"That's classified, too."
"My guess is that he was in the army. And there was an accident someplace. Like what happened to those sheep in Utah thirty years ago, only a lot worse."
"Mr. Redman, I could go to jail just for telling you you were hot or cold."
Stu rubbed a hand thoughtfully over his new scrub of beard.
"You should be glad we're not telling you more than we are," Deitz said. "You know that, don't you?"
"So I can serve my country better," Stu said dryly.
"No, that's strictly Denninger's thing," Deitz said. "In the scheme of things both Denninger and I are little men, but Denninger is even littler than I am. He's a servomotor, nothing more. There's a more pragmatic reason for you to be glad. You're classified, too, you know. You've disappeared from the face of the earth. If you knew enough, the big guys might decide that the safest thing would be for you to disappear forever."
Stu said nothing. He was stunned.
"But I didn't come here to threaten you. We want your cooperation very badly, Mr. Redman. We need it."
"Where are the other people I came in here with?"
Deitz brought a paper out of an inside pocket. "Victor Palfrey, deceased. Norman Bruett, Robert Bruett, deceased. Thomas Wannamaker, deceased. Ralph Hodges, Bert Hodges, Cheryl Hodges, deceased. Christian Ortega, deceased. Anthony Leominster, deceased."
The names reeled in Stu's head. Chris the bartender. He'd always kept a sawed-off, lead-loaded Louisville Slugger under the bar, and the trucker who thought Chris was just kidding about using it was apt to get a big surprise. Tony Leominster, who drove that big International with the Cobra CB under the dash. Sometimes hung around Hap's station, but hadn't been there the night Campion took out the pumps. Vic Palfrey... Christ, he had known Vic his whole life. How could Vic be dead? But the thing that hit him the hardest was the Hodges family.
"All of them?" he heard himself ask. "Ralph's whole family?"
Deitz turned the paper over. "No, there's a little girl. Eva. Four years old. She's alive."
"Well, how is she?"
"I'm sorry, that's classified."
Rage struck him with all the unexpectedness of a sweet surprise. He was up, and then he had hold of Deitz's lapels, and he was shaking him back and forth. From the corner of his eye he saw startled movement behind the double-paned glass. Dimly, muffled by distance and soundproofed walls, he heard a hooter go off.
"What did you people do?" he shouted. "What did you do? What in Christ's name did you do?"
"Mr. Redman - "
"Huh? What the f**k did you people do?"
The door hissed open. Three large men in olive-drab uniforms stepped in. They were all wearing nose-filters.
Deitz looked over at them and snapped, "Get the hell out of here!"
The three men looked uncertain.
"Our orders - "
"Get out of here and that's an order!"
They retreated. Deitz sat calmly on the bed. His lapels were rumpled and his hair had tumbled over his forehead. That was all. He was looking at Stu calmly, even compassionately. For a wild moment Stu considered ripping his nose-filter out, and then he remembered Geraldo, what a stupid name for a guinea pig. Dull despair struck him like cold water. He sat down.
"Christ in a sidecar," he muttered.
"Listen to me," Deitz said. "I'm not responsible for you being here. Neither is Denninger, or the nurses who come in to take your blood pressure. If there was a responsible party it was Campion, but you can't lay it all on him, either. He ran, but under the circumstances, you or I might have run, too. It was a technical slipup that allowed him to run. The situation exists. We are trying to cope with it, all of us. But that doesn't make us responsible."
"Then who is?"
"Nobody," Deitz said, and smiled. "On this one the responsibility spreads in so many directions that it's invisible. It was an accident. It could have happened in any number of other ways."
"Some accident," Stu said, his voice nearly a whisper. "What about the others? Hap and Hank Carmichael and Lila Bruett? Their boy Luke? Monty Sullivan - "
"Classified," Deitz said. "Going to shake me some more? If it will make you feel better, shake away."
Stu said nothing, but the way he was looking at Deitz made Deitz suddenly look down and begin to fiddle with the creases of his pants.
"They're alive," he said, "and you may see them in time."
"What about Arnette?"
"Quarantined."
"Who's dead there?"
"Nobody."
"You're lying."
"Sorry you think so."
"When do I get out of here?"
"I don't know."
"Classified?" Stu asked bitterly.
"No, just unknown. You don't seem to have this disease. We want to know why you don't have it. Then we're home free."
"Can I get a shave? I itch."
Deitz smiled. "If you'll allow Denninger to start running his tests again, I'll get an orderly in to shave you right now."
"I can handle it. I've been doing it since I was fifteen."
Deitz shook his head firmly. "I think not."
Stu smiled dryly at him. "Afraid I might cut my own throat?"