eyes met, narrowed, bridged a gap of years. And Trask remembered again that scene in the garden of the old house outside Edinburgh:
The Necroscope, Harry Keogh, monstrous in his drooling, halloween, halogen lantern-eyed Wamphyri mode, holding in one hand a small, thin, dried-up, withered-looking prune of a man ... called Geoffrey Paxton/
Paxton the mind-flea, an E-Branch telepath, but treacherous to a fault; indeed, to every fault in the book! He had been maybe twenty-seven then, was in his early forties now. But while the weaselish face and eyes - and certainly the voice - were the same, Paxton's body appeared to have undergone something of a metamorphosis of its own. Deprived by the Necroscope of his telepathy, Paxton had had to develop other talents, not mental or parapsychological but physical. Forced to work for a living, he'd been obliged to become more nearly the man. And Trask thought, Why, he's looking in good shape! His body, at least. ..
But the mind was the same as ever. Still devious, still full of hatred, still lusting after revenge. Revenge against Harry Keogh ... or his heirs! And once again Trask recognized the truth of it, and as easily as that the mystery was solved. Paxton of CMI! Sixteen years it had taken him to get in shape, climb to the top, become a high-ranking officer in the Department of Dirty Tricks. And all that time he'd been watching E-Branch and waiting, always waiting.
Vindictive? God, yes, he was! Trask thought. But as vindictive as this? To have worked all these years for this? Or was there more to it than simple revenge on Harry Keogh and whoever followed after him? Harry had considered Paxton a mind-flea, an irritation, an itch he couldn't scratch without surrendering to the monstrous parasitic Thing inside him, whose prime objective had been to make him Wamphyri. But in the end he'd found a way, had entered Paxton's mind and made a few adjustments there. So that when at last he'd scratched the telepathic itch, Paxton's talent was no more. The Necroscope had erased it.
Trask knew how he would feel if he were suddenly robbed of his talent: he would want it back. And Paxton? Did he want his telepathy back? Or did he want more - a whole lot more - than that? As an esper with E-Branch he had read the Keogh files, of course. And he'd been right there at the finish, during Harry's last days in this world.
So ... Paxton had known the Necroscope's capabilities; indeed, he'd experienced Harry's talents first-hand. He knew about the Mobius Continuum (Harry had taken him there, to the most private place in or out of the world, where he had fixed his mind), and about Sunside/Starside, the vampire world. At the end, he'd known too that Harry was a vampire. One of the undead -but the only one who could talk to the truly dead. The only one in the world, yes ...
... At that time.
But now there was another, Nathan. And Paxton knew about him, too. Thrown out of E-Branch, the ex-esper had wormed his way into CMI, which with the exception of the Branch was the last of the covert government intelligence agencies. And he'd done it specifically to keep a watch on the mindspies. For if there was a way - any way at all - for Paxton to get his telepathy back, it would have to be through Trask's E-Branch. And if there was a chance to add to that talent or enhance it.. .? Then be sure he would take it.
Well, and now his time had come; opportunity had knocked at last. Perhaps this son of Harry Keogh could put right what his vampire father had put wrong. But that wasn't the end of it by a long shot, for it was also Paxton's chance to take his revenge! Right here and now, looking at the man face to face, Trask knew the truth of it: that that was exactly how it was. Paxton would use Nathan if he could, and if he couldn't he'd kill him. Trask knew it, yes ...
... And Paxton knew he knew.
To recognize and evaluate Paxton had taken only a second, and a lot less than that to forecast his reaction. Next to the Necroscope himself, Trask had been Paxton's worst enemy. Obviously he still was. So that, as the ex-telepath swung his weapon towards the airlock and squeezed the trigger, Trask was already closing the door on himself and yanking the handles to lock. He heard only the start of it as the cavern filled with the lunatic chatter of sudden death, but certainly he knew when the door itself was hit: the clamour was deafening as bullets flattened themselves on steel only a few inches from his face.
Trask pushed at the shut door and slid backwards down the smooth bore of the tube a few inches until eager hands grabbed his legs and pulled him through. The tube was about seven feet long, the thickness of the concrete wall, and fitted with handles at the sides to give purchase. Trask supposed that the airlock would be the weakest part of the system. The doors could be blown off. It wouldn't take Paxton long to cut or blast his way through.
Nathan, Chung and Anna Marie were waiting with the three remaining cavers. In the white, artificial light of the inner cave, the faces of all six looked drawn, their features etched in fear. And looking at them, Trask thought: Only one way out now. But again Nathan had been listening.
'I can still take you somewhere else,' he said. 'It would only take a moment to set you down in Edinburgh or Hartlepool. Or the Greek Islands, if you like!'