Tom sat in the office for a long while, thinking. He drummed his fingers on the desk, turning over the events of the day in his mind. He kept coming back to the scene with Marco. The watchman’s explanation was far from reassuring, but Tom hated to think that Marco had meant any harm.
On a hunch Tom dropped in at the security office. If there was anything sinister behind Marco’s strange behavior, perhaps it might show up in his records.
The files had been reduced to microcards. Tom dialed Marco’s individual history key number. The scanner machine quickly located the correct card.
Marco’s card held sixty pages of facts on a three-by-five-inch surface. Tom slipped the card into the projector and skimmed through the man’s record.
THE SECRET RECORDER 97
“Not a thing against him,” Tom told himself.
Marco had not held many jobs and all of them had been positions of trust.
Previous to becoming a night watchman for the Swift offices at the Enterprises plant six months ago, he had been a special guard at a private mental hospital in the Midwest named Blackstone. Several references from former employers praised him highly.
Tom snapped off the projector. “I’ve been too jumpy lately,” he muttered, and decided to go home.
After working a short while on the sketch of the robot’s head, Tom retired, but hours later he was still awake. Try as he might, he could not rid himself of a deep mistrust that was consuming him. Enterprises harbored a treacherous enemy.
Who was it?
The young inventor knew he could not rest until he had found the answer.