Dean Koontz - Night Chills

“They won’t come looking in Black River. There’s nothing at all to connect Ogden with this place. He’s supposed to be vacationing in Miami.”

“There’s going to be a very quiet and very big manhunt,” Klinger said. “Pentagon security people, the FBI. “

Unbuckling his seat belt, Dawson said, “And there’s nothing to connect him with you or with me. Eventually they’ll decide that he went over to the other side, defected.”

Maybe.

“Definitely.”

Dawson opened his door.

“Do I take the chopper back to town?” Klinger asked.

“No. He might hear you coming and suspect what you’re there for. Take a car or a jeep from here. And you’d better walk the last few hundred yards.”

“All right.”

“And Ernst?”

“Yes?”

In the amber cabin light, Dawson’s five-hundred-dollars-apiece capped teeth gleamed in a broad and dangerous smile. There seemed to be light behind his eyes. His nostrils were flared: a wolf on the trail of a blood scent. “Ernst, don’t worry so much.”

“Can’t help but.”

“We’re destined to survive this night, to win this battle and all of those battles that will come after it,” Dawson said with solemn conviction.

“I wish I could be as confident of that as you are.”

“But you should be. We’re blessed, my friend. This entire enterprise is blessed, you see. Don’t you ever forget that, Ernst.” He smiled again.

“I won’t forget,” Klinger said.

But he was reassured more by the weight of the revolver at his ankle than by Dawson’s words.

Straining to hear any sound other than their own footsteps, Paul and Sam left the church by the rear door and crossed the open fields to the riverbank.

The high grass was heavy with rain. Within twenty yards, Paul’s shoes and socks were wet through to his skin. The legs of his jeans were soaked almost to the knees.

Sam located a footpath that traversed the bank of the river at a forty-five-degree angle. Every groove and depression in the earth had been transformed into a puddle. The way was exceedingly muddy and slick. They slipped and slid and waved their arms to keep their balance.

At the bottom of the path, they came onto a two-foot-wide

rocky shelf. On the right the river rolled and gurgled, filling the darkness with syrupy sound: a wide ebony strip which, at this hour of the night, looked like crude oil rather than water. On their left the bank of the river rose up eight or nine feet; and in some places the exposed roots of willow trees and oaks and maples overlaid the earthen wall.

Without benefit of a flashlight, Sam led Paul westward, toward the mountains. His snowy hair was a ghostly, luminescent sign for Paul to follow. The older man stumbled occasionally; but he was for the most part sure-footed, and he never cursed when he misstepped. He was surprisingly quiet, as if the skills and talents of an experienced warrior suddenly had come back to him after all these years.

This is war, Paul reminded himself. We’re on our way to kill a man. The enemy. Several men

The warm, heavy air was redolent with the odor of damp moss and with the stale fumes of the plants that were decomposing in the muck at the water’s edge.

Eventually, Sam found a series of wind- and water-chiseled ledges, steps that took them up from the river again. They came out in an apple orchard on the slopes at the extreme west end of town.

Thunder roared down from the peaks, disturbing the birds in the apple trees.

They went north. They were taking the safest — and also the most roundabout — route to the back of the municipal building. Soon they came to a waist-high white picket fence that marked the end of the orchard and the verge of Main Street, where it became known to the locals as the mill road.

After he had looked both ways and had carefully studied the land to which he was running, when he was certain that there was no one to see him, Sam slipped over the fence. He was as agile as a young man. He sprinted silently across the lane and quickly disappeared into a dense stand of scrub pines, scraggly birches, and brush on the other side.

Paul tucked his revolver into his belt, put both hands on the fence, looked up and down the street as Sam had done — but was

suddenly arrested by a severe spell of uncontrollable shivering. His stomach twisted, and he was short of breath.

He tried to tell himself that the shakes were caused by his wet feet, but he knew that wasn’t true. The night was warm. His feet were wet but not cold.

He was shivering for only one reason: because he was going to kill a man.

Or be killed.

That was a possibility.

He felt sick.

Dizzy.

He followed Sam.

10:30 P.M.

Lolah Tayback stood before him, naked.

“I’m the absolute master,” he said.

“Yes, sir.”

“Look at me, Lolab.” She stared at the floor. “Lolah?”

“Let me go.” Soft voice. Tears.

“What’s the matter?” “I’m scared.”“Don’t you like me?” She didn’t respond. “Do you like me, Lolah?” “Yes, sir.”

“Tell the truth, Lolab.” “I. don’t. like you.” He slapped her face. She fell against the desk. “Bitch.”

“Don’t hurt me.” “Animal.”

“Don’t hurt me. Please.”

“I’ll kill you.”

“Don’t—”

He struck her with his fist. Then he struck her again.

Twin arc lamps on ribbed aluminum poles bracketed the parking lot behind the municipal building. In the stark blue-white light the needles of nearby pine trees resembled feathers. The lamps made the wet macadam shine like molten tar and transformed the puddles into broken mirrors. It glinted coldly on the windshields of several automobiles, including the town ambulance and the spare police cruiser.

When Sam opened the rear door of the building and Paul stepped into the first-floor corridor, two men looked up in surprise. Bob Thorp reached for the revolver in the holster at his hip. The other man, a uniformed deputy, raised his shotgun.

“I am the key,” Paul said quickly. They both said, “I am the lock.”

“Speak softly.” They nodded.

“Bob, leave your gun in the holster.”

“All right.”

“And you. Put down that shotgun.” The deputy obeyed.

Opening these men, using them, pushing buttons deep within their minds, Paul felt neither triumph nor the exhilaration of command. Instead, aware that their lives and sanity and dignity were in his hands, he had an almost overpowering sense of solemn responsibility; and for a moment he was paralyzed by it.

Sam opened the first door on the right, switched on the overhead fluorescent lights, and ushered everyone into a file room.

10:36 P.M.

Salsbury’s knuckles were skinned. His hands were covered with thin gloves of blood: his blood and hers.

He took a Smith & Wesson.38 Police Special from the firearms cabinet behind Thorp’s desk. He located a box of shells on the top shelf and loaded the handgun.

He returned to Lolah Tayback.

She was on the floor in the center of the room, lying on her side with her knees drawn up. Both of her eyes were bruised and swollen. Her lower lip was split. Her septum was broken, and blood trickled from her delicate nostrils. Although she was barely conscious, she groaned miserably when she saw him.

“Poor Lolah,” he said mock sympathetically.

Through the thin slits of her swollen eyelids, she watched him apprehensively.

He held the gun to her face.

She closed her eyes.

With the barrel of the.38, he drew circles around her breasts and prodded her nipples.

She shuddered.

He liked that.

The file room was a cold, impersonal place. The fluorescent strip lighting, institutional-green walls, yellowed Venetian blinds, rank on rank of gray metal cabinets, and brown tile floor made it a perfect place for an interrogation.