Your Daughter Will Die! by James Cody

Author:James Cody [Cody, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Brash Books
Published: 2024-03-11T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

* * *

Cathy Morrison was slumped against the door on the opposite side of the front seat as we drove away from Rankin’s, her eyes closed again, and she seemed almost ready to pass out completely from fatigue and nervous exhaustion.

“I’m taking you home with me,” I said.

“No, I’ll be okay. Just drop me off at my apartment. All I want to do is sleep for days and days.”

“I’ve got a guest room at my place, and you can sleep there undisturbed. Besides, I’ve got to keep you out of circulation until we get Camillo and his group. You heard him threaten your life.”

“Okay,” she mumbled. At that moment I think she would probably have agreed to anything as long as she could just lie down and sleep somewhere.

We drove on in silence until after I had crossed the Fourteenth Street Bridge, and I thought that surely she must be asleep now. But I still had to ask her one more question. “Cathy,” I said softly.

“Yes, Mr. Petersen.”

“Brian.”

“Okay, Brian.”

“What were you holding back from Senator Rankin, Cathy?”

Her eyes opened wide now. “What do you mean?”

“When Rankin asked you if his daughter was unharmed.”

“She is unharmed, but … Well, I don’t know how long she’ll remain unharmed. Those crazy kids are trying to brainwash her, make her an adherent of their National Federation Army. They think it’d give them the prestige they need if they could have as one of their members the daughter of a prominent conservative senator. But I didn’t want to tell that to Senator Rankin, because it really hasn’t happened yet. But it might.”

“Have they used drugs on her?”

“Not yet, but they might eventually. Ellen is a real smart girl, and she’s got wonderful emotional control. She’s been playing them beautifully so far, listening to their endless rhetoric, which they keep spouting at her, and pretending to be slightly convinced for a while. Then she takes them in circles, and makes them start all over again. They think they’re making headway with her, but they’re not. I think the only reason they haven’t used drugs on her yet is because they’re so damned convinced of the persuasiveness of their two-bit philosophy. But I wonder how long she can hold out before they finally decide to use drugs on her.”

“Did they try to turn you around, too, Cathy?”

“Conversion, is what they call it. Oh, yeah, they made some feeble attempts at me, but they gave up pretty quickly. They weren’t interested in me, they were only interested in converting Rankin’s daughter. Ha, I was the troublesome baggage in the whole kidnapping. Brian, I don’t think they ever really intended to let me go, no matter what happened to Ellen Rankin. That’s why I tried to escape from their car today.”

“It’s okay, Cathy, you’re free now.”

“But what about Ellen?”

“We just have to get her out of there,” I said grimly. “Before they convert her.”

And then I remembered that we only had seventy-two hours until the second drop. It

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