astonished expressions. Both were forcibly reminded of the Machiavellian principle they had shaken hands on that day in King's library.
"We were talking about your invention, Clint. Once again, you have cleverly veered our conversation off target."
"Not really, I was simply explaining why I deemed it a prudent precaution to carry my little device with me since the day you arrived in Pinewhittle."
"I've never seen you carry any . . . Ah! The cigarette box!"
"You're still quick, Mick."
"You diverted my attention from the ever-present rectangular bulge in your shirt pocket with that sarcastic story about your long-suffering attempt to quit smoking."
"I never smoked one in my life!"
"Your device neutralized the airport detectors?"
"It kept them purring like well-fed kittens."
"This is preposterous!" King burst.
"I'm afraid it's not, sir," Mick countered. "A number of people in Mr. Indigence's valley extolled his genius in the field of electronics."
"But he's a janitor!"
"An ant," Indigence defined for Mick. "My question to him was rhetorical. I knew Midas had never gone down among the ants. If King had ever made such a venture, he would have discovered that many of them are inventive.
"Wait!" Barker pleaded as he moved around the desk to stand beside the ergonomic throne. "Can this invention of yours deactivate our detectors in the pneumatic machines?"
"Oh, most certainly."
King's face remained sphinx-like, but his magnified eyes dilated as he contemplated the consequences of Clint's revelation.
"How can you be sure?" Brad pressed.
"I had a friend working in your Pinewhittle sweatshop to bring me your components. He smuggled one at a time out of the factory in his lunch box. I assembled the constituent parts and successfully tested my device against yours."
"I'll give you a million dollars for that box!"
Clint gave the young man a pitying look. "If I was going to sell my soul to people like you, I would have done so long ago. Perhaps, in hindsight, the argument could be made that if I had my son would still be alive, but that Cale would not be the same son, for he would have been instructed by a corrupted father."
Barker's manic mind reeled with the catastrophic implications. For once, the doctor lost all control and began to babble, "You have the means to destroy everything we've created! If
