20 Must-Read Thriller Novels

Chapter 2-3

The image that created in his mind was so odd that Malone, in

self- defense, stopped thinking altogether until he'd reached the

first hospital, a small place situated in the shrinking countryside

West of Washington.

It was called, he knew, the Rice Pavilion.

The place was small, and white. It bore a faint resemblance to

Monticello, but then that was true, Malone reflected, of eight out

of ten public buildings of all sorts. The front door was large and

opaque, and Malone went up the winding driveway, climbed a short

flight of marble steps, and rapped sharply.

The door opened instantly. "Yes?" said the man inside, a tall,

balding fellow wearing doctor's whites and a sad, bloodhound-like

expression.

"Yes," Malone said automatically. "I mean—my name is Kenneth J.

Malone."

"Mine," said the bloodhound, "is Blake. Doctor Andrew Blake."

There was a brief pause. "Is there anything we can do for you?" the

doctor went on.

"Well," Malone said, "I'm looking for people who can read

minds."

Blake didn't seem at all surprised. He nodded quietly. "Of

course," he said. "I understand perfectly."

"Good," Malone told him. "You see, I thought I'd have a little

trouble finding—"

"Oh, no trouble at all, I assure you," Blake went on, just as

mournfully as ever. "You've come to the right place, believe me,

Mr.— ah—"

"Malone," Malone said. "Kenneth J. Frankly, I didn't think I'd

hit the jackpot this early—I mean, you were the first on my

list—"

The doctor seemed suddenly to realize that the two of them were

standing out on the portico. "Won't you come inside?" he said, with

a friendly gesture. He stepped aside and Malone walked through the

doorway.

Just inside it, three men grabbed him.

Malone, surprised by this sudden reception, fought with every

ounce of his FBI training. But the three men had his surprise on

their side, and three against one was heavy odds for any man,

trained or not.

His neck placed firmly between one upper and lower arm, his legs

pinioned and his arms flailing wildly, Malone managed to shout:

"What the hell is this? What's going on?"

Dr. Blake was watching the entire operation from a standpoint a

few feet away. He didn't look as if his expression were ever going

to change.

"It's all for your own good, Mr. Malone," he said calmly.

"Please believe me."

"My God!" Malone said. He caught somebody's face with one hand

and then somebody else grabbed the hand and folded it back with

irresistible force. He had one arm free, and he tried to use it—but

not for long. "You think I'm nuts!" he shouted, as the three men

produced a strait-jacket from somewhere and began to cram him into

it. "Wait!" he cried, as the canvas began to cramp him. "You're

wrong! You're making a terrible mistake!"

"Of course," Dr. Blake said. "But if you'll just relax we'll

soon be able to help you—"

The strait-jacket was on. Malone sagged inside it like a rather

large and sweaty butterfly rewrapped in a cocoon. Dimly, he

realized that he sounded like every other nut in the world. All of

them would be sure to tell the doctor and the attendants that they

were making a mistake. All of them would claim they were sane.

There was, of course, a slight difference. But how could Malone

manage to prove it? The three men held him up.

"Now, now," Dr. Blake said. "You can walk, Mr. Malone. Suppose

you just follow me to your room—"

"My room?" Malone said. "Now, you listen to me, Doctor. If you

don't take this stuff off me at once I promise you the President

will hear of it. And I don't know how he'll take interference in a

vital mission—"

"The President?" Blake asked quietly. "What President, Mr.

Malone?"

"The President of the United States, damn it!" Malone

shouted.

"Hmm," Blake said.

That was no good, either, Malone realized. Every nut would have

some sort of direct pipeline to the President, or God, or somebody

high up. Nuts were like that.

But he was an FBI Agent. A special agent on a vital mission.

He said so.

"Now, now, Mr. Malone," Blake told him. "Let's get to your room,

shall we, and then we can talk things over."

"I can prove it!" Malone told him. The three men picked him up.

"My identification is in my pocket—"

"Really?" Blake said.

They started moving down the long front hall.

"All you have to do is take this thing off so I can get at my

pockets—"

Malone began.

But even he could see that this new plan wasn't going to work,

either.

"Take it off?" Blake said. "Oh, certainly, Mr. Malone.

Certainly. Just as soon as we have you comfortably settled."

It was ridiculous, Malone told himself as the men carried him

away. It couldn't happen: an FBI agent mistaken for a nut, wrapped

in a strait- jacket and carried to a padded cell.

Unfortunately, ridiculous or not, it was happening.

