A quizzical look crossed Emmett's face. "How so?"
"Try this on for size. Suppose, just suppose, Fidel Castro is trying to tell us something."
"He picked a strange way to send out a signal."
The President picked up a pen and began doodling on a pad. "Fidel has never been a stickler for diplomatic niceties."
"Do you want me to continue the investigation?" Emmett asked.
"No," the President answered tersely.
"You still insist on keeping the bureau in the dark?"
"This is not a domestic matter for the justice Department, Sam. I'm grateful for your help, but you've taken it about as far as you can go."
Emmett snapped his attaché case shut and rose to his feet. "Can I ask a touchy question?"
"Shoot."
"Now that we've established a link, regardless of how weak, to a possible abduction of Raymond LeBaron by the Cubans, why is the
President of the United States keeping it to himself and forbidding his investigative agencies to follow up?"
"A good question, Sam. Perhaps in a few days we'll both know the answer."
Moments after Emmett left the Oval Office, the President turned in his swivel chair and stared out the window. His mouth went dry and sweat soaked his armpits. He was gripped by foreboding that there was a tie between the Jersey Colony and the Soviet lunar probe disasters.
<<15>>
Ira Hagen stopped his rental car at the security gate and displayed a government ID card. The guard made a phone call to the visitors center of the Harvey Pattenden National Physics Laboratory, then waved Hagen through.
He drove up the drive and found an empty space in a sprawling parking lot crowded by a sea of multicolored cars. The grounds surrounding the laboratory were landscaped with clusters of pine trees and moss rock planted amid rolling mounds of grass. The building was typical of tech centers that had mushroomed around the country. Contemporary architecture with heavy use of bronze glass and brick walls curving at the corners.
An attractive receptionist, sitting behind a horseshoe-shaped desk, looked up and smiled as he walked through the lobby. "May I help you?"
"Thomas judge to see Dr. Mooney."
She went through the phone routine again and nodded. "Yes, Mr. Judge. Please enter the security center to my rear. They'll direct you from there."
"Before I go in, can I borrow your men's room?"
"Certainly," she said, pointing. "The door on the right beneath the mural."
Hagen thanked her and passed under a massive painting of a futuristic starship soaring between a pair of spectral blue-green planets. He went into a stall, closed the door, and sat down on the toilet. Opening a briefcase, he removed a yellow legal pad and turned to the middle. Then, writing on the upper back of the page, he made a series of tiny cryptic notes and diagrams on the security systems he'd observed since entering the building. A good undercover operative would never put anything down on paper, but Hagen could afford to run fast and loose, knowing the President would bail him out if his cover was blown.
A few minutes later he strolled out of the restroom and entered a glass-enclosed room manned by four uniformed security guards, who eyeballed an array of twenty television monitors mounted against one wall. One of the guards rose from a console and approached the counter.
"Sir?"
"I have an appointment with Dr. Mooney."
The guard scanned a visitor list. "Yes, sir, you must be Thomas Judge. May I see some identification, please?"
Hagen showed him his driver's license and government ID. Then he was politely asked to open the briefcase. After a cursory search the guard silently gestured for Hagen to close it, asked him to sign a "time in and out" sheet, and gave him a plastic badge to clip on his breast pocket.
"Dr. Mooney's office is straight down the corridor through the double doors at the end."
In the corridor, Hagen paused to put on his reading glasses and peer at two bronze plaques on the wall. Each bore the raised profile of a man. One was dedicated to Dr. Harvey Pattenden, founder of the laboratory, and gave a brief description of his accomplishments in the field of physics. But it was the other plaque that intriqued Hagen. It read:
In memory of
Dr. Leonard Hudson
1926-1965
Whose creative genius is an
inspiration for all who follow.
Not very original, Hagen thought. But he had to give Hudson credit for playing the dead-man game down to the last detail.
He entered the anteroom and smiled warmly at the secretary, a demure older woman in a mannish navy-blue suit. "Mr. Judge," she said, "please go right in. Dr. Mooney is expecting you."
"Thank YOU."
Earl J. Mooney was thirty-six, younger than Hagen had expected when he studied a file on the doctor's history. His background was surprisingly similar to Hudson's-- same brilliant mind, same high academic record, even the same university. A fat kid who went thin and became director of Pattenden Lab. He stared through pine-green eyes under thunderous eyebrows and above a Pancho Villa moustache. Dressed casually in a white sweater and blue jeans, he seemed remote from intellectual rigor.
He came from behind the desk, scattered with papers, notebooks, and empty Pepsi bottles, and pumped Hagen's hand. "Sit down, Mr. Judge, and tell me what I can do for you."
Hagen lowered his bulk into a straight-back chair and said, "As I mentioned over the phone, I'm with the General Accounting Office, and we've had a legislative request to review your accounting systems and audit research funding expenditures."
"Who was the legislator who made the request?"
"Senator Henry Kaltenbach."
"I hope he doesn't think Pattenden Lab is mixed up in fraud," said Mooney defensively.
"Not at all. You know the senator's reputation for smelling out misuse in government funding. His witch-hunts make good publicity for his election campaign. Just between you and me, there're many of us at GAO who wish he'd fall through an open manhole and stop sending us out chasing moonbeams. However, I must admit in all fairness to the senator, we have turned up discrepancies at other think tanks."
Mooney was quick to correct him. "We prefer to think of ourselves as a research facility."
"Of course. Anyway, we're making spot checks."
"You must understand, our work here is highly classified."
"The design of nuclear rocketry and third-generation nuclear weapons whose power is focused into narrow radiation beams that travel at the speed of light and can destroy targets deep in space."
Mooney looked at Hagen queerly. "You're very well informed."
Hagen shrugged it off. "A very general description given to me by my superior. I'm an accountant, Doctor, not a physicist. My mind can't function in the abstract. I flunked high school calculus. Your secrets are safe. My job is to help see the taxpayer gets his money's worth out of government-funded programs."
"How can I help you?"
"I'd like to talk to your controller and administration officials. Also, the staff that handles the financial records. My auditing team will arrive from Washington in two weeks. I'd appreciate it if we could set up someplace out of your way, preferably close to where the records are kept."