Isaacs had never met Krone personally, but he recognized him immediately from photographs. He also saw more. Krone was in slippers and a dressing gown, incongruous attire for a physicist, but it was his face that arrested Isaacs’ attention. The jaw was slack, the eyes glazed and unfocused, his whole visage one of lifelessness. Isaacs stepped forward.
“Krone? Paul Krone?”
The eyes shifted slowly to the speaker, but there was no sign that the words registered.
Isaacs stepped up to Krone and lightly grasped his arm above the elbow. The eyes maintained their original focus. Isaacs waved his other hand in front of Krone’s face. The eyes blinked about three seconds later with no apparent regard to cause and effect.
Isaacs released Krone and spun around to face the dark figure in the doorway. “He’s virtually catatonic! How long has he been like this?”
Her face was nearly as expressionless as Krone’s except for her eyes that, by contrast, still sparkled with life. “Since last April,” she replied succinctly.
“Has he been treated?” Isaacs’ voice betrayed more strain than he intended.
“Three experts have been called in. They have been of no use.”
“Do you know what happened to him?”
She unwound slightly, moving around Runyan and Danielson to the desk and extending the fingers of her left hand until they rested lightly on the surface. She turned her face to speak directly to Isaacs. Her voice dropped in pitch.
“He was doing experiments in his laboratories. He was very excited, totally engrossed. Then the excitement left. He became withdrawn, more and more. Very late one night he tried to commit suicide. I called the doctor at the laboratory. He was in the hospital for a month. They saved his life, but since then he has been like this.”
She moved to the motionless figure beside Isaacs and took his arm in much the same manner that Isaacs had.
“Come, Paul,” she spoke gently and led him to the chair where he sat as if by instinctual response. She saw that he was arranged comfortably and then turned and proceeded directly from the room without a glance at her visitors.
During this interchange, Danielson’s eyes had been scanning the bookshelves. When Maria Latvin departed, she moved over and touched Isaacs’ sleeve. He followed her pointing finger to a shelf behind the desk. There was an array of lab books identical to the one they had found at the complex. Isaacs and Danielson stepped around the desk and began to examine them. They took turns lifting down a volume, checking its contents briefly and adding it to a growing pile on the desk. All the books seemed to be related to the experiment that led to the creation of the black hole. Although it became clear they were in chronological order, they continued to spot-check to make sure that all dealt with the same subject.
Maria Latvin hurried along the corridor to the room where she had left the Russian agent.
“They are from the Central Intelligence Agency,” she whispered. “They also came to see Paul. I could not make them leave. You must warn the other. He must not come in.”
“What are they doing?”
“I left them in the study.”
“They cannot talk to him. Perhaps they will leave.”
“I do not think so.” She had lied to the Russians. She knew the lab books were on the shelf, but resolved to tell them as little as possible unless forced. She had seen that Danielson carried one of the books and knew they would spot the others. “I think that they will want to take Paul away.” That was a stall, but also the probable truth.
“Show me a back way out,” the man demanded. “I will head my compatriot off, and find out our orders. You must learn the intentions of the American agents. Keep them in the front of the house, and meet us back in this room in ten minutes. If you are not here—.”
He reached under his jacket again, his meaning crystal clear.
Isaacs was rapidly evaluating the situation. Krone was useless for their immediate needs. The machine itself would speak to experts, but not to them. The lab books were a treasure, but was there something else they should know about? They could grab the books and head home, but if they quickly perused them they might find other valuable clues as to what had gone on in this remote place. He grabbed several books at random.
“Let’s spend a little time looking through these,” he said. “See if there is any hint that we should try to dig up something other than these books themselves.”
He went over to the second high-backed chair and swiveled it to face the room. He kept one book to read and put the others on the floor. Danielson sat at the desk and began to look at another, the last she had taken down from the shelf. Runyan rummaged through the stack to find some of the earliest tomes. He looked around, realized all the chairs were taken, and moved to the wall near the door where he plopped himself on the carpet and leaned back against the bookshelf.
Some time passed in a silence broken only by the crackling of the fire and an occasional rustle of a turned page. Danielson suddenly became aware of a small motion in the doorway. The woman, Maria Latvin, stood there looking at the chair in which Krone sat. Her hands were clasped softly in front of her, perhaps that was the motion that had caught Danielson’s attention. Danielson was sure the woman had been there for some time, quietly watching.
The same motion must have caught Runyan’s attention, too. Danielson watched him as he sat a little more than an arm’s length from the doorway.
Danielson could see his eyes as he scanned the lovely, composed face, down the curves of her body to her feet in open, tastefully designed sandals. She turned to go and Runyan bent over and craned his neck to follow with unabashed interest her passage down the hallway. When he could see her no longer, he straightened up and looked over to catch Danielson’s eyes upon him. Danielson looked quickly down at the book before her with blurred eyes. She felt ice in her stomach and warm fire on her face.
Maria Latvin opened the door to the bedroom. At first she thought only one was there, but then the tall one stepped out from behind the door.
“What do they do now?”
“They look at books in the study and talk among themselves.” A mix of truth and half-truth.
“We are taking Krone. And you. To care for him.”
God! To go back. She felt the wave of despair again.
“And what of them?” She gestured toward the front of the house.
“If you cooperate, they need come to no harm. Where is Krone now?”
“He is still in the study. With them.”
“You must bring him here. We will escape out the back to our car that is hidden down the road.”
“And if they resist?”
“You must find a way. If they discover our presence here they will die.”
“If we get away, they, and soon many others, will follow,” the woman argued.
The tall man thought for a long moment.
“You must make it look as if it is your idea. If they look only for a woman on the run, our job will be easier.”
Now Maria Latvin thought deeply. She could go to the agents in the study and reveal the Russians, but at the risk of death or worse for her mother and brother. She could make off with Paul herself and to hell with them all, but the Russians, at least, would exact the same penalty. She wanted no harm to come to those in the other room, least of all Paul. She dreaded the idea of going back, but she would be with Paul, and surely the Americans would do everything to have him released. Staying close to him was her best chance of survival.
She needed some way to distract them. She thought of the lab books. Paul had been working with them when he had drifted from her. The Americans were keenly interested in them. She supposed the Russians would be too, if they only knew how near they were. She hated them!