the 16os, come from wealthy families, left-wing, marched with the nuclear protesters. These kids have access to classified memorandums. They fit the think-tank profile. They are sitting in their lab up in Boston, working on some government and university project. A couple of months ago they came to New York and a buddy got them laid and they loved it. He was sure it was their first time. A deadly combination, idealism and the raging hormones of youth. Right now I have them sealed off.'
'Do you have any firm evidence?' Christian asked. 'Anything concrete?'
'We're not trying them or even indicting them,' Cloot said. 'This is preventive arrest as authorized under the atom bomb laws. Once we have them, they'll confess and tell us where the damn thing is if there is one.
I don't think there is. I think that part is bullshit. But they certainly wrote the letter. They fit the profile. Also the date of the letter-it's the day they registered at the Hilton in New York. That's the clincher.'
Christian had often marveled at the resources of all the government agencies with their computers and high-grade electronic gear. It was amazing that they could eavesdrop on anyone anywhere no matter what precautions were taken. That computers could scan hotel registers all over the city in less than an hour. And other complicated serious things. At ghastly expense, of course.
'OK, we'll grab them,' Christian said. 'But I'm not sure you can make them confess. They're smart kids.'
Cloot stared into Christian's eyes. 'OK, Chris, they don't confess, we're a civilized country. We just let the bomb explode and kill thousands of people.' He smiled for a moment almost maliciously. 'Or you go to the
President and make him sign a medical interrogation order. Section IX of the Atomic Weapons Control Act.'
Which was what Cloot had been coming to all the time. Christian had been avoiding the same thought all night. He had always been shocked that a country like the United States could have such a secret law. The press could easily have uncovered it, but again there was that covenant between the owners of the media and the governors of the country. So the law was not really known to the public, as was true of many laws governing nuclear science.
Christian knew Section IX very well. As a lawyer he had marveled at it.
It was that savagery in the law that had always repelled him.
Section IX essentially gave the President the right to order a chemical brain scan that had been developed to make anyone tell the truth, a lie detector right in the brain. The law had been especially designed to extract information about the planting of a nuclear device. It fitted this case perfectly. There would be no torture, the victim would suffer no physical pain. Simply, the chemical changes in the brain would be measured to verify that he invariably told the truth when asked questions. It would be humane, the only catch being that nobody really knew what happened to the brain after the operation. Experiments indicated that in rare cases there would be some loss of memory, some slight loss of functioning. lie would not be retarded-that would be un conscionable-but as the old joke had it, there go the music lessons. The only catch was that there was a no percent chance that there would be complete memory loss. Complete long-term amnesia. The subject's entire past could be erased.
Christian said, 'Just a long shot, but could this be linking up with the hijacking and the Pope? Even that guy being captured on Long Island looks like a trick. Could this all be a part of it, a smoke screen, a booby trap?'
Cloot studied him for a long time as if debating his answer.
'Could be,' Cloot said. 'But I suspect this is one of those famous coincidences of history.'
'That always lead to tragedy,' Christian said wryly.
Cloot went on. 'These two kids are just crazy in their own genius style.
They are political. They are obsessed by the nuclear danger to the whole world. They are not interested in current political quarrels. They don't give a shit about the Arabs and Israel or the poor and rich in America. Or the Democrats and Republicans. They just want the globe to rotate faster on its axis. You know.' He smiled contemptuously. 'They all think they're God. Nothing can touch them.'
But Christian's mind was at rest on one thing. There was political shrapnel flying all around with these two problems. Don't move too fast, he thought.
Francis was in terrible danger now. Kennedy would have to be protected.
Maybe they could play one off against the other.
He said to Cloot, 'Listen, Peter, I want this to be the most secret of operations. Seal it off from everybody else. I want those two kids grabbed and put into the hospital detention facility we have here in Washington.
Just you and me and the agents we use from the special division. Shove the agents' noses into the Atomic Weapons Control Act, absolute secrecy. Nobody sees them, nobody talks to them except me. I'll do the interrogation personally.'
Cloot gave him a funny look. He didn't like the operation being turned over to Klee's special division. 'The medical team will want to see a presidential order before they shoot chemicals into those kids' brains.'
Christian said, 'I'll ask the President…
Peter Cloot said casually, 'Time is crucial on this thing, and you said nobody interrogates except you. Does that include me? What if you're tied up with the President?'
Christian Klee smiled and said, 'Don't worry, I'll be there. Nobody but me, Peter. Now give me the details.' He had other things on his mind.
Shortly he would meet with the chiefs of his FBI special division and order them to mount an electronic and computer surveillance on the most important members of the Congress and the Socrates Club.
Adam Gresse and Henry Tibbot had planted their tiny atom bomb, a bomb they had constructed with much labor and ingenuity. They were perhaps so proud of their labors that they could not resist using it for such a high cause.
They kept watching the newspapers, but their letter did not appear on the front page of The New York Times. There were no news items on the subject. They had not been given the opportunity to lead the authorities to the bomb after their demand was met. They were being ignored. This frightened them and yet angered them too. Now the bomb would explode and cause thousands of deaths. But possibly that would be for the best. How else could the world be alerted to the dangers of the use of atomic power? How else could the necessary actions be taken for the men in authority to install the proper safeguards? They had calculated that the bomb would destroy at least four to six square blocks of New York City.
Their consciences were clear; they had ensured in the construction of the bomb that there would be a minimum of radioactive fallout. They regretted that, it would cost a certain number of human lives. But it would be a small price for mankind to pay to see the error of its ways. Impregnable safeguards must be established; the making of nuclear bombs must be banned by all the nations of the world.
On Wednesday Gresse and Tibbot worked in the laboratory until everyone in the institute had gone home, and then they argued whether they should make a phone call to alert the authorities. At the beginning it had never been their intention to actually let the bomb go off. They had wanted to see their letter of warning published in The New York Times and then they had planned to go back to New York to disarm the bomb. But now it seemed a war of wills.
Were they to be treated as children, sneered at, when they could accomplish so much for humanity? Or would they be listened to? III all conscience they could not go on with their scientific work if it was to be misused by the political establishment.
They had chosen New York City to be punished because on their visits there they had been so horrified by the feeling of evil that seemed to them to pervade the streets. The threatening beggars, the insolent drivers of wheeled vehicles, the rudeness of clerks in stores, the countless burglaries, street muggings, and murders. They had been particularly revolted by Times Square, that area so crowded with people that it seemed to them like a huge sink of cockroaches. In Times Square the pimps, the dope pushers and the whores seemed so menacing that Gresse and Tibbot had retreated with fright to their hotel room uptown. And so with fully justifiable anger they had decided to plant the bomb in Times Square itself.
Adam and Henry were as shocked as the rest of the nation when the television screen showed the murder of Theresa Kennedy. But they were also a little annoyed that this diverted attention from their own operation, which, ultimately, was more important to the fate of humanity.
But they had become nervous. Adam had heard peculiar clickings, on his telephone and had noticed that his car seemed to be followed; he had felt an electric disturbance when certain men passed him in the street. He
