Shadow of a Broken Man (19 page)

"He left the house. There were two men waiting for him. I saw what happened, but I still don't understand it." She wrapped her arms around her body as she shuddered. "I was standing on the stoop when one of the men jumped out at him. Victor swung his suitcase at the man, but Victor was still very weak from the operations; he didn't really have much strength to begin with, and the other man was so
big
. The man ducked around behind Victor and grabbed Victor's arm. Victor was struggling to get away, and then ... the man just seemed to go down. His knees buckled and he fell to the sidewalk. He was holding his head and moaning, as if he were in pain, and then... he just lay still. Then another man came running at Victor. I thought Victor was going to be killed, so I ran inside and called the police.

When I came back out, both men were lying on the sidewalk and Victor was gone. I started to scream again. . . . I couldn't stop screaming."

Elizabeth Foster's voice trailed off, and there was silence in the room. I didn't think she would speak again, but she did.

"I knew I'd never see him again," she whispered. "And I didn't." She blinked back tears. "Two days later Mr. Lippitt called and told me Victor had been killed. The day after that, I saw a report in the newspaper that Victor had died in an accident in his laboratory. Now the Russians say they've talked to him on the phone. I just don't understand how that can be."

She looked at Lippitt, who stared back at her for a few moments, then glanced quickly away.

Tal spoke quietly to Mrs. Foster. "Do you have any idea how your first husband managed to escape from the two men?"

The woman shook her head.

It was Lippitt who answered. "He killed one and he knocked the other unconscious," Lippitt said into the stillness. He paused, then added: "And he did it with his mind. Victor Rafferty could kill with his mind."

Tal gestured impatiently. "That's insane."

"Nevertheless, it's true," Lippitt replied calmly. "You see, Victor Rafferty could do much more than just 'read minds.' He discovered through a series of accidents that his mental powers were growing. First, he found out he could kill by willing it when he was attacked by my men. I don't believe Rafferty meant to kill, but he panicked; he saw himself being captured. He literally reached out with his mind into the other man's brain. I don't know
what
he did there, or how he did it—an autopsy showed that my man died of a massive cerebral hemorrhage. But Rafferty knew, because he was able to control it within the space of a few seconds; remember that the second man was only knocked unconscious. Can you see the implications of this power, Dr. Frederickson?"

"Assassination," I said quickly. "The same general or diplomat Rafferty leached his information from could suddenly die of a cerebral hemorrhage."

"Without anyone having laid a hand on him," Lippitt said tightly. "It wouldn't have to be a general; it could be a president, a vice president, a cabinet member. Victor Rafferty would be able to kill anyone he could get close to, and never be caught."

    20

"He
wouldn't
have!" Elizabeth Foster cried, violently shaking her head from side to side. "You know what he did to the first man was an accident! He didn't know what he was doing!"

"But he had the
capability
," Lippitt said. "That's the whole point. It was conceivable that he could have been
forced
to use his powers against us. If they had
you
, Mrs. Foster, they would control him. That's what the exercise of the last few hours was all about. For as long as he lived, Victor Rafferty could conceivably be forced to spy and kill for whoever controlled him, and no nation but the one he was working for would have a military secret left. Can you understand our position now, Mrs. Foster?"

Elizabeth Foster continued to shake her head, but her eyes betrayed her: She did understand, perhaps for the first time.

"Every nation that knew of his existence had only two choices," I said. "Force Rafferty into its camp—or kill him."

Lippitt gave a curt affirmative nod, and Elizabeth Foster's head snapped back against the cushions of the sofa as though Lippitt had struck her a physical blow. Mike Foster swore softly under his breath.

"There were orders," Lippitt continued quietly. "They were the same type of orders that I'm sure went out to the intelligence divisions of the other countries."

"Victor didn't die in an accident," Elizabeth Foster whispered. "When he refused to cooperate with you, you killed him. Or you
tried
to kill him."

Lippitt made an end run around the implied question. "We almost had him again," he said. "We were ... so close."

"The restaurant and the hospital?" I asked.

"Yes." Lippitt fixed his eyes on me. "I believe Rafferty discovered one more facet to his powers in that diner."

My mind flashed back to the old waiter, Barney, and his insistence that Rafferty had made food 'bounce.' "Telekinesis," I said, the breath catching in my throat. "He learned he could actually move objects by willing it."

"Correct," Lippitt responded evenly. "Again, an accident that enhanced Rafferty's knowledge of his own powers. He was tired and on the run. He'd lost his suitcase in the struggle with my men, and his bankbook was in that suitcase. He had no place to hide and no funds, except what he had with him. He had only the clothes on his back. When the waiter tripped and Rafferty saw that food flying at him, he instinctively reached out and pushed it away with his mind. It was a reflex action, and it must have hurt him terribly; he passed out from the pain. The waiter got a cop, who called an ambulance. Finally the cop recognized Rafferty from the description we'd sent out. I was eventually contacted in Washington ... but you know the rest. By the time I got there, it was too late."

