Summitt

Chapter Fourteen

The silver stars were as much a part of General Adam Taggart as his big raw-knuckled hands and narrowed eyes and sun-browned, weathered features. The proscenium spots glinted on those stars of rank and on his paratrooper boots and four rows of decorations, and on the wide balding head which narrowed sharply above the forehead, somewhat like an artillery projectile.

The general stared out across the unstirring audience, his flaring smile revealing strong, clean teeth.

“South Korea is probably as good a place to start as any,” General Taggart said, “because there was a kernel of something inside those North Korean slopeheads we couldn’t crack.”

Oblivious to a hostile stir in his audience, the general continued with a cool smile. “Starve ’em, freeze ’em, take away their privileges, none of that meant shit to them. On the other hand, give ’em cigarettes, booze or even a kinky Red Cross chick to sack out with, you still couldn’t touch ’em. They were soldiers, by God, sons of the army, and they’d stick a bayonet in you if they got the chance, and die happy with the guards pounding their asses into the mud.

“So we tried drugs on ’em, a mixture of barbiturate and euphoric agents we hardly had names for then.” The general paused there, loose-limbed and as comfortable with his rank as royalty. Taggart was seldom inclined to amuse or defer to his audiences, or excite them with dramatic narrative effects, but he enjoyed the shock he could generate by figuratively changing intellectual gears.

He did that now. “This might be the proper place,” the general observed, “to discuss certain moral issues that were involved in our decision. That was almost thirty years ago, remember. The North Korean POWs had information vital to our security. More than that, we needed that information to protect the lives of American soldiers.

“I am a soldier first, a scientist second, and according to my morality, which is the morality of the battlefield, I believed we had a right to secure that information any way we could.

“So, we began to shoot them full of drugs, experimenting with various combinations until we secured the necessary breakthrough.

“I called that first product developed in our battle-front laboratories a ‘shield,’ because that metaphor seemed to best describe its effects. A shield — the Latin word is ancile — a shield against memory. Ancilia One, our first breakthrough, lowered certain levels of resistance in POWs. Their angers and resolves, the adversary constructs that gave a cohesiveness to their character, even nostalgic thoughts of home and family, all that became shadowed and indistinct, less real and important. Under drugs, they lost their grip on things we could never get at to smash, that kernel of pride rooted in what their country expected of them.

“It was a selective, chemically controlled amnesia which permitted and encouraged those enemy soldiers to cooperate with us. But only up to a certain point. Their reactions to the drug were erratic, we couldn’t predict their responses as accurately as we needed to.

“Ancilia Two, our next breakthrough drug, was, however, a disappointment. Which is a classic understatement because, the sad fact is, it killed thirteen Korean POWs and left a lot of others with permanent brain damage. Unfortunately that fiasco leaked out to the inspector general at headquarters.

“A court-martial was convened in Seoul but we were able to confine its impact and control adverse stateside publicity. The charges ultimately were reduced to theft and insubordination and manslaughter and were limited to a handful of enlisted men and medics.

“Yet what we were up to in Korea only reflected what was happening everywhere else in the world.

“As you’re all aware, intelligence and chemical warfare branches of every major nation have been on crash programs for three decades to find some reliable method of controlling behavior. Call it what you like — brainwashing, mood manipulation, mental straitjacketing, induced chemical delusions, anything else in the way of sensory regimentation they could profit from. Everybody knew what they wanted to do, and they were determined to find a way to do it.

“A man or woman, as you know, no matter how strong or adjusted, no matter how deep the fundamental perceptions and most cherished values — right and wrong, time and space, what is possible and what isn’t — all that can be distorted by even a speck of LSD.

“The Russians are years ahead of the pack, at least judging from their funding and programs, and they’re drooling in anticipation of results.

“Since the Stalin era they’ve been selecting healthy people to send off to labor camps and hospitals to cure their religious and political problems with drugs and electric convulsive therapy. We never needed double agents to winkle that information out. Solzhenitsyn was our Baedeker there.

“At the same time, our own people, CIA, that is, seemed to be doing their asinine best to destroy whatever chance the U.S. Army Chemical Corps had to bridge the generation gap between Ancilia Two and Ancilia Three. They got a dose of publicity about as welcome as a turd in a punch bowl by turning some GIs in France into permanent epileptics with lysergic acid. And compounded that mess by using drugs on draft resisters, civil rights activists, college agitators and even on convicts and enlisted troops in ’Nam and Europe.

