The Innocent Read Free Page B

from the East.
    They turned down a narrower road that tapered off into a track. Off to the left was a newly surfaced road. Glass tilted his head back and indicated with his beard. Two hundred yards ahead, obscured at first by the stark forms of an orchard that lay behind it, was their destination. It resolved itself into two principal buildings. One was two storeys high and had a gently pitched roof; the other, which ran off from the first at an angle, was low and gray, like a cell block. The windows, which formed a single line, appeared to be bricked in. On the roof of the second building was a cluster of four globes, two large, two small, arranged to suggest a fat man with fat hands extended.Close by were radio masts making a fine, geometric tracery against the dull white sky. There were temporary buildings, a circular service road, and a strip of rough ground before the double perimeter fence began. In front of the second building were three military trucks and men in fatigues milling around them, unloading perhaps.
    Glass pulled to the side of the track and stopped. Up ahead was a barrier, and a sentry standing beside it, watching them. “Let me tell you about level one. The Army engineer who built this place is told he’s putting up a warehouse, a regular Army warehouse. Now, his instructions specify a basement with a twelve-foot ceiling. That’s deep. That means shifting a hell of a lot of earth, dump trucks to take it away, finding a site, and so on. And it isn’t the way the Army builds a warehouse. So the commander refuses to do it till he has confirmation direct from Washington. He’s taken aside, and at this point he discovers there are clearance levels, and he’s being upgraded to level two. He’s not really building a warehouse at all, he’s told, it’s a radar station, and the deep basement is for special equipment. So he gets to work, and he’s happy. He’s the only guy on site who knows what the building is really for. But he’s wrong. If he had level three clearance, he’d know it wasn’t a radar station at all. If Sheldrake had briefed you, you’d know too. I know, but I don’t have authority to upgrade your clearance. But the point is this—everybody thinks his clearance is the highest there is, everyone thinks he has the final story. You only hear of a higher level at the moment you’re being told about it. There could be a level four here. I don’t see how, but I’d only hear about it if I was being initiated. But you …”
    Glass hesitated. A second sentry had stepped out of his hut and was waving them forward. Glass spoke quickly. “You have level two, but you know there’s a level three. That’s a breach, an irregularity. So I might as well fill you in. But I’m not going to, not without covering my ass first.”
    Glass drove forward and wound down his window. He took a card from his wallet and passed it up to the sentry. The twomen in the car stared at the midriff buttons on the soldier’s greatcoat.
    Then a friendly, big-boned face filled the window and spoke across Bob Glass’s lap to Leonard. “You have something for me, sir.”
    Leonard was pulling out his letters of introduction from the Dollis Hill research unit. But Glass murmured “Christ, no” and pushed the letters out of the sentry’s reach. Then he said, “Move your face, Howie. I’m getting out.”
    The two men walked toward the guard hut. The other sentry, who had taken up a position in front of the barrier, kept his rifle raised in front of him in almost ceremonial style. He nodded at Glass as he passed. Glass and the first sentry went into the hut. Through the open doorway it was possible to make out Glass talking on the phone. After five minutes he came back to the car and spoke through the window.
    “I have to go in and explain.” He was about to leave when he changed his mind, opened the door and sat down. “Another thing. These guys on the gate know nothing. They don’t even know about a