Authors: James Dixon
“Gotcha.” The young policeman smiled as he pulled back on the throttle, and the machine banked suddenly upward, climbing easily up the lofty mountain ahead.
On the other side of the mountain, not a scant hundred yards from the tunnel’s exit, a police roadblock waited! At least a dozen state police cars completely blocked the road, leaving no possible way of getting through. One important-looking gentleman, who wore the uniform of some kind of officer in the state police, was definitely in charge.
“Our orders are clear,” he said. “Under no circumstances does the vehicle get through, hostage or not. If we have to lose the hostage, we lose him, that’s it. Understand?”
After a chorus of mumbled “Yes, sir, we understand,” the contingent of police crouched waiting for the mobile home to emerge from the tunnel. Spotlights, almost unnecessary on this moonlit night, were trained on the tunnel’s exit.
They waited longer than it would normally take for the motor home to get through the tunnel.
“What the hell’s keeping those bastards?” moaned the officer in charge.
“Here it comes,” yelled another man, spotting a pair of headlights deep within the tunnel.
Above, the helicopters hovered, ready to pounce like giant birds.
The motor home was now emerging from the tunnel. The state police officer stepped out in front of his men, signaling the motor home to stop. The motor home crept forward until the policemen, at first wary that it might have tried to crash through the roadblock, watched with mounting impatience its slow, turtlelike approach to the roadblock. Finally it stopped!
Quickly Frank stepped out. Slamming the front door of the motor home behind him, he walked away from the vehicle and, hands in the air, dutifully surrendered as the state police moved in.
The officer took over. “This is as far as you go, mister,” he shouted.
Frank nodded as if thoroughly defeated.
“Where is it?” the officer asked sternly.
Taking his time, Frank pointed toward the rear door of the motor home. “In there,” he sighed.
Cautiously the police approached the door, the officer in the lead. Guns ready and edging closer, they prepared to enter the mobile unit.
Surrounding the door, the officer asked, “Ready?”
“We’re ready,” answered his men.
Slowly he turned the handle; the door opened and . . . flew open! The figure of Dr. Westley leaped out SCREAMING! Completely in shock, oblivious to his surroundings, he fell on the police officer in a state of total collapse.
Quickly, boldly, as if in a race, the state police rushed through the open door. Guns ready, they peered in: Jody lay unconscious on the delivery table, the two male nurses and Barbara were there, but there was no sign of Eugene Scott or Dr. Forrest . . . nor was there any sign of the huge barred incubator. It had been removed . . . it was gone!
Outside, the officer finally disengaged himself from the crazed Dr. Westley and heard a persistent knocking from the front part of the motor home. Moving quickly to the front door, he tried the handle: locked. He moved quickly back to Davis.
“Who’s in there?” he demanded.
Davis shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Let’s have the keys.”
“What keys?” Davis asked innocently.
“Search him,” said the officer to a policeman standing by.
Roughly the policeman went through Frank’s pockets, finding the keys and handing them to the officer.
With a menacing look at Frank, the officer moved back to the front of the motor home.
Standing back, ready for any eventuality, he unlocked the van. Slowly he opened the door and looked inside. There, on the floor, bound and gagged, was Mallory.
Quickly he pulled the bandages Frank had used for a gag out of Mallory’s mouth, enabling Mallory to speak.
Mallory gasped, then coughed, catching his breath. “They switched cars in the tunnel.” He coughed again. “A camper. Gray. I couldn’t get the license,” he sputtered.
The officer, with two other policemen, now had Mallory almost completely untied. Jumping out of the camper, he met Frank Davis’s smiling face. “Davis, you son of a bitch!” he stormed.
“Well, are you going to arrest me?” asked Frank, still smiling.
“You bet your sweet ass we are!” said the officer.
“I can’t wait for my day in court,” said Frank. “The television people should love it.”
“Let him go,” said Mallory, still disentangling himself from Davis’s hastily applied ropes.
“Who the hell are you?” asked the officer, looking sternly at Mallory.
Mallory reached inside his jacket and took out his identification. He flashed it in the officer’s direction.
“Hold it,” said the officer, grabbing the wallet. He wanted to get a better look at it.
Opening it, he studied the wallet and then carried it over to another man in plainclothes. The man looked at it, nodded, and handed the wallet back.
