Farmer, Philip José - Traitor to the Living (19 page)

The conversation was short, since Senator Langer was a very busy man. Gordon and Patricia wandered around the house and the gardens for a while, but they knew none of the guests, all very important people.

Their three guards trailed them and then, when the Carfaxes decided to go home, closed in around them.

One of the guards, Szentes, drove. Jardine sat beside him; Gordon and Patricia were in the rear with the third guard, Brecht. Another car containing three men pulled out after them as they drove onto the narrow county highway. This car always followed them when they were traveling between their house and Emerson's.

It was a pleasant afternoon, the sun was shining, the corn in the fields along the road were green pygmy soldiers on parade, and two redbirds flew across the road ahead of them. At another time, Carfax would have exclaimed with pleasure at seeing them. But today he felt dull and dispirited. He wasn't really doing anything useful, and he missed his Bush-is friends. He and Patricia had been cut off too long from a normal life. Their guards were not communicative and probably had little to interest them, anyway. He and Patricia were getting edgy from too close contact. If they could get away from each other for a few hours a day, they would enjoy each other's company more. If only he could get an assignment from Langer ...

The car traveled around a curve at a speed of fifty kilometers per hour, and there, less than a quarter of a kilometer ahead, was a huge steam truck and trailer. It was across the road, blocking it and both shoulders of the road. By it stood two men, the driver and his partner, apparently. Szentes swore and pressed on the brake, and the tires of the automobile behind squealed as it slowed to keep from running into their rear end.

"Stop!" Carfax said. "It may be a trap!"

He took out his 7.92mm.; Jardine lifted from the floor a mini-submachine gun, and Brecht held a 9mm. automatic. Patricia carried a 6mm. automatic in her handbag, but she made no move to get it. She seemed paralyzed.

The car screamed to a halt, sliding sideways, its front half across the other lane. Carfax looked behind him.

The other car was just behind them, and coming around the curve was another huge steam semi.

"It is a trap!" he yelled.

He looked ahead again, and saw that the two drivers were running around the other side of their vehicle.

Then the brakes and tires of the semi behind them squealed, and the vehicle slid to a halt» neatly jackknifing and blocking their retreat. Its cab door opened. The single driver scrambled out, ran along the side of the semi, and disappeared.

Carfax thought, they don't have enough men to fight us, unless the vans are filled--the Trojan Horse analogy flashed across his mind--or unless the bushes along the road are concealing more men.

Szentes was phoning in to the State Police Headquarters ten kilometers down the road past Emerson's.

Jardine and Brecht were out of the car and walking toward the guards in the car behind. These were advancing to meet them.

Carfax started to get out, but Szentes said, "You stay in here."

Carfax did not know whether or not that was a good idea. The automobile was supposedly bulletproof, but Western's men would know that. They might have a bazooka aimed at the car right now.

If, however, the vans did contain men, they should be emptying now. They weren't. Both trucks looked deserted, and the drivers were nowhere in sight.

He opened his window, stuck his head out, and said, "Hey, Szentes! Can you see the truckers?"

Szentes walked to one side of the road and looked down. He swore and scratched his head and said, "They're going like hell! Running toward some cars that've just pulled up!"

Carfax swung the door open and shot out. "Run!" he yelled. "Run for the woods! There must be explosives in those vans!"

He gestured frantically at Patricia, who was scrambling out. The other men looked at him for a second and then they broke. Carfax took Patricia's hand and pulled her along behind him. His goal was the creek which paralleled the road and which was about forty meters to the east. Between its banks and the road was a row of sycamores planted by Emerson's grandfather.

Gordon and Patricia ran between two of these, crashed through some bushes, and dived over the edge of the bank. They rolled down a muddy slope, ending in water a foot deep. They lay there for two seconds, panting, and then Patricia opened her mouth. Carfax never heard what she intended to say.

Carfax regained consciousness the evening of the next day. He was totally deaf, and his head pained him as if a spike had been driven through it. His face was swollen, and after he got his hearing back, he trembled at every sound. By keeping his right ear pressed to the pillow, he could shut out most noise, however. His left ear, previously injured by the explosion at Western's, was now useless. And the doctor did not think he would recover any use of it.

