The Frankenstein Factory (10 page)

“He didn’t know that when he brought me out here. Bone marrow damage can often be repaired by freeze-dried bone taken from a patient’s rib. For something like that he’d have needed me.”

“You don’t think he hired you to make certain Vera Morgan would be here, along with Freddy?”

“Why would he do a thing like that?”

Earl shifted to another approach while staying on the same subject. “I understand you had some trouble once with Freddy. A duel or something?”

“He and Vera had something going before I came on the scene. When I took over he caused a bit of trouble. I challenged him to a duel, but he got cold feet.”

“Were you serious about it?”

“Damn right I was serious! I kid about a lot of things but not about Vera!”

Earl looked back at that moment and was surprised to see Lawrence Hobbes walking toward them across the beach. They hadn’t seen him since his collapse some hours earlier. “Are you all right?” Earl called out above the noise of the surf.

“I’m a bit better now,” Hobbes said, but Earl noticed that his limp was decidedly worse. And the color was almost gone from his face. “I’ve been a fool, though, not to have treated this matter more seriously. We’re all in danger here.”

“I’ll agree with that,” Tony said.

“We have to get word to the mainland at once.”

“How would you suggest going about it?” Earl asked.

“One of us will have to try the boat. It’s the only way.”

“Why don’t we all go?”

“The boat wouldn’t carry six. It would be too great a drain on its motor, especially in these choppy waters. And if we leave just one or two people behind they may not be safe.”

“Okay,” Tony agreed. “So who goes?”

“Shall we draw grass stems again?” Hobbes suggested.

They trooped back up to the house, where the other three waited in the living room, huddled together like lambs awaiting slaughter. For the first time the scent of fear was strong in the place.

“One of us is going across,” Hobbes told them. “We’ll draw straws—all except you, Vera.”

Dr. Armstrong wet his lips. “I won’t go. That water’s too rough and I can’t swim. It’ll have to be someone else.”

“All right,” Hobbes said with a sigh. “The rest of us will draw.”

“You don’t have to,” Whalen decided suddenly. “I’ll go.”

“You?” Hobbes seemed surprised.

He turned to Earl. “But I want my gun back.”

“All right.”

“And I want something to keep the sharks away.”

“I’ll give you a sharkstick. Know how to use one?” Hobbes walked to a wall cabinet and opened it, extracting one of a pair of long, narrow poles. “Batteries are inside. Just press the end against him and he’ll get a nice jolt. Won’t kill him, but it’ll keep him away.”

“Fine,” Whalen said.

Earl went upstairs to get his gun, wondering why the strange Dr. Whalen was suddenly so eager to get to the other side. He was convinced in his own mind that it was Whalen who’d run’ up the pennant to keep the hovercraft away, and that only added to the mystery.

When he came back down Hobbes had produced a chart of the gulf waters and was explaining the currents to Whalen. “The boat has a super inboard engine and it can do better than thirty knots. You should make it to the mainland in less than a half hour. I’m sure the patch job will hold that long but, in case it doesn’t, the boat is equipped with electric pumps.”

“All right,” Whalen said. “I’ll go change to my bathing trunks. The spray might be sort of heavy going across.”

“Here’s the gun,” Earl said, handing it over with reluctance.

When Whalen had gone upstairs Vera asked, “Why’d he volunteer? What’s up?”

“Something sure is,” Tony agreed.

Lawrence Hobbes nodded. “And I think I know. I think he’s about to reveal himself as the murderer. Come in here, Earl.”

Earl followed him into a little private office off the living room. It was the first time any of them had been allowed inside, though Earl had noticed the room on the morning of his arrival.

“See this filing cabinet? The lock’s been shot away.”

“You mean—?”

“Last night, when he was shooting at that big shape out the front door. He fired one of the bullets into this lock, then ran over to the door and fired the other two. Later, after everyone had gone back to bed, he came back and looted the file.”

“What was in there?”

“Some private correspondence with leading surgeons around the world, plus a diary I kept of some early experiments. I’m convinced the man is a spy of some sort.”

“I’ll go along with that. What should we do?”

“He’ll have these stolen documents with him. If we nail him with them he might confess to the whole thing.”

Phil Whalen came downstairs a few moments later, wearing bathing trunks and a pullover. The leg holster was now strapped to his upper left arm. He carried the sharkstick in one hand and a fat briefcase in the other.

