meant well, Clyde,” Druller said imploringly.
Thanatos took a deep breath. He could smell Eddie’s fear. He could almost hear the cold drops of sweat coming out of his pores.
“I’m sorry, Eddie, but I can’t take any chances,” the terrorist said as he kept playing with his gun. “Edward Druller must die!”
“You can’t kill me! No, of course not!” Eddie said trying to muster some courage. “The work on the ‘Island’ won’t be finished. Without me the ‘Island’ dies, Clyde, believe me!”
“No, of course I couldn’t do that, Eddie. First of all because you’re my only friend and I’d miss you a lot.”
Druller felt grateful for that last sentence even if he realized it was only a lie. “Then why did you mention death?” he asked.
“Because I had to. I didn’t say I was going to kill you. Only that I have to stage your death. Meanwhile you’ll lock yourself up in the Cedarhurst house and you’ll keep at it until you’ve finished the DVD-ROMs and sent them to me. How long did you say it was before I get them?”
“Three or four weeks,” Druller promised solemnly.
“You’ve got ten days, Eddie! That’s all. Not a minute longer,” the other man ordered.
“You can’t ask me to work that fast! I’d only get a constant headache and mess up the Cray too.”
“I don’t care! Take an aspirin, give one to your computer, and step on it, get everything done on time,” Thanatos cut his lamentation short. “Let’s talk about something else now. Tell me, have you spent any time in hospital in the past few years? Have you had any injures, anything that might ask for a bone X-ray?”
“No!” the computer specialist said, not knowing what the other was getting at. “I’m in perfect shape. The only doctor I see from time to time is my dentist.”
“Give me his address,” Thanatos ordered. He wrote it down and went on asking Eddie some more questions. “How close are you and your dentist?”
“I don’t think he’d recognize me if he saw me outside his office.”
“What did he do to you?”
“Well, he pulled out one of my teeth, dressed a bicuspid, that’s about all.”
“Right. Now, tell me. Have you e-mailed the instructions to the others?”
“Yes, I did that yesterday.”
“Have you got the acknowledgment?”
“Yes,” Druller lied a little.
“Have you destroyed the CD-ROM with the instructions?”
“Yes.” This time Druller lied through his teeth. Actually, it was only half a lie for no one could use that disk except him.
“OK, then. Now you’ll have to give me the keys to the Ford and the extra set of clothes you’ve brought. Go hide in Cedarhurst! Don’t leave the place under any circumstances. You’ll be officially dead. And remember: I want the first version of the ‘Island’ within ten days!”
* * * * * * *
He succeeded, without much effort, in breaking into the dentist’s office. It didn’t have any security system. But then again, why should it? To his satisfaction, Druller’s dentist was a fastidious old man who didn’t trust computer technology very much. The computer on the receptionist’s desk was the first thing Thanatos checked. He found they only used it for making appointments. The files, the dental X-rays, and the other data on his patients were in another room whose walls were covered by ring-books. There Thanatos began his meticulous search. First he found Druller’s file which he browsed. It contained the personal data of the patient, his dental work and two X-rays.
“Let’s see,” Thanatos whispered. “An extraction of tooth 17, a metal filling of the left premolar and periodic detartration.”
He also saw a small X-ray of tooth 17 and a big one of the mandible. He put down the Druller file and started looking through the others. That took him more than three-quarters of an hour. He chose three files and carried them to the waiting room. It was a small room with comfortable sofas that reminded him of the shrink’s office he had seen for some time. The ‘big confrontation’ was drawing near and that was his way of horsewhipping his cautiousness. He had brought his mind to Dr. McGerr’s office and offered it to him, “Come on, doc. Dissect it! Let me see what you can do!”
He had seen McGerr on a television show. He seemed a smart guy, a worthy opponent. This thing had started out as a battle of the wits and ended in a bluff. McGerr wasn’t nearly as bright as he had thought him to be. A regular shrink who, whenever a patient came to him with a problem, he helped him picture a worse one so as to keep him busy and make him forget what he’d come there for. He would go and defy him one more time. For the last time.
He forgot McGerr and focused on the three files he was holding in his hand. All of them contained the same dental work as Eddie’s. He looked through them again.Dan Levery, fifty-five. Too bad. He was sorry to give up his file. He was old and Thanatos knew very well that forensics could tell age by the bones.
There were two left: Phil Drumond, thirty-six, and Buck Dole, thirty-two. Both of them fit. Both their files mentioned the word ‘Single.’ So much the better. “Let’s see. Phil or Buck?” He closed his eyes and then decided. Phil would go to the ‘Island.’ He would keep Buck alive, just in case. He wrote down their addresses. Drumond lived in Yorkville, on 77th Street. He took his X-rays and replaced them with Druller’s. He then put all four files back. The only thing left for him now was to take a trip to Yorkville.
CHAPTER FIVE
Wednesday, October 14
When Mark reached his office that morning he heard the hubbub just before going in. Dumpy Kulikovski, the fifth member of D2 squad, had returned from Hawaii. He had dressed up Mary and Arty with colorful garlands and now they were all trying to do the ‘hula.’
“Hey, where do you think you are?” Mark asked, trying to look serious. The noise went down a little. “Welcome, Dumpy!” he greeted the agent who now weighed over 260 pounds. “How was Hawaii?”
“Great, Mark! I had everything a man could wish for himself and his family: sun for my wife, beer and hamburgers for me, sand and water for the kids. Even some sharks for my mother-in-law,” he giggled.
Dumpy was facing retirement. No one knew how he had come to be an FBI agent. It was he who had launched the famous saying, “Never get in your boss’s way without a file in your hand.” The other agents would joke saying the only way he would ever get hurt was if he cut himself with a sheet of paper. He hated the computer in the office. “To me,” he would say, “progress stopped with the fridge and the toaster.”
Sometimes if you looked into his eyes, you could see him anxious and fearful as if the entire human race was out to get him. Even if he gave the impression of a Philistine, Dumpy had a big heart and was always ready to help if he could. Due to his colossal appetite he was wolfing all kinds of food most of the time. Even now he was biting into a Big Mac.
Mary, the medical ‘expert’ of the office, tried to talk him