"Why hadn't the police been briefed?" Tal asked.

"Because all pertinent information concerning Victor Rafferty was—and is—Top Secret."

"That's almost funny," Tal said sardonically. "Apparently everyone knew about Rafferty except the people who could have helped you."

Lippitt ignored him. "No one was aware at the time that Rafferty could actually move objects. Also, it must be said that he learned very quickly how to control his powers. He put the guard to sleep, then used telekinesis to open the bolt. That's how he escaped from the hospital."

Lippitt, with his flat narrative, made it sound too easy. I remembered O'Connell's description of the fingernail scratches on the doorjamb, the blood on the floor: Rafferty had been in agony.

"Poor Victor," Elizabeth Foster murmured. "Poor, poor Victor."

"How did you know Rafferty was at the metallurgy lab?" I asked. "Or is that all a story too?"

Lippitt looked at me oddly for a moment. "Rafferty called on the phone and told me he'd be there," he said simply. He took a deep breath, as if preparing to swim a long distance underwater. "It was a Sunday morning. He said that he wanted to meet me in his metallurgical lab. I had a plane bring me from Washington, and I went to the building at the appointed time."

"Alone?" I asked.

"Yes, alone. He insisted on that, and I didn't want to risk losing him again."

"Didn't you think that was rather dangerous?"

"Despite what had happened, I did not consider Rafferty a dangerous man," Lippitt said quietly. "I believed that the killing of the guard was an accident; there was nothing in Rafferty's past to indicate that he could suddenly become a killer. Now I can see that I was right: He never intended to kill me."

"He was backed into a corner," Tal said softly.

"True, but I still don't think he ever intended to kill me. He had a plan, but killing me wasn't a part of it."

"But you were prepared to kill
him,"
I said.

"Yes," he said. "If I had to. Those were my orders, and I agreed with them. There would have been no need to kill
him if he could have been persuaded to come with us. We'd have given him an entirely new identity. He would have undergone plastic surgery, voice training; even his mannerisms could have been altered. When we were finished, no one"—he nodded in Mrs. Foster's direction—"including his wife, would have recognized him. Then we would have made arrangements for his wife to join him."

"After undergoing the same... 'adjustments'?"

"Yes. Naturally."

"Christ, Lippitt," I said, feeling a chill, "you live in an ugly world."

The agent's eyes glinted for a brief moment. "Don't you dare patronize me, Frederickson. I know of too many brave men who have lost their lives; our 'ugly' world exists so that you may continue to live in your rather comfortable, relatively free world." He paused, raised his eyebrows inquiringly. When I didn't say anything, the fire in his eyes cooled and he went on. "In any case, I went to the building and found the door open. Rafferty was waiting for me with a gun, and he got the drop on me as I was going in. He told me he'd finally made up his mind what he was going to do: He was defecting to the Russians."

Elizabeth Foster made a strangled noise. Her husband started to rise, but Lippitt ignored him. Foster clenched and unclenched his fists, then abruptly sat down again. Foster knew—we both knew—that what Lippitt was saying had a ring of truth to it, and fists were no defense against it. He'd found out what he wanted to know, and now he and his wife were going to have to live with the knowledge.

"Actually," Lippitt continued, "Rafferty's reasoning was quite sound, and I respected him for it; it was a practical, rather than an ideological, decision. No state could better guarantee his safety and his wife's than one which was authoritarian. Since he could not be free anyway, he would ally himself with the system that could afford him the best protection."

"Victor never said anything about defecting!" Mrs. Foster cried. "He just wanted to be
left alonel"

Lippitt smiled thinly and continued. "He indicated to me that his decision was irreversible. He then forced me to go with him up on a catwalk above the foundry floor. He said that he intended to shoot me, then drop my body into one of the furnaces."

"
No
!" Elizabeth Foster cried, springing to her feet. "Victor would never say anything like that! You're lying!"

Mike Foster gently but firmly gripped his wife's arm and pulled her back down onto the sofa beside him. She broke, burying her face in her husband's shoulder and sobbing. "Let him tell his story," Foster said to his wife. "That doesn't mean we have to believe him."

"I knew that I'd have to kill him," Lippitt resumed in a low monotone. "I tried to reason with him right up to the last moment. Then, I simply... beat him. We both fired at the same time; I was lucky. He was hit and... he fell over the railing into the furnace."

The agent suddenly paused and licked his lips. Lippitt now seemed unusually agitated, and I didn't think it was for the obvious reason that he was admitting to Mrs. Foster that he'd killed her first husband. Something else was bothering him.

