Shadow of a Broken Man

20

"He wouldn't have!" Elizabeth Foster cried, violently shaking her head from side to side. "You know what he did to the first man was an accident! He didn't know what he was doing!"

"But he had the capability," Lippitt said. "That's the whole point. It was conceivable that he could have been forced to use his powers against us. If they had you, Mrs. Foster, they would control him. That's what the exercise of the last few hours was all about. For as long as he lived, Victor Rafferty could conceivably be forced to spy and kill for whoever controlled him, and no nation but the one he was working for would have a military secret left. Can you understand our position now, Mrs. Foster?"

Elizabeth Foster continued to shake her head, but her eyes betrayed her: She did understand, perhaps for the first time.

"Every nation that knew of his existence had only two choices," I said. "Force Rafferty into its camp-or kill him."

Lippitt gave a curt affirmative nod, and Elizabeth Foster's head snapped back against the cushions of the sofa as though Lippitt had struck her a physical blow. Mike Foster swore softly under his breath.

"There were orders," Lippitt continued quietly. "They were the same type of orders that I'm sure went out to the intelligence divisions of the other countries."

"Victor didn't die in an accident," Elizabeth Foster whispered. "When he refused to cooperate with you, you killed him. Or you tried to kill him."

Lippitt made an end run around the implied question. "We almost had him again," he said. "We were … so close."

"The restaurant and the hospital?" I asked.

"Yes." Lippitt fixed his eyes on me. "I believe Rafferty discovered one more facet to his powers in that diner."

My mind flashed back to the old waiter, Barney, and his insistence that Rafferty had made food 'bounce.' "Telekinesis," I said, the breath catching in my throat. "He learned he could actually move objects by willing it."

"Correct," Lippitt responded evenly. "Again, an accident that enhanced Rafferty's knowledge of his own powers. He was tired and on the run. He'd lost his suitcase in the struggle with my men, and his bankbook was in that suitcase. He had no place to hide and no funds, except what he had with him. He had only the clothes on his back. When the waiter tripped and Rafferty saw that food flying at him, he instinctively reached out and pushed it away with his mind. It was a reflex action, and it must have hurt him terribly; he passed out from the pain. The waiter got a cop, who called an ambulance. Finally the cop recognized Rafferty from the description we'd sent out. I was eventually contacted in Washington … but you know the rest. By the time I got there, it was too late."

"Why hadn't the police been briefed?" Tal asked.

"Because all pertinent information concerning Victor Rafferty was-and is-Top Secret."

"That's almost funny," Tal said sardonically. "Apparently everyone knew about Rafferty except the people who could have helped you."

Lippitt ignored him. "No one was aware at the time that Rafferty could actually move objects. Also, it must be said that he learned very quickly how to control his powers. He put the guard to sleep, then used telekinesis to open the bolt. That's how he escaped from the hospital."

Lippitt, with his flat narrative, made it sound too easy. I remembered O'Connell's description of the fingernail scratches on the doorjamb, the blood on the floor: Rafferty had been in agony.

"Poor Victor," Elizabeth Foster murmured. "Poor, poor Victor."

"How did you know Rafferty was at the metallurgy lab?" I asked. "Or is that all a story too?"

Lippitt looked at me oddly for a moment. "Rafferty called on the phone and told me he'd be there," he said simply. He took a deep breath, as if preparing to swim a long distance underwater. "It was a Sunday morning. He said that he wanted to meet me in his metallurgical lab. I had a plane bring me from Washington, and I went to the building at the appointed time."

"Alone?" I asked.

"Yes, alone. He insisted on that, and I didn't want to risk losing him again."

"Didn't you think that was rather dangerous?"

"Despite what had happened, I did not consider Rafferty a dangerous man," Lippitt said quietly. "I believed that the killing of the guard was an accident; there was nothing in Rafferty's past to indicate that he could suddenly become a killer. Now I can see that I was right: He never intended to kill me."

"He was backed into a corner," Tal said softly.

"True, but I still don't think he ever intended to kill me. He had a plan, but killing me wasn't a part of it."

"But you were prepared to kill him," I said.

"Yes," he said. "If I had to. Those were my orders, and I agreed with them. There would have been no need to kill him if he could have been persuaded to come with us. We'd have given him an entirely new identity. He would have undergone plastic surgery, voice training; even his mannerisms could have been altered. When we were finished, no one"-he nodded in Mrs. Foster's direction-"including his wife, would have recognized him. Then we would have made arrangements for his wife to join him."

"After undergoing the same… 'adjustments'?"

"Yes. Naturally."

"Christ, Lippitt," I said, feeling a chill, "you live in an ugly world."

The agent's eyes glinted for a brief moment. "Don't you dare patronize me, Frederickson. I know of too many brave men who have lost their lives; our 'ugly' world exists so that you may continue to live in your rather comfortable, relatively free world." He paused, raised his eyebrows inquiringly. When I didn't say anything, the fire in his eyes cooled and he went on. "In any case, I went to the building and found the door open. Rafferty was waiting for me with a gun, and he got the drop on me as I was going in. He told me he'd finally made up his mind what he was going to do: He was defecting to the Russians."

