He waited until he was certain that the time was right before he said, “I think that I might be able to find out where your son is,” and a door that had been slammed shut in Libby’s life swung open again.
“He’s somewhere in the Playschool system,” she said, hardly daring to believe what she heard. “The records will have been changed. And Bahr’s people have infiltrated.”
“I know that,” Alexander said. “I still think we could locate him. If he is in the system, BRINT will have duplicate files.”
She stared at him. “If you could do it, if you could only do it.” She was interested, desperately interested.
Alexander suggested a plan.
If they could locate the boy, BRINT would get him out of the Playschool. Money would be made available, and Libby and Tim would be conducted out of the country, probably to Canada. In return, Libby would help Alexander.
“How?” she wanted to know.
“It has to do with Bahr. I can’t tell you more right now, except that it may be dangerous for you.”
“And Tim will be gotten out of the school in any case?”
“Before anything else begins,” Alexander promised her. “There’s one thing, though. You may have to face Bahr personally and fight him. If you’re afraid to, you’d better say so now.”
Libby was silent for a long time. Then she turned away. “I don’t want anything to do with Bahr,” she said dully.
“All right, but what are you going to do with your life? Drink yourself blind? Forget Bahr and your son? Just stand by and turn into a low-grade prostitute? Look, you’re part of this. Julian Bahr didn’t just happen out of a clear blue sky. You made him. DEPCO made him. Vanner . . . yes, Mark Vanner made him, hate by hate.”
“I know that,” she said sharply. “I know the life he’s had.
I know what DEPCO did to him when he was in Riley. He was washed up when I met him. I made him stand up again. I made him fight . . . .” She stopped.
“Yes, you made him fight, to build an empire to lay at your feet.” He faced her, forced her to meet his eyes. “Do you know why you ran away from Bahr? I’ll tell you why. Because you’d already destroyed DEPCO. You always wanted to.”
“I didn’t! I wanted to help, to do all I could.”
“By shielding Bahr? By putting him in power?”
She whirled on him. “Why do you want to torment me? I hate you!”
“You hate Bahr. Fight him.”
“All right, I will. I’ll get even with him!” She bit off the rest of the sentence, but her eyes were narrowing and hardening in anger, and Alexander knew that the White Queen was already taken.
Chapter Nineteen
It had gone smoothly for Bahr, everything had gone smoothly during the weeks while the continent was torn, hammered and smelted into a space industry under his ruthless reform. There had been enough work to tax even Bahr’s enormous reserves, and exhaustion gave him occasional stretches of dreamless sleep. On his desk was the report from White Sands announcing the first successful pilot model of the new atomic drive, and he was pleased, vastly pleased, until the memo came into his hands—an innocuous enough note except that it came in under a special code heading that guaranteed it would come to his personal attention.
He read the memo, and threw his office door open, bellowing for Walters, from whom the memo had come. “What does this thing mean?” he roared, waving the memo sheet under Walters’ nose.
“Just what it says,” Walters told him. “She took the child back.”
“What do you mean, she took the child back? Who said she could take the child back?”
Walters showed him the papers. The whole matter was perfectly legal and straightforward, and much as he wanted to, Bahr could find nothing out of order. An attorney representing Libby Allison had paid a quiet visit to the authorities at the Bordentown Playschool. He had made the proper identification in Libby’s behalf, and presented satisfactory evidence of her desire and ability to support the child properly. She had a sufficiently good job, and a suitable standing account in a Canadian bank. The paperwork had been carried through, and Tim had been released in her care.
The last Bahr had heard directly from Libby, she had been dispossessed from her New York apartment. After that, there had been too much demand on his time, too many things to do, and not enough of his personal staff to handle the load. Now he alerted four of his men and ordered them to make an investigative pounce.
They found her apartment in Boston in ten hours flat, but Libby Allison was gone, permanently. Her forwarding address was in Quebec, Canada. A check with the Border Guard Intelligence gave the tantalizing information that Libby had driven into Canada with a permanent residence passport the previous day.
