Out of the Sun (19 page)

TWENTY-SEVEN

Harry did fall asleep in the end, just as day was breaking. Breakfast, along with substantial tracts of Ohio and Indiana, passed by in a drowsy haze and alertness only returned when the conductor announced they would shortly be arriving in Chicago. Stumbling out into the echoing maze of Union Station with a parrot-cage mouth, a fuzzy head and a sandpaper chin, he somehow managed to locate the taxi rank and mumble his destination before sitting back to blink at the glaring blue sky, the muffle red pedestrians, the ice-limned storm drains and the sunlight flashing off the tower block walls.

The John Hancock Center was a black-steel giant at whose fat-girdered feet Harry was in due course delivered. The lift rushed him to the top, which was as busy and panoramic as Hackensack had promised. Retreating into the bar as far from the dazzling view as possible, Harry ordered a beer and commenced sizing up the solitary females as surreptitiously as he could for one that might be Donna Trangam. There were not many candidates, but one blond-haired woman in a grey suit and pink blouse looked across at him with what seemed like significant deliberation before putting a cigarette to her mouth and flicking at a lighter with ostentatious lack of success.

"Can I help?" asked Harry, strolling across to her table, glass in hand, at what he judged to be a casual pace. "Matches never let you down." He took the box with Hackensack's number written on it from his pocket and rattled the contents.

Thanks," she said, accepting the light. She was older than Harry would have expected, quite a bit older than David, with a hardness to her features that fear might have solidified. Her high-fashion suit and chunky jewellery were far from the blue stocking stereotype. Perhaps, he supposed, that was the point of them. "It's good to know there's one man left in Chicago who hasn't kicked the habit."

"Actually, I've only just arrived."

"That sure isn't a Midwest accent."

"Mind if I join you?"

"Not at all. I'm feeling kinda lonely."

As Harry sat down, she turned slightly in her seat to face him, crossed her legs and smiled coolly. "Where you from?"

"England. I'm Harry, Donna."

"Pleased to meet you, Harry."

"You've spoken to Woodrow today?"

"Pardon me?"

"Woodrow."

The only other man I've spoken to today is my shmuck of a husband. Soon to be ex-husband. That's if you count him as a man. Which I'm not sure I do."

In the same instant that Harry realized he had made a ghastly mistake, a movement caught his eye on the far side of the room, by the windows looking west across the city. A slim dark-haired woman, dressed anonymously in jeans, trainers and a multicoloured brushed-wool sweater, raised one hand in cautious recognition. She did not smile. Indeed, there was a purse-lipped look of puzzlement on her face that assumed a tinge of irritation as he met her gaze.

"Glad to hear you're not a Chicagoan, Harry. I've had it with the men of this city. Too damn smooth for my liking. There comes a time when a girl needs something rough to scratch her back on. Wouldn't you say?"

Harry's mouth sagged open as the ironies of the situation reverberated inside his head. She was a good-looking woman, smartly turned out and eager for company. His company, amazingly enough. And rather more than company, if he read the signs correctly. As the studiously sensuous manner in which she drew on her cigarette convinced him he did. It was the fulfilment of a lifelong fantasy. Or it promised to be. Unfortunately, he had waited forty years to be picked up by a glamorous middle-aged nymphomaniac only for opportunity to knock just when he could least afford to seize it.

"My name's Carmen, by the way. Like the opera. It was my mother's favourite. It appealed to her passionate nature."

"Which you inherited?"

"Matter of fact, I did." As she spoke, she applied a carmine-nailed forefinger to a minor itch somewhere high on her thigh, flicking up the hem of her skirt in the process. "What line of business are you in, Harry?"

"No kind." He took a deep regretful breath. "I've just been released from a lunatic asylum."

She smiled nervously. "You're joking."

"If only I were."

That's, er, kinda surprising." She eased back in her chair and tugged the hem of her skirt down towards her knee. "How long .. . were you in there?"

"Thirty-six years." He saw her jaw drop. "Oh, there's my daughter. She's waiting to take me home. You'll have to excuse me."

"Sure," said Carmen, nodding numbly.