“Of course, those same assholes,” the general continued with good-humored scorn, “also wasted tons of money trying to train seals and dolphins to attack enemy subs and coaching plants to talk to each other. In addition, they pumped nerve gas into the Holland and Lincoln tunnels in New York City at rush hour to see how it worked on commuters, and figured out a simple way to kill enemy agents by locking them in airtight rooms with blocks of dry ice. No ice, no evidence. Carbon dioxide did the job.

“Most of these experiements were directed at the young, and that helped spread the use of drugs through every economic level of society and in my judgment was responsible to an important degree for the anarchic counterculture of the sixties.

“But one good thing came out of those freaked-out programs. They clearly demonstrated to Mr. Correll, and to me, that something was crying out for attention everywhere in the world.

“The need was there, the time was right, because a vacuum had been created by a promise of chemical salvation, a promise that in turn had eroded the traditional foundations of psychoanalysis. Patients no longer wanted to spend half their lifetimes talking about why they despised their parents or why they got into sexual rut at the sight of clergymen or booted women or telephone poles or whatever. They were looking desperately for alternative therapy. So they turned to drugs — the new and available drugs — to relieve their anxieties and depressions and mental aberrations.

“A blind, lemminglike rush was on — into primal scream therapy, Rolfing, eastern cults, mantra chanting and drugs of every description. Which told Mr. Correll that the world was not only ready, but eager for the programs of Summitt City. A vacuum existed and it was screaming for somebody and something to fill it.

“We — the Correll Group — heard those cries and began trying to determine exactly what it might be that vacuum was demanding — what it craved. Which led us in turn to take a closer look at how our human brains interpret sensations and regulate our responses to them.”

General Taggart tapped his forehead. “Here we have a brain weighing about three pounds, with a volume of roughly one and a half quarts. It contains more than a hundred billion nerve cells or neurons. But unlike other cells, neurons cannot grow and divide because their physical area is bounded by our skulls. In spite of this immense concentration, neurons — except for a few exceptions — have no physical contact. The space between them is submicroscopic — thousands side by side wouldn’t equal the thickness of an onion skin.

“Chemicals bridge these gaps, carrying messages, alarms, pleasure signals and so forth. For a long time, scientists thought of the brain as an exquisitely tuned and proportioned electrical-chemical instrument or machine, a fabulous computer, in fact. But the brain isn’t a computer, it’s a gland; not electronic circuitry, but endocrine tissue through which the traffic of nerves and impulses are ruled in a not always benign tyranny by biochemical activators and their suppressors.

“These are the neuro-transmitters, the endorphins and the enkephalins, which pop science magazines are now touting hysterically as passports to a chemical Garden of Eden. But they regulate everything we do, in fact, whether we feel happy, excited or ready to blow our brains out. The illusion of free will is probably only an interplay of chemicals in the brain. Anybody using massive doses of tranquilizers knows that. Valium and the rest of them make you unable to express your anger, and if you can’t feel and do anything about rage, you sure as shit can’t change anything else in your life.

“These endorphin transmitters operate on specific receptor sites in the brain and spinal cord — like keys fitting into locks. We’ve used poppies for thousands of years without a clue how they worked. It wasn’t until the discovery of endorphins that we found out that these pretty flowers that poets loved to write about were simply mimics of the brain’s own morphia.

“These internal opiates, the endorphins, are there to monitor and screen out ambiguous, unbearable or destructive information. We’ve used opium, cocaine and alcohol for the same reason and with the same hope since we came down out of the trees. Now we’re learning that the human brain may be a goddamn natural warehouse full of chemicals designed to protect us not only from ourselves but from all the terrors of human experience. It’s just a question of finding the right synthetic chemical to fit the right receptor — the specific key for the specific lock — and releasing substances to create euphoria and guard us against fears and depressions.”

The general bared his strong teeth. “Very neat and tidy, one might assume. But there are contradictions along the way. Information about pain is processed in receptors, call them pain centers or agony switchboards, if you like, that are paradoxically loaded with opiate ‘locks.’

“Other sensory structures, chockablock with opiate clusters, deadening suppressors, remember, are part of the brain’s liveliest pleasure centers. Go figure.”

The general paused to remove a cigar from his olive-drab jacket and strip off the wrapper. After inspecting the green-flecked leaf, he applied a flame to the slender tip with a silver lighter whose sides were studded with miniaturized insignia of units he had commanded.