The twin explosions of the vans, each holding an estimated hundred pounds of dynamite, had knocked down the giant sycamores and thrown the upper part of the creek bank over him and Patricia. The police might have missed them if it had not been for Patricia's hand sticking out of the bank. Their heads were covered by a few inches of loose dirt and some uprooted bushes, and Patricia would have soon strangled.

None of the others had survived. Jardine was the only one whose body was comparatively intact. He had taken refuge in the creek, too, but he must have stuck his head above the bank for some reason just as the explosions occurred. The post-mortem had found massive hemorrhages in his brain.

"If the walls of the van hadn't offered some resistance, you two would be dead," the doctor had said.

Carfax could not, of course, hear him then, but he was a fluent lip reader.

Later, he read in the newspaper that the drivers of the trucks had not been caught. He also read of the murder of Emerson and the wounding of Langer, which had taken place two days after the ambush. They had just entered the Pieter Stuyvesant Hotel lobby when two men got off six shots from their 9mm. automatics before they were killed by the bodyguards.

The murderers had been identified as Leo Congdon and Humberto Corielli, both with long police records and a total of ten years in jail on charges of assault and battery with intent of murder. Langer, visiting the Carfaxes a week later, told them that there was no provable connection between them and Western.

"They must have known they couldn't get away alive," Carfax said. "Western must have promised them new bodies."

"Undoubtedly," Langer said. "They would want new bodies. Congdon had a stiff knee from a bullet wound and deep knife wounds on his face. Corielli was suffering from tertiary syphilis and had a face that would frighten Frankenstein's monster. Western chooses his agents well."

"And so we know now that Western has agents in your organization."

Langer said grimly, "Jackson, one of my bodyguards, was absent that day, and Wiener, one of my under-secretaries, disappeared. Neither would know, I hope, what our plans are, but both had seen you with me and my father-in-law. I'm taking it for granted that there are others, and a thorough recheck of everybody who is in a sensitive position is being made."

Langer rose from the chair, wincing. His arm was in a sling. A ricocheting 9mm. had only touched his biceps, but it had gouged out skin and muscle. He would have a weak left arm the rest of his life. Which might be short, Carfax thought.

"I'm not waiting any longer to accumulate a large dossier," Langer said. "Tomorrow my staff is mailing out to the president and his cabinet and every member of Congress all the evidence we have. These will also go to the news media. I don't know what'll happen after that, but I do know that Western will be summoned to face my investigating committee. And he won't dare try any more assassinations."

"Don't be too sure of that," Carfax said. "If Western doesn't try it, some of those religious nuts may. He's a god to many."

"And an anti-Christ to many others," Langer said. "He isn't safe either. I wouldn't be surprised if a lynch mob didn't go after him."

"A fat chance they'd have. Megistus is a fortress. He even has an around-the-clock air patrol equipped with machine guns. He got a permit to arm them on the basis that if one maniac has flown an airplane loaded with dynamite into his house, another might."

"Of course I know," Langer said. "Don't teach your grandmother to suck eggs."

Carfax sighed. He was getting tired of that phrase.

However, he had to admit that Langer was the man to lead the fight against Western. He was almost as ruthless as Western. He would stop short of murder, but that was about all. And later he was to wonder if Langer was not capable of even that.

Carfax and Patricia were in a suite in the Pangea Hotel when Langer's documents became public property.

The New York Times had a special section consisting of the entire Message to the People of the World and editorial comments on it. The TV shows were interrupted by lengthy special bulletins, and the news programs devoted most of their precious time to it. By morning of the next day, the White House and members of Congress had been deluged with letters and telegrams. Half of these, as expected, protested Western's innocence and an abhorrence of his enemies, particularly Langer. The other half demanded that Western be put on trial immediately or be shot or hung, with or without a trial. At the latest count, one-eighth of the letters contained obscenities that were still unprintable in reputable newspapers, even in this permissive age. These came from both anti- and pro- Westernites.

