Assassins Have Starry Eyes (4 page)

Larry said, “Isn’t that a rather weak theory? I can’t imagine a sensible man with sound scientific training just throwing up his career because of a sentimental impulse—”

“You’d rather believe he’s a communist? What’s sensible and scientific about that?” Jack demanded. “And what has scientific training got to do with it, anyway? Scientists get scared just like anybody else, don’t they? I know several people, some with sound scientific training and some without, who’ve got estimates on bomb shelters for their back yards in the past few years. Some have even laid in stocks of canned goods, just in case. And the only reason more aren’t doing it is that they feel it probably won’t do any good… It reminds me of a song we used to sing in college.” He hummed the tune.
“I went to the rock to hide my face, and the rock cried out: no hiding place, there’s no hiding place down here.”

Everybody was quiet for a second or two. It seemed about time to break this up. I said, “Who’s replacing Justin at Los Alamos?”

Jack didn’t move at once; then he looked at me in a bemused sort of way. “What? Oh, why, nobody, as yet. We’re clearing with Strohmeier for the time being. Not that there’s much to clear until we get the go-ahead from Washington.”

Ruth stirred uneasily. “This conversation is getting too serious,” she said, “and Greg’s had enough of us, anyway. Larry dear, let’s let them have their Christmas Eve in peace. Come on, Jack, you’re having dinner with us, remember?”

It took them a while to get their wraps. I watched the three of them go out the door together, Ruth in the middle. It gave me an odd feeling of watching a movie I had seen before—Jack was spending as much time at their place nowadays as I used to do some years before. Well, it was none of my business. Natalie waved good-by to them, closed the door, and let her party face slip.

“My God,” she said, “you certainly know a bunch of grim people, darling.”

I said, “We can’t all be scintillating.”

She grinned abruptly. “I’m sorry. I’m supposed to be good, aren’t I? Your friends are wonderful, darling, simply wonderful. I just adore them. Where the hell’s my drink got to?” She found it and came over to perch on my chair. I put my arm around her. She leaned back comfortably against my shoulder and said lazily, “You’re supposed to be in bed.”

I said, “Is that a prescription or a proposition?”

“Don’t talk big,” she said. “You’re not
that
well.”

I sighed. “Unfortunately, you’re right. I couldn’t get excited over Jayne Mansfield tonight, let alone a skinny little thing like you.”

“You’d better be careful. You might hurt my feelings. Who was Fischer, darling?”

“I’ve told you about him. I worked with him in Washington for a while, setting up the Project. That was before I met you.”

“What happened to him?”

“You heard what Jack said. He committed suicide off a sailboat six or seven months ago.”

“And then you get shot. And then Louis Justin disappears. All people connected with the Project.”

I said, “Old Dr. Fischer had been growing a conscience for years. Any time you tried to get sense out of him you’d first have to listen to his deep thoughts about the moral aspects of what we were doing. Weren’t we usurping powers God had intended to reserve for himself? That routine. Personally, I figure that God’s big enough to keep His secrets secret as long as He wants to. But it’s a common disease in the profession. Even Jack’s got a mild case; you heard him tonight wanting to slip away to a peaceful tropical island where nobody ever heard of an atom. Fischer had it bad. I wasn’t too surprised when I heard what had happened.”

Natalie glanced at me oddly. “You don’t give the poor guy much sympathy, considering that you worked with him.”

I said, “Princess, when a bunch of guys all have to face up to the same question, there’s not going to be much sympathy for the man who cracks. He just makes it that much tougher for the rest. I get pretty damn tired of these spare-time philosophers of doom. Nobody ever invented anything important yet, in any field, that didn’t create problems in other fields. The universities are lousy with social scientists; Washington is lousy with politicians. It’s their problem; let them solve it.”

“And what,” she asked quietly, “if they can’t?”

“Then,” I said, “it’s just going to be very, very tough, that’s all. And the human race will suffer a setback of unpredictable dimensions because the so-called experts in human relations were too damn busy bickering about their childish political theories to keep up with the concrete facts handed them by us experts in physical relations. And I’m not going to fall off a sailboat because I did my job better than some other guys did theirs.”

Natalie laughed. “That’s what I love about you, darling, your humble and modest attitude.” She drained her drink, set it aside, got up, and pulled the blanket off me. “Time for bed,” she said. “I promised Dr. Barnett I’d look after you.”

I got up. “Is that a new dress?” I asked.

“Uh-huh. Corny, isn’t it? You can’t buy anything but teen-age junk in this town.” She grinned. “I mean, isn’t it a darling little number; they have the most wonderful selection of clothes in this marvelous town…” Her voice trailed off. She looked at me for a moment. “Damn it, it’s nice to see you standing on your feet, you big bum,” she said. “You know, you don’t have to rape a girl to show affection. Just a kiss will do—for the time being.”

