The Door to December

Melanie?'
     'Napping.'
     He returned his attention to the street in front of the house. 'Better go sit with her.'
     Her breath caught in her throat. She swallowed hard. 'What's wrong?'
     'Maybe nothing. Half an hour ago, a telephone-company van pulled up across the street, parked there. Nobody got out.'
     She stepped beside him at the window.
     A gray-and-blue van with white-and-blue lettering was across from the house, slightly uphill, parked half in sunlight and half in the shade of a jacaranda. It looked like all the other phone-company vans she had ever seen: nothing special about it, nothing sinister.
     'Why's it look suspicious to you?' she asked.
     'Like I said, so far as I could see, nobody got out.
     'Maybe the repairman's just taking a nap on company time.'
     'Not likely. Phone company's too well managed to let that sort of thing go on a lot. Besides, it just ... smells. I get a feeling about it. I've seen this sort of thing before, and what it means to me is that we're under surveillance.'
     'Surveillance? Who?'
     'Hard to say. But phone-company vans ... well, the feds often work that way.'
     'Federal agents?'
     'Yeah.'
     Astonished, she shifted her attention from the van to Earl's profile. He didn't seem to share her surprise. 'You mean, like FBI?'
     'Maybe. Or the Treasury Department — Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. Maybe even a security arm of the Defense Department. There're all different kinds of feds.'
     'But why would federal agents have us under surveillance? We're the victims — the potential victims, anyway — not criminals.'
     'I didn't say it was for sure the feds. I just said they often work this way.'
     Staring at Earl while he stared at the van, Laura realized that he had changed. He was no longer the aw-shucks guy with a veneer of West L.A. polish. He looked harder, older than his twenty-six years, and his manner was more brisk and professional than before.
     Confused, Laura said, 'Well, if it's government men, we don't have anything to worry about.'
     'Don't we?'
     'They aren't the ones trying to kill Melanie.'
     'Aren't they?'
     Startled, she said, 'Well, of course they aren't. It wasn't the government that killed my husband and the other two.'
     'How do you know that?' he asked, his eyes still riveted on the telephone-company van.
     'Oh, for heaven's sake—'
     'Your husband and one of the men killed with him ... they used to work at UCLA.'
     'So?'
     'They received grants. For research.'
     'Yes, of course, but—'
     'Some of those grants, maybe even most of them, came from the government, didn't they?'
     Laura didn't bother to reply, because Earl obviously knew the answer already.
     'Defense Department grants,' he said.
     She nodded. 'And others.'
     He said, 'The Defense Department would be interested in behavior modification. Mind control. The best way to deal with an enemy is to control his mind, make him your friend, without him ever realizing that he's been manipulated. A real breakthrough in that field could put an end to war as we know it. But, hell, as far as that goes, pretty much any damn government agency would be interested in mind control.
     'How do you know all this about Dylan's work? I didn't tell you all this.'
     Instead of answering her, Earl said, 'Maybe your husband and Hoffritz were still working for the government.'
     'Hoffritz was a discredited—'
     'But if his research was important, if it was producing results, they wouldn't care if he was discredited in the academic community. They'd still use him.'
     He glanced at her again, and there was a cynicism in his eyes, a weary-of-the-world expression on his face that made him appear utterly different from the way he'd looked earlier.
     She could no longer see the farm boy at all, and she wondered if that image of a simple man seeking polish and sophistication from a new life in L.A. had been an act. She was suddenly sure that Earl Benton, even as young as he was, had never been simple.
     And she was no longer sure that she should trust him.
     The situation had abruptly become so complex, the possibilities so multifarious, that she felt a bit dizzy. 'A government