Читать книгу Jane Hawk Thriller - Dean Koontz - Страница 32

Traffic congealed again, and during the rushless last hour of their journey to Newport Beach, Jane told Vikram Rangnekar about Bertold Shenneck’s nanoweb implants, the Hamlet list, the adjusted people, the brain-scrubbed rayshaws shorn of memory and personality, reprogrammed as stoic and obedient killing machines. She explained the degree to which the cabal could influence—maybe even control—the majority of media outlets, as well as the extent of their infiltration into the FBI, Homeland Security, NSA, and other national security and law-enforcement agencies. She skimmed through the high points of her actions in recent weeks, quickly describing what evidence she had gathered.

Although Jane’s story sounded like a fever dream even to her, Vikram listened with just a few interruptions, and his silence signified neither disbelief nor even skepticism. What he had learned on his own were pieces of a puzzle that clicked into place with each of her revelations, forming a dire picture that was as logical and convincing as it was dark and strange. Each time she glanced at him, his sweet face hardened further from disquiet to dismay to dread. Once when he met her glance, she saw a horror of the future in his large, expressive eyes.

Nearing Newport, as Jane transitioned from Interstate 405 to State Highway 73, Vikram said, “If we could capture one of these adjusted people and put him through an MRI, would we see proof of this brain implant?”

“I guess so. I don’t really know. I don’t think we could get one of them to cooperate, and even if we saw proof, I’m not sure we could drill through the media blackout on all of this.”

“The Arcadians have it locked down that tight?”

“I don’t know how many journalists, publishers, and other media types are true believers in the cause and how many might be adjusted people, brain-screwed, being controlled by Techno Arcadians. But, yeah, they seem able to block all reportage of this.”

The congestion relented again, and traffic was moving fluidly.

As they descended to the new freeway via an elevated connector, Jane saw a patrol car below, snugged against the right-hand shoulder of the roadway, waiting for an unsuspecting motorist to enter the down ramp faster than the posted speed allowed. She looked at the speedometer. She was all right.

“A few weeks ago,” she continued, “I spoke to a forensic pathologist, Dr. Emily Rossman, who had worked in the Los Angeles medical examiner’s office. When she trephined the skull of a woman who committed suicide, she saw the nanoweb.”

They swept past the cruiser and merged one lane to the left, heading south on State Highway 73. In the rearview mirror, she saw the patrol car’s headlights bloom. Its roof-mounted lightbar suddenly blazed and began flashing with authority.

“Dr. Rossman saw a gossamer fairylike structure of intricately designed circuits netting all four lobes of the brain, disappearing into various sulci, with a concentration on the corpus callosum. She was scared shitless. She thought she was looking at evidence of an extraterrestrial invasion.”

The patrol car was coming up fast behind them, but no siren wailed yet.

“Shortly after Dr. Rossman opened the cadaver’s skull, maybe as a reaction to contact with the air, the nanoweb dissolved. She said it was ‘like the way certain salts absorb moisture from the air and just deliquesce.’”

Still without a siren, the cruiser moved one lane to the left of the Explorer and sped past, dwindling in the night as if it, too, were a construct of deliquescent salts.

“There was residue?” Vikram asked.

“Some. Dr. Rossman sent it to the lab. She never got the report because the next day she was told to leave and accept severance pay or be fired. They had trumped up a charge against her.”

“Don’t they videotape autopsies?”

“As I recall, the video disappeared.”

Vikram pointed to a sign that listed upcoming exits. “We’re close now. Get off at MacArthur Boulevard.”

The patrol car was nearing the top of the exit ramp as Jane drove onto the bottom of it.

Halfway up the ramp, she glanced in the rearview mirror to see if another black-and-white might be tailing her. Nothing.

She said, “I feel boxed in even when I’m not.”

“Which is why you’ve survived this long.”

From MacArthur Boulevard, they turned onto Bison—and saw a cluster of four police vehicles in front of a store in an upscale strip mall to the right.

“Tell me that’s not where we’re going,” Jane said.

“It’s not. Turn right at the next corner.”

He pointed to a self-storage facility on the north side of the street. “There’s a package waiting for us. A ladder to the stars.”