Anybody. Maybe it always will be, from now on, and maybe — if Ellings was merely being used — we have only one hope: finding out who used him. But there’s one difficulty about telling Bogan and the Yates family that we don’t feel anything was going on around there.
It’s Bogan himself. He really believes what he reported. I believe it. And if we give him the brush, he’s undoubtedly going to push right on with—”
“His hobby of danger?” McIntosh smiled bleakly. “I suppose he is. But — still just being hypothetical — if there is such an outfit as you take on faith, will they be badly alarmed by a physics student’s attempt to catch up with them? I think not.”
“They near killed him.”
The bureau head was silent for a long time. Finally he said, “See here, Hig. If this operation is real, maybe several million people might get killed all of a sudden. Good Americans. Risking the life of one or two or even a family isn’t important. If it’s not real — which is my opinion— there’s no risk.”
Higgins gestured as if to protect that logic. Then he said, “Yeah.”
McIntosh consulted his watch again. “You go back to the hospital. Tell Bogan that we did have a watch on the place ever since he started bringing tales to us. Tell him no stranger or anybody else was even near the hammock trees that night. Tell him we’re calling off our men. Let him feel we’re sick and tired of a lot of to-do that pans out as nothing. Give him the notion that his accident, and his ‘theory’ that it was something different, is the last straw.
He’s already sore at us for apparently doing little. If you say we did a job of watching he knew nothing about, and are quitting now because this time we know he was mistaken — well, it’ll leave him high and dry.”
“Sure will,” Higgins said. “And I hate to do it to him. He’s a nice guy, Mac. Got brains. Sense of humor. Guts.”
“Can you think of a better way to handle it?” McIntosh rose and set his Panama carefully on his head. “If I hurry, I can just about hit the middle of the sermon. My wife’ll be annoyed.” He put his arm over Higgins’ shoulder and propelled him toward the single elevator in service on that Sunday morning. “You haven’t really got this thing focused yet, Hig. Remember what I said. If it’s all a pipe dream, no harm done. If it’s not, we have to run the risk of one man being in danger in order to have any chance at all, ourselves, of stopping something”—as the elevator came, he hesitated—“that we’d gladly sacrifice every man in the bureau to stop.”