Conklin laughed in relief. “Is that all? What’s the man’s name?”
“Walter Willis.”
“Willis?” The agent frowned at that. “You mentioned him before; a long time ago, I believe.”
“Yep. And be careful about it, Peter. The man might not like the idea of your poking into his business.”
“All right, if that’s all.” He laughed again. “And I had supposed you wanted somebody killed. Who is this Willis?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out. I’m hoping you’ll turn up something.” He shrugged as if to dismiss it. “I picked up the name years ago when we were living in the hotel. It’s been on my mind.”
“Well, I should think so. Four years. All right, I’ll see what I can do, but it won’t be much. It’s only a four or five hour wait between planes.”
“Not much of a chance, I realize that. I thought maybe you could find a quick contact somewhere around.”
“I’ll try.” The awkwardness had returned. “Well, the car’s waiting and I’ve got to make that train.” He shook hands again. “May as well cut it short.” He turned and walked away.
Paul waited, watching him.
Conklin paused for a moment in the doorway and looked back. “So long, Cro-Magnon.”
Paul waved. “Good-bye, Neanderthal.”
Conklin vanished from the doorway and strode rapidly down the stairs. Someone in the lower hallway said a few words and then closed the door after him. Through the open window of the room came the sounds of the car shifting gears and then rolling down the drive. Paul had turned about and was staring down at the lawn below. That was the last he would see of Peter Conklin.
Within a few days Carnell moved into the adjoining bedroom and began picking up the reins.
Paul reported to him each thing the absent agent saw and did, reported the progress he was making in reaching his destination, and Carnell was delighted with the smoothness of the arrangements. It pleased him that the ever-increasing distance between the two men raised no barrier and that Paul was able to follow his every move.
This in turn activated other plans. Slater ordered work started on the Maryland training center and began choosing the first few men who would report there.
“A real picnic!” Carnell repeated.
“But you aren’t going to the picnic, are you?”
Carnell dropped a pencil, staring at Paul. “What do you mean?”
“You won’t be going to the Maryland place.”
Carnell seemed uneasy. “Why do you say that?”
“Because I think that.” Paul’s manner was casual and straightforward. He had never been as friendly with the man as he had been with Conklin, though they got along well enough. “Your anxiety has been showing these past few days, and I’ve picked up the impression you’re packing your bags.”
“Well, there has been some discussion about a flying visit to Tokyo. Slater broached the subject. We’re in for trouble over there. Have you been reading the papers lately?”
“China? Yes.”
“It’s more than just China, I’m afraid.” He rubbed his face nervously. “The Chinese Reds took Nanking last week—and there are no indications they’re stopping there. But our men have found out other things; we have been receiving reports from farther north. Frankly, Paul, we expect a hell of a lot of trouble somewhere soon. Slater believes I should fly over for an inspection.”
“A dollar says you won’t come back.”
“What?”
“Hold on—I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.” Paul hitched his chair around to face Carnell. “I’ll tell you what I told Peter, and he didn’t find it so hard to believe. One by one, Slater is removing the people I know here and associate with. Those who’ve become my friends. Peter was sent off first; one of these days you’ll be sent to Tokyo or some remote place. And then Karen will go, on one pretext or another. And perhaps Emily.” Paul picked up the fallen pencil and tapped the chair with emphasis. His expression gave little hint of his cold anger. “When I’m moved out there to the Maryland place and spliced to a maze of cables, these bodyguards and the switchboard girls will be left behind. There will be new personnel—none but strangers there. And Slater, alone.”
“You’re crazy!” Carnell declared.
“I might be at that,” Paul agreed. “But let’s wait and see, huh?”
“What would be the purpose to all that?”
