“Peter—Peter!”
The agent was instantly awake, jerking upward. “What’s the matter?”
“Remember the sergeant, the one we met on the train?”
“How can I ever forget him!”
“Then listen: he and a man named Alex are leaving the Newark airport on a flight at six-fifteen in the morning. They are flying to Miami and will change planes there for New Orleans. In New Orleans they will take another plane for Mexico City. In Mexico, they will drive to Vera Cruz and then ship out for Portugal.” He paused. “I don’t know what happens after that.”
Conklin peered at him through the darkness. “What’s all this?”
“Straight stuff. Honest.”
“I am probably asking a silly question, but how do you know?”
Paul turned and pointed to his rumpled bed. “It just came to me. Peter, you’d better hurry.”
Without another word Conklin leaped for the telephone, but still someone didn’t move fast enough. The two hunted men left the Newark airport on schedule and were not caught until they landed in Miami.
Afterward they quizzed him, the three of them by turns, but the sessions with Slater were more properly grillings than quizzes. He stayed with his original explanation: the entire line of flight had suddenly come to him in his sleep, and they were able to gain no more. To their questions as to why that should have happened, he said that he had constantly kept the sergeant in mind since the meeting in the dining car—which was truth. He left it to them to place interpretations as they pleased, quite sure they would assign to him the passive role.
Occasionally in later weeks, Conklin would arise in the mornings with a standard question.
And Paul would say, “Nope, nothing last night.”
The move from the hotel suite occurred just before Christmas, with Paul, Peter Conklin and the two ever-present shadows being driven to a brick house far out on the Columbia Pike, well beyond the Naval Office building. It was a two-story affair and had evidently been in preparation for them for some time. A telephone switchboard was installed in the first room beyond the entrance, and Paul looked quickly to see who was manning the board. Disappointed, he continued the first inspection of the house.
The rooms on the lower floors had been arranged to provide informal offices and lounging rooms, a large dining room and a kitchen. Upstairs were four bedrooms; Paul found that he and Conklin each had one to themselves, with a connecting door between. He noted with approval that bookcases had been installed in his for the small library he was slowly gathering. (He still clung to the worn copy of Roy’s Studies in Psychokinesis.) The bodyguards shared a third bedroom while the fourth and last was occupied by two new men assigned to the same job “for greater security purposes.” All of the basement rooms except those used for heating and storage equipment had been given over to recreation facilities.
“Home.” Conklin nodded approval.
“Maybe they put a swimming pool in the attic,” Paul suggested.
Conklin looked to see if he was truly joking.
A cook and housekeeper appeared daily, went home nights. Three relays of switchboard operators turned their eight-hour shifts and disappeared until the following day. Paul was on hand when each shift changed the first time, but the three girls were strangers to him. Emily occasionally appeared when someone came out from Washington, and the following interview needed the services of a stenographer. The parade of people trooping in and out waxed and waned, with Carnell holding court.
Conklin arranged a Christmas party for the household and Emily brought Karen to the new place.
“Well!” Karen greeted him warmly. “And how is your darling old grandfather?”
Paul shook his head in mock seriousness. “Barely escaped a noose just the other day. Horse stealing. He convinced them the horse followed him because he had sugar in his pocket.”
“The old one must have a silver tongue. And how is your dancing?”
“The same as before—I haven’t done a thing since that evening.”
“Do you have a radio? Oh, yes—I see it. Shall we go on from where we left off?”
“Can you stand it?”
Karen laughed. “Try me.” She held out her arms, and Paul found her still as blonde, still as warm.
“Nice,” he said into her ear.
“Thank you.”
The Christmas party brought something Paul had not expected. Their visitors stayed all night, Karen in his room and Emily in Conklin’s. No one objected afterward except the two familiar, grumbling bodyguards.
In mid-November, 1948, the house on Columbia Pike was shaken by a storm that was really an aftermath of another storm two weeks earlier. Paul wormed it out of Conklin a little at a time. Slater had not seen fit to enlarge the circle of seven people who were aware of Paul, and the sudden entry of two more was not to his liking—although there was nothing he could do about it. Slater had particularly omitted informing the White House because he felt, with many others, that the coming election would effect a change; there was a reasonable security risk involved in having too many people know about the first and only telepath. Slater was but one of the many who were rudely surprised on the morning after election, and as quickly as possible he hurried over to admit his dereliction. And so, in mid-November, 1948, a squall enveloped the house on the Pike and two new members joined the exclusive circle of Breen-watchers.
The second new man was a personal representative of the other, a major with suspicious eyes who stared at Paul as he would at a two-headed calf, and who visited the White House several times daily.
Nine men now knew a telepath lived in Washington.
Actually, Paul realized, there were eleven. He held his silence and waited, meanwhile containing his resentment as to his status there. He was, he knew, half guest and half prisoner.
IX.
1949
The long routine abruptly changed in early 1949.
The change began with a perfunctory knock on Paul’s bedroom door. He did not get up from the bed but merely raised his eyes above the book he was holding, to study the closed door. Carnell waited on the other side, a mentally agitated Carnell. He was alone. Paul called out, “Come in.”
