[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

work out a clean way for getting Wesserman and his whole bunch off the case.
We can't risk any more incompetence."
Page 147
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
Fairfax cleared down without waiting for Tierney to reply, and looked at
Nordens. "I don't like it," he muttered darkly. "The whole business was
illicit. It was a mistake ever to have got involved with it. And the others
will all be bailing out with emergency chutes when this gets around. It's us
that'll be left carrying it. I say the best thing would be to get rid of
Samurai as soon as he's back here. Then it'll just be the girl's word against
everyone else's that it was Demiro at all. It wouldn't be too difficult to put
some holes in her story. . . . Clear up the whole mess. What do you think?"
Nordens remained motionless for several seconds. Finally he said, "I'm not so
sure. Samurai is still our best hope for finding Ashling, and if Ashling's
loose it could sink all of them, not just you and me. So it would pay them to
sit tight in their seats for a little longer yet."
"If Ashling hasn't already slipped the country," Fairfax said.
Nordens gave a barely perceptible shake of his head. "I don't think so. If he
had, then Pipeline wouldn't be showing so much interest. . . . And besides,
Samurai might be the ideal means for getting rid of the Chilsen girl and
putting a stop to any story of hers permanently. We wouldn't want to involve
Tierney's people in something like that. Too much risk of it getting
messy especially with all the attention that they've attracted now. Then
Samurai can be eliminated without leaving any traces. That would be the best
course, for everybody."
Fairfax took a long breath and nodded reluctantly. "All right. Let's get
Jerry over here when he's off the line from Chicago. This time I want us both
to be in on all the details, every step of the way."
twenty-five
Jarrow was flown south to a military airbase that he took to be in Georgia,
where a helicopter was waiting to collect him, along with the three men whom
the police had handed him over to in Chicago. They flew at a modest height for
about twenty minutes over wooded, hilly terrain and an occasional river
valley. Then, a broken area between the trees ahead unfolded into a cluster of
white and brown office blocks and other structures several stories high,
standing amid a sprawl of outbuildings and parking lots, a tower with a water
tank and another carrying communications antennae, all geometrically segmented
and enclosed by lines of wire fences. As the helicopter descended, the central
complex of buildings rose up and took on solid form to look for a moment like
the superstructure of a ship sailing on a sea of green . . . and then they
were landing on a pad in front of a five-story frontage of polished stone
panels and copper-tinted glass. They got out to the scent of pines and a
breeze pleasantly mild after the wintriness of Illinois. Every-thing about the
surroundings suggested efficiency, orga-nization, authority, and order, from
the military emblem painted on the helicopter's fuselage to the smartly
turned-out uniformed guards in the post ahead of them beside the door. Jarrow
felt the reassurance of being on the right side and in capable hands at last.
His problems, he was sure, would soon be resolved.
Page 148
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
They took him up to the top floor, where wood-paneled doors opened off
carpeted corridors, and secretaries sat at desks with terminals and screens
outside glass-partitioned offices. He waited in a small room with chairs and a
table set conference style, and a woman in a pastel blue two-piece and blouse
brought him a snack with a cup of coylene. Then he was shown into a spacious
office with a leather-topped desk standing before a wall of tinted windows
-looking out over the Georgia hills. A man with white hair and a pinkish,
tight-mouthed countenance, wearing a dark suit, was sitting behind the desk.
With him were a sallow-faced man with dark curly hair, dressed in a light tan
suit, and a smaller man with rimless spectacles and an intense expression,
who, from the description that Josef had -obtained from Ashling, had to be Dr.
Nordens. Jarrow guessed the man behind the desk to be the director, Raymond
Fairfax, whose name Josef had supplied in the course of briefing Jarrow with
as much as he knew about the setup at Pearse. Jarrow didn't know who the third
man was.
Jarrow sat down, and the assistant who had shown him in withdrew, closing the
door. Fairfax stared at him fixedly for several seconds. It was a troubled
look, the look of somebody trapped into something he'd rather not have to deal
with, and at the same time wary of an unknown.
Finally he said, "Why did you decide to run? What did you think you were
doing?"
Jarrow shrugged and did his best to look mystified but composed. The fastest
way to getting this whole business resolved would be to tell them everything
candidly.
"I don't know," he replied simply. "I don't remember anything about it."
The news didn't seem to take Fairfax by surprise. But of course he would
already have known enough to have expected that. "Do you know who I am?" he
asked, looking at Jarrow strangely. He raised a hand in a brief, dismissive
gesture. "Do you know these people . . . or these surroundings, where you
are?"
"From what I've been told, I presume this is the Pearse military
psychological laboratories," Jarrow replied. "I don't know if I've been in
this office before. I imagine that you're the director here, Raymond Fairfax."
Jarrow inclined his head to indicate the others. "This looks like Dr. Nordens,
whom I know I've dealt with. . . . I'm sorry, I can't place you."
"This is Jerry Tierney," Fairfax said. "He's in charge of security operations
here." Tierney returned a faint nod.
Nordens shifted his posture and looked at Jarrow, -intrigued. "Who told you
these things?" he asked. "What's the last thing you do remember?"
Jarrow took a moment to collect his words, and then began relating his story.
He described his last recollection of visiting Valdheim in April, then told of
Page 149
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
waking up in Atlanta with no idea of how he got there; his journey back to
Minneapolis, discovery that it was November, and confusion on learning that
Richard Jarrow was dead; of going to Chicago and the subsequent events there
after meeting Rita. "I realize now that what happened was a misunderstanding,"
he said. "Your people were merely taking precautions, as they had to in the
circumstances. There wasn't any violence or shooting or anything like that.
The problem was my doing, for overreacting."
"Where did you go after you evaded them?" Nordens asked curiously.
"Some friends of Rita's put us up for the night, in -another part of
Chicago."
"Do you have their names or the address?" Tierney asked.
Jarrow hesitated. He didn't see how that could be useful. "No, I'm afraid I
don't. It didn't seem important."
"Carry on," Fairfax said.
Jarrow told how he had learned from Rita that the day before he awoke in
Atlanta he had apparently been functioning as Warrant Officer Tony Demiro, who
had been connected with certain work going on at Pearse, and that this was
Demiro's physical body. Finally, he described how they were contacted by
Pipeline, the meeting with Josef, and the two days that followed in the house
somewhere outside the city. The people from Pipeline were looking for a [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]