She shook her head. “No good, Julian. I’ve got to have a definite date. You’re up for an automatic DEPCO check right now. You can’t get away from it . . . the best I can do is stall them. And if you won’t give me a definite date, I’ll call them right now.”
“For Christ sake, what do you want me to do?” Bahr burst out. Then he stopped, searched her face. “Libby . . . .”
“I mean it, Julian.”
“You’re bluffing,” he said. “You won’t call them.”
“I took an oath when I joined DEPCO. I can’t leave you in this job.”
“Oath, garbage! You haven’t lived up to that thing since the day you signed it. If I get my Stability clearance revoked, it’s your neck, too. There goes your career. Think about that.”
“I already have.” Libby turned and picked the phone off the desk that used to be his desk, and dialed the DEPCO exchange.
Bahr watched her make the connection all the way through to Adams’ office. Then he hit her with it.
“You’d better think about Timmy before you make that call,” he said.
Very slowly, Libby put the phone back on the hook, turned to face him. All the fight was gone from her suddenly. She felt weak, and sick. “You couldn’t be that rotten,” she said. “Not even you.”
“I want this job.” He wouldn’t look at her face.
“Julian, you promised.”
“Sure, I promised. Things are different now, that’s all. I’m not going to do any parting favors for somebody who’s going to sell me down the river.”
“Julian, he’s your child, too. I’m entitled to one child, with my job rating. I’ll raise him and support him. I won’t tie you down or ask for partial support. All I want is your signature and a BHE test. Is that asking a favor?”
“You can stand a five-point cut in your Stability rating,” Bahr said. “I can’t. I can’t even stand a DEPCO review. Particularly when my therapist has been . . . .”
“I can claim it was part of the therapy,” she pleaded. “I’m willing to take the blame.”
“They’ll put you under polygraph.”
“I have contacts. Some of my father’s friends . . . .”
“Then get me a white card!” Bahr said.
“I can’t do that. Julian . . . he’s your son. I don’t want to lose him. Do you want him to go through the same thing you did: the Playhome, and Playschool, and Techschool and everything? You don’t know what those schools are like now. They didn’t experiment with the children when you went . . . .”
“Those are DEPCO projects,” Bahr said. “That’s your outfit running them. Don’t you like them?”
“There’s a lot about DEPCO I don’t like, but that’s neither here nor there . . . .”
“Then get them changed!”
“They’re all right, most of the time. Most of the kids come through all right, as long as they’re not too stubborn or independent. But what if he’s like you, Julian? What if he lights back?”
“Then good for him. I took it, he can.”
Libby pushed away from him, looked at him coldly. “I could name you anyway, and have you dumped as a Stability risk for refusing to accept paternity.”
“And I can get eight men to swear you picked them up and look them to bed without a prostitute’s license. Eight men who can keep up the story under polygraph.”
“Julian,” she said, “what makes you such a rotten bastard?”
“You’re the psych doc. You ought to know.” He looked at her, and suddenly, inexplicably, she was in his arms, and he was crushing her against him, his face in her hair, his hands digging desperately into her shoulders. “Oh, God, Libby, I don’t want to fight you. I didn’t mean it about Tim. I swear I’ll quit this job just as soon as I can get things under control, but it means too much to me right now. It just means too damned much. You’ve got to go along on my terms for now . .
“I know.” She tried to keep the tears back, clinging to him. “But believe me, I’m going to watch you, and if you start to go off the deep end, I’ll turn your case over to DEPCO lock, stock and barrel.”
Bahr laughed, the old confidence returning, and he tipped her chin up gently, kissed her. “That’s fair enough. You watch me.”
On the desk behind them the intercom crackled. “Julian? Frank. We’ve got a BRINT man on the wire here.”
“What does he want?” Bahr snapped. “I can’t talk to him.”
“I think you’d better,” Carmine’s voice said. “There’s been a landing up in Canada. BRINT won’t let us into the area unless you head the team yourself. They want to know right now.”
“Christ!” Bahr said. He pushed Libby away. “Look, Frank, tell them yes. I’ll be in the air in three minutes.” He snapped the speaker switch to off.
“Julian . . . .”
“Not now, not now. This is important.” He paused at the door, looked back at her. “You stall that DEPCO team,” he said. “I don’t care how you do it, but stall them. This may be the break we’ve been waiting for.”
Then he was gone. She walked around the room, trying to smooth her dress, straighten her hair, fix her make-up, cursing him for the things he could do to her, and herself because she couldn’t fight him. Two people. A man who could not possibly understand, or give a damn, and a woman who could not help loving him.
She found the elevator and started down for street level.
Part II
The Man In The Middle
Chapter Five
Harvey Alexander accepted the proffered capsule without a word and popped it into his mouth while the nurse and attendant watched. He took a mouthful of water, tossed his head back and swallowed, coughed a couple of times, and took another swallow of water to stop the coughing.
The nurse nodded. “That should hold him for another eight hours,” she said.
“He’ll be on the list for recoop in the morning,” the attendant said. “Doc says around nine.”
Alexander leaned weakly back against the pillow. His eyes were already beginning to blink. He groaned, rolled his head for a moment, and lay still, his breathing returning to the slow steady respiratory rate of the drugged.
As the nurse and attendant left, he opened his eyes and turned his head sharply, listening to hear if the door locked from the outside. The solenoid lock did not buzz, and he leaned back with a sigh. Very sloppy, but then they probably counted on the sleeper to keep him immobilized until dawn. He opened his mouth and lifted the not-yet-dissolved capsule from under his tongue and stuffed it under the pillow.
They would not be back. He had eight hours.
During all the dizzy, kaleidoscopic period while he had been recovering from the deep-probe, a single idea had been evolving in his mind—escape. His treatment at the hands of Bahr and his men convinced him that he could not expect their investigation to clear him, even if McEwen would back him to the hilt. The chance of even the legal process of a court-martial seemed remote. He would be recooped, and treated with chemo-shock, and wind up in a fruit-picking battalion with a new name, a new identity, and a blacked-out memory.
He looked out the window of his room. The hospital was surrounded by a ten-foot brick wall, with guards at the gates. He had only a limited view of the building itself. He was undoubtedly in a maximum-security wing that could be reached only by elevator, or by passing guards. It was, surprisingly, a suburban hospital. From the rows of dingy apartment flats spreading out beyond the wall, he guessed it was probably twenty miles or so out of Chicago.
He thought over the hospitals he knew of in the Chicago suburbs. Only two had psychotic-security facilities: the George Kelley and the Sister Andrea Farri. The Kelley seemed more likely, especially since the DIA was involved. And if he were in the Kelley . . . .