Power, The Read Online Free PDF

was well above a man’s head. Just a few steps down the sloping sands and onto the concrete …
    Not the lake!
    William Tanner was going to die, he thought, and felt something salt crawl down his cheek. Little Willie Tanner whose mother had died when he was eight, despite everything the Science practitioner could do. And whose father had been killed in an airplane accident, one of those fateful accidents that you have a premonition about. “ I shouldn’t go, Willie. I don’t feel right about it … .”
    And now Mom and Dad and Grandma Santucci would be waiting for him and he’d show the people who didn’t care … .
    Just a few more steps to the pier. The black water, quietly lapping against the concrete in small waves that were getting bigger as the wind rose. The black-green, friendly water. Waiting for him.
    He turned for one last look, his cheeks streaked with tears. A man was standing at the head of the pier. A tall man, with a slouch hat that was pulled down over his face, wearing a belted raincoat. The man was waiting for him to take that long, last dive and Willie didn’t want to disappoint him, did he?
    No, Tanner thought. He didn’t want to disappoint his friend. The friend who would call the police so they could fish out his body when they found it lodged against the pier supports below.
    He turned back to the water. So restful, so peaceful …
    “Hey, Mac, don’t do it! For God’s sake, don’t go off!”
    There was a moment of confusion and silent regret and then something sank out of his mind like water draining from a basin. He felt weak and collapsed to his knees on the pier, almost falling over the side. Two men were racing towards him, down the strip of concrete. Soldiers, from a couple of cars parked on the slight cliff overlooking the lake. Their dates were standing on the shore, the wet wind plastering their dresses against them.
    The man in the belted raincoat was gone.
    “What the hell’s wrong, fella? You weren’t going to go off, were you?”
    His teeth were chattering and they had to help him to his feet.
    “Tell us where you live, buddy, and we’ll take you home. Life can’t be that bad. A good night’s sleep …”
    “Not home,” he mumbled. “Some all-night restaurant where they’ve got a big crowd … don’t want to be alone.”
    They helped him back towards the shore. He was so damned weak, he thought. So damned out of it. And so miserably frightened.
    Something had toyed with him, like a very superior cat toying with a very stupid mouse. He had been handled like a two-year-old. Somebody had pulled the strings and he had jerked like a marionette, doing what they wanted him to, thinking what they wanted him to think.
    He was a strong man, physically and mentally, but he had been handled like putty. A moment more and he’d have committed suicide. A dive into the lake and that would have been it.
    Exit Professor Tanner. Exit the curious Professor Tanner who was in charge of a research project for the Navy and who had uncovered something that he shouldn’t have. Exit Professor Tanner who was in a position to learn too much.
    It started to rain harder, the water coming down in huge drops that splashed on the pier and made small explosions in the lake and wet his hair until it was plastered over his forehead like tape.
    The soldiers had thrown his friend off, he thought. They could probably have been handled but they were unexpected and apparently it took time to gain control of a man’s mind. So he had been saved. But at least it settled the questions that Marge had brought up earlier in the evening. Their friend was a menace and apparently his talents were limited. He had only one. One simple, terrible gift.
    He could make people do what he wanted them to.
    Tanner shivered and felt horribly sick. The night still reeked with murder and somewhere in the city a monster was loose.

3
     
    THE soldiers took him to an all-night restaurant, had a cup of coffee with him, and left.