Luther, not the lobox. The lobox is just doing what comes naturally-and what you've taught it to do in order to survive.'
'You consider me a monster because you have a romantic, overblown notion of the value of human life, Frederickson,' Luther said in the same soft tone. 'Politicians and professional soldiers certainly don't; people in charge of developing and manufacturing weapons don't. Governments, including the United States, have been testing the effects of weapons systems on their own civilian populations for some time; the politicians and the Army sent soldiers into radioactive areas of the Nevada Proving Grounds to test the effect of radiation on human tissue; the CIA once tested a bacteria-laden aerosol spray in the New York City subway. Of course, you wouldn't consider the wholesale slaughter of whales, porpoises, rhinos, and elephants as outrageous, would you?'
'Hey, Luther, I'll match my contributions to the Audubon Society and Save the Whales against yours anytime. We're talking something different here.'
'It's only different in your mind. I have been forced to use human test subjects-but I, at least, have chosen them discriminately. I have loosed loboxes to hunt men who are themselves hunters and pride themselves on it. I chose my subjects carefully and haven't inflicted harm on a whole population. You know, there's a school of thought that says the real reason atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not to win the war, which was already won, but simply to see what would happen. The scientists who'd built the weapon, and the politicians who'd approved the vast sums to finance it, couldn't bear the thought of not seeing, in the real situation for which it was intended, just what they had wrought. Not only did the CIA test sprays in New York City, but they secretly financed so-called researchers who doped up unsuspecting psychological patients with LSD and other mind-altering drugs. The list goes on and on. Hundreds of weapons research programs are going on at any given moment, all over the world, and any number of civilians will die as a result of that testing. So spare me your naivete and outrage.'
'You seem to be implying that you're working under the auspices of the United States government, or think you are, maybe under the wing of the CIA. Is that the story, Luther?'
'I'm saying that you're a fool if you think this is some rogue operation run by mad scientists. There are very powerful interests, in this country and around the world, which have always been keenly interested in research projects like this one.'
'Luther, just how much are you and your daddy going to charge your killer customers for one of these damn things?'
Luther stiffened. 'What do you know about my father?
'It's not enough to own one, though, is it? Somebody's going to have to handle the damn thing and then carefully prime it for a specific assassination victim. Are your services part of the sales package with each lobox?'
There was the loud click of a gun being cocked somewhere in the darkness behind me. The lobox reacted, getting up off its haunches, backing away a step. Growling.
'Don't say any more, Luther.' It was the elder Zelezian's deep, rich baritone. 'You've already said quite enough. I do believe you're looking for Dr. Frederickson's respect. You're wasting your time. It was you who mentioned my reverse breeding program. Stop giving him information.'
Luther flushed slightly, stepped back a pace. Arlen Zelezian moved forward into the dim light, a few feet off to my left. He was still wearing his suit, and still looked like an actor ready to step on some stage as Abraham Lincoln, always on call. He too held a cocked Magnum aimed in the general direction of the lobox, but he seemed less attentive to the animal than Luther- probably because he knew his son was on guard for him.
'You've somehow gained a great deal of information about me and my operations, Frederickson,' he said, staring at me intently with his coal-black eyes. His deep voice echoed slightly in the empty tent. I stared back into the eyes, which I now noticed were curiously blank, with less life in them than in the golden eyes of the creature he had conjured up from the past. 'Considering your reputation, I suppose that shouldn't surprise me. In your tenaciousness, there is much of the lobox in you. How did you discover that Luther and I are father and son? Who are you working for?'
I said nothing, desperately trying to think, to calculate whether it was to my advantage or disadvantage for Arlen Zelezian to think I had been tracking him, or for him to know how much I actually knew or was merely guessing at. I couldn't come up with an answer, and I found it depressing to think that it probably didn't make a difference anyway. Harper and I had some serious trouble, and I couldn't see how any amount of fast talking was going to get us out of it. Still, I knew I was going to have to try; I figured I had about as much chance of surviving hand-to-claw combat with a lobox as I did of catching a bullet between my teeth.
Arlen Zelezian continued, 'Why did you tip your hand by showing up here earlier, Frederickson? Who else knows, or suspects, what we're doing?'
Plan A.
'Look, Zelezian, your boy here said you'd just about finished your field tests and are ready to close up shop and go home with your pets. This 'werewolf killings' thing has to be wearing a bit thin. No matter whose auspices you're working under, sooner or later somebody else besides Nate Button and me is going to tumble to the fact that the reason the werewolf can't be found is that it's sleeping and traveling with your circus. Kill us, and you're likely to find there's more heat coming down on you than you can handle. Maybe you should close up shop right now- tonight-and get back home to Switzerland while you can. Let Harper go, and keep me as a hostage to ensure her silence while you're packing and en route. Then I'll tell you what you want to know.'
'Don't be silly, Frederickson. We can't do that.'
'Try this one, Mr. Zelezian,' Harper said tersely. 'Keep
Zelezian ignored her. 'Who are you working for, Frederick-son? Who is it that seeks to interfere with my business?'
Plan B.
'Let's negotiate.'
'But you have nothing with which to negotiate.'
'Wrong. You want to know what I'm doing here, where I got my information, who I may have been reporting to, and why my hypothetical employer should want to know your business. You may think nothing of using human beings as test victims in your experiments, but somehow I don't think you're into killing for the sake of killing- especially if it could be bad for business. I guarantee you that killing us will be bad for business. Miss Rhys-Whitney is a member of a very wealthy and influential family, and I'm not exactly your average midwestern farmer. You and I both find ourselves in what might be described as an uncomfortable situation, but I say we can make an arrangement.'
'What kind of an. . arrangement?'
'First, you've already determined that a lobox can be trained, with deadly consistency, to do what you want it to do. There's no need for any more testing-and I still can't understand why you've kept at it so long. So pass on Nate Button-the man who was wearing that safari jacket.'
'That may not be possible,' Arlen Zelezian said carefully.
'Because he made the link between the lobox and the circus and came snooping around? So what? He's been touting the case for a lobox from day one, and nobody's taken him seriously. How much more evidence could he have had than the hair and saliva samples? Did he actually see something here? The man is considered a crackpot, even in academic circles. Nobody will pay the slightest attention to anything he has to say. I don't know whether you've already got him on ice somewhere, or simply know where to find him, but there's no need to kill him. There's no reason now to kill Harper and me. We have no proof of anything, and we'll keep silent about what we know-as long as you take yourself and this whole insane operation out of the country.'
The elder Zelezian's thin lips curled back in a sneer of contempt. 'You'll say nothing?'
'You have my word on it.'
'I agree,' Harper said evenly, squeezing my arm in what I took to be a gesture of encouragement.
'You expect me to believe that?'
'Why not? If you know so much about me, then you know that I keep my word. It may piss me off to see you murderers get away, but I have to live with a lot of things that piss me off, and it's a bargain I'm forced into in order to save our lives. Bear in mind also that the value of this particular bioweapon decreases radically in proportion to the amount of information that leaks out about it. Kill us, and I guarantee that lots of people are going to be on your
