Firestarter(111)

"Put your hand down," Andy said, and pushed.

Cap hesitated. His hand drew back and joined its mate on the blotter. He glanced out at the back lawn with that drifting, remembering expression on his face.

"Do you tape meetings in here?"

"No," Cap said evenly. "For a long time I had a voice-activated Uher-Five thousand-like the one that got Nixon in trouble-but I had it taken out fourteen weeks ago."

"Why?"

"Because it looked like I was going to lose my job."

"Why did you think you were going to lose your job?"

Very rapidly, in a kind of litany, Cap said: "No production. No production. No production. Funds must be justified with results. Replace the man at the top. No tapes. No scandal."

Andy tried to think it through. Was this taking him in a direction he wanted to go? He couldn't tell, and time was short. He felt like the stupidest, slowest kid at the Easter-egg hunt. He decided he would go a bit further down this trail.

"Why weren't you producing?"

"No mental-domination ability left in McGee. Permanently tipped over. Everyone in agreement on that. The girl wouldn't light fires. Said she wouldn't no matter what. People saying I was fixated on Lot Six. Shot my bolt." He grinned. "Now it's okay. Even Rainbird says so."

Andy renewed the push, and a small pulse of pain began to beat in his forehead. "Why is it okay?"

"Three tests so far. Hockstetter's ecstatic. Yesterday she flamed a piece of sheet metal. Spot temp over twenty thousand degrees for four seconds, Hockstetter says."

Shock made the headache worse, made it harder to get a handle on his whirling thoughts. Charlie was lighting fires? What had they done to her? What, in the name of God?

He opened his mouth to ask and the intercom buzzed, jolting him into pushing much harder than he had to. For a moment, he gave Cap almost everything there was. Cap shuddered all over as if he had been whipped with an electric cattle prod. He made a low gagging sound and his ruddy face lost most of its color. Andy's headache took a quantum leap and he cautioned himself uselessly to take it easy; having a stroke in this man's office wouldn't help Charlie.

"Don't do that," Cap whined. "Hurts-"

"Tell them no calls for the next ten minutes," Andy said. Somewhere the black horse was kicking at its stable door, wanting to get out, wanting to run free. He could feel oily sweat running down his cheeks.

The intercom buzzed again. Cap leaned forward and pushed the toggle switch down. His face had aged fifteen years.

"Cap, Senator Thompson's aide is here with those figures you asked for on Project Leap."

"No calls for the next ten minutes," Cap said, and clicked off:

Andy sat drenched in sweat. Would that hold them? Or would they smell a rat? It didn't matter. As Willy Loman had been so wont to cry, the woods were burning. Christ, what was he thinking of Willy Loman for? He was going crazy. The black horse would be out soon and he could ride there. He almost giggled.

"Charlie's been lighting fires?"

"Yes."

"How did you get her to do that?"

"Carrot and stick. Rainbird's idea. She got to take walks outside for the first two. Now she gets to ride the horse. Rainbird thinks that will hold her for the next couple of weeks." And he repeated, "Hockstetter's ecstatic."

"Who is this Rainbird?" Andy asked, totally unaware that he had just asked the jackpot question.

Cap talked in short bursts for the next five minutes. He told Andy that Rainbird was a Shop hitter who had been horribly wounded in Vietnam, had lost an eye there (the one-eyed pirate in my dream, Andy thought numbly). He told Andy that it was Rainbird who had been in charge of the Shop operation that had finally netted Andy and Charlie at Tashmore Pond. He told him about the blackout and Rainbird's inspired first step on the road to getting Charlie to start lighting fires under test conditions. Finally, he told Andy that Rainbird's personal interest in all of this was Charlie's life when the string of deception had finally run itself out. He spoke of these matters in a voice that was emotionless yet somehow urgent. Then he fell silent.

Andy listened in growing fury and horror. He was trembling all over when Cap's recitation had concluded. Charlie, he thought. Oh, Charlie, Charlie.

His ten minutes were almost up, and there was still so much he needed to know. The two of them sat silent for perhaps forty seconds; an observer might have decided they were companionable older friends who no longer needed to speak to communicate. Andy's mind raced.

"Captain Hollister," he said.

"Yes?"

"When is Pynchot's funeral?"

"The day after tomorrow," Cap said calmly.

"We're going. You and I. You understand?"

"Yes, I understand. We're going to Pynchot's funeral."

"I asked to go. I broke down and cried when I heard he was dead."

"Yes, you broke down and cried."

"I was very upset."

"Yes, you were."

"We're going to go in your private car, just the two of us. There can be Shop people in cars ahead and behind us, motorcycles on either side if that's standard operating procedure, but we're going alone. Do you understand?"

"Oh, yes. That's perfectly clear. Just the two of us."