“And I’m glad I didn’t know about it beforehand,” Harrington said. “It would have made me a nervous wreck.”
They’d told him the story after Kirby had brought him back to the house. It seemed they’d “bugged” the suitcase; it now contained a miniaturized radio transmitter, beaming a continuous signal, which could be picked up from as far as a mile and a half away. Three small trucks equipped with radio receivers, always being careful to stay out of sight, had followed that signal from the moment Harrington had entered his Cadillac; they had trailed the suitcase from Harrington to the kidnappers, and then from the kidnappers to their lair. Triangulating on the signal, the three trucks had pinpointed that lair’s location, and the kidnappers were now under intense observation.
Harrington said, “Where are they, exactly?”
“Not twenty-five miles from here,” the head FBI man said. He was washing his hands together with satisfaction. “They’ve holed up in an abandoned farmhouse off a county road down toward Hackettstown.”
“An abandoned farmhouse? I thought they’d all been snapped up by commuters.”
“There’s still a few,” the head FBI man said. “My cousin found a deal in Rockland County that-”
The phone rang. Harrington said, “You get that.”
“Right.” The head FBI man picked up the receiver. “Bradford.” He listened, looking very stern. “Right.” He listened again. “Keep them under surveillance,” he said. “If they leave him, move in. Otherwise, we stick to Plan A.” With which, he hung up and turned back to Harrington. “They’ve left the farmhouse,” he said. “With the boy. Apparently they’re planning to release him now. If they do, naturally we’ll move in. If they’re simply transferring to another location-”
“You’ll stay with Plan A.”
The head FBI man frowned. “Exactly,” he said, and the phone rang again. “I’ll take it,” he said, picked up the receiver, and said, “Bradford.” Then he looked startled, and said, “Hold on a minute.” Cupping his hand over the mouthpiece, he called to the technician dozing over his machinery, “Switch on! Switch on!” To Harrington he stage-whispered, “It’s them! Her! She wants to talk to you!”
“Oh,” Harrington said. He suddenly felt nervous and faint. He was intensely aware of the technician busily switching on and blinking his eyes to wake up.
“Be very careful,” the head FBI man said, and handed Harrington the phone.
Harrington put it to his face as though it were a spider. “Hello?”
The familiar voice said, “Oh, there you are. Who’s that Bradford?”
“Urn-An FBI man.”
“Oh. Sounds like a jerk.” (The head FBI man transformed his eyebrows into a bushy straight line low over his eyes.) “Anyway,” the kidnapper went on, “I got somebody here to talk to you.”
“What?” Harrington felt more and more nervous. Had the kidnappers discovered the transmitter in the suitcase? Were they about to make further demands?
“Hello, Dad?”
“Jimmy!” A flood of warmth suffused him. “By golly, boy, it’s good to hear your voice.”
“You, too, Dad.”
“I wasn’t looking forward to the ride out tomorrow without you, I can tell you that.”
“Well, I’ll be there, Dad,” Jimmy said.
“I know you will,” Harrington said, but when he saw the head FBI man gesturing wildly at him he realized he must be sounding too confident. It wouldn’t do to make the kidnappers suspicious at this stage. “That is,” he amended, “I was hoping you would.”
Jimmy said, “These people want you to know they haven’t hurt me, and they’re going to let me go in New York tomorrow morning.”
“In New York?” Harrington and the head FBI man stared at one another, both startled.
“That’s right. Should I come down to your office, or go on up to Dr. Schraubenzieher?”
“Well, I-well-”
“I think I’d rather go to Dr. Schraubenzieher first,” Jimmy said. “If that’s okay with you.”
“Yes, certainly,” Harrington said. “After this ordeal, I’m sure you’ll want to see him, talk to him.”
“It hasn’t been much of an ordeal,” Jimmy said. “Anyway, it’s almost over. Would you call the doctor and change my appointment? Tell him I’d want to get there around noon.”
“Yes, I will.”
