IN DEVELOPMENT - "The Devil: And What If I Do?"

THE DEVIL: AND WHAT IF I DO?
By Steve Orr

"If I should labor through daylight and dark,
Consecrate, valorous, serious, true,
Then on the world I may blazon my mark;
And what if I don't, and what if I do?"

Dorothy Parker

#

The light, from the spill of the projector and the frozen image it splashed across the screen, wasn't nearly enough to illuminate the entire room. The corners, and the upper tier of seats were too far for the light to penetrate.

The two men, not exactly enemies but not really friends, sat with an empty seat between them. The older man studied the face frozen on the screen. He noted, with the swift but sure analysis of a professional, the salient features of the person they were here to discuss; open, honest expression, clear, focused eyes, hair neatly combed . . . didn't look like a terrorist to him.

Keeping his gaze fixed on the screen, he said, "Bryan Samson Bonfanti. What kind of parents would saddle a kid with that combination?" But it was a rhetorical question and the younger man knew it.

The older man continued, "How did you come to have this video? And why did he talk to you?"

These, the younger man knew, were real questions. "Believe it or not, it was a simple case of mistaken identity. He thought I was his lawyer. I'm not sure it would have mattered. I sensed he was ready to talk to anybody who would listen. Still, the mistake made it that much easier to get what I wanted. You'll see. He was eager to prove his innocence."

The older man looked unconvinced. "How do you know he wasn't just putting on a show for the camera?"

The younger man smiled. It was not a nice smile. "He never knew he was being recorded. The pickups were built into a pair of glasses I wore. Like I said, he thought he was talking to his lawyer.”

For the first time since the projector had been turned on, the older man looked away from the screen. His eyes flicked quickly over the younger man, a new-found respect in them. "Who else knows about this recording?"

"So far, just you. I came to you first."

The older man recognized the gesture for what it was, a sort of peace offering. A show of respect. His regard for the younger man moved a bit, if not toward friendship then certainly further away from enemy.

Returning his gaze to the screen, he said, "All right. Show me."

The younger man raised a remote, aimed it at the projector and pressed a button. The face on the screen started talking.

#
"Okay, I guess you're right. Skipping around isn't going to help. All right. From the beginning. I was well into my fourth year of grad school when my advisor lost her mind. At least, I assume that's what happened. That must be what happened. Seemingly overnight, she up-and-left her husband, running off with a guy who had just received his Masters in English Lit. He was one of those good looking guys who can spout appropriate poetry for any occasion; the good stuff, too. I have to admit, I was a little jealous . . . not about my advisor and him. I mean about the poetry. Women love that stuff. I get what she saw in him. But pretty boy or no, how do you make a living with that degree?

"Anyway. Suddenly I was foundering. I discovered that no one else on the faculty thought my thesis topic was as groundbreaking as she had. I hadn't exactly expected members of the faculty to beat a path to my little corner (I shared an office with a couple of third-year's). But I certainly expected better than I got. The best offer I had was from this one Prof who said. 'Mr. Bonfanti, I will lower myself to serve as your advisor if you will simply gut your work, bleed it out, and build something else inside the skin.' Yeah, yeah, I know. You're right. He didn't really say that. But that's how it felt. His recommended changes amounted to another four years worth of work. That sounded an awful lot like starting over, to me.

"I was desperate. I think that explains why I was so happy to get the invitation. Well, all right, it wasn't really an invitation, but it might just as well have been. Some weeks earlier I did the very same thing hundreds of grad students had done every year for the past twelve years. I requested an interview with The Devil. It's almost SOP.

"If you were pursuing an advanced degree in psychology, sociology, criminology, heck, almost any 'ology', you wanted to interview Old Nick. It was the Holy Grail of academia. If you could get that interview, you could write your own ticket. The worst advisor couldn't screw your life over, if you could talk to The Man.

"You probably remember the bizarre string of murders attributed to him. Of course, there's quite a bit which isn't generally available to the public. I mean, you could get it through the Freedom of Information Act, but, frankly, most of it's pretty sick. Unless you have a professional interest, I recommend you avoid the details.

"I bet you know about all the layers, though, right? Nesting, they called it. He didn't just kill people. He killed them with multi-layered references to poetry, quantum physics, history, literature, politics, you name it. Even obscure references from the dark arts; alchemy, magic.

"The profilers, of course, were the first to realize what he was doing. Buried within those layers were clues to his past and future murders. That's when the authorities began to realize just what a genius they were up against.

