When he climbed out of the car, Trent was momentarily taken aback by additional familiar faces. The driver of the Ranchero was Mel Yost, the fiftyish publisher of Washington War Crimes, 'a newsletter of the American Resistance'. The minivan had borne Zachary Taylor Grant to the meeting. Everywhere he went, the tall, bearded founder of the Hedgehogs militia wore camouflage pants, a flak vest, and a large silver cross on a neck chain.
'Did we get your heart going pretty good back there, Johnny?' Grant said with a hearty laugh. 'We'd have had you - bang bang. Just a rehearsal, though - lucky you.'
'You shouldn't tease my driver like that,' Trent said. 'He loves a chance to bend some sheet metal. What's this all about?'
'Well, you were nice enough to invite us all to your place to tell us what you thought we should do,' Grant said. 'It's only polite for us to return the favor.'
'Nice place you've got,' said Trent.
'Come on, let's not drag it out,' said Bowman, flinching nervously. The next SRA satellite will be passing overhead in eleven minutes. And let's go into the fucking trees - sound carries across water.'
Without waiting for their agreement, Bowman led the way. Yost followed with a penlight flash, while Grant fell in beside Trent. 'Johnny, one of the things I wanted to know is how serious you are about that show you put on today.'
'Serious enough.'
'Really? It's not just fresh-scrubbed-face cover? You're going to count on the same scoundrels who passed Brady I, Brady II, the ugly guns ban, national registration, and the Stoke-Williams liability act to rescue you? Now, see, you made a liar out of me.'
They caught up to Bowman at that point, and in doing so also to the sound of urine splattering against a tree trunk.
'Geez, Bob, what are you thinking? Now they'll know you were here,' said Grant.
'What? Hey, there's no DNA in piss, is there? Shit -'
Grant laughed heartily as the younger man frantically tried to staunch his flow and zip up. 'You spoiled everything, Bob. We can't kill Johnny now.'
'You're a cruel fuck, Zack,' said Yost. 'Bob, don't listen to him - there's no DNA in urine unless you've jerked off in the last twenty-one days.'
'Christ,' said Bowman, and Grant laughed even harder.
'I guess that means I owe you a favor, Bob,' said Trent lightly. 'Zack, I've got people waiting on me. Can we take care of business before that satellite gets here and photographs our cars together? What's this about?'
It was Yost who stepped forward to answer. 'We wanted to give you a chance to come in with us, now that your lawsuit went in the dumper. We're going to work together on another strategy, a little more direct.'
'A lot more direct,' said Bowman, making a pretend gun out of his hand and 'firing' a shot into the darkness. 'I'm tired of waiting. Right in the face, all the fucking traitors.'
'Why me?' Trent asked.
'Two reasons, Johnny,' said Grant. 'Because you'd be useful -you're national, we're local, you're respectable, we don't want to be, you're well-connected, we wouldn't join any club that would have us. And second, because you just got kicked in the face by the conspiracy, so it's real clear to you now that they're not going to let it happen.'
'You can't beat them playing by their rules, because they have the game rigged. Like Las Vegas, only worse,' said Yost. 'So we're going to play by our rules.'
Trent pursed his lips. 'If I ask you what kind of targets you have in mind, will that affect my status here?'
'"I have a little list - they never will be missed -"' Bowman said, sing-song.
'No, Johnny, you're square with us,' said Grant. 'But before I tell you, make sure the answer makes a difference. Are there some targets you'd be ready to sign on for, and some you wouldn't? If so, you'd be getting in at the right time. We have a target-rich environment and a lot of decisions to make.'
For the first time since the Ranchero had appeared in the rear-view mirror, Trent was gripped by an acute feeling of peril. He was not completely confident that the wrong answer would not put him face-down in the Rapido, and so he tried not to answer at all. 'I'm going to need to think about it, guys.'
Grant frowned and shook his head. 'I don't think we can do that. It's like Bob said. We're tired of waiting.'
