David Dun - The Black Silent

"None."

"These are all the materials you have?" she asked.

"Please understand," Gibbons said. "I can't betray Ben's confidence."

"Oh baloney!" Haley cried. "His life is in danger. Stop screwing around!"

Gibbons set down the binder and sat on a window seat. "All right. Ben deliberately spread his research materials around. He didn't want them all in one place. For safety, you see."

Sam and Haley nodded.

"So I got this binder. It's part genetic work and part microbe work. It's all related."

"Related how, exactly?" she asked.

"Ben never told anybody, so how could I tell you?"

Sam stepped forward. "We want to take the volumes."

"I'm not big enough to stop you." Gibbons handed them over.

"You have more," Haley said. "Ben said you did."

"I don't understand."

"What don't you understand?" she said, her voice rising again. "We want the other binders. He said you have them hidden and that you'd give them to me."

"He didn't tell you that," Gibbons snapped.

"You can level with us," Sam said, "or you can tell your story to Frick. We've seen him in action. He doesn't take no for an answer."

Gibbons shrugged like a petulant child.

Sam picked up Gibbons's telephone and dialed a longdistance number, then put it to Gibbons's ear.

"Federal Bureau of Investigation."

"Agent Chase, for Ernie Sanders, please," Sam said into the mouthpiece.

"Hang up," Gibbons said. "I want nothing to do with this. It was all Ben's doing."

As tough as she was, Haley had looked worried when he placed a call to Ernie. Sam made a mental note to ask her why.

"What was Ben doing? The experiments. Aging."

Gibbons pursed his lips, as if holding them together would keep him safe. "I'm not telling you a thing, and really I don't know much, anyway."

"Just give us the rest of the documents," Haley said, "and I promise we'll leave."

"Ben really told you that I had other documents?" asked Gibbons. "Because I don't know what he's talking about."

Sam picked up the phone again.

"Wait. There were some… irrelevant things."

"Get them," Sam said. "We all need to leave this place."

"I'll get the papers." Gibbons started up the stairs.

As he did, the doorbell rang. Sam saw a large figure through the curtains. Loud knocking followed.

"Go out the back door and hide," Sam told Haley as he moved to the stairs. With his bad leg he had to avoid the temptation to try to climb them too quickly. At the top of the stairs came the second-floor landing; then the stairs continued. Gibbons was moving more rapidly than Sam.

Sam ignored the pain and the fear of reigniting his partial paralysis. He entered the attic just behind Gibbons. Everything here bore the marks of age. Mold, rough woodwork, knob-and-tube electrical wiring, and single-pane windows that would almost let the breeze blow through.

"Over here." Gibbons crouched at the far end of the room before a set of bookcases.

From one he drew a brown envelope.

Sam was taken aback at the pedestrian nature of the hiding place. Immediately he wondered if this was really everything or a trademark red herring left by Ben Anderson.

"Police," came a voice from below. "Anybody home?"

Gibbons jumped.

"I have to hand this to Haley." Gibbons indicated the envelope in his hands.

"I can hold it for you while you get rid of the officer. Then you can give it to her."

Gibbons ignored him and turned to the stairs, taking the envelope and putting it under his shirt and down the back of his pants.

Sam hurried to the top of the stairs, reached under Gibbons's shirt, and grabbed the envelope as he started down. Gibbons turned, but footsteps were already sounding on the stairs below.

"Good day there, Mr. Gibbons," came a voice from down the stairs.

Gibbons turned back to the officer on the stairs, obviously in a state of consternation.

"You know, I know most of the deputies, but I don't recognize you."

"I'm a special deputy appointed for this emergency. As you may or may not know, we're looking for Haley Walther, Ben Anderson, and a Robert Chase. Chase is also known by the first name Sam."

"Haley's out back and Chase is upstairs."

"What?"

Sam prepared himself for one all-or-nothing attack.

"Hey, I'm just kidding." Gibbons forced an almost-credible laugh. "Just a joke."

"You could get in a world of hurt with smart-ass remarks like that."

Sam knew this man was no cop.

"I try to see Ben all I can, but I haven't seen him in two weeks, Haley longer, and I don't know any Robert Chase. Ben won't admit it, but he can only stand so much of me. I'm a little intense for his taste. What did you say your name was?"

"I'm Officer Black." The fake cop's voice had subtly returned to professional-polite mode.

"Like I said, I haven't seen them and wouldn't know this Chase character if he was standing right in front of me." Now Gibbons sounded quite convincing.

"I hear he spent a lot of time in a wheelchair above the ferry on the veranda there by the doctor's office," said Black.

"Don't recollect anybody like that."

"He's walking around now," Black continued. "Big, slightly dark-looking fellow.

Probably bearded. Maybe a little Indian or Spanish. Quiet sort."

"Like I said, nobody like that."

"You call nine-one-one the minute you see any of them."

"Will do."

The footsteps started back down the stairs.

The front door opened and closed and Sam hoped Rafe had actually left. He hoped the pile of discarded clothes in the duffel didn't catch the man's attention.

In a moment Sam heard Gibbons's footfalls as he climbed the stairs.

"Just a minute, Mr. Gibbons."

Sam froze. It was Frick's voice, coming from downstairs. He had almost surely slipped in through the back door. Sam hoped he hadn't seen Haley.

Gibbons didn't respond.

"Come on down. We're gonna have a talk."

Sam could feel the demon in Frick's voice; Gibbons would sense it too and be frightened.

"What do you want?" Gibbons's voice had turned into a nervous squeak.

Sam had to do something fast.

Another door slammed open. Sounded like the back door.

"Get your hands off me!" Haley screamed.

Black grunted. "Stop fighting."

Sam had to act immediately or not at all. After stuffing the envelope under his belt, he went to the third-floor window, opened it, and contemplated the drop. His bad leg could be completely ruined by this drop-ruined beyond even the surgical repair that he planned. His spine could be reinjured. At the very least the pain would be excruciating.

He heard footsteps on the inside stairwell, slid through the window, hung, and dropped.

It was about a twelve-foot fall from the third-story window to the porch roof below and a little over four feet from Sam's soles when he let go.

Using the roof to break his fall, he didn't try to land and remain. Instead, he hit feet first, came down, tried not to overbend the knee, and rolled. With his shoulders and arms burning from abrasions, from the shingles, he rolled off the edge and dropped another twelve feet or so during which he managed to get his feet mostly beneath him so that they could break his fall before another roll, this time in the soft grass. His body hit the ground with a tooth-jarring thud and a terrible pain raged from knee to thigh on the bad leg. Almost as critical, the blow knocked the wind out of him. For a second he could not rise. It felt like asphyxiating. Finally he could suck in some air.

Although stunned, he struggled up and had the presence of mind to dive into some bushes and crawl to the concrete footing of the house. He caught himself groaning from the agony in his knee. The back door opened and Frick came out.