Infiltrator

'I bet you tried to run the project yourselves, didn't you?' the CEO asked.

'I wouldn't know that.' Tricker pushed his case aside and looked up with guileless eyes.

'You did, didn't you?' Colvin smacked his hand down on the table. 'Son of a bitch! I knew it!' He grinned and shook his head. 'You tried it and you couldn't do it, could you? You found out that you needed us.'

Tricker smiled amiably and shrugged.

'So,' Tricker asked, clasping his hands over the open file—'you've been here for a couple of weeks; how's it working out, gentlemen?' He looked at them both with great interest.

The president and CEO exchanged a look of exasperation. Obviously their liaison wasn't in a communicative mood.

'I feel like I'm being watched all the time,' Warren said resentfully. 'Like every time I take a dump, someone somewhere is measuring it.'

'This facility has that capability, Mr. Warren, but unless we see what appears to be drug abuse, I don't think we'll be using it.'

Colvin and Warren goggled at him.

'Anything else?' Tricker said more seriously.

'Are you kidding?' Colvin asked.

'No.' Tricker sat back and looked at them, waiting for an answer to his question.

The two executives looked at each other, then turned back to their adversary.

'The air quality is a concern,' Colvin said after a moment. 'There have been complaints about it affecting allergies, and people are commenting on the smell.'

Tricker looked at him for a moment, his chin cupped in his hand.

'Really?' he said at last.

'Yes,' Warren answered with exaggerated patience, 'really.'

'That's interesting.' The liaison sat forward. 'Because this facility is fitted with more efficient air scrubbers than your old facility had.' His eyebrows went up. 'I did notice a trace of ozone in the air, though. I'll have it checked for you.'

'If that's the case, then why are people having allergy problems?' Warren asked.

'Maybe it's because going from near-zero parts per million of pollutants to the great outdoors is a hell of a wallop for the human system to take,' Tricker looked at them and shrugged. 'Anything else?'

'Do we have to be underground?' Colvin asked. 'I find it disturbing to be… in a buried facility.'

'Well, it's a lot safer, don't you think?' Tricker's blue eyes moved from one to the other. 'Look,' he said, sitting forward and spreading his hands, 'I know you think of that corner office with the windows as being one of the perks of your position. But after what happened I'd think you wouldn't want to be working in a fishbowl. Haven't you boys ever heard of high-powered rifles?'

Warren and Colvin exchanged a glance from the corners of their eyes.

'I just don't like being here,' Warren said. 'I don't like being watched all the time.'

'What makes you think you're being watched?' Tricker asked, looking

fascinated.

'You just told us you could measure…' Warren waved his hands helplessly.

'Hey, I told you we could but we weren't.' Tricker leaned back. 'I really must say I didn't expect this attitude from the man who instituted urine testing for all employees and job applicants.'

Warren glared at him, while Colvin examined the ceiling.

'Look, boys, could we drop this child-of-the-seventies thing you've got going here, along with the knee-jerk, antigovernment response to the idea of our involvement? Has it occurred to you that you're letting your prejudices run away with you?' He looked a bit hurt. 'We are not spying on you. Hell, you're inundating us with jargon-filled reports on this and that. Who has time to spy on you?'

Leaning forward, he folded his hands in front of him and looked at the two men steadily. 'If you'll recall, Mr. Colvin, Mr. Warren'—the pale eyes flicked from one to the other—'you came to us. You found this amazing stuff stuck in your factory and you needed a huge shot of money to develop it. You didn't want to risk offering it to one of your larger competitors in a partnership deal because you'd seen too many smaller companies get devoured that way. And you thought that if we heard about it we just might confiscate it for the sake of national security. Besides, you figured you'd need a customer with real deep pockets eventually.' Tricker spread his hands and widened his eyes. 'So who else were you going to turn to?'

The two businessmen looked away.

'Knowing how fickle businesses can be, we naturally insisted that you sell these items, now missing,' Tricker said with deadly emphasis, 'to us outright. But—

we contracted to allow you to be the exclusive developer of this find.'

He looked at them as though waiting for some response; he got none. After a moment he continued. 'Now, suddenly, you think you've sold your soul to the devil. Well, poor you!'

Tricker got up and began to pace. Warren and Colvin glanced at one another, and then stared at their liaison morosely. Tricker turned and stared back at them.

'So, what evil things have we done to you? What we've done, gentlemen, is to provide you with a secure, safe, state-of-the-art facility, at the taxpayers' expense.

'And despite the fact that our material has been stolen or destroyed because of your lousy, bungling security, we haven't demanded one red cent of compensation. Which shows how incredibly greedy and evil we are.'

He stopped and glared at the executives.

'You jerks came knocking on our door. You volunteered, fellas. Now we're just trying to protect our considerable investment. You could have said no, you know.'

'And how could we have done that?' Colvin inquired with quiet sarcasm.

Tricker spread his hands. 'How could you have avoided all this, you ask? By giving us the material you sold to us and any work you've done on it. In other

words, you could have said no simply by saying no. You still could.'

He glanced back and forth between them. 'So, are you finished having your little tantrum, or do you want to waste some more time here?'

Colvin grimly examined the table before him, a muscle jumping in his cheek.

Then he looked up at Tricker. 'Why did you want to see us?'

'Finally. Well, gentlemen…' Tricker sat down again and tidied some papers in his file. 'How's the search coming?' He looked at them like an eager student waiting for approval.

The two men looked puzzled.

'For the security manager?'

Colvin and Warren just stared at him.

'We're on a military base buried underground,' Warren said at last. 'Why do we need a security manager?'

'Why?' Tricker raised his brows. 'Because you do, that's why. This is your company and you've already lost a major part of your material; we expect you're desperate to preserve the rest of it. So, shall I find someone for you?' His expression had become hard. 'I don't want to impose, but I'm going to have to insist that you take care of this immediately.'

'What, exactly, is the big rush?' Warren asked impatiently.

Tricker referred to his file. 'Well,' he said, looking up, 'this guy you're hiring.

Kurt Viemeister?'

'That's a good hire,' Colvin said aggressively, pointing to the file. 'We've been negotiating that for a while now.'

'The guy's an Austrian national,' Tricker said evenly. 'And this is a top-secret project.'

'He was twelve years old when his family emigrated to the U.S., for Christ's sake,' Colvin said. 'Besides, he's a naturalized citizen; Austria is just a memory for this guy.'

Tricker's exasperation was plain. 'Yeah, yeah. Have you looked into his background at all?'

'He's a genuine prodigy; he finished high school at fourteen, got a full scholarship to USC, and his master's and doctorate at MIT before he was twenty-two,' Colvin continued. 'He's the foremost authority in the world on