“Am I?” he said listlessly.
“You know you are.”
She moved closer, gently pushing his legs apart and stepping between them.
“I got to think,” he said.
“There’s plenty of time to think,” she said.
“People are dying. Lots of people. And it’s my fault.”
“Everybody dies, Eddie.” She tried to lighten it up. “Besides, a little depopulation wouldn’t hurt this country. We’ve talked about that.”
“I don’t know. I just feel it’s wrong.”
She went down to her knees. “There’s nothing you can do now, baby. Nothing.”
“I can at least take the responsibility for what I did.”
“That wouldn’t help anybody. They’d only hurt you. And me.”
With deft fingers she started working on his belt buckle.
Eddie covered her hands with his own. “Not now.”
She looked up at him, her blue eyes half-closed, pale lips barely parted. It was a look that had always got him hot before, but now he only shook his head.
“Don’t, Roanne. I don’t feel like it. I got to think.”
He stood up and walked into the kitchen, leaving Roanne kneeling before the empty chair. She looked after him and frowned.
Chapter 25
Viktor Raslov’s search of the San Francisco terminals had barely gotten under way when he froze at the sound of a polite voice behind him.
“Mr. Raslov?”
He turned to see one of those smooth-faced young men with the old eyes who were favored by the United States as police operatives.
“Yes?”
“I’m Kyle Taylor, sir. I’m with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
Big surprise, thought Raslov sourly. “So?”
“Would you mind coming along with me?”
What if I minded? Raslov wondered. Would Agent Taylor shoot him down there in front of all these witnesses? No, the Americans were more devious than that. More probably, the other agents now edging casually closer through the crowd would seize him, and they would take him to some quieter locale to be shot. Discretion. The Americans were always discreet.
Aloud he said, “I think you have made a mistake. I am a Russian citizen.” A token show of indignation would be expected.
“It’s a routine matter, sir,” Agent Taylor said. The old eyes in his young face scanned the crowd. “And would you ask your … associates to come with us?”
There was just enough of a pause to let Raslov know that Taylor knew exactly who the “associates” were. It was all part of the game. The elaborate game of pretense and deceit upon which the ultimate fate of the world might depend.
Raslov sighed and signaled the KGB men to accompany him and the FBI agent.
They returned to Neal Henderson’s office, from which the young assistant airport manager was, for the moment, absent.
“What I want to do,” said Agent Taylor with a hard-edged smile, “is to apologize to you for the delay in your flight.”
“We were told it was a mechanical problem,” Raslov said. “Is your bureau now involved in the field of aircraft maintenance?”
Taylor’s lips compressed in a cool smile. “We may as well admit there was no mechanical problem.”
“So?”
“What with the national emergency, there have been communications breakdowns. What happened was we received conflicting orders from Washington. Your flight was held but, as it turned out, unnecessarily. A bureaucratic mistake. You probably know how that goes.”
Raslov said nothing. Let the young FBI man squirm a little bit.
Taylor went on quickly. “That’s the bad news. The good news is that your flight is cleared for immediate departure.”
Surely, Raslov thought, this glib young man has not failed to notice that there is one fewer in our party than when we arrived. Now that we have misplaced Kuryakin, the Americans are suddenly anxious for us to depart. Why?
He said, “By strange coincidence my orders, too, have been changed. We will not require the airplane for immediate departure.”
“Oh?” Taylor could not completely hide his displeasure. “When will you be leaving?”
“That has not been decided. In any event, is this not a matter for your State Department?”
Point for Raslov. The FBI man could not question him further without stepping on diplomatic toes, and he could certainly not now detain him, having claimed that it was only “bureaucratic bungling” that had caused the delay in the first place.
After an exchange of meaningless pleasantries, the Russians were permitted to leave while the FBI agents attempted, unsuccessfully, to lose themselves in the airport crowd. Raslov and his men resumed their search, but the delay in Henderson’s office would have been just enough to let Kuryakin slip away. Raslov was muttering darkly to himself when one of the men beckoned to him from the counter of United Airlines.
Considering the volatile personalities involved, the brain-eaters task force operating at the Biotron plant got off to a surprisingly smooth start. Dr. Kitzmiller, in charge of the operation, asked for specific people from across the nation whose expertise would be valuable in the search for an antidote. With Lou Zachry pulling the strings, the people Kitzmiller wanted were speedily brought out if they were available. The crucial nature of their job was further pointed up by the fact that a number of Kitzmiller’s specialists had themselves fallen victim to the parasites.
Dr. Jason Everett, specialist in diseases of the brain, was flown in from Denver. Parasitologist Dr. Dorothea Knight came from Boston. From Honolulu they brought epidemiologist Dr. Luke Chin. Dr. Marcus Pena, who knew all there was to know about blood diseases, came from San Diego. Under the direction of Dr. Kitzmiller and with the consultation of Dena Falkner, these temperamental specialists managed to work together in something resembling a team.
Corey Macklin, sulking in the spartan quarters provided for him adjoining the laboratories, admired the work being done but fretted continually about his own contribution, or lack of same. While Dena, Kitzmiller, and the others worked long, tiring hours in the labs, Corey felt he was accomplishing nothing.
“You’re doing a fine job, Corey,” Lou Zachry told him. “Without you the place would be crawling with reporters and other snoopers, all getting in the way and slowing down any progress we might be making in the labs. And if it weren’t for your releases, God knows what kind of crazy stories they’d take out of here.”
“I’m a newspaperman, not a PR flack,” Corey complained. “I should be writing this story myself, not passing out vaguely worded bullshit to pacify the so-called reporters in this so-called media pool.”
“If we can lick this thing, you’ll have the biggest story of them all,” Zachry said. “And if we don’t … Well, then, it won’t matter, will it.”
Corey grumbled, but he had to admit the government man had a point.
The pool reporters, for their part, were not enthusiastic about being kept away from Kitzmiller and the others and allowed to interview only Corey Macklin. The television people, especially, were unhappy. Their reportage depended on pictures, and there was nothing there to take pictures of.
“Believe me,” Corey told them. “If I could bring one of the brain eaters out here in tiny handcuffs for you to put on camera, I’d do it.”
Nobody thought that was very funny.
“I want to go into Milwaukee,” he told Zachry after the morning briefing was concluded.
“What for? This is where the story is.”
“The story is in the whole country,” Corey said, “and I’m cut off from it. All there is here is a bunch of doctors who might as well be talking a foreign language for all I know of what they’re doing.”