The Monolith Murders (34 page)

“Yes, it was a series of things; first of all I recall Donna liked the guard Don, I can’t believe she would kill him like she did. Also, the bullet hole in the middle of his head; that’s her signature all right, but it’s her special signal that she’s the killer and damn proud of it. It’s her own personal sign, lit up in a gigantic neon light. She might have killed Don in some type of self-defense, but I can’t see why she would be proud of it.
 

“Anderson is a different case; he escaped from her, and maybe killing him was her personal type of revenge. After all, he had performed the second operation on her—maybe she needed nothing else from him, so perhaps killing him was her twisted revenge for his deserting her when he escaped.”
 

“But, Fred, if she didn’t kill both of them, who else could have it been?”

“The only other person that could have logically committed the killings would have been Slim.”

“But you said you didn’t see how he could have gotten into AU,” Maureen argued. Although Jim prematurely removed the police protection from AU, Don was too smart and too cautious to let anybody in after hours. Besides that, I recall that you obtained a description of the make-believe cop who escorted Donna to the hospital. He had red hair. Does Slim have red hair?”
 

 
“No, but I assume the hair that the nurse saw was part of a disguise; Donna’s very instrumental at creating disguises, so you have to ignore the nurse’s description.” Fred hesitated. “Except—except for maybe one thing.”

Fred was deep in thought and Maureen didn’t want to disturb him. Maureen knew that when he escaped in thought in moments like this, he often came up with his most creative solutions.

Finally, he said, “Maybe Jim can help me out on this. I need rest; I’ll call him in the morning.”

Chapter 57

Donna was completely unraveled, she didn’t know how she had received so much negative psychic force when she tried to enter Fred’s mind. Since then, she had become very cautious. She mentally revisited the CIA unit where Maureen and Fred were staying. She observed that Fred was back at his unit again. I don’t understand what Fred’s operation was all about, she thought, but I’m going to find out. Meantime I’m leaving the Washington area; and in the interim I’ll try to determine what went wrong with my psychic powers. Damn it, now that Anderson’s dead, I can’t use his expertise to operate on me again to fix whatever is wrong.
 

Chapter 58

Fred was feeling guilty that he had been away from work for such an extended period. Now he was going to impose even more on Jim to ask him to help him from a distance with the investigation. Jim picked up the phone on the first ring.

“Jim, Fred here.”

“Hey, how goes it?”

“It’s going all right. Is there any news on Donna’s whereabouts yet?”

“None,” said Jim. “She seems to have completely disappeared from view.”

“I see. Jim, I need you to check a few things out for me. I would do it but it’s not too conducive to work out of this compound.”

“Sure, what do you need?”

“How about checking with the nurse that gave us a description of the phony police officer who was with Donna the day she was operated on? Get as detailed a description as you can.”

“Anything else?”

“Yes, call the police chief who’s investigating the jail break in Tallahassee. His number’s on my Rolodex. Ask him for a detailed description of Slim, who escaped with Donna. We have a facial photo of him, but we don’t have a full-length one. If you can get a full-length picture, please take it to the nurse who gave us the description of the phony cop to determine if it was the same guy. Also, ask her to check Slim’s arms very carefully in his full length picture.”
 

“His arms?” Jim thought he wasn’t hearing Fred correctly.

“Yes, I’ll explain it later, it may be nothing.”

“Okay, Fred, you take care.”

“Thanks, Jim, and you please be careful as well.”

Fred’s last comment was not just issued as a polite phrase. He really wanted Jim to be diligent. He recalled that Jim was not part of the group who had been directly involved in Donna’s capture four years earlier. Therefore, she should not be seeking revenge on him. But she was acting so indiscriminately in her killings, anything was now possible.

* * *

Around noon the next day Fred received a call from Jim.
 

“Fred, I obtained a full length picture of Slim. The Tallahassee police chief had to get it from a reluctant family member. I took the picture to the nurse. Frankly, Fred, she said she had a hard time remembering the police officer who was with Donna. She said she recalled vividly that he had auburn hair, actually more of a bright red, and a sweet, in her words, mustache. I guess she was so taken in by his hair and his mustache she ignored the rest of him. But, of course, we already knew what features he had, based on her earlier description. Oh, yes, something else—she said the guy in the picture didn’t seem to have the same muscular development in his arms as the guy she saw at the hospital; but she couldn’t be sure about that. Otherwise, she said they seemed to be about the same height, to the best of her recollection.”

“Any information coming in on Slim yet?”

“No, the Tallahassee chief called me a couple of times. Local police still have a watch on his parents house in case he comes back. That’s about it. Sorry I couldn’t have helped more.”

“Thanks, Jim. Catch you later.”

Chapter 59

A week had passed and Fred felt he had physically healed well enough to get back to work.

“Honey, I’ve decided I have to return to Sarasota to lend my hand to Donna’s capture.”

“What will happen to me in the meantime?”

“I’ve talked to Shade, he’s agreeable to letting you stay here. You’ll be safe here. This might be the most protected area in America, and I will return as soon as I can.”

“I thought you wanted me to go further north.”

“Well, I don’t have the feeling that your life is in danger here anymore. I guess it was just a gut feeling that I had at the time, but it’s gone now.”

“How is your head?”

“Great, I’m as sexy as ever.”

“I don’t know, I always had a thing for someone with a bandage on his head instead of hair. I really think the bandage was becoming to you. Maybe you should dye it a nice blue color, though. I’ve always thought you wear blue well.”