The boy had been with her.
The very audacity of it infuriated Bahr even more than the fact itself. A conference with Braelow, his personal attorney, and he laid it on the line. “I want that boy back here. I don’t care how, I don’t even care whether he’s dead or alive, I just want him back!”
Braelow studied the situation, and came back with empty hands. The DIA team that Bahr had sent to Canada for surveillance returned with a report as detailed as it was useless. Libby had a job; she left Tim in a nursery during the day, and took him home to an apartment a few blocks away at night. Her Canadian job was actually a civil service job. Bahr saw an opening wedge there, and put pressure on various people to get her fired, so that she would be unable to manage support, but something or somebody seemed to be exerting equal pressure on the other side, and Libby was not fired from her job . . . .
He had Braelow contact Libby indirectly, delicately suggesting certain material advantages that would accrue if Bahr were permitted to adopt the boy, and certain unpleasant consequences if she continued her ridiculous attempt to thwart him; but Libby made a scene, and chased the contact man out. Bahr listened to the tape recording, and seethed, driving his fist into his palm until his arm was numb to the elbow.
He tried diplomatic channels then, demanding to have Libby extradited on certain legal and political charges, but this curiously came a cropper, and the Legation, in a huff, returned him a sharp warning against trying to violate political sanctuary. By this time Bahr was boiling.
Then he received a personal letter from Libby, through her attorneys. Bahr read it, and tore it into shreds, and shortly thereafter planned the kidnapping.
His DIA men did not return at the appointed time; in fact, they did not return at all, so he did not know exactly what had gone wrong. But not only did the kidnapping mission fail, the incident hit the newspapers, and the Canadian police found out somehow that there was a DIA linkage in the kidnapping attempt. Although it was only rumor and completely unconfirmed by Canadian officials, the European news nets played the story up as fact. Quite suddenly Bahr found the devoted public of Federation America catching the scent of scandal and looking to him confidently for explanation. BURINF handled the cover story very skillfully, but still there was a stir, an unpleasant aftertaste, and Bahr was beyond reason.
He faced Braelow in private conference. “I want that boy back,” he said furiously. “If she hasn’t had enough yet, then I’ll give her enough. I’ll break her into little pieces. I want that boy, and I don’t care what it costs you to get him. Just get him.”
Braelow spread his hands. “There isn’t any way but a court fight,” he said. “She’s deliberately turning this into a dirty mess. It’s impossible . . . .”
It was the wrong thing to say. “I said I wanted the boy back,” Bahr grated. “Set up any kind of case you have to, but get him back.”
“You mean you’d let it go into court?”
“My God, are you deaf? No common, low-grade whore is going to . . .” Bahr broke off, incoherent. “You heard what I said. Now you do it!”
Braelow and his staff mounted the case.
Julian Bahr tried every conceivable device to keep the affair out of the courts, but after the kidnapping faile
d it was evident that he was not going to succeed. Libby would not meet with him or his attorneys directly. She left all negotations in the hands of her counsel, who were, collectively, the best legal firm in Canada. With no other alternative at his disposal, Bahr bent every effort toward a quick, quiet settlement before a Canadian judge, confident that BURINF could do a neat job of cover-up for him on the American side.
Consequently, he received a bad jolt when he walked into the courtroom with Braelow at his elbow, and found himself facing a battery of 3-V cameras and microphones, with the press-box packed with the most eloquent journalists on five continents waiting patiently for the fun to begin.
He caught Braelow’s arm. “What are those cameras doing in here?” he whispered furiously. “Those newsmen . . . . This is my fight, my personal, private fight.”
“You don’t have anything personal or private any more,” Braelow told him coldly. “You might as well get that through your head. We’re on thin ice out here, and it’s out of our control. The cameras were the judge’s option, and he insisted on having them here so there wouldn’t be any kickback later.”