"You had to solve one layer before you could even discover the clue to the next layer, and so on. Once they began to crack the clues, the authorities realized, pretty quickly, that this guy knew a lot of things. One disturbing aspect, among many, was that some of those things he knew were supposed to be secret.

"There were so many bizarre aspects to the case. Remember that guy from the Department of Justice who was interviewed on CNN? Said it was like a really violent video game come to life? I hear he's on permanent detail to Butte, Montana.

"Even more interesting, from a criminology perspective, was that Old Scratch left plenty of his fingerprints at every scene. Every murder was different from the others -- there didn't seem to be any pattern -- so it was the fingerprints that finally clued someone to the fact that these were the work of a single killer.

"The generally accepted theory is that he wanted to be discovered. My theory is that he wanted to be caught. Why else leave clues? Even extremely obscure ones? He was playing a game; one that only smart people could play. Still, and history proves me out on this, someone did eventually figure out the clues. And, someone did eventually use them to track him down. You can't tell me he was smart enough to devise them but not smart enough to know they would lead to him.

"The fingerprint thing: they submitted them through VICAP and got several hits, but no identity. All they knew at the time was, whoever the killer was, he had never been fingerprinted. There were all those hits on unsolved murders. And remember the embarrassment when they discovered the hits on the supposedly solved murders? Seventeen different people adjudged to be murderers were exonerated. Too late for nine of them.

"But, of course, you know all that from the media coverage. Just like you know about him never giving them his name when they finally caught him. Well, unless he really is 'The Devil.' Interviewing him is the dream of many a grad student, along with many college professors, psychiatrists, policemen, various kinds of federal agents, and not a few heads of state. He's turned down everyone. In all the time since his capture, h's never consented to one, single interview. But, for reasons I hoped to get him to reveal, he decided to break his silence. And I was going to be the one who would be there when he did it.

"OK, I admit it. I'm ambitious. In retrospect, maybe it wasn't wise. But, really, what would you have done? I think if you had been notified that your request to meet The Devil had been approved, you would have done the same. I needed a win. From where I was drowning, it looked a lot like a life preserver. When the word got out, people started treating me with deference. Suddenly, nobody thought my thesis needed quite so many changes. I felt respected.

"That's how I came to be there that day."

The older man watched as Bonfanti reached for something out of camera range. When his hand reappeared, there was a paper cup in it. Bonfanti lifted the cup to his lips and took a sip, then another. For a few seconds he just stayed that way, cup to lip, eyes staring off into some internal distance.

The younger man's voice now came from the speakers. "Brian? I need for you to tell me everything. What happened that day?"

Bonfanti's gaze returned to the present and he looked directly at the hidden camera.

"Sorry. My mind keeps jumping ahead to the weird parts. OK. That morning started off much the same as mornings had for almost two weeks, cold and rainy. Fall had come late to the Boston area. Oh, we had had a little scare when a near frost had hit in early October. But that was quickly followed by one of the warmest, most pleasant, Indian Summers you would ever wish for. It was even comical watching the local weather anchors try to diagnose the situation. The best they could do was "unseasonably warm temperatures". It's like having a doctor tell you that the reason you are exhibiting all those symptoms is that you have a cold. Thank you very much, Doc, I think I could have gotten that far on my own.

"So, for a couple of weeks, we were pretty smug people. Strutting about, soaking up all that sunshine. Of course, Fall did come. It always does. The leaves fell and blanketed almost everything that wasn't moving, visually stunning as always. The sad part was that, before even one of them could swirl about in the wind, the winter rains began . . . early. The weather Docs said, "unseasonably cold temperatures". And, that's how it had been for over two weeks. Chilling rains greeted us each morning, then were gone by nightfall. Everywhere there was a blanket of slick, soggy, brown leaves.

"Don't get the impression that any of this dampened my excitement. There was an irrepressible grin on my face as I drove out from the city toward Walpole. As I came up on the prison, I couldn't see the recently constructed Spenser Facility for the Criminally Insane. It was located behind, and well away from, the main building and grounds. I drove around back and discovered a large patch of mud where the parking lot will someday be, but certainly not before Spring. Thirty or forty other vehicles formed four uneven rows. I parked my GEO more or less in line at the near end of row four.

