The Flying Eyes (5 page)

“Somebody should have consulted me.” Collins was nasty. “I could have told you what would happen. I saw a guy poke a stick right through one of those things last night, and I saw the thing heal itself up.”

Then it wasn't only a futile fight, it was a senseless fight, stabbed through Linc's mind. He had sent men out when they didn't have a chance, and he could have known it if he had taken the trouble to find out.

“Where were you to be consulted?” he shouted at Collins, needing to take the self-recrimination out on somebody. “You gave up last night, and went home. And then when you got the information about the healing capacity of the Eyes, you didn't even report it.”

“Okay, so I went home. But would you have consulted me if I had been standing right next to you?” Collins' eyes were sparking. “That's not the way you work, Hosier. Not Lincoln Hosier. He's the whole show, the whole department. You don't use your assistants, and you know it. You've never made use of me. You wouldn't have last night.”

“I haven't made use of you because there's nothing in you worth making use of! ” Linc let it come.

“Linc,” Wes stepped between them. “Now isn't the time.”

“Now is the time! I'm standing here, covered with blood and drippings from those ungodly things, and he dares to accuse me of stupidity. Of murdering those men who went to carry out my plan. I won't stand it!”

“You don't have to stand it,” Iverson said from the door. “I've heard enough, Collins. Anything you're saying about Linc, you're also saying about me. Remember that. Now—with that fact in mind—do you still wish to charge incompetency?”

Collins looked at the floor. “I'm sorry, sir. The tension—the heat of the moment.”

“We'll forget it, then,” Iverson turned to face Linc's belligerence. “You're a mess, boy,” he said, and it was both gruff and gentle. “Take a shower, wash that blood out of your hair, and go home. We'll give this over to the National Guard this afternoon.”

“You're not giving up on it?” Linc asked.

“I'm not giving up,” Iverson said. “But you need rest. So do I. So does Wes. Look at him, Linc. Double the mess he is, and you've got a good picture of yourself.”

Linc glanced at Wes. He was a shambles of a man. His face was dirty with mud and caked with fluid; blood streaked it, and his eyes stood out like marbles in a dark hole. His clothes were matted and caked, and Linc saw that the man was utterly exhausted.

He gave in to Iverson on the strength of Wes. He headed for the door, then turned back. “I'm not going to give up, Doc. I was out there, and I felt what they can do to a man beyond the horror they generate, and I'm not going to give up until I see them destroyed. It's too personal now. I have to finish it.”

Wes grasped his arm and led him down to the locker room where hot showers waited, and a clean change of clothes.

CHAPTER FIVE

Kelly was at the house, doing her best to make the rooms cheerful. She had the drapes drawn and the lights on, creating a cozy world of cushions and carpets. But Linc wasn't able to enjoy it. Wes relaxed in the big chair, Ichabod at his feet, a pipe in his mouth. Linc roamed from living room to kitchen.

Kelly was cooking dinner. The housekeeper hadn't returned after her departure on the day of the game. Kelly turned from the stove, eying Linc, and there was something in her expression that made him realize she wasn't offering solace, but asking it. “You can help me cut up stuff for the salad, if you like.”

“Don't bother with anything fancy, Kel.”

“Don't be melodramatic. There's no sense in going without food just because you're worried. And I'd like company. I've waited in this house, keeping busy simply because I had to, and now I'd like some friendly talk.”

She wanted lightness, gaiety, to counteract the bitterness and fear of the long day she had spent waiting. She wanted him to be a rock for her to cling to. A week ago, he would have been anything in the world for her, but not tonight. He was too exhausted.

“The things I have on my mind don't make very gay conversation,” he said.

“Then go back to Wes. Let me cook in peace.”

He went to her, wanting the feel of her, the comfort of another human body close and safe with his. He put his arms around her, forcing her to stop the stirring motion.

But she squirmed away. “For heaven's sake, Linc, not now. What do you think I am?”

“My girl, maybe?”

She ignored his statement. “I'm not here to be mauled. I don't want to be mauled. Go pet Ichabod, if that's what you want.”

He was too tired to play games. He spoke his mind. “Why do you keep coming around if you don't even want my touch on you? You're no prude, Kelly. Why don't you ever let me near? You've got to make up your mind someday.”

“Does it have to be today? You pick the worst imaginable times for your love-making. You have no sense of timing; no sense of delicacy. If you think I'll fly into your arms just because I'm frightened, you're dead wrong. I might need comfort, but not that kind.”

He left the kitchen before he said anything more and made a worse shambles than there already was between them.

Wes was staring into the flames of the fireplace, deep in his own thoughts. From the look of him, no one would guess that just hours before he had been on a bloody field, fighting horror.

“You sit there like nothing had happened,” Linc complained. “How do you manage it?”