“All right, then, get my men to work jamming any broadcast,” Bahr said.
“They’ve tried it already, and they can’t. Radio Budapest is getting through, and so are half a dozen other foreign nets.” Braelow shrugged. “According to Intelligence, most of the population is following the news, one way or another.”
Bahr cursed. “How is this thing going to go?”
“Maybe not too bad,” Braelow said. “In fact, I don’t see how we can miss. We have evidence of immoral conduct, the men involved will give us perfect testimony if we need it.”
“They’d better.”
“And we have a terrific edge on the support aspect. The woman’s job here will hardly clothe and feed the child, much less educate him. That’s plainly one of our best cards.”
“You play the cards, don’t bother me with them,” Bahr said tightly. “Just so we win.”
“Relax,” Braelow said.
“But those damned cameras—”
“You’ve always liked cameras,” Braelow said. “Cool off. We’re going to win this.”
In another room in the courthouse, Libby turned to Harvey Alexander, her face drawn of color, lips trembling. “I’m afraid,” she said. “I don’t know if I can face him.”
“Well,” Alexander said, “this is a fine time to tell me.” He put his hand on her shoulder. Her whole body was shaking. “Look,” he said, more kindly. “We’ve led him down the garden path, so far. The minute he sees me out there, he’ll know that something fishy is going on. He won’t be worrying about you then. I’ll be doing the court fighting, and either you have confidence in me, or you don’t . . . .”
“It isn’t that,” Libby said miserably. “It’s the whole idea. The thing we’re going to do to him. It’s a brutal thing to do.” &
“I know it.”
“And it’s a lie . . . .”
Alexander shrugged. “I wouldn’t do it if I knew any other way to make him break. But it doesn’t matter now whether we like it or not. I’ve shown you the BRINT reports.”
“I know, I know,” Libby said. “I know we have to get Julian out now. But what if you do knock him down? What will it do to him? He hits bottom when things go against him and hell fight. But if he’s really finished, hell just go to pieces. That happened after his court-martial. He tamed into a drunk.” She looked helplessly at Alexander. “I hate him, believe me I hate him. But what will happen to him? And what if it doesn’t work? What if we’re wrong?”
“If it doesn’t work, we’ve got nothing to lose anyway,” Alexander said wearily. “He’ll expand into Canada, and then Europe, and nothing you nor I can do then will make the slightest difference. We have to get him now, before he’s entrenched so that he can never be shaken loose. Look, Libby, you’re the one who has to decide. You’ve got to have die strength and will to do it, or we’re through.”
She was silent for so long, and looked so frightened and uncertain that suddenly he was frightened himself. Maybe he had given her too much rope, but he knew that at the heart of it she had to make up her own mind.
Watching her, he thought with a sudden pang of BJ, and wondered if he would ever see her again. He knew from a BRINT checkthrough that she was alive, under constant DIA surveillance ever since he had slipped the hounds that night at Wildwood. Now he realized what drew him to Libby: she was so much, very much like BJ, and he wondered if BJ would have the strength to do what he was asking Libby to do now.
“We got Tim out of the Playschool and into Canada like clockwork,” he said, trying to sound confident. “BRINT folded up the kidnapping attempt without a hitch. So far we’ve blocked him at every turn. You must have known what you were doing then; now we’ve reached the critical point. Are you going to throw up your hands and give up now, just because Bahr may call you a couple of dirty names in public?”
“It’s not that. I don’t want Tim hurt.”
“Don’t duck the issue. You either want to fight Bahr, for what he’s done to you and the things you believe in, or you want to give up, let him take you like he’s always taken you.”
Libby flushed, and her eyes blazed with anger.
“No,” she said. “Hell never do that again. I’ll fight him.”
A clerk opened the door, and nodded to them. Alexander squeezed her hand, and she stepped to the door. A moment later they were walking down the hall and into the courtroom.
