“We return you now to the regularly-scheduled program.”
Cavorting dancers returned to the screen. In a soft, barely-audible voice, Harker cursed eloquently.
“Gee, Dad! Rick Bryant died!” Chris exclaimed.
Not long after he had taken the case, Harker had induced the old man to autograph a copy of his book I Flew to Mars for Chris; since then, the boy had taken deep interest in Bryant’s career.
Harker nodded. To Lois he said, “They didn’t even give him a chance. The hearing would have been last Thursday, but his son got it postponed.”
“Do you think this will affect the outcome, Jim?”
“I doubt it. That document was pretty solid. Damn, I wanted old Bryant to have the satisfaction of knowing he died on top.” Broodingly he stared at his slippers. “If any of them had any guts, they would have lied to him, told him his will was upheld. But of course they didn’t. They’re just so many vultures. Hell, I guess I’d better phone. As the old man’s lawyer, I’d better get in touch.”
He went upstairs to his den and switched on the phone. Punching out the Bryant number, he waited a moment; an intercepting service took the call and said, “We represent the Bryant family. Only friends of the family and immediate relatives can be put through just now, sir.”
“I’m the late Mr. Bryant’s lawyer,” Harker said, staring at the monogrammed pattern on the screen. “James Harker. Will you put me through?”
There was a momentary pause; then—“I beg your pardon, sir. Your name does not seem to be on the list. You understand that in a time of grief such as this the Bryant family accepts your condolences in the sincere spirit in which they are offered, and regrets that it cannot devote personal time to you as yet. We suggest that you call back tomorrow, when the shock of Mr. Bryant’s departure has lessened.” ... -The intercepting-service monogram disappeared from the screen. Harker scowled.
The cold-blooded lice. Hiring a service to dish out all that unctuous crap, meanwhile making sure I don’t have a chance to talk to anybody there.
He took a deep breath and punched out another number: the home phone of District Judge Auerbach, who was scheduled to conduct the Bryant hearing next Thursday.
Auerbach appeared on the screen, plump, sleepy-looking. Harker said, “Sorry to disturb you on a Sunday night, Tom. You’ve heard about the Bryant business?”
Auerbach nodded. “Too bad, I guess. He was very sick.”
“No doubt of that. Look, Tom, his sons are being sticky about their phone. I’m on the black-list and can’t get through to them. Has Jonathan phoned you tonight?”
“No. Is he supposed to?”
“I don’t know. I just want to notify you that I’ll be out of town on business tomorrow and maybe Tuesday, in case you or he or anybody is trying to reach me. But I’ll be back in plenty of time for the hearing on Thursday. There isn’t another motion for a postponement, is there?”
“Not that I know of,” Auerbach said. “Be seeing you in court on Thursday, then?”
“Right.”
He returned to the television room. The ballet was still going on.
“Well?” Lois asked.
“I couldn’t reach the Bryants. They hired an intercepting service,” Harker said darkly. “I spoke to Tom Auerbach, though. The hearing’s still scheduled for Thursday. Jonathan just didn’t want the old man to be alive when it was held.”
I wouldn’t put it past them to murder old Bryant, he thought. Cold-blooded bunch.
He stared at the screen, but the colorful images only irritated him.
Idlewild was a busy place the following morning. Harker got there at half-past-nine, and the sprawling buildings were jam-packed.
“Flight 906 leaving for London via TWA in fifteen minutes- Flight 906 leaving for London via TWA in fifteen minutes—”
He heard a deep-bellied boom; someone next to him said, “That’s a cross-country job, I’ll bet.”
Sure enough, the loudspeaker said, “Now departing, Flight 136 for San Francisco—”
Above him a neon board flashed. The bright letters said: Flight 136. Lv Idlwld 0932, Ar SF 1126.
Less than two hours across the continent. Harker thought: the plane that had just taken off two minutes ago was probably somewhere over Pennsylvania or Ohio by now.
“Attention, please. Flight 199, United Air Lines, for Washington D.C., departure 0953, now boarding—”
That was his plane. Leaving in about twenty minutes, and arriving in Washington only about twenty minutes after that. Harker looked up and saw a great golden stratocruiser coming in for a landing on a distant runway. All around him he felt the nervous urgency of people traveling.
Inwardly he began to grow tense. He had checked off two of the three names on his scrawled list; neither had been of much encouragement. Only Senator Clyde Thurman remained, and Thurman represented the old-guard conservative wing of the Nat-Lib party; there was no telling how he would react to the news that a technique had been developed for—
“Attention, please. Telephone call for Mr. James Harker. Mr. James Harker, please report to any ticket desk. Telephone call for James Harker—”
Puzzled, Harker shoved his way through the crowd to the desk in the foreground and said to the uniformed clerk, “I’m James Harker. I was just paged for a phone call.”
“You can pick it up in there.”
Harker stepped through into a waiting-room and picked up an extension phone-audio only, no visual. He said to the operator, “I’m James Harker. There’s a phone call for me.”
“One moment, ple-ase.”
There was the sound of phone-jacks being yanked in and out of sockets. Then Mart Raymond’s voice said, “Hello? Jim?”
“Harker here. That you, Mart?”
“Oh, thank God I caught you in time! I phoned your home, and your wife said you’d gone to the airport to make a 9:53 jet! Another few minutes and you’d have been aboard the plane, and—”
Harker had never heard Raymond this excited before. “Whoa, boy! Calm down!”
“I can’t. Cancel your trip and get out here right away!”
“How come? I’m on my way down to see Thurman.”
“The hell with Thurman. Haven’t you heard the news?”
“What news? About Bryant, you mean? How—”
“No, not about Bryant,” Raymond snapped. “I mean about the project. Hell, I guess you haven’t heard yet. It only broke about five minutes ago.”
Harker stared strangely at the receiver in his hand. In as level a voice as he could manage he said, “Mart, what are you trying to tell me?”
“Mitchison!” Raymond gasped. “Mitchison and Klaus- they issued a public statement about five minutes ago, telling the world all about the project! The lab is swarming with reporters! Jim, you’ve got to get out here at once!”
He hung up. Harker let the receiver drop into its cradle. He moistened his lips.
The mask of secrecy was off. From now on, they were accountable to the world for their every move.
Chapter VIII
Barker had thought Idlewild was in a state of confusion, but he realized he still had a lot to learn about ultimate chaos when he reached Litchfield, an hour later. Cars clogged the highway for a quarter of a mile on each side of the private road leading to the laboratories. He saw television cameras, sound trucks, men who looked like reporters.
He ducked through the milling mob and tried to slip unobtrusively along the spruce-bordered dirt road to the administration building. But it was a foolhardy attempt; he hadn’t taken more than ten steps before someone yelled: “Hey! There’s Governor Harker!”