“I’m telling you this to emphasize the absolute necessity of finding out what is going on and putting a stop to it.”
“Do you want me to follow through on it?”
“Just a moment.” There was a click of circuit switching and the colonel’s voice came back. “I’ve put Dr. Spindem on the line. As head of the Psychological Service Section of R&D, he’s been consulted on this problem. I want him to talk to you.”
Montgomery frowned distastefully. He remembered Spindem as a big man with a bluff, jovial front which he forgot to change outside of office consultations.
“Hello?” said Spindem. “It’s good to talk with you again, major.”
“Yes,” said Montgomery.
“I understand you are personally well acquainted with this man, Gunderson.”
“We’ve been very close friends for almost four years.”
“Well, what we’re after now is to get one of our men into this so-called school. We’ve held off any action against them so far, hoping for a chance like this. You’re our first real opportunity. Do you suppose you could get an admission to the place through Gunderson?”
“I don’t know. Admission seems to be by very select invitation. It goes only to the very best men in the field, apparently. My own qualifications in this regard —”
“You’ll have to do whatever you can, major. This is important. Do your utmost to utilize Gunderson’s friendship to get you admitted to the school for a personal inspection. We’ve been able to find exactly nothing so far. It appears, on the surface, to be one of the most cleverly designed sabotage schemes ever encountered. It seems to have an unshakable hold on the minds of those attracted to it — and they are minds essential to the nation’s military preparedness.”
“Consider those your orders,” Colonel Dodge said. “We’ll have another man ready to move into Firestone when you leave. And I want a daily telephone report of your progress.”
Colonel Dodge heard the distant click of Montgomery’s phone, but not of Spindem’s. He breathed heavily in resignation. “Why couldn’t it have been anybody else besides that blockhead, Montgomery? We’ve been waiting six months to put a man there — and he turns out to be the first possibility.”
“It’s not very hopeful,” Dr. Spindem agreed. “But it may turn out better than you think. In the meantime, we’d better keep our eyes open for another chance.”
II.
Montgomery replaced the phone and folded his hands on the desk. His eyes stared ahead, seeing nothing for a moment. This new assignment was nothing to cheer about, but he was glad he had been able to remain at Firestone throughout the construction of the Ninety-one. His contribution was not exactly visible, yet it was substantial. He knew he’d done a good job of expediting the flow of information back and forth between the Air Force and the engineers.
One thing he appreciated in the change, however, was the chance he might have to help Soren Gunderson if the engineer were going to be sucked into some foolish program that would injure himself and the nation’s production. But he wondered if he actually had any chance at all of getting inside this school. It didn’t seem likely that operators of the kind they appeared to be would give the Air Force a chance to come in and snoop around.
He left the office and went back to the testing area. Gunderson was busy in conference with the group of XB-91 engineers, analyzing the data of the morning’s flight. So Montgomery spent an hour roaming through the ship, drinking in again the sense of power and greatness of the giant plane. He had been aboard during some of the earlier check flights, but he had never had a chance to take the controls himself. Now he went up to the pilots’ compartment and sat down, wondering if he ever would get a chance to handle it. That was the one thing he still deeply desired.
The XB-91 was representative of the new concept of bombing planes, the invincible, self-contained fortress of the air. It flew alone, high, and twice as fast as sound. The approach of any object during flight, interceptor plane or guided missile, triggered the Ninety-one’s defenses. Automatically, at such approach, the bomber spit out its own target-seeking missile to destroy any attacking device at a safe range. It wasn’t vulnerable, as Gunderson said, Montgomery thought. It was the most completely invincible machine ever devised.
But something of what Gunderson had said that morning continued to nag at Montgomery as he moved along the catwalk, inspecting the empty nests that would hold the target-seeking missiles. It was true there was a kind of vulnerability built right into the ship — the vulnerability of its nightmare complexity. It would be nice to have simpler answers to complex problems, but where were they going to be found? If men like Gunderson couldn’t devise them, who could?
The chief engineer was alone in the hangar office when Montgomery came down from the plane. He waved a hand through the glass partition and walked into the room without knocking.
“The Ninety-one doesn’t look as if the speed runs shook her to pieces,” he said.
Gunderson was looking half-pleased with the sheaf of papers under his hands. “No, we discovered one small area of vibration near the tail that’s not good. But I think we can clear it up with just a little modification of the frame at that point.”
Montgomery sat down. “Something’s been bothering me. I can’t get out of my head the business you were talking about this morning. This school thing —”
Gunderson nodded. “I’ve found it pretty hard to keep off my mind, too.”
“I’ve been wondering — just suppose the thing does turn out to be on the level, that they’ve really got something there — do you think there’s any chance you might be able to get me in?”
Gunderson looked at the major in surprise. “I didn’t think you would be interested in anything like that.”
Montgomery smiled easily. “I suppose I’ve been a soldier long enough to acquire something of that Army Look, but actually I’m perfectly aware of the truth of the things you said this morning about the unmanageable complexity of the Ninety-one. If this school has got something that will draw men like Norcross and you, I think I’d like to get a piece of it for myself.”
“I don’t know. I haven’t made application yet. Could you get away?”
“Dodge has been pretty decent since I’ve been in R&D. I think he’d go for it, if I asked him.”
“I’ll do what I can,” said Gunderson. “But remember, it’s still a pig in a poke as far as I know anything about it.”
“I’ll gamble with you on it,” said Montgomery.
Six weeks later, modifications were completed and the Ninety-one was accepted by the Government. Almost simultaneously, Soren Gunderson’s application was accepted by the Nagle-Berkeley Institute, and he was invited to bring his associate, Major Montgomery, for interview.
Colonel Dodge chafed daily on the phone regarding the inaction during that period, and did everything he could to speed up the acceptance of the plane. Thirty other men left critical positions in various parts of the nation during that time, but Major Montgomery remained the only R&D man who had a lead that could take him to the school.
Also, the first score of men had come out of the school and were applying again for places in industrial and scientific jobs. Some asked re-instatement with their former employers, others sought entirely new areas of activity. None would make any comment regarding his absence.
Official word had gone out quietly, however, that until more was learned of the school the applications of these men were to be held in abeyance. They were not to be hired even as janitors in critical plants. On the other hand, it was desired to avoid any investigation that would appear as a frontal attack and scare off the operators of the school prematurely. Dodge managed to convince his superiors and the FBI that Montgomery offered their best opportunity.