path to conquest (12 page)

“Uh, Alison,” Pete said, “can I suggest bringing one more person in on this?”

“Who’ve you got in mind?”

“Hannah Donnenfeld. She’s the best damn scientist I know of, and we may need someone like her to make sense of the data we get from samples taken from the sites.”

Mayor Stein nodded. “That sounds reasonable. Stress to her the secret nature of this investigation.”

“Right. I’ll get her in on it right away and get the air and heating-oil samples out to her tomorrow morning.”

“Well, I’d like to thank you for coming here tonight,” the mayor said, leaning back in her chair. “I’ll be counting on all of you to find out what you can in your own areas of expertise Keep your ears to the ground and all that Denise it's up to you to collect all the pertinent data and see what it adds up to. ” She lifted her soda can in a toast. “Here’s hoping we have no more emergencies to analyze.”

Six aluminum cans clinked together in agreement.

But the next day two more places were filled with noxious, invisible fumes—another office building and a hospital. Pete Forsythe drove Dr. Donnenfeld to the sites to collect whatever samples she felt she’d need to find some answers. Before returning to her Long Island lab to start work, she asked Pete to stop at Alison Stein’s office.

“Mayor Stein, I have every reason to believe these incidents are linked by heating fuel,” she announced when they arrived. “You’ve got some test results back?”

The old woman shook her head. “Haven’t even started testing. But all four places were heated by oil. I think it’d be a dandy idea for you to order all buildings, public or private, that are heated by oil to shut their boilers off and leave them off until we’ve got some facts to sink our teeth into.”

Alison chewed on the idea for a moment. “Hmmm—the sun’s finally out for the first time in two weeks. Temperature’s almost back to normal. So whatever the Visitors were doing to mess up the weather seems to be over, for the time being anyway. Okay, I think I can go along with that. But I can’t ban oil heat forever. It
is
going to be cold again pretty soon. Can you get me some facts in a hurry?”

“We’ll do the best we can. Now, if you and Peter’ll stop settin’ around jawing, I’ll get to work. Let’s hit the road, driver.” With a sly grin, Donnenfeld reached across the desk and shook Alison’s hand. “Have to keep these men in line,” she said conspiratorially.

“I
couldn’t
agree more.”

The Brook Cove Lab was a place Pete would never tire of. He’d concluded that on his very first visit. Set on Long Island’s north shore, where the neon and blacktop of suburban sprawl hadn’t yet encroached, the lab perched on a breezy bluff overlooking Long Island Sound and Oyster Bay Harbor, not far from where Teddy Roosevelt once lived.

Hidden behind a tangle of bushes and trees, the lab’s main house was a weathered Tudor mansion. A dozen other buildings and cottages were clustered to one side, where the scientists of Brook Cove had lived and worked before the alien invasion. But now the heart of the facility was the underground complex buried for security reasons by the eccentric who’d founded the lab in the midst of cold war saber-rattling in 1950. When he’d died, Walter Leiber’s fortune saw to it that the lab would always have the resources to draw the best minds in science and provide them with the tools and time to pursue whatever ideas struck their fancy.

Hannah Donnenfeld, as lab director for the past twenty-odd years, had preserved that sane atmosphere. Brook Cove had prospered—a number of the fruits borne of scientific curiosity there had proven commercially attractive. It wasn’t uncommon for the lab to sell the rights to its discoveries, continuing to collect a percentage as long as their finds remained commercially useful. The lab split the royalties with the responsible scientist or group of researchers, adding another incentive for people to remain there.

This carefully protected haven had been forced to change its role somewhat after the Visitors invaded, then returned for a second try at overrunning Earth. Much more of lab personnel time was devoted directly either to fighting the aliens or to helping the planet’s human population cope with life under radically altered circumstances.

Donnenfeld and her team had a report on the suspect heating fuel ready by midafternoon.

“It’s just preliminary,” she cautioned Pete in her subterranean office. “But there’s no doubt this stuff’s been tainted by an alien substance.”

“When you say ‘alien,’ do you mean alien or”—he jerked a thumb skyward, indicating outer space—
“alien.”

“I mean
alien
, as in Visitors.”

“That’s what I thought. What do we do next?”

“We have to trace this heating oil back to where it came from—as far back as we’ve got to go to determine when and where the contamination took place.”

