Shadow of a Broken Man

he led us into a locked private elevator, which took us to the top floors of the building.

Lippitt was looking more unhappy and distracted by the minute. I didn't trust him. More important, Elizabeth Foster didn't trust him, and I knew why: if Lippitt had his way, the Fosters probably would have been squirreled away someplace else, as incommunicado as if they'd stayed with the Russians. As far as Mike Foster's wife was concerned, Lippitt was but one of several enemies.

Elizabeth Foster was walking around under her own power now, but she never moved an inch from her husband. She was pressed against him, one arm wrapped tightly around his waist.

The elevator door sighed open and we stepped into an apartment that I assumed was Rolfe Thaag's. Sunlight was streaming in through a bank of windows that reached from floor to ceiling and offered a giddy, panoramic view of Manhattan. It was going to be a hot, cloudless day. Somewhere out in that day, the vast resources of many armies were being marshaled: We were into the end game.

A telephone rang. Tal disappeared for a few moments into an adjoining room. When he returned, his face was ashen. 'Rolfe Thaag has had a heart attack,' he said in a low voice as he came close to me.

'Jesus.'

Tal shook his head. 'He's being taken care of in a private clinic. He's expected to recover, but he can't be disturbed. I think it's best if we don't mention it to the others.'

Across the room, Mike Foster blinked back tears. 'I just want you to know… I just want to thank all of you.'

'He's alive,' Elizabeth Foster said distantly in a voice that could barely be heard.

The room was suddenly very still. I wasn't sure I'd heard her correctly. She turned to her husband and repeated it. 'He's alive. Victor is alive, darling.'

Lippitt wasn't facing the window, but his eyes were half-closed, as if to shut out some bright light only he could see. He suddenly shifted his gaze to me, and our eyes held.

'How do you know, Mrs. Foster?' Tal said gently.

'He called.' She slowly looked around the room at all of us. Her eyes were wild, drugged with horror. 'They told us he called.'

'It's true,' Foster said, stepping into the center of the room. 'I don't think they were lying; they were too damn happy about the whole thing. They said Rafferty was going to turn himself in this morning.' He paused, touched his forehead. 'Christ, I hope he knows we're out of there.'

'I'm betting he knows,' I said directly to Lippitt.

Tal slowly shook his head. 'It could be a phony. Something the Americans cooked up to buy a little time.'

'No,' Lippitt said. He looked pale and shaken. A single drop of perspiration had appeared in the center of his forehead. He made no move to wipe it away as it ran down into his eyebrow. 'The Russians must have voiceprints.'

'How?' Foster asked.

'From the last time. Radio, television. Rafferty was a celebrity, remember?'

'You insisted you'd killed him,' I said to Lippitt.

The American agent looked through me as if I weren't there, then abruptly wiped away the streak of moisture on his forehead and walked to the window.

I turned to the woman. 'Mrs. Foster, what did your husband know?'

'Know?' Her voice was faint, like a frightened child's. Her violet eyes, paler now in the daylight, slowly came into focus on my face. 'What do you mean?'

Tal put his hand gently on Elizabeth Foster's elbow. 'You and your husband should sleep now. Try to rest. You can talk to us when you wake up, if you want to.'

Elizabeth Foster swallowed hard; her words came in a forced whisper. 'It's starting all over again.'

I pressed. 'What, Mrs. Foster? What's starting all over again?'

Lippitt suddenly turned from the window. 'Mrs. Foster, I am going to ask you not to say anything. This is a matter of national security. Does your husband know anything?'

'I don't know beans, pal,' Foster said, clenching his fists. 'And I don't like your tone of voice. I've got a funny feeling you're the son-of-a-bitch who started this whole thing.'

'No, Mr. Foster,' Lippitt said evenly. 'Whoever hired Frederickson to investigate Rafferty is the person responsible for what's happened. Was that you?'

Foster blanched and looked away from his wife's startled gaze. 'It was the museum,' he said weakly. 'I had … to find out what it was. I had to find out I love you so much, Beth.'

The woman spat her next words at the bald man standing by the window. 'Why couldn't you just leave Victor alone? That's all he ever wanted!'

'We couldn't do that, Mrs. Foster.' There was real anguish in Lippitt's voice, and it surprised me. 'Others knew about him. If I hadn't gone after him, he would have been found by someone else. Apparently, that's what happened. God knows where he's been and what he's been doing for the past five years.'

Lippitt seemed sincere. If he was telling the truth, it meant the Americans didn't have Rafferty after all.

Elizabeth Foster wheeled around and spoke to me. 'Victor could read minds!' she said in a clear, defiant voice. It was clear that she was punishing Lippitt. Her eyes were smoky now, bursting with memories that had been bottled up and festering for five years. 'He could read minds just as easily as the people in this room can read books and newspapers. It destroyed him.'

Lippitt shrugged in resignation, clasped his hands behind his back, and stared at the floor.

'My God,' Mike Foster whispered. 'But I still don't under …' His voice trailed off.

'You don't have to talk about it, Mrs. Foster,' Tal said soothingly.

She shook her head defiantly. 'I want to talk about it,' she said. 'I thought it was all over. I thought Victor was dead and it would all be forgotten… by everyone except me. When I… saw that picture of the museum, I knew he was alive. I just knew.' She looked at Lippitt with hatred in her eyes. 'He was supposed to be dead! You said he was dead!'

'I honestly thought he was, Mrs. Foster!' Lippitt said. 'I'm still not convinced he's alive; I don't understand how he can be.'

'It was the accident,' Elizabeth Foster said, her voice steadily gaining strength, a small tic in her left eye the only evidence of the tremendous emotional strain she was under. 'A part of Victor's brain was severely damaged. In most people that would mean death, or life as a vegetable. But with Victor… something else happened. Arthur couldn't explain it. The accident didn't debilitate Victor mentally; it just left him with this terrible, growing power, this terrible … energy.'

She started to cry, stifled it. She waved Mike Foster away when he started to move toward her. 'God knows he didn't want the gift,' she continued. 'Victor was not an easy man to understand. His work was his whole life, but I loved him and tried to understand.' Now she paused, reached out, and squeezed her husband's hand. He moved closer and put his arm around her shoulders. 'I suppose I was never really happy until I married Mike,' she said, looking into her husband's eyes. 'But I was terribly proud of Victor, and if our marriage took second place to his buildings, I didn't complain. The point is that all Victor ever wanted to do was design his buildings. After the accident'-she gave Lippitt another hate-filled glance-'that became impossible.'

She heaved a deep, trembling sigh. She couldn't hold back her feeling; it escaped from her in sighs and shudders like air hissing from a balloon. 'I could see the pain in his face,' she continued quietly. 'Apparently there was a great deal of pain associated with the things he could do. He thought he was going mad. He couldn't stand to be physically close to people; that was when it hurt the most. I didn't understand. I thought he was repelled by me. It wasn't that at all; he just couldn't stand to be… close. When he finally did tell me, it was … too late.

'The pain kept getting worse as his powers increased. He didn't know what to do about it, didn't know whom he could go to.' She smiled wryly; it was an ugly, pained grimace. 'He knew instinctively that he shouldn't tell anyone, but he finally went to Arthur when he couldn't stand it any longer. Suddenly, everyone seemed to know. I don't understand how Arthur could have betrayed Victor like that.'