Elizabeth Foster made a strangled noise. Her husband started to rise, but Lippitt ignored him. Foster clenched and unclenched his fists, then abruptly sat down again. Foster knew-we both knew-that what Lippitt was saying had a ring of truth to it, and fists were no defense against it. He'd found out what he wanted to know, and now he and his wife were going to have to live with the knowledge.

"Actually," Lippitt continued, "Rafferty's reasoning was quite sound, and I respected him for it; it was a practical, rather than an ideological, decision. No state could better guarantee his safety and his wife's than one which was authoritarian. Since he could not be free anyway, he would ally himself with the system that could afford him the best protection."

"Victor never said anything about defecting!" Mrs. Foster cried. "He just wanted to be left alonel"

Lippitt smiled thinly and continued. "He indicated to me that his decision was irreversible. He then forced me to go with him up on a catwalk above the foundry floor. He said that he intended to shoot me, then drop my body into one of the furnaces."

"No!" Elizabeth Foster cried, springing to her feet. "Victor would never say anything like that! You're lying!"

Mike Foster gently but firmly gripped his wife's arm and pulled her back down onto the sofa beside him. She broke, burying her face in her husband's shoulder and sobbing. "Let him tell his story," Foster said to his wife. "That doesn't mean we have to believe him."

"I knew that I'd have to kill him," Lippitt resumed in a low monotone. "I tried to reason with him right up to the last moment. Then, I simply… beat him. We both fired at the same time; I was lucky. He was hit and… he fell over the railing into the furnace."

The agent suddenly paused and licked his lips. Lippitt now seemed unusually agitated, and I didn't think it was for the obvious reason that he was admitting to Mrs. Foster that he'd killed her first husband. Something else was bothering him.

"I thought that was the end of the… problem," Lippitt continued with a catch in his voice. "I then took certain steps; I reported Rafferty's death through the same channels Dr. Llewellyn had used. I knew the report would be monitored, and I assumed the pressure would ease off. Mrs. Foster, at least, would be safe. It worked." He quickly glanced in my direction. "Then you began asking questions, Dr. Frederickson, and it started all over again." He walked back to the window, as if trying to cleanse the dark business of the past in the wash of bright sunlight. "I shot him," he continued in a clipped voice. "I saw him clutch at his stomach and fall over the railing into the furnace. . But now I understand that it didn't happen. It was an illusion. One more trick. My God, he made me see what he wanted me to see."

"C'mon, Lippitt," Mike Foster said, scorn and incredulity in his voice. "You're trying to tell us that you saw Victor fall into the furnace, but he didn't actually fall?"

"That's exactly what I'm saying. It's the only explanation. And it means that his powers are far greater than even I knew." He paused, turned, and looked at each of us. He must have seen more than a little skepticism; he grew very pale. "You still don't believe me. He did have the power to enter men's minds. You know that, because Mrs. Foster has confirmed it. But there were other things he could do, things I haven't told you about. Perhaps if you knew-"

"He did something else to you, didn't he?" I said, certain I was right. "Why don't you tell us about that?"

Lippitt abruptly folded his arms across his chest and turned his back to us once again. His voice became stronger, matter-of-fact. "I was captured during the Korean war and tortured with ice baths."

Lippitt shuddered, as I had seen him do once before. He quickly clenched the muscles in his body, and that brought the shaking under control; it had been a spasm, no more, but it had chilled everyone in the room. I remembered the pictures of Lippitt in his overcoat in summer, and I felt cold myself.

"I'm sorry to say they extracted the information they wanted in a very short time," he continued. "I managed to survive, but the ice baths had affected my mind. It seemed to me that I could never be warm. I constantly wore a coat, because I was cold all the time. There was nothing I could do, nothing any doctor could do. I didn't want to retire, and I was of sufficient value to get my way on that… but I suffered." He looked over his shoulder at Elizabeth Foster. She glanced up at him, and their eyes held. "We talked for some time," he said, slowly turning, his gaze still locked with the woman's. "Actually, Rafferty did most of the talking. He spoke of the way he thought his powers should be used, in the manner Mrs. Foster has already mentioned. Then he gave me a demonstration."

"He cured you, didn't he?" I said slowly.

Lippitt nodded, swallowed hard. "He knew everything. He talked about it so casually; every thought in my mind. He knew all of it, despite the nail."

"What nail?" I said, looking up.

Lippitt held up the palm of his left hand to reveal a jagged scar running from the mount of Venus to the base of the little finger. "I'd been gripping a sharpened nail treated with acid. I didn't want Rafferty to know what I was thinking-or that I had a gun. I thought I could mask my thoughts with pain. I assumed it had worked; for five years I've been congratulating myself on how clever I'd been. Now, of course, I see that it didn't work at all. Rafferty had known about the gun all the time, right up to the moment when I made the decision to draw and shoot." He passed a hand across his eyes; then he continued in a softer, yet still anguished voice. "But while we talked he was working on me; he told me how my suffering was psychosomatic. Then he went into my mind, and there was nothing I could do to stop him. I could feel his mind in mine, probing, comforting, making me understand … making me well again. He convinced me in less than a minute that there was nothing wrong with my body. Suddenly… I wasn't cold anymore."

