she carried a tray with the pot and four cups into the dining room.
“Here we are,” she said as brightly as she could. The three little boys grinned happily.
“What’s the surprise?” Jerry Preston asked.
Louise hesitated only a split second. “It’s from Dr. Hamlin. Hell tell you all about it.”
She poured the cocoa and passed the cups around. And then, four minutes later, George Hamlin appeared at the door as if on cue.
“Jerry?”
Pleased to be the first selected, Jerry Preston grinned at his friends and got up to follow Hamlin out of the dining room.
Once more Hamlin came back, and then Louise Bowen was alone with Adam.
“How come I’m always last?” the little boy complained.
“Are you?” Louise said, not really listening.
“It must be because I’m youngest,” Adam said thoughtfully. “When I’m older, will I get to do things first?”
Louise’s eyes brimmed with tears as she looked at the solemn face of the little boy. “I don’t know,” she whispered.
Adam cocked his head and frowned. “Is something wrong?”
Louise bit her lip and brushed at her eyes, but before she was forced to find a reply to his question, Hamlin appeared once more at the door. “All right, Adam,” he said. Then his gaze swung over to Louise. “And you come, too, please, Louise.”
Hamlin led them through the kitchen and laboratory to a small room at the rear of the house. Adam stared at the odd machine that stood in the middle of the floor. “Is that the surprise?”
“No,” Hamlin explained. “It’s for a new test we want to give you. Can you get into it by yourself, or do you need some help?”
“I can do it,” Adam replied. The machine looked to him like a huge fat metal cigar with a glass door at one end. “What’s it do?”
“It’s to test your breathing,” Hamlin said. “It only takes a minute, and then you can go back to your friends.” He helped Adam climb into the machine. “All set?”
The little boy nodded uncertainly, and Hamlin closed and sealed the heavy glass door. Then he turned to face Louise. “Open the valve,” he said.
Louise’s eyes widened. “No,” she whispered. “No, I can’t do it—”
Hamlin’s voice hardened. “When the project is a success we will all share the glory. Until then we will all share the responsibility. Turn the valve.”
Almost against her will, Louise’s hand moved to the valve that would open the decompression lines, “I can’t—”
But Hamlin was inexorable. “You can, and you will!”
Watching Adam Rogers through the glass door, Louise turned the valve. There was a quick whoosh as air rushed out of the chamber, and a fleeting look of surprise came into Adam’s eyes. Then it was over.
Five minutes later Adam Rogers’s body joined the others in the crematory that had long ago been installed in this room, and the fires were started.
Lucy Corliss picked up the telephone on the third ring, expecting to hear either Sally Montgomery or Mark Malone at the other end. Instead, when it was a voice she didn’t recognize, her heart skipped a beat.
“Is this Mrs. Corliss?” the voice asked again.
“Yes.”
“The mother of Randy Corliss?”
Lucy felt her legs begin to shake and quickly sat down on one of the kitchen chairs. Was this it? Was she finally hearing from the people who had taken Randy?
“Yes,” she said into the phone. Then louder. “Yes, it is.” She covered the mouthpiece. “Jim? Jim!” As her former husband hurried into the room, she strained to hear what the man on the phone was saying.
“This is Max Birnbaum. I got a diner out on the Längsten road.”
“Yes?” Lucy asked once more. What was the man talking about?
“Anyway, Mrs. Corliss, about ten minutes ago, a kid comes wandering in, all soaking wet, and asks me to call you.”
“Randy?” Lucy breathed. “Randy’s there?”
“Right here, ma’am.”
There was a pause, and then Lucy heard Randy’s voice, shaking slightly, but unmistakably Randy’s. “Mom?”
“Randy? Oh, Randy, what’s happened? Where are you?”
“I ran away, Mom. I got scared, so I ran away. I was afraid I was going to die.”
“Die?” Lucy echoed. He ran away from home because he was afraid he was going to die? Where had he ever gotten such an idea? “Oh, Randy, I’ve been so worried—so frightened.”
“Will you come and get me?”
“Yes! Oh, Randy, yes! Where are you? I’ll come right now. Right now!”
“I’m at Mr. Birnbaum’s diner. It’s—I don’t know. Mr. Birnbaum can tell you how to get here.”
Lucy signaled frantically, but Jim already had a pen and paper ready. She scribbled down