“The plain fact,” Taggart continued, “is that we simply don’t know how whatever it is we call ‘the mind’ relates to those hundred billion or so neurons that make up our brain. The mind may be an electrical field generated by the brain’s operation. We don’t know.

“But scientists are trying to map the roots of human nature by creating synthetic endorphins that can be fired like magic bullets at specific brain receptors.

“What kind of behavior do we expect those chemicals to activate? What sort of behavior do we want and need from human beings? We can eliminate pain and alcoholism and drug addiction. That’s a plus, certainly. And we know the sites of clinical anxiety and depression, and we’re zeroing in on dozens of new receptors. So good, you say. But once we find them and duplicate their triggering mechanism, we still don’t have any clear idea of what we want or what we’ve accomplished.

“Because we don’t have the slightest notion why those hundreds of unused receptors were plugged into our brains in the first place. Or what they’re there for. Sentinels guarding us from terrors outside this planet? Or further horrors from inside ourselves? I tell you, ladies and gentlemen, I wish to God I knew.”

Blowing smoke toward the ceiling, Taggart smiled at the rows of intent faces below him, brown and white and dusky ovals, eyes glowing with reflected light from the stage.

“Nevertheless, at Summitt City,” he went on, “we’re searching for keys to unlock as many neural receptors as we can find. We haven’t created what you’d expect from lurid magazines, charging bulls brought to a dead stop by somebody throwing a switch in their heads, cats running in terror from mice, men and women driven into sexual frenzies by chemicals ticking their pleasure centers. We haven’t done anything like that. Neither have we created a chemical wonderland. In some Utopia, chemical compounds may control our genetic codes and eliminate most pathology, prolong or shorten memory, eliminate pain, increase pleasure, moderate our aggressive thoughts, just like we use deodorants now. But Ancilia Four only produces manageable and functional human beings. They don’t need Moses and Jesus and Buddha. They’ll never preach brotherhood or go around spreading equality and liberty and freedom. But none of that’s going to be enough, which is why I don’t think a scientific solution to the world’s problems is possible.

“Because with all that input and theory, we still don’t have a good idea what we’re playing around with, which is why I trust my soldier’s instincts first, because they’re programmed to function, not to understand, which is also nature’s way of going about things. Nature creates blindly and without apparent purpose. It kills in the same fashion. The people who frustrate and obstruct nature aren’t soldiers — soldiers do nature’s work without any thought of kindness or cruelty or fairness or justice. Ulysses S. Grant and Stonewall Jackson did more for this country than Abe Lincoln and whoever the hell wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin. One Napoleon or Wellington is worth a whole passel of Pascals and Newmans.”

The general snapped a switch on the control panel and lighted the screen. Life at Summitt City flowed before the audience.

Taggart said, “I’m not convinced there’s time left for gradual adaptation. Mr. Correll hopes there is. As a good soldier, I’m doing my best to prove he’s right.”

The general nodded to the screen. “Initially at Summitt City we created situations which powerfully stimulated defensive mental responses, and then identified and synthesized the chemical shields secreted by our test subjects.

“Our experiments proved the brain is capable of producing chemicals to defend the host organism against damn near anything — the pain of injustice and discrimination, the shock of violent stimuli, hunger, torture and even death.

“To these natural opiates, we added a synthesis of the brain’s natural chemical, serotonin, which is located in the raphe nucleus, buried protectively within the brain system, between the nexus of the corpusbrain and the spinal cord.

“Serotonin neurons are the messengers that bring instructions and warnings to the areas of the brain that control vision and the affective emotions — pity; terror, anger and so forth. While we’re awake, as I stand here blowing smoke at you, and you sit out there looking up at me, those serotonin neurons — automatic sentries — send out chemical signals at the rate of twenty-four per second to tell us that this is happening, that we are not imagining it.

“Serotonin is a reality signal. It validates the evidence of sensory perceptions, certifies that we aren’t dreaming or imagining. If we witness a violent automobile accident, serotonin neurons authenticate the screams of the injured and the flames melting down steel and glass. Police sirens, the stench of smoke — serotonin permits us to react logically to experience. We may run like cowards, or drag the trapped people to safety, but we know goddamn well we are in a real-life situation and can respond accordingly.

“But the exact opposite occurs when we sleep. The flow of serotonin stops and the absence of that reality signal allows us to endure the experience of nightmares. We may be troubled and restless, flail at our bed partners, even have a succubus attend us if we’re lucky, but because the reality signal isn’t ringing, we can get back to sleep.