The officer came back to Mallory. “All right, Mr. Mallory, whatever you say . . . it’s on your neck.”
“You let me worry about it,” said Mallory. “Impound this vehicle. Get the information to the bureau. Trace it back.”
“Yes, sir,” said the officer. He began issuing orders to his subordinates at the motor home.
Behind them other police were shouting to the helicopters, which had now landed and were ready to take off again, “It’s a camper, a gray camper.”
Davis, standing next to Mallory, watched the helicopters taking off.
“Thanks,” said Frank.
“For what?” said Mallory, also watching the helicopters.
“For keeping me out of jail,” answered Frank.
“You shouldn’t be in jail, you belong in a mental hospital, Davis,” Mallory retorted savagely.
An ambulance had pulled up and the unconscious Jody Scott was being transferred to it in order to be taken back to the hospital. Dr. Westley was also being placed in the same ambulance. State troopers, and the officer in particular, were questioning the three nurses.
“You mean they never told you where they were taking it?” the officer asked.
“Who knows?” said Steven. “Nevada maybe, but that’s only a wild guess.”
“We’ve been instructed not to answer any questions,” said Barbara, looking firmly at Steve, telling him clearly with her eyes to keep his big mouth shut.
The siren wailed as the ambulance pulled away, carrying its human cargo, Jody Scott and Dr. Westley, back to Tucson. Meanwhile, the police were going over the motor home inch by inch, searching for clues, as if this were a routine investigation.
“Look at that,” said Davis, smiling.
CHAPTER SIX
Daybreak. The huge sun climbed slowly oyer the mountains to the east, turning the desert an indescribably gorgeous red. Along a seldom used side road heading into an old mining town that had been abandoned for years, a gray camper, the one described earlier by Mallory to the police, moved slowly. Driving was the new father, Eugene Scott. As recently as yesterday a respected attorney in the booming city of Tucson, Arizona, today he had become a hunted fugitive.
In the back of the camper Dr. Forrest stared intently at the huge barred incubator, the cage for the monster child that now lived. They’d saved it, all of them, but could they tame it? Could they teach it? Could they prevent it from killing, as it seemed to be born to do?
In the middle of the deserted mining town Eugene pulled to a stop. Leaning back, he tapped on the window directly behind him. The window slid open and Dr. Forrest appeared.
“We’re here, Doctor,” Eugene Scott said.
The doctor nodded. He looked over to the left. “Over there,” he said, “that old garage.”
Following his instructions, Eugene pulled the gray camper up to the old garage, and getting out, he ran quickly over to the door of the weather-beaten garage. When he removed a plank that held the garage shut, the doors flew open. And there sat a sparkling new electric-blue van, the kind teen-agers drive, waiting in the surprisingly clean garage. Clearly someone had been here recently, keeping it ready just in case.
Eugene entered the garage. He moved to the driver’s side of the van and looked in.
The keys were there in the ignition, gleaming new. Behind him Dr. Forrest was getting out of the back of the gray camper, carrying the incubator cautiously, at arm’s length.
“It’s all set,” Eugene yelled out to Dr. Forrest.
“Let’s go, then,” said the doctor, waiting.
Eugene jumped in. He started up the van. It roared to life instantly, again as if someone had cared for it recently. Eugene backed the van out of the garage past Dr. Forrest. As he did, he quickly stole a look at the incubator. He couldn’t see much, but what he saw was just lying there silently, not making a sound.
He heard Dr. Forrest getting in the back of the van, closing the door. “How ’bout the camper?” Eugene shouted back to Dr. Forrest.
“Never mind,” said Dr. Forrest, “they’ll take care of that. Let’s go.”
Eugene looked up at the line of deserted buildings. A chill went through him. He was being watched and he knew it. “All right,” he said to the doctor.
He drove back down the same dusty, deep-rutted road on which they had come. He swung left and then right to avoid the deep tire marks in which some unfortunate vehicle had been trapped from some long-ago flash flood.
For no reason he glanced up into the rear-view mirror. Behind him, back in the town, an old couple hobbled out from one of the seemingly deserted buildings. Helping each other, they reached the gray camper, climbed in, and drove it directly into the garage!
Who the hell is that? Eugene asked himself.
