Programmed for Peril

The office bugs whispered into the earphones he slipped over his wide head. Back at Resurrection Headquarters the tape machines turned, recording every spoken word. The three bugs had, in a way, been a disappointment. He wondered if she had somehow discovered them.
    “Carson!” Her voice. Coming in on her office bug. She hadn’t used that space in weeks, making him suspect. “I know you can hear me.” So she did know!
    Ah, her voice! It stirred the stew of his innards like a stick. I am not the master, sweet. I am the servant. Shadowed moon of a Leporello circling the mighty planet of Carson’s Don Giovanni. I am not Carson. I am not Carson! He closed his eyes, let the honey of her agitated words flow over the tongue of his adoration.
    “I know you’ve bugged my business,” she said, a shade of shakiness in her tone. “And my home. I’ve found the cameras. They’re coming out this morning.”
    How had she found them, Champ wondered. Carson had designed them in ways that exceeded her technical capacity for discovery. Had she found help? Maybe from a PC-Pros’ employee, maybe from... a dark outsider. He would have to investigate that possibility.
    “I want you to know what you’re trying to do won’t work, Carson. I’m going to marry Foster in September. You might as well just stop right now. I’ve already gone to the police. That photograph you sent of the three of us came in handy for identifying you. Now they’re looking for you.” She drew a breath that caught in her throat. “Carson, I know what you did to Jethro DuMont—and to the doctors and their daughters. The police here know that, too. If you think about it, trying to ruin my life is going to get you caught. It’s hardly worth it, don’t you think?”
    How could she so underestimate Carson’s determination, not only to return her to the fold, but to punish her for her defection? Did she think the master feared the police? The police! Champ’s chuckles burst forth as irresistibly as a tubercular’s hacking.
    “Do you understand what I’m saying, Carson? You’re putting yourself in danger by harassing me.” Queen of My Heart paused. “I have a proposition for you. I hope you’re still listening. I’m willing to... sit down with you and talk it all through. Why it won’t work and why you have to stop...”
    Champ’s heart leapt like a stag. Could that really mean she was beginning to reconsider? Would Carson’s dreams so readily come true? Oh, he would be delighted to hear this news! Champ himself was swept up on waves of hope because... he so much did not want to have to hurt her.
    Even as Queen of My Heart amplified her offer he rushed out to the restaurant’s pay phone. He called Carson and told him about this new development. Breathless, he awaited his master’s response.
    He walked back lead-footed to the car. Within she was rounding out her monologue. She had wasted enough breath. Champ worked the console. In her office stood a table radio to which, weeks before, he had paid technical attention. Now through remote control he turned it on and overrode the FM frequency, spun up its volume. He snatched up the mike and bellowed, ‘‘Trish, Carson, and Melody—together forever! Trish, Carson... ”until the earphones told him she had tom the line cord out of its wall socket.
    His mind overflowed with the sound of her hysterical weeping.
    From the glove compartment he drew out the letter in which Carson had spelled out the next tactical operation in the battle to return Queen of My Heart to his side. On the phone moments ago he had ordered no deviation from that plan. They would be reaching now to a higher level of persuasive energy.
    They would try terror.
     

14
     
    TRISH WAS EMBARRASSED AT THE VOLUME OF HER weeping. That damned radio! She glared at its dangling line cord. Michelle Amritz came in with the Kleenex box, quick with sympathy, though she wasn’t sure precisely why her boss was blubbering.
    Within a half hour Trish had calmed. Knowing she was again involved with Carson should have prepared her for such cunning tricks as doctored car and office radios. She had no idea whether or not he would consent to meet with her. In either case she knew how one-sided the struggle was, even with Nicholas, Foster, and the police on her side.
    From a nearby pay phone she called Nicholas’s number and left a message with a woman named Dolly Hummer. She asked him to remove the bugs from the building after he finished with