Hawks looked at Barker quietly for a moment. Then he wet a forefinger and described an X in the air. “Score one for the whole man,” he said. As he said it, a flash of pain crossed his face.
3
Fidanzato walked away with Barker’s leg. A technician came up to Hawks. “Your secretary’s on the phone, Ed,” he said. “Asked me to tell you it’s urgent.”
Hawks shook his head to himself. “Thanks,” he said distractedly, and went across the laboratory to an isolated wall box. He picked up the extension handset. “This is Hawks, Vivian. What is it — a call from Tom Phillips? No, it’s all right — I’ve been expecting it. I’ll take it here.” He held on, his eyes blank, waiting while the admiral’s call was switched to the laboratory. Then the diaphragm in the earpiece rattled again, and he said, “Yes, Tom. Oh, I’m all right. Yes. Hot in Washington, is it? No, not here. Just smog. Well.” He stood listening, and looking at the featureless wall before him.
“Yes,” he said slowly. “Well, I rather thought the report on Rogan would have that effect. No, listen — we have a new approach. We’ve found a new man. I think he’ll work out all right. No, look — I mean a new kind of man; I think we’ve got a good chance with him. No, no — listen, why don’t you look up his record? Al Barker. Yes. Barker. There should be an Army 201 file from the Office of Strategic Services records. And an FBI security clearance. Yes. You see, the thing is, he’s a completely different kind of organism from a nice, decent kid like Rogan. Yes, the records would show it. How about a personal interview, if you need it for a convincer with the Committee? No, I know they’re upset about Rogan and the others, but maybe if you—”
His unoccupied left hand plucked blindly and persistently at one of the buttons of his smock.
“No, Tom — think. Think, now — Look, if this was just one more volunteer, what purpose would I think I was serving? No, he is different. Look, if you — All right, if there isn’t time, there isn’t time. When are they going to meet again? Well, it seems to me there’s plenty of flying time between now and day after tomorrow. You could come out here and—”
He shook his head at the wall and put the flat of his palm up against it. “All right. I know you’re a busy man. All right, then, if you’re on my side and you don’t need to fly out here because you trust me, why don’t you trust me? I mean, if I think the next shot’ll make it, why can’t you take my word for it?”
He listened, and said peevishly: “Well, damn it, if the Committee won’t make an official decision until day after tomorrow, why can’t I go ahead until then? I’ll have a successful shot on my record by then, we’ll be rolling with this thing, we’ll — Look — do you think I’d waste my own time if I didn’t think this man could do it?”
He sighed, and said huskily, “Look, if I could guarantee what the results were going to be, I wouldn’t need a research program! Let’s try and do this thing step by step, if we’re going to do it at all!”
He rubbed his hand over his face, pressing heavily against it. “O.K., we’re back to the same thing — what’s the good of arguing? You’ll give me money, rank, equipment, and everything, because it’s me, but the first time it comes down to taking my word for something, nobody out there can get out of his half-assed panic long enough to think who they’re dealing with. You think I’m doing all this by guesswork?”
He licked his lips and listened intently. Then he relaxed. “All right, then,” he said with a wintery smile. “I’ll call you early day after tomorrow and let you know the results. Yes, I’ll remember the time difference! All right. And no, no — don’t worry,” he finished, “I’ll give it the very best try I can. Yes. Well, you too, Tom. Be seeing you.”
He racked the handset and turned away from it, his face drawn. He looked at his hands and put them in his pockets.
Sam Latourette had been waiting for him to finish. He came forward worriedly. “Trouble, Ed?”
Hawks grimaced. “Some. Tomorrow’s shot has to make it.”
“Or else?” Latourette asked incredulously. “Just like that? Years of work and millions of dollars, down the drain? Are they crazy?”
“No. No, they’re human, Sam. It’s beginning to look like good money after bad, to them. And men being lost. What do you want them to do? Go on feeling like accessories to senseless murder? And, after all — it’s not as if the end of the Moon shots would be the end of the transmitter program, you know.”
Latourette’s face flushed. “Come off it, Ed! All that needs to happen is for the transmitter program to get one black eye like this, and even the company’ll let it go. They’ll pick it up again sometime, but not right away — and not with you. You know that. They’ll ease you out and close this down until it’s cooled off a little. They—”
“I know.” Hawks said. “I’ve got too much of the smell of death around me.” He looked around. “But they won’t do it if Barker pays off for us, tomorrow. ‘Success blinds all.’ Chaucer. Out of context.” His face writhed into a twisted smile. “The level of culture in this place is rising.” He swung his shoulders around, his face still contorted, like a child’s in the grip of unbearable frustration searching for the nursery door. He said in a very low voice, “Sam, what a complicated and terrible thing the human mind is!” He moved to begin walking across the laboratory floor, his head down.
Latourette pawed clumsily at the air. “You can’t use Barker! You can’t afford to get involved with someone as wild and unpredictable as that! Ed, it won’t work — it’ll be too much.”
Hawks stopped still, his hands in his pockets, his eyes shut. “Don’t you think he’ll work out?”
“Listen, if he has to be put up with day after day, it’ll get worse all the time!”
“So you do think he’ll work out.” Hawks turned and looked at Latourette. “You’re afraid he’ll work out.”
Latourette looked frightened. “Ed, he doesn’t have sense enough not to poke at every sore spot he finds in you. And you’re not the kind to ignore him. It’ll get worse, and worse, and you—”
“You said that, Sam,” Hawks said gently. After a moment, he sent Latourette back to the transmitter, and once again set out to walk across the laboratory toward Barker.
Hawks stood watching Barker’s leg being refitted. Bulges of freshly ground aluminum were bolted to the flesh-colored material.
“Barker,” he said at last, lifting his eyes to the man’s face.
“Yes, Doctor?”
“We’re pressed for time. I’d appreciate it if you went up and had our physician examine you now. As many of us as can be spared will take our lunch in the meantime.”
“Doctor, you know damned well I passed an insurance physical last week.”
“Last week…” Hawks said, looking down at the floor, “is not today. Tell Dr. Holiday I asked him to be as quick as he can and still be thorough. Try to return here as soon as he’s finished.” He turned away. “I’ll be back in half an hour.”
Hawks waited alone in Benton Cobey’s reception room for twenty minutes, looking patiently down at his shoes. Finally the receptionist told him he could go in.
He crossed the bristly carpet, knocked once on the featureless mahogany sheet of Cobey’s door, opened it and went through.
Continental’s president sat behind a teak table that glowed with the oil of its dark, hand-rubbed finish, almost as black as bituminous coal. Cobey himself was a small, aggressive man with an undershot jaw and a narrow skull as bald as an egg. His deep tan had the faint tinge of a quartz lamp’s work, and his lips were lightly blued by the first hint of cyanosis. His face had the pinched look of ulceration.