"You"re kidding."
"I"m not. You think the Libyans could have done this? Seriously? They couldn"t. The Russians? We get better cooperation from them than we get from the CIA. Who else is there--the Chinese? Next year, maybe--ten years from now, maybe. But they honestly don"t have the technical capacity right now. I can tell you that for certain."
Eli found Roni Tahr examining the joints in the walls when he returned with their lunch.
"Thought I told you to lie on the bed." he asked.
"What exactly do you think you"re doing?"
"Exploring my prison."
"Won"t do you any good," he said.
"Solid concrete.
Lined with lead; reinforced with steel. They can"t find you in this place."
"I see."
"h.e.l.l. I"m sure you do." Eli set the plates on the card table at the center of the room.
"Eat up," he said.
"Ham sandwiches. You"ll like them."
Blink. Swallow. Blink.
"Flesh?"
EU smiled.
"Pig meat. On bread. With mayonnaise."
"Unfortunate."
Eli shrugged.
"Eat it or don"t. I won"t care."
"I will eat."
Eli laughed when he saw Roni Tahr lift the sandwich and begin to pick at it so gingerly; chuckled at the sight of the alien"s disgust as he masticated the bread and meat.
"You are such a fraud," he said.
"Walking around the world like you were the Second Coming. But when you"re hungry, you eat, just like anybody else. Even when you"re disgusted with yourself."
The alien stopped in mid-chew.
Set his sandwich down. And uttered something in an alien tongue that sounded like a curse.
"Who are you, Eli?" he asked.
Eli smiled.
"I am your keeper, Roni Tahr. Nothing more; nothing less."
A smile.
"I have never come to you before."
Eli laughed.
"I could have told you that," he said.
"It isn"t what I meant."
"Say, then."
Another laugh.
"No, there isn"t any point. Except that you"re still a G.o.dd.a.m.n fraud."
Blink. Swallow. Blink.
It took Johnson Smith most of three days to get the clearances he needed to even start questioning the Black Budget types.
When he finally did get the authorization and the clearances he needed--directly from cop.gov, because the President was watching the investigation closely-he got d.a.m.ned little in the way of cooperation.
Black Budget types have a habit of not answering questions;
it makes them h.e.l.l to deal with when it comes to an investigation.
"I need to know. d.a.m.n it," Johnson Smith told the nameless major from the Mars project.
"The President needs to know. Who"ve you got working on the kind of equipment that could have got the aliens out of that hotel unseen?"
Silence.
"n.o.body," the major lied More silence.
"We aren"t working on anything like that."
Johnson Smith sighed.
"You"re lying to me," he said.
"What"ve you got?
Who have you got?"
"Nothing. I told you that, didn"t I?"
It went like that all day, for hours and hours--none of them would answer a straight question, and it didn"t do a bit of good to ask the questions at right angles to the point.
At 9 pm, Johnson Smith finally gave up, and resigned himself to heading home to bed.