That happened to be a major who was flustered by their arrival. He gave them a number in Arlington Heights. McKenna dialed it.
After two rings, a voice said, “Mays.”
“General Mays, this is Colonel Kevin McKenna.”
“McKenna? Where in the hell are you?”
“Just leaving the main gate of Andrews, sir. Where do you want us?”
“Well, goddamn it, McKenna! It’s 9:30 P.M.”
“Yes, sir. We’ve got about two hours before we have to get back.”
“Get back? Listen, McKenna, these committee members who want to talk to you—”
“It may not seem like it here, General, but we’re in a combat situation in Southeast Asia. I’ve left my command to come here, and I’m not leaving it for long.”
After a long pause, Mays said, “Let’s make it the Joint Chiefs conference room on E-ring. I’ll have my people start making calls, and McKenna, you’d better call Brackman. He’s at the Mayflower.”
He had to call information for the number, and then he had to have Brackman paged in the dining room.
“This is General Brackman.”
“McKenna, sir. We’re on our way to a conference at the Pentagon.”
“No shit? In the middle of the night?”
“You said it wouldn’t wait, so here we are.”
Brackman laughed. “See you there.”
Their driver took them across the Potomac on the Woodrow Wilson Bridge, then cut north on the Jefferson Davis Highway. Traffic was only half of what was required for gridlock, and it wasn’t long before they crawled out at the River Front Entrance to the Pentagon.
Their ID cards got them past the Marines and up to the Air Force Chiefs office. McKenna thought that the Marines didn’t think much of their appearance, either.
It turned out to be nearly midnight before most of the committee members belonging to the Senate and House armed services committees finally arrived at the Pentagon.
McKenna wanted to appear before them as he was, to demonstrate how a bunch of no-nothing politicos had pulled him out of a hostile theater, but Brackman nixed that.
“Bullshit, McKenna. We’re not trying to make unnecessary points. This is still the headquarters of our service, and you will appear before these committees as the officer and gentleman that we all know you are. You, too, Munoz.”
The two of them sat in their shorts in General Mays’s office while their flight suits were pressed and their boots were shined. They used the general’s private bathroom to shower and shave.
“Nice place, but I don’t think I wanna be a chief of staff,” Munoz said.
“You’re a man after my own heart, Tony.”
When they were called, they did it right, entering the conference room in lock step, coming to a stop, and saluting the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs in unison.
Admiral Cross returned the salutes. “At ease, gentlemen. Thank you for coming. Please sit down.”
Cross, Mays, and Brackman were seated at the head of the table, and McKenna and Munoz took chairs opposite them. Cross introduced the senators and representatives who were randomly seated along both sides of the table. McKenna had met a couple of them over the years, but the two he fixed in his memory were Marian Anderson and Alvin Worth. Senator Worth was actually on the intelligence committee, but had wormed his way into this meeting somehow.
“This is not,” Cross said, “a formal hearing of either committee. It is a briefing for the members. Does anyone have a problem with that?”
Apparently not.
Two stewards moved around the table, offering a choice of decaffeinated coffee, the regular stuff, or soft drinks. Munoz took coffee, and McKenna declined.
“Colonel McKenna,” the Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee said, “there have been concerns raised about the operations and the cost of the 1st Aerospace Squadron.”
“Yes,” McKenna said.
“Do you want to elaborate on that?”
“I don’t know what the concerns are, Congressman. I just got here.”
“Your squadron,” Marian Anderson intervened, “has lost spacecraft worth one-and-a-half billion dollars in the past several years. And that’s only two spacecraft.”
“Yes, ma’am. That’s correct.”
“How do you do that?”
“In one case, Congresswoman, you put your life on the line, and you get shot down,” which was how he had lost the first Delta Blue. “That will happen when there are a lot of antiaircraft missiles in the air with you. In the other case, you change the accepted security procedures.”
“Why?”
“Excuse me, ma’am, why what?”
“Why change the procedures?”
“For the sake of change, perhaps. I don’t know. I wasn’t there, and I didn’t make the call.”
McKenna could sense Brackman’s extrasensory warnings: Don’t antagonize anyone. Don’t offer more than you’re asked. Respond to the question as simply as possible.
“What gives you, Colonel,” Anderson said, “the right to overrule a superior? A general?”
These confabs never did follow logical trails.
“I may question my superiors from time to time, Congresswoman, but I never overrule them.”
“What! General Cartwright says…”
“I am not privy to what General Cartwright may have said,” McKenna told her, “but General Cartwright has never been my superior. Currently, I report to General Brackman. General Cartwright was caretaker of an operating base, and not a very good caretaker.”
Oops. Munoz nudged him in the ribs with his elbow at the same time Brackman fired eye-daggers at him. Mays and Cross didn’t appear very happy with him, either.
Marian Anderson started some retort, but Worth interrupted her.
“If I may,” Senator Worth asked the armed services committee chairman, “I’d like to ask Colonel McKenna just why we should be spending eleven billion dollars a year on Space Command operating costs alone, when those dollars might better benefit the American people.”
Are you campaigning Senator?
The chairman nodded.
McKenna said, “As commander of one small part of the Space Command, Senator, I am not qualified to comment on activities of the entire command.”
Brackman smiled.
“But I could offer a couple of observations.”
Brackman frowned.
Worth said, “If you would, Colonel.”
“In my opinion, the Space Command provides an excellent return on investment, sir. Your intelligence committee should be aware of the enormous increase in the American intelligence database since Themis and the 1st Aerospace Squadron came on-line. I don’t know how you attach a dollar value to that.
“Beyond intelligence gathering, the command’s support of private enterprise developments in medicine, pharmaceuticals, electronic technology, and biological and psychological studies has uncalculated value. If we look beyond the shortterm, the results of those activities are going to have tremendous benefit, not only for the American people, but for all mankind. Those advances would not take place without Themis and her supporting Space Command.
“And then, relative to the 1st Aerospace Squadron, our job is to support all of that. We provide the transportation, intelligence-gathering, and protection elements for Themis and the command.”
Only short-sighted people would fail to see the value, Senator.
When he saw Brackman relax, McKenna was glad he had not voiced the last statement.
“That has all been argued before, Colonel. You’re not telling us anything new.”