"Earl Langston?" he asked. I nodded and followed him to an elevator. We
went up to the third level and then through a maze of aisles and
departments before going out a door that opened on a parking lot.
The policeman led me to an unmarked auto and opened the back door for
me. Two dogs barked at my heels as we walked to the vehicle. I shooed
them off before I closed the door.
I leaned back on the soft cushions with a sigh and set the heavy defense
mech on the edge of the seat beside me, still holding the handle loosely
with one hand.
The motor purred as we moved slowly out of the parking lot and into the
street.
I paid no attention to where we were going. Just breathed another sigh
and closed my eyes. At last, I could begin to relax. In just a few
minutes, now, I'd be safe. I hadn't realized how tense I was. My neck
muscles ached and my stomach slipped slowly from my chest cavity back
down to where it belonged.
It seemed a long time ago that I had abandoned Maxwell to Grogan's
thugs.... What had happened to him since then? How long ago had it been?
Only half an hour? Not much longer, anyway.
Now again I had time to think, and this time I did think. I began to ask
myself questions--to wonder about certain things.
How had Grogan learned Maxwell's wave-band so soon?
What was Grogan doing with a telenizer in the first place, and what was
he up to? Just personal revenge against me?
How did I know for sure that it _was_ Grogan?
That question startled me. I opened my eyes and sat up straight. In
moving so suddenly, my hand knocked over the defense mech and it thudded
to the floor. As I bent quickly to pick it up, it started clicking
again.
Several things occurred to me at once, then, and my stomach wadded
itself into a tight ball and shot up again to press against my heart. My
neck and back muscles tightened.
* * * * *
The first thing that struck me, I think, was that the defense mech had
started clicking _again_. It had been clicking before.... As Maxwell and
I left the bar, the defense mech had begun clicking steadily.
Then--sometime--it had stopped. Probably when I hit Scarface with it.
But I hadn't noticed. And for thirty minutes--closer to forty-five,
now....
There was no particular sequence to the flood of realizations that
rushed my consciousness next and left me feeling weak and shaky.
The desk sergeant had said ten minutes. The policeman had gotten there
in less than five. We were driving, not through side streets toward a
police station, but along a high-speed lane of a main thoroughfare, away
from the city. Two dogs had yapped at my heels. The "police" vehicle was
unmarked--unusual if not illegal.
When I looked at the driver, he was not, of course, a policeman.
He was one of Grogan's bodyguards--the one into whose arms I had thrown
Maxwell not long ago.
He was staring straight ahead at the road, his spread-nosed face
composed. He hadn't noticed anything.
I took a deep breath and leaned back again, half-closing my eyes. But I
did not relax. The clicking of the defense mech seemed thunderous to me,
but if the driver heard it, he gave no indication. Perhaps it would have
meant nothing to him if he did hear it.
I tried to think of the problem at hand, but my mind refused to
cooperate. It kept rushing back to events of the recent past and
demanding reasons and explanations.
When the defense mech faltered and quietly stopped clicking, I was aware
of it this time. My first impulse was to hit it with my hand and try to
make it work again, but I restrained myself.
I controlled my thoughts firmly, holding them tight and shaping them
carefully in my mind before letting them go.
The driver was again a policeman in the gray police uniform. We were
once more driving slowly through city streets instead of speeding along
a highway. Two dogs ran beside the auto, barking--the same two dogs that
I had shooed before I closed the door.
I formed my thoughts: _I know who you are. It's no secret any more. But
why? What are you trying to do?_
There was no reply.
It could mean one of two things. Either he simply didn't want to answer,
or else he wasn't on the machine in person but was playing an
impression-tape on my wave-band. I tried again.
_You're licked, you know. Already you're licked. Even if my call to
Newell was nothing but a telenosis dream--even if no one knows anything
about this but me, you're still licked--_
* * * * *
No reply. None of any kind. I'd expected at least to get a sinister
chuckle, or a flood of horrors. But there was nothing more nor less than
what there had been--the policeman driving through quiet city streets,
and the dogs barking.
Then it was just a recording, prepared in advance. My mind was not being
followed in person. Not right now.
But that was no help and no assurance. I still didn't dare get out of
the car. Or knock the driver over the head and take over the car myself.
At ninety miles an hour, and with a visual impression of moving slowly
along city streets, that would be a sure form of suicide.
Or would it?
Apparently I had no choice but to wait until we arrived at our
destination and then do what I could--which might not be much.
Lord, if I could make another vp call before we got there!
Careful, though. Even with no operator at the telenizer, I had to watch
out for thought leakage. My thoughts were surely being recorded, and
certain kinds of thoughts might trigger automatic precautionary
measures.
I gave the defense mech a hard bang with my hand. It clicked twice. I
got a brief glimpse of the highway flashing past and the lights of other
vehicles.
Then the clicking stopped, and we were back in town, crawling along. I
hit the defense mech again, a series of lighter blows, and it obediently
clicked and this time continued clicking; and we were on the highway
again.
Making an effort to control my breathing and to muffle the sound of my
rapidly pounding heart, I leaned forward and examined the controls of
the auto intently.
There was a phone. Not a visiphone, of course, but a phone nonetheless.
A means of communication. There was also a luminous radar dial that
might or might not mean automatic controls.
Which might or might not be in operation.
I concentrated on the hands and feet of the driver. Neither moved
perceptibly. The course of the vehicle was straight and constant,
though, so that didn't prove anything.
"Hey, where in hell is this police station?" I asked.
With a slight backward-turning motion of his head, the driver replied,
"Almost there. Just a few minutes now."
As his head moved, his hands moved the wheel a bare fraction. The auto
did not swerve.
I took a deep breath and hit the driver on the side of the head with my
doubled right fist as hard as I could. He slumped, and I hit him again.
His hands slid from the wheel ... and the car continued on its course.