"Once inside, out of the deluge, things started off pretty well. The Devil had only been in Spenser a little over a month. Who knows, maybe the change of digs had affected his decision to see me. At that point, it really didn't matter to me how I had come to be there. I was still marveling that it had come my way, at all.

"After changing into a pocketless blue jumpsuit and given what I assumed was the standard briefing, I was allowed to go into the ward.

"My expectations were blown away from the very start. First, even though there was plenty of room, his was the only cell on that wing or hallway or whatever. This hallway was a long tube, about seven feet in diameter, and it dead-ended into a wall just outside the cell. But, that was only the beginning of the unexpected. At the end of the tube, I had to turn to the left to face his cell. That's not really the right word for his living space.

"I had expected to find 'Silence of the Lambs'. What I discovered, instead, was more like a Jordan's Furniture showroom. It was a studio apartment/home office; nice furniture, brightly lit. The floor, though, was not part of the package; a thick coating of shiny, plastic-like material bonded to concrete. While three of the walls extended the 'showroom' ambiance, one was decidedly different, the one I was looking though. It was composed of some sort of super strong material produced by Lexan, and it had a lot of holes in it. Each hole was about two inches in diameter and set about six inches apart. The wall looked like some kind of high tech Swiss cheese. To my way of thinking, it was the only thing that looked like it actually belonged. Some psychologists had designed the whole shebang.

"I found that someone had thoughtfully placed a folding chair directly in front. Pulling the chair back as far as it would go, I sat down opposite the Swiss-cheese-wall. He was standing in a far corner, his back to me, and for about five minutes did not look my way or give any other indication that he even knew I was there. Then he just came strolling over to take a seat on the other side of the wall. Through the holes I could hear the 'swish-swish' of his orange jumpsuit intermingled with the 'ching-ching' of the chains. Behind him, I could see large, barred windows set in the outer wall, well over twenty feet off the floor. Not much light came in through them. But, then, the rain allowed little light to reach the ground anywhere in New England.

"The Devil did not disappoint. He looked even younger than in his photos, and he was even more handsome. You could pass this guy on the street without ever thinking he might be a serial killer, though you might have a twinge of jealousy. He had the kind of looks most guys would like have. I had been told that many women found him extremely attractive. Sadly, some of them who found him so didn't survive.

"He broke into my musings, his well-modulated voice sounding almost British in its sophistication. 'I assume that you wish to know something of my art.' That's what he called it -- art. When he said it, something skittered up my spine. Never saw that word in the papers, did you? One word and I already had enough for an entire thesis. He smiled at me, seeming to know what I was thinking. It was a nice smile; humble, self-deprecating. I got the feeling he knew what he had just done; that it had been deliberate. Of course, the real question was, had it been a gift or would there be a price?

" 'Oh, there's no charge for that one, young man,' he said, again seeming to read my mind. Y'know, interviews with police had suggested he did this kind of thing all the time. The official position was that he was extremely adept at reading faces and body language. Still, it made me shudder again. He saw that, too.

" 'Now, now. Just relax,' he suggested in smooth and soothing tones. 'I thought it might whet your appetite, a nice appetizer. Really, would I invite you here just to send you away? No, no. We have a lot to talk about, you and I. I'm going to talk about many things, and I have decided that you are to be the one to whom I will speak. And, as I suspected from you query packet, you have very little curiosity as to why I've chosen you. You are far more interested in what I have to say and in how it will save you from academic extinction. That's good.'

"See what I mean? Where did he get that 'academic extinction' thing? I didn't put that in the query packet.

" 'However,' he continued. 'I want you to know why I chose you. The reason needs to be part of your published works, and there should be several of those what with all I'm going to tell you. I picked you because you are a genius. Ah! I can see I surprised you with that one! Ha! Oh, marvelous! This is tasty! I thought you might not know. Those chumps who run the universities never want the real ones to know. Well. More on this, later.'

"He was actually chortling at this point. It didn't take long for me to go from stunned to angry. I was being played, and I didn't like it one bit. If not for the strength of my ambition, I would have walked out right then. Looking at my face, he was swept along by a new wave of chortling. Finally, still in his mirth, he waved me back to my chair. Without realizing it, I had actually started to leave.

" 'Sit, sit', he laughed. 'Oh, I am sorry for this. You can't know how long it has been since I have laughed. Once it started, I had a devil of a time with it.' He was calming down, and sitting back down. Had he, too, been thinking of going somewhere?