And there was absolutely nothing to do about it.

Malone thought with real longing of his nice, safe desk in

Washington. Suddenly he discovered in himself a great desire to sit

around and collate reports. But no—he had to be a hero. He had to

go and get himself involved.

This, he thought, will teach me a great lesson. The next time I

get offered a job a chimpanzee can do, I'll start eating

bananas.

It was at this point in his reflections that he reached a small

door. Dr. Blake opened it and the three men carried Malone inside.

He was dumped carefully on the floor. Then the door clanged

shut.

Alone, Malone told himself bitterly, at last.

After a minute or so had gone by he began to think about getting

out. He could, it occurred to him, scream for help. But that would

only bring more attendants, and very possibly Dr. Blake again, and

somehow Malone felt that further conversation with Dr. Blake was

not likely to lead to any very rational end.

Sooner or later, he knew, they would have to let him loose.

After all, he was an FBI agent, wasn't he?

Alone, in a single cheerless cell, caught up in the toils of a

strait- jacket, he began to doubt the fact. Maybe Blake was right;

maybe they were all right. Maybe he, Kenneth J. Malone, was totally

mad.

He told himself firmly that the idea was ridiculous.

But, then, what wasn't?

The minutes ticked slowly by. After a while the three guards

came back, opening the door and filing into the room carefully.

Malone, feeling more than ever like something in a cocoon, watched

them with interest. They shut the door carefully behind them and

stood before him.

"Now, then," one of them said. "We're going to take the jacket

off, if you promise to be a good boy."

"Sure," Malone said. "And when you take my clothing, look in the

pockets."

"The pockets?"

"To find my FBI identification," Malone said wearily. He only

half- believed the idea himself, but half a belief, he told himself

confusedly, was better than no mind at all. The attendants nodded

solemnly.

"Sure we will," one of them said, "if you're a good boy and

don't act up rough on us now. Okay?"

Malone nodded. Carefully, two of the attendants began to

unbuckle him while the third stood by for reinforcements. Malone

made no fuss.

In five minutes he was n***d as—he told himself—a jay-bird. What

was so completely nude about those particular birds escaped him for

the moment, but it wasn't important. The three men were all holding

various parts of the strait-jacket or of his clothing.

They were still watching him warily.

"Look in the pockets," Malone said.

"Sure," one said. The man holding the jacket reached into it and

dropped it as if it were hot.

"Hey," he announced in a sick voice, "the guy's carrying a

gun."

"A g*n?" the second one asked.

The first one gestured toward the crumpled jacket on the floor.

"Look for yourself," he said. "A real honest-to-God g*n. I could

feel it."

Malone leaned against one wall, looking as nonchalant as it was

possible for him to look in the nude. The room being cool, he felt

he was succeeding reasonably well. "Try the other pocket," he

suggested.

The first attendant gave him a long stare. "What've you got in

there, buddy?" he asked. "A howitzer?"

"Jesus," the second attendant said, without moving toward the

jacket. "An armed nut. What a world."

"Try the pocket," Malone said.

A second went by. The first attendant bent down slowly, picked

up the jacket and slipped his hand into the other inside pocket. He

came out with a wallet and flipped it open.

The others looked over his shoulder.

There was a long minute of silence.

"Jesus," the second attendant said, as if it were the only word

left in the language.

Malone sighed. "There, now," he said. "You see? Suppose you give

me back my clothes and let's get down to brass tacks."

It wasn't that simple, of course.

First the attendants had to go and get Dr. Blake, and everybody

had to explain everything three or four times, until Malone was

just as sick of being an FBI agent as he had ever been of being a

padded-cell case. But, at last, he stood before Dr. Blake in the

corridor outside, once again fully dressed. Slightly rumpled, of

course, but fully dressed. It did, Malone thought, make a

difference, and if clothes didn't exactly make the man they were a

long way from a hindrance.

"Mr. Malone," Blake was saying, "I want to offer my

apologies—"

"Perfectly okay," Malone said agreeably. "But I would like to

know something. Do you treat all your visitors like this? I

mean—the milkman, the mailman, relatives of patients—"

"It's not often we get someone here who claims to be from the

FBI," Blake said. "And naturally our first thought was that—well,

sometimes a patient will come in, just give himself up, so to

speak. His unconscious mind knows that he needs help, and so he

comes to us. We try to help him."

Privately, Malone told himself that it was a hell of a way to

run a hospital. Aloud, all he said was: "Sure. I understand

perfectly, Doctor."

