Ten From Infinity by Paul W. Fairman

Author:Paul W. Fairman [Fairman, Paul W.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Published: 2007-03-19T16:00:00+00:00

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9

The man had sallow skin; the look of a consumptive. He sat in a chair beside Crane's desk and dropped the ash from his cigar on Crane's wall-to-wall carpeting. Crane scowled, but let it pass.

"All right. Dorfman, what have you got to show for the money I've paid you?"

Dorfman, an old hand at confidential snooping, refused to quail before the much-publicized senatorial scowl. "It's tough putting on a hunt when you're not quite sure what you're after."

"I told you what I wanted. I wanted you to watch for any New York contacts Brent Taber might be using at the present time. That's simple enough, isn't it?"

"Taber contacts a lot of people. And he's a dangerous man to tail. He knows all the tricks."

"Are you telling me he caught you following him? If he did, you're no longer of any value to me."

"He didn't spot me," Dorfman said. "I followed him to New York and kept tabs on a Manhattan office, one he uses as his headquarters there."

"A directory check would tell me that."

"Take it easy. I staked out the place all day yesterday. Five men entered and left. Four were his own men."

Crane made a notation on a pad. He knew about those men. They'd been pulled off Taber's staff without notice. No doubt they'd made their last report to Taber and had headed back to Washington for reassignment. Dorfman would not know this, of course.

Or so Crane thought. Dorfman smiled as though he'd read Crane's mind and said, "I think Taber's losing his staff. They were government men—four of them—reporting in or out. My guess was out." He peered keenly at Crane for a moment. "Who's slicing away at Taber behind his back?"

"That's none of your—look here, Dorfman, I can get a better man than you at half the price!"

"No, you can't," Dorfman said easily. "Like I told you, there were five. The other one turned out to be a Doctor Frank Corson, an intern at Park Hill Hospital in Manhattan."

Crane made another quick notation. A Manhattan doctor. One of the androids had been found in the East River with its throat slit and a broken leg. Now a doctor had contacted Taber. Was there a connection? Somehow, Crane had to get on the track of the tenth android Taber was hunting. Cutting the ground out from under Taber had been a satisfying victory but it wasn't enough. To be of service to his electorate, Senator Crane realized, he had to have something tangible in the way of evidence. The only way to get this was to ferret out Taber's contacts and locate the tenth android himself, or at least be there when Taber located the creature.

A man of supreme confidence in his destiny, Crane had been working on the speech he would make when he was ready for the I accuse scene from the Senate floor. He had even gone so far as to alert a fashionable Washington hotel to be ready with a suite at a moment's notice.

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