ranking officers and big shots from Washington got better rooms, or even stayed in real hotels with room service and the city's entertainments around them. But for Dan, this little room with its narrow bed, desk, slim closet, and small-screen TV was good enough. At least the TV was hooked to a cable service.

Dan sat on the bed and phoned Susan. "You sound exhausted," she said.

"It's been a long day."

"How is Colonel Martinez?"

He let out a breath. "They think he might not last the night."

"Oh dear."

"I don't know if I'm going to be able to do any good here," Dan said, worming off his loafers and letting them drop to the thin carpeting. "I'll see how much I can find out tomorrow."

"Your coat should be at Dr Appleton's office by ten-thirty tomorrow morning."

"Good. I can use it."

"Anything else I can do?" Susan asked.

He started to say no, then something popped into his consciousness. "Maybe you can look up some background information for me on nerve physiology."

"Nerve physiology?"

While a part of his mind felt almost shocked that he could think of anything except Ralph Martinez, Dan replied, "When we were talking with Angie a couple nights ago about learning to play musical instruments . . ."

"Oh yes, I remember."

"I need to know about how the nervous system gets trained by constant practice."

A pause. "I'm not sure I'd even know where to begin a search like that, Dan." Susan's voice sounded slightly bewildered.

"Try sports training," he suggested, recalling Jace's idea. "Olympics, professional baseball, stuff like that. It's big business. If there's anything published on the subject it'll be there."

"I'll try." Then she asked, "Is this on ParaReality or just something of your own?"

Dan remembered the disclosure agreement he had signed his first day on the job. "ParaReality," he said. Glumly.

"Too bad."

"I can't afford your fee." He tried to make it sound amusing, clever. Neither of them laughed.

"Get a decent night's sleep," Susan said.

"Yeah. You too."

"I love you."

"Love you too," he said mechanically.

He hung up the phone, unpacked his garment bag. The other pair of slacks and sports jacket went into the closet. The shirts and socks and underwear into bureau drawers. He placed his shaving kit beside the sink in the white tiled bathroom. And that was it. He had nothing further to do but watch television or try to go to sleep.

At least the TV had a remote control unit. He sat on the bed again, still in his shirt and slacks, and clicked on CNN.

He glanced at the phone. Putting the TV remote control unit on the night table beside it, Dan picked up the receiver end dialed information.

"Martinez residence," he said to the computer-synthesized voice. "Col. Ralph Martinez."

The voice spoke out the number and Dan tapped it out on the phone's keyboard.

"You have reached the residence of Colonel and Mrs. Ralph Martinez." It was Ralph's voice, crisp and authoritative. "Please leave your name, number and time of—"

Dan slammed the phone down. Of course Dorothy would have the answering machine on. She might not even be at their home. She might be staying with relatives or friends or even in the hospital itself. He had no way of knowing. And no car to drive out to her house and see if she was okay.

He undressed and tried to sleep. He kept the TV on, clicking from one idiotic show to another, trying to bore himself to sleep. Still the vision of Ralph Martinez's madly distorted face haunted him. And with it, his memories of Dorothy.

His dreams were bad. Sometimes it was Jace who gunned him down, sometimes Ralph.

"Jace, you've got to help me," said Susan.

She had invited him to dinner and he had finally shown up just before nine o'clock, as she was getting the kids ready for bed.

"Am I too late for the food?" Jace had asked, standing in the doorway grinning like a Halloween figure, long lanky skin and bones dressed in threadbare jeans and a tee shirt that read, Born to Hack. But the shirt looked clean and Jace's hair was glistening as if it had just been washed; he had pulled it back into a ponytail tied with an elastic band.

Susan had thrown on a green and white cotton top that hung loosely on her but went well with her red hair. Matching green slacks. She had dressed for comfort, without a worry of what Jace would think. As far as Susan knew Jace never noticed what anyone wore, including himself.

Now, with Angela and Philip asleep and his warmed-over dinner reduced to crumbs, Jace leaned back in the dining room chair and burped contentedly.

"That's a compliment to the cook," he said, by way of excusing himself.

"I'm flattered," said Susan. She did not tell Jace that most of the cooking had been done long before she had brought the meals home from the supermarket. Microwave ovens were the salvation of the working mother.

She got up and started taking the dinner dishes from the table to the pass-through bar that separated the dining room from the kitchen.

"So what kinda help you need?" he asked, not moving from his chair.

"I need an excuse to come over to the lab every few days." Susan watched his eyes as she spoke.

He looked more amused than curious. "What for?"

"To rack up some consulting time," she temporized, not wanting to tell him too much. "Dan got me a consulting contract with the company, did you know that?"

Scratching at his day-old beard, Jace answered, "Yeah, I think he mentioned something about it to me."

"Well, I could use the money."

"What'll you be working on?"