SIX

I SPENT MOST of the winter practicing the tricks of digesting simple food and walking around the house. Never having been wounded or critically operated on before, I was surprised how long it took for my strength to return. Finally I was promoted to a less restricted diet and permitted to stroll around the neighborhood and ride in the car with Natalie to the local shopping center and even, presently, downtown. Even this adventure palled after a while, and I started yearning for some work to do—an unusual condition for me. Unlike many of my colleagues, who live and breathe only for their research, I have never really been sold on the merits of hard work. I can take the stuff or leave it alone. But in my weakened condition there was nothing more interesting to do.

However, I was caught in a tug-of-war between Dr. Barnett, who wouldn’t hear of my setting foot on the Project before the first of April, and Van Horn, who wouldn’t consider relaxing his regulations enough to let me work at home. He said that electronic eavesdropping devices had been perfected to such extent that he would not be able to guarantee security short of tearing down the place and building it over again. So I spent the time cleaning my guns—the police had returned the .270 badly finger-marked but fortunately nothing rusts in that dry climate—and overhauling my camping gear, reading books and listening to records, and having Natalie drive me out for fresh air whenever the house started driving me completely nuts.

One pleasant afternoon she talked me into using her little car for one of these excursions. Before she got it—as a gesture of independence the day before setting off for Reno—I thought I had this sports car business licked. The little ones were MG’s and the big ones were Jaguars. Now I had to start all over again. This was something called a Triumph, of British manufacture. With the top down, it stood about knee high; it was fire-engine red; and it had ninety horsepower distributed among four cylinders, an eighty-eight-inch wheelbase, a thirty-two-foot turning circle, and a weight of about eighteen hundred pounds stripped and dry. I knew all about it because she left the descriptive brochure on the living room table the day she left me. The vehicle was capable of a hundred and twenty-four miles per hour in racing trim. The pamphlet didn’t say why anybody would want to go that fast.

“The top is called the hood,” she said as we went into the garage. “But it’s too nice out to put it up today. The hood is called the bonnet. The trunk is called the boot. It runs on petrol and you spell the tires with a ‘y.’ Get in and hang on… Not like that,” she said as I stuck half way. “Don’t try to walk into it. First sit down on the seat, then pull your legs up and swing them inside.”

I followed instructions while she took a bright silk scarf from the pocket of her coat and tied it over her hair; then she got in beside me. It was quite a ride. In theory I disapprove of any piece of machinery designed wholly for speed on the highway, but the thing was obviously fun to drive and she looked cute driving it. We came back after dark, well wind-blown, to find the phone ringing. Natalie went across the room, pulling the scarf off her hair, to get it while I was closing the front door. She stuck her head back a moment later, saying:

“It’s Larry. He says he’s been trying to reach you for an hour. He… they want you at the Project right away. I told him it was against Dr. Barnett’s orders, but he says it’s an emergency.”

I said, “Okay. Give me the keys of the Pontiac and tell them to clear the car through the gate so I don’t have to walk from the parking lot.” Normally, only official vehicles are allowed on the Project.

She said, “At least let me drive you.”

I shook my head. “It’s easier this way. Van Horn wouldn’t let his own mother on the place without getting official clearance, which takes about six months. This way I can drive right up to the door.” I grinned. “Hell, that glamor-buggy practically drives itself. I’m a big boy now, Princess; I’ll be okay. Tell them I’m on my way.”

To get to the Project, you go a certain distance out of Albuquerque in a certain direction. Presently you come to a stretch of desert fenced in like most of the country around here with an ordinary four-strand barbed-wire fence. Like practically all fences in the southwest—destroying any illusions you may have entertained about western hospitality—this one is liberally hung with unfriendly signs: NO TRESPASSING, NO HUNTING, NO WOOD HAULING. I think that if Mount Everest were located in this portion of the United States, Hillary and Tenzing, upon reaching the peak, would have been greeted by a large sign reading: KEEP OFF—THIS MEANS YOU!

After following the fence a certain number of miles, you come to an opening protected by a cattle guard—a western invention consisting of a number of rails laid across the road over a shallow trench. Vehicles can negotiate this kind of open-work bridge, but stock won’t try it for fear of getting their hoofs caught between the rails; so it serves the purpose of a gate without having to be opened and closed for each passing car. While bouncing over this guard, you’ll see another sign: PRIVATE ROAD—KEEP OUT!
Johnson Land and Cattle Co.
The name isn’t Johnson, of course, but never mind. The road is gravel and fairly rough. It leads back among the dry and barren foothills, out of sight of the main highway, and runs, finally, past a large, paved parking lot and up to a gate in another fence, this one of steel mesh twelve feet high topped by three strands of barbed wire on a slanting bracket. At this point a Marine guard with a gun steps out of a little house and asks where the hell you think you’re going.

