Koontz, Dean R. - The Bad Place Page 2

  what he was running from, or why he was so afraid, or where he might

  hope to find a haven, but he ran nonetheless because he knew that if he

  stood there only a few seconds longer, he would be killed.

  THE WINDOWLEss rear compartment of the Dodge van was illuminated by tiny

  red, blue, green, white, and amber indicator bulbs on banks of

  electronic surveillance equipment but primarily by the soft green glow

  from the computer screens, which made that claustrophobic space seem

  like a chamber in a deep-sea submersible.

  Dressed in a pair of Rockport walking shoes, beige coat and a maroon

  sweater, Robert Dakota sat on a swivel chair in front of the twin video

  display terminals. He tapped his toes against the floorboards, keeping

  time, and with his right hand he happily conducted an unseen orchestra.

  Bobby was wearing a headset with stereo ear phones and with a small

  microphone suspended an inch or so in front of his lips. At the moment

  he was listening to Benny Goodman's "One O'Clock Jump," the primo

  version of Count Basie's swing composition, six and a half minutes of

  heaven. Just as he took up another piano chorus and as Harry James

  launched into the brilliant trumpet stint that led to the infamous swing

  history of that era.

  Bobby was deep into music. But he was also acutely aware of the

  activity on the display terminals. The one on the right was linked, via

  microwave with the computer system at the Decodyne Corporation, in front

  of which his van was parked. It revealed what Tom Rasmussen was up to

  in those offices at 1:10 Thursday morning, no good.

  One by one, Rasmussen was accessing and copying the files of the

  software-design team that had recently completed Decodyne's new and

  revolutionary word-processing program "Wizard."

  The Wizard files carried out instructions of electronic draw bridges,

  moats, and other parts. Tom Rasmussen was an expert in computer

  security, however, and there was no fortress that he could not

  penetrate, given enough time. Indeed, if Wizard had not been developed

  on a secure in-house computer system with no links to the outside world,

  Rasmussen would have slipped into the files from beyond the walls of

  Decodyne, via a modern and telephone line.

  Ironically, he had been working as the night security guard at Decodyne

  for five weeks, having been hired on the basis of elaborate-and nearly

  convincing-false papers. Tonight he had breached Wizard's final

  defenses. In a while he would walk out of Decodyne with a packet of

  floppy diskettes worth a fortune to the company's competitors.

  "One O'Clock Jump" ended.

  Into the microphone Bobby said, "Music stop."

  That vocal command cued his computerized compact-disc system to switch

  off, opening the headset for communication with Julie, his wife and

  business partner.

  "You there, babe?"

  From her surveillance position in a car at the farthest end of the

  parking lot behind Decodyne, she had been listening to the same music

  through her own headset. She sighed. "Did Vernon Brown ever play

  better trombone than the night of the Carnegie concert?"

  "What about Krupa on the drums?"

  "Auditory ambrosia. And an aphrodisiac. The music makes me want to go

  to bed with you."

  "Can't. Not sleepy. Besides, we're being private detectives,

  remember?"

  "I like being lovers better."

  "We don't earn our daily bread by making love."

  "I'd pay you," she said.

  "Yeah? How much?"

  "Oh, in daily-bread terms... half a loaf."

  "I'm worth a whole loaf."

  Julie said, "Actually, you're worth a whole loaf, two croissants, and a

  bran muffin."

  She had a pleasing, throaty, and altogether sexy voice that he loved to

  listen to, especially through headphones, when she sounded like an angel

  whispering in his ears.

  She would have been a marvelous big-band singer if she had been around

  in the 1930s and '40s-and if she had been able to carry a tune. She was

  a great swing dancer, but she couldn't croon worth a damn; when she was

  in the mood to sing along with old recordings by Margaret Whiting or the

  Andrews Sisters or Rose mary Clooney or Marion Hutton, Bobby had to

  leave the room out of respect for the music.

  She said, "What's Rasmussen doing?"

  Bobby checked the second video display, to his left, which was linked to

  Decodyne's interior security cameras. Rasmussen thought he had

  over-ridden the cameras and was uncertain; but they had been watching

  him for the last few weeks, night after night, and recording his every

  treachery on video tape.

  "Old Tom's still in George Ackroyd's office, at the computer there."

  Ackroyd was project director for Wizard.

  Bob glanced at the other display, which duplicated what Rasmussen was

  seeing on Ackroyd's computer screen. "He just copied the last Wizard

  file onto diskette."

  Rasmussen switched off the computer in Ackroyd's office. Simultaneously

  the linked VDT in front of Bobby went blank.

