Darker Than You Think (6 page)

Bennett
frowned with momentary puzzlement.

"I
can't see why there should be so much fuss about any research
announcement," he said briskly. "But I assure you that you
needn't worry over any possible danger, Mrs. Mondrick. The doctor
appears rather unduly concerned about some trouble—precisely
what, I didn't gather. He has asked me to send for a police escort to
guard his person and his finds until the announcement is safely
made."

Rowena
shook her proud head, as if in fearful scorn of police protection.

"Don't
you worry, Mrs. Mondrick," Bennett insisted. "Your husband
told me what to do, and I'll take care of everything. I'll arrange
for the press to meet him as he steps off the plane. All the
reporters will be searched for weapons, and there'll be police enough
to stop any possible attempt at interference."

"They
can do nothing!" the blind woman snapped bitterly. "Please
go back and tell Marck—"

"I'm
sorry, Mrs. Mondrick," Bennett broke in with veiled impatience.
"But the doctor told me what he wants, and the arrangements must
be made at once. He asked me to hurry—as if he feels there is
danger in delay."

"There
is." She nodded bleakly, clutching the dog's collar. "Go
on!"

The
frowning Foundation man strode on toward the terminal building, and
Barbee fell in step beside him, angling hopefully: "Clarendon's
such a peaceful little city, Dr. Bennett —what sort of trouble
do you suppose Mondrick could expect?"

"Don't
ask me," Bennett rapped. "And don't you try to beat the
gun. Dr. Mondrick doesn't want any premature leaks, or any fantastic
journalistic guesses. He says this is a big thing, and he wants the
people to get it straight. The
Life
photographers
and the AP staffers should be here now, and I'm trying to get a radio
reporter. Everybody will get an even break on the hottest story of
the year."

"Maybe,"
Barbee murmured silently, for he had learned to be cynical about
elaborate press releases. He would wait and see. Strolling through
the terminal building, he glimpsed April Bell's vivid hair in a phone
booth. Nobody in sight looked like her Aunt Agatha, and he reminded
himself to be skeptical of women, too.

He
drank two cups of hot coffee at the lunch counter in the waiting
room; but the chill in him came from something colder than the raw
east wind, and it was still unthawed when a croaking loudspeaker
announced the arrival of the regular airliner. He hurried out to
catch Walraven.

The
airliner taxied on past the dark transport where Mondrick waited, to
stop opposite the terminal building. Two or three businessmen got
off, and a dreamily sedate honeymoon couple. Walraven strutted
heavily down the steps at last, his brassy voice booming impressively
as he told the pert little air hostess about his contacts in
Washington.

Walraven
struck an inflated pose for the
Star
photographer,
but he wouldn't be quoted on anything when Barbee tried to interview
him. Off the record, he was planning a strategy conference with his
great good friend, Preston Troy. He asked Barbee to stop at his old
law office for a drink just any time, but he had nothing for the
record. He tried to push his weak chin out again for the
photographer, and got into a taxi.

Preston
Troy would supply the strategy, Barbee knew, and hire somebody to
write suitable words for the record. The truth about Walraven, as the
empty false front for Troy's own political ambitions, would make real
news. But not for the
Star.
Barbee
let him go and hurried back to Mondrick's transport.

"Mama,
I'm afraid!" He heard the high voice of little Pat Quain from
the uneasy waiting group, and saw her held close in Nora's arms.
"What has happened to my Daddy?"

"Sam's
all right." Nora didn't sound too sure. "Just wait, dear."

Three
police cars had pulled up outside the steel fence. Half a dozen
uniformed men were already escorting the impatient reporters and
photographers toward the huge chartered plane, and two of them turned
to herd back the anxious relatives and friends.

"Please,
officer!" Rowena Mondrick sounded almost frantic. "You must
let me stay. Marck's my husband, and he's in danger. I must be near,
to help him."

"Sorry,
Mrs. Mondrick." The police sergeant was professionally firm.
"But we'll protect your husband— not that I see any cause
for all this alarm. The Foundation has asked us to clear the field.
Everybody except the press and radio people will have to move back."

"No!"
she cried sharply. "Please—you can't understand!"

The
officer took her arm.

"Sorry,"
he said. "Please come quietly."

"You
don't know anything," she whispered bitterly. "You can't
help—"

Firmly,
the officer led her away.

"Please
stay, Mother," little Pat was whispering stubbornly. "I
want to see my Daddy—and I will too know him."

Herself
as pale as the frightened child, Nora Quain carried her back toward
the lights of the terminal building. Mama Spivak uttered a low
wailing cry and began to sob on the little tailor's shoulder. Old Ben
Chittum shook his black pipe in the other policeman's face, quavering
hotly: "Look here, officer. I've been praying two years for my
boy to get back alive from them dern deserts. And the Spivaks here
have spent more than they could really afford to ride the planes all
the way down from New York City. By golly, officer—"

Barbee
caught his indignant arm.

