Gelstrom had just finished a workout in the gym on the floor below and his long sun-streaked hair was damp and straggly from the shower. He had a white terry towel around his neck and stuffed into his blue silk robe. "One moment." He touched a button on the console and
told his secretary to find Sturges and then turned back to the vidphone where Madden was watching him, his sharp features blurred by the color relay. It put Gelstrom in mind of a TV commercial portraying a man with a Technicolor hangover.
"All right. Go ahead."
"Is this channel secure?"
"Yes."
Madden's lips thinned and he glanced out of shot, a look that could kill. His eyes flicked back. "I'm at the Bakersfield plant, Mr. Gelstrom. We've had a visit from a Dr. Gavin Chase, a British marine biologist who tried to pass himself off as David Benson of the Scripps Institution. Tried and succeeded. I think we ought to do something about it."
With a lazy gesture Gelstrom combed back his hair. His tanned handsome face remained composed. "Is that it or is there more?"
"Merrik and Dr. Hilti showed him around the place, including the marine experimental chamber. He had what appears to be a bona fide Scripps ID in the name of Benson."
"So how do you know he's Chase?"
"I recognized him."
"You know him?"
"I met him once, when he was with Professor Banting at Halley Bay Station."
"Is Banting there with you now?"
Madden nodded. "Do you want to speak to him?"
"No. What did Chase want?"
Madden's tongue flicked out to moisten his lips. "We don't know." He looked away and back again, fighting to control his anger. "Professor Banting thinks--that is, he's almost certain--that Chase is a freelance journalist now. He's seen articles by him in the British scientific press--"
"One moment." Gelstrom held up his finger and in the same movement beckoned to Sturges, who closed the door and came to stand behind the contoured velvet chair and folded his arms, gold glinting on his hairy wrists. "Go on."
"Chase has worked for the BBC, so Banting says. In view of the fact that he thought it necessary to use a false name we can assume that he was hoping to dig up something. He also told Merrik that his head of department at Scripps was Dr. Detrick."
"Really? That was stupid of him," Gelstrom remarked languidly. "Did he give a reason for his visit?" "He said they needed a new kind of marine herbicide for a deepwa-ter expedition. He wanted to satisfy himself about the R and D backup here and Merrik believed him."
"That was stupid of him, too," Gelstrom said. There was a silence through which Madden waited, a muscle moving in his cheek. Gelstrom said, "Could he have seen anything? What was happening in the chamber at the time, anything that could have made him suspicious?"
"Dr. Hilti thinks not. The tanks were being prepared for a new series of tests, which aren't scheduled to start until tomorrow. He couldn't have seen anything."
"But you still think he's dangerous. A threat."
"Let's say a risk, and one we don't have to run," Madden said. "He's heard something, a rumor, or there's been a leak, otherwise why come to the plant in the first place and under a false name? And Detrick is somehow involved. Maybe she put him up to it. That absolutely seals it as far as I'm concerned. We have to do something."
"What do you recommend?"
"I leave that to you. But something terminal."
Gelstrom massaged both temples and turned his head fractionally.
"Anything else you need to know?"
"No," Sturges said, unfolding his arms. "That'll be enough."
The voice of the switchboard operator said, "Mr. Bryant of the American Press Association is on the line. Will you take it?"
"Yes, all right, put him on." Standing at the wall phone in the lab Cheryl wiped her fingers down the side of her white coat, thinking, Bryant? Bryant? She shook her head, puzzled.
There was a click and a hale and hearty voice boomed, "Hello! Dr. Detrick! Pat Bryant, APA. You won't remember me, but I was at the conference in Washington earlier this year. You answered a couple of my questions."
"The NOAA conference," Cheryl said. "When was it, February, March? No, I'm sorry, Mr. Bryant, I don't remember you."
"That's by the by," breezed Bryant, making Cheryl grit her teeth. She
BBC want to reach him urgently. You don't happen to know his present whereabouts?"
"Well, not precisely, Mr. Bryant. You see, Mr. Chase is on his way back to England right now via New York. He took an early flight from Los Angeles."
"You mean today? He left this morning?"
"That's right."
There was a pause, buzzing on the line.