Dr. Blake nodded. "And now," he said, "what did you want to talk

to me about?"

"Just a minute." Malone closed his eyes. He'd told Burris he

would check in, and he was late. "Have you got a phone I can

use?"

"Certainly," Blake said, and led him down the corridor to a

small office. Malone went to the phone at one end and began dialing

even before Blake shut the door and left him alone.

The screen lit up instantly with Burris' face. "Malone, where

the hell have you been?" the head of the FBI roared. "I've been

trying to get in touch with you—"

"Sorry," Malone said. "I was tied up."

"What do you mean, tied up?" Burris said. "Do you know I was

just about to send out a general search order? I thought they'd got

you."

"They?" Malone said, interested. "Who?"

"How the hell would I know who?" Burris roared.

"Well, nobody got me," Malone said. "I've been investigating

Rice Pavilion, just like I'm supposed to do."

"Then why didn't you check in?" Burris asked.

Malone sighed. "Because I got myself locked up," he said, and

explained. Burris listened with patience.

When Malone was finished, Burris said: "You're coming right on

back."

"But—"

"No arguments," Burris told him. "If you're going to let things

like that happen to you you're better off here. Besides, there are

plenty of men doing the actual searching. There's no need—"

Secretly, Malone felt relief. "Well, all right," he said. "But

let me check out this place first, will you?"

"Go ahead," Burris said. "But get right on back here."

Malone agreed and snapped the phone off. Then he turned back to

find Dr. Blake.

Examining hospital records was not an easy job. The inalienable

right of a physician to refuse to disclose confidences respecting a

patient applied even to idiots, imbecile and morons. But Malone had

a slight edge, due to Dr. Blake's embarrassment, and he put it

mercilessly to work.

For all the good it did him he might as well have stayed in his

cell. There wasn't even the slightest suspicion in any record that

any of the Rice Pavilion patients were telepathic.

"Are you sure that's what you're looking for?" Blake asked him,

some hours later.

"I'm sure," Malone said. "When you eliminate the impossible,

whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

"Oh," Blake said. After a second he added: "What does that

mean?"

Malone shrugged. "It's an old saying," he told the doctor. "It

doesn't have to mean anything. It just sounds good."

"Oh," Blake said again.

After a while, Malone said farewell to good old Rice Pavilion,

and headed back to Washington. There, he told himself, everything

would be peaceful.

And so it was. Peaceful and dispiriting.

Every agent had problems getting reports from hospitals—and not

even the FBI could open the private files of a licensed and

registered psychiatrist.

But the field agents did the best they could and, considering

the circumstances, their best was pretty good.

Malone, meanwhile, put in two weeks sitting glumly at his

Washington desk and checking reports as they arrived. They were

uniformly depressing. The United States of America contained more

sub-normal minds than Malone cared to think about. There seemed to

be enough of them to explain the results of any election you were

unhappy over. Unfortunately, subnormal was all you could call them.

Like the patients at Rice Pavilion, not one of them appeared to

possess any abnormal psionic abilities whatever.

There were a couple who were reputed to be poltergeists—but in

neither case was there a single shred of evidence to substantiate

the claim.

At the end of the second week, Malone was just about convinced

that his idea had been a total washout. He himself had been locked

up in a padded cell, and other agents had spent a full fortnight

digging up imbeciles, while the spy at Yucca Flats had been going

right on his merry way, scooping information out of the men at

Project Isle as though he were scooping beans out of a pot. And,

very likely, laughing himself silly at the feeble efforts of the

FBI.

Who could he be?

Anyone, Malone told himself unhappily. Anyone at all. He could

be the janitor who swept out the buildings, one of the guards at

the gate, one of the minor technicians on another project, or even

some old prospector wandering around the desert with a

scintillation counter.

Is there any limit to telepathic range?

The spy could even be sitting quietly in an armchair in the

Kremlin, probing through several thousand miles of solid earth to

peep into the brains of the men on Project Isle.

That was, to say the very least, a depressing idea.

Malone found he had to assume that the spy was in the United

States— that, in other words, there was some effective range to

telepathic communication. Otherwise, there was no point in

bothering to continue the search.

Therefore, he found one other thing to do. He alerted every

agent to the job of discovering how the spy was getting his

information out of the country.

He doubted that it would turn up anything, but it was a chance.

And Malone hoped desperately for it, because he was beginning to be

sure that the field agents were never going to turn up any

telepathic imbeciles.

He was right. They never did.