Part 31 (1/2)

The Texan and I looked at each other across the office. The gnome in the garden was still clipping. I almost said, 'Draw,' but I almost say things much more often than I say them. 'You must be very important indeed if you can dismiss Heinz from his own office.'

'I was afraid the good Director was going to start thundering at you.'

'Being thundered at by Heinz is like being flogged by a lettuce.'

He reached into his s.h.i.+rt pocket. 'You don't mind if I smoke, Doctor?'

'Light Box has a no-smoking policy.'

He lit up, tipped the contents of a bowl of pot pourri onto a Light Box folder, and used the bowl as an ashtray. 'I overheard a joke at my expense the other day: No in-tray, no out-tray, just an ash-tray.'

'Forgive me for not believing you.'

His smile told me that it wasn't very important whether I believed him or not. 'Dr Muntervary, I'm a Texan. Did you know that Texas was an independent republic before joining the union?'

'Yes, I did.'

'We Texans are a proud tribe. We pride ourselves in being straight shooters. Let us do some. The Pentagon requires that Quantumcog see completion.'

'Then go ahead and complete it.'

'Only Light Box Research can do that. We both know why. That is, we both know who. Light Box Research has Mo Muntervary.'

'As from yesterday n.o.body has Mo Muntervary.'

He blew out a plume of smoke, and watched it unfurl. 'If it were that simple...'

'It is that simple.'

'Kings abdicate, cops turn in their badges, directors of Think Tanks can slam all the doors they like and storm off, and n.o.body gives a d.a.m.n. But you, Doctor, can never leave the ball-park. This is a fact. Accept it.'

'Is this plain talking? Because I don't understand what I'm hearing.'

'Then I'll phrase it differently. Light Box is only one research inst.i.tute in the marketplace. Syndicates in Russia, Indonesia, South Africa, Israel and China are headhunting scientists like you. There's a new confederation of Arab countries that really doesn't like us. There are three freelance military consultancies who want quantum cognition, one of them, our British cousins. The marketplace is getting crowded and cut-throat. The Pentagon wishes to invite you to work with us. Our less democratic compet.i.tors will coerce you. Wherever and however you hide, you will be found, and your services employed, whether you like it or not. Am I talking plain enough for you now, Dr Muntervary?'

'And how exactly can anyone ”coerce” me?'

'By kidnapping your boy and locking him in a concrete box until you produce the required results.'

'That's not remotely funny.'

He lifted a briefcase onto his lap. 'Good.' The briefcase clips thwacked open. 'Here is a file, containing photographs and information on the techniques employed by headhunters. Verify them through your own channels: your Amnesty friends in Dublin will know the names. Look at it later,' he pa.s.sed me the file, 'but not before you eat. One more thing.' He threw me a little black cylinder, the size of a camera film case. 'Carry this.'

I looked at it, lying on my lap, but didn't pick it up. 'What is it?'

'It's a chicken switch, programmed with your right thumbprint. It flips open like a lighter. If you press the b.u.t.ton then one of our people will be with you within four minutes.'

'Why should I swallow this hogwash? And why me?'

'The New World Order is Old Hat. War is making a major comeback not that it had ever gone anywhere and scientists like you win wars for generals like me. Because quantum cognition, if spliced with Artifical Intelligence and satellite technology in the way that you have proposed in your last five papers, would render existing nuclear technology as lethal as a shower of tennis b.a.l.l.s.'

'And how do these phantom headhunters know about my research at Light Box?'

'The same way we all do. Old-fas.h.i.+oned industrial espionage.'

'n.o.body's going to kidnap me. Look at me. I'm middle-aged. Only Einstein, Dirac and Feynman made major contributions in their forties.'

The Texan stubbed out his cigarette, and tipped the pot pourri back into the bowl. 'A lot of people kiss your a.s.s, Doctor, and if I thought it would do any good I'd kiss your a.s.s too. But listen really good. I can't make heads or tails of your matrix mechanics, your quantum chromodynamics, and your nothing turning into something by energy borrowed from nowhere. But I do know that no more than ten people alive can make Quancog a reality. We have six of them, now, in Saragosa, in west Texas. I'm offering you a job. Come this fall, we were going to relocate Light Box's Quancog project there wholesale, and offer you a package of incentives the usual way. But your resignation letter has forced our hand.'

'Why should I work for you? Your president's a shallow crook.'

'Doesn't take an egg-head to see that. But of all the shallow crooks with fingers on b.u.t.tons today, who would you rather own Quancog?'

'Quancog as a military application? n.o.body should own it.'

'Come to Texas, Dr Muntervary. Of all the agencies who want you, only ours will respect your conscience, and the rights of your boy Liam and John Cullin. You see me as your enemy, Doctor. I can live with that. In my world enemies and friends are defined by context. Understand that I'm on your side before it's too late.'

I looked out at Mercury.

'I always liked that one,' said the Texan, following my gaze. 'Lived by his wits.'

The pub sign of The Green Man squeaked as it swung. Maisie was leaning on the stone wall, looking out to sea through her telescope. Brendan was around the other side, pottering about in the vegetable patch. Maisie's last grey hairs had turned white.

'Afternoon, Maisie.'

She swung the telescope at me, and her mouth opened. 'As I live and breathe! Mo Muntervary come back to haunt us! I saw a funny hat get off the St Fachtna St Fachtna,' she lowered the eyepiece, 'but I thought it was a birdwatcher come for the Thewicker's Geese. Whatever happened to your eye?'

'It got hit by a rogue electron in a lab experiment.'

'Even when you were knee-high you were always b.u.mping into things. Brendan! Come and see who it isn't! Now Mo, why weren't you back for the summer fayre?'

Brendan limped over. 'Mo! You've brought some grand weather back with you this time! John was in sinking the Guinness last night, but he nary breathed a word of your homecoming. Holy Dooley, that's a black-eye and a half ! Put a steak on it!'

'I didn't want a fuss. But aren't the roses a picture! And how do you get honeysuckle to run riot at the end of October?'

'Dung!' answered Maisie. 'Good and fresh from Bertie Crow's cows, and the bees. Keep a hive, Mo, when you settle down. Care for the bees and the bees care for you. You should have seen the runner beans this year! Beauties, they were, eh Brendan?'

'Aye, they turned out well enough, Maisie.' He inspected the bowl of his dogwood pipe, the same one he'd smoked for half a century. 'You see your ma in Skibbereen, Mo?'

'I did.'

'And how was she?'

'Comfortable, but less lucid. At least she can't do herself an injury where she is.'

'That's true enough.' Maisie let a respectful silence go by. 'You've lost too much weight, Mo. I thought you live on fondues and Toblerone chocolate in Switzerland.'

'I've been on a trip, Maisie. That's why I'm on the lean side.'