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«Hmm. You may be right. But where will the Ngaa turn up, there where you are or here?»
«Here, I think. Richard is here.»
«That should make the Prime Minister happy. His flunkies have been crawling like lice all over the installation, making a bloody nuisance of themselves for the last few days. They're doing an inventory, they say, with an eye toward liquidating our assets. I hope you haven't forgotten the PM's ultimatum. He said he'd shut us down if Richard wasn't normal within two weeks. Eight days of that two weeks are gone already. We've only six days left. Do you think we'll make the deadline?»
J sighed. «I don't know. We're progressing.»
«Could Richard give a reasonable imitation of a sane man?»
«So long as nobody asked him anything about the last ten years.»
«Not good enough, I'm afraid. But bear in mind that we don't need a real cure, just one real enough to fool the PM and his examiners.»
J was about to reply with some angry objection, but instead got a grip on himself and said, «I'll keep that in mind.» Leighton was only being his usual pragmatic and brutally frank self.
«Anything more to tell me, old boy?» Leighton added.
«No.»
«Then I'll ring off. I'm frightfully busy keeping these idiots from breaking things.»
«One question, Leighton. Have you left the settings the same on KALI?»
«Yes. You think we might…»
«It's possible.» J thought, It's possible, even though the PM has forbidden it, even though the danger is beyond calculation. It's possible that we may have to send Richard Blade through into the Ngaa's dimension.
«Don't wait so long to call me again,» Leighton said.
«I won't. Goodbye, old chap.»
«Goodbye.»
J hung up, stepped back from the wall, and inspected his pocketwatch. As he did so, he could have sworn he saw something very odd out of the corner of his eye. He whirled to stare into one of the mirrors.
Had one of his many reflections moved more slowly than the others?
No, of course not. That was impossible.
The setting sun reddened the gray facade-it had once been white-of the sanitarium, a three-story pseudo-Grecian building of ample proportions. The front door opened and Zoe and Richard emerged, blinking and shading their eyes. They crossed the narrow porch, between the fluted Corinthian columns that framed the entrance, and descended the wide marble staircase. At the foot of the steps, on massive rectangular pedestals, two lifesize white stone lions crouched. As she neared one of them, Zoe could not help but notice the poor animal had lost its left ear and the tip of its tail, and was badly cracked across the haunches.
She sighed and thought, Too bad.
Richard took her hand. Had he heard her sigh?
They walked along a broad stretch of paving. Weeds grew in the joins between the paving stones, and in the cracks in the stones themselves where the smooth pale surface was broken. She heard soft footsteps behind her but did not look around. She knew two guards were following her, armed with the ever-present air-propelled tranquilizer dart guns.
By the tall flagpole, as thick as a man's arm, they halted.
Richard, squinting upward, said, «I don't see the good old Union Jack.» There was no flag on the pole at all.
Zoe laughed. «I doubt if anyone has thought of flying it.»
Blade was half-serious, half-joking. «This place is a British possession, isn't it? Like an embassy?» He let go of her hand.
«Not really, Dick. And I doubt if Dr. Colby wants to attract attention.»
«You're quite right, of course.» He bent, grasped the pole and gave it an experimental tug. It remained firm in its base, though it gave a little, very little.
«What on earth are you doing?» she demanded.
«Nothing.» He straightened, a thoughtful enigmatic expression on his ta
He began walking, drawing her along by the hand.
«This is no prison,» she protested.
«Then let's leave.»
«You know we can't do that, Dick.»
«I rest my case, love. It is a prison.»
«It's a hospital. You're here to get well.»
«I'm not sick.» He shot her a glance from his dark, glittering eyes. «And you're not a nurse.»
This was a reference to the white nurse's uniform she was wearing. They had both come from England without clothing, and had been outfitted from the sanitarium's supply of staff uniforms.
He had halted again and was looking through a grove of fragrant eucalyptus and pine trees at where the sun silhouetted the Golden Gate Bridge. He said, «I can't believe the KGB would build a second Golden Gate Bridge just for me.»
«What do you mean by that?»
«J says you're an agent now, so I can tell you everything, can't I?» As he spoke he studied her face.
«Of course.»
«The Ruskies have a department called TWIN. They school some of their men there to look, act and think like every one of our important agents, so that, at the right moments, they can send in one of their doubles to replace one of us. They have training towns in Russia, you see. Exact duplicates of places in England and the USA.»
«And you thought this was a duplicate Berkeley, somewhere in the Soviet Union?» She was awed. This kind of thinking, this professional, matter-of-fact, businesslike paranoia was new to her.
«The idea crossed my mind, love,» Blade said lightly. «But even with their budget, the Ruskies wouldn't build anything quite so grand. I'm prepared to believe, for the moment at least, that we are where you say we are, and that you are who you say you are.»
«Well, thank you for that, anyway!» Zoe was indignant.
Richard began walking again. She ran a few steps to catch up.
«I've always liked Berkeley,» he mused. «J and I were here once. Did he tell you? A bit of the wet stuff in cooperation with the yanks. A lot goes on here. A spy can see plenty simply by renting a room in the hills and a telescope.» He gestured toward the bay. «When a navy vessel drops anchor out there, it's no use trying to hide the fact-«
They came to a wire-mesh fence topped with barbed wire.
Blade said, «Is this electrified?»
«I don't know.»
«Probably not. But it doesn't matter.»
He started along the fence. She hurried after him. «Dick, what are you doing, anyway?»
«Taking my evening constitutional, love. You say I'm sick. Well, what could be better for me than a brisk walk out in the fresh air?»
She caught up and he encircled her waist with a powerful arm and gave her a peck on the forehead. She felt a rush of emotion that should have died long ago, yet still remained as strong as ever. That painful ambivalence! At one instant she felt warm and protected, at the next vulnerable and afraid, as if Richard were an ancient god who might in one mood perform miracles of healing, and in another mood demand a human sacrifice.
How could she propitiate him?
Her body! That would satisfy him. It had always satisfied him before. How strange it was to love a man, and at the same time fear him! With Reginald it had been perhaps a little dull, but not frightening. At least not frightening!
«Oh, Dick,» she whispered, pulling his head down, pulling herself up. They kissed. She realized that if he killed her she wouldn't mind. It would be all right.
The darkness was settling in around them.
A plane passed overhead, blinking its lights red, green, white, red, green, white.