  Bobby said, "He's finished. He's got it all now."

  Julie said, "The worm. He must be feeling smug."

  Bobby turned to the display on his left, leaned forward, and watched the

  black-and-white image of Rasmussen at Ackroyd's terminal.

  "I think he's grinning."

  "We'll wipe that grin off his face."

  "Let's see what he does next. Want to make a bet? On whether he'll

  stay in there, finish his shift, and waltz out in the morning or leave

  right now?"

  "Now," Julie said.

  "Or soon. He won't risk getting caught with the floppies. He'll leave

  while no one else is there."

  "No bet. I think you're right."

  The transmitted image on the monitor flickered, rolled, but Rasmussen

  did not get out of Ackroyd's chair. In fact he slumped back, as if

  exhausted. He yawned and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands.

  "He seems to be resting, gathering his energy," Bobby said

  "Let's have another tune while we wait for him to move."

  "Good idea." He gave the CD player the start-up cue "Begin music"-and

  was rewarded with Glenn Miller's "In the Mood."

  On the monitor, Rasmussen rose from the chair in Ackroyd's dimly lighted

  office. He yawned again, stretched, and crossed the room to the big

  windows that looked down on Michaelson Drive, the street on which Bobby

  was parked.

  If Bobby had slipped forward, out of the rear of the van and into the

  driver's compartment, he probably would have been able to see Rasmussen

  standing up there at the second-floor window, silhouetted by the glow of

  Ackroyd's desk lamp, staring out at the night.

  He stayed where he was, however, satisfied with the view on the screen.

  Miller's band was playing the famous "In the Mood" riff, again and

  again, gradually fading away, almost disappearing entirely but... now

  blasting back at full power to repeat the entire cycle.

  In Ackroyd's office, Rasmussen finally turned from the window and looked

  up at the security camera that was mounted on the wall near the ceiling.

&n
bsp; He seemed to be staring straight at Bobby, as if aware of being watched.

  He moved a few steps closer to the camera, smiling.

  Bobby said, "Music stop," and the Miller band instantly fell silent.

  To Julie, he said, "Something strange here

  "Trouble?"

  Rasmussen stopped just under the security camera, still grinning up at

  it. From the pocket of his uniform shirt, he withdrew a folded sheet of

  typing paper, which he opened and held toward the lens. A message had

  been printed in bold black letters: GOODBYE, ASS HOLE.

  "Trouble for sure," Bobby said.

  "How bad?"

  "I don't know."

  An instant later he did know: Automatic weapons fire shattered the

  night-he could hear the clatter even with his earphones on-and

  armor-piercing slugs tore through the walls of the van.

  Julie evidently picked up the gunfire through her headset.

  "Bobby, no!"

  "Get the hell out of there, babe! Run!"

  Even as he spoke, Bobby tore free of the headset and dived off his

  chair, lying as flat against the floorboards as he could.

  FRANK Pollard sprinted from street to street from alley to alley,

  sometimes cutting across the lawns of the dark houses. In one back yard

  a large black dog with yellow eyes barked and snapped at him all the way

  to the board fence briefly snaring one leg of his pants as he clambered

  over the barrier. His heart was pounding painfully, and his throat was

  hot and raw because he was sucking in great drafts of the cold dry air

  through his open mouth. His legs ached. The flight bag pulled on his

  right arm, and with the lunging step that he took, pain throbbed in his

  wrist and shoulder socket. But he did not pause and did not glance

  back, because he felt as if something monstrous was at his heels, a

  creature that never required rest and that would turn him into stone

  with its gaze if he dared set eyes upon it.

  In time he crossed an avenue, devoid of traffic at that late hour, and

  hurried along the entrance walk to another apartment complex. He went

  through a gate into another court yard this one centered by an empty

  swimming pool with a crack and canted apron.

  The place was lightless, but Frank's vision had adapted to the night,

  and he could see well enough to avoid falling in the drained pool. He

  was searching for shelter. Perhaps there was a communal laundry room

  where he could hide.

  He had discovered something else about himself as he fled his unknown

  pursuer: He was thirty or forty pounds over weight and out of shape. He

  desperately needed to catch his breath-and think.

  As he was hurrying past the doors of the ground-floor unit he realized

  that a couple of them were standing open, sagging on ruined hinges. Then

  he saw that cracks webbed some windows, holes pocked a few, and other

  panes were missing altogether. The grass was dead, too, as crisp as

  ancient paper, and the shrubbery was withered; a seared palm tree leaned

  at a precarious angle. The apartment complex was abandoned, awaiting a

  wrecking crew.

