Page 45 of No Safe Place

These people, Shaw thought. Look at them, at how easy it was to control them. A badge and an authoritative tone of voice literally hypnotized them. Made them completely hand over all higher brain function, their human agency, their freedom. With ease.

He could have told the dummy to cartwheel to the post office and he would have done it.

I love my job, Shaw thought as he watched them go.

40

President Cushing was at home in his downstairs office.

He was sitting at his desk, and on his desk in front of him was a thousand-dollar bottle of 1989 Gordon & MacPhail Scotch, considered by some to be the best single malt whiskey in the world.

He usually liked to have a glass at Christmas and on his birthday. He would make a little ritual out of it, using a special, fluted, Scotch-tasting Glencairn glass that Jodi had bought for him a few years before.

But there was no glass tonight.

Cushing winced as he took another slug and went back to staring at the SAT phone.

No, this wasn’t Christmas, was it? And this definitely wasn’t his birthday. Frank had ordered him to stay by the phone, and he was following orders.

“Because that’s what slaves do,” Cushing said to the empty room.

He was still staring at the SAT when his regular home phone rang in the corner by his printer. He took the bottle with him as he stood and answered it.

“Hello?” he said.

“Hi, Dad,” his stepdaughter, Ashley, said.

He closed his eyes.

How? he thought. How was any of this possible?

“Thanks for the save with Lady today,” she said.

“Don’t mention it,” he said.

Even he was shocked at the normalcy and calm in his voice.

“How are you?” he continued as if he wasn’t going to hell. “How’s the new baby coming along? What’s the size now? An avocado?”

“Close to a baseball,” she said. “Hey, did you hear the news about the evacuation of the center of town?”

Cushing glanced back at the SAT phone on his desk.

“No,” he lied. “What’s going on?”

“A truck with toxic material or something crashed on Route 4 and they had to evacuate everyone.”

The material in question was toxic all right, Cushing thought. But it wasn’t in any truck.

“Dad? Are you there?”

“Uh-huh,” Cushing said after another hit of Gordon & MacPhail.

“Isn’t that crazy?” she said.

“Insane,” Cushing agreed.

“No one’s even allowed near the area. Not even the media,” she said.

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