“What’s in there?” Hobbes asked, motioning toward the briefcase.

“My wallet and papers. I don’t want to leave them here.”

“Let’s see.”

At that moment Whalen must have realized that he was trapped. His right hand dropped the briefcase and went for the gun in his arm holster. Earl moved at the same instant. “I hope you reloaded it,” he said, “because I took out the bullets.”

But as fast as Earl moved, the bushy-haired Whalen was a step faster. He hurled the gun at Earl’s head and when Earl ducked he brought up the seven-foot-long sharkstick. Earl felt it jab against his chest and then a wallop of voltage sent him reeling backward to the floor.

He was aware only of Vera’s scream and much movement about him. Then his vision cleared and he struggled to sit up. Armstrong was at his side, loosening his shirt. “Are you all right? You took an awful wallop.”

“I’m okay. Now I know how a shark feels. Where is he?”

“Ran out of here, down toward the water.”

Earl got shakily to his feet. “We’ve got to stop him! Once he gets away from here he won’t worry about sending us help.” The gun still lay on the carpet where Whalen had hurled it, but Earl had no time to go upstairs for the bullets. He grabbed the other sharkstick from the wall cabinet and ran out the door.

Hobbes was already at the beach, trying unsuccessfully to reason with Phil Whalen. “Where do you think you’re running to? What will you do with those papers?”

Whalen had turned on the electric launcher, sending the sleek cabin speedboat on its track to the water. “The information belongs to all people,” he said, tossing the bulging briefcase into the boat as it went by. Then he saw Earl and brought the sharkstick down to an attack position. “You want some more of it?”

Earl edged closer, holding his own sharkstick high. The sand underfoot was soft and treacherous, making any fast movement difficult, but he knew that the footing was no better for Whalen.

“Come on, Phil, let’s talk this over. Where do you think you’re going with that stuff?”

“Keep back, Jazine!” He glanced over to see Armstrong and Tony coming. Then his sharkstick came down fast, aimed for another stunning jolt to Earl’s chest. But Earl parried the thrust with his own stick, and Whalen danced backward in the sand, maneuvering for better footing. Earl came in fast, charging with his weapon, and the two long poles clattered against each other like knightly lances. Meanwhile the boat had reached the water and sat bobbing by the short dock. Whalen gave it a glance, gauging his position for a quick sprint.

Earl brought his sharkstick in a sweeping arc that missed Whalen with its stinging tip but caught him with a blow on the side. Off balance, he retreated a few steps more and Earl moved in quickly.

But the fight wasn’t over. Whalen went down with his right hand in the sand, momentarily losing his grip on the weapon. Then he came up again, using a knee for leverage, and tossed a fistful of sand at Earl’s face. It missed his eyes, but Earl’s momentary retreat allowed Whalen to retrieve his sharkstick. Holding it in front of him, he backed onto the pier.

Now Earl had the disadvantage. He was in the soft sand while Whalen had the firm pier underfoot. He tried charging, but Whalen swung his sharkstick in an arc, knocking Earl’s weapon out of the way. With a quick parry and thrust he forced Earl back, then turned and ran for the boat.

Rather than try the dock, Earl ran out into the water, splashing through the foot-high waves. Whalen was already in the boat, reaching for the throttle, when he saw Earl coming. He pulled the sharkstick around, but now he was at the disadvantage, with the swaying boat underfoot.

Earl came splashing in fast, holding the weapon straight out before him, going for his target. He knew that the shock would be worse in the water if Whalen managed to connect with the stick, but he ran on regardless. He came up under Whalen’s sharkstick, grabbing its shaft with his left hand while plunging his own weapon home to Whalen’s stomach.

There was an instant crackle of sparks and Whalen went backward into the water.

“Pull him ashore,” Earl told Armstrong and Tony, “before he drowns.”

Breathing hard, he yanked the fat briefcase out of the speedboat and carried it back to shore. When he opened it he cursed softly. “I’ll be damned!” he said to Hobbes. “That bastard not only had your files—he had my film and tapes of the operation in here too!”

“What’ll we do with him?” Armstrong asked. Whalen was crumpled on the shoreline, a layer of sand sticking to his wet body.