The panel opened immediately and a visibly agitated Carnell stood there looking at him. “I’d like to talk to you, Paul. It’s very important.”
Paul laid down the book and sat up. “Come on in. Or would you rather talk downstairs?”
Carnell entered the bedroom and carefully closed the door behind him. “This will do nicely. Paul, I’m afraid we’re in for a hell of a lot of trouble—all of us.” He walked over beside the bed, turned a chair about and sat down. Paul said nothing, waiting for him to continue.
Carnell lit a cigarette just to be doing something with his hands. “Do you remember the two men we nabbed three years ago in connection with the bomb information?” Paul nodded. “I went to see them.”
“Yes, and couldn’t find a really worthwhile fact! One was a courier who received information, paid for it, and then handed it over to still another person. He also arranged flights from the country when that became necessary. Acting on orders from some other unknown person, our courier purchased atomic bomb information from the sergeant, hid him, and then attempted to help him escape. Well, those two are in jail and I’ll never understand why they didn’t swing. But we still know nothing of the people higher up! Do you also remember the escape route the sergeant was to follow?”
“Miami, New Orleans, Mexico, Portugal—yes.”
“Yes. Well, shortly after we nabbed those two men we sent one of our own operatives down that trail. We supplied him with all the information known to the courier and the sergeant and shipped him down the route. He did everything in proper order, everything you found in the courier’s mind; he transshipped at Miami, at New Orleans, he drove from Mexico City to Vera Cruz and waited for the steamer fitting the description you furnished. He sailed for Portugal.” Carnell stubbed out the cigaret
te with a savage motion. “In Portugal he was shot dead.”
Paul watched him emotionlessly, already knowing the full story on his mind, but waiting for the man to tell it.
“We covered him all the way; we had men in each city, at each stop, shadows who followed him and watched him go through the right motions at the right time. He performed those movements letter perfect, according to the directions gleaned from the courier. When he sailed from Vera Cruz, we put men in Portugal to cover his landing; we wanted to see who contacted him there and where he would be sent next. We were fully prepared to follow him all the way to Siberia—if that was his unknown destination.”
“But he was murdered.”
“Murdered,” Carnell repeated. “His unknown destination was Lisbon, a few hours after he landed. The instrument of death was a gutter Spaniard who would—and did—commit murder for fifty American dollars. The Spaniard was unable to describe the man who hired him, but he had been furnished with a pencil sketch of the agent and the name of the ship on which the agent was arriving. It was very simple. The Spaniard did not live very long; I regret that, for you might have been able to obtain more information—but then, our boys in Lisbon know nothing of you, and so the man died.”
Paul questioned, “A pencil sketch?”
“An excellent likeness. Drawn by someone who waited at Miami, or New Orleans, or Mexico City, and then airmailed the picture to Portugal. Well, we didn’t try that again. But neither did anyone else. The particular route was closed down and never used again.” He paused, looking beyond Paul. “A few months ago a new one was opened—or rather, we discovered a new one. We don’t know how long it has been used.”
“Mexico, again.” Paul nodded.
“Mexico is a favorite jumping-off-place. Even during the war they didn’t fully patrol their coastlines.”
Paul closed his eyes, knowing what else must be said before Carnell left the room and feeling sorry for Carnell for having to say it. Slater had handed him the assignment and he was not happy about the matter; Carnell and Breen had got along very well together in the past years. But still, it must come out. What was it Conklin had said that long ago day on the train? “I believe that an older man in your place would never have permitted his discovery.” And, “Let us suppose the Neanderthal leaders discovered that man, captured him, tied him with a rope and put his wits and skills to work for them. Nothing but trouble can come . . .” Now some of it was coming. Paul let Carnell take his time.
Carnell lit another cigarette. “We have reason to believe that fugitives and information are flowing along this new route—and perhaps others still undiscovered. That in itself isn’t so alarming; there will always be escape routes and lines of information into and out of every country in the world. We have ours, of course. But one phase of it has become alarming. Since July of 1945 we’ve had a brand-new kind of headache to contend with, and the remedies we’re prescribing are desperate ones. Paul, the United States is supposed to be the only nation in the world with nuclear weapons.”
Paul nodded knowingly. “Supposed to be.”
“But we aren’t. We have reason to believe Great Britain has them or almost has them. If not at this date, they will very shortly. We also have reason to believe that Russia will have the bomb much sooner than the five years predicted by our scientists. The sergeant who sold us out—and people like him—will see to that. You can appreciate our problem.”
Paul nodded, waiting for that other matter.
“We must stop these information leaks, we must find and stop the people responsible for them, and we must search out the men higher up—the men in this country directing the espionage. We’ve about reached the limit of our natural resources. There remains only you.” He fell silent.
Paul blinked at him and, seeking to ease him out of an embarrassing situation, suggested, “Mr. Carnell, I know what’s on your mind; it isn’t necessary to say it unless you want to.”
“I want to!” Carnell burst out. “I want to spell the entire thing out in words so that each of us may know where we stand.”
“All right.”
Carnell hesitated, looked at the smoldering cigarette he had not smoked and mashed it out. He discovered himself absently reaching for the pack and stuffed it back into his pocket. “This isn’t easy, Paul.”
