Firestarter(72)

It was a whole can of worms. The possibilities stretched a dozen years into the future. Cap knew the best he himself could realistically hope for was six months, but it might be enough to set policy-to survey the land on which the tracks would be laid and the railroad would run. It would be his legacy to the country and to the world. Measured against this, the lives of a runaway college instructor and his ragamuffin daughter were less than dust in the wind.

The girl could not be tested and observed with any degree of validity if she was constantly drugged, but her father would be their hostage to fortune. And on the few occasions they wanted to run tests on him, the reverse would hold. It was a simple system of levers. And as Archimedes had observed, a lever long enough would move the world.

The intercom buzzed.

"John Rainbird is here," the new girl said. Her usual bland receptionist's tone was threadbare enough to show the fear beneath. On that one I don't blame you, babe, Cap thought. "Send him in, please."

2

Same old Rainbird.

He came in slowly, dressed in a brown and balding leather jacket over a faded plaid shirt. Old and scuffed Dingos peeked out from beneath the cuff's of his faded straight-leg jeans. The top of his huge head seemed almost to brush the ceiling. The gored ruin of his empty eye-socket made Cap shudder inwardly.

"Cap," he said, and sat down. "I have been in the desert too long."

"I've heard about your Flagstaff house," Cap said. "And your shoe collection."

John Rainbird only stared at him unblinkingly with his good eye.

"How come I never see you in anything but those old shitkickers?" Cap asked.

Rainbird smiled thinly and said nothing. The old unease filled Cap and he found himself wondering again how much Rainbird knew, and why it bothered him so much.

"I have a job for you," he said.

"Good. Is it the one I want?"

Cap looked at him, surprised, considering, and then said, "I think it is."

"Then tell me, Cap."

Cap outlined the plan that would bring Andy and Charlie McGee to Longmont. It didn't take long.

"Can you use the gun?" he asked when he was finished.

"I can use any gun. And your plan is a good one. It will succeed." "How nice of you to give it your stamp of approval," Cap said. He tried for light irony and only succeeded in sounding petulant. God damn the man anyway. "And I will fire the gun," Rainbird said. "On one condition." Cap stood up, planted his hands on his desk, which was littered with components from the McGee file, and leaned toward Rainbird.

"No," he said. "You don't make conditions with me:"

"I do this time," Rainbird said. "But you will find it an easy one to fulfill, I think."

"No," Cap repeated. Suddenly his heart was hammering in his chest, although with fear or anger he was not sure. "You misunderstand. I am in charge of this agency and this facility. I am your superior. I believe you spent enough time in the army to understand the concept of a superior officer."

"Yes," Rainbird said, smiling, "I scragged one or two in my time. Once directly on Shop orders. Your orders, Cap."

"Is that a threat?" Cap cried. Some part of him was aware that he was overreacting, but he seemed unable to help himself. "God damn you, is that a threat? If it is, I think you've lost your senses completely! If I decide I don't want you to leave this building, all I have to do is press a button! There are thirty men who can fire that rifle-"

"But none can fire it with such assurance as this one-eyed red nigger," Rainbird said. His gentle tone had not changed. "You think you have them now, Cap, but they are will-o'-the-wisps. Whatever gods there are may not want you to have them. They may not want you to set them down in your rooms of deviltry and emptiness. You have thought you had them before." He pointed to the file material heaped on the library trolley and then to the blue-backed folder. "I've read the material. And I've read your Dr. Hockstetter's report."

"The devil you have!" Cap exclaimed, but he could see the truth in Rainbird's face. He had. Somehow he had. Who gave it to him? he raged. Who?

"Oh yes," Rainbird said. "I have what I want, when I want it. People give it to me. I think... it must be my pretty face." His smile widened and became suddenly, horribly predatory. His good eye rolled in its socket.

"What are you saying to me?" Cap asked. He wanted a glass of water.

"Just that I have had a long time in Arizona to walk and smell the winds that blow... and for you, Cap, it smells bitter, like the wind off an alkali flat. I had time to do a lot of reading and a lot of thinking. And what I think is that I may be the only man in all the world who can surely bring those two here. And it may be that I am the only man in all the world who can do something with the little girl once she's here. Your fat report, your Thorazine and your Orasin-there may be more here than drugs can cope with. More dangers than you can understand."

Hearing Rainbird was like hearing the ghost of Wanless, and Cap was now in the grip of such fear and such fury that he couldn't speak.

"I will do all this," Rainbird said kindly. "I will bring them here and you will do all your tests." He was like a father giving a child permission to play with some new toy. "On the condition that you give the girl to me for disposal when you are finished with her."