"And then you killed him," Elizabeth Foster whispered. "That was your way of thanking him."

"He made me think that I'd killed him, Mrs. Foster. He created and forced the situation, and now I understand why. I heard him pull the hammer back while I was standing at the edge of the catwalk. I did the only thing I could do, and that was what Rafferty wanted me to do. I spun around, drew, and fired at him."

It was clear to me now why Lippitt had been willing to risk his life, along with a good number of government secrets, to get Elizabeth Foster and her husband out of the Russian consulate. He'd felt he owed Victor Rafferty at least that; he'd been motivated by guilt. I suddenly felt a great deal of compassion for Lippitt. He was a patriot, and in the cause of patriotism he'd traded one form of mental torture for another.

But it was Rafferty who'd made the supreme sacrifice, I thought. Ironically, in the cause of freedom; his wife's, and his own. He'd given up everything: his wife, his work, his life as he'd known it. Now that sacrifice had been wiped out. Rafferty had betrayed himself with a doodle on a scrap of paper.

"So Rafferty set you up," I said to Lippitt. My voice seemed unnaturally loud in the sudden quiet. "He made you think you'd killed him. That was an alternative you hadn't considered."

"Then Rafferty is not working for the Americans," Tal said, placing the pencil he had been rolling back in his pocket. "Or the Russians. Assuming that Mr. Lippitt is at last telling the truth… where is Rafferty, and what has he been doing for the past five years?"

"We know he was at the U.N., at least at the time of the housing seminar," I said. "The drawing proves that."

"It begins again," Lippitt said bitterly.

"The hunt?" Something in my voice-probably disgust- caused Lippitt to look at me sharply. There was a brief glint of pain in his eyes, and then it was gone.

"I have no choice, Frederickson," Lippitt said quietly. "It is a hunt. The others will be after him, and you should hope that I find him before they do."

As far as I was concerned, he had a point. I knew where Lippitt was, because I was with him. But there were still the Russians, the British, the French with their mysterious agent, and God only knew how many others, all beating the bushes for Rafferty. I had no way of knowing how close they were.

"Let him alone!" Mike Foster said, emotion twisting his voice and features. "For God's sake, haven't you done enough to the man? He's shown that he means no harm to anyone!"

"Has he?" Lippitt said. "He's proved nothing of the kind, and I'm not waiting for a nuclear attack to find out whether our defense network has been penetrated; neither will any other country that knows about him."

"What about Mr. and Mrs. Foster?" I asked. "You plan to lock them away someplace?"

Lippitt looked at Mrs. Foster. "They should come with me for their own protection."

Elizabeth Foster shook her head and moved even closer to her husband. "Go to hell, Lippitt," Mike Foster said evenly.

"The Fosters will be taken care of," Tal said. "And you too, Mongo. There are a lot of people, I'm sure, who will want to ask you questions."

"Thanks, Tal. I'll look after myself."

Mike Foster gently pulled his wife to her feet and supported her as they moved into an adjoining bedroom; he closed the door quietly behind them.

There was a sharp, prolonged buzzing sound from Lippitt's direction. The agent took a small beeper out of his pocket and shut it off. He looked vaguely surprised. "I have to go," he said.

"If it's a telephone you need, you're welcome to use the one here," Tal said.

Lippitt ignored the offer, jerked his head in the direction of the Fosters' bedroom. "You've taken on a big responsibility, Tal."

Tal met the other man's cold gaze. "Then perhaps you should keep silent. If you do, there's no reason why anyone outside this room should know where the Fosters are."

"I have other responsibilities."

"Then you'll just have to weigh them against the safety of the Fosters, won't you? Mrs. Foster has told you all she knows; the Americans have no more need of her. Unless you risk a leak, no one else will have access to her. Think about that when you report to your superiors."

Lippitt walked to the elevator. He paused at the door as if he wanted to add something, but said nothing. In a few moments he was gone. I wondered what his message could be, where he was going.

Tal put his hand on my shoulder. "You should accept my offer, Mongo. I don't think Lippitt will kill you, but he might not be able to stop one of his colleagues from doing so if the order came down. They will want to make sure you don't share the information you have."

"Sorry. I don't feel like being a prisoner any more than Rafferty did. I'll take my chances on the street."

"I understand."

"It's over, I suppose." There was a flat, metallic taste in my mouth. "You found out what you wanted to know."

Tal looked surprised. "You want to quit now?"

"Rafferty's alive, and everybody and his brother is looking for him. Even if he has been working your turf, he's finished there now. He's blown and he knows it; he's going to be on the run. What's the point of our continuing to look for him?"

"Because we have something the others don't," Tal said firmly. "We have the list of people who participated in that seminar, and that gives us an edge."

"That doesn't answer my question. Why should we look for him now?"

He smiled. "Aren't you curious?"

"Rafferty's got enough people looking for him."

"Yes," Tal said seriously. "But you and I are the only ones who might want to help him."