“Maybe it's because I know what to put on my conscience and what to toss away.”

“And what is that supposed to mean?”

“You're letting this morning's fiasco eat you up. You have to put it out of your mind—forget it—and start fresh.”

“I know that.” Linc rubbed his head, as though the physical action could clear away the muddle from his mind. “But those boys—I told Iverson they were too young!” His voice was rising, repealing the anger he had thrust at Collins. “Almost none of them came back, do you realize that? Two dead of gunshot wounds, and fifteen taken away by the Eyes. I didn't go with the Eyes. You didn't go. But those boys did. And they're all lost because, as Collins said, I picked the simplest solution I could find and rushed into it without weighing the consequences.”

“Don't heap yourself high with blame, Linc. It doesn't belong on you. You fought your guts out this morning. You were the last to leave the field.”

“But how can I reconcile—”

“I've made some cocktails,” Kelly said from the door. “I want everybody to drink deep and liven up.”

She handed the glasses around, and Linc gulped his down.

“Ichabod is great company,” she was saying to Wes. “Now I know why you talk to him all the time. He does answer, in his own way. I may steal him and take him home with me.”

“Nope,” Wes smiled. “A man's woman and his dog are sacred to him. They're untouchable.”

“The dog part, anyway,” she answered. Her eyes sparkled brightly, perhaps too brightly to be genuine, and certainly too brightly for Linc to stomach. “If you had a woman,” she asked Wes, “would she actually mean that much to you? Would she be untouchable?”

“In theory, yes. I can't say in practice, because I've never had a woman.”

“Don't I know it! Maybe we can change all that one day. If there ever is another day—free from the Eyes.” She frowned. “I've felt so guilty and useless, running about, cleaning house, while you two were fighting for my life.” Wes reached out and touched her hand. “But there was nothing better you could do.”

“Thank you,” she murmured.

The moment between them was close and warm. Linc averted his eyes. He hadn't been able to say things like that to her. Wes always knew the right words. And he took advantage of the fact.

Then Kelly's dark gaze was on him. “Linc just sits here like a gloomy bear. He won't even talk to us.”

“If my company is that dampening, I'll remove it,” Linc stood.

“For heaven's sake, don't go stiff on us,” Wes told him. “Kelly was only trying to tease you out of the mood.”

“I guess I just don't understand teasing at a time like this,” he answered nastily.

Wes withdrew his hand from Kelly's grasp, and his face was full of the kindness he always offered. “If you've got things on your mind, friend, talk about them. Let us listen and help.”

“Yes, talk if you must.” Kelly was watching him, toe. “I thought this was just one of your moods. I didn't realize you were really troubled.”

He wanted to accept her offer, to make use of her sudden concern, but he threw it aside, because he didn't know how to use it. “There's nothing to talk about. I'm going to make a sandwich, and then I'm going to bed. You two have fun.”

He left the room, torn within himself. On the one hand, he had done what he knew Kelly wanted; but on the other he had thrown them together again. He always threw them together. Wes spent more time with Kelly than he did. Wes might say that it was time he didn't want, but he never refused it.

As he sliced the meat, he could hear them in the living room, their voices low, talking and laughing. And piled on top of the other great failures of the day, this one exploded all out of proportion until he finally found a scapegoat for his anger and disappointment: Wes, the professed friend who took every opportunity to stab him in the back, and in the exact spot where he knew it would hurt most.

* * * *

It was dark outside, ten o'clock dark, when a knock sounded on his bedroom door. He raised up from the pillow where he hadn't found even the peace of a nap, and called, “Come in.”

It was Wes.

“Has Kelly gone home?” Linc asked.

“No. She's going to stay the night—in the housekeeper's room. She's too frightened to go home. People have gone crazy, Linc. They're looting private homes now, and a girl isn't safe alone.”

“Are you sure she's safe here?”

Wes glanced up quickly, estimating the meaning behind the words.

“You two were laughing it up pretty heavy down there. With her staying in the house—”

“Now, wait just a minute!” Wes' face was red. “Just because you—”

“Just because I nothing. You hand me a long line about not caring a damn for Kelly, but you latch onto her quick enough whenever you get the chance.”

“She wanted comfort, and you refused to give it, so I did. One human being to another. No more.”

“You must be a saint. Do you know that? You're so full of compassion and philosophy, you must be a saint.”

Wes sighed. “A minute ago, I was a heel, and now I'm a saint. Make up your mind, Linc. Which is it?”

“Time will tell that. Meanwhile, I think I'll sleep downstairs where I can keep an eye on her door.”