“No, sir.”
“It began shortly after the ‘dream’ you had—that one in which you saw the sergeant’s exact escape route.”
Paul nodded. Each motion of assistance involved him in still larger problems.
“To be precise,” Carnell corrected himself, “a part of it began before that particular night. Ever since the day you were discovered, since the day you first walked into my office downtown, we have carried on an unceasing search for others like you. It hasn’t been easy and it has taken much time; the number of men and women who have been processed into the armed services since 1940 is really astonishing. But one by one we have examined every single record, every rating and every intelligence test.” He shook his head. “With negative results. But still, we aren’t stopping. Now we’re examining the record of every man, woman and child who has at any time applied for government service.”
“That’s going to take some doing!” Paul declared.
“A tremendous task,” Carnell agreed. “But if we find just one more like you it will be well worth it.”
“Let me answer one question in your mind,” Paul interrupted, “and be quite honest at the same time. No, I don’t know of anyone else.”
“Thank you. It had occurred to us that you would be the first person to discover another telepathic, but we wondered if you’d reveal that information. So, thank you.”
Again he reached for his cigarettes and again stopped himself. “Well, to get on with it . . .
“After that night when you so clearly saw the escape route, we began wondering about you and we did something we should have done much sooner. To be brief, we set a team of scientific analysts on you. Those men were given every assistance possible, every faculty at our command. And that is not meager, if you’ll permit a boast. Geneticists were sent to your home and the place of your birth, where they succeeded in tracing your ancestors back five generations. Their findings were given to the analysts. Psychologists were given your intelligence and aptitude tests, your army records as far as you progressed, and their reports were turned over to the analysts. And finally a dossier was compiled. A written record covering every hour of your life from the moment Conklin found you in that office on the post; the things you said, the movements you made, the expressions you displayed; the emotions you seemed to have. Into that dossier went the memories and impressions of many people who had observed you: Conklin, Palmer, Slater, Karen, Emily, the two men in the other room, myself—everyone. Your every spoken word that we could remember, your every mood.” He stopped for a moment, quite embarrassed. “Forgive me, Paul. The way you danced and the manner in which you made love. Everything.”
Paul’s eyes slid toward an old book on the shelf. “Roy,” he said aloud.
Carnell nodded. “Dr. Roy, and a fellow scientist he recommended, Dr. Grennell. You see, the book you carried everywhere with you finally opened our eyes, and we contacted Dr. Roy.” Carnell grinned absently. “He was beside himself with joy. It nearly broke his heart when we refused to let you two meet. You would have guessed everything.”
“I’d like to meet him now,” Paul said wistfully.
“I suppose you may now. I’ll check with Slater. Well, the dossier was complete and we turned it over to the analysts, Roy and Grennell. They were the only two outsiders who had to be told of you. And then we sat back to await the results.” Carnell took out the cigarettes again and finally lit one. He said suddenly, “Karen isn’t coming back.”
“No,” Paul responded bitterly. “I realize that.”
“She’s a wonderful woman!” He gestured with his two fingers. “Now if we only had polygamy in this country.
. . . Ka
ren never knew what you were of course, but in time she guessed you were aware of her prying activities; it depressed her. Feminine intuition, I suppose. She felt quite badly about it because she had grown fond of you. When she was ordered to include in the dossier the details of the night she spent here with you, we had a battle on our hands. She did it, but she requested never to be sent here again. She couldn’t face you.”
“How did you like my technique?” Paul asked coldly. “Please, Paul. This is more embarrassing to me than it is to you. And please remember that I’m only following orders. I’m second in command.”
“He hasn’t been around lately either.”
“He thinks it best to stay away; he realizes you dislike him.”
“And vice versa.”
“Yes, that’s true. You don’t have many friends.”
“I seem to be losing them all the time.” Paul was still hurt over the incidents leading up to Karen’s forced entry in the dossier, even though it had happened many weeks ago and he had known of it for as long. At a distance of many miles he had watched her prepare the report, had known the turmoil in her mind as she wrote it out, had known when it was finished that she would never again come back to the house on the Pike.
“The analysts,” Carnell continued after a silence, “turned in their report.”
“And Dr. Roy danced with glee?”
“Danced with glee. He said it was like seeing his own book come true; a Nobel Award couldn’t please him as much. But—we got what we were looking for.” Carnell turned his eyes away, seeking the sunlight at the window. “Paul, you haven’t been entirely co-operative.”
“I’ve done everything you’ve asked.”
“Yes, you have, but still . . .” His eyes remained at the window. “The findings of Roy and Grennell indicate that your particular talents are much greater than we have believed. Much greater than the two manifestations thus far disclosed. The analysts have taken all the studies into consideration and, based upon their beliefs, have made a conservative estimate of the extent of your talents, wild talents, Roy terms them. In brief, Paul, they told us that you should be able to do more than merely scan the minds of persons in the same room with you, more than discover the route an escaping man is about to take—and that on but a single occasion.” He stopped and turned his eyes back to the man on the bed.
Wild Talent Page 10