Pete gulped. “That means there could he ;i lot more of this poisoned oil making its way around the area.”

“Or around the world, my young friend.”

Hannah reached for her desk phone and punched the intercom button. The phone responded with a shrill electronic whine, and she promptly slammed the receiver back onto the cradle. “Damned newfangled gadgets,” she hissed.

“Some scientist,” Pete kidded.

“Hey, if the crank phone was good enough for me when I was growing up in Boston, it should still be good enough now. But can you
get
a crank phone nowadays? Not on your life.” “How about just a crank.”

Hannah rolled her chair back, swiveled, and stood, playfully smacking Pete across both cheeks. “A little respect, Peter.” “I can’t believe you’re resisting progress.”

“Hell, I barely even use the computer. That’s what I get all these young experts for.” She leaned out the office door and bellowed down the hallway, “
Mitchell
,
Neville, Sari
—get in here on the double!”

She stood, arms folded, foot tapping. Leading with his belly, Mitchell Loomis skittered around the door frame and stood at a semblence of attention.

“Hello, Peter,” he said, jowls quivering.

Pete nodded his greeting, then glanced at Mitchell’s feet. “Do you
always
wear bedroom slippers?”

“Hannah never lets me go outside,” Mitchell frowned. “Poor sweet baby,” Donnenfeld cooed.

A moment later Neville More and Sari entered, their fingertips lightly entwined. The old lab director glared at them.

“Mitchell Loomis, the man who does the world’s best stuffed-amoeba impression, beat you two in here. You’d best move more quickly when I call you—clear?”

Now that he knew something about More, Pete wondered how this self-proclaimed genius would take to Hannah Don-nenfeld’s good-natured dictatorship. But he saw no bridling in the Englishman’s expression. Sari batted her blond eyelashes in apology.

“Now then,” Hannah continued, “I have some fact finding to do the rest of today. Might not even get back tonight, if Peter doesn’t mind a roomie in New York for the night.”

“Red Sox fans no longer welcome,” Forsythe stage-mumbled.

“As I was saying,
you three are on your own this afternoon. Mitchell and Neville, rev up those computers. I want a total chemical analysis of the tainted oil from the four buildings. When I come back, I expect to have samples from whence the stuff cameth. If you’ve done your homework by then, we should know what we’re looking for and should be able to see in a jiffy whether it’s in the oil from the source. Sari, you make sure these two remember their molecular biology. Now, off you go.”

She shooed them out with both hands waving. Sari and More left, but Mitchell lingered, waiting until the other two had gone. “I see your feet aren’t moving, Mitchell.”

“Hannah, why are you making me work with him?” Donnenfeld sighed. “Oh, Mitchell, give me a break. I’m a crotchety old lady.”

“I don’t like him,” Mitchell said seriously. He was in no mood for Donnenfeld’s ribbing. “And I don’t
trust
him.” “Professional jealousy?” Pete offered gently.

Mitchell’s brows twitched, and a hurt look clouded his eyes. “No, Pete. It’s nothing like that. And no, Hannah, I’m not jealous of his looks or the fact that he’s making time with Sari.”

Hannah saw Pete’s confused expression. “Mitchell’s always had a crush on Sari,” she explained. “Everybody knows it.” Pete shrugged. “/ didn’t.”

“Yeah, well, it’s no big deal,” said Mitchell. “It’s my heartache, and I can live with it. If there’s any justice in the world, Sari’ll see the light sooner or later.”

“Which has nothing to do with why you dislike Neville More, or so you say,” Hannah said.

“I may be overweight, I may be a lousy athlete, I may be the butt of everybody’s jokes around here, but no one’s ever seriously questioned my judgment. True?”

“True.”

“Then give me the benefit of this doubt.”

Donnenfeld came over to the young scientist and touched his shoulder. “Mitchell, we need his input. We’re really up against it.”

“Are you saying I’m not good enough with our computers? I’ve been good enough for five years.”

“Of
course
you’re good enough.”

“Then let me do my job.”

“Dammit, son, 1
am,
but when you’ve got someone aboard who can help, you put him in uniform and into the lineup. Right, Peter?”

Pete raised his hands, fending off any involvement. “Hey, don’t get me in on this, Hannah. You already know how I feel about the guy.”

Mitchell’s round cheeks puffed out in surprise. “You don’t like him either?”