“Of course,” the general remarked, after blowing a stream of smoke over his audience, “if we thought for one second those nightmare monsters from our unconscious were really real” — he smiled — “insomnia would then become our dearest luxury. Who could sleep if it meant encountering that kind of reality?

“But that consideration led us to the ultimate refinement of Ancilia Four, because what we needed was an element to make our waking horrors as bearable as the absence of serotonin renders the sleep-time monsters.

“In short, Ancilia Four deceives perception by turning off the reality signal when real life threatens to become unendurable.

“For how long?” The general shrugged. “That brings us back to how much time we’ve got left, doesn’t it? Which means it’s up to you people. Ancilia Four is a control mechanism that can keep people in line more effectively than cattle prods and guard dogs or prayer wheels and muezzins and church bells.

“This might be our best and our last chance to take the lunatic’s hand off the nuclear plunger, put a steel bell over Soweto and Lebanon and Belfast and Haifa and Harlem, and squirt it full of an element that will muffle the sounds of the reality signals — for a time.

“But right now,” the general said, his voice suddenly becoming quiet and cold, “as we anticipate a pleasant lunch and a briefing on further details of our program, half the world is starving to death. In India cows and rats are stuffed and fattened while infants die of hunger. In Uganda, life expectancy is under eleven years. On the banks of the Chari, for hundreds of miles, mothers, mere children themselves, live in slime and pollution without milk in their breasts for their dying babies. In South America and Cambodia, there is even a shortage of garbage for the starving. And yet millions of more disadvantaged and unwanted children are born every day. No scientist can solve that problem, nor can any priest or rabbi or shaman.

“All across black Africa, food production is decreasing at the same rate the population is growing. A half billion people in the sub-Sahara regions are facing starvation. The only hunger being satisfied is that for power — by the military and privileged.

“These problems don’t stem only from the Third World. Or from those people that in our good-humored way we call gooks and wogs and slopes and ragheads. No, the western alliance, with America in the van, has chosen to make greed not only a national policy but a national ethic. Every man, woman and child in the United States needs a support system of forty thousand pounds of minerals per year. One hundred thousand gallons of water is required to make one deliberately inefficient automobile. While we escalate the use of energy, the gulags are doing the same thing with human misery. And those forces are now creating a mix of crisis flashpoints all over the world.

“Ancilia Four will control those flashpoints and defuse them for a while. But unless we seize this opportunity to establish some order and sanity, then we’ll hand the job over to the soldiers by default. It’s the work they’re trained and suited for, and by God, they’re eager to get on with it.

“Give me — give any soldier — control of the headwaters of the Kiang, the Niger, the Congo and the Amazon, and with a few hundred thousand pounds of explosives, I’d turn half the world back to sand and gravel and reduce the number of people on earth to decent proportions. That’s one way to do it. Pave Africa, maybe that’s another, from the Med right on down to the Cape.

“Elephants and lions and brilliant spotted snakes would be gone forever, of course, with all those unwanted humans. But we have pictures of lions and cages full of monkeys.

“The solution to a disastrous oversufficiency is one of textbook clarity to the military. Destroy the surplus. That’s the orderly and soldierly way to handle it. Sounds terrible, but the scientists don’t offer us a thing better. Here’s what Andrei Sakharov had to say. After a first military strike by either side and the inevitable response spasm, Comrade Sakharov predicts at the very least the complete destruction of major cities throughout the world. I’ll give you a little chapter and verse in his own words.”

The general removed a sheet of paper from an inside pocket, thrust it before him at arm’s length and began reading: “—an end to all systems of education and industry, a poisoning of fields, water and air everywhere by radioactivity, poverty, barbarism, a return to savagery and a genetic degeneracy of survivors under the impact of radiation, a destruction of the ultimate basics of civilization—”

The general tossed the paper onto the desk of the control panel. “That’s the genius who created the Russians’ thermonuclear weapons system, telling us in horrified tones what we can expect from the megabombs. Didn’t he know what he was doing in his laboratory? Can we believe he was stricken with terror at the results of his work? What the hell did that clever man think would happen when he flipped those switches and loosed the equivalent of lightning bolts inside his test tubes?

“So much for scientists and soldiers, and the governments who jerk them around like puppets.

