Lewis resisted the urge to look inside the fridge against the side wall for a beer and instead got right to the point.
“So, what’s the rush? You know having this large a group isn’t safe.”
A few exchanged nervous glances.
It was Lorrie who spoke first. “We’re worried.”
Lewis snorted. “Who isn’t, now-a-days?”
She shook her head. “No, more than that. There’ve been more pick-ups.” She glanced back at the group. “Disappearances.”
“Yeah, I heard. Pomeroy got nabbed in town here.”
The blonde woman flinched at Lewis’ words. The eye doctor shuddered.
“It was on the radio,” he assured them. “The name is already out in public so I’m only reporting what the radio announced.”
“It’s not just Arthur,” Lorrie said quickly. “He got arrested here in town and they actually announced his name. But there’ve been others. There’s still that missing campus police officer over at MIT. She just disappeared.”
“That’s not unheard of,” Lewis said evenly. “Vodkaville has picked up others in the past and shipped them off to Guantanamo, or even worse, Tucson.”
Dr. Eckleburg cleared his throat. “But it’s who. We just found out that about two weeks ago Collinson disappeared. No trace, nothing.”
Now it was Lewis’ turn to look blank. “Collinson?”
“Ralph Collinson,” Shauna Duffy answered. “He ran the Patriot Coffee Shop out on 2A. He’s a good friend of your deVere’s.”
At the mention of his friend’s name Lewis flinched. Mentioning names of those not present was taboo, especially when there were strangers about. But Lewis noted that no one reacted to the name. They know. They all know.
Lewis turned back to Lorrie. “Have you scanned the room?” he asked.
“It’s safe,” she said. “You can trust everyone here.”
Lewis moved to the interior wall and found a spot on an overstuffed sofa. As he sat down he could still feel his feet squish beneath him. He leaned back.
“So, what’s going on?” he asked, stretching his arms to the back of the couch. “I don’t know this fellow you mentioned as having disappeared. But the fellow you mentioned as his friend never comes to any meetings and isn’t involved with anyone here.”
It was the ophthalmologist again. “Collinson was a good friend of deVere’s. DeVere would stop in on the way home and they’d talk. He mentioned deVere several times and made no secret of his true feelings to deVere. Now he’s disappeared.”
“So?” Lewis asked, trying to mask a rising anger.
“So,” Dr. Eckleburg answered, “what do we really know about Paul deVere?”
Lewis resisted the urge to spring across the room and throttle the doctor. He remained reclined in the sofa, feigning disinterest. He looked casually at the doctor and then let his gaze drift to each of the others. But all he saw was steely resolve.
“I don’t know what you’re implying, Doctor. I’ve known… this fellow you mention, for a number of years. He didn’t turn in the coffee shop guy if that’s what you’re implying. And besides, why would he, what was the coffee shop guy into?”
The doctor flushed and was about to answer when Lorrie stepped in front of him. “Lewis, that’s not what we’re saying. It’s just that, just that…” She hesitated and glanced back before continuing. “It’s just that, don’t you see? Arthur gets arrested here in town. He’s from Portland and was working on an op up there. Ralph was involved at this end. Arthur had talked about it in front of you at a meeting in April. And you are connected with deVere. And deVere knows Ralph and then Ralph and Arthur both disappear. And that campus security officer. Her car was found in a lot near deVere’s office.”
“Guilt by association. Seems obvious to me. Why don’t you just go and kill Paul deVere?” Lewis asked sarcastically.
“Lewis, it’s not just that,” Shauna answered impatiently. “It’s just that we’re all worried. We’ve been pouring a lot of money into this thing you’re doing with deVere and we don’t even know him. We’ve been taking your word on it. But now someone close to him has disappeared, someone who was working with someone you knew about, and everyone is starting to wonder about all this money we’ve given you. We delivered a lot of money that could have gone down South.” She turned to the woman behind her. “How much, Lorrie?”
“So far over 500,000 Noams,” Lorrie answered quietly.
Shauna turned back. “Half a million North American dollars is a lot of money, Lewis. We don’t even have a clue what this weapon will do, or whether it will even work.”
Lewis ran his hand over his chin. He took a deep breath and paused as he studied the seven intent faces. He was tempted to try an arrogant response but rejected the idea.
“DeVere is O.K.,” he began quietly. “The Intervention Project is O.K. You’ve gotta’ trust me on this.”
Lorrie Maddox shook her head slowly. “We can’t, Lewis. Half a million is a lot. A lot of risk by a lot of people went into getting that money. We haven’t been able to raise that kind of money easily and God knows it could have gone elsewhere. That botched assassination plan on Commissar Bush in Houston probably would have worked if they had a better detonator. And the Alamosas want to try again.”
Lewis snorted. “That was a stupid plan anyway. Knock off a civil administrator. Should have gotten her grandfather 40 years ago is who they should have killed. Kill her and her brat will just take over.”
“We can’t go on like this,” Lorrie continued, ignoring the criticism. “We need to know where the money is going. Not all of us, of course, but it can’t be just you and this deVere fellow. What happens if something happens to you? Not just caught but what if you get killed in an accident or something? We have no idea what you’re up to and we have no other connection with deVere.”
Lorrie shook her head. “It was O.K. when it was 70 or 80 thousand. But now it’s like the Big Dig. We have to at least see where the money’s going.”
“What you really want to know is if we’re embezzling your money,” Lewis answered hotly. “You don’t think we’re inept. You’re afraid we’re squishers siphoning off dough from the Descendants of Liberty. Or else crooks scamming you.”
“Lewis, calm down!” It was the doctor again. “No one thinks you’re crooked. We don’t know your friend, or where the money’s going. We have no idea if this super weapon you guys are building will ever work. We don’t know how much more it’ll cost. We don’t even know what it’s supposed to do. We’ve given you this money because of you. No one else could have gotten half a mill on trust.”
The doctor’s voice trailed off and silence filled the room. The rain continued to pound against the basement window. Behind the group Lewis could see the window well filling even more. In the distance he thought he heard a thunderclap. Across from him the faces did not flinch. He was out of room, and almost out of time, and he knew it.
“OK,” he said, exhaling. “So, what do you want to do? We can’t have too many people know. And there’s no way we can get a group into the school where we have this thing. There’s little audio surveillance there but there are cameras everywhere and some are frequently monitored. Some are on tape delay but any group going in is going to—”
“One person,” Dr. Eckleburg said evenly.
“Huh?”
“One person. We just want one person to see if deVere is wasting our money. One person to report back to us.”
“It’s kind of a technical weapon—” Lewis began.
“Pamela,” Lorrie said simply. She glanced back at the blonde woman and instinctively Lewis followed her gaze.