Dreamcatcher(162)

'Cut the shit, Kurtz.' Loud and clear from all six of the Hummer's speakers, and Cambry actually had the nerve to laugh. Kurtz marked him with a vile look. Under other circumstances that look would have turned Cambry's black skin gray with terror, but this was not other circumstances, other circumstances had been cancelled, and Kurtz felt an uncharacteristic bolt of fear. It was one thing to know intellectually that things had gone tits-up; it was another when the truth landed in your gut like a heavy sack of meal.

'Owen . . . laddie-buck - '

'Listen to me, Kurtz. I don't know if there's a sane brain-cell left in your head, but if there is, I hope it's paying attention. I'm with a man named Henry Devlin. Ahead of us  -  probably a hundred ahead of us now  -  is a friend of his named Gary Jones. Only it's not really him anymore. He's been taken over by an alien intelligence he calls Mr Gray.'

Gary. . . Gray, Kurtz thought. By their anagrams shall ye know em

'Nothing that happened in the Jefferson Tract matters,' came the voice from the speakers. 'The slaughter you planned is redundant, Kurtz  -  kill em or let em die on their own, they're not a threat.'

'You hear that?' Perlmutter asked hysterically. 'No threat! No - '

'Shut up,' Freddy said, and backhanded him. Kurtz hardly noticed. He was sitting bolt-upright in the back seat, eyes glaring. Redundant? Was Owen Underhill telling him that the most impor?tant mission of his life had been redundant?

' - environment, do you understand? They can't live in this ecosystem. Except for Gray. Because he happened to find a host who is fundamentally different. So here it is. If you ever stood for anything, Kurtz  -  if you can stand for anything now  -  you'll stop chasing us and let us take care of business. Let us take care of Mr Jones and Mr Gray. You may be able to catch us, but it's extremely doubtful that you can catch them. They're too far south. And we think Gray has a plan. Something that will work.'

'Owen, you're overwrought,' Kurtz said. 'Pull over. Whatever needs to be done, we'll do it together. We'll - '

'If you care, you'll quit,' Owen said. His voice was flat. 'That's it. Bottom line. I'm over and out.'

'Don't do that, buck!' Kurtz shouted. 'Don't do that, I forbid you to do that!'

There was a click, very loud, and then hissy silence from the speaker. 'He's gone,' Perlmutter said. 'Pulled the mike out. Turned off the receiver. Gone.'

'But you heard him, didn't you?' Cambry asked. 'There's no sense in this. Call it off.'

A pulse beat in the center of Kurtz's forehead. 'As though I'd take his word for anything, after what he participated in back there.'

'But he was telling the truth!' Cambry brayed. He turned fully to Kurtz for the first time, his eyes wide, the corners clogged with dabs of the Ripley, or the byrus, or whatever you wanted to call it. His spittle sprayed Kurtz's cheeks, his forehead, the surface of his breathing mask. 'I heard his thoughts! So did Pearly! HE WAS TELLING THE STONE TRUTH! HE - '

Once again moving with a speed that was eerie, Kurtz drew the nine-millimeter from the holster on his belt and fired. The report inside the Humvee was deafening. Freddy shouted in surprise and jerked the wheel again, sending the Humvee into a diagonal skid through the snow. Perlmutter screamed, turning his horrified, red-speckled face to look into the back seat. For Cambry it was merciful  -  his brains were out the back of his head, through the broken window, and blowing in the storm in the time it might have taken him to raise a protesting hand.

Didn't see that coming at all, did you buck? Kurtz thought. Telepathy didn't help you one damn bit there, did it?

'No,' Pearly said dolorously. 'You can't do much with someone who doesn't know what he's going to do until it's done. You can't do much with a crazyman.'

The skid was back under control. Freddy was a superior motorman, even when he had been startled out of his wits.

Kurtz pointed the nine at Perlmutter. 'Call me crazy again. Let me hear you.'

'Crazy,' Pearly said immediately. His lips stretched in a smile, opening over a line of teeth in which there were now several vacancies. 'Crazy-crazy-crazy. But you won't shoot me for it. You shot your backup, and that's all you can afford.' His voice was rising dangerously. Cambry's corpse lolled back against the door, tufts of hair blowing around his misshapen head in the cold wind coming through the window.

'Hush, Pearly,' Kurtz said. He felt better now, back in control again. Cambry had been worth that much, at least. 'Get a grip on your clipboard and just hush. Freddy?'

'Yes, boss.'

'Are you still with me?'  

'All the way, boss.'

'Owen Underhill is a traitor, Freddy, can you give me a big praise God on that?'

'Praise God.' Freddy sat ramrod-straight behind the wheel, staring into the snow and the cones of the Humvee's headlights.

'Owen Underhill has betrayed his country and his fellow-men. He - '

'He betrayed you,' Perlmutter said, almost in a whisper.

'That's right, Pearly, and you don't want to overestimate your own importance, son, that's one thing you don't want to do, because you never know what a crazyman is going to do next, you said so yourself '