“Yes,” Leyster agreed. “If it were true.”

Griffin smiled. On his coarse-featured face, it looked sad. “Well, then, I believe I’ve told you all you need to know.”

Leyster waited, but he said no more.

“Forgive me for saying so, but this is the damnedest pitch I’ve ever heard in my life. You haven’t said one thing to make your offer attractive to me—quite the opposite. You say that I’ll need FBI clearance, that I won’t be allowed to publish, that I might… Frankly, I can’t think of a set of arguments that would be less conducive to my coming to work for you.”

There was an amused glint in Griffin’s eye, as if Leyster’s reaction were precisely what he had been hoping to provoke.

Or was this only what he wanted Leyster to think?

No, that was a paranoid line of reasoning. It was not the way Leyster normally thought, not the way he liked to think. He was accustomed to questioning an essentially impassive universe. The physical world might be maddeningly close-lipped about its secrets, but it didn’t lie, and it never actively tried to deceive you.

Still, the corrupting influence of the man was such that it was hard not to think along such lines.

Again, Griffin clamped his hand over his watch. Glancing down at it, he said, “You’ll take the position anyway.”

“And the reasoning upon which you base this extraordinary conclusion is—?”

Griffin put the cooler on Leyster’s desk. “This is a gift. There’s only one string attached—you will not show it to anyone or tell anybody about it. Beyond that—” He twisted his mouth disparagingly. “Do whatever it takes to convince you it’s genuine. Cut it open. Take it apart. There are plenty more where that came from. But no photographs, please. Or you’ll never get another one to play with again.”

Then he was gone.

Alone, Leyster thought: I won’t open it. The best possible course of action would be ditch this thing in the nearest Dumpster. Whatever Griffin was peddling, it could only mean trouble. FBI probes, internal committees, censorship, death. He didn’t need that kind of grief. Just this once, he was going to curb his curiosity and leave well enough alone.