Drug of Choice

One of the men leaned over. “Not really, Sam. We were tipped.”

“Aaah.” Sam nodded wisely.

“Come along, Roger,” the men said, and steered him into the flight lounge. Clark was stunned, so astonished that he could no longer struggle. It seemed these men really were policemen after all. Unless the cop in blue was also a fake. But no, that didn’t seem possible, it was too elaborate a hoax, and for no purpose…

He looked around the lounge. The men were taking him into the bar, which was dark and noisy; he was led to a corner. In the darkness he could barely see two people, sitting at a far table. As he came closer, he could begin to make out their features—

“Ah, officers,” Harvey Blood said, rising. “You found him. Excellent work.”

And standing beside him, George Washington said again, “Excellent, excellent.”

Clark stared at them, and then over at the two cops. If they were cops.

“How is he?” Harvey Blood asked.

“A little excitable, but pretty good.”

“Oh, excitable. We can fix that.” Harvey Blood turned to Washington. “It wouldn’t do to have him excited on the airplane. Jumping around, disturbing the other passengers…”

“No,” Washington said, reaching to the floor, bringing up a black physician’s bag, opening it on the bar table.

“No,” agreed the two men, watching as Washington removed a syringe, filled it, held it to the light.

“Listen,” Clark said, finding his voice at last. “This is all some kind of mistake. I know these two men. They are Harvey Blood and George Washington. They—”

“We know Dr. Blood and Dr. Washington,” one man said calmly. “We know all about everything. You know, we’ve been following you in the bulletins for days. Never thought we’d see you here, though.”

“Bulletins?”

One of the men asked Blood, “How’d you know he was going to be here?”

“Someone in Nassau spotted him,” Blood said.

“Nassau! How’d he get down there?”

“We traced him from Los Angeles,” Blood said. “Found the girl who sold him the ticket. He flew to Nassau five days ago.”

“Pretty tricky,” the man said, looking at Clark and shaking his head. “Pretty clever.”

Washington took Clark’s arm, held it out, rolled up the sleeve. Clark began to struggle just as he felt the coolness of the alcohol swab.

“You can’t do this—”

The needle stung.

“—to me, you can’t do this.”

Another swab of alcohol. His sleeve was rolled down.

“He’ll be fine now,” Harvey Blood said. “Just fine.”

PART III: Madness

“It is indeed harmful to come under the sway of utterly new and strange doctrines.”

Saying of Confucius

17. THE SCIENTIFIC COMING

He heard a sound like the roar of a huge forestfire, and he smelled smoke. The sound was very loud, deafening, but somehow familiar at the same time.

He opened his eyes, and looked to the direction of the sound. He was lying on a couch, fully dressed, in some kind of office. There was a window to his right. He got up slowly and walked over to look out.

Traffic.

A freeway, thick with automobiles. Yellow-gray sky and faint, diffuse sunlight.

“Los Angeles,” he said, and shook his head. He didn’t remember what had happened. There was something about boarding an airplane, and later, being met at the airport by a limousine—

“My God, you look awful,” Harvey Blood said.

Clark turned. Blood was standing just inside the door.

“You’re…you’re an absolute mess,” Blood said, gesturing to Clark’s clothes. “You can’t go like that.”

He came up and pushed Clark into a chair.

“No, that would ruin everything,” he said. “Just a minute.”

He went to the door, and came back with two girls. One began to comb Clark’s hair while the other shaved him with an electric razor. A boy came in with a suit on a hanger, a fresh shirt, and a tie; he hung it on the back of the door and walked out. Blood stood in the center of the room and watched the girls working on Clark.

“Hurry it up, girls,” he said. “We’re behind schedule already.”

Clark said, “Behind schedule for what?”

“The audition,” Blood said.

“What audition?”

“For Project GG,” he said. “The Angela Sweet mockup.”

Clark said nothing. He didn’t understand what Blood was talking about.

Blood seemed to realize this. “It’s all strange at first,” he said. “And of course you’re tired from your journey. But that will pass.”

Clark said, “Where are we?”

“Advance. We landed in LA last night. Do you remember that?”

“No, not really.”

“Well, it went very smoothly. Let’s go, girls.”

The girls finished and stepped back. Clark stood; they helped him out of his clothing, and handed him the clean clothes. He dressed slowly.

“Clark, come on, come on,” Blood said.

Roger Clark knotted his tie as slowly as he could.

“Look,” Blood said. “This kind of funny business won’t go. You’d better understand that. You’re in trouble and you need me.”

“I do?”

“You’re damned right you do. Now hurry it up.”

Walking down the steps to the waiting limousine, Clark said, “Why do I need you?”

“Because you’re in trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?”