"I thought that was the end of the... problem," Lippitt continued with a catch in his voice. "I then took certain steps; I reported Rafferty's death through the same channels Dr. Llewellyn had used. I knew the report would be monitored, and I assumed the pressure would ease off. Mrs. Foster, at least, would be safe. It worked." He quickly glanced in my direction. "Then you began asking questions, Dr. Frederickson, and it started all over again." He walked back to the window, as if trying to cleanse the dark business of the past in the wash of bright sunlight. "I
shot
him," he continued in a clipped voice. "I
saw
him clutch at his stomach and fall over the railing into the furnace. . . .But
now I understand that it didn't happen. It was an
illusion.
One more trick. My God, he made me see what he
wanted
me to see."

"C'mon, Lippitt," Mike Foster said, scorn and incredulity in his voice. "You're trying to tell us that you saw Victor fall into the furnace, but he didn't actually fall?"

"That's
exactly
what I'm saying. It's the only explanation. And it means that his powers are far greater than even I knew." He paused, turned, and looked at each of us. He must have seen more than a little skepticism; he grew very pale. "You still don't believe me. He
did
have the power to enter men's minds. You know that, because Mrs. Foster has confirmed it. But there were
other
things he could do, things I haven't told you about. Perhaps if you knew—"

"He did something else to you, didn't he?" I said, certain I was right. "Why don't you tell us about that?"

Lippitt abruptly folded his arms across his chest and turned his back to us once again. His voice became stronger, matter-of-fact. "I was captured during the Korean war and tortured with ice baths."

Lippitt shuddered, as I had seen him do once before. He quickly clenched the muscles in his body, and that brought the shaking under control; it had been a spasm, no more, but it had chilled everyone in the room. I remembered the pictures of Lippitt in his overcoat in summer, and I felt cold myself.

"I'm sorry to say they extracted the information they wanted in a very short time," he continued. "I managed to survive, but the ice baths had affected my mind. It seemed to me that I could never be warm. I constantly wore a coat, because I was cold all the time. There was nothing I could do, nothing any doctor could do. I didn't want to retire, and I was of sufficient value to get my way on that... but I suffered." He looked over his shoulder at Elizabeth Foster. She glanced up at him, and their eyes held. "We talked for some time," he said, slowly turning, his gaze still locked with the woman's. "Actually, Rafferty did most of the talking. He spoke of the way
he
thought his powers should be used, in the manner Mrs. Foster has already mentioned. Then he gave
me
a demonstration."

"He cured you, didn't he?" I said slowly.

Lippitt nodded, swallowed hard. "He knew
everything.
He talked about it so casually; every thought in my mind. He knew all of it, despite the nail."

"What nail?" I said, looking up.

Lippitt held up the palm of his left hand to reveal a jagged scar running from the mount of Venus to the base of the little finger. "I'd been gripping a sharpened nail treated with acid. I didn't want Rafferty to know what I was thinking—or that
I
had a gun. I thought I could mask my thoughts with pain. I assumed it had worked; for five years I've been congratulating myself on how clever I'd been. Now, of course, I see that it didn't work at all. Rafferty had known about the gun all the time, right up to the moment when I made the decision to draw and shoot." He passed a hand across his eyes; then he continued in a softer, yet still anguished voice. "But while we talked he was working on me; he told me how my suffering was psychosomatic. Then he went into my mind, and there was nothing I could do to stop him. I could
feel
his mind in mine, probing, comforting, making me understand ... making me well again. He convinced me in less than a minute that there was nothing wrong with my body. Suddenly... I wasn't cold anymore."

"And then you killed him," Elizabeth Foster whispered. "That was your way of thanking him."

"He made me
think
that I'd killed him, Mrs. Foster. He created and forced the situation, and now I understand why. I heard him pull the hammer back while I was standing at the edge of the catwalk. I did the only thing I could do, and that was what Rafferty
wanted
me to do. I spun around, drew, and fired at him."

It was clear to me now why Lippitt had been willing to risk his life, along with a good number of government secrets, to get Elizabeth Foster and her husband out of the Russian consulate. He'd felt he owed Victor Rafferty at least that; he'd been motivated by guilt. I suddenly felt a great deal of compassion for Lippitt. He was a patriot, and in the cause of patriotism he'd traded one form of mental torture for another.

But it was Rafferty who'd made the supreme sacrifice, I thought. Ironically, in the cause of freedom; his wife's, and his own. He'd given up everything: his wife, his work, his life as he'd known it. Now that sacrifice had been wiped out. Rafferty had betrayed himself with a doodle on a scrap of paper.

"So Rafferty set you up," I said to Lippitt. My voice seemed unnaturally loud in the sudden quiet. "He made you think you'd killed him. That was an alternative you hadn't considered."

"Then Rafferty is not working for the Americans," Tal said, placing the pencil he had been rolling back in his pocket. "Or the Russians. Assuming that Mr. Lippitt is at last telling the truth... where
is
Rafferty, and what has he been doing for the past five years?"

"We know he was at the U.N., at least at the time of the housing seminar," I said. "The drawing proves that."