“And I’ll call you from his office.”
“That’s fine,” Harrington said.
“Well, I’d better go now,” Jimmy said.
“It was good to hear from you,” Harrington said. “Urn, perhaps we could have lunch. After your appointment.”
“Sure,” Jimmy said. “I’ll he free all afternoon.’
“Fine. Good talking to you, son.”
“So long, Dad.”
Harrington hung up, and the head FBI man said, “Sounds like he’s in good shape, considering.”
“Well,” Harrington said, “he’s an intelligent boy, he wouldn’t make a lot of trouble.”
The head FBI man turned to the technician. “Let’s hear that again,” he said.
“I think I’d rather not,” Harrington said. “If you don’t mind.”
The head FBI man frowned at him. “Why not?”
“Well, I think I might weep or some such thing,” Harrington said, “and I wouldn’t want to do that.”
25
AT QUARTER to two in the morning Jimmy used the tweezers to unlock his door again, and went downstairs. A few embers glowed in the fireplace, and one of the kerosene lamps was still lit, standing on the card table like a beacon calling ships in from sea. They’d watched The Thing tonight (direction credited to Christian Nyby but more probably the work of producer Howard Hawks, with a screenplay by Charles Lederer, based on Who Goes There?, a short story by John W. Campbell, Jr.) and after. ward the lady called Mom had insisted that a light be left on. “Otherwise,” she’d said, “I won’t sleep.”
She was asleep, and so was the lady called May, both floating peacefully on their air mattresses under mounds of blankets. The three men, called John and Andy and Stan, were presumably asleep in the next room, from which no light at all shone. (They’d been careful, he’d noticed, not to use their last names around him, but they’d been free about using first names, so they were probably all aliases. That’s the way professional criminals like these operated; he’d been impressed by their constant references to some previously worked-out master plan, or “book,” that they were following through this crime.)
It took less than ten minutes to do what he had to do in the living room, and then he moved swiftly and silently back upstairs, pausing at the top for one last glance down at the sleeping figures in the soft light; they weren’t such
bad people, really. Probably given psychological scars in their childhoods, and not born into an economic level where treatment could be given at an early age. Understanding, as Dr. Schraubenzieher was fond of pointing out, is the key to nothing except further understanding, but in the last analysis what else is there? All of life is either ignorance or knowledge, there’s no third possibility.
Back in the room, he dressed himself as warmly as possible and then once more removed the boards from the window. With his Air France bag over his shoulder, out the window he went, replaced the boards as before, and made his way down the rope.
He had no flashlight with him this time, but on the other hand there was neither wind nor rain to struggle against, and a flashlight could lead to his being discovered before he was ready. The clouded sky made the night almost as dark as last time, but now he had traveled the dirt road un. masked and in daylight, when he’d been taken out to call his father, and he was sure he could find the road in the dark and, once having found it, stay on it by the sense of touch.
This time he went around the house the opposite way, passing the new car Stan and Andy had stolen to replace the Caprice, this one being a Ford Country Squire station wagon. Jimmy squeezed by it, got to the front of the house, found the dirt road by scuffing his feet, and turned right. Though he couldn’t see a thing he strode confidently forward, knowing exactly where the road went.
And stopped dead when he heard the cough. John? Stan? Andy? The women? Had there been any bodies under those mounds of blankets?
No, wait, that’s just irrational fear. There’s no reason for any member of the gang to come out here and hide in the middle of the night, no reason at all.
Therefore, this must be somebody else.
Even as he was thinking that, someone yawned, very near, on the right. A scratching sound followed, as of someone scratching himself through clothing, and then a voice Jimmy had never heard before said, “God damn, this is boring.” The volume level was lower than normal, but it was by no means a whisper.
A second voice, speaking more softly than the first, said, “We’ll move in soon. As soon as those lights go out.”
Turning, Jimmy could see the lines of light at the boarded-up windows. The kerosene lamp seemed much brighter when seen this way.