"And to your left is Dr. Martin Raymond. Mart's the Director of Beller Labs," Mitchison said.
"Pleased to meet you," said Raymond. His voice was deep, well-modulated, even. Harker sensed that this was a man of tremendous inner strength and purpose. Raymond was a type Harker had seen before, and respected: the quietly intense sort that remained in the background, accumulating intensity like a tightening mainspring, capable of displaying any amount of energy or drive when it was needed.
"And you already know Ben Lurie, of course," Mitchison said. "So we might as well get on our way."
The trip took a little over an hour, with Mitchison making a crosstown hop via the 125th Street overpass, then ducking downtown to 110th Street and taking the Cathedral Avenue rivertube across the Hudson into New Jersey. The village of Litchfield turned out to be one of those Jersey towns of a thousand souls or so that look just like every other small Jersey town: a railroad siding, a block or two of shopping center, bank, post office, then a string of old split-levels rambling away from the highway in every direction.
Mitchison, handling his big car with an almost sensuous delight, drove on through the main part of town, into the open country again, and about a mile and a half past the heart of the village suddenly turned up a small road prominently labeled Private: Keep Out. Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted.
The road wound inward through a thick stand of close-packed spruce for more than a thousand feet, at which point a road-block became evident. Two apparently armed men stood guard at either side of the road.
Mitchison opened the doors and the five occupants of the car got out. Harker took a deep breath. The air out here was sweet and pure, and not with the mechanical purity of Manhattan's strained and filtered atmosphere. He liked the feel of fresh air against his nostrils and throat.
Lurie said to the guards, "This is Mr. James Harker. We've brought him here to visit the labs."
"Right."