Fred didn’t want Maureen to know, but in truth, his head was aching. He had hoped that in the last few days he would be healed to the extent that his intense pain would diminish. But so far, each morning that he woke up, the pain was more extreme than the day before.

“Fred, I worry about you going back there,” Maureen said. “Donna scares me, and she’s already killed so many people.”

“Don’t worry, hon. You forget that now I’m Donna’s equal.”
 

“That may be. But she killed Atwell and, according to you, he had stronger powers than she did. “

“Yes, but I suspect he was not expecting her; I’ll be ready.”

* * *

Fred took the next Amtrak back to Florida. The end of the line was Sanford, Florida, a few miles to the north of Orlando. Jim was waiting for him when he got off the train.
 

“What’s the latest with your operation?” Jim asked.

“Not much, I guess I’m healing all right.” Fred didn’t want to burden Jim with the details.

“And how about your psychic abilities?”

“They’re still being tested, but I certainly have some ability I didn’t have before the operation. And, no, you don’t have to put a police check on my house while I’m back in Sarasota.”

Jim said, “What in hell are you talking about?”

“Actually, I picked up on the thoughts in your mind. I wasn’t prying, but sometimes it comes to me unexpectedly.”

“God, Fred, that gives me the chills; I guess in the future I won’t try to keep a secret from you.”

“Jim, my sole reason for having the operation was to help me capture Donna. Frankly, this new ability I have is a pain in the ass. Is there any news about her?”

“None at all. Do you think she has fled the area?”

“No, I’m certain of that; she won’t leave until she gets what she wants, and what she wants is me in the morgue.”

Chapter 60

Many of the coalesced images that Fred had initially experienced shortly after his operation had disappeared. He now could selectively focus whenever he chose to engage his powers. He could, by simply observing someone, retrieve their mental signatures and affix it to his memory. After that, as long as he wasn’t too far from the subject, he could enter a person’s mind at will. He quickly created an effective mental filing system that facilitated instant retrieval. He didn’t understand how his powers operated; but like Donna, he was satisfied that they just did.
 

He collected the mental signatures of almost a quarter of his subordinates, and he randomly violated their privacy by determining what they were doing, what their hobbies were, how they voted and how and when they made love to their wives and partners. No segments of their lives were held sacred to him any longer. He could ease into their minds gently without their knowledge, or he could gain entry forcefully, causing pain and distress to his subjects. Normally, he would be disturbed with the way he was violating what was previously his strict value system, but that no longer caused him concern. His old value system was progressively being displaced as his powers grew.
 

He found that he no longer held Donna in disdain; in fact he thought, I tend to respect her, she is far more like me than Maureen is. He even played with the idea of using Donna as his partner, sharing their unique superior experiences together. But he reasoned that wouldn’t work. At her first opportunity, he thought, she would attempt to kill me for the sole purpose of revenge. And, in fact, he knew that they were not equal. He was sure that Donna did not have the refined ESP powers that he now possessed, powers that had been developing rapidly. He realized that he would have to kill her in order to protect himself. That was too bad, he felt, because she was likely the only other person on earth who even began to have the same breadth of ESP powers as his, and the only person he could fully share that understanding with.
 

He also knew that if Donna lived, Maureen’s life would be in danger; but that, for some reason, no longer concerned him. Many of the stronger emotions and values that he had held dear prior to his operation were fading and being replaced with rawer, baser emotions.
 

Love, loyalty, honesty, and higher qualities were becoming virtually nonexistent to him. Yesterday he had realized that he no longer loved Maureen; in fact he wondered if he ever had. He suspected he had never loved anyone in his life, including his parents. Yesterday, the emergence of this realization had troubled him; today, it didn’t bother him in the least.
 

* * *
 

Back at the CIA unit, Maureen was missing Fred deeply. She wanted his caring arms around her, his passion, even the emotional storm she encountered when he was near her. She missed his tenderness, his empathetic concern for her well being. God, I need him, she thought, I really need him near me. I would give anything if he were here, if he were holding me and making love to me at this very moment.
 

But a thousand miles away, Fred was now positive that his past love for Maureen was nothing deeper than the release of nature’s cocktail of chemicals. His “love” had been initialized by testosterone; it was kept vibrant by the neurotransmitters of adrenalin, dopamine and serotonin.
 

He remembered once when Maureen, referencing what she had learned during her psychology classes, had explained to him that his rapid pulse, which he believed was a function of his love for her, was simply a function of the copious amount of adrenaline his body was releasing. She had added that his constant thoughts of her were caused by the chemical serotonin, and dopamine was the fuel for his passion and desire. At the time, he had rejected all of this as scientific garbage. Now he was sure she had been correct.

He recalled a conversation he once had with Dodd, the Science Director at AU. Dodd believed that the evolutionary emergence of ESP capabilities was going to be a positive step forward for man. Fred knew that wasn’t true; because once one possessed this amazing ability, they needed to eliminate any other person that might also possess it. Fred recognized that this was no more than an extension of Darwin’s theory of survival of the superior species.
 

The raw emotions that now guided his life were incompatible with social group functions of negotiation, compromise, and sharing. For now, he would continue to work with Jim and his subordinates to attempt to find and ultimately kill Donna. But after that he would no longer need them for anything. As inferiors, Fred knew that they would be of no value to him any longer, neither professionally nor socially. He needed no one.