Memoirs Of An Invisible Man (18 page)

When I came up to him, the Colonel was speaking by radio to the men in the building. I looked back and saw that they had formed themselves into a human ladder, Clellan standing on Tyler’s shoulders and Morrissey on Clellan’s. Morrissey was grappling above his head, trying to pull himself up onto the edge, while Tyler at the bottom tried to brace himself so that the weight of the men above him would not push him around and up the opposite side. There was a little pool of blood floating between Tyler’s feet at what must be the bottom of the cavity; all around there were translucent red smears in the air; and the clothing and faces of all three men had become blotched with stains as they crawled over the surface of the cavity. The three of them, extended in sequence, belly out, formed a dramatic human arc in midair, as if they had been frozen in flight as they swung out suspended from a trapeze.

“Have you got it?” the Colonel was saying. “Good. Can you get Tyler out yourselves? … I’ll come over if you need me, but I prefer that we stay spread out if possible… How is he?”

I hesitated uncomfortably. I knew I should get on with this — the longer I delayed, the worse my chances became. But even under the best of circumstances it is awkward striking up a conversation with a stranger, and the circumstances here were grotesquely poor in every respect. Anyway, I wanted to know how Tyler was. I couldn’t hear the answer. I hoped he was not dying. Looking back, I saw that Morrissey had managed to struggle out of the pit and that Tyler had slumped back down to the bottom of the cavity, where Clellan was bending over him.

“All right,” the Colonel continued. “I’ve alerted the medical people. Get him into the ambulance and out to the gate as fast as you can and come straight back. Until something further happens, we’re going to try to keep working here. Gomez will keep himself locked inside the van. If anything happens to me or the van, stay spread out and try to get to the gate as best you can. We’d like to get him alive, but if you’re attacked, you’ll do whatever is necessary. And Morrissey? … When you’re taking Tyler out through the gate, be careful. Our first priority is to make sure this person doesn’t leave the area unless he’s under our control.”

The Colonel unhooked his headset and pushed it into his side jacket pocket. He lifted a portable telephone as if to dial a number, then paused to watch as Morrissey unrolled a spool of black electrical cable into the pit.

This seemed like a good moment to speak. Or rather it was not a good moment — there was no possibility of a good moment now — but it was as good a moment as I was likely to see.

“Hello,” I ventured.

He gave a start, more a massive twitch. That one time I did startle him.

“How are you?” He spoke slowly, still trying to take in the situation. Then he offered his hand.

“How are you,” I returned. The extended hand was an embarrassment. There could be no question of letting him take my hand.

“Very well, thank you. My name is David Jenkins.” When I did not respond, he went on. “Is there anything you need immediately? We’re here to help you.” His soft, insinuating, always earnest voice was composed now. He withdrew his hand slowly. As he spoke, his eyes were carefully searching all around for some visible sign of me. The grass was thoroughly trampled where we stood, but I nevertheless kept myself absolutely still. I was five feet away from him and a little to one side.

“There’s nothing, really. Thank you. I just wanted to talk to you for a few minutes — to try to work something out. By the way, I’m sorry for whatever trouble I’ve caused.”

He waved his hand as if to dismiss whatever insignificant inconvenience I might have created.

“Particularly shooting Tyler,” I went on. “I didn’t—”

“It was our fault as much as yours. I’m afraid we’ve handled the situation badly. The important thing now is to get you the attention you need immediately.” He raised his telephone as if to dial.

“Just a moment!” I said hurriedly. “I really don’t need any attention. That’s what I want to talk to you about. I think it would be much better not to involve anyone else in this.”

His finger paused in midair and did not dial. His eyes continued scanning the area for some clue to my exact location.

“I just want to get some medical personnel in here,” he said. “We owe you an apology: we should have had them here right along. Sometimes I think we place too high a priority on security. But now that we have you here, the important thing is to get you looked at right away.”