“I thought I was making myself clear. But ask Slater, the mastermind. His purpose is to remove or eliminate that which he can’t fully control, and my sudden appearance was a factor he couldn’t adequately control to his liking. In Peter’s case it was the growing fear of our friendship and the possibility that his loyalty might be transferred to me. Peter was free with his opinions, and his thoughts on the matter failed to coincide with those of Slater. Slater specializes in cold, efficient service. He rules out the emotions. Therefore he doesn’t care to have me surrounded with friendly people; he would much prefer those with attitudes similar to his. Do you recall that first day in his office? How bitter he was?”
“Of course.”
“Slater hasn’t changed—not an iota. He doesn’t want anything changed. So Peter was sent away, and you will be sent away.”
“You’re crazy,” the agent said without conviction.
“I’ll put up a dollar cash.”
One day in June, Conklin unexpectedly slipped across a distant border. It was night on the other side of the world, and he made the passage safely under cover of darkness. A hard, stinging rain washed away his tracks, and the border guards with their watchdogs missed him. Paul walked into the basement gymnasium and found Carnell exercising there, to tell him the news.
He watched Conklin more closely thereafter, carefully observing his every move and peering into every face Conklin saw. Because the distant man traveled more freely at night, Paul adopted the habit of retiring to his room about noon each day and relaxing on the bed. Usually from about noon until nine or ten in the evening he would lie quietly, shutting out the noises of the house and the outside world, to watch and listen to the roving Conklin. But as dawn rose over there and the espionage agent went into hiding, Paul relaxed vigilance and kept watch with but half a mind. Sometimes, before falling off to sleep, Conklin would send back a purely personal message to him or Emily and at the same time wonder if he was being heard. Those messages were always heard, but could never be passed on to the girl.
Paul lay full length on the bed, asking the ceiling, Who screamed?
The rifleman had never been found, nor had there appeared a telltale mental trace of the man responsible for placing him there. Over a period of time Paul had had the opportunity to examine at near or far range every man but two, and none of those nine had any prior knowledge of the ambush. The two remaining men had not yet been reached and read. Slater remained the elusive mind, as always; and Paul had not been back to the White House. Speculating, he was more than inclined to eliminate one of the remaining pair of questions marks, leaving only Slater. Slater held that much hate for him.
Who was the woman who had screamed?
For no other reason than to exercise his mind, he cast about in time and space for those persons he had previously known, however short a while. His former captain of course—no losing him. Evans was sweating it out on a sunbaked island and cursing the day he was born. He was also cursing the fact the island contained no women. And Palmer—there he was, in Chicago. Palmer was going over bookkeeping records of some nature, squinting at them and nursing his bad knee. Next were the two men of years ago: the former sergeant and the man to whom he had sold his information. Both in jail. The sergeant was—what? Oh, he was mulling a plan for an escape. Paul looked closer and saw that it was the hundredth plan for the hundredth escape. Wishful thinking. Now there had been a man and woman on the train . . . Something about a vacation in a mountain cabin. Where were they????? They weren’t. He sat up in bed, startled. They couldn’t be found, ei
ther of them. Had his grasp of them been so tenuous? He had read them easily enough on the train and again a few days later when they occupied the cabin. Since then there had been no occasion to look in on them. And now they were gone from his reach. That was a lesson. The vague ones slipped away with time; it was necessary to know someone fairly well or fairly long to be able to hold on to him. Paul lay back on the bed, considering that.
Surely she hadn’t been the one who screamed in the night? It wasn’t likely that he had scanned her then, but was totally unable to locate her now. It didn’t follow. And too, she had not exhibited a deeper interest in him other than as a mirage companion to her pleasures. Perhaps she had never again thought of him after leaving the train.
Who else did he know?
There was Karen, driving a car; and, briefly, Emily. The oily major was somewhere playing billiards, while his boss posed for pictures on a wide lawn, surrounded by Girl Scouts. Carnell was in the next room. Slater was—where? Well now, that must be the Maryland mansion. Huge place. And the swimming pool was going in over there. Paul turned his attention away. A large library, and the Doctors Roy and Grennell were pursuing their new-found work to its ultimate end. Paul grinned at the sight of them. They were now engaged in running paper tests on the limit of his theoretical powers. Slater wanted to know and Slater had demanded answers. Could he move a block of wood, a pencil, a paper clip, Roy demanded of Grennell? Grennell spread his hands and wore an expression.
