Dr. O (26 page)

"My cynicism has nothing to do with it. There's any number of things could go wrong with this harebrained scheme of yours."

"Harebrained? Now's a fine time to voice objections."

"Now... now, I know who you are. Look, it just makes sense that both of us go together."

"Thorpe doesn't know about this."

"What?"

"She has no idea we're here."

Riley considered this.

"It's the way she wanted it. No one but Ovierto and her."

Riley looked at her as if she were mad. "And you let her come ahead anyway?"

"Have you ever tried to stop her when she's made up her mind?"

"Yes... without success... sorry. Look, this just adds to my reasoning. I should be there with you."

"Why? Because you're a man?"

"Because, damnit, I'm another gun."

Robyn dropped her gaze, bit her lip and pouted a moment before saying, "Well, I can't say that I'm not a little scared."

"You'd be dangerous if you weren't."

"All right, we both double as the cargo."

"Let's get to work then."

At the storage facility they carefully pried open the box that contained Mr. and Mrs. Thorpe's remains, placing them into a second container which was ear-marked for shipment back to Washington, D.C. There was little doubt that Ovierto had no intention of coming near Wellington on his own and that he would send flunkies to do the actual carting; little doubt also that Maurice Ovierto would easily recognize any tampering, that he would recognize the box he had shipped here. They must be careful with the work, every staple and clamp straightened and driven clean.

Boas was overseeing the removal of the grisly re-mains of Donna's parents, taking great care with them, showing the deceased every dignity when an agent with cold hands dropped Mrs. Thorpe, the sound like a clattering of piano ivory against the icy bottom of the new crate. Boas shouted at the men to be respectful. He cursed under his breath and returned to face Robyn and Paul Riley.

"Muro, we could make contact with Thorpe now. Let her know we've located the bodies."

"No," she replied sharply.

"What?"

Riley nodded, agreeing with Robyn and saying, "Sergeant Muro's right, doctor."

"But she has a right to know."

"If we make any contact whatever, it'll tip Ovierto off to our whereabouts. It can only add ammunition to his camp."

"Besides," added Riley firmly, "it'd just take the edge off Thorpe; ultimately make her more vulnerable than she already is, and knowing her she'd want to go through with it."

"She wants Ovierto at any cost," said Robyn.

"You're sure, are you?" asked Boas.

"Yes, very sure."

"And you're sure about this?" Boas asked, pointing to the bottom of the cold container. "Why not fill it with sand? We monitor its movement from here, and that way—"

"All of that has been tried before with this guy," she said. "Tell him, Riley!"

"I'm going in with Muro," he replied. "And we do the sting as planned. No shadows, no electronic devices."

"Ovierto's known for detecting electronics and he'll spot a decoy operative a mile away. I don't want anyone out at the locks," said Riley sternly. "Do you men hear that? Everyone sits it out."

Boas looked from Riley to Robyn Muro, frowning and saying, "This is it then."

"The moment the crate is called for."

"You know that he has some nasty aim in mind, you realize, to destroy Donna Thorpe completely," said Boas. "You realize, don't you, that he has sure plans for this crate."

"That's why we plan to take precautions," said Riley, lifting a crowbar.

"That will be difficult to wield from inside."

"We've calculated the risks, doctor," said Robyn.

"Have you? Have you, really? Using an experimental drug, fighting back temperatures below freezing in order to surprise a madman... The whole idea is mad. Even if you survive the hour and a half to the border, we don't know if you will be in any condition to hold a gun, let alone pull a trigger. At least allow us to cut the freon lines early enough to-"

"No, no! If the box is dripping water, he'll know something is wrong!" she shouted. "We go as planned."

"Well, Riley, I see there's no hope of your talking sense into her."

Paul Riley looked at his new partner and said with a smirk, "No... no, there isn't."

"We're going to put this bastard away, Doc."

"Make a great retirement gift for me," he replied. "It's just that the alternative... well, I don't wish to think of it."

"Then don't. Just be ready with that juice of yours."

"The Benz-PW6, yes. Fortunately —or unfortunately—I brought enough."

Dr. Samuel Boas' gaunt, tall frame stood over Muro and Riley, staring down at them, wondering if they could see him with their four opened eyes staring back like the eyes of a pair of mannequins. Yes, Sam Boas thought now, they'd gone into the preliminary stages of unconsciousness; hopefully the injection had done its work. The pair were in wet suits at the bottom of the cold container, like a pair of frozen children. He wondered which was more dangerous, Ovierto or the tricky experimental drug. In laboratory tests it had worked, but that was under controlled conditions, and it had not always been without failures in the bargain. There could be long- term side effects, and if the biochemistry of the individual was such that he or she had a slow metabolic rate, death could ensue.

He had only moments to finish his part in the charade. The crate had been called for by a pair of dark figures brandishing the paperwork, large men with Eskimo-like features, whom he was told were Mohawk Indians.

Leave it to Ovierto, he thought. "Get the lid on properly," he ordered a pair of assistants who quickly closed out the picture of the helpless pair in the icy box.

"Out of sight, out of mind," he said quietly.

"We're not going to let them out of our sight," said one of Riley's friends, a man named Johnson.

"Orders, Johnson. We got orders to stand down."

"Wait a minute. I don't care what Riley or that cop from Chicago said to you, we're—"

"Not Riley, not Muro," he said flatly.

"What?"

He pulled out a envelope. "Read it."

Johnson did so. He saw that it was from the head of the FBI. It ordered not only Boas and the others to back off the rendezvous with Ovierto, but also Muro and Riley.

"We go ahead with this plan," said Boas, "and we say they left before we got the message."

"Will that wash?"

"They'll retire me a few months earlier, so? Let's help the Indians now."