" 'Please. Sit', he said, almost back to his original voice. 'I know I am laughing at you not with you, but you caught me off guard. Do you realize that that never happens? You are . . . unexpected. I realize that you are not going to believe everything I tell you, but believe this; the last time anyone caught me off guard, with anything, was well before you were born. Now, to business.' The shift in mood was instantaneous. These wide mood shifts were unnerving. I began to suspect that maybe I ought to have given this enterprise a little more forethought.

" 'Here are the rules', he explained. 'I know you are interested in my activities of the past few years, what I call my red period. And, I will give you some heretofore unknown information. Say, for example, how I chose my subjects, and, say, umm, perhaps how I decided which clues would nest within which others. Oh, close your mouth. You'll drool on that nifty little jumpsuit. They hate that, you know.'

" 'The rules, young man, the rules.' I focused, but I was now seeing everything through a thick fog of ambition and anticipated glory. 'Before I give you even one of those morsels, I will tell you something about my history on this planet. You know, I've been at this for a very long time. There is a lot to tell. I want you to be patient. Listen to what I say. Converse with me about it. If that part goes well, then, periodically, I'll share some things about my more recent activities. Do you agree to the rules?'

"I nodded, dumbly. What could I say? If he wanted to ramble on about being The Devil, well, that was almost as valuable as the other. I'm sure I could co-publish with one of the psych's. In fact, there was this cute redhead, a third year, who might be very grateful to be included. I'd been searching for a good line to use on her. Hey, want to co-publish a paper about The Devil? That should do it.

" 'Come, come', he said, a bit testily. 'I can't have you drifting off every time you think of some plum you're going to pluck once you get out with these treasures of mine. Pay attention.' He was right . . . to business.

" 'Can you speak?' he asked."

" 'Of course', I replied calmly. Only it didn't actually come out that way. My voice broke like a 12-year old boy's, ending in a pitiable squeak.

'He smiled. He had me and he knew it."

#

A few minutes went by, during which, I swear, he was silently gloating. Finally, he tossed one leg over the other and let out a little sigh. That's when he told me he invented vampires.

"You invented vampires." I could hear the disbelief in my voice. Could he?

"Oh, yes. It was great fun! Running around Europe, biting people. Ah, those were the days! There are few things headier in life than starting legends."

"Starting legends? Do you mean you . . . ?"

"What? Oh! You thought I built one! Ha! Ooooh. Did you think I sneaked into the good doctor's laboratory to stitch stolen body parts into a vampire? Ha!" He said la-bor-atory. And he was making fun of me again. I would have interrupted, but he wouldn't have heard. He was having too good a time chortling.

"This is rich! When I said I 'invented' them, you thought I made them! Too good! Silly, boy! Vampires aren't real. How could they be? I was playing a joke. I just wanted to make problems for the Walkers."

"The Walkers?"

He gave me a look. I'd say 'mild concern' if it were anyone else. With him, I wasn't sure.

"What do they teach you people these days? You've never heard of the Walkers? How about the Wanderers? No. I see it in your expression. How about the 'people who never die' or maybe 'the undead'? Of course, after I co-opted 'the undead' for my vampire con, it was used for little else. Now that I think about it, I would guess 'Wanderers' would be the most current usage."

I had no idea what to say. I had no idea what he was talking about. It was important to him, for some reason. Why else tell me?

Finally, exasperated, he said, "The Wanderers are people who have never died."

That's when I made the unfortunate mistake of saying, "Oh! You mean immortals!"

"Immortals?" he thundered.

The word exploded from his mouth, along with a wide spray of saliva. His eyes bulged, his skin purpled, and the muscles of his jaws rippled. The rage flashed across his face. I started to move back, but he held me in place with those eyes.

"Don't be a dunce!" he roared. "Everyone is an immortal!"

Then, as quickly as it formed, the storm was gone. But its replacement may have been worse. Next he fixed me with a sneer, and spoke the word in a whisper, with obvious disgust.

"Immortals?"

He looked at me. His face seemed to be showing surprise.

"Did I make a mistake?" he mused.

I think I could have actually left right then. He was pacing, hands behind his back, looking nowhere, really -- lost in thought. The only sound was the ceaseless tattoo of the rain, considerably muted but still discernable even down here; and, of course, the light jingle of the chains. If I had only gone then, I think he would not have known, and maybe he would have forgotten about me.