The 22:00 news showed a brief interview with Western conducted inside Megistus.

Western (looking angry and indignant!): "I repeat!

Those documents issued by Senator Langer are fakes!

He is out to get me, and he has stooped to a depth of fraud which I find, even now, difficult to believe that any sane man could sink to."

Carfax (to Patricia): "He must be furious. How can you stoop and sink at the same time? He's about to foam at the mouth."

Patricia: "Shut up, Gordon!"

Western: "I have said it and will continue to say it. The senator must be at his wit's end to make such a charge! He is indeed desperate if he thinks he can put across a blatant fraud like this! Of course, I understand his situation. He believes that I've discredited, no, demolished his religion. But it has never been my intent to interfere with religious beliefs. MEDIUM is a scientific device, using scientific means to communicate with another world. There is no doubt that this is a cosmos to which so-called souls go when the body and soul are parted. Any other viewpoint is demonstrably wrong.

But ...»

Newsman (interrupting): "But why have Grebski, Torrance, Swanson, and Simba fled to Brazil? If they are innocent... "

Western: "Of course they've left the country! They know they're innocent but they're afraid for their lives! They're afraid that they'll be murdered by fanatics! Can you blame them?"

Carfax: "If they think there aren't any homicidal nuts in Brazil, they're due for a shock."

Patricia: "Must you always wisecrack?"

Carfax: "I must when I'm scared."

Western: "... and let him sue! I stand by my words!"

Interviewer (pulling a piece of paper out of his shirt pocket and handing it to Western): "Here's a subpoena to appear before Senator Langer's committee, sir."

Carfax: "I wondered how they were going to serve it to him! The reporter's a fraud! Oh, man!"

A crazy sweep of the camera, ending in a scene of one of Western's guards slugging the newsman.

Western, face a dark red, shouting: "Throw the bastards out!"

Carfax stood up and walked to the bar. "Now let him defy the committee! The federal marshals will have authority to go in after him!"

"He might take off for South America, too," Patricia said. "What's to keep him from taking his jet right now?"

"I think the president would order it forced down. If that didn't work, his plane would be shot down. Obviously, he'd be trying to escape the country."

"That'd tear this country apart."

"It's torn. So what's the difference? Besides, as I said, he won't be safe no matter where he goes. The government of Brazil would be under tremendous pressure to extradite him, and the Brazilians are as much if not more upset than we are. The majority are Catholics, you know."

"Don't you think I know anything?"

"Sorry," he said. "You forget that I am a teacher."

"I'm sorry, too," she said. "But I'm so nervous."

"Who isn't?"

"I'm worried about Daddy, too," she said. "If Western gets scared that everything might blow sky-high, he might get rid of Daddy."

Carfax had thought of that but he had seen no reason to discuss it with her. She would just become more anxious. Besides, there was no proof that his uncle was in Megistus. If only there was a MEDIUM available, it could be used to determine if his uncle was still in the embu. Patricia must have been thinking along the same lines. She said, "It looks as if I might get the rights to MEDIUM, doesn't it? And when I do, I'll find out just where Daddy is."

"Or where he isn't," Carfax said. "I wish Langer's man had been able to get his last batch of data out. Then we might know."

Nobody knew what had happened to him. He had not come out of Megistus with the other employes during the weekend. This might indicate something sinister, or might just mean that he had been kept busy. He sometimes had work to do which necessitated his putting off his holidays.

Carfax started to sit down, changed his mind, and began pacing back and forth.

"I'm tired of sitting on my ass. Now's the time to force an issue, while Western's off balance, and I'm going to do it."

"I suppose it'll get us killed."

"Aren't you willing to take a chance if you can save your father?"

"What have you got in mind, for God's sake!"

I'll tell you later."

He pressed the phone's VO button and punched Langer's number. He had to wait for twelve minutes, since the senator was "tied up," but he declined to leave his number. He didn't want Langer to be sidetracked by other affairs.