'I don't get why you're not more fucking angry,' Bowman said, kicking a rock. 'Man, you ought to be jumping at the chance we're giving you. Why haven't you been thinking about it all along? I have. We're going to do something, not just suck up bandwidth like you did today. Maybe you don't really want to win. Or maybe you're just a fucking coward.'
'Say, Bob, how much longer till that satellite is above the horizon?' Grant asked.
'What?' Bowman peered at his watch. 'Goddammit -' Pushing past Yost, he bolted for the parking area.
Grant and Yost shared a chuckle at Bowman's expense. 'Don't say it, Johnny, I know - he's deeply twisted. But he has very good access to toys,' Grant said by way of explanation. 'What's your answer going to be, Johnny? In or out? We're going to make some noise, I promise you that.'
'Then you're going to need me to keep on doing what I do,' Trent said on impulse. 'High-profile, high-road, voice of reason, good citizen working through the system. It's the best cover you can have. Let me be blunt - if something goes wrong and the Feds take down Bob Bowman, he's replaceable, and the public thinks, well, that's one crackpot. If something goes wrong and they take down John Trent - well, I can't risk that for anything but the highest stakes. And I don't think we're there yet. Which doesn't mean I'm not going to wish you luck.'
Then he held his breath.
Grant and Yost exchanged glances. 'All right, John,' Yost said, and offered his hand. 'You hit them high, we'll hit them low -and luck to you, too. You won't hear from us again.'
The skin on Trent's back crawled all the way back to the parking lot. When he was safely back in the car, he broke out in a cold sweat. 'Let's get out of here, Jerry.'
'What happened?'
'You know better than that, Jerry.' He settled back in his seat, wondering if his hands were trembling because he'd been afraid, or because, under the fear and revulsion and contempt, some part of him had been tempted.
* * *
24: Weapons to Kill
'I am proud of the fact that I never invented weapons to kill.'
- Thomas Alva Edison
In the ten months since Dr Jeffrey Horton's face first appeared in the newsfeeds, both his life and his appearance had dramatically changed.
In the days following his unveiling as the inventor of the LifeShield, his face had been everywhere. He had agreed to interviews, taken part in debates, testified before Congress, and appeared at the United Nations with President Breland, where they received a standing ovation from the General Assembly.
But immediately after that, he had disappeared - not only from public view, but from what had been his life. Taking an indefinite leave from Terabyte, he traded in his hermitage at the Annex for the life of a wanderer. Since then, he had had no home base to speak of, renting a hotel room in Vancouver for a week, a camper in the Great Smoky Mountains for a fortnight, a lakefront cabin in northern Minnesota for a month, and so on - leapfrogging here and there across the North American continent with no clear purpose beyond going where he had not been and seeing what he had not seen.
He carried with him only that which he could fit into a hiker's backpack - little more than a few days' change of clothes, a few essential toiletries, an extra pair of comfortable shoes, his comset and reader. The toiletries included neither razor nor scissors; he had grown his first beard, and let his wavy hair grow long.
'I look like the very cliche of a tree-hugging eco-terrorist,' he had written to Lee, one of his very few contacts at Terabyte. 'It's wonderful, because respectable people who might recognize me keep a wary distance, and the eccentric and disreputable types who actually approach me don't care who I am, as long as I'm willing to listen to their advice, or their complaints, or their philosophy, or their dreams. I listen, beca
use these fringe folk are interesting, with refreshingly unlikely and discordant perspectives on the world. I'd forgotten just how differently people can think, and how few of them are burdened by thinking the way the lab-coat-and-doctorate set does.'
In a note to Brohier, he had added, 'I feel like I'm reconnecting with the real world - or maybe connecting with it for the first time. I didn't realize it when we were having those conversations about what our work would mean to Society, but my theoretical model for people was as flawed as our model for physics turned out to be. But I guess that's what comes from collecting all your samples in your own back yard. I overestimated the influence of reason, and underestimated the influence of passion. And I completely missed the fact that intelligence can serve either one equally well.'
