told Tibbot about these things.
Henry Tibbot was very tall and very lean, and seemed to be made of wires joined together with scraps of flesh and transparent skin. He had a better scientific mind than Adam and stronger nerves. 'You're reacting the way all criminals act,' he told Adam. 'It's normal. Every time there's a knock on the door I think it's the Feds.'
'And if it is one time?' Adam Gresse asked.
'Keep your mouth shut until the lawyer comes,' Henry Tibbot said. 'That is the most important thing. We would get twenty-five years just for writing the letter. So if the bomb explodes, it will just be a few more years.'
'Do you think they can trace us?' Adam asked.
'Not a chance,' Henry said. 'We've gotten rid of anything that could be evidence. Christ, are we smarter than them or not?'
This reassured Adam, but he wavered a bit. 'Maybe we should make a call and tell them where it is,' he said.
'No,' Henry said. 'They are on the alert now. They will be ready to zero in on our call. That will be the only way to catch us. Just remember, if things go wrong, just keep your mouth shut. Now, let's go to work.'
Adam and Henry were working late in the lab this night really because they wanted to be together. They wanted to talk about what they had done, what recourse they had. They were young men of intense will, they had been brought up to have the courage of their convictions, to detest an authority that refused to be swayed with a reasonable argument. Though they conjured up mathematical formulas that might change the destiny of mankind, they had no idea of the complicated relationships of civilization. Glorious achievers, they had not yet grown into humanity.
As they were preparing to leave, the phone rang. It was Henry's father. He said to Henry, 'Son, listen carefully. You are about to be arrested by the FBI. Say nothing to them until they let you see your lawyer. Say nothing. I know -'
At that moment the door of the room opened and men with guns swarmed in.
CHAPTER
10
THE RICH IN America, without a doubt, are more socially conscious than the rich in any other country of the world. This is true, of course, especially of the extremely rich, those who own and run huge corporations, exercise their economic strength in politics and propagandize in all areas of culture. And this applied especially to members of the Socratic Country Golf and Tennis Club of Southern California, which had been founded nearly seventy years before by real estate, media, cinematic and agricultural tycoons as a politically liberal organization devoted to recreation. It was an exclusive organization; you had to be very rich to join. Technically, you could be black or white, Jewish or Catholic, man or woman, artist or magnate. In reality there were very few blacks and no women.
The Socrates Club, as it was commonly known, finally evolved into a club for the very enlightened, very responsible rich. Prudently, it had an ex-deputy director of CIA operations as head of security systems, and its electronic fences were the highest in America.
Four times a year, the club was used as a retreat for fifty to a hundred men who in effect owned nearly everything in America. They came for a week, and in that week, service was reduced to a minimum. They made their own beds, served their own drinks and sometimes even cooked their own food in the evening on outside barbecues. There were, of course, some waiters, cooks and maids, and there were the inevitable aides to those important men; after all, the world of American business and politics could not come to a stop while they recharged their spiritual batteries.
During this weeklong stay these men would gather into small groups and spend their time in private discussions. They would participate in seminars conducted by distinguished professors from the most famous universities, on questions of ethics, philosophy, the responsibility of the fortunate elite to the less fortunate in society. They would be given lectures by famous scientists on the benefits and dangers of nuclear weapons, brain research, the exploration of space, economics.
They also played tennis, swam in the pool, had backgammon and bridge tournaments and held discussions far into the night on virtue and villainy, on women and love, on marriage and adventure. And these were responsible men, the most responsible men in American society. But they were trying to do two things: they were trying to become better human beings while recovering their adolescence, and they were trying to unite in bringing about a better society as they perceived a better society to be.
After a week together they returned to their normal lives, refreshed with new hope, a desire to help mankind, and a sharper perception of how all their activities could be meshed to preserve the structure of their society, and perhaps with closer personal relationships that could help them do business.
This present week had started on the Monday after Easter Sunday. Because of the crisis in national affairs with the killing of the Pope and the hijacking of the plane carrying the President's daughter and her murderer, the attendance had dropped to less than twenty.
George Greenwell was the oldest of these men. At eighty, he could still play tennis doubles, but out of a carefully bred courtesy did not inflict himself on the younger men who would be forced to play in a forgiving style. Yet, he was still a tiger in long sessions of backgammon.
Greenwell considered the national crisis none of his business unless it involved gr~4in in some way, for his company was privately owned and controlled most of the wheat in America. His shining hour had been thirty years ago when the United States had embargoed grain to Russia as a political ploy to muscle Russia in the cold war.
George Greenwell was a patriot but not a fool. He knew that Russia could not yield to such pressure. He also knew that the Washington-imposed embargo would ruin American farmers. So he had defied the President of the United States and shipped the forbidden grain by diverting it to other foreign companies, which relayed it to Russia. He had brought down the wrath of the American executive branch on his head. Laws had been presented to Congress to curtail the power of his family-held company, to make it public, to put it under some sort of regulatory control. But the Greenwell money contributed to congressmen and senators soon put a stop to that nonsense.
Greenwell loved the Socrates Club because it was luxurious but not so luxurious as to invite the envy of the less fortunate. Also, because it was not known to the media-its members owned most of the TV stations, newspapers and magazines. And also it made him feel young, enabled him to participate socially in the lives of younger men who were equal in power.
He had made a good deal of extra money during that grain embargo, buying wheat and corn from embattled American farmers and selling it dear to a desperate Russia. But he had made sure that the extra money benefited the people of the United States. What he had done had been a matter of principle, the principle being that his intelligence was greater than that of government functionaries. The extra money, hundreds of millions of dollars, had been funneled into museums, educational foundations, cultural programs on TV, especially music, which was Greenwell's passion.
Greenwell prided himself on being civilized, based on his having been sent to the best schools, where he was taught the social behavior of the responsible rich and a civilized feeling of affection for his fellowman.
That he was strict in the dealings of his business was his form of art; the mathematics of millions of tons of grain sounded in his brain as clearly and sweetly as chamber music.
One of his few moments of ignoble rage had occurred when a very young professor of music in a university chair established by one of his foundations published an essay that elevated jazz and rock 'n' roll music above Brahms and Schubert and dared to call classical music 'funereal.'
Greenwell had vowed to have the professor removed from his chair, but his inbred courtesy prevailed. Then the young professor had published another essay in which the unfortunate phrase was 'Who gives a shit for Beethoven?'
And that was the end of that. The young professor never really knew what happened, but a year later he was giving piano lessons in San Francisco.
