Mr. Murder. By: Dean R. Koontz

things which women really need but which they may not know they

subconsciously desire, those things which children want but of which

they dare not speak. He understands that his wife and children will

welcome and thrive upon utter domination, harsh discipline, physical

abuse, sexual subjugation, even humiliation. At first opportunity, he

intends to fulfill their deepest and most primitive longings, as the

lenient false father apparently will never be able to do, and together

they will be a family, living in harmony and love, sharing a destiny,

held together forever by his singular wisdom, strength, and demanding

heart.

He drifts toward healing sleep, confident of waking with full health and

vigor in several hours.

A few feet from him, in the trunk of the car, lies the dead man who once

owned the Buick–cold, stiff, and without any appealing prospects of his

own.

How good it is to be special, to be needed, to have a destiny.

Still we’re at the point where hope and reason part, lies the spot where

madness gets a start.

Hope to make the world kinder and free but flowers of hope root in

reality.

No peaceful bed exists for lamb and lion, unless on some world out

beyond Orion.

Do not instruct the owls to spare the mice.

Owls acting as owls must is not a vice.

Storms do not respond to heartfelt pleas.

All the words of men can’t calm the seas.

Nature–always beneficent o.nd cruel wont change for a wise man or a

fool.

Mankind shares all Nature’s imperfections, clearly visible to casual

inspections.

Resisting betterment is the human trait.

The ideal of utopia is our tragic fate.

–The Book of Counted Sorrows

We sense that life is a dark comedy and

maybe we can live with that.

However, because the whole thing is written for the entertainment of the

gods, too many of the jokes go right over our heads.

Two Vanished Victims, Martn Stillwater Immediately after leaving the

roadside rest area where the dead retirees relaxed forever in the cozy

dining nook of their motorhome, heading back along I-40 toward Oklahoma

City with the inscrutable Karl Clocker behind the wheel, Drew Oslett

used his state-of-the-art cellular phone to call the home office in New

York City. He reported developments and requested instructions.

The telephone he used wasn’t yet for sale to the general public.

To the average citizen, it would never be available with all of the

features that Oslett’s model offered.

It plugged into the cigarette lighter like other cellulars, however,

unlike others, it was operable virtually anywhere in the world, not

solely within the state or service area in which it was issued.

Like the SATU electronic map, the phone incorporated a direct satellite

up link. It could directly access at least ninety percent of the

communications satellites currently in orbit, bypassing their land-based

control stations, override security-exclusion programs, and connect with

any telephone the user wished, leaving absolutely no record that the

call had been made. The violated phone company would never issue a bill

for Oslett’s call to New York because they would never know that it had

been placed using their system.

He spoke freely to his New York contact about what he had found at the

rest stop, with no fear that he would be overheard by anyone, because

his phone also included a scrambling device that he activated with a

simple switch. A matching scrambler on the home office phone rendered

his report intelligible again upon receipt, but to anyone who might

intercept the signal between Oklahoma and the Big Apple, Oslett’s words

would sound like gibberish.

New York was concerned about the murdered retirees only to the extent

that there might be a way for the Oklahoma authorities to link their

killing to Alfie or to the Network, which was the name they used among

themselves to describe their organization. “You didn’t leave the shoes

there?” New York asked.

“Of course not,” Oslett said, offended at the suggestion of

incompetence.

“All of the electronics in the heel–”

“I have the shoes here.”

“That’s right-out-of-the-lab stuff. Any knowledgeable person who sees

it, he’s going to go ape-shit and maybe”

“I have the shoes,” Oslett said tightly.

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