It was hours later. Dr. Forrest was at the wheel of the blue camper, Eugene Scott asleep in the seat beside him. Suddenly the honking of horns woke him. He jumped up, looking around.
“Hey,” he said, surprised, rubbing his eyes, “I’ve been out for hours, haven’t I?”
“You needed the rest,” said Dr. Forrest.
“I didn’t think I’d ever sleep again. How’s it doing?” he asked, gesturing toward the back of the van.
“Fine, just fine.” Dr. Forrest smiled.
“Shouldn’t you be back there watching it?” asked Eugene, never once volunteering to do it himself.
“No, no, don’t worry,” answered Dr. Forrest. “It’s got its own generator, supplying its own power. Everything’s working just fine.”
“What if it tries to get out?”
“We got that figured out, too.” The doctor smiled again. “Any sudden movement sets off an instant alarm. So we have the situation well in hand.”
“So it seems,” agreed Eugene. He looked out, trying to determine where they were. “Where are we going?” he asked.
“Back where it all started,” answered the doctor. “Los Angeles.”
In downtown Los Angeles it was rush-hour traffic. Thousands upon thousands of vehicles fought their way homeward through the downtown freeway complex. The traffic wasn’t going one way, or two or three, but four ways! Some cars inched their way onto the Santa Monica Freeway, battling their way west toward the Pacific Ocean; others moved slowly onto the San Bernardino, the Pomona Freeway, as they cursed their way east into the San Gabriel Valley. Still others plodded their way onto the Santa Ana Freeway, heading south for Orange County; and then the rest, the blue van included, braked their way off the San Bernardino Freeway onto the Downtown Interchange, past the strange-looking high-rises of downtown Los Angeles, honking past the continual flow of traffic coming off the Harbor Freeway, and finally getting onto the Hollywood Freeway as they slowly headed north and northwest out into the San Fernando Valley.
Back in Eugene and Jody Scott’s home in Tucson, Arizona, police were all over the place. They rifled through desk drawers and examined bits and pieces from wastepaper baskets, hoping to piece together some clue as to where the infant had been taken.
Jody, lying on her sofa in the living room, a handmade sort of quilt over her, watched them, especially Mallory, with a jaundiced eye.
Mallory moved across the living room in her direction. He had seen her watching him.
“You really should have remained in the hospital, Mrs. Scott,” he said.
“And miss this?” she said, pointing to the mess the police had made of her home.
“I’m sorry about this,” he answered. “Believe me, they’ll have it all straightened up before they leave.”
Frank Davis entered from the kitchen. He had heard the tag end of their conversation. “I wonder if you have a search warrant for all this, Mr. Mallory.”
“No, as a matter of fact, we don’t, Mr. Davis,” answered Mallory, “but I’m just going into town. I’ll be glad to stop by and get some judge to sign one if you wish. As a matter of fact, I could bring you along as an expert witness so you could explain to the judge just how dangerous these creatures are.”
“No, that won’t be necessary,” said Davis, bantering with his adversary, “but since you’re going into town, how about giving me a ride to the airport? After all,”—sure that Mallory would remember—“I gave you a ride, didn’t I?”
Mallory turned to the police. “All right,” he said, “we’re leaving. Put everything back in place.”
Frank moved over to the couch; Jody watched him coming, a smile on her face. She was grateful to this man, whatever the outcome of all this might be.
Just then a woman who resembled Jody but with little remaining of her beauty entered the room. She was Jody’s mother. She had seen Frank talking to her daughter, telling her, “I’m leaving.” Good riddance, she said to herself. She had despised this man Davis from the first. She saw this tragedy as entirely his fault. She moved closer, carrying a tray with tea and toast for her daughter.
“Where are you going?” Jody asked Davis.
“To Dallas,” he said, “unless you’d like me to stay with you, help you out.”
Jody’s mother had reached the couch. “Haven’t you done enough, Mr. Davis?” she asked.
“Mother!” said Jody, surprised not only at her mother’s lack of manners but at her bluntness.
“I’m sorry,” said her mother as she placed the tray on the coffee table. She turned to Frank. “You’ll excuse me if I speak frankly, Mr. Davis?”
“Of course,” said Frank.
“I can’t help but feel my daughter would have been far better off without your intrusion into this matter, Mr. Davis.”