“Good God!” the Foreign Ministry man whispered.
The lights glittered in a spray of bluish reflection from the man in the gateway. He was mostly metal.
2
He was wearing one of their shapeless, drab civilian suits, with lumpy shoes and a striped brown shirt. His sleeves were too short, and his hands hung far out. One was flesh and one was not. His skull was a polished metal ovoid, completely featureless except for a grille where his mouth ought to be, and a half-moon recess, curving upward at the ends, where his eyes lurked. He stood, looking ill at ease, at the end of the two rows of soldiers. Rogers came up to him, holding out his hand. “Lucas Martino?”
The man nodded. “Yes.” It was his right hand that was still good. He reached up and took Rogers’ hand. His grip was strong and anxious. “I’m very glad to be here.”
“My name’s Rogers. This is Mr. Haller, of the Foreign Ministry.”
Haller shook Martino’s hand automatically, staring.
“How do you do?” Martino said.
“Very well, thank you,” the Foreign Ministry man mumbled. “And you?”
“The car’s over here, Mr. Martino,” Rogers cut in. “I’m with the sector Security office. I’d appreciate it if you came with me. The sooner I interview you, the sooner this’ll be completely over.” Rogers touched Martino’s shoulder and urged him lightly toward the sedan.
“Yes, of course. There’s no need delaying.” The man matched Rogers’ quick pace and slipped in ahead of him at his gesture. Haller climbed in on the other side of Martino, and then the driver wheeled the car around and started them rolling for Rogers’ office. Behind them, the MP’s got into their Jeeps and followed. Rogers looked back through the car’s rear window. The Soviet border guards were staring after them.
Martino sat stiffly against the upholstery, his hands in his lap. “It feels wonderful to be back,” he said in a strained voice.
“I should think so,” Haller said. “After what they — ”
“I think Mr. Martino’s only saying what he feels is expected of people in these situations, Mr. Haller. I doubt if he feels wonderful about anything.”
Haller looked at Rogers with a certain shock. “You’re blunt, Mr. Rogers.”
“I feel blunt.”
Martino looked from one to the other. “Please don’t let me unsettle you,” he said. “I’m sorry to be a source of upset. Perhaps it would help if I said I am used to what I look like?”
“Sorry,” Rogers said. “I didn’t mean to start a squabble.”
“Please accept my apologies, as well,” Haller added. “I realize that I was being just as rude as Mr. Rogers.”
Martino said, “And so now we’ve all apologized to each other.”
So we have, Rogers thought. Everybody’s sorry.
They pulled into the ramp which served the side door of Rogers’ office building, and the driver stopped the car. “All right, Mr. Martino, this is where we get out,” Rogers told the man. “Haller, you’ll be checking into your office right away?”
“Immediately, Mr. Rogers.”
“O.K. I guess your boss and my boss can start getting together on policy toward this.”
“I’m quite sure my Ministry’s role in this case was concluded with Mr. Martino’s safe return,” Haller said delicately. “I intend to go to bed after I make my report. Good night, Rogers. Pleasure working with you.”
“Of course.” They shook hands briefly, and Rogers followed Martino out of the car and through the side door.
“He washed his hands of me rather quickly, didn’t he?” Martino commented as Rogers directed him down a flight of steps into the basement.
Rogers grunted. “Through this door, please, Mr. Martino.”
They came out into a narrow, door-lined corridor with painted concrete walls and a gray linoleum tile floor. Rogers stopped and looked at the doors for a moment. “That one’ll do, I guess. Please come in here with me, Mr. Martino.” He took a bunch of keys out of his pocket and unlocked the door.
The room inside was small. It had a cot pushed against one wall, neatly made up with a white pillow and a tightly stretched army blanket. There was a small table, and one chair. An overhead bulb lit the room, and in a side wall there were two doors, one leading to a small closet and the other opening on a compact bathroom.
Martino looked around. “Is this where you always conduct your interviews with returnees?” he asked mildly.
Rogers shook his head. “I’m afraid not. I’ll have to ask you to stay here for the time being.” He stepped out of the room without giving Martino an opportunity to react. He closed and locked the door.
He relaxed a little. He leaned against the door’s solid metal and lit a cigarette with only a faint tremor in his fingertips. Then he walked quickly down the corridor to the automatic elevator and up to the floor where his office was. As he snapped on the lights, his mouth twisted at the thought of what his staff would say when he started calling them out of their beds.
He picked up the telephone on his desk. But first, he had to talk to Deptford, the District Chief. He dialed the number.
Deptford answered almost immediately. “Hello?” Rogers had expected him to be awake.
“Rogers, Mr. Deptford.”
“Hello, Shawn. I’ve been waiting for your call. Everything go all right with Martino?”
“No, sir. I need an emergency team down here as fast as possible. I want a whatdyoucallit — a man who knows about miniature mechanical devices — with as many assistants authorized as he needs. I want a surveillance device expert. And a psychologist. With the same additional staff authorizations for the last two. I want the three key men tonight or tomorrow morning. How much of a staff they’ll need’ll be up to them, but I want the authorizations in so there won’t be any red tape to hold them up. I wish to hell nobody had ever thought of pumping key personnel full of truth-drug allergens.”
“Rogers, what is this? What went wrong? Your offices aren’t equipped for any such project as that.”
“I’m sorry, sir. I don’t dare move him. There’re too many sensitive places in this city. I got him over here and into a cell, and I made damned sure he didn’t even get near my office. God knows what he might be after, or can do.”
“Rogers — did Martino come over the line tonight or didn’t he?”
Rogers hesitated. “I don’t know,” he said.
3
Rogers ignored the room full of waiting men and sat looking down at the two dossiers, not so much thinking as gathering his energy.
Both dossiers were open to the first page. One was thick, full of security check breakdowns, reports, career progress resumes, and all the other data that accumulate around a government employee through the years. It was labeled Martino, Lucas Anthony. The first page was made up of the usual identification statistics: height, weight, color of eyes, color of hair, date of birth, fingerprints, dental chart, distinguishing marks and scars. There was a set of standard nude photographs; front, back, and both profiles of a heavyset, muscular man with controlled, pleasantly intelligent features and a slightly thickened nose.
The second dossier was much thinner. As yet, there was nothing in the folder but the photographs, and it was unlabeled beyond a note: See Martino, L.A.(?) The photographs showed a heavyset, muscular man with broad scars running diagonally up from his left side, across his chest and around his back and both shoulders, like a ropey shawl. His left arm was mechanical up to the top of the shoulder, and seemed to have been grafted directly into his pectoral and dorsal musculature. He had thick scars around the base of his throat, and that metal head.
Rogers stood up behind his desk and looked at the waiting special team. “Well?”
Bannister, the English servomechanisms engineer, took the bit of his pipe out of his teeth. “I don’t know. It’s quite hard to tell on the basis of a few hours’ tests.” He took a deep breath. “As a matter of exact fact, I’m running tests but I’ve no idea what they’ll show, if anything, or how soon.” He gestured helplessly. “There’s no getting at someone in his condition. There’s no penetrating his surface, as it were. Half our instruments’re worthless. There’re so many electrical components in his mechanical parts that any readings we take are hopelessly blurred. We can’t even do so simple a thing as determine the amperage they used. It hurts him to have us try.” He dropped his voice apologetically. “It makes him scream.”