"You're still an important enough guy that I can excuse a delay for a while," Morgan offered. "They can't lean on me too much, seeing that I've got your privacy request. Can't hold them off much longer, though. Especially the feds."
Hawkes rubbed at his eyes, breaking up the tightness pulling at them. He stared at the table for a moment, then looked up, sticking his hands into his vest's side pockets as he asked,
"How long until we get the autopsy reports?"
"Those should start coming in anytime. Why? You got some sort of hunch going?"
"No," Hawkes admitted wearily. "Just grasping at straws." The ambassador paused for a moment, then admitted to at least temporary defeat. "You go ahead and send out what word you have to. Try and tight-band it, though. I don't want the board flooding with reporters any sooner than it has to."
The sheriff moved off to broadcast the report items he had instructed one of his deputies to prepare hours earlier. After he was gone, Hawkes stood up as well. He moved around the kitchen, stretching his arms out, breaking apart the knots in his back. Finally, he stopped at the sink, splashed some water on his face, and went outside.
The sun had started to disappear almost an hour earlier. Heading for the barbecue pit, Hawkes played the night before over in his mind as he had a hundred times already. Nothing he could remember offered him any more clues.
He could see that his people had done a good job throughout the day. Much of the damage from the attack had been minimized, covered up in one way or another. The sight did not cheer him, however. As the hours dragged on, whenever he had come across anything that might have brightened his mood, he remembered Disraeli. The faithful hound's final moments, his last cry, all of it came rushing back to the ambassador with a frightening clarity.
Walking up toward the barbecue pit, he joined his workers who were not on guard duty. It seemed like a thin handful. Too many had died the night before. Too many people had perished, all of them innocent of any crime except for being employees of Benton Hawkes. The thought stirred rage within him. Bad memories slid to the surface, but he violently shoved them back down.
No, he told himself. No. These deaths aren't my fault. Not these. Don't lay this at my feet. I backed off. I left the world and drew my line in the sand..But that wasn't good enough for somebody.
Hawkes moved up to the edge of the fire pit, where nearly two hundred pounds of pork stood by the automatic spit, which had already been set up. The four-yard circle of hot coals sent out a searing wall of heat, keeping everyone back. All of the extra fat had long since bubbled to the surface and dripped away from the freshly slaughtered hog. The roast was as ready as it was going to get, filling the air with the thick aroma of juicy, heavy meat.
"Nice job," Hawkes told his foreman. Then he turned around to the crowd. He held himself rigid for just a moment, then said quietly, "Everyone here knows what happened. We lived and our friends died. Pure and simple. Is that where it ends? No. I don't think so. Not anymore."
The ambassador wiped at his brow. Even several yards from the fire, the heat was still intense enough to be felt.
"I thought I was out of things. That I was just going to retire and take it easy. Somebody else seems to think differently, though. Somebody else didn't want that. Why? I don't know. What they hoped to accomplish— well, I don't know that, either. But I'm going to find out. And we're going to have justice, one way or the other. You mark my words."
Those gathered cheered, their cries spreading far enough to be heard by those on outpost duty. Before the whooping and hollering could die down totally, however, Hawkes spotted the sheriff running toward the pit. Stepping away from the assembly to meet him, the ambassador asked, "Bob . . . what is it?"
"Autopsy reports started coming in. Thought you'd want to see some of these figures."
Hawkes took the printouts from Morgan. He scanned the entries: reticulocyte counts, red blood cell fragility figures, plasma volume, blood and urine electrolytes, protein counts, glucose levels, heart size, bone strength, calcium levels, cardiac output capabilities . . .
"See anything interesting?" asked the sheriff.
"These people . . . it looks like they've all been off-world." Hawkes looked at Morgan, then back to the pages. Eyeing the figures more closely, he asked, "They have, haven't they?" When Morgan merely nodded, the ambassador asked, "How long? What are the estimates on how long they've been gone?"
"Funny, I thought you might want to know that. I told them to check it out. Lab balanced the deterioration levels against a few factors. They said that, you know, you spend a week on a ship, that's as bad as two months on the Moon. Gravity differences and all. But they were able to measure the effects here against a varying timetable, and. . ."
"And . . . ?"
"They figure the corpses all had to have spent the last three years on Mars." Morgan paused, gave the information a moment to sink in. After he could see that it had all sunk in, he added, "They give it a plus ninety-nine that none of them have been back on Earth more than two or three weeks, tops."
Hawkes tried to contain his anger, but could not. Slowly, he began to shake. Fingers, hands, shoulders— the rage bubbling within him for so long finally took over completely, filling him. He hurled the printouts toward the fire. The pages burst into flames before they could even touch down on the coals. And then, without thought or reason, Benton Hawkes turned and followed them.
Marching across the open pit to the roasting pig, he could hear