There was a hushed murmur across the room as she appeared, and the cameras of two continents swung toward her as she walked toward the long table near the front of the room. She saw Bahr’s eyes meet hers, contemptuously, and then widen. His face turned a sudden angry red and he almost leaped to his feet when he saw that her counsel for the trial was a lean, bronzed Harvey Alexander, in the uniform of a General in U.S. Army Intelligence, complete with combat braid and decorations.
Alexander took the opening advantage by putting Bahr on the defensive about the kidnapping.
First he asked Bahr’s attorney a few routine questions about why Bahr wanted the adoption, for which very reasonable and logical answers were presented. Then Alexander said, “And what was Mr. Bahr’s reaction to the attempted kidnapping of Miss Allison’s child?”
The attorney turned to Bahr, who indicated that he would answer without taking the witness chair. “I was naturally concerned,” Bahr said, “and I would like to add that I am exceedingly grateful to the Canadian authorities, who were alert enough to prevent what might have been an anxious . . . or even tragic . . . incident.”
“Can you think of any reason why someone should have wanted to carry out this kidnapping, Mr. Bahr?” Alexander asked, persistently ignoring Bahr’s title.
“I cannot, unless they knew he was my son and intended to bilk me for ransom. Certainly a ransom attempt would have been aimed at me,” he added, “because Miss Allison has no money at all.”
“Then someone must have been aware of your earlier attempt to negotiate with Miss Allison?”
Bahr reddened. “That’s possible. It was a domestic matter, I made no attempt at secrecy.”
Alexander’s voice was smooth. “Then possibly some over-zealous people attempted the kidnapping, thinking they were acting in your interests.”
“I think not,” Bahr said sharply. “My people know I don’t operate that way . . . and they are completely loyal.”
Alexander let that remark sink home; then he thrust the knife. “In that case, I’m sure you can explain,” he said, “why every member of the kidnapping group was an agent in the New York division of your own DIA.”
During the recess Bahr had a background check run on Alexander, on a crash priority, intent on discrediting him as an imposter. Alexander was a passed-over major in the Army, a deserter, and wanted by the DIA for stability check and alien contact. A General! Bahr snorted.
The background check altered his plans. The Army rec
ords were complete and perfect. Alexander, they said, had been on special CI assignment since the Wildwood raid; his promotion had been reconsidered, and he had been spot-promoted to General after directing a raid on Chinese Intelligence headquarters in Hong Kong two weeks before when an attempt had been made to blow up the White Sands rocket installation. Bahr remembered seeing the report on that raid, carried out with terrific daring and precision in Hong Kong and well publicized. He had even commended it publicly himself, though the names of the participants had not been noted. Bahr did not like it. It put Alexander in too strong a position, a military hero.
The escape from Kelley was no help, since Alexander had been registered there under a John Smith label, for Bahr’s convenience. As far as the records were concerned, the incident had never happened, and Alexander was legally scot-free. The recess was short, but by the time he went back into court Bahr was certain that some forgery and conniving had been carried out with the Army files. He smelled a rat, but he didn’t know what to do about it at that time.
After the recess, the unpleasantness of the opening session intensified. Bahr presented his claims for the boy. Alexander parried every inference against Libby’s character and qualifications, but felt that he was losing ground nevertheless. Bahr’s confidence was returning; he nodded to his counsel, and they began the long string of male witnesses testifying to Libby’s immoral conduct during the past weeks. Alexander appeared confused as the picture developed inexorably. Finally, as though at a loss, he put Libby herself on the stand.
She tensed herself for the ordeal, to do what she had to do. “I could deny what these men have been saying, but I can’t see what difference their testimony could make in this matter anyway,” she said sharply. “When DEPCO was closed down my apartment was looted, my bank account frozen, and I was turned out on the street and hustled around by the police for vagrancy. My education kept me out of low-skill jobs, and my red security card, a present from Mr. Bahr, kept me out of highly skilled jobs. When the currency was changed . . . well, show me one person in Federation America who didn’t go through hell during that changeover . . . .”
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