Wes' hands were clenched, and the same fighting look Linc had seen in him this morning stared back at him now. “I'd like to knock your head off,” Wes growled. “I've taken a lot from you—making excuses, trying to find something in you to like. But I guess I was wrong. Collins and the men at the lab have you pegged. You're an egotist—an overbearing, swaggering egotist, so sure of yourself and your own cockeyed judgments that you stink. Your trouble is you don't know how to accept a friend. I thought last night maybe you'd learned. But you only made it sound good. When it comes down to it, you're still alone, and want it that way.”

Linc's own hands were clenching into fists. He wanted to make physical contact. It seemed a certain, sure relief.

Wes backed off two steps. “I'm not going to fight with you. It's not worth it—not over this accusation. You'd win, anyway. I'm no match for you physically. But if you measure by heart or decency—then, friend, you fall so short it's pitiful. And all because of that woman. She'll ruin you yet, Linc. She's got you by the tail and she'll turn you inside out, if you're not careful.”

He strode from the room and slammed the door behind him. Linc sat on the edge of the bed, his fists still clenched in unvented anger. He threw himself across the bed. The hell with Wes and Kelly. The Eyes were more important. He had been wrong this morning, dead wrong, and the realization threw him. He felt unsure of himself and he had to remedy that. Unless he was competent in his work, nothing would ever matter again. He'd find a way to destroy the Eyes yet. He'd find a way to redeem himself.

* * * *

Two days passed. The National Guard moved in and was beginning to contain the town. But the Eyes remained.

Linc spent the days mostly alone, wrapped in depression. Kelly was gone, and the atmosphere in the house was strained, constantly edging on a near fight between the two men.

On the third morning, the dim ringing of the phone brought Linc out of a fitful sleep, and he dressed and went down to the kitchen. Wes was there, drinking coffee.

“Was that the phone?” Linc asked.

“It was,” Wes answered. “Iverson with the latest news.”

Wes' short tone sent Linc to the stove, where he plopped some oleo into a frying pan and dumped in two eggs. Wes knew what he wanted. He could volunteer the information.

“The National Guard has been nosing around, asking for information on the hole in the woods,” Wes opened up.

“It is a hole then?”

“It is. A big one. The people go down into it. And they don't come back up. Some of the observers don't make it back either.”

“But it is a hole.” Linc was glad of the confirmation. If it was a hole, a known thing, then his nightmarish imaginings could be cast aside. “Has it always been there?”

“The farmers in the area and the game warden out there say it just appeared. There's talk about an explosion out that way, the same night the light was reported streaking over town. The light you called an idiot's hallucination.”

“So I was wrong again,” he said. “And you're pleased to be able to prove it to me.”

“Iverson has a straight Linc to Washington now. They're sending somebody out.” Wes refused to take the bait and add fuel to the quarrel. “But nobody has a solution. No protection has been found. The Eyes are still leading people away.”

Linc put his plate on the table and poured himself a cup of coffee. “I thought I'd go in to the lab today.”

“Iverson says there's no need. Nothing's going on out there. I'm staying here. I don't see much sense in running back and forth when there's nothing to be accomplished.”

“That's fine with me. I guess the last few days have proved that we were never meant to be a team anyway. A little crisis, and we tear out each other's throats.”

****

The lab was being run by a skeleton crew. None of the project work was going on, but a certain number of men had to be there to keep tabs on the reactor.

Iverson glanced up from his paper-strewn desk. “I told Wes there wasn't any need for you to come,” he said.

“I know. But you're here, so why not me?”

“I won't say I'm not glad, but I really don't see what good you can do. Things are getting worse. That's all the news there is.”

“I saw the soldiers. Sooner or later they'll calm the place down.”

“I don't know, Linc. The panic's spreading. People are jumping the gun all over the county. Everyone's afraid the Eyes will widen their activities and the towns around here are turning into ghost towns. People are running. So, in the long run, if we should need them to help, they won't be there.”

“Maybe they're smart. The Eyes might spread.”

“Don't even think that.” Iverson shuddered. “If they can make such a shambles here, what could they do to the whole country? I'm at my wits' end, Linc. Washington seems to be holding us responsible for some solution. They're sending a man out, yes, but they expect us to have something to tell him. Of course, they have some ideas of their own. They think the attack was a good plan and they want the Guard to try it again.”

“Oh, no!” It was Linc's turn to shudder. The first failure had been his fault, and another failure would reflect on him, too—still his idea, still his guilt. “They wouldn't have any more chance than we did.”

“Washington thinks they would. Where we could only inflict small, single wounds, the Guard will have big weapons. They can blow the things apart.”

“And they can turn into zombies just as easily as those boys.”

Iverson stared at him, his face ashen. “I don't suppose you've been outside of town—out toward the hole?”

“No. Why?”

“It's a sight you wouldn't easily forget. The soldiers drove me out there in a Jeep. The roads are crammed with people—four rows deep—all lost to us, all zombies. How do they do it, Linc?” Iverson's voice rose in desperation. “What do they do, and how?”