“You people were selected by Simon Correll and the associates of the Correll Group — Eric Van Pelt, Lord Conestain and Mies Kraager — to implement an alternative to the collision course we’re on with oblivion. Your areas of influence are strategically pivotal, because they spread across the world’s most dangerous social fault lines. Your states are classic amalgams of the modern disastrous mix — right-wing military juntas, left-wing rebels, massive poverty and overpopulation, crime, disease and all the other contemporary ingredients of terminal eruptions — torture, terrorism, genocide. Which is exactly why you’re qualified to receive a franchise for Ancilia Four. I like the irony of that, by God, I do.”

The general was interrupted by a series of delicate chimes from his wristwatch.

“When you control the emotions of your people,” he went on, clicking off the timing device, “you will control everything else they do. That is what our film will demonstrate to you. But before that, ladies and gentlemen, we’re going to break for a glass of something or other and some lunch.”

During Taggart’s briefing, Jennifer and Simon Correll waited in a conference room adjoining the general’s office. Quade brought them coffee and a bottle of Spanish brandy. Logs burned evenly in a corner fireplace and reflections glinted on the wooden frames of parchment maps on the paneled walls. With the rain came the throb of coursing helicopters.

Jennifer said, “Why did you insist I come along, Simon?” The reasonableness in her tone emphasized her exasperation. “I hate places like this, guards and fences and gates. The soldiers are like animals in cages. They’re polite and docile with their ma’ams and heel snapping but their eyes give them away.”

“They probably resent you because you’re out of reach. That’s normal enough.”

“I have the feeling nobody’s been laid around here since, God, I can’t imagine.”

She was seated in a leather chair with wide arms. Her slender legs were crossed on a suede ottoman. The chair was huge, the leather against her shoulders and hips was cold and unyielding. She uncrossed her legs and twisted about to make herself comfortable.

“I just don’t understand, Simon. Are we going to be here long?”

Correll stood looking out at the playing fields, at the gray and misting rains. “Yesterday morning Bishop Waring called me in New York.” He walked to Jennifer and put his hands on her slim shoulders.

She looked up at him. “Is that unusual?”

“My mother isn’t well. That was one reason he called.”

“Simon, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry, she has the best of care.” Correll gently but expertly massaged her neck and shoulders. His probing fingers felt her muscles relax.

Maps glowing in the firelight showed German attack lines in Belgium marked with black-and-red arrows. Others routed ancient Roman marches in England. The cold, spare room depressed her, he knew, that and the rain and the menacing sound of the searching helicopters.

“His Excellency also wanted to tell me,” Correll said, “that one of Lester’s investigators, a Victoria Kim, was at Mount Olivet yesterday. She had a subpoena for my appointment books, correspondence and so forth.”

“Haven’t you been expecting that?”

“Yes, but Senator Lester is moving faster than I thought.” He suddenly pressed his thumbs hard against her neck muscles. “There, that should do it.”

“Oh, yes, yes. Thanks, that marvelous. I don’t know why I’m so jumpy.”

Correll absently stroked her pale, smooth hair, his thoughts turning back to his own problems.

Someone with sensitive information was briefing Lester’s people. The senator had a competent staff, was wealthy, and could afford to buy every variety of “deep throat” that infested Washington and most other world capitals. He could enlist undercover agents if he wanted or needed them, police officials, aides to other committees, spies tucked away deep in opposition offices. But it was more than that, Correll suspected; the penetration and pressure against the Correll Group here and abroad suggested higher echelons. The White House or State, possibly one of their all-purpose so-called advisers.

Last night he had tried to pump Bishop Waring. His Excellency was politically sophisticated, catnip for Washington hostesses, much like the late, charismatic Bishop Fulton Sheen, and with wide government contacts, on easy terms with Ferdinand Bittermank, who worked in low profile for both the Oval Office and State.

But the bishop was no help. He’d been in his most apostolic mood last evening, on a plane far above the trivial and mundane. His concern was only for Correll’s mother’s spiritual welfare. The old woman was probably dying; the trip to eternity must be attended to, forms stamped, bookings confirmed; all of which occupied the bishop’s total attention.

Correll paced in front of the fire and said to Jennifer, “One thing worries me about Miss Kim’s subpoena. Can you guess what?”

She was wearing smoked glasses that were like black mirrors in the firelight. “I haven’t a clue.”

“Her search warrant included your rooms. Any idea what she was looking for?”

Jennifer quickly removed the glasses and looked up at him. “Can they do things like that?”

“Of course they can.”

“But supposing I’d left something personal around. A... gift I’d wanted to surprise you with?”

“Who knows what they’re after? It could be bureaucratic make-work, or a scare tactic. But that’s why I brought you here with me. Even a United States senator couldn’t serve a warrant on you now. I don’t want you surprised by Miss Kim before we have a chance to talk.”