“That’s really the problem, isn’t it? I mean getting me looked at. It doesn’t seem likely to come to anything. Anyway, I’m feeling remarkably well, everything considered, and I absolutely don’t want—”

“We have to have you examined immediately by qualified physicians.” His voice was silken. His hand remained poised over the telephone.

“I’m not sure a physicist wouldn’t be more useful than a physician. Probably no one would be very useful when you come right down to it. But if any health problems arise, I have a very good man in the city—”

“We would want specialists for your condition.”

“I don’t suppose they’ve had time to develop specialists for my condition, have they? Although, once I went to my doctor
he
would be the specialist for my condition, wouldn’t he?” I knew that this conversation was taking a wrong turn, but I did not seem able to stop it.

“There’s no reason why you shouldn’t have your own doctor on the medical team. Why don’t you give me his name, and we’ll get him out here right away. You know, I sense that you’re apprehensive. After what you must have been through, it would be surprising if you weren’t. But I just want you to understand that we’re here to help you. We’re going to do everything for you that’s humanly possible.”

He formed his features into what was surely meant to be a warm and reassuring smile. It was a smile which — with no human visage available to which it could be directed or from which a response could be elicited — seemed to perish quickly from exposure.

“I appreciate that very much,” I said in a firmer tone, “but I want you to understand that I’ve already decided I don’t want any help. All I want—”

“By the way, I don’t know your name. What
is
your name? Mine is David Jenkins.”

There was something compelling about his voice, so that, caught off guard by the question, I felt trapped into answering and said the first thing that came to mind.

“You can call me Harvey.”

I had in my mind the image of a gigantic, invisible rabbit standing next to Jimmy Stewart, and the moment the name was out of my mouth, I regretted it. No point in antagonizing him and making him more mistrustful. But Jenkins, however intelligent he may be, is always absolutely literal.

“Well, Harvey, I know that the last twenty-four hours must have been incredibly painful and disorienting for you, and no one in the world could blame you for any uncertainty or misgivings you might feel, no matter how irrational. But beyond that, Harvey, I sense that you’re in some way particularly apprehensive about us, which is also understandable, and it might be useful if I told you a little bit about who we are and what our responsibilities here are. We’re concerned with coordinating the collection, analysis, and synthesis of information — and beyond that, and more importantly perhaps, with the distribution of information throughout the various strata of governmental and quasi-governmental entities.”

“You mean intelligence?” I offered helpfully.

There was a pause before he continued.

“I hesitate to use the word ‘intelligence,’ Harvey, because for so many people it conjures up an image of double agents and microfilms and assassinations, and while there is unquestionably a place for field work in intelligence gathering, it is important to understand that ninety-nine percent of the results come from the laborious analysis of newspapers and periodicals.”

I said nothing, but as I watched Clellan expertly knotting the cable around Tyler, I tried to visualize Clellan, Tyler, and Morrissey sitting at desks, poring over Russian scientific journals.

“Every society, even a free society —
especially
a free society — has to make provisions to gather and protect the information necessary for its own survival, and that’s really all we’re concerned with. Now, as it happens, my own background is primarily scientific, and, probably as a result of that, most of my career has been devoted to scientific intelligence and security. But the thing I want you to understand is that there is nothing whatever political about our work.

“We know, of course, that you probably came here to participate in a political demonstration, and I just want you to know that we’re not uncomfortable with that, and there is certainly no reason for you to be uncomfortable. We’re here to help you, and we don’t care what your political beliefs are. Although I’ll tell you, Harvey, I think it might turn out that you and I have a great deal more in common than you might at first imagine. For one thing, the people who go into government service — whether it’s intelligence or anything else — have every sort of political belief you can imagine, but there’s one thing they all have in common: they aren’t motivated by financial gain or private personal greed, or they wouldn’t be there. Whether you agree or disagree about any particular point of policy, these are people who are working for their country, for the good of society as a whole; they are people who have made a commitment to serve something beyond their own personal interest.

