boy is grieving, Mr. Smith. Grieving for his parents, grieving for his friends.” He paused, looking hard at the blond man. “I suspect he’s also grieving for the childhood your people stole from him.”
He waited for Smith to respond to this. Smith did not, so Tim went on.
“Eventually, if we can work out a story that’s reasonably watertight, he’ll pick up where he left off. Double enrollment at Emerson College and MIT. He’s a very smart boy.” As you well know, he didn’t need to add. “Mr. Smith . . . do you even care?”
“Not much,” Smith said. He took a pack of American Spirits from his breast pocket. “Smoke?”
Tim shook his head.
“I rarely do myself,” Mr. Smith said, “but I’ve been in speech therapy for my lisp, and I allow myself one as a reward when I am able to control it in conversation, especially a long and rather intense one, such as we are having. Did you notice that I lisp?”
“It’s very faint.”
Mr. Smith nodded, seemingly pleased, and lit up. The smell on the cool morning air was sweet and fragrant. A smell that seemed made for tobacco country, which this still was . . . although not at Catawba Farm since the nineteen-eighties.
“I hope you’re sure they will keep shtum, as the saying is. If any one of them talks, there would be consequences for all five. In spite of the flash drive you supposedly have. Not all of my . . . people . . . believe that actually exists.”
Tim smiled without showing his teeth. “It would be unwise for your . . . people . . . to test that idea.”
“I take your point. It would still be a very bad idea for those children to talk about their adventures in the Maine woods. If you’re in communication with Mr. Iles and Miss Simms, you might want to pass that along. Or perhaps Wilholm, Benson, and Ellis can get in touch with them by other means.”
“Are you talking about telepathy? I wouldn’t count on that. It’s reverting to what it was before your people took them. Same with the telekinesis.” He was telling Smith what the children had told him, but Tim wasn’t entirely sure he believed it. All he knew for certain was that awful hum had never come back. “How did you cover it up, Smith? I’m curious.”
“And so you shall remain,” the blond man said. “But I will tell you that it wathn’t just the installation in Maine that needed our attention. There were twenty other Institutes in other parts of the world, and none remain operational. Two of them—in countries where obedience is inculcated in children almost from birth—hung on for six weeks or so, and then there were mass suicides at both.” The word came out thooithides.
Mass suicides or mass murder? Tim wondered, but that wasn’t a topic he intended to raise. The sooner he was rid of this man, the better.
“The Ellis boy—with your help, very much with your help—has ruined us. That undoubtedly sounds melodramatic, but it’s the truth.”
“Do you think I care?” Tim asked. “You were killing children. If there’s a hell, you’ll go there.”
“While you, Mr. Jamieson, undoubtedly believe you’ll go to heaven, assuming there is such a place. And who knows, you might be right. What God could turn away a man who rides to the rescue of defenseless youngsters? If I may crib from Christ on the cross, you will be forgiven because you know not what you did.” He cast his cigarette aside. “But I am going to tell you. It’s what I came for, with the consent of my associates. Thanks to you and Ellis, the world is now on suicide watch.” This time the word came out clean.
Tim said nothing, just waited.
“The first Institute, although not by that name, was in Nazi Germany.”
“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” Tim said.
“And why be so judgmental? The Nazis were onto nuclear fission before America. They created antibiotics that are still used today. They more or less invented modern rocketry. And certain German scientists were running ESP experiments, with Hitler’s enthusiastic support. They discovered, almost by accident, that groups of gifted children could cause certain troublesome people—roadblocks to progress, you might say—to cease being troublesome. These children were used up by 1944, because there was no sure method, no scientific method, of finding replacements after they became, in Institute argot, gorks. The most useful test for latent psychic ability came later. Do you know what