"Do I deny it?" Pan repeated. "Gregg, how long have we known each other?"
Gregg shrugged. "I don't know.... Ten, twelve years, I guess. Since you hooked up with WHO."
"Have I ever indicated to you a particular hatred of jokers in that time?"
A party at the Lindsays' ... there were several prominent jokers in the crowd, and you radiated such revulsion that Puppetman awoke. I never had the opportunity to use you that night, but Puppetman's hunger drove me out into the street afterward, seeking pain. I remember.... "No," Gregg told him. "Nothing overt, anyway. Nothing that stands out."
Pan nodded. "Then let me tell you the truth, Gregg. I hate the wild card virus. I loathe it. And there is an organization known as the Card Sharks."
"Oh my God ..." Gregg sucked in an voluntary breath. He blinked, startled by the unexpected, quick admission and not certain how to react to the vehemence in the man's voice. Yes! the voice inside him exulted. You've wanted to erase the horrors of Puppetman. You've wanted to make amends, and the way has been handed to you ... "Pan ... Pan, I - "
"I know," Pan said. "You asked me here because you were certain that it was poppycock, that I could dismiss this so-called evidence of Ms. Davis's with a shrug and a laugh, and you could forget about it and her. Well, as much as I hate to admit it, the woman has done all too good a job. How's the saying go? A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. This is a fine example of exactly that."
"Pan ..." Gregg had no words. He almost laughed in surprise and shock. "Brandon, too? Is that what you're saying?"
Rudo grimaced, waving a hand. "Brandon has done some legal work for us, work done under my own name, but he ... let's just say that he told you the truth as he knows it. Not everything Ms. Davis has surmised is true."
"Pan, do you realize what you're telling me? You leave me no choice but to call the authorities and go public with this."
Rudo looked out at the city. Gregg watched Rudo's wavering reflection in the glass, trying to see a demon and only seeing the image of a man. "Let me finish," Rudo said. "Ms. Davis has it half right, Gregg. We're not the hidden viper she imagines. In fact, I believe you would be sympathetic to our aims."
Rudo turned back into the room. His eyes were alight, his face serious. "I'm not going to give you the recruitment speech, Gregg. We both know that nothing about the wild card is simple. The issues are complex. There's no black or white, just endless shades of gray. That's where Ms. Davis has found her delusions. We can both agree that this alien virus is a scourge, a plague that is best eradicated. For every hundred it infects, it horribly slays most, curses nearly all that survive with disfigurement or worse, and leaves one person, one out of that entire hundred with a small gift in exchange. Hardly a fair trade, I would say. And that's without mentioning the social chaos that has resulted from the virus, the thousands upon thousands of secondary deaths from misunderstanding and prejudice and outright hatred. That's the legacy of the wild card, and I believe very strongly that anyone who doesn't despise the virus is truly insane."
Rudo stopped His hands, frozen in the midst of frantic motion, suddenly dropped to his side. He gave Gregg a self-deprecating smile. "I see that I've given you the speech anyway. Forgive me, it does spill out at odd moments. But let me add the second part, the part Ms. Davis has forgotten or has chosen not to see. I - we, the Sharks - hate the virus. Not the people infected with it: they're utterly blameless. They are sad, innocent victims. The Card Sharks - I must complement our dear Hannah. She's even ferreted out the pet name we once gave ourselves - do not exist to terrorize or kill jokers. We have pledged to end this modern plague by finding a cure: a treatment to halt the disease in those already infected, a vaccine to inoculate those who haven't yet been exposed. We are not a cabal; we are not terrorists. We are, very simply, a private research organization, funded by several wealthy and influential people who prefer that their efforts remain anonymous."
Rudo spread his hands wide, like a performer taking a bow, like the pope blessing the multitudes.
"Am I supposed to applaud now, Pan?" Gregg asked. "I can't. All this ..." He gestured at Hannah's box. "You can't erase everything with a few well-chosen words." You should know that more than anyone, Greggie.... "This Dr. Faneuil, infecting the jokers with AIDS - "
"We've made mistakes," Rudo said. "Kenya was a terrible one. I'll admit that freely. We'd manufactured a retrovirus, an infection that would rewrite DNA the way the Takisian virus does. We had hopes that it would reverse the process and bring an infected body back to its original form. We thought we were on the right trail; we were wrong."
"You experimented on jokers," Gregg said. Why do you sound so composed? Where's the heat? There's no rage, no fury in your voice. Here's someone dancing around to justify a horror. "It's not really my fault." The same thing you used to say .... "You used people as laboratory animals."
Rudo pressed his lips tightly together. "We experimented on jokers who were dying already, from drought and neglect, from horrible prejudice directed at them from their own people, and from the wild card. We did it in the hope of saving them, and if we'd been successful we would have been heroes. As it was ... the wild card infects no other animal besides us, Gregg. Once the lab tests were done, Dr. Faneuil had no other way to know."
Under the urging of his inner voice, Gregg started to protest, but Rudo shook his head once more. "Let me bring us to the bottom line. Gregg, my good friend, the Card Sharks had nothing to do with the incident that precipitated all this and brought Hannah Davis into the picture in the first place - the tragic fire at the church. You're a lawyer: I will wager that there is not one shred of hard evidence in your box pointing to that, not one. I've spoken with Ms. Davis and she admitted that to me. Nor have we ever threatened Ms. Davis's life or attempted to silence her, as she claims. For an organization that's supposed to be as huge and powerful as she's contending, it would seem that we're remarkably inefficient at carrying out death threats. Brandon already gave you his answer to the assassination of Robert Kennedy; I'll tell you that we also had nothing to do with the assassination of President Kennedy. We never tried to burn down Jokertown; we never sabotaged the X-11A space program, we weren't part of the witch hunts of the fifties. Gregg, the woman's prime piece of evidence is a talking hat. I'm afraid that Hannah Davis is paranoid and delusional. A very intelligent and a very attractive woman, but unfortunately mentally unbalanced - and that's a diagnosis I can give you from my own field of expertise, as you know."
Again, the faint, uneasy smile. Rudo seemed to be trying to gauge Gregg in some way; Gregg remained silent. Shout! Get angry! Point out the inconsistencies! the inner voice railed, but Gregg ignored it.
Fascinating. All the time this was festering inside Pan and I didn't know -
"Still," Rudo continued, sitting once more, "if the contents of that box were to become public knowledge, we would find it embarrassing and costly. We'd rather that didn't happen. Gregg, you're known as a friend of the jokers. I appreciate that. I admire your dedication, the way you've sacrificed your own ambitions for a higher ideal. I also know that fate hasn't been kind to you. This office - it's expensive enough, but not exactly upscale. You've had to sell property and assets you once owned to stay solvent. You're in your mid-fifties, you have no hope of recovering your political career, and frankly, in a country that elected the Barnett/Zappa ticket, your views are hardly popular anyway. How does this sound? I would like to hire you as a consultant for our research facility. Name your own salary, whatever you need. Write your own job description, as well. Maybe you're right. We've kept our work secret because we wanted to leapfrog over the tangles of legislation and regulations, because we wanted to move as fast as possible, and Gregg, I will tell you that we are closer than we have ever dreamed. A few more puzzle pieces ... Maybe with your help and contacts, we can bring our work to completion - in the mainstream."