Thomas Cook - Taken

“You mean to their transmitter?” Traub asked.

“Perhaps an organic one,” Wakeman said with a clever grin. “For example, a brain.” He sat down in the chair opposite Traub’s desk. “The energy of thought… of mind. That’s why Jesse Keys is so important to them. He’s their transmitter. Of course, there’s only one way to find out if he really is a transmitter.”

“How?”

“Shut him off.”

Dr. Traub was clearly shocked by Wakeman’s suggestion. “You mean, kill him?”

“Sooner or later the man had to go,” Wakeman answered casually. “A question of security, you know.”

Traub sat back in his chair and looked at Wakeman determinedly. “You’re not going to do that here.”

Wakeman laughed and waved his hand. “Oh, don’t get all hot and bothered, Doctor. I’m going to take him back to Nevada.”

“Good.”

“But I’d like you to pave the way a little, if you don’t mind,” Wakeman said.

“In what way?”

“Just tell him that you’ve done all you can for him, and that you think he should go to the Brazel Clinic.”

Traub nodded. “But if he’s a transmitter and you shut him down, do you really think our visitors might show up?”

Wakeman’s smile grew into a dark chuckle. “Wouldn’t it be a gas if they did?”

Becky was already waiting for him when he came to pick her up, and Eric took that fact as a sure sign that he’d already won her over.

“Nice blouse,” he said as he came up to her.

“It was my mother’s favorite,” Becky said.

He motioned her over to his car and opened the door. “I have a plane waiting for us.”

“Why would I get in a plane with you, of all people?” Becky asked him.

“I’ll have you back by two a.m.,” Eric replied with a joking smile. He knew that she wanted to resist him, but couldn’t. “Spook’s honor,” he assured her.

In the plane, a table had been set with food and champagne. Becky looked at it, then back at Eric. “You know how to show a girl a good time.”

The meal went quickly, and there was a lot of laughter, and with each glass of champagne, Eric could see that Becky was falling deeper and deeper beneath his spell. She laughed about the government, about the law, and even about some of Tom’s strange theories.

“Growing up in Las Vegas then, you met a lot of weirdos,” Eric said.

“I guess so,” Becky told him. She looked at her plate. “I’m used to leftovers.”

Eric laughed briefly, then grew serious. “I got married really young. First girl I slept with. First time I slept with her. She’s pregnant. I’m married. Anything to show my father I was grown up.”

“I just needed my own identity,” Becky said. “Someplace where I wasn’t Tom Clarke’s little sister.”

“The brother shadow?” Eric asked. “Me, too. The sun rose and set on my brother, Sam.”

“I guess a lot of people do that,” Becky said. “They’re just kids trying to get away from home and they wind up smack dab in the middle of their lives before they know what hit them.”

The plane landed on a deserted airstrip with only a few Quonset huts surrounded by the desert waste.

“I want to show you something,” Eric told her.

They exited the plane and walked across the airstrip to a large building. The interior corridor was brightly lit, and at the end of it, Eric opened a door and ushered Becky inside.

“This is what I wanted to show you,” Eric said as he switched on the light.

Becky stared in disbelief at a large specimen jar, the small body trapped inside it, with pear-shaped head and almond eyes, now closed in death, so that it seemed to sleep on a cloud of unknowing.

“It’s breathtaking, isn’t it?” Eric whispered. He drew Becky nearer to the jar. “I come here sometimes by myself. I sit and stare at him. I keep feeling that if I stare at it long enough, I’ll be able to understand.”

Becky’s hand lifted to her throat. “Thank you, Eric, for showing me this.”

He touched her hair. “I wasn’t going to, but…” He trailed off, drawing her into his arms.

“What’s happening to us?” she asked.

“Listen, Becky,” Eric told her. “I want you to come with me.”

“Where?”

“I’ve got a spot picked out in Maine. The gawkers will still come to the desert. They’ll see the same experimental planes and think they’re seeing flying saucers.” He drew his arms more tightly around her. “The trucks leave Groom Lake tomorrow. They’ll sneak across the desert to avoid your brother and his friends.”

She looked at him seriously. “Tom says you’ve taken people. Experimented on them.”

His embrace tightened.

“I swear to you, Becky,” he said. “I have never in my life done anything to harm anyone.”

The first kiss was tender, the second more passionate, the third so blinding in its hunger, that he could tell thatt.

Becky had lost track of where she was. The odd and unexpected thing was he felt himself lose track too, and not only of Becky, but of the room around him, the lights and machines, and even the small creature in the clear glass jar, who watched him now with open eyes.

It had all happened so fast, and even now, as Jesse sat in the passenger seat, watching the unfamiliar landscape, he could scarcely comprehend the series of events. First Dr. Traub had told him that his deposit was not disintegrating as quickly as he’d hoped. Then he’d introduced a Dr. Patterson from the Brazel Clinic, the place Traub said he had to go in order to have the tumor removed. Patterson had given him only enough time to call home, speak to Charlie and hear the frantic voice of a young boy who missed his father terribly.

“Big country,” the driver said. He was tall and very thin and wore a wrinkled sweatshirt, which seemed strange for a guy who claimed to be a doctor.

“Yeah,” Jesse answered dully.

“We’ll take care of that thing in your head,” the driver assured him. “And once that’s done, no more little gray men.”

“I’m ready,” Jesse said wearily.

They drove on in silence for a few moments. Jesse once again went over the last few days, the accident, the lights, the way he’d told Amelia everything, how she’d taken him to Dr. Traub, the whole story of his…

He stopped. Little gray men? He’d never told Dr. Traub anything about “gray” men.

He turned to the driver. “Little gray men? I never said anything to Traub about little gray men.”

The man shrugged. “Educated guess.”

Jesse nodded, steeled himself for what he had to do, and then did it.

The blow came hard and fierce and the man’s head slammed into the side window, his sweatshirt flapping up to reveal the forty-five tucked in his belt.

Jesse grabbed the pistol, wheeled the car around in a wrenching turn and headed back toward Missouri, thinking only of Charlie now, determined to get back to his son, before his son was… taken.

Charlie stood before his class, reciting proudly. “That’s one small step for mankind… I mean for man… one giant step for mankind.” He looked out over the other children in his class, his eyes on the empty chair where he imagined his father sitting, beaming proudly.

Then the door opened, and he was there. His father.

“I can’t believe you came,” Charlie said excitedly. He rushed down the aisle and leaped into Jesse’s arms.

“We have to go now,” his father said, lowering him to the ground, then tugging him swiftly out of the classroom, down the corridor and finally into the car.

“Where are we going?” Charlie asked.