"You paint a lurid picture," Flinn said.
They turned down a side street in a residential district and drew up in front of what appeared to be a large two-story private home.
Flinn took a deep breath. He was rested now, but still uncertain whether he was up to what lay ahead.
After the preliminary discussion with Wilmer, Hayes, and Barnes—the latter had proved to be a military intelligence man—the previous afternoon, Flinn had been closeted immediately with a number of generals, admirals, and high-ranking civilians from both houses of Congress, the Defense Department, the Department of State, and various security agencies.
There had been the usual skepticism until he had performed some simple but histrionic "mind-reading" feats, and then there had been much talk about the responsibilities that had now become incumbent upon him and how perhaps even the fate of the nation was in his hands. It had left him wandering in a jungle of doubts and fears. Yet he had managed to sleep.
"The wonderful ability of the human mind to reject unpleasantness," he had told himself.
As a matter of fact, he had fallen into deep, untroubled unconsciousness within an hour of the time his head had first touched the pillow in the comfortable hotel room the government had provided. Hayes had been with him. "Security," Hayes had said.
And now, clean-shaven, his clothes neatly pressed, the substantial breakfast still warm in his stomach, and fatigue no longer in his muscles and nerves, Flinn told himself that he was as ready as he would ever be.
They got out of the conservative, unmarked sedan and approached the house. There was a man mowing the lawn, another clipping hedges, and still another polishing a car that was parked in the driveway just outside the spacious garage.
"How's it going?" Hayes said to the hedge trimmer.
"All quiet," the man answered without looking up.
They went around the house and entered unchallenged through a side door. It was all very casual, yet Flinn did not have to be told that they were under constant scrutiny.
The room in which he found himself was just off the kitchen. Three men in working clothes sat around a table, drinking coffee. They looked up and nodded. They seemed to be cut from much the same cloth as Fred Hayes, even to the expression.
"Well, well," one of them said, "the brain trust." He surveyed Flinn with frank interest, then faced Hayes. "Say, buddy, how does a man get a transfer out of this outfit?"
Hayes grinned his wolfish grin. "All in good time, partner." He pointed with his chin upstairs and raised his eyebrows.
The man who had spoken, a large, broad-shouldered youngster with an affably homely face, got up, stepped back from the table, and went into a vaudevillian travesty of a bow. "The great man has been prepared and awaits your presence." Then his expression changed. "What a party! I never saw so much liquor in my life! It's a lucky thing the rumpus room is soundproof."
"And girls!" one of the seated men said. "Man, oh, man!"
Flinn looked at Wilmer, and Wilmer shrugged as if to say, "That's the way it is."
"Just don't forget what you're here for," Hayes said harshly.
"Don't fret," the big man said. "None of us touched a drop."
"Neither did Dobbs," one of the seated men interjected. "I guess that's the only reason he's alive today." He guffawed loudly and suggestively.
Hayes leading, they entered a hallway and turned toward a flight of stairs.
"Your boys seemed very off-hand about all this," Flinn said to the government agent.
"Don't kid yourself," Hayes replied. "They're as nervous as cats."
"Come in, gentlemen," Dobbs called amiably from the rear of the spacious bedroom. There was an unobtrusive man in a dark suit with him, but he left immediately.
Now that he was face to face with the enigmatic Mr. Dobbs, Flinn felt a momentary sense of disappointment.
Malcolm Dobbs sat in a straight-backed chair beside the large bed. Next to him was a table laden with empty breakfast dishes. Dobbs was dressed in an ordinary bathrobe. He appeared to be in his mid-forties and had a full head of dark hair, slightly gray at the temples. His mild, undistinguished face was only slightly less tanned than Wilmer's, and he was of average size and weight. His dark eyes were the only things that belied the man's composed exterior; they were intelligent, interested, and intently watchful. A tiny smile lingered upon Dobbs' lips, as if he were sharing only with himself some form of immensely funny but eminently private joke.
Flinn's total impression of the man was that he was not the sort one would look at twice in a crowded room—under different circumstances.
"Another delegation?" Dobbs asked. "Hello, Jack, Hayes."
"Mal this is Mr. Dugan," Wilmer said, indicating Flinn. "He's from the government."
Even as he acknowledged the introduction, Flinn paused momentarily over the casual familiarity between the physicist and the apparent psychokinetic, until he was reminded that they were both nuclear physicists and had been together for weeks at the atoll. Flinn found himself wondering how close they had been and what thoughts must be going through Wilmer's mind at the moment. But he squelched his curiosity. He was here to scan Dobbs' mind, nobody else's.
"Be unobtrusive," he had been warned. "Stay in the background as much as possible and let Wilmer and Hayes carry the ball. And do the job quickly."
Dobbs looked Flinn over carefully, then seemed to dismiss him from his mind, as if he had decided Flinn was of no particular importance—or no immediate threat.
"You boys should have been here last night," Dobbs smiled. "We had quite a party." His smile faded and he added petulantly: "The only thing—some of the girls weren't as cooperative as I had hoped."
"We'll be more selective next time," Hayes promised quickly.
"See to it," Dobbs said.
They seated themselves, Hayes and Wilmer close to Dobbs, and Flinn just far enough away to seem deferential without raising suspicion.
"Now, what can I do for you?" Dobbs queried. "Another demonstration, I assume?"
"That's right," Wilmer said. "How about that disappearance thing again?"
Dobbs sighed. "You boys just can't get it through your skulls that what I do isn't some sort of trick, can you? Even faced with the evidence of the bomb."
Wilmer raised his hands. "It's not that so much, although what you can do, you'll have to admit, is rather unbelievable. It's the fact that Mr. Dugan here has never seen any evidence of your powers, and the report he will deliver to his superiors may cause even more commotion in high places—to your advantage."
Flinn was amazed that such a flimsy appeal to the appetites and ego of a man as intelligent as Malcolm Dobbs could be successful. Yet it not only could, it was.
Dobbs looked again at Flinn, the strange smile playing upon his lips; then he reached across the table, picked up an opaque glass water carafe, poured out its remaining liquid into an empty cereal bowl, and replaced it on the table.
"We don't want water spilled over everything, do we?" he said.
Wilmer slipped one arm behind the back of his chair and signaled urgently to Flinn.
Since entering the room, Flinn had been gathering all his resources for a quick and powerful effort, and, at the sight of Wilmer's waving fingers, he began.
He was startled that, despite the interaction and interference of the other thought patterns in the room, he was able to make so quick a contact. Just before reaching Dobbs' mind, the thought impressed itself upon Flinn that the reason was the immense mental power that was building within, and generating from, Dobbs. It was the simplest piece of telepathic scanning with which Flinn had ever been involved.
For a matter of seconds, nothing happened. Then the water carafe abruptly disappeared, its passage into apparent nothingness coincident with a faint "pop" as the air of the room rushed in to fill the vacuum.
Dobbs turned triumphantly and saw Flinn still in the trancelike stupor of the telepath-in-contact. Hayes stood up to screen him, but Flinn shook his head and managed to clear his mind quickly.
"Your friend seems somewhat astounded," Dobbs chuckled.
"My God!" was all Flinn could say.
Wilmer and Hayes looked at him questioningly, and Hayes muttered: "I think he's seen enough. Let's get out of here."
"Come back anytime, gentlemen," Dobbs said.
His laughter followed them as they retreated through the door and down the hall to the stairs.
"Well?" Wilmer said.
They sat around the table in the room just off the kitchen, steaming cups of coffee in front of them. The three security agents who had been in the room were gone now to their respective duties.