Boas thought of his last few encounters with Donna Thorpe, his visit to Washington State in particular. He had had a secret reason for going to Washington beyond his personal reasons. His superiors had sent him. He was asked to give a full psychological profile not on the killer, Ovierto —as he had long before done —but a profile on Inspector Thorpe. He had been sent to spy on her.

And now a command decision had been made, based on his report on Thorpe, he was absolutely certain, a decision which read: leave her in the cold where she has chosen to go. Ironically, Muro and Riley, also had chosen to go into the cold in an even more dramatic fashion. At any rate the three agents would be cut off, on their own, a policy which supposedly went against every notion the FBI stood for. But Ovierto had had his effect on more than just Thorpe. Ovierto had eroded confidences and trusts throughout the network. He had everyone running scared.

Holding Riley's pals and those agents who had worked with Thorpe back was going to be no easy task. It would mark him as a first class asshole, one of the ones who had turned his back on Thorpe. Only he had gone ahead with the mad, daring plan concocted by Muro and which, so far, had gone unreported to Washington.

He watched the others move the container onto a conveyor belt which ground its gears and whined and carried Riley and Muro out through a door where a Dodge pickup truck that had seen better days awaited it. The muscular pair of Mohawks hefted the crate with grunts but without any other signs of effort. Boas watched from the dark interior of the cold storage house, chilled to the bone, wondering if he had not sealed Muro's fate as well as Thorpe's.

The girls were on their own, except for Riley. Brave young fellow, Boas thought, before he rushed for the warmer outer offices of the warehouse where the other agents had to be told. His legs and back ached from age, tension, and frustration.

But he brought himself up to his full height and cleared his throat, drawing on his inner strength and his German heritage. He'd hold the others in check here until it was reasonable to assume they could move in. Thorpe wanted a showdown. Well, now she had gotten her wish.

Boas said a silent prayer for the rash Thorpe, the brave Muro, and the foolish Riley.

He confided in no one the strange message that had been relayed to him regarding an explosion at the Pentagon, a bomb that devastated an entire office, killing General Sampson Wright and his aide and destroying much property and information on Pythagoras. Boas silently cursed the horrid govern-mental project and all the calamity that it had fathered.

Wassssss re... mem... ber... ing.

Flashing back? Or was this real time?

Robyn couldn't distinguish past from present, sound from silence, light from dark. Her senses seemed embalmed, but not her mind and memory.

They waited for hours before anyone showed up with the paperwork for the crate. In the meantime, Riley had cleared the place of operatives. Only Boas, he, and Robyn remained to wait. And here they were, donning wet suits to retain some of the body heat until the drug should take hold. Riley nestled in beside her. Each carried a sidearm and an additional hypodermic filled with the fluid that would keep them from freezing to death. Getting inside, lying flat, making room for the crow bar and Riley, was a task in itself, and bits of debris from the previous occupants had clung to the bottom ice. It was like climbing into a cold, dirty refrigerator for a sleep. Boas quickly made the necessary injections and began tamping down the lid which, like the rest of the crate, had a wood exterior and hard plastic on the inside. On either side of them were several pairs of pipes that held freon. It was cramped and dark and freezing, but the amount of air would not be a problem for the short trip, especially since small, near- invisible wedges had been worked into the edges of the top. It was the only tampering they'd done, and so long as the box remained in cool areas, not much in the way of condensation or smoke would rise up and out.

Robyn felt the drug starting to take hold. She felt her tense body begin to float, almost as if it were above the floor of the crate. The place had become as black as a coffin, and she prayed it would not become hers and Riley's. She could no longer feel Riley, except for the mass that he represented pushing at her side. As for touch, she'd lost that altogether. Now she was at the mercy of the drug.

She could not hear herself. Could not hear her own heart beat or the whir of blood in her ears, nothing. She could not hear herself breathing, and the silence was fearfully deep and seemingly endless, like an unexpected pit that she had fallen into. She wondered what emotions Riley was experiencing. She wondered if the silence was driving him as mad as it seemed to be driving her. She felt no lifting and shoving of the crate as it was moved and she began to wonder if, indeed, it had been moved, or if the Dr. O had taken sudden control of the situation, come into the storage facility, and cleverly figured it all out, leaving her and Riley to die enclosed in the case of icy freon.

The darkness began to work on her mind also. She could see and think, yes, but all that she could see was blackness. All she could think was blackness. She and Riley had taken the place of the dead, and now they were returned to the grave site where the two Thorpes were interred, only it was them who were interred, and she now had awakened from the drug and found herself not in the storage box but in the earth!

How much time had gone by? How much? A few minutes? Ten, fifteen? An hour? Two? She'd brought a flashlight with her and she wore her watch, but she could move neither her hands nor her arms nor any-thing else. She was a prisoner of her own body. She began to imagine that she was sweating and that the beads of sweat were freezing over her skin, turning to crystals that itched and itched, but she was unable to scratch.

"Riley! Riley!" her mind screamed, but her mouth could not form the words; her every muscle had gone flaccid and numb. She tried to hear his inner turmoil, to hear his silent screams, but there was nothing to hear. She tried desperately to hear noises outside the box, but her sense of hearing, along with all others, seemed dead. She wondered if she were not dead.

Calm down, calm down! she told herself. She didn't have to fight to do so, however. Any more calm and she would be dead, she reminded herself now. If anything, she must fight to be less calm, to force herself to think of the reason she was here, surrounded in all this blackness, to remember Ovierto's ugly face and his uglier heart. She thought about Donna Thorpe and what Ovierto had put her through. She reminded herself that Donna was standing alone against him somewhere outside this darkness. She held firm to that terrible thought.