Telekinesis.
Paul moved his head on the pillow and looked across the room. Roy’s volume stood in its place in the bookcase, and atop the case was a dust rag left behind by the housekeeper. He closed his eyes and concentrated on the cloth. After a moment he opened them again to look for the rag. It had fallen to the floor. In that distant library, Grennell pointed out there was no limit of power—on paper.
In August, the prowling Conklin relayed a startling piece of news which electrified Carnell and Slater and ultimately several other men in high positions. He had almost literally stumbled over a hidden mountain laboratory producing—they hoped—low-order atomic bombs and had barely escaped detection himself. There was no opportunity whatever to get nearer or to estimate the number of such bombs on hand; he had to be content with his distant, precarious observation point. Conklin also flashed back the general location of the laboratory, but Paul deleted that from his report.
“Where is he?” an irate Carnell demanded. “He was carefully instructed to send his location at all times! We want to know where he is.”
Paul eyed him, knowing what was meant by we, and fervently desiring to protect Conklin. “I’m sorry, but I can’t tell him anything. This is a one-way affair.”
“Slater won’t like it! How can we pinpoint a factory in that wilderness?”
“Maybe they took the signposts down,” Paul replied laconically.
“You keep watching. Find out where he is.”
Paul kept careful watch.
Doctors Hoy and Grennell continued to try, in vain, to see again their “patient.” Carnell’s recommendation that they be allowed to visit the house had resulted in one very brief visit, and since then the two men had been nearly frantic, dreaming up excuse after excuse to see him again. They were kept away. They knew nearly everything there was to know about Paul, those two, on paper, but they had no further opportunity to see him in person. They continued to speculate, to set up tests and patterns, to prove and disprove their own theories, but not even once more were they permitted to do the one thing they wanted most. Their usefulness was over, but they hadn’t realized it. Only the security fetish held them in Washington; how long they would be kept there not even Slater knew.
“I am asking you to look!” Roy shrilled one day into the empty air over his head. Grennell peered at him, at first startled, and then realized what he was doing. Or attempting to do. “Look at me,” Roy repeated to the four walls of their room. “I know you can see me and I am asking you to look—you there, Mr. Paul Breen!”
Grennell clasped his hands, eagerly awaiting some sign. Roy shook a fistful of papers. “Do you see this? Do you know what I know? I know everything about you—everything! And yet I cannot come to you. So you must come to me. To us. Come here, to this room. Do something, Paul Breen, to tell us you have come here.”
He waited, impatiently. Paul did nothing. He realized that if he did anything at all, it would instantly be reported to Slater. Dr. Roy picked up a yellow pencil and slammed it down violently onto his work table. “See that, Paul Breen? Move it—move it, I dare you!”
From afar, Paul glanced at the pencil and did nothing. He wanted to do something, wanted very much to reward their labors in however small a way because he owed Roy a debt he could never repay. It was Roy and his book which had opened a vast new world to him and made him fully aware of himself; Roy was, in a sense, his father as well as his mentor, and the doctor deserved a reward. But he knew he couldn’t afford to touch that pencil or any other object the researchers set out for him. If he caused the pencil to roll off the table or hurtle across the distant room, the eager men would quickly tell Slater what had happened. And Slater would know the answer to the final question he was seeking.
“Roll it!” the furious doctor shouted. Grennell attempted to placate him but was shaken off. Roy picked up a handful of papers and flung them at the wall. “Fraud! You’re a fraud, a fake!”
Paul turned away.