Harry picked up his beer and walked slowly across to the window, letting a shudder of deprivation come and go. As he reached Donna Trangam's table, she rose to meet him. A slightly built woman of thirty or so, with bobbed brown-black hair and a pale peaceful face in which eyes as dark and rich as teak glistened behind small gold-framed glasses, she frowned reproachfully and murmured: "What the hell were you playing at?"

"Telling a goose I didn't like golden eggs. Not much of a game, I can assure you."

"You were supposed to be careful."

"I had to settle for being good instead. My mother would have approved."

"Let's get out of here."

"Suits me."

"I'll meet you by the elevator."

Harry returned to his original table by a semi-circular route that avoided any possibility of eye contact with Carmen. There he plonked down some money for his beer, grabbed his coat and bag and headed for the lift. Donna was waiting by the doors in a short red coat and black beret. The simultaneous departure of a lunch party meant she and Harry could say nothing to each other then or during the descent, even though they were jammed together in a corner of the car. In the circumstances, Harry thought it best to stare fixedly at the floor indicator.

Eventually, they reached the ground, where Donna led Harry out by a side-exit into the teeth of a cold blast of Lake Michigan air. "We don't have long," she said. "Certainly not long enough for stunts like that."

"It wasn't a stunt."

"I spoke to Woodrow this morning. He told me about Torben. He also told me about your trip to Poughkeepsie. That was a stupid thing to do."

"You reckon so?"

"What I reckon is that I should never have responded to Torben's message if your behaviour so far's any guide. He was probably killed because of you."

"I don't think so."

"But do you think at all? That's the question."

"Listen to me!" Harry snapped, grabbing her by the shoulder as anger flared up at the memory of all he had so far endured on account of this woman and her friends. "I didn't ask to be your bloody carrier-pigeon. I didn't ask to become involved in any of this. Since I am, and since whoever's fault it is it damn well isn't mine, I'd be grateful if you didn't treat me like a student who's handed in a shoddy essay. I'm sorry about the woman in the bar. It was a mistake. I make them from time to time. I imagine you do too. Otherwise you wouldn't be in such a mess. Would you?"

"No." The cool logician and the frightened loner met in her sudden wincing admission of weakness. "You're right, of course. I'm sorry. It was She broke off and turned abruptly away. For a moment, Harry thought she might burst into tears.

"I'm sorry too," he mumbled. "I didn't mean to upset you."

"The news about Torben was a terrible shock. I don't think I've quite taken it in yet. We thought we'd outwitted them. We thought we were safe for as long as we needed to be. Then this. And then something else."

"What else?"

"Your smile when you went over to that woman's table. I can't tell you. It was so ... so ... very like .. ."

"David's?"

"Yes."

"I am his father."

That's another thing I'm having trouble taking in."

"Me too."

She looked back at him and shaped a hesitant smile of her own. "You have something to tell me, Harry. Why not get on with it?"

"It's a little .. . complicated."

"I'm a scientist. I'm used to complexity."

"All right. But can't we go somewhere warmer?"

"Somewhere even colder would be safer. There's a beach two blocks north of here. In this weather, we'll have it to ourselves.

No chance of being overheard."

"No chance of being heard at all if I'm too cold to speak." "Then walk as fast as you talk. You look as if you could use some exercise."

TWENTY-EIGHT

It had taken an hour and several aimless miles of lakeshore walking for Harry to relate the events and discoveries that had led him to Chicago. Sustained by chain-smoked cigarettes and Donna's remorseless questioning, he had doled out every fact and supposition he held in his mind. Now, cold, hungry and drained of secrets, he sat beside her on a low wall enclosing a harbour side esplanade, staring out vacantly into the clear blue distance while traffic roared by on the expressway behind them and the skyscrapers to north and south kept up a looming vigil like some gathering of respectful giants.

"So David and Torben betrayed us," said Donna, as neutrally as if confronting a scientific proof.

"It seems so."

"For that foolish dream of theirs." She shook her head and briefly closed her eyes. "How sad. Yet how predictable. I should have guessed."

"Why?"

"Because of the part it played in David and me breaking up. He wanted so badly to prove he was right and I was wrong. I suppose this must have seemed an opportunity too good to miss."

"You broke up over a scientific argument?"