Horton had been in the Mayan Peninsula, perspiring profusely after a long climb up the steep stairs of a 1,600-year-old stone pyramid, when he received Brohier's excited invitation to come to Princeton and share in a theoretical breakthrough. But Horton was not yet ready to talk about physics - he had only activated his comset in order to find out more about the structure which he was sitting atop, and about the people who built it. So he had let the invitation go unanswered.
But despite his best efforts to prevent it, Princeton kept intruding on his consciousness, threatening to give direction to his directionless journey. It insinuated itself into his thoughts like an elephant in the living room - impossible to ignore. Either going to see Brohier foreordained the end of his journey and the resumption of his professional life, or it represented something he was avoiding. And neither admission was acceptable to Horton. The only escape from that psychological double-bind was to make Princeton just another stop along the way, a side trip off a road heading somewhere else.
So in his second week in Cape May, Horton took a break from watching the late-winter storms lash the piers and stone jetties. Locking up his third-story apartment with all the ritual of someone who intended to return, he hired a jet taxi out of Wildwood to Philadelphia. There he caught a nearly empty Amtrak commuter train to Princeton Junction, from which he rode the rattly, superannuated 'dinky' shuttle onto campus. There was a ground taxi at the station, but Horton elected to walk the last leg of his pilgrimage, declaring indifference to the damp chill in the gusty March breeze.
But as Horton was following College Road between the deserted golf course and the theological seminary, he realized that he had contrived to create a sort of Zeno's Paradox for himself - the closer he got to his destination, the more slowly he approached it.
Does it still bother me that much? he wondered. Is this choice or coincidence? Unable to answer, he picked up the pace.
As he drew nearer to the Institute, Horton was taken aback by the names of the streets: Hegel Avenue, Newton Road, Einstein Drive. Only the last of the three men so honored had ever walked these streets, but the names alone made Horton feel as though he were entering another world - an island enclave where the names of great thinkers had more resonance than the names of soldiers and politicians.
But, then, that was what the Institute's benefactors had intended to create - a haven for pure intellectual pursuits, unpressured by academics, uncompromised by commercialization. The Institute had no laboratories, no curriculum, no tuition, no degrees - but it had excellent libraries, long wooded trails, and a remarkable record of success.
Horton found it humbling enough to consider the aggregate brainpower of the current faculty. But even that stellar assemblage paled beside the roster of past faculty and alumni, which read like a history of the last century in science - not only Einstein, who had closed out his career and his life here, but C. N. Yang, John Von Neumann, Kurt Godel, Freeman Dyson -
I am unworthy to enter your house, sahib - Horton thought self-mockingly, standing before the sign at the foot of the main drive.
He had to give his own name at the reception desk in Fuld Hall to gain admittance to the Institute's buildings and directions to Brohier's office. That was something he had taken pains to avoid in the course of his travels. But there was no flicker of recognition, no raised eyebrow -just the reserved Old World courtesy and New World efficiency of a well-trained staff.
This is your visitor identification, Dr Horton. There's no need to wear it -just carry it with you. It also serves as your cafeteria pass, should you decide to take a meal while you're here.'
'Transmitter?' Horton asked, turning the thin silver disc over in his hand.
'Linked to our security systems, yes. But it's only to tell us that you're an authorized visitor - we won't be keeping track of where you go. It expires at eleven, though, when the Institute closes to visitors.'
Horton nodded and slipped the disc into his breast pocket. 'An early night for Cinderella. One-Seventeen, you said?'
'Yes, Dr Horton. I've already informed Dr Brohier that you're here.'
'Guess I'm in for it, then, eh? Retreat cut off.' He found a wry smile. Thank you for your help.'
The hallway was carpeted with a soft pile that absorbed the sound of footsteps. The doors and moldings along its length were a dark-grained hardwood with a faint sheen - real wood, not synthetic, that remembered a thousand dustings, cleanings, and re-oilings.
A year ago, Horton would probably have missed the life in the wood. Now it spoke to him not only of attention to detail, but dedication to principle - of an unwavering investment in bringing the best out of the best, and of a place where there was always enough time to do things right.