Beyond him you see a number of low government buildings—government architecture has an unmistakable look—and that’s all you’ll see, and all I am permitted to tell you. If you want to know more, ask any waitress in any restaurant in Albuquerque. She’ll have more dope on it than I do, anyway; I have to go through channels to get my information.

The conference took a couple of hours, and was as productive as most emergency conferences that are called on the spur of the moment by an administrative officer in a big tizzy, before enough data has been assembled to act upon. We finally came to the momentous decision that we had better wait until Jack Bates, who had been flown to Nevada by the Army, got back with some accurate information, and adjourned. I drove home, parked the Pontiac in the driveway, and let myself into the house. The lights were on in the living room, and Natalie was sprawled in the big chair with her glasses on and not much else: she was wearing one of those abbreviated nighties that come equipped with little pants, and need them. She looked about ten years old.

I said, “That’s a hell of a costume for a married woman. You look like Shirley Temple.”

She sat up quickly, startled. Absorbed in her book, she had not heard me come in. Then she grinned. “That shows
your
age,” she said. “I’m younger than she is.”

“What are you reading?” I asked.

She glanced at the cover of the book and shrugged. “Just brushing up on how to save the world,” she said. “All it needs is one or two little changes in human nature, it says here.”

She took off her glasses and laid them aside, shivered slightly and reached for the short white terry-cloth robe she had thrown off. “It was hot in here while the fire was going,” she said. “I didn’t realize it had burned down so far. How did your meeting go?”

I shrugged. “We accomplished the usual amount of nothing.”

“Trouble, darling?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Who was there, or shouldn’t I ask?”

“Shouldn’t ask,” I said. “The Director was there; I’ll tell you that much. He was very happy. He loves trouble, as long as it happens to somebody else.”

“To you?”

“Oh, no,” I said. “He wouldn’t like that. It might reflect back on him. No, I’m in the clear. In fact, I’m apt to come out of this very well.” I hesitated; but there are times when you have to talk to someone. “You see, Princess, somebody in Washington didn’t like a few recommendations I made in my last report. Apparently that’s what’s been holding things up for the past six months. When they hear things they don’t like in Washington, they have a routine they go into. First they decide that the guy who gave the unpalatable advice must be a subversive bastard, or he wouldn’t say unpleasant things like that. And then they look around for somebody who’ll give them the answer they want. Well, it’s never hard to find a man who’ll tell a Senator what he wants to hear. Only now it turns out that I was right after all.”

She looked relieved. “Then you should feel very good about it, darling.”

I nodded. “Sure,” I said. “I feel swell about it. I just love to have a hundred and sixty-three men die to prove me right. Good night, Princess.”

“Greg!”

I looked back. “They tested it, Princess,” I said softly. “I told them we didn’t know enough yet, but they tested it anyway. It wiped out Northrop and his whole crew. That’s very confidential information, so don’t tell anybody I told you. Just how they’re going to keep a hundred and sixty-three families from learning papa’s dead…!” I drew a long breath. “Good night, Princess. I’ve got a date with a nightmare.”

I went down the hall to my room. Early in our marriage we had discovered that, both being temperamental and used to privacy, we got more sleep and family harmony by occupying separate rooms except on special occasions. Natalie, therefore, had the big master bedroom adjoining the bathroom; while I used the smaller of the two rooms across the hall for sleeping, and the larger as a combination gunroom, trophy room, and study—it also was supplied with a studio couch so that it could serve as guest room when needed. My bedroom was fairly bare; I had resisted all Natalie’s efforts to have it decorated. I don’t like to feel that I’m part of an artistic composition when I’m trying to sleep. I got out of my clothes and into pajamas, went into the bathroom and took a one-and-a-half-grain Nembutal—all the propaganda against barbiturates notwithstanding, there’s nothing like a sedative when you really need to sleep—and went to bed. I lay there for about an hour before the pill went to work.

Then there was this red light flashing in the middle of the instrument board and with each flash the warning bells would scream throughout the building and everybody else was running away but I couldn’t move a muscle. I woke up sweating. The light was on and Natalie was bending over me.

“It’s Larry on the phone again,” she said.

I said, “If the wires blew down, he’d die of frustration. What does he want now? Incidentally, what’s the time?”

“Twelve-thirty. He wants you to come over.”

“Over where?”

“His house. Jack’s there. Larry says he’s in bad shape. Drunk or something. Larry wants you to talk to him.”

I said, “Do you mind driving me? I’m full of Nembutal.”

“Don’t be silly,” she said. “I’ll be ready as soon as you are.”