Turning back to me, he seemed to sense my thought. "Yes," he said calmly, all business again, "perhaps we should just end this. You are, obviously, not the person you appear to be on paper." I could hear the shadow of the sneer in his voice. That's when pride stepped in and ended the fight or flight debate going on in my gut. I was too the person I appeared to be on paper, and more besides that, thank you very much! I thought frantically, looking for a strategy, on the edge of panic. Then, I had it.

"Wait", I said as calmly as I could muster, "how could you make a mistake?"

As simple as that. He sat back down across from me, just looking at me for a few seconds. Then, with an 'ah ha' look on his face, he said, "A test. That's what we need here."

He struck a comical pose, one leg over the other at the knee, one hand cradling the other elbow, an index finger laid along side his temple. His face took on an exaggerated thinking look, eyes scrunched shut, mouth tilted upward in a crescent of quizzical.

He held that pose for about a minute. Then burbling happily, he called out, "Got it!"

Locking eyes with me, and sounding as if he was sure I would not know the answer, he asked, "Is the glass half empty or is it half full?"

I hated that kind of game. But, what was I to do? I needed this...really needed this. If this fell through, I could pretty much kiss my doctorate goodbye. I had no idea what it was he wanted to hear me say, but I certainly knew the correct answer to that question. So I played along.

"Neither", I ventured, "the glass is always full."

"Really", he said, sounding, and looking, dubious. "Why is that?"

"Easy", I replied. "Gas fills any space not occupied by liquids or solids."

One eyebrow went up; the left one.

Quickly he said, "There are time-travelers on the planet. Identify them."

It was weird. He was asking me questions I knew the answers to. "Everyone is a time-traveler," I shot back. "We all travel through time, just in one direction, toward the future."

The right eyebrow joined the left.


After about thirty seconds, stretching out the word and sounding relieved, he said, "Oooo-kayyyyy. Maybe you're not stupid. Maybe you're just uneducated. OK. You can stay. But, mark my words. You, young man, are on probation. Let's try to keep the more idiotic thoughts from finding voice, shall we?”

He now looked as he had when I had arrived; handsome, urbane, intelligent, in control. Mentally, I breathed a sigh of relief.

Throwing himself back into the chair, he said, “Now, where were we?”

“Vampires?” I ventured. “How did you, uh, pull that off?”

“Vampires.” He thought for a few seconds, then said, “All right. But, we’re coming back to the other matter. Don’t think I’ll forget.”

He settled himself a bit more, then announced, airily, “Progeria and Xeroderma Pigmentosum.”

"Zero pig . . . what?"

“Progeria and Xeroderma Pigmentosum.”

“What’s ‘Prog...’?' ...what's that?"

“That, young man, is how I ‘pulled it off’.

# BREAK – MUST WRITE THE BRIDGE TO THE FINAL TWO SCENES – BREAK #
# BREAK – MUST WRITE THE BRIDGE TO THE FINAL TWO SCENES – BREAK #
# BREAK – MUST WRITE THE BRIDGE TO THE FINAL TWO SCENES – BREAK #


Out of the blue, he stopped talking; seemed to stop seeing me, looking though me like I wasn’t even there. His eyes went from playful to hateful in an instant. He was glaring murderously at a point somewhere over my right shoulder when he said, "I thought you were dead." By this time, he was starting to shake with that rage I’d seen, earlier.

It really confused me at first. It was like he was talking to someone else. I got the creepiest feeling someone was standing behind me even though there had been no noise to suggest that. Still, the feeling wouldn't go away. Turning my head slowly to the right, I almost jumped out of the chair when I saw a guard mere inches to my right. How had he done that? I never heard a sound. It was like he had just appeared there. Looking up, I found that the guard was not seeing me, either. His gaze was fixed on the cell.

#########
INSERT SECTION ABOUT THE RECORDING OF THE CONVERSATION BETWEEN THE DEVEL AND HIS KEEPER. THEY CONFISCATED A MINI-RECORDER FROM BONFANTI. YOUNGER MAN STOPS THE VIDEO AND PLAYS THE AUDIO TAPE FOR THE OLDER MAN

"I thought you were dead."

"More precisely, you thought I was out of your life forever."

"Always my fondest wish."

Looking about, the guard said, "You have gotten yourself into quite a fix. Aren't you afraid they will discover your secret?"

