Dean Koontz - Night Chills

opened and closed, opened and closed; but otherwise he was motionless. Even his eyes had stopped rolling; they were squeezed tightly shut.

The read-out screen went blank, then an instant later flashed an emergency message.

0200 59 12

MASSIVE MYOCARDIAL INFARCTION

MASSIVE MYOCARDIAL INFARCTION

“Heart attack,” Salsbury said.

Kingman’s left arm was bent in a V across his chest and seemed to be paralyzed. His left hand was fisted and unmoving against his neck.

0300 00 00

PULSE IRREGULAR

RESPIRATION IRREGULAR

Kingman’s eyes were open now. He was staring at the ceiling.

“He’s screaming again,” Klinger said.

“Trying to scream,” Salsbury said. “I doubt if he could manage more than a croak in his present state.”

0300 01 00

PULSE ERRATIC

RESPIRATION ERRATIC

EEC WAVES DETERIORATING TO DELTA

Kingman’s feet stopped kicking. His right hand stopped opening and closing. He stopped trying to scream.

“It’s over,” Salsbury said. Simultaneously, the two screens went blank. Brian Kingman had died again.

“But what killed him?” Dawson’s handsome face was the Color of dusting powder. “The drug?”

“Not the drug,” Salsbury said. “Fear.”

Klinger returned to the autopsy table to have a look at the body. “Fear. I thought that’s what you were going to say.”

“Sudden, powerful fear can kill,” Salsbury said. “And in this case, that’s where all the evidence points. Of course, I’ll do a thorough autopsy. But I don’t believe I’ll find any physiological cause for the heart attack.”

Squeezing Saisbury’s shoulder, Dawson said, “Do you mean Brian realized, in his sleep, that we were on the verge of taking control of him? And that he was so terrified of being controlled that the thought killed him?”

“Something like that.”

“Then even if the drug works — the subliminals don’t.”

“Oh, they’ll work,” Salsbury said. “I’ve just got to refine the program.”

“Refine?”

“I’ll put it in lay terms as best I can. You see, to implant the key-lock subliminals, I’ve got to — to bore a hole through the id and the ego. Apparently, the first program was too crude. It didn’t just bore a hole. It shattered the id and ego altogether, or very nearly did. I’ve got to be more subtle the next time, preface the commands with some careful persuasion.” He pushed a wheeled instrument cart to the side of the autopsy table.

Not wholly satisfied with Salsbury’s explanation, Dawson said, “But what if you don’t refine it quite enough? ‘What if the next test subject dies? It’s conceivable that one member of my personal staff might walk off his job, vanish without a trace. But two? Or three? Impossible!”

Salsbury opened a drawer in the cart. He took out a thick white linen towel and spread it across the top of the cart. “We won’t use anyone from your staff for the second test.”

“Where else are we going to get a test subject?”

Salsbury took surgical instruments, one at a time, from the drawer and lined them up on the linen. “I think the time has come to put together that corporation in Liechtenstein. Hire three mercenaries, give them sets of forged papers, and bring them here from Europe under their new names.”

“To this house?” Dawson asked.

“That’s right. We won’t need the walled estate in Germany or France for some time yet. ‘We’ll give the drug to all three of

them the first day they’re here. The second day, I’ll start the new key-lock program with one of them. If it works with him, if it doesn’t kill him, then I’ll use it on the other two. Eventually, we’ll be running the field test in this country. ‘When the time comes for that, we’ll be happy to have two or three well-trained, submissive men so close at hand.”

Scowling, Dawson said, “Hiring lawyers in Vaduz, establishing the corporation, buying the forged papers, hiring the mercenaries, bringing them here. these are expenditures I didn’t want to make until we were certain the drug and subliminals will work as you say.”

“They will.”

“We aren’t yet certain.”

Holding a scalpel to the light, studying the silhouette of its razored edge, Salsbury said, “I’m sure the money won’t come out of your pocket, Leonard. You’ll find some way to squeeze it from the corporation.”

“It’s not is easy as all that, I assure you. Futurex isn’t a private game park, you know. It’s a public corporation. I can’t raid the treasury at will.”

“You’re supposed to be a billionaire,” Salsbury said. “In the great tradition of Onassis, Getty, Hughes. Futurex isn’t the only thing you’ve got your hand in. Somewhere, you found more than two million dollars to set up this lab. And every month you manage to come up with the eighty thousand dollars needed to maintain it. By comparison, this new expense is a trifle.”

“I agree,” the general said.

“It’s not your money that’s going down a rat hole,” Dawson said irritably.

“If you think the project’s a rat hole,” Salsbury said, “then we Should call it off right now.”

Dawson started to pace, stopped after a few steps, put his hands in his trouser pockets, and took them right out again. It’s these men that bother me.”

“What men?”

“These mercenaries.”

“What about them?”

“They’re nothing but killers.”

“Of course.”

“Professional killers. They earn their living by — by murdering people.”

“I’ve never had much of anything good to say about freelancers,” Klinger said. “But that’s a simplification, Leonard.”

“It’s essentially true.”

Impatiently, Salsbury said, “So what if it is?”

“Well, I don’t like the idea of having them in my home,” Dawson said. His tone was almost prissy.

You hypocritical ass, Salsbury thought. He didn’t have the nerve to say it. His confidence had increased over the past year

— but not enough to enable him to speak so frankly to Dawson. Klinger said, “Leonard, how in the hell do you think we’d

fare with the police and the courts if they found out how King-man died? Would they just pat us on the head and send us away with a scolding? Do you think that just because we didn’t strangle or shoot or stab him, they’d hesitate to call us killers? Do you think we’d get off scot-free because, although we’re killers, we don’t earn our living that way?”

For an instant Dawson’s black eyes, like onyx mirrors, caught the cold fluorescent light and gleamed unnaturally. Then he turned his head a fraction of an inch, and the effect was lost. However, something of the same frigid, alien quality remained in his voice. “I never touched Brian. I never laid a finger on him. I never said an unkind word to him.”

Neither Salsbury nor Klinger responded.

“I didn’t want him to die.”

They waited.

Dawson wiped one hand across his face. “Very well. I’ll move ahead in Liechtenstein. I’ll get those three mercenaries for you.”

“How Soon?” Salsbury asked.

“If I’m to maintain secrecy every step of the way — three months. Maybe four.”

Salsbury nodded and continued laying out surgical instruments for the autopsy.

Monday, August 22, 1977

AT NINE O'CLOCK Monday morning, Jenny came to visit the Annendale camp, and she brought with her a sturdy, yard-high canary cage.

Mark laughed when he saw her carrying it out of the woods. “What’s that for?”

“A guest should always bring a gift,” she said.

“What will we do with it?”