His eyes hardened. "I don't like being called a murderer, Mr. Ravenhall," he said softly. "I like even less being called a fool. Do you think I've spent over four million dollars in the past ten years just to throw it away by killing you?"
Behind the haze of anger and helplessness, a small corner of my mind recognized that that was exactly the attitude I wanted to foster in him; but at the moment I wasn't interested in listening to reason. "If you expect some kind of future cooperation, you can forget it," I told him instead. "Not from me, not from any of the others."
"Perhaps, perhaps not," he said placidly. "You may be surprised-some of them may be more grateful for my assistance over the years than you are. Your late colleague Nelson Follstadt, for instance, was quite willing to assist me with some small experiments before his untimely death."
"Nelson was ill," Colleen said, her tone laced with contempt. "Only a bastard would take advantage of a man like that."
"I never claimed sainthood," the other said with an unconcerned shrug. "And, of course, there may be things you can do that don't require a surplus of cooperation. Sperm donor, for example-as soon as Miss Isaac delivers we can take that telepath suppressor apart and learn how to build others, and at that point the number of potential telepaths is limited only by our imagination."
"It'll be years before you get a return on your investment," Colleen reminded him. She was working hard at keeping her voice calm and reasonable, but the hand I held was stiff with emotion. "None of us developed our telepathy until adolescence; there's no reason why my baby should be otherwise."
He smiled. "I have nothing against long-term investments, Miss Isaac. You and Mr. Ravenhall are living proof of that."
"You won't get away with it," I told him, dimly aware that I'd already said that once this morning. "What's to stop us from calling the police down on you?"
He gave me an innocent look. "Down on whom? You don't even know who I am."
"You said you were funding all of us," I reminded him. "Those connections can be traced."
"Not in a hundred years of trying," he said. "Face it, Mr. Ravenhall, you can't stop me. Not even if you were so foolish as to try."
There was something in his voice that sent a chill up my back. "And what's that supposed to mean? That you're willing to lose some of your investment after all?"
"I'm always willing to do that if necessary," he said coolly. "But I'm actually not referring to myself at all here. All right; assume that you call the Mounties and relate this conversation to them. What do you suppose they'd do?"
"Throw your butt out of the country," I growled.
"Possibly, though I don't know what exactly they'd charge me with. And then?"
"You know as well as I do," he said. "The first child born to a telepath?-and the first known method to dampen telepathic abilities? You and your machine would be in secret custody somewhere in the northern Yukon within six hours. Or in Langley, if the CIA got to you first." He looked speculatively at Colleen. "Your child would disappear as soon as he was born, Miss Isaac; disappear into a Military Intelligence family, probably, so that he'd be properly prepared for the life they'd eventually put him to.
"Which is no different than the life you have planned for him now," she countered, her voice stiff.
He shrugged. "Working for me he would be in the United States, transmitting private messages or testing employees' loyalty or doing a little industrial espionage. He cocked an eyebrow. "Working for the CIA
he would be in Eastern Europe or Iran or the Soviet Union, spying on people who would most certainly torture him to death if they caught him."
Colleen didn't say anything. Neither did I. There didn't seem to be anything left to say.
Apparently, our visitor could tell that, too. "Think about it," he said, getting up from his chair and buttoning his coat. "You either accept what I'm offering, Miss Isaac, or else you suffer through what the government will do to you and your child when they find out-and they will find out; don't think for a moment you can hide it from them forever." Stepping to the door, he paused and nodded courteously. "I or one of my people will be in touch. Good day to you." He pulled open the door and stepped outside.
Alex locked eyes briefly with each of us, and then he too was gone.
And we were alone.
With an effort I unclenched my jaw. Colleen was still pressed tightly against me; bracing myself, I turned my head to look at her. "I'm sorry, Colleen," I said quietly.
She lifted her eyes to mine... and even as I watched, I could see the fear and hopelessness and near-panic in her face began to fade. Into a simmering anger. "He won't get my child, Dale," she said, her voice a flat monotone that I found more unnerving than a scream of rage would have been. "I'll die before I'll let him have my child."
My mind flashed to that horrible scene at Rathbun Lake, the frozen tableau of Colleen facing down Ted Green with a knife pressed against her stomach. "It won't come to that," I told her through suddenly dry lips. "We'll find another way. I promise."
She blinked away tears. "I know," she whispered.
She didn't say it like she believed it, but that was hardly surprising: I didn't really believe it myself. If even half of what our visitor had said was true, we were up against frightening amounts of money and power, and I couldn't even begin to imagine how we could hide Colleen from such power for the next eight months.
But I'd find a way. I had to. More than anyone else I'd ever known, Colleen had a solid sense of what things in this world were worth dying for; and at Rathbun Lake she'd proved she had the courage and will to carry such convictions out.
One way or another, she wouldn't be giving her child up into slavery.
We can try, I agreed. He didn't seem to think it likely we'd succeed.
Yeah, well, let's not take his word for it, okay? Gordy said bitterly. You seem to be taking all this pretty calmly.
Only because I've had two days to get used to it, I told him shortly. And because Colleen and I have had time to think and plan. You see- I hope you didn't do your planning in the house, Gordy interrupted me. Your lousy child-snatching-Fagin pal probably had the place bugged.
Don't worry, we figured that, too, I assured him. We did all our discussions in writing, most of it at night in bed with a small flashlight. And we burned the papers afterwards and flushed the pieces down the toilet.
All in the best traditions of TV cop shows, Gordy growled.
You want to listen to this or not? The thing is, we've come to the conclusion that our Fagin pal, as you call him, isn't nearly as all-powerful here as he'd like us to believe. Whatever the size and scope of his business or organization or whatever, he's throwing only a tiny fraction of it our way.
Maybe that's what he wants you to believe, Calvin suggested. Maybe he's just trying to lull you into a false sense of security.
Why? Underplaying it makes no sense-he wants us to knuckle under, remember? To give up and let him have his way.
Then you're reading it wrong, Gordy concluded sourly. He'd have to be an idiot not to throw in everything he's got.
Which is exactly my point, I said. He is throwing in everything he can; but that isn't very much.
From Calvin came a sudden flash of understanding. Ah-ha, he said. Of course. He can only use the people he can trust completely, because everything turns on his keeping the baby's existence a secret.
At least until it's born, I agreed. After that he can spirit the child away, and even if the world finds out there's an unknown telepath on the loose they still won't know what he looks like and he'll be difficult or impossible to track down. But until then, everything's got to be kept secret, or the media will descend on Colleen and he'll have lost his chance.