“Of course,” Zitron continued, “in the field we would use longer delay panels to give infantry slightly more time to set up the CAT screen. One of the things we’re trying to determine is the maximum useful delay—make it too short and the men have not time to consolidate; make it too long and an observer has a better chance of detecting disparities in light strength and shadow angles. Another problem is the selection of the best curve geometry for the panels, to cut down reflection…”
“Pardon me a moment,” Garrod said. “I think I see somebody I know,”
He walked away towards the parking lot beside the administrative building, moving as quickly and determinedly as possible to discourage Zitron from following. The girl in the oatmeal suit was standing at the exit, looking in his direction. She was slim, black-haired and—as the distance between them narrowed—he saw the sheen of silver on her lips. A tight breathless feeling developed in Garrod’s chest as he accepted that he was looking at Jane Wason.
“Hi, there!” He tried to sound breezy and unconcerned. “Remember me?”
She looked at him doubtfully. “Mr. Garrod?”
“Yes. I’m here on a business trip and I thought I recognized you coming out of Colonel Mannheim’s office. Look, I was being very presumptuous when we spoke on the viewphone last night, and I just wanted to apologize. I don’t usually…” Garrod abruptly ran out of words, leaving himself helpless and vulnerable, but he saw the tinges of colour rising in her cheeks, and he knew he had made contact with her on a level far removed from anything covered by what he had said.
“It’s all right,” she said quietly. “There was no need…”
“But there was.” He was looking at her with gratitude, allowing the image of her to expand through his vision, when a pale blue Pontiac swished up to the kerb beside them. The driver, a cool-looking lieutenant in gold-rimmed glasses, was lowering his window before the car came to a halt.
“Let’s go, Jane,” he said crisply. “We’re late.”
The passenger door swung open and Jane, looking flustered, got in. Her lips moved silently. She looked out at Garrod as the car whisked her away and it seemed to him that her eyes were troubled, regretful. Or was she simply being apologetic for the suddenness of her departure?
Swearing bitterly under his breath, Garrod walked back to face Lt. Col. Zitron.
Sidelight Two
Burden of Proof
Harpur peered uncertainly through the streaming windows of his car. There had been no-parking space close to the police headquarters, and now the building seemed separated from him by miles of puddled concrete and parading curtains of rain. The sky sagged darkly and heavily between the buildings around the square.
Suddenly aware of his age, he stared for a long moment at the old police block and its cascading gutters, before levering himself stiffly out of the driving seat. It was difficult to believe the sun was shining warmly in a basement room under the west wing. Yet he knew it was, because he had phoned and asked about it before leaving home.
“It’s real nice down here today, Judge,” the guard had said, speaking with the respectful familiarity he had developed over the years. “Not so good outside, of course, but down here it’s real nice.”
“Have any reporters shown up yet?”
“Just a few so far, Judge. You coming over?”
“I expect so,” Harpur had replied. “Save a seat for me, Sam.”
“Yes, sir!”
Harpur moved as quickly as he dared, feeling the cool rain penetrate to the backs of his hands in his showerproof’s pockets. The lining clung round the knuckles when he moved his ringers. As he climbed the steps to the front entrance a preliminary flutter in the left side of his chest told him he had hurried too much, pushed things too far.
The officer at the door saluted smartly.
Harpur nodded to him. “Hard to believe this is June, isn’t it, Ben?”
“Sure is, sir. I hear it’s nice down below, though.”
Harpur waved to the guard, and was moving along the corridor when the pain closed with him. It was very clean, very pure. As though someone had carefully chosen a sterile needle, fitted it into an antiseptic handle, heated it to whiteness and—with the swiftness of compassion—run it into his side. He stopped for a moment and leaned on the tiled wall, trying not to be conspicuous, while perspiration pricked out on his forehead. I can’t give up now, he thought, not when there’s only another couple of weeks to go…But, supposing this is it? Right now!
Harpur fought the panic, until the entity that was his pain withdrew a short distance. He drew a shuddering breath of relief and began to walk again, slowly, aware that his enemy was watching and following. But he reached the sunshine without any further attacks.
Sam Macnamara, the guard at the inner door, started to give his usual grin and then, seeing the strain on Harpur’s face, ushered him quickly into the room. Macnamara was a tall Irishman whose only ambition seemed to be to drink two cups of coffee every hour on the hour, but they had developed a friendship which Harpur found strangely comforting. He shook out a fold-up chair at the back of the room and held it steady while Harpur sat down.
“Thank you, Sam.” Harpur said gratefully, glancing around at the unfamiliar crowd, none of whom had noticed his arrival. They were all staring towards the sunlight.
The smell of the rain-damp clothing worn by the reporters seemed strangely out of place in the dusty, underground room. It was part of the oldest wing of the police headquarters and, until five years before, had been used to store obsolete records. Since then, except on special press days, its bare concrete walls had housed nothing but a bank of monitoring equipment, two very bored guards, and a pane of glass mounted in a frame at one end of the room.
The glass was of the very special variety through which light took many years to pass. It was the sort people used to capture scenes of exceptional beauty for their homes.
To Harpur’s eyes, the view through this piece of slow glass had no particular beauty. It showed a reasonably pretty bay on the Atlantic coast, but the water was cluttered with sports boats, and a garishly-painted service station obtruded in the foreground. A connoisseur of slow glass would have thrown a rock through it, but Emile Bennett, the original owner, had brought it to the city simply because it contained the view from his childhood home. Having it available, he had explained, saved him a two-hundred mile drive any time he felt homesick.
The sheet of glass Bennett had used was five years thick which meant that it had had to stand for five years at his parents’ home before the view from there came through. It continued, of course, to transmit the same view for five years after being brought back to the city, regardless of the fact that it had been confiscated from Bennett by impatient police officers who had a profound disinterest in his parental home. It would report, without fail, everything it ever saw—but only in its own good time.
Slumped tiredly in his seat, Harpur was reminded of the last time he had been to a movie. The only light in the room was that coming from the oblong pane of glass, and the reporters sat fidgeting in orderly rows like a movie audience. Harpur found their presence distracting. It prevented him from slipping into the past as easily as usual.