Strangers

and thought for an instant that they were dead. They were lying on their backs in a queensized bed, covers drawn up to their shoulders, unmoving, eyes open. Then Parker realized that the beeping and the green light came from EEG and EKG monitors to which both girls were connected, and he saw the IV racks trailing lines to spikes inserted in their arms, so he knew they were not dead but merely in the process of being brainwashed. The chamber had none of the quality of a teenaged girl's room; from the lack of personal mementos or any stamp of individuality, he assumed it was a guest room and that the girls had been put here in a single bed simply to make it easier to monitor them.
        But where were their captors and tormentors? Were the mind-control experts so certain of the effectiveness of their drugs and other devices that they could leave the family alone and dash out for a Big Mac and fries at McDonald's? Was there no risk at all that one of the Salcoes, in a moment of lucidity, might tear out his IV line, rise up, and flee?
        Parker went to the nearest girl, looked into her blank eyes. For a few seconds she peered up unblinking, then suddenly blinked furiously - ten, twenty, thirty times - then stared unblinking again. She did not see Parker. He waved a hand across her eyes and got no reaction.
        He saw that she was wearing a pair of earphones connected to a tape recorder that lay on the pillow beside her head. He leaned close to her, lifted one earphone an inch, and listened to a soft, melodic, and very soothing voice, a woman's voice: "On Monday morning, I slept in late. It's a wonderful hotel "We're sleeping late because the staff is so quiet, so respectful. It's actually a country club as well as a hotel, so it's not like other places, where maids make a racket in the halls as soon as the sun rises. Oh, don't you just love the wine country! I'd like to live there someday. Anyway, after we finally got up, Chrissie and I took a long walk around the grounds, sort of hoping we'd run into some neat boys, but we couldn't find any…" The hypnotic rhythms of the woman's voice spooked Parker. He put the earphones back in place.
        Evidently, one or more of the Salcoes had remembered what they had experienced at the Tranquility Motel the summer before last. So those memories had again been repressed. Now to cover the time span of this current brainwashing session, new false memories were being implanted, a process that included the repeated playing of a tape recording that undoubtedly had subliminal as well as audible messages to impart.
        Dom had explained some of it to Parker on the telephone, Saturday and Sunday nights. But Parker had not fully appreciated the hideousness of the conspiracy until he heard that insidious whisper in the Salcoe girl's ear.
        He moved to the foot of the bed and studied the other twin, whose eyes also alternated between blinkless stares and abrupt, machine-gun bursts of blinks. He wondered if he would do any physical or mental harm to them if he pulled out their IV lines, disconnected them from the machines, and moved them out of the house before their captors returned. Better to find a phone, call the police How long they were watching him he did not know, but suddenly he was aware that he and the twins were not alone. He jumped and whirled toward the door, where two men had entered the room. They were wearing dark slacks, white shirts with the sleeves rolled up and the collars unbuttoned, neckties loosened and askew. At the doorway behind them was another man, bespectacled and in a suit with his tie in place. They had to be government agents, for no one else would bother to wear business clothes while engaged upon activities of such a dubious nature.
        One of them said, "And who the fuck are you?"
        Parker did not attempt to jive them, did not foolishly claim his rights as a U S. citizen, did not bother to say anything at all. He just took three running steps toward the drawn drapes, praying that a big window or sliding-glass balcony door lay beyond them, that it would shatter on impact, that the drapes would protect him from serious cuts, and that he would be outside and gone before they knew what happened. If the drapes were a lot wider than the window, covering more blank wall than glass, he was in big trouble. Behind him, the men shouted in surprise ' just as he hit the drapes, for they'd obviously believed they'd trapped him. He