In late August, Peter Conklin reported further news. He was on the move again, warily following several bulky objects which were being transported to a broad, uninhabited mountain valley. There was a growing excitement within him that was hard to suppress and it colored his thinking.
He knew what he was following, knew its purpose, and he prayed that it would fail.
In early September, unprotected by dark glasses, he witnessed a sight which nearly blinded him. And though he had supposed himself at a safe distance, the shock wave hurled him to the ground and tore the wind from his body.
Within days the Alaskan monitoring stations verified the startling event.
The President waited nearly three weeks and then made a fourteen-word announcement: “We have evidence that within recent weeks an atomic explosion occurred in the U.S.S.R.”
It had happened some three years before the best technical minds expected it. They had erroneously assumed their own timetables would be followed.
The presidential liaison officer, a suddenly not-so-casual major, appeared and pinned a decoration on the lapel of Paul’s uniform which had been donned for the occasion. He made a pretty little speech about service and duty and valor, a speech which had been memorized because it had been said many times to many men for many reasons. He gave Paul an enigmatic smile and departed. Paul removed the uniform and put it away in the closet.
“Paul, you’ve done it!” A wildly jubilant Carnell danced about the room, discarding for once his reserved behavior. “You’ve proved out. This is wonderful!” He clapped Paul’s shoulder and playfully thumped his chest. “You’re wonderful! We’re rushing work on the Maryland thing—we can’t get moving fast enough now. What a lucky find you were. And believe me, Paul, you’re worth ten times over every dollar we’ve spent for you.”
“The hell I am.” Paul was unmoved.
“You certainly are. Do you know what Slater is doing this minute? He’s up there on the Hill, getting a secret appropriation rammed through for you—and he has some powerful backing!” Carnell was beaming, excited. “Until now the expenses have come out of one fund or another, borrowed from here and there, but you’re big time now, boy. An expense fund all your own, like the old Manhattan District. Give us one year and we’ll blanket the world! Who can possibly stop us?”
“Swell. How much do I get?”
Carnell stopped the capering. “What?”
“How much of this wonderful money do I get?”
Carnell blinked at him, suddenly disturbed. “Well, I don’t know, I just couldn�
�t say offhand. Money? But haven’t we given you everything you’ve asked for?”
“How much?” Paul insisted.
“Isn’t your salary enough, Paul? We can raise it. Double it! Is there anything we can get for you? More books, perhaps? We’ll fill a room with books—anything you ask for. New clothes? How would you like a new suit?” He peered anxiously at the other, had a new thought and winked. “Oh—girls, Paul? You can have all the pretty girls you want. I’ll move out of my room and bunk across the hall. We’ll bring down models from New York. Just name it, man.”
“How much money is Slater asking for?”
“Ah . . . five million, I believe.” Carnell frowned at him, obviously worried. “For this year.”
“Fine,” Paul replied. “I’ll take one.”
“One—what?”
“Million. For this year.”
The following morning Slater sent back the answer to that. Carnell lacked the nerve to relay the answer.
A bright, cold moon shone through the window.
Paul slipped out of bed and felt for his slippers in the dimly illuminated darkness. The most agonizing headache he had ever known held him in its grip, a headache and a mood that reflected the very depths of despair. He wrapped a robe about him and moved slowly across the room toward the connecting door and the adjoining bedroom. He stopped after a few steps and turned away. Carnell wasn’t in his room. Painfully, Paul mentally searched the house seeking him. He finally located the man down in the kitchen eating a snack. Paul left his room and walked quietly down the stairs, startling the girl at the switchboard by his unexpected appearance.
“Well, good morning, Mr. Breen.”
He turned and moved toward the kitchen without answering her. Carnell had overheard her surprised words and came to the kitchen door. “Hello, what’s the matter?” Paul pushed him back into the kitchen and closed the door, staring at the other man with aching eyes.
“Paul, what’s the matter?” Carnell repeated in alarm. “Peter Conklin is dead,” Paul said dully.
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