"Partly. A fundamental difference of professional opinion doesn't do much for a relationship. He wouldn't back down, wouldn't admit his theories could be flawed in any way.

He wouldn't compromise at any price." Her chin drooped. "That used to make me mad as hell."

"I don't think he or Torben saw it as a betrayal."

"No. But we can all devise a justification for our actions if we try hard enough, can't we? They thought they knew better than the rest of us. Well, where judging Byron Lazenby's character is concerned they were wrong. Push him and he pushes back. Play dirty and he gets his retaliation in first. That's the kind of man he is." She paused. "The murderous kind."

"What will you do now?"

"Go back to Makepeace and Rawnsley and discuss what they think we should do. It'll be a joint decision."

"Where are they?"

"A long way from here. A long safe way."

"But what do you think? About the tape."

"I think we'd have to be pretty desperate to pin our hopes on half a chance of recovering it and less than that of finding enough on it to make a case against Lazenby." A moment passed before she added: "And I think we are pretty desperate."

"You're sure Lazenby's behind this?"

"I'm sure. Forget Carl Dobermann. He's just some poor mad guy on the run. I expect David's questions stirred up a lot of memories he'd have been better off forgetting. David never has let anyone else's needs stand in the way of his crusader quest. Believe me. I'm an expert on that side of his character."

"Torben took it seriously."

"Yes. And look where it got him."

"You didn't see his body. I did. There wasn't a mark on him. Just as there wasn't on David. How was it done?"

"I don't know. But I know how it wasn't done. Higher dimensions don't exist in a way the human mind can manipulate. They aren't there. You can't reach out and touch them. For heaven's sake She bent her head back and sighed in a slow release of impatience. "I used to have this argument with David. And it never got us anywhere. God, I was still having it the very last time we spoke."

"When he phoned you from the Skyway?" She frowned at him in surprise. "It was on his bill. A long call, evidently."

"Long and pretty incoherent. He wanted to expound his latest hyper-dimensional theories, whereas I She sighed, impatience mixing with her regret. There was nothing in his manner to suggest suicidal depression. Absolutely the reverse. He seemed .. .

unnaturally exuberant. Full of how exciting the future was going to be. Not in the least curious about me. Which only made me more determined not to listen. If I'd known .. ." She shook her head. "I thought later he might have got so caught up in his theorizing that he took an accidental overdose."

"But you don't think that now?"

"What I think, Harry, is that your son was chasing an illusion. While something much more solid and threatening was chasing him." She sighed again. "Do you know what the essence was of our findings for Project Sybil? Hunger. Plague. Sterility. Social disintegration. Economic collapse. Global catastrophe. People talk about such things every day as generalities. But this was a detailed point-by-point explanation of why and how it'll happen if we go on as we are. Lazenby believes us. That's the amazing part of all this. He thinks we're right. But he doesn't care. He wants to tell today's clients what they want to hear about tomorrow, not what they need to know. He isn't trying to suppress our findings about the future of the world because he thinks they're extreme or alarmist. He's trying to suppress them because they can be used to prove Globescope is a corrupt organization. It's his commercial reputation he's worried about. And the irony is that we wouldn't much mind if his reputation survived unscathed, so long as we could publish our predictions. It's incidental. But it's become the crux of the whole thing. And now ... either he goes under ... or we do."

Then you have no choice but to try for the tape."

"Not true. We could remain in hiding and stick to our original plan. Reassemble Project Sybil nut and bolt, then publish and be damned. They've no idea where we are. Nobody could have followed you from Copenhagen given the precautions we took. And Woodrow's certain nobody got on the train at Albany after you."

They might have seen me get on."

"Not good enough. You could have got off at any one of a dozen intermediate stops. You could be anywhere from Syracuse to Sandusky. How would they know?"

"All right. But I still think '

"I'll tell you what I think, shall I?" She turned her head to look at him, her eyes wide and appraising. "I think you want this over and done with quickly, in the hope that I'll be able to go back to England with you and wave a magic wand over David." Now she had said it he knew it was true. Preposterously frail as the hope was, it was the one he had been clinging to. Not just because David represented his last chance of the only kind of immortality life has to offer a stake in the next generation but because, if David did recover, it would be partly thanks to Harry. The father David had once turned his back on would have come to his rescue.