"Is that a joke? Did Mr. Serious actually attempt humor? They have me jialed on multiple counts of murder most foul. They don't have a death penalty in this state. And, most importantly, they won't release me to the states that do until I've served my 5 consecutive life sentences here. I think I can figure something our before I have to start serving number two. Besides, maybe someone will try to kill me. Two of the guards, here, are related to several of my victims. The Commonwealth doesn't know, but thosae two do and they are both angling to work on this ward. Intersting times, eh?"
#########

When I looked back, The Devil was no longer seated just on the other side of the Swiss-cheese wall. He was standing where he’d been when I first arrived, in the corner with his back turned.

I eyed the guard. Something about him seemed familiar. He, on the other hand, did not look at me, but continued to stare mutely at the prisoner’s back. There was a kind of longing in his eyes.

I decided I would have to be the one to start any conversation we might be going to have. So I said, “Say fella, you gave me quite a scare. You’re pretty quiet on your feet.”

No response; not even any indication he’d heard me.

"So, was he talking to you? What did he mean by that? Why would he think you were dead?"

His gaze still fixed on the distant corner, he said, "A very long time ago, he did something, something terrible. As a result, I was imprisoned by an enemy of our family.” His voice didn’t go with his look. The uniform, combined with rippling muscles laid over a tall frame, made for a formidable appearance. He looked like he could handle himself in a riot, if you know what I mean. I expected the voice to be rough, harsh, like the army drill instructors I’d seen in movies. Instead, it was well modulated, pleasant, almost melodious. There was a slight Mediterranean accent.

“You mean he, like, sold you into slavery or something?”

His face turned toward me, surprise etched in it. “There is wisdom and understanding in your words. Yes. That is an excellent way to characterize what he did. He cut me off from my family in my youth. I was imprisoned, forever barred from all that I loved. My life was over.”

I wasn’t sure I really understood any of that, but I wanted to keep him going. I sensed there could be some great fodder for my dissertation somewhere in the relationship between these two men. “You say you were ‘forever barred’, yet here you are, free as a bird.”

######

"So, you've come to get your revenge?"

He seemed genuinely surprised.

"Revenge? I'm not here for revenge. When did revenge ever make anything right? Can you think of one instance where it undid any wrong, brought anyone back to life? No, I'm not here for revenge."

"Then . . . what?"

"I'm here because . . . I spent all these years searching for him because I'm his keeper. And how could I do that justice if I couldn't even find him?"

"You're his keeper? That's a strange way to talk about the Devil."

He snorted; then barked out a laugh. “The devil! Not that old thing! He used to do that when we were children. 'Ooooh! I'm the devil!' I always laughed. And it always made him angry when I did."

He continued to chuckle to himself. For someone who had been imprisoned for . . . well, for many years, he didn’t seem very bitter. In fact, he seemed positively chipper.

"Well, if he’s not the devil, then who is he?"

"His name is Cain."


UNFINISHED! UNFINISHED! UNFINISHED! UNFINISHED! UNFINISHED!

The younger man used the remote to freeze the picture. He looked at the older man.

Sensing the cue the older man said, "So, what is it the Office of Antiquities wants from the Society of . . . ."

"What I was hoping, "interjected the younger man, "was that you might do me a favor."

The older man regarded the younger without expressioin for several seconds. Finally, he said, "What favor would you have me do for you?"

"Don't kill him."

Again, the older man regarded the younger without expression. Eventually, he reached into a pocket of his coat and retrieved a small communicator. He pressed a button, waited, then spoke into the device, "Hold."

He then returned his gaze to the younger man; this time, clearly indicating his question with his look.

"There is so much we can learn from him and through him! He's going to want to find answers to the many questions raised by his encounter with Cain and . . . the other. We can have those same answers as soon as he has them! Think of what we can learn."

"And, what" asked the older man, "will keep him from telling the whole world about this? What if he can convence other scholars that he is telling the truth? What happens then? How do we protect ourselves then?"

"We get him to do his work in Rome."

"And why would he be willing to come to Rome?"

"Simple. We offer him a full ride. He's a doctoral candidate. How can he resist? You heard what he said about his situation at his current university. All we have to do is get one of our schools to offer to accept his previous work. And, like I said, pay for it all."

The older man slipped back into his expressionless visage. After two full minutes of silence, he lifted the device back to his lips and spoke, "Abort."

Standing, he turned to the younger man and said, "You realize, the two of us will have to work closely on this."

The younger man looked discomforted, but nodded in the affirmative all the same.

"And" said the older man, "my folks will have to handle the transfer out of the jail.