This disturbed Crane. Did he have competition in the matter of the android? Was someone else trying to get into the act?
"A New York free-lance photographer named King. I didn't have to check on him. I recognized him. He's been around Manhattan for years."
"A photographer. What do you suppose he's up to?"
"No way of telling, at the moment. Want me to switch to him?"
"No. Stay on Taber. There's more chance there."
Dorfman got up from his chair, stepping on the ashes as he did so and ground them into the rug. "Okay, I'll report tomorrow."
After Dorfman left, Crane pondered the situation. Were the Russians behind this? Somehow, he was beginning to doubt it. And this dismayed him somewhat. He was enough of a realist to know that even a possible invasion from outer space—if that talk hadn't been a cover-up—would not carry the power of a Russian plot.
A space invasion? Too science-fictional. It had been done by H. G. Wells and God knew how many other writers. Break a yarn like that and nobody would believe it. Still, if he could get his hands on the evidence.
He scowled as he contemplated the one stone wall he hadn't been able to penetrate. No connection he had, no contact, would reveal the secret laboratory where the dissection of the androids had taken place, or the specialist who'd done the job. Porter might give it to him in exchange for a guarantee of the hydroelectric post. But Crane suspected that even Porter did not have this information. The higher you went in these top-secret projects, the more silence and stubbornness you found. The men up above, it seemed, were never as open to discussion as were the lower-echelon eager beavers. They indulged in horse-trading and played politics to a certain extent, but the lines of demarcation were sharper. That was why he could get Taber discredited, even crippled. But knocking a man of his proven ability completely out was another matter. The men on the top floor measured a lot of evidence before they acted.
But the body of one of the androids—there should be a way—there had to be a way.