“But what’s there to talk about? It’s unfair to put it like that, I don’t know anything. You’re accusing me of something, whether you realize it or not.”

“I’m sorry. Would you like a brandy?”

“No. Just tell me why you think the senator’s people wanted to search my rooms, and why they’d want to talk to me.”

“Have you ever kept any notes of our conversations?”

“Why would I do that?”

“But have you?”

“Of course not.”

“What about a diary? Shopping lists, phone calls, notes about what to pack for trips?”

“What harm would there be if I had?”

“None at all. But they might be interested in whether you were packing for a ski trip or a vacation in Cape Town, let’s say.”

“I see. The itinerary. But I never know when we’re leaving Olivet, or anywhere else for that matter. Quade usually lets me know the night before.”

“Did you say anything to Harry Selby at Summitt that might connect you with me? Anything that would tell him where to contact you?”

She sat up. “You’re making me nervous, Simon. What’s Harry Selby got to do with a search warrant?”

“You said you tried to impress him, told him more than you should have—”

“That’s not what I told you. I talked too much, that’s true. But I didn’t say anything I shouldn’t have. I was nervous because I didn’t feel comfortable with him.”

“If you’re questioned by Miss Kim or the senator’s people, what will you tell them?”

She hesitated and Correll forced himself to be patient because he knew there was still another ordeal in store for her this morning. Which was difficult, because he had been distracted by Bishop Waring’s news... “Your mother was restless at supper, I knew something was wrong when she refused the fruited chocolates she likes so much. I noticed her manner at Vespers too. Usually the music calms her...” The senator’s investigation and Miss Kim’s court order were of trifling importance compared to the old lady’s refusal to be calmed by chocolates or the solemn filigree of the old Latin hymns, Cibabit Illos and Ecce Sacerdos Magnum...

Jennifer was saying, “I’d tell Miss Kim or anybody else, that I don’t know anything about your business. What else would I say? That I like Houston and London and some of those old tapes by Duke Ellington? Or that at Olivet I prefer to sun myself and walk by the river and...”

Correll watched rain slanting under a heavy sky... “I gave your mother conditional absolution after the rosary last night,” the bishop had told him. “She had difficulty breathing. I took the liberty of telling her you’d be coming soon. That brought a light to her eyes. There’s a precious bond between the souls of a mother and son. We needn’t look beyond Calvary and the Pietas of Michelangelo...”

A knock sounded and after a moment Marvin Quade admitted himself and told Correll that General Taggart was ready now with the Summitt City film.

“You go along with Quade, Jennifer,” Correll told her. “I’ll join you at the theater in a few minutes.”

“Simon, do I have to? I’m very tired.”

“I’m sorry, but yes. It’s a short film, twenty or twenty-five minutes. It was shot the day after you left Summitt City and there’s something in it I particularly want you to see.”

When Jennifer and Quade went out, Correll poured himself a brandy. A moment later General Taggart knocked on the open door and came in.

“Well, everything’s going fine, I’d say.” The general put out his big, knuckled hands to the fire. “It’s damned strange how hooked people are by the Apocalyptic vision. The real banality of evil is that it’s always such a letdown. Why’d you want that little lady of yours to see the film? She won’t like it, you know.”

“I need her, General. I want her to be just as involved as I am.”

“Well, she sure as hell will be. You have any additional poop on what that Lester’s up to?”

“I don’t think he’s a problem. If it weren’t for the diversion of someone named Harry Selby, and possibly Ferdinand Bittermank, I’d be very optimistic. But that can’t be helped. I want you to be prepared to neutralize Summitt City if it turns out we have to.”

“Whatever you say, sir. But we still need that input.”

“Summitt may be compromised. We’d better be prepared for that. It’s time for Phase Two. We can profit from our blueprint here and activate another on-line unit. But where they least expect it, where the logical connections make it unlikely. The obvious is always the best camouflage.”

“But I’d suggest,” General Taggart said, “that we utilize overseas personnel now.”

“I’ll leave that to you. Van Pelt tells me he has a cadre he’s satisfied with.”

“For that matter,” Taggart said, “so has Mies Kraager. We discussed it in Cape Town only a week ago. Security, lab people, administrators, the lot.”

“If you prefer Kraager’s team, fine.” Correll looked at his watch and put his glass aside. “I think we’d better go in. Frankly, I hope this is the last time I have to sit through this thing.”