“Just so,” I said agreeably, although uppermost in my mind at the moment was my own personal interest in getting past the fence. “I absolutely agree with you — in a general sort of way, at least. By the way, my political views are quite a lot more moderate than you probably think.” It seemed a good idea to offer some reassurance on this point. “Extraordinarily moderate, in fact—”

“But you did come here with the Students for a Fair World?”

“Well, yes, of course.” I did not want to throw him off that false track, because, although he might be less inclined to trust me if he thought I was one of the demonstrators, it would slow down the search for me if I ever got out. “All power to the people, is my feeling.” What exactly did these people believe? “From each according to his abilities; to each according to his needs,” I tried. I rejected “property is theft” as too strident and “I like Ike” as inappropriate. “But within that context, I believe in working responsibly within the system for gradual change… As a matter of fact, I was very much interested in what you were saying about government service representing one kind of commitment to something beyond personal interest.”

“Exactly,” he returned, clearly pleased at having evoked a positive response and eager to build on it. “I would have to say that the real reward of working in the public sector is the opportunity to get beyond the petty greed and selfishness that seem to permeate so much of our society. And I suspect that’s something you can respect, Harvey, just as I can respect the fact that when you came out here you were acting out of a commitment to do something to bring about a better world, rather than just benefit yourself. And you’ve paid a terrible price for your commitment. A terrible price.”

I had the impression that he would normally have liked to be looking earnestly into my eyes when he delivered these sentiments. As it was, he could not even be sure exactly which way to face, much less how I was responding, and if I failed to answer him promptly, he had to wonder whether I was still there. It must have made the dialogue difficult for him.

“It’s as you say,” I offered. “Whatever happens to me, I want to be sure that I do the right thing here. I’m trying to think this through. It seems to me that I suddenly have a unique opportunity to be of service to the world.”

“Well, that’s right, Harvey. However horrible this may be for you, it puts you in a position to make an extraordinary scientific contribution to humanity, and frankly, I admire—”

“Well, yes, of course there is science and so forth. But I want to make sure I don’t spread myself too thin, so to speak. Actually, I was more interested in what you were saying about the importance of intelligence for the preservation of a free society. You and I have to be sure that we make the most of the circumstances we find ourselves in, that we take advantage of each other’s particular abilities and qualifications. It seems to me that you and I should be figuring out how we could most usefully work together. I should be working with you as some sort of intelligence agent, don’t you think?”

His brow furrowed and his lips pursed, but he said nothing.

“The more I think about it, the more obvious the whole thing becomes,” I went on. “You’ve maintained extraordinary secrecy here, given the spectacular nature of what’s taken place. No one but your men here knows I exist, and even they wouldn’t have to know anything about our future relationship. Of course, I would have to rely totally on you for guidance. Without you I wouldn’t have a clue what to do or for whom. I probably couldn’t even survive. But with your direction we could have access to virtually any information, anywhere. I don’t know anything about intelligence, but the possibilities seem almost unlimited. What you said about serving something beyond our own personal interest really struck home. I can see that this is my opportunity to be of service, and I mustn’t let it pass me by.”

“It is,” he said very slowly, “one possible way we could proceed.”

“I’m really very lucky that someone like you happened to be in charge here, David, someone I can work with, because the key to the whole thing is that you will be the only person who knows of my existence. Otherwise, they could probably guard against me fairly easily. But this way you will simply be someone with extraordinary access to information. I imagine that in your line of work it’s not altogether unusual to refuse to disclose your sources. Of course, the situation would entail quite a burden of responsibility for you. You would be put in a unique — in an awesome — position in the intelligence community…” (I seemed to remember that it was referred to as “the intelligence community” in newspaper articles, although I doubted that it had many of the usual attributes of a community.) “With you functioning as my control — isn’t ‘control’ the term you people use? — we would be virtually omniscient. As I think about it, the whole thing seems very exciting. And, as you say, rewarding.”