“Cut the crap, Aaron. When do I get the first report?”
“Not for a while.”
“Aaron, if this is another of your goddamn schemes, I’ll make sure you never come back.” Yablon’s voice was never sweet, even face-to-face. Over the phone connection it sounded sandpaper rough.
“Listen to me, Ed. I came up here looking for one thing and I think I found something else, something much bigger.”
“Stop talking in generalities.”
“I can’t. These are unsecured phone channels. All I can say is I’m worming my way to the core.”
“When the hell are you going to get there?”
“Soon.”
“This better be worth the wait, Aaron.”
“This is big, Ed.”
Even the poor connection could not mask Ed Yablon’s sigh of exasperation. “Everything is big with you. If you’re not the death of me, I’m going to see that it’s written on your grave.”
“You’re a bundle of laughs, Ed. Is Zeke there?”
“I’m in his office. He’s the only one around here who goddamn knew how to reach you.”
Zeke Tucker took the phone and stalled until Yablon left the office.
“What did you get?” Weiss asked impatiently.
“Number One,” said Zeke. “The BBC sent us a taped report in 1985. Subject was implicated in an Oxford University drug scandal. Nothing ever was proven, but the university was very sensitive to its own reputation and dismissed him from the faculty.”
“What types of drugs?”
“Designers,” said Tucker. “Bunch of chemical names.”
“Interesting,” said Weiss. “What about Number Two?”
“Wait till you hear this one…”
Even Weiss, the old tabloid reporter, was shocked by the story.
“Who’s your source?”
“A P.I. up in Maryland. Claims he was working for one of Number Two’s recently jilted lovers. She stiffed him on his fee and he shopped it around the media to cut his losses. Nobody wants to use it, though, ’cause he can’t provide anything more’n hearsay.”
“That’s a real humdinger.”
“It’s hearsay, Aaron,” said Tucker.
“Yeah. A guy like that would probably go screaming to a lawyer.”
“Sort of reminds you of the old days, don’t it?”
Stu Roberts fingered the keypad of his hand-held computer. He had stored the data in a secured file and now was having difficulty gaining entry. Looming above Roberts, Chakra Ramsanjawi sighed impatiently. The Indian’s sleep compartment felt small and fumingly hot.
“Be cool, man, I’ll get it,” said Roberts, perspiring.
Ramsanjawi smirked. He was growing tired of Roberts’s jive talk. It made a bad combination with incompetence.
“Dig it,” said Roberts as data played across the tiny screen. “Okay, O’Donnell works an average of three hours in his lab before breakfast. He eats at oh-eight-hundred hours, returns to Hab Two to brush his teeth, then reports to Dr. Renoir at 0830 hours. He does this every day. The amount of time with Dr. Renoir usually runs from five to ten minutes, but today it was close to a half hour. When he returns to his lab, he works an average of four hours before lunch. The actual time doesn’t deviate by more than a minute or two. After lunch, he stops at his compartment, goes to the Whit, then returns to his lab by fourteen hundred hours. Not much deviation there, either.”
“What does he do at the Whit?” asked Ramsanjawi.
“What do we all do at the Whit?” said Roberts. “Oh yeah, he brushes his teeth, too.”
Ramsanjawi nodded.
“His afternoon time in the lab is more variable,” said Roberts. “He never spends less than three hours, but there have been days he’s spent four or five. You think he does timed experiments?”
Ramsanjawi, lost in thought, ignored the question.
“He always goes to the wardroom for dinner at nineteen hundred hours,” said Roberts. “Always. If Commander Tighe is there, he’ll eat with him. If not, he’ll try to eat alone. If he can’t, he’ll sit with the Martians. Never with anyone from the American/Canadian group. I know. I tried to sit with him once. He left without finishing his food.”
“Very discriminating,” said Ramsanjawi.
Roberts grinned awkwardly, not sure whether Ramsanjawi’s comment was an insult.
“After dinner he goes back to Hab Two, hits the head, I mean the Whit, and spends time in his compartment. Then usually, and I mean four out of every five nights, he meets Tighe in the ex/rec room for a game of darts. This is pretty boring stuff, huh?”