“Maybe. We’ll see if Amy has come up with anything new. Right now, get the birds bedded down, then yourselves. We’ll brief at 1700 hours in the exercise room.”
With a powerful kick off a hangar control console, McKenna shot on down the corridor to the perimeter hallway, trying to make up his mind whether to go left to Spoke Sixteen and crawl into his cubicle for a long nap or go right and check in with Overton, then crawl into his office for a long nap. He went right.
He traversed the Number One spoke and entered the Command Center. He stuck his head into Pearson’s office and found her concentrating on three screens full of data. “Hi, gorgeous.”
“McKenna,” she said in a low, deadly voice.
“Something wrong?”
“I’m trying to work.”
He was about to attempt a soothing reply when Overton turned from the main console and spotted him.
“Okay, everyone!” Overton said. “Go take a coffee break.”
The three technicians monitoring systems looked up, then unfastened their tethers, and headed for the hatch.
“Sergeant Amber,” Overton called, “you, too.”
Donna Amber emerged from the radio shack, smiled at McKenna, and slipped out the hatch.
McKenna looked to the commander.
“I want all colonels in here with me”
Pearson gave McKenna a dirty look, released her straps, and pushed out of the compartment.
McKenna followed her and took up a station opposite Overton, hanging onto a wire conduit.
The general didn’t look happy, McKenna decided.
“The size of my general staff being what it is,” Overton said, “I’m also the G-l. Right?”
“Right, sir,” Pearson said.
McKenna nodded.
The G-l was responsible for personnel, and Overton’s job was tougher than most. He had to be sensitive to the relationships within his command, and because of its claustrophobic nature, eliminate problems before they caused severe fluctuations in morale.
“I find that I’ve got a couple of pressing personnel problems,” he said.
Pearson nodded her head. She seemed to know what the problems were.
“Sergeant Joe Macklin and Sergeant Donna Amber,” Overton said, “have apparently overcome whatever differences they had that were causing friction between them.”
There had been some loud arguments between the two, McKenna recalled.
“That’s good,” he said.
“Not good,” Overton countered. “Polly Tang found them overcoming their differences in the laundry room.”
“Ah.”
“While we thus have two sergeants in harmony, the effect on the rest of the complement is less harmonious. Little jealousies arise. There are those who become, shall we say, envious of another’s ability to find sensual activity in a limited environment. The effect on morale is debilitating.”
McKenna understood what Overton was saying, understood it completely and felt just a twinge of guilt.
“Would you like to have me speak to them, General?” Pearson asked.
“Certainly not you, Colonel Pearson.”
Her face flushed a bright red that did not go well with her hair.
“Lieutenant Tang is going to have a heart-to-heart with Sergeants Macklin and Amber, and if we don’t have immediate cooperation, one or the other, or both, of them are going Earth-side permanently.”
Overton looked at Pearson, then at McKenna.
McKenna knew what was coming.
“That brings me to my second personnel problem. Ironically, it appears to be the same as my first problem.”
“Jim…”
Overton held up a hand. “I don’t give a good goddamn what you two do away from the station. In fact, I’m happy you’ve reconciled some of your own differences. But, Jesus Christ! The two of you are supposed to demonstrate some leadership ability. Set examples.”
“This is my fault,” McKenna said.
“I’m sure it is, Kevin. But you do have an accomplice. You report to Brackman, and I can only make a recommendation. If it comes down to a battle between us over who’s more necessary, Amy’s the one who will have to be transferred”
Pearson’s face went from red to white.
“And I don’t want to lose my brand-new deputy,” Overton said. “She’s too good.”
“General, I—”
“Wait until I’m finished, Amy. I also don’t want to start more tongues wagging by moving one of you from Module Sixteen. As I see it, that leaves me one alternative. I want promises of zero-gravity celibacy from each of you.”
“You’ve got it, General,” McKenna said.
“Yes, sir”
“McKenna, you’re supposed to be sleeping.”
“Roger, sir.”
McKenna shoved off the bulkhead and headed for the spoke. He glanced once at Pearson and saw pale green eyes full of fire that told him she had been right all along.
He had had his share of reprimands throughout his Air Force career, most in response to his loose interpretation of the rules. He didn’t mind accepting responsibility when he was wrong, but in most of the earlier cases, he had been damned certain he was right.
He was wrong this time.
And he felt much like the time his father had caught him with a pack of Marlboros in the chicken coop on the family farm near Haxtun, Colorado. He’d received his last spanking at age fourteen.
But he felt as if he’d just been spanked again.
Jesus, McKenna! When are you going to grow up?
“General Thorpe is on line three.”
“Thank you, Milly.”
Brackman tapped the button and picked up the receiver.
“David?”
“It’s a right proper muck-up, as our cousins would say, Marvin.”
“It figured to be. What have you got?”
“The contractor, with his DOD orders downsized, cut his overhead by decreasing his security to one man on the gate, now dead, and two men on roving patrol, neither of whom reached the scene until after the missiles were gone.”
Brackman sighed. He had envisioned as much.
“The FBI got the cooperation of the California and Nevada state police, as well as the Civil Air Patrol, and one of the planes located a moving van parked in the middle of a dry lake northeast of Reno. That’s where I am now.”
“A moving van?”
“Yes. Four dead men, too,” Thorpe said.
“Jesus Christ!”
“Each of them shot twice, once in the head, the forensic people here say. No ID on any of them except for one with a driver’s license, and I’d bet it’s forged. This early in the investigation, Marv, I’d still guess all four were in on the heist.”
“No sign of the missiles?”
“Not the missiles themselves, but the crates are here. The missiles were transferred to some other kind of container for loading aboard the MakoShark.”
“You’re certain about that, David? That it was the MakoShark?”
“Absolutely. I personally measured the distance between the tracks of the main landing gear and found a match. And I recognize the tire tread. I’ll bring you a plaster cast of the tread if you want, Marv.”
“Not necessary, David. Come on back.”
Brackman had Milly put in a call to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, but an hour-and-a-half went by before he called back.
“I just got back from the Hill, Marv.”
“How did it go?”
“As well as could be expected, I suppose. The SecDef laid out the facts for the combined armed forces committees and pleaded for time.”
“Will he get it?”
“They promised to keep it quiet for a week, but you know how that goes.”
“We’ll see it in the Washington Post by morning,” Brackman said.
“You’re a damned pessimist,” Cross said. “You called for a reason?”