He shook his head. "No. We're not going to kill you."
"I suppose I should be relieved. But I'm not." I added, "You know, I always knew there was something going on. I just didn't know what it was. But I could sense things. Patterns. They didn't make sense. There was a level of relationships that I could never quite figure out."
"It's the best place to hide a secret. Inside another secret. When somebody finds the first secret, they're so pleased to have found it that they don't think to keep looking to see if there's more. The same way that the Special Forces serves as a blanket for the Unlimited Infantry, where you accidentally started, the UI covers the United Intelligence agency, where you accidentally ended up. That's what Uncle Ira really stands for, by the way. United Intelligence. And yes, the agency is really a cover for… an operation that doesn't exist and doesn't have a name. I don't exist. I have no authority. There's no budget. I have no office. And I serve under nobody's command."
"But you sit next to the President," I said.
"When I'm needed, yes," he confirmed.
"And Lizard?"
"She's a general in the Special Forces."
I realized I had my hand over my mouth. I was gripping the whole bottom half of my face in astonishment. I forced myself to lower my hand back to the counter. I picked up my Coke again and pushed past General Ira Wallachstein-yes, now I remembered his name-into the living room. He followed me silently.
I looked around for a place to sit. In my own home, I didn't even trust the furniture anymore. "You know, I wondered about it when we moved into this underground apartment. Why did we have to move into a security installation? What was so important that we had to live in, a class-A shielded bunker? Here we are in a radio-clean environment. No emissions. No leakage. You can't even use a portable phone in here. Everything is shielded wires, and every signal is coded and monitored or stopped at the door. I couldn't help but be curious. Why are we so important? So now I know. And I feel like a jerk. You've been using me. Lizard too, right? I've been just a-a utensil. Haven't I?"
He didn't answer fast enough. He looked like he was searching for the right phrase. I took it as assent.
"I see. Well, thanks for the enlightenment. I guess I'll go and pack-"
"You're already packed."
I stopped; I was already halfway to the bedroom door. "I beg your pardon?"
"You're already packed," he repeated.
I opened the bedroom door. There were three fat suitcases and a duffel bag on the floor. I turned around to face him. "I'm being thrown out?"
"Actually…" he began.
"You son of a bitch. You couldn't even let me save enough pride to leave on my own, could you?"
"If you'd let me finish-"
"Okay." I put my hands up in the air. "Go ahead. Tell me I'm a jerk. That's how these things usually play."
"Shut up, stupid," he said tiredly. "And listen. First of all, I don't know what kind of a bug you have up your ass, but ever since you completed the Mode Training, you've become one of the most self-centered, self-destructive shitheads I've ever met. No, no-don't bother taking a bow. You've earned the trophy on this one. You have the uncanny knack of being able to find shit, no matter where you are, just so you can step in it up to your armpits. Even worse, you manage to spread it around to everybody on your side so we can all enjoy it. You are a goddamn loose cannon. I can't begin to tell you what you've fucked up. You don't even give us a chance. If you'd sit down and wait once in a while and trust the people you work for-well, never mind. Frankly, you're more trouble than you're worth. Even Lizard thinks so." The last one hurt. The others, I hardly noticed them; I'd heard worse. But to hear that Lizard had abandoned me emotionally as well as physically
I sank into a chair. I fell backward into it. Hadn't I already had enough today? Why did I have to have this on top of it? I felt myself choking up. I stifled the sob before it came out. I could feel my face tightening; I put my hand over my mouth to cover my expression.
"Ah," he said, perceptively. "Is that what it takes to get your attention? I have to kick you in the balls?"
"Oh, fuck you." I would have come out of the chair swinging, but I remembered something somebody said about it being bad manners to strike a superior officer. Instead I let myself say everything I was feeling. It was just as deadly. "How come you're always willing to protect me after the fact, but never before or during? How come people keep promising me responsibility and then taking it away before I get a chance to prove I can handle it? I worked my ass off on the briefing books for Operation Nightmare. I've got whole chapters in The Red Book. I'm the worm expert. There's nobody who's been inside as many nests as I have. There's nobody who's-aw, hell, I shouldn't even have to tell you this. You should know it. I'm it. I'm the guy who earned the job as science officer on the mission. All of a sudden, General Wainright is playing politics, and who gets tossed to the lions first-?"
"You started it, Jim, when you took down Bellus."
"I didn't take him down. He did it to himself. I told him to read the briefing book. Instead he spent three nights getting stoned on Chtorran pink. We shouldn't be having this argument, General. I should be testifying in the asshole's court-martial. He endangered the lives of my men! Where the hell is the commitment to excellence in this fucking army? Where's the intelligence in the United Intelligence agency? And where the fucking hell is the umbrella that everybody else seems to have, but is never quite big enough to keep me dry too when it starts raining shit?" I was pacing now. I didn't even remember standing up again. I stopped. I was looking at the suitcases in the bedroom and it was almost too much to bear. My throat tightened impossibly. "I thought she loved me. I really did." I looked back to Wallachstein. "Which of us was the whore? Me or her?"
"Neither," he said quietly.
"Then why did she just let me go like she did?"
"She didn't just let you go. If you'll remember, you walked out on her without giving her a chance. If you'd waited, if you'd given her the opportunity to talk to you before you lost your temper, you'd have heard what we were planning."
"What?" I asked, suspiciously.
"We were going to promote you to colonel. Not here. In the field. Away from General Wainright. We were planning to create a whole new specialty branch underneath you. Your job would have been to train and lead field operatives. There's nobody who knows contact procedures like you do. We wanted to see how much of that knowledge you could share before the law of averages caught up with you."
"Why didn't you tell me this before? Why didn't she tell me this?"
"Because, asshole, you never shut up long enough to let anyone else get an edge in wordwise. You never give anyone else any credit for having the brains to know what's appropriate. You just start screaming. You may know your worms, but you sure as hell don't know people."
"Yeah, well, if I know so goddamned much, how come nobody's listening?"
He snorted and shook his head. "You really are tunnel blind, aren't you? Let me tell you something. Every time you file a report, it gets wider circulation than The New York Times best-seller list. Summaries of your reports are required reading for everybody above the rank of captain, and anybody who has even minimal contact with areas coded yellow or higher. For your information, I read your reports raw; they're the first thing I read every day. And I'm not the only one. You don't know how widely read you are, and you don't know how highly regarded are your insights on the infestation."
"Nobody ever told me this."
"We didn't want it to go to your head. You're already unbearable enough already."
"Are you telling me the truth?"
"The only thing wrong with your writing is that you have too much anger and not enough gosh-wow. But considering what you've been through, I can make allowances. When you stick to the subject and keep your opinions out of the way-well, yes, I'm telling you the truth."