“1 just wondered about his story of going around the country like some Johnny Computer-seed, whether he’s really helping labs like this one, or just getting free room and board.” “And I assured Peter that Neville was indeed earning his keep,” Hannah said.

“If Hannah says he’s making a contribution, who am I to argue, Mitch? Sorry.”

“Mitchell,” Hannah said softly, “what is it you don’t like about him? What don’t you trust?”

Mitchell shoved his stubby fingers deep into his pockets, shoulders rounded in a defeated slump. “He’s not a hacker.” “He’s what?” Hannah’s crinkly eyes opened in astonishment. “He’s not a
hacker
?
That’s
your objection to having a world-renowned computer genius helping us fight the Visitors?”

“You don’t understand,” said the pudgy man. He turned to shuffle away.

Pete grabbed him by the arm. “Then explain it to us.” “Hackers look like me, not like More. We love computers because we’re too odd for anyone else to love us. I’d guess that’s never been one of Neville More’s problems. When I worked at Stanford’s Artificial Intelligence Lab, we needed a place to sack out without leaving the building. The lab had one of those drop ceilings, you know? Somebody figured out that there was space up there between the ceiling and the roof, and we
slept
up there! Some guys lived in the computer center for weeks on end.”

With a suspicious expression, Pete whistled. “That’s nuts.” “That’s hacking!” Mitchell cried out, spreading his arms as if throwing himself on the mercy of some imagined court. “We might have been crazy, or at least weird from time to time, but we were completely dedicated to our computers. And we were the best. Somehow I doubt Neville More ever slept in a ceiling to stay close to his computer.”

“I’m sorry, Mitchell,” said Donnenfeld. “I need you both on this. It’s that important. Take heart—he won’t be here forever. He’ll probably move on soon. That’s been his pattern.”

Mitchell Loomis bowed his head. “Okay, I’ll make the best of it.”

She patted his cheek and he slouched out of the room. Then she turned to Pete. “Let’s get a move on. We’ve got oil to track down.”

Sam Yeager and Denise Daltrey had already begun the legwork, reviewing the records of the two office buildings, the shopping mall, and the hospital where the toxic gases had struck. All received their heating oil from a firm located on Staten Island. Sam called Brook Cove with this information just before Pete and Hannah had left for the drive back to Manhattan.

“Then Staten Island’s our target,” said Donnenfeld. “Do you know where, Sam?”

“Yeah, I’ve got an address. Why don’t you and Pete meet me at my house in Brooklyn and we can go in one car?” They did just that, trading Pete’s two-seat Mercedes for Yeager’s unmarked Ford police sedan. Yeager turned to get onto the Belt Parkway, winding along Brooklyn’s bayfront southern shore. The weather had cleared completely, and the waters of Sheepshead Bay shimmered in the afternoon sun. In the distance, the graceful span of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge stretched out to link Brooklyn with Staten Island. “That’s not all I found out,” Yeager said. “Two guys who worked for this piace—they were a delivery-truck crew— they’re gone.”

“What do you mean, gone?” asked Pete.

“Vanished, disappeared. And so are their families. Nobody knows what happened to ’em.”

“Got a theory?” said Hannah from the back seat.

Sam Yeager nodded. “Matter of fact, I do. We all know the lizards’ve got people working for them—our people. Some of ’em are just scum; they’ll work for anyone who pays ’em. But sometimes the Visitors blackmail good folks. I’ve seen more than one instance myself where they’ll kidnap somebody and use that to get a family member to help them.”

“Hm,” Pete said thoughtfully. “You think that’s what happened here?”

“Yup. I think the lizards snatched the wives and kids, then forced these two poor slobs to put something into the oil they delivered. ”

"Well,” Hannah said, “the only way we can gather more proof toward that little theory is if they also put the same stuff into the main storage tanks. If we find that to be the case. I’d say that would support your theory. If we don’t, it’s just speculation.”

“Then what happened to the two missing guys?” Pete wondered.

Yeager gave a short shrug. “When they did what they were toid, they expected to get their families back. Instead, they got killed. Simple as that.”

When they arrived at the oil tanks, Yeager flashed his badge at the employee who asked what they wanted. Dr. Donnenfeld took out her collection jars and went to each of the company’s five storage tanks, taking about a quart of oil from each filling spigot. She carefully labeled the containers, capped them, and started for the car.