Three times in the five months since Bern had joined the project, agents of the Soviet government had made attempts to contact the physicist. Three times the FBI, warned by S.M.M.R. agents, had quietly blocked the contact. Konrad Bern had been effectively isolated.
But, at the project site itself, equipment failure had become increasingly more frequent, all out of proportion to the normal accident rate in any well-regulated laboratory. The work of the project had practically come to a standstill; the ultra-secret project reports to the President were beginning to show less and less progress in the basic research, and more and more progress in repairing damaged equipment. Apparently, though, increasing efficiency in repair work was self-neutralizing; repairing an instrument in half the time merely meant that it could break down twice as often.
It had to be sabotage. And yet, not even the S.M.M.R. agents could find any trace of intentional damage nor any thought patterns that would indicate deliberate damage.
And Senator John Peter Gonzales quite evidently did not want to face the implications of that particular fact.
"We're going to have to send an agent in," Taggert repeated.
(That's my cue, thought the young man on the fifth floor as he crushed out his cigarette and got up from the chair.)
"I don't know how we're going to manage it," said the senator. "What excuse do we have for putting a new man on the Redford team?"
Brian Taggert grinned. "What they need is an expert repair technician—a man who knows how to build and repair complex research instruments. He doesn't have to know anything about the purpose of the team itself, all he has to do is keep the equipment in good shape."
Senator Gonzalez let a slow smile spread over his face. "You've been gulling me, you snake. All right; I deserved it. Tell him to come in."
As the door opened, Taggert said: "Senator Gonzales, may I present Mr. David MacHeath? He's our man, I think."