“Bring him up to the house,” Earl said. “We’re going to get some answers at last!”

Phil Whalen accepted a cup of black coffee and drank it somewhat sullenly. He was still shivering from the effects of the electric shock and the dunking, and for some minutes he didn’t even bother to acknowledge their questions. Finally he looked up at Lawrence Hobbes and said, “All right—I’m on the payroll of the Riga Institute of Traumatology and Orthopedics. Does that make me some sort of a Russian spy?”

“It makes you exactly that,” Hobbes responded. “You entered my service under false colors, to spy on my work here.”

“Did you kill MacKenzie and Freddy and the two women?” Earl asked.

“No! I didn’t kill anybody!”

“Then I think you’d better tell us everything you know, starting with your Russian employment!”

Phil Whalen sighed and began speaking, keeping his eyes downcast as if studying the patterns on the rug. “Shortly after graduating from medical school in the United States I went to Riga for some postgraduate work in surgery. As you must know, the Riga Institute is one of the world’s leaders in the transplanting of frozen body parts. What I saw there amazed me, and a good deal of it has never been made public outside Russia.” He smiled slightly. “American espionage activities have always concentrated on the secrets of destruction rather than those of survival.”

“They’re usually of more immediate concern,” Tony commented dryly.

“At Riga they have entire banks of frozen extremities—fingers, toes, sometimes entire hands! I was really fascinated with the work they’re doing there—and especially with their techniques for overcoming rejection. They’re every bit as good as ours but quite different in concept. The two years I spent at Riga were among the most rewarding in my life.”

“And so you went to work for them.”

“Not of my own choice, at first. But as you must know, Riga is famous for something else besides the institute. It is the leading resort city on the Baltic Sea and the only one in the area to have legalized casino gambling. Russia’s pursuit of the tourist dollar finally overcame the traditional communist denunciation of gambling, at least as far as Riga was concerned. And that was my downfall. I met a young white Russian woman named Lara who lured me to all the wrong places.”

Earl nodded. “The Russian technique hasn’t really changed a lot in fifty years.”

“Well, I lost a great deal of money gambling. They were quite friendly about it, allowing me to run up a big tab as long as I was a graduate student at the institute. But when it came time to leave Russia and come home, no one was quite so friendly.” He raised his eyes for a moment, perhaps seeking an understanding face. When he found none he went back to staring at the carpet. “The director of the institute personally presented me with a bill for something like sixty thousand dollars. Naturally, I couldn’t pay, and that’s when I discovered exactly the sort of fix I was in. I was forbidden to leave Russia until the debt had been made good. But since I was only there on a temporary student’s visa I was also forbidden to seek any sort of gainful employment by which I might pay off the debt. I knew it was useless to return to the gaming tables, and the director spoke quite frighteningly of a debtors’ prison. (I never found out if such things really exist there.) I don’t have to tell you that Lara had vanished by this time, leaving me alone with my misery.”

“But they offered you a way out?” Earl prompted when Whalen fell silent momentarily.

“Yes, a way out. I would go on the payroll of the Riga Institute, and my monthly salary would be credited against the sum of my debt. For this money I would only have to furnish them with abstracts of certain scientific papers published in the West. It seemed a simple enough task and I readily agreed.” He paused to sip more coffee. “Well, over the years it has not always proven to be so simple. Five years ago I received a request for a government report on cryonic research—one that had not been made public. When I told them I couldn’t get it a couple of their friends paid me a visit. They persuaded me with words, but I don’t doubt they were prepared to go further if necessary.” He patted the empty holster still strapped to his arm. “That’s when I started wearing a gun—to protect me from my friends!”

“After all that, you still believe in the free sharing of scientific knowledge?”

“Certainly! The words I spoke before were quite serious. If such knowledge was more freely circulated the Russians would not have to resort to such techniques! The methods of prolonging and reanimating life belong to every member of the human race!”

Lawrence Hobbes leaned forward. “The Riga people know of my work here? They ordered you to come?”

“When they learned you’d been in contact with me they suggested I try for a position here. It wasn’t difficult, as you know. You were looking for a back-up surgeon with just my skills. When I informed them that I would be assisting MacKenzie in some sort of secret operation, they asked for full information, including film records, if possible. If they were pleased with what I delivered they promised to cancel the remainder of my debt as a bonus.”