Davidson reached the car and opened the back door; and it wasn't until he and Garwood were in the back seat and the other two soldiers in front that the major answered the question. "Chanute AFB, about fifteen miles north of Champaign," he told Garwood as the car pulled back onto the interstate and headed east. "We'll be transferring you to a special plane there for the trip back to the Project."
Garwood licked his lips. A plane. How many people, he wondered, wished that mankind had never learned to fly? There was only one way to know for sure... and that way might wind up killing him. "You put me on that plane and it could be the last anyone ever sees of me," he told Davidson.
"Really?" the major asked politely.
"Did they tell you why I ran out on the Project? That the place was falling down around my ears?"
"They mentioned something about that, yes," Davidson nodded. "I really don't think you have anything to worry about, though. The people in charge of security on this one are all top notch."
Garwood snorted. "You're missing the point, Major. The lab wasn't under any kind of attack from outside agents. It was falling apart because I was in it."
Davidson nodded. "And as I said, we're going to have you under complete protection—"
"No!" Garwood snapped. "I'm not talking about someone out there gunning for me or the Project. It's my presence there—my physical presence inside Backdrop—that was causing all the destruction."
Davidson's dimly visible expression didn't change. "How do you figure that?"
Garwood hesitated, glancing at the front seat and the two silhouettes there listening into the conversation. Major Davidson might possibly be cleared for something this sensitive; the others almost certainly weren't. "I can't tell you the details," he said, turning back to Davidson. "I—look, you said your superiors nailed me because of a broken ashtray in Springfield, right? Did they tell you anything more?"
Davidson hesitated, then shook his head. "No."
"It broke because I came too close to it," Garwood told him. "There's a—oh, an aura, I guess you could call it, of destruction surrounding me. Certain types of items are especially susceptible, including internal combustion engines. That's why I don't want to be put on any plane."
"Uh-huh," Davidson nodded. "West, you having any trouble with the car?"
"No, sir," the driver said promptly. "Running real smooth."
Garwood took a deep breath. "It doesn't always happen right away," he said through clenched teeth. "I rode the bus for over an hour without anything happening, remember? But if it does happen with a plane, we can't just pull off the road and stop."
Davidson sighed. "Look, Dr. Garwood, just relax, okay? Trust me, the plane will run just fine."
Garwood glared through the gloom at him. "You want some proof?—is that what it'll take? Fine. Do you have any cigarettes?"
For a moment Davidson regarded him in silence. Then, flicking on a dim overhead dome light, he dug a crumpled pack from his pocket.
"Put a couple in my hand," Garwood instructed him, extending a palm, "and leave the light on."
Davidson complied with the cautious air of a man at a magic show. "Now what?"
"Just keep an eye on them. Tell me, do you like smoking?"
The other snorted. "Hell, no. Tried to give the damn things up at least twenty times. I'm hooked pretty good, I guess."
"You like being hooked?"
"That's a stupid question."
Garwood nodded. "Sorry. So, now... how many other people, do you suppose, hate being hooked by tobacco?"
Davidson gave him a look that was half frown, half glare. "What's your point, Doctor?"
Garwood hesitated. "Consider it as a sort of subconscious democracy. You don't like smoking, and a whole lot of other people in this country don't like smoking. A lot of them wish there weren't any cigarettes—wish these cigarettes didn't exist."
"And if wishes were horses, beggars would ride," Davidson quoted. He reached over, to close his fingers on the cigarettes in Garwood's palm—
And jerked his hand back as they crumpled into shreds at his touch.
"What the hell?" he snapped, practically in Garwood's ear. "What did you do?"
"I was near them," Garwood said simply. "I was near them, and a lot of people don't like smoking. That's all there is to it."
Davidson was still staring at the mess in Garwood's palm. "It's a trick. You switched cigarettes on me."
"While you watched?" Garwood snorted. "All right, fine, let's do it again. You can write your initials on them this time."
Slowly, Davidson raised his eyes to Garwood's face. "Why you?"
Garwood brushed the bits of paper and tobacco off his hand with a shudder. Even after all these months it still scared him spitless to watch something disintegrate like that. "I know... something. I can't tell you just what."
"Okay, you know something. And?"
"No ands about it. It's the knowledge alone that does it."
Davidson's eyes were steady on his face. "Knowledge. Knowledge that shreds cigarettes all by itself."
"That, combined with the way a lot of people feel about smoking. Look, I know it's hard to believe—"
"Skip that point for now," Davidson cut him off. "Assume you're right, that it's pure knowledge that somehow does all this. Is it something connected with the Backdrop Project?"
"Yes."
"They know about it? And know what it does?"
"Yes, to both."
"And they still want you back?"
Garwood thought about Saunders. The long discussions he'd had with the other. The even longer arguments. "Dr. Saunders doesn't really understand."
For a moment Davidson was silent. "What else does this aura affect besides cigarettes?" he asked at last. "You mentioned car engines?"
"Engines, plastics, televisions—modern conveniences of all kinds, mainly, though there are other things in danger as well. Literally anything that someone doesn't like can be a target." He thought about the bus and Tom Benedict Arnold. "It might work on people, too," he added, shivering. "That one I haven't had to find out about for sure."
"And all that this... destructive wishing... needs to come out is for you to be there?"
Garwood licked his lips. "So far, yes. But if Backdrop ever finishes its work—"
"In other words, you're a walking time bomb."
Garwood winced at the harshness in Davidson's voice. "I suppose you could put it that way, yes. That's why I didn't want to risk staying at Backdrop. Why I don't want to risk riding in that plane."
The major nodded. "The second part we can do something about, anyway. We'll scrap the plane and keep you on the ground. You want to tell us where this Backdrop Project is, or would you rather I get the directions through channels?"
Garwood felt a trickle of sweat run between his shoulderblades. "Major, I can't go back there. I'm one man, and it's bad enough that I can wreck things the way I do. But if Backdrop finishes its work, the effect will spread a million-fold."
Davidson eyed his warily. "You mean it's contagious? Like a virus or something?"
"Well... not exactly."
"Not exactly," Davidson repeated with a snort. "All right, then, try this one: do the people at Backdrop know what it is about you that does this?"
"To some extent," Garwood admitted. "But as I said, they don't grasp all the implications—"
"Then you'd agree that there's no place better equipped to deal with you than Backdrop?"
Garwood took a deep breath. "Major... I can't go back to Backdrop. Either the project will disintegrate around me and someone will get killed... or else it'll succeed and what happened to your cigarettes will start happening all over the world. Can't you understand that?"
"What I understand isn't the issue here, Doctor," Davidson growled. "My orders were very specific: to deliver you to Chanute AFB and from there to Backdrop. You've convinced me you're dangerous; you haven't convinced me it would be safer to keep you anywhere else."