  He came to a set of crumbling concrete stairs at the north end of the

  courtyard, glanced back. Whoever... whatever was following him was

  still not in sight. Gasping, he climbed to the second-floor balcony and

  moved from one apartment to another until he found a door ajar. It was

  warped: the hinges were stiff, but they worked without much noise. He

  slipped inside, pushing the door shut behind him.

  The apartment was a well of shadows, oil-black and pooled deep. Faint

  ash-gray light outlined the windows but provided no illumination to the

  room.

  He listened intently.

  The silence and darkness were equal in depth.

  Cautiously, Frank inched toward the nearest window, which faced the

  balcony and courtyard. Only a few shards of glass remained in the

  frame, but lots of fragments crunched and clinked under his feet. He

  trod carefully, both to avoid cutting a foot and to make as little noise

  as possible.

  At the window he halted, listened again.

  Stillness.

  As if it was the gelded ectoplasm of a slothful ghost, a sluggish

  current of cold air slid inward across the few jagged points of the

  glass that had not already fallen from the frame.

  Frank's breath steamed in front of his face, pale ribbons of vapor in

  the gloom.

  The silence remained unbroken for ten seconds, twenty, thirty, a full

  minute.

  Perhaps he had escaped.

  He was just about to turn away from the window when he heard footsteps

  outside. At the far end of the courtyard. On the walkway that led in

  from the street. Hard-soled shoes rang against the concrete, and each

  footfall echoed hollowly off the stucco walls of the surrounding

  buildings.

  Frank stood motionless and breathed through his mouth, as if the stalker

  could be counted on to have the hearing of a jungle cat.

  When he entered the courtyard from the entrance walkway, the stranger

  halted. After a long pause he began to move again though the

  overlapping echoes made sounds deceptive, seemed to be heading slowly

  north along the apron of the porch toward the same stairs by which

  Frank, himself, had climb to the second floor of the apartment complex.

  Each deliberate, metronomic footfall was like the heavy thud of a

  headsman's clock mounted on a guillotine railing, counting off the

  seconds until the appointed hour of the blade's descent.

  As IF alive, the Dodge van shrieked with every bullet that tore through

  its sheet-metal walls, and the wounds were inflicted not one at a time

  but by the score, with such relentless fury, the assault had to involve

  at least two machine guns. While Bobby Dakota lay flat on the floor,

  trying to catch God's attention with fervent heaven-directed prayers,

  fragments of metal rained down on him. One of the computer screens

  imploded, then the other terminal, too, and all the indicator lights

  went out, but the interior of the van was not entirely dark; showers of

  amber and green and crimson and silver sparks erupted from the damaged

  electronic units as one steel jacketed round after another pierced

  equipment housings and shattered circuit boards. Glass fell on him,

  too, and splinters of plastic, bits of wood, scraps of paper; the air

  was filled with a virtual blizzard of debris. But the noise was the

  worst of it; in his mind he saw himself sealed inside a great iron drum,

  while half a dozen big bikers, stoned on PCP, pounded on the outside of

  his prison with tire irons, really huge bikers with massive muscles and

  thick necks and coarse peltlike beards and wildly colorful Death's-head

  tattoos on their arms-hell, tattoos on their faces-guys as big as Thor,

  the Viking god, but with blazing, psychotic eyes.

  Bobby had a vivid imagination. He had always thought that was one of

  his best qualities, one of his strengths. But he could not simply

  imagine his way out of this mess.

  With every passing second, as slugs continued to crash into the van, he

  grew more astonished that he had not been hit. He was pressed to the />
  floor, as tight as a carpet, and he tried to imagine that his body was

  only a quarter of an inch thick, a target with an incredibly low

  profile, but he still expected to get his ass shot off.

  He had not anticipated the need for a gun; it wasn't that kind of case.

  At least it hadn't seemed to be that kind of case.

  A.38 revolver was in the van glove box, well beyond his reach which did

  not cause him a lot of frustration, actually, because a single handgun

  against a pair of automatic weapons was not much use.

  The gunfire stopped.

  After that cacophony of destruction, the silence was so profound, Bobby

  felt as if he had gone deaf.

  The air reeked of hot metal, overheated electronic components, scorched

  insulation-and gasoline. Evidently the van's tank had been punctured.

  The engine was still chugging, a few sparks spat out of the shattered

  equipment surrounding Bobby, and his chances of escaping a flash fire

  were a lot worse than his chances of winning fifty million bucks in the

  state lottery.

  He wanted to get the hell out of there, but if he burst out of the van,

  they might be waiting with machine guns to gun him down. On the other

  hand, if he continued to hug the floor in the darkness, counting on them