Suddenly, Horton was ambushed by a wistful envy for those privileged to call this mecca home, and an unexpected eagerness to hear what Brohier had uncovered here. A moment later Horton saw him, emerging from the corner office at the end of the hall, raising a hand in greeting and starting toward Horton with an uneven gait that favored the right leg.
'Karl,' Horton called, hastening his steps.
'You came.' Brohier was beaming joyfully. 'I'm so glad - I've so much to show you. Wherever have you been?'
'I took the long way,' said Horton. He pointed at Brohier's leg, then surrendered that same hand to a hearty handshake. 'What did you do to yourself?'
'Fell, on the woods trail. My own fool fault. I went walking after the first snowfall, with the wrong shoes. It's nothing now - just a bad habit I haven't broken.' But when Brohier took Horton by the elbow as though to steer him toward the office, Horton realized that he was being drafted to serve as the older man's walking stick. 'How long can you stay? Did they find you a room? I could make space for you in my cottage - it's nothing like Columbus, mind you, but big enough for the two of us.'
'We'll talk about that later,' said Horton. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the number on the door they were passing. Half-turning, he gestured with a thumb. 'Wasn't that -'
Brohier's glance followed the gesture. 'Einstein's office? Yes -his last one. One-Fifteen Fuld. Here, I'm right next door.'
'How is that?' Horton reached for the knob.
'Pardon?'
'Well - it seems like it could be intimidating. Like working down the hall from god.'
'I find it inspiring,' said Brohier, releasing Horton's arm and making his way to his desk. 'The stories they still tell here about him - he's become a real person to me, instead of an icon.' Then he laughed as he settled heavily into a chair. 'Besides, it's Harry Beuge who's carrying the weight of comparison. I only have to pass Einstein's office every morning - he has to work there. Which may explain why he's over here six times a day.'
Horton joined Brohier in his chuckle. 'There is something about this place, though, isn't there,' he said, dragging a chair up.
This building is touched by greatness, by genius - it's in the bricks, the plaster, the air. I draw a deep breath every morning, hoping to borrow some.' He leaned forward conspiratorially. 'When I'm feeling impish, I tell someone there's a morphological field over the campus - there's been so much deep thinking done here that it's now easier to do it here than anywhere else. Last week I said it in f
ront of the Director.'
'You invoke Sheldrake to the Director of the Institute? You're a brave man.'
'I've committed worse sins here than that.'
'Such as?'
'I've been holding out on them, waiting for you.'
'You shouldn't have. You didn't owe me that.'
'Oh, there's been plenty to do. I've had to go back to school, to learn some chemistry.'
Horton blinked in surprise. 'Chemistry? You? The man who earnestly explained to me over a bottle of Bordeaux that chemistry was a trade for people without enough imagination to be physicists?'
The very man,' said Brohier. 'As many times as I've said words to that effect in front of witnesses, I'll probably have to make a public recantation at an annual meeting of the American Chemical Society. But look behind you - right there on the top shelf is the place I started, Pauling's Nature of the Chemical Bond. A first edition, in paper, no less - hand-corrected by Pauling himself.'
Horton stole a glance back over his shoulder. 'Isn't there a multimedia edition yet?' he asked, unimpressed by the artifact.
Brohier wrinkled his nose in disgust. 'Oh, of course - and it's awful. All cluttered with three-dimensional animations and other extraneous nonsense. I sent it back after a week. This, this I've had checked out of the Natural Sciences library since August.'
'Slow learner?'
Brohier bleated a laugh. 'Oh, thank heavens. There was only one thing that worried me more than the thought that you were never coming back -'
'The thought that I was, but my sense of humor wasn't?'
'Just so. You were frightfully earnest for the longest time, you know.'
'Well - it was my first time,' Horton said with a rueful smile. I'd never changed history before.'
'We're not finished yet, Jeffrey,' Brohier said, sitting back. His eyes had the eager brightness of a parent anticipating his child's first glimpse of the Christmas tree. 'Don't you want to know why I've been reading Pauling?'