"You mean he had earned doctorates in math, engineering, and computer science — except for his dissertation? After majoring in philosophy?"
He nodded his head, then sighed. "Greatest waste I've ever seen."
"Why's it such a waste?" Laura blurted out, then lowered her voice. "I mean" — she held her hands out and loosed a burst of air from her lungs that was neither a sigh nor a laugh—"so he wasn't all caught up in the academic rat race. There are other things in life, you know." The stern-looking man stared at her with knitted brow.
"Other, you know, than…" she began lamely, but then fell quiet and looked away. "Did… did he reply to your letter?"
Petry snorted and went over to a small side drawer to extract a single sheet of paper. It appeared to be the drawer's only contents.
Looking at it, he read, "'I regret that I am otherwise occupied. Thank you for your kind offer.'"
"May I see it?" she asked, and he handed it to her — holding the edges carefully with his fingertips.
The short text of the letter was typed beneath the bold letterhead
J.G.
Below was Gray's signature with its sweeping strokes of black ink.
She handed the letter back and thanked him. At the door, she heard, "By the way, why are you asking all these questions? Is he trying to hire you, too?"
Laura turned and cocked her head. "Well, yes, as a matter of fact. How did you guess?"
He nodded, looking at her differently now, Laura felt. "He's been raiding us for years… us and the people out in Palo Alto. You say you're in the psychology department?" He was standing beside his desk, still holding Gray's letter with two hands. Laura nodded. "Well, whatever he's got cooking down there it must be big. He must've hired off close to two dozen of the top people from this department alone."
"What's it like to work for him?"
Petry shrugged. "I don't know."
"Well, I mean, what do the people say who've been down there?"
"I don't know." The man stared back at her. "Nobody has ever come back. Not that I know of, anyway." Laura felt a chill. "Oh, tell him they cracked Fermat's last theorem before he did, but there's still the Riemann hypothesis or the Langlands program if he wants to get a shot at history. Give us a chance to put those insufferable algebraic geometry people back in their place."
"What?"
"Tell Joseph that Princeton got it before we did. If he had taken as much competitive interest in math as he did in watching football…"
Petry shook his head again.
"Was Gray working on solving Fermat's last theorem when he was here?"
Petry laughed. "Said he didn't have to. Said he had not only the theorem, but a final proof to the whole Taniyama conjecture." He shook his head and frowned. "He promised me that proof. I'm still waiting."
"Well, I'll mention it if I see him, but I don't know if I'm going to take the job."
"Oh," Petry said loudly, nodding, "you'll take it. You'll take it, all right. I don't know who you are, or what you do, but if Gray wants you, you must be onto something."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean he only hires the best." He stared at her — measuring her.
Trying to see in her, she imagined, what had drawn Gray's interest.
"Only the very best and brightest."
The words echoed through Laura's head as she walked back to the Harvard campus. Words she'd dreamed of hearing some day from someone.
"Only the very best and brightest."
"Dr. Aldridge?"
Laura stopped in her tracks and turned to face two men wearing suits and sunglasses, walking toward her. "Yes?" she said, keeping her distance.
They pulled badges from their jacket pockets. "FBI, ma'am. May we have a word with you?"
"About what?" Laura asked, involuntarily clutching her fanny pack to her stomach. She tried to relax — to appear less defensive.
They stopped right in front of her. "We'd rather not talk here. Would you mind coming with us downtown?" The man motioned to the open door of a car parked along the curb.
"Yes, I think I would mind." They stood there impassively, apparently not terribly insulted. "Have I done anything wrong?"
"No, ma'am. We'd just like to talk."
"Well, then… talk," Laura said, shrugging and staying put.
Students streamed past them, staring at the odd sight. Classes had just let out, and she felt comforted by the crowds.
"Can we step over there?" the man asked, and she followed them to the base of a statue just to the side of the walk. The two men in sunglasses seemed unperturbed by the bright light, but Laura stood in the statue's shadow. "We know that you've received an offer of employment from a Mr. Joseph Gray."
It wasn't really a question. It sounded more like an accusation.
"Not employment. I'd be an independent consultant. And besides, how do you know that, and what business is it of yours? Is it illegal to hire a consultant?"
"No, ma'am." The two men looked at each other. "How much do you know about Mr. Gray?"
"I've never met him. I just received his offer today. Look, why don't you just tell me what it is you're after?"
"We're not after anything, ma'am. We just wanted to ask you some questions."
Laura waited.
"Do you know a Dr. William Krantz?"
Laura cocked her head. He was in the physics department, she remembered. He'd broken his finger playing touch football against the psychology department. Laura nodded. "Yes. I believe I know of Dr. Krantz. Why?"
One of the agents was writing in a notebook. "You work in the psychology department at Harvard, is that right?"
"Yes."
"And you have nothing to do with high-energy physics?"
Laura laughed. "Would you mind telling me what this is all about?"
"I'm afraid I can't, ma'am, but we need your help."
"Well, just what kind of help do you need?"
"We've been investigating Mr. Gray's operations for some time, now. We have reason to believe that… well, that things there have reached a critical phase."
"A critical phase of what? What operations?"
They looked at each other and then handed Laura a business card.
On it was a telephone number with a Washington, D.C. area code.
"That is a number you can call, anytime, twenty-four hours a day, should you see anything that you find… suspicious."
"What do you mean, 'suspicious'? Just what is it that you think is going on down there?" There was a long silence. The two men stared back at her.
Finally, the talker said, "We don't know."
After the two agents left, Laura sagged against the cool stone base of the statue. The statue's plaque was right at her feet.
"Galileo Galilei. 1564–1642."
6
Jonathan followed Laura into her office and sank into the sofa as he had so many times before. Laura slung her fanny pack onto the desk and collapsed into her chair. Jonathan was arched forward, eagerly awaiting a continuation of the day's drama.
"So," he asked, "what are you gonna do?"
"I'm being followed," Laura said, rising and walking to the window to look out. She couldn't see anyone lurking down there, but of course she wouldn't see them.
"They're professionals. And I think they're rifling through my personal records at my bank and my video store."
She turned to see Jonathan staring at her. "What?" Laura demanded.
"'Doctor, heal thyself' seems to come to mind."
"It's not paranoia!" Laura snapped, pulling the card from her pocket and tossing it to him. "The FBI stopped me, and we had chat about Gray."
Jonathan examined the card and then handed it back. "And you'd have thought they'd have learned their lesson after Watergate. Raided your video store, did they?" Laura groaned through gritted teeth and sank into her seat. "So, what are you going to do?" he asked.