WATCHERS by Dean R. Koontz

spare. The highway would not long be free of traffic.

He carried Haines back to the Ford and put him in the front seat, letting him

slump against the door as if sleeping peacefully. He made sure the man’s head

tipped back to let the blood from his nose trickle down his throat.

From the coast highway, which was twisty and frequently in poor repair for such

a major route, Vince followed a series of lesser unpaved roads, each narrower

and more rugged than the one before, traveling from gravel to dirt surfaces,

heading deeper into the rain forest, until he came to a lonely dead end at a

green wall of immense trees and lush vegetation. Twice during the drive, Haines

had begun to regain consciousness, but Vince had quieted the doctor by thumping

his head against the dashboard.

Now, he dragged the unconscious man out of the Ford, through a gap in the brush,

and deep under the trees, until he found a shady clearing floored with hairy

moss. Cawing and trilling birds fell silent, and unknown animals with peculiar

voices moved off through the underbrush. Large insects, including a beetle as

big as Vince’s hand, scuttled out of his way, and lizards scampered up tree

trunks.

Vince returned to the Ford, where he had left some interrogation equipment in

the trunk. A packet of syringes and two vials of sodium pentothal. A leather sap

weighted with lead pellets. A hand-applied Taser that resembled a remote-control

device for a television set. And a corkscrew with a wooden handle.

Lawton Haines was still unconscious when Vince returned to the clearing. His

breath rattled in his broken nose.

Haines should have been dead twenty-four hours ago. The people who had employed

Vince for three jobs yesterday had expected to use another freelancer who lived

in Acapulco and operated throughout Mexico. But that guy had died yesterday

morning when a long-awaited air-mail package from Fortnum & Mason in London

surprisingly contained two pounds of plastic explosives instead of assorted

jellies and marmalades. Out of desperate necessity, the outfit in Los Angeles

had given the job to Vince, though he was getting to be dangerously overworked.

It was a big break for him, for he was sure this doctor must also be connected

with Banodyne Laboratories and could provide more details about the Francis

Project.

Now, exploring the rain forest around the clearing where Haines lay, Vince found

a fallen tree from which he was able to pull off a loose, curved section of

thick bark that would serve as a ladle. He located an algae-mottled stream and

scooped up nearly a quart of water in the bark vessel. The stuff looked foul. No

telling what exotic bacteria thrived in it. But, of course, at this point the

possibility of disease would not matter to Haines.

Vince threw the first ladle of water in Haines’s face. A minute later he

returned with a second scoopful from which he forced the doctor to drink. After

a lot of spluttering, choking, gagging, and a little vomiting, Haines was at

last clearheaded enough to understand what was being said to him, and to respond

intelligibly.

Holding up the leather sap, the Taser, and the corkscrew, Vince explained how

he’d use each of them if Haines was uncooperative. The doctor—who revealed

himself to be a specialist in brain physiology and function—proved more

intelligent than patriotic, and he eagerly divulged every detail of the

top-secret defense work in which he was engaged at Banodyne.

When Haines swore there was no more to be told, Vince prepared the sodium

pentothal. As he drew the drug into the syringe, he said, conversationally,

“Doctor, what is it with you and women?”

Haines, lying on his back in the hairy moss with his arms at his sides, exactly

as Vince had told him to lie, was not able to adjust quickly to the change of

subject. He blinked in confusion.

“I been following you since lunch, and I know you got three of them on a String

in Acapulco—”

“Four,” Haines said, and in spite of his terror a visible pride surfaced. “That

Mercedes I’m driving belongs to Giselle, the sweetest little—”

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