"Yes. So long as you keep your end of it. And I get mytransfer back to my father's wing."
"Oh, no, that's notpart of it. You stay here. What's more, you and I are going to have an ongoing understanding. You know—your father's a very proud man. You know what it would do to him, to have to choose whether to go to the Bureau and lose everything over what you've done, or keep his mouth shut and knowwhat you're involved in to keep that assignment for him. Because that's what you've done. You've handed me all the personal and legal missiles I need—if I have to use them. I've got a way to keep your father quiet, an easy way, as it happens, that doesn't involve him getting hurt. And all you've got to do is keep quiet, do your work, and wait it out. You've got exactly the position you bargained for—hostage for his release; and his good behavior. So what I want you to do, young man, is go put in an honest day's work, give me the BRX reports by the time your shift's over, and let me see a good job. You do what you like: call your father, tell him Grant's gone missing, tell him as much as you like. I certainly can't stop you. And you come to my Residency, oh, about 2100, and you tell me what you've done. Or I'll assume it's gone the other way."
He was still thinking when she finished, still running through all of it, and what she meant; but he knew that. He tried to find all the traps in it. The one he was in, he had no trouble seeing. It was the invitation he had dreaded. It was where everything had been going.
"You can go," she said.
He walked out past Florian in the outer lab, out into the hall, out through the security doors and upstairs into the ordinary hallways of Wing One operations. Someone passed him on the way to his office and said good morning to him; he realized it half the hall further on, and did not even know who it had been.
He did not know how he was going to face Jordan. By phone, he thought. He would break the news by phone and meet his father for lunch. And get through it somehow. Jordan would expect him to be distraught.
Ari was right. If Jordan got involved in it, everything that was settled became unsettled, and for all that he could figure, Jordan had no hand to play.
At best, he thought—go along with it till he could get control of himself enough to think whether telling Jordan the whole story was the thing to do.
Whatever the time cost.
vi
"What we did . . ." Justin turned the stem of his wine-glass, a focus to look at, anything but Jordan's face. "What we did was what we always planned to do, if one of us got cornered. Her taking Grant—was to pressure me. I know—I know you told me I should come to you. But she sprang that on us, and there wasn't time to do anything but file a protest with the Bureau. That'd have been too late for Grant. God knows what she might have put him through before we could get any land of injunction, if we could get one at all—" He shrugged. "And we couldn't win it, in the long run, the law's on her side and it would foul everything up just after everything was settled on the Fargone deal, so I just—just took the only chance I thought would work. My best judgment. That's all I can say."
It was a private lunch, in the kitchen in Jordan's apartment. Paul did the serving, simple sandwiches, and neither of them did more than pick at the food.
"Damn," Jordan said. He had said very little up to that point, had let Justin get it out in order. "Damn, you should have told me what was going on. I toldyou—"
"I couldn't get to you. It'd make everything I did look like it was your doing. I didn't want to lay a trail."
"Did you? Did you lay one?"
"Pretty plain where I'm concerned, I'm afraid. But that's part of the deal. That's why I stayed here. Ari's got something on me. She's got me to use against you, the way she planned to use Grant against me. Now she doesn't need him, does she?"
"You're damn right she doesn't need him! My God, son—"
"It's not that bad." He kept his voice ever so steady. "I called her bluff. I stayed around. She said— She said that this is the way it's going to work: you get your transfer as soon as the facility is built, earnest of her good faith. Then I get Grant to go out there to you, earnest of mine. That way—"
"That way you're left here where she can do anything she damn well pleases!"
"That way," he reprised, calmly, carefully, "she knows that she can hold on to me and keep you quiet until her projects are too far advanced to stop. And the military won't let you go public. That's what she's after. She's got it. But there's a limit to what she can do—and this way all of us get out. Eventually."
Jordan said nothing, for a long, long while, then lifted his wine glass and took a drink and set it down.
And still said nothing, for minutes upon minutes.
"I should never, never have kept Grant," Jordan said finally, "when things blew up with Ari. I knew it would happen. Damn, I knew it would, all those years ago. Don't ever, evertake favors from your enemies."
"It was too late then, wasn't it?" Justin said. The bluntness shocked his nerves, brought him close to tears, an anger without focus. "God, what could we do?"
"Are you sure he's all right?"
"I haven't dared try to find out. I think Ari would have told me if she knew anything different. I set everything up. If the number I gave him doesn't answer, Krugers will keep him safe till it does."
"Merild's number?"
Justin nodded.
"God." Jordan raked his hair back and looked at him in despair. "Son, Merild's no match for the police."
"You always said—if anything happened— And you always said he was a friend of the Krugers. And Ari's not going to call the police. Or try anything herself. She said that. I've got all the ends of this. I really think I have."
"Then you're a damn sight more confident than you ought to be," Jordan snapped. "Grant's somewhere we're not sure, Krugers could have the police on their doorstep—Merild may or may not be available, for God's sake, he practices all over the continent."
"Well, I couldn't damn well phone ahead, could I?"
Jordan's face was red. He took another drink of wine, and the level in the glass measurably diminished.
"Merild's a lawyer. He's got ethics to worry about."
"He's also got friends. Hasn't he? A lot of friends."
"He's not going to like this."
"It's the same as me coming to him, isn't it?" He was suddenly on the defensive, fighting on the retreat. "Grant's no different. Merild knows that, doesn't he? Where's ethics, if it turns Grant over to the police?"
"You'd have been a hell of a lot easier to answer for. If you'd had the sense to go withhim, for God's sake—"
"He's not ours! He belongs to the labs! My being with him couldn't make it legal."
"You're also a minor under the law and there're extenuating circumstances—you'd have been outof here—"
"And they'd bring it to court and God knows what they could find for charges. Isn't that so?"
Jordan let go a long breath and looked up from under his brows.
He wanted, he desperately wanted Jordan to say no, that's wrong, there is something— Then everything became possible.
But: "yes," Jordan said in a low voice, dashing his hopes.
"So it's fixed," Justin said. "Isn't it? And you don't have to do anything unless the deal comes unfixed. I can tell you if I'm getting trouble from Ari. Can't I?"
"Like this time?" Jordan returned.
"Better than this time. I promise you. I promise. All right?"
Jordan picked at his sandwich, sidestepping the question. It was not all right. Justin knew that. But it was what there was.
"You're not going to end up staying here when I transfer," Jordan said. "I'll work something out."