Dean Koontz - Dragonfly

Kirkwood was dumbfounded. He looked up at the stars, then at the quiet houses across the street. “But that's… Well… I mean… For God's sake, that's screaming paranoia!”

“Paranoia?” McAlister said wearily. “That's just a way of life, like any other. These days, it's just another way to get along.”

“But how could they do it? How could they seize the government?”

“I don't know.”

Kirkwood stared at him.

“Go back to the car.”

Kirkwood didn't move.

“Keep Burt company.”

“We aren't compatible.”

“I can handle this myself.”

“I'll go with you anyway.”

“It's breaking and entering, remember?”

Kirkwood smiled grimly. “If we get sent to the same prison, we can share a cell.”

They circled the house, looking for a barrier that was flimsier than the solid-oak front door. They tried the first-floor windows, but those were all locked. The rear door was as formidable as the front door. Finally, on the north side of the house, they came upon a set of four French doors, and these looked flimsy enough.

Because there were no lights in the house next door, they didn't try to conceal what they were doing. McAlister wrapped Kirkwood's woolen scarf around his right fist and smashed one of the foot-square panes of glass in the first door. He reached through, fumbled around for several seconds, but was unable to find the lock. He broke another pane — and found no lock. He moved to the second door and broke two more panes before his trembling fingers located the cool metal latch.

They went into the house, glass crunching under their shoes.

After he found a wall switch and turned on the dining-room light, Kirkwood said, “By the way, what in the hell are we looking for?”

“I've been waiting for you to ask. We're looking for a corpse.

Kirkwood blinked. “One corpse in particular? Or will we take anything we can find?”

“Carl Altmüller.”

“Are you serious?”

“Deadly.”

“But why would they kill him?”

“Maybe they didn't need him any more.”

“But if Altmüller is already theirs, if they've bought him and put him in their pocket—”

“The Committeemen are fanatics,” McAlister reminded him. “So far as we know, however, Altmüller's just an ordinary guy who happened to be in a position where they needed someone but where they could not place anyone. So maybe they bought him. But because he really wasn't one of them, they wouldn't trust him. You can never be sure that money will keep a man's mouth shut. But a bullet in the head does the job every time.”

“ Jesus, you sound like a cold son of a bitch!” Kirkwood said, shivering slightly.

“Sorry.” He felt cold too.

“Why didn't you tell me this outside?”

“If you'd thought there was a corpse in here, you'd have gone straight to the police. You'd have insisted upon a warrant.”

“Of course.”

“And we don't have time.”

Kirkwood locked eyes with him for a moment, then sighed and said, “Where do we start looking?”

Heading for the door of the dining-room closet, McAlister said, “Check the front room. When we've finished downstairs, we'll go upstairs together.”

Grim-faced, repeatedly clearing his throat, Kirk-wood went into the living room and turned on more lights. He came back within a few seconds and said, “I think I've found a clue.”

“Clue?”

“Buckets of blood,” Kirkwood said shakily.

“Buckets” was an exaggeration, although there was certainly a cup or two of it. Or, rather, there had been a cup or two. Gouts of blood had spattered the sofa; but now it was dried into a maroon-brown crust. There was even more blood, also dry and crusted, on the floor in front of the sofa.

“Looks like you were right,” Kirkwood said.

Kneeling on the floor, rubbing his fingertips over the blood crust on the sofa, McAlister said, “And maybe I wasn't.”

“What do you mean?”

“Altmüller worked with you just this afternoon, didn't he?”

“You know that he did.”

“Did he look healthy to you?”

“Sure. Yeah.”

“He was definitely alive?”

“What are you driving at?”

“When was the last time you saw him?”

Kirkwood thought. Then: “Five-thirty.”

“The earliest he could have been killed here in his own home was six o'clock. Not even three and a half hours ago.” He patted the stains on the sofa. “If that were the case, this blood would still be damp. Even wet — congealed but wet. At the very least, this stuff has been here for a couple of days.”

The house was crypt-quiet except for the soft ticking of an antique mantel clock.

Reluctantly, Kirkwood touched the stains. “Whose blood is it?”

“Altmüller's.”

Kirkwood swayed on the balls of his feet. “But you just said—”

“I'll explain when we find the corpse.”

“Upstairs?”

McAlister got to his feet. “They wouldn't kill him and lug him up all those steps. He's in the kitchen or basement.”

“I'd still like to think he's just spending the evening at a prayer meeting.”

In the kitchen McAlister found a smear of dried blood on the lid of the freezer. “Here we go.” He opened the lid.

A rolled-up rag rug was stuffed into the freezer, and there was obviously a body inside of it.

“Help me get him out,” McAlister said.

As they lifted the rug out of the freezer, thin plates of frozen blood cracked and fell away from the rags and hit the floor and shattered into thousands of tiny shards.

McAlister peeled the rug back from one end of the corpse until the face was revealed. Dark, sightless eyes, webbed with ice crystals, gazed up at him. “Carl Altmüller.”

Surprised, Kirkwood said, “But Altmüller has blue eyes, and he isn't as old as this man!”

“This is Carl Altmüller,” McAlister repeated adamantly. “The man you're describing is the one who killed Altmüller and has been impersonating him since Thursday morning. I'd bet on it.” He was shaking inside with both fear and rage.

“Then Altmüller wasn't bought.”

“That's right.”

“Are all our federal marshals impostors?”

“The Committee would need only one or two men planted in our offices.”

“But there might be another one?”

“Yes.”

“Now what?”

“We go to the agency headquarters and pull a photograph from the files. Then I go to the White House while you get your ass to the hospital.”

“Hospital?”

“You're going to show the photograph to a young woman of the streets who has fallen on bad times recently.”

Kirkwood said, “Oh, yeah.”

General Lin Shen-yang was in the embassy drawing room, pacing back and forth, when Canning and Lee Ann came down from the third floor. He was not at all what Canning had been expecting. By all Western standards, of course, he was somewhat on the short side, as were most of the Chinese. But he was not also slender and wiry like many Chinese men; instead, he was broad and muscular, and he had the face of a barbarian warrior. He did not move with the serenity or perfect grace of an oriental; rather, his manner was aggressive, quick, extremely energetic. The moment that they entered the room he strode toward them.

Stubbing his cigar in an ashtray, Webster got out of an easy chair and made the introductions.

The general and Lee Ann conversed in Chinese for more than a minute. From the way she was smiling, Canning could tell that Lin was flattering her.

Then the general turned to Canning and shook hands. In nearly unaccented English he said, “There are two vans waiting outside. I've got six soldiers in the one. We'll ride in the other. We have no time to waste, and I would appreciate it if you were to give me the names of your deep-cover agents in the Peking area.”