"Better
wait, Ben."

The
old man limped after the others, muttering and scowling. Barbee
showed his press credentials, submitted to a swift search for
concealed arms, and joined the reporters gathered beneath the vast
wing of the transport. He found April Bell beside him.

The
black kitten must have been returned to Aunt Agatha, after all, for
the snakeskin bag was closed now. Pale and breathless, the girl was
watching the high door of the plane with a feverish-seeming
intentness. She seemed to start when she became aware of Barbee's
glance. Her flaming head had turned to him abruptly. For an instant,
he thought he could feel the tense, desperate readiness of some feral
thing, crouched to leap. Then she smiled, her long, greenish eyes
turning warm and gay.

"Hi,
reporter." Her soft voice was comradely. "Looks like we've
got ourselves a page-one story. Here they come!"

Sam
Quain led the way down the gangway. Even in that first breathless
instant, Barbee saw that he had changed. His square-jawed face was
burned dark, his blond hair bleached almost white. He must have
shaved aboard, but his worn khakis were wrinkled and soiled. He
looked tired and somewhat more than two years older.

And
there was something else.

That
something else was stamped also upon the three men who followed him
down the wheeled steps. Barbee wondered if they had all been ill. Dr.
Mondrick's pale heavy face, under the stained and battered tropical
helmet, sagged shockingly. Perhaps that old asthma was troubling him
again, or that trick heart.

Even
very ill men might have been smiling, Barbee thought uneasily, upon
the moment of this triumphant return to their country and their
friends and their wives, with a great work accomplished. But all of
these weary, haggard men looked grimly preoccupied. None of them
spared a wave or a smile for those who met them.

Nick
Spivak and Rex Chittum came down from the transport behind old
Mondrick. They also wore wrinkled, sun-bleached khaki, and they were
lean and brown and grave. Rex must have heard old Ben Chittum's
quavering hail from the guarded group at the terminal building, but
he gave no sign.

For
he and Nick were burdened. They carried, between them, a
green-painted rectangular wooden box, lifting it by two riveted
leather handles. Barbee thought it showed the careful workmanship of
some simple craftsman in a remote village bazaar. Thick iron straps
bound it, and a heavy padlock secured the hand-forged hasp. The two
weary men leaned against its weight.

"Careful!"
Barbee heard Mondrick's warning voice. "We can't lose it now."

Nervously,
the haggard-cheeked anthropologist reached to steady the box. His
attention didn't leave it until the men carrying it were safely down
the steps.

Even
then, he kept his hand on it as he nodded for them to bring it on
toward the waiting reporters. These men were afraid.

Every
wary movement whispered out their abiding terror. They were not
elated victors returning to announce a new conquest at the dark
frontier of the known. They were tight-lipped veterans instead,
Barbee felt, calmly disciplined, moving steadily into a desperate
action.

"I
wonder—?" whispered April Bell, her long eyes narrowed and
dark. "I wonder what they really found?"

"Whatever
it is," breathed Barbee, "the find doesn't seem to have
made them very happy. A fundamentalist might think they had stumbled
into hell."

"No,"
the girl said, "men aren't that much afraid of hell."

Barbee
saw Sam Quain's eyes upon him. The curious tension of that moment
checked his impulse to shout a greeting. He merely waved his hand.
Sam nodded slightly. That desperate, hostile alertness didn't leave
his dark, hard face.

Mondrick
stopped before the waiting photographers, under the plane's long
wing. Flashbulbs flickered in the windy gloom as he waited for the
younger men to close in beside him and set down the heavy box. Barbee
studied his face, revealed by the pitiless flashes.

Mondrick,
he saw, was a shattered man. Sam and Nick and Rex were tough. That
burden of dread, whatever its origin, had merely drawn and sobered
and hardened them. But Mondrick was broken. His weary, unsteady
gesture betrayed nerves worn beyond the point of failure, and his
sagging face was haunted.

"Gentlemen,
thank you for waiting."

His
voice was low and hoarse, ragged. Dazzled from the flashbulbs, his
sunken eyes roved fearfully across the faces before him and flickered
apprehensively toward the waiting people beyond the two policemen,
outside the terminal building. He must have seen his
blind wife there, standing a little apart with her tawny dog, but he
ignored her. He glanced back at his three companions around the heavy
box, as if for reassurance.

"Your
wait will prove worthwhile, because"—and it seemed to
Barbee that his rasping voice was desperately hurried, as if he were
somehow fearful of being stopped—"because we have
something to tell mankind." He caught a gasping breath. "A
dreadful warning, gentlemen, that has been hidden and buried and
suppressed, for the most wicked ends."

He
gestured, with the jerky stiffness of desperate tension.