"Nerve physiology," she said, stacking the dishes and glasses on the counter top. "Dan phoned earlier this evening and asked me to look up some background information."

"About nerve physiology?"

Susan said, "Dan thinks there might be something in the area of sports medicine—"

"Bullshit!"

Susan almost dropped the dishes she was holding.

"Dan shouldn't be wandering off into dead ends like that," Jace said, frowning. "There's nothing in sports medicine that'd be useful for us."

"But I thought—"

Jace seemed acutely displeased, almost angry. "Shit, I was just thinking out loud and he goes off on a tangent. He shouldn't try to get creative, it's not his strong point, y'know."

"No, I don't know," Susan snapped. "Dan has ideas of his own." She went around the counter to the sink.

"He better get his butt back here, y'know," Jace called after her. "Muncrief's about to start hemorrhaging."

"He'll be home in a day or two," Susan said, hoping it was true. She turned on the sink faucet to rinse the dishes before putting them into the dishwasher.

"To stay?" Jace asked over the sound of the running water. "Or is he going back to Wright-Patt afterward?"

I wish I knew, she said to herself. But to Jace she answered, "To stay, I hope."

"He better. We've really ground down to a stop without him. I've been foolin' around with this stuttering stuff but I don't have the patience for it. And like I said, Muncrief's about to pop his top."

"I'll bet Dan works twenty hours a day," said Susan, "trying to make up for lost time."

"He's gotta do
something
to make Muncrief like him again. Sonofabitch might fire Dan, y'know."

Susan stiffened with alarm. "He couldn't fire Dan! Could he?"

Jace got up from the dining room chair like a giraffe clambering to its feet. "He'd be an idiot to fire Dan. We need him.
I
need him."

Then why don't you ever tell that to Dan
?
Susan demanded silently.

"But," Jace came over to the pass-through and leaned his elbows on the counter top, "people can be assholes, y'know. Muncrief might fire Dan just 'cause he's sore at him."

"You can't let him do that!" Susan said.

Jace made a bony shrug and muttered, "Yeah, I know."

Susan stacked the dishes and glassware and the stainless steel flatware in the dishwasher, thinking that Jace could protect Dan if he wanted to. And he'll want to, because he needs Dan and he knows it, even if Muncrief doesn't.

As she closed the dishwasher door Jace pointed out, "You forgot the soap."

"It's automatic," she told him. "Comes from a dispenser under the sink."

He made a face to show he was impressed.

"Dishwasher," said Susan firmly. "Full load. Standard."

The machine chugged to life.

Jace leaned over the counter top to stare at the dishwasher. "Hey, I didn't know they had kitchen appliances on voice recognition. That's neat!"

Remembering how perplexing the voice-actuated kitchen appliances had been at first, Susan merely murmured, "Yes, real neat."

Jace followed her to the living room, an ambling grinning scarecrow following a pert petite redhead. "Would you like an after-dinner drink?" Susan asked, knowing that Jace rarely took anything stronger than Classic Coke.

But he replied, "Yeah, okay—why not? You got any rum?"

"Rum and Coke?"

"Cuba Libre. That's my favorite drink since I was at Cal Tech."

Susan went back to the kitchen and dug into the cabinet where Dan kept the liquor. There was an ancient bottle of rum, two-thirds gone. And Diet Coke in the refrigerator. Jace won't know the difference, she told herself. Then she poured a thimbleful of anisette for herself. Dan had taught her how the Italian liqueur gave a good meal its perfect finish.

"What about that consulting time?" she asked Jace as she handed him his drink, ice cubes tinkling in the tall glass.

He had plopped down on the armchair that Dan usually took. "Sure, why not? Only—I'll have to think up some subject for you to work on."

"How about baseball statistics? For the game?" Susan sat on the sofa and took a sip of the anisette. It tasted oily smooth and slightly sweet.

Jace gulped at his Cuba Libre as if it were plain Coca-Cola. "Naw, we already got six people chewing away on that stuff. And it's too easy for you; all the stats are available in a dozen sources."

"There's the nerve physiology problem," she suggested.

He glared at her. "Forget that crap! It oughtta be something that Muncrief wants us to be doing."

"Stuttering?"

"We need somebody to do the programming, not research the background."

"Then what?"

Jace fell silent. He tilted his head back and studied the ceiling for a few moments. Then he returned his attention to his drink and downed almost half of it in one long swig.

"It'll have to be the nerve physiology then," Susan said.

His gaze flitted around the room, avoiding Susan's eyes. He took another pull of the rum-and-coke, then finally said, "I'll think of something for you."

"You're not comfortable with that subject?"

Jace gulped the last of his drink. He smacked his lips and seemed to draw himself together, sit up straighter in the armchair. "You really wanna go digging into that crap? Go right ahead! You won't find anything Dan can use. It's all a blind alley."