PART II
Smith knocked early the next morning when Stein was still clearing the breakfast coffee. For that time of day he was disgustingly happy.
"The customary greeting, I believe, is good morning, is it not?"
I gulped the rest of my cup. "Yeah. What's on your mind?"
He sat down and waved away Stein's wordless offer of a cup. "How would we like to take a little trip?"
We. The editorial we. "Why not?"
"This little trip—how would you like to go back home for awhile?"
"Home?" I couldn't believe my ears, and I stared at him.
He'd made a slip, and he was sorry. "I meant, back Stateside."
I slumped back in my chair. "Then you heard me the first time. What's the difference?"
"Quite a bit of difference. No, Stein, you stay here. We're all in this together."
"Sure," I said. "Stick around. I'm the last one to find out what's going on around here."
He didn't appreciate my sarcasm. "I wouldn't say that, Peter."
"Forget it. What's the story?"
"We want you to go back where we can run some tests, this time as comprehensive as we can arrange."
I couldn't see why what we'd done wouldn't be enough. "Don't tell me you have more than the Bomb up your sleeve."
No, it wasn't like that. "There aren't more than four or six that know anything but that the Bomb was set off prematurely because of motor failure on the drone. The general knowledge is that it was just another test in routine fashion. But, as I said, there are a few that know the truth. They think it desirable that you be examined scientifically, and completely."
"Why?" I felt ornery.
He knew it, and showed a little impatience. "Use your head, Peter. You know better than that. We know you're unique. We want to know why, and perhaps how, perhaps, your ability can be duplicated."
That appealed to me. "And if you can find out what makes me tick I can go back to living like myself again?" I took his silence for assent. I had to. "Good. What do I do, and when?"
He shrugged. "Nothing, yet. You'll go to ... well, let's call it college. It shouldn't take too long. A week, maybe, maybe two, or four, at the most."
"Then what?"
He didn't know. We'd talk about that later. Okay with me. If a doctor could find out how I was whistling chords, all well and good. If not—could I be any worse off?
"Then it's settled. We'll leave today, if it can be arranged, and I feel sure it can. Robert—" to Stein—"if you'll come with me we'll try to make the necessary arrangements." Stein left, and Smith left, and I got up and looked into the mirror. I needed a shave again.
My college didn't have a laboratory worth counting when I went to school. We'd had a stadium, and a losing football team instead. Now the balding, bearded physicists sat in the front row when the appropriations were spooned out. I suppose that's all for the better. I really wouldn't know. The old fellow that met us at the front door looked like an airedale, and like an airedale he sniffed all around me before getting into combat range.
"So you're Peter Miller!"
"That's my name," I admitted. I wondered what all the dials and the gadgets were for. It looked to me like the front end of one of these computers I used to see in the magazines.
"I'm Kellner. You must be Stein, right? Never mind your coats. Just follow me," and off he trotted, and we trailed him into a bare office with what looked like the equipment of a spendthrift dentist.
"You sit here," and he waved at a straightbacked chair. I sat down, Stein shifted nervously from one foot to the other, and in a moment Kellner came back with a dozen others. He didn't bother to introduce any of them. They all stood off and gaped at who'd killed Cock Robin.
Kellner broke the silence. "Physical first?" There was a general nod. "Physical, psychological, then—we'll come to that later." To Stein: "Want to come along? Rather wait here? This is going to take some time, you know."
Stein knew that. He also wanted to come along. Those were his orders.
I felt self-conscious taking off my clothes in front of that ghoulish crew. The sheet they left me kept off no drafts, and I felt like a corpse ready for the embalmer, and likely appeared one. Stethoscope, a scale for my weight, a tape for my arm and the blood pressure, lights that blinked in my eyes and bells that rang in my ear ... when they were finished with me I felt like a used Tinker-Toy.
"Do I pass? Will I live?"
Kellner didn't like juvenile humor. He turned me over to another group who, so help me, brought out a box of children's blocks to put together, timing me with a stopwatch. They used the same stopwatch to time how long it took me to come up with answers to some of the silliest questions I ever heard outside of a nursery. Now I know why they label well the patients in an insane asylum. The man with the watch galloped off and came back with Kellner and they all stood around muttering. The sheet and I were sticking to the chair.
"Kellner. Doctor Kellner!" They didn't like me to break up the kaffeeklatch. "Can I go now? Are you all through?"
"All through?" The airedale changed to a cackling Rhode Island Red. "Joseph, you are just beginning."
"My name isn't Joseph, Dr. Kellner. It's Miller. Peter Ambrose Miller."
"Excuse me, Peter," and he cackled again. "Nevertheless, you're going to be here quite awhile."
Peter, hey? No more, Mr. Miller. Pete to my wife, Peter to my mother, and Peter to every school teacher I ever had.
They conferred awhile longer and the party broke up. Kellner and a gawkish Great Dane led me sheet and all to what I thought would be the operating room. It looked like one. I found a chair all by myself this time, and watched them hook up an electric fan. They were hipped on fans, I thought.
Kellner trotted over. "Stop that fan." Not, please stop that fan. Just, stop that fan.
I shivered ostentatiously. "I'm cold."
Kellner was annoyed. "Perfectly comfortable in here." Sure, you old goat, you got your pants on. "Come, let's not delay. Stop the fan."
I told him I was still cold, and I looked at the fan. It threw sparks, and the long cord smoked. I was going to fix those boys.
The other man yanked the cord from the wall, and from the way he sucked his fingers, it must have been hot. Kellner was pleased at that. He ignored the man's sore fingers and snarled at him until he brought out some dry cells and hooked them in series to a large bell, almost a gong. He pressed the button and it clanged.
"All right," and Kellner motioned imperiously to me. "No point in fooling. We know you can make it stop ringing. Now, go ahead and ring the bell."
I looked at him. "Make the bell ring what?"
"What?" He was genuinely puzzled. "What's this?"
"I said make the bell ring what?" He stared blankly at me. "And you heard me the first time!" He shot an astonished glance at Stein. "Oh, hell!" I got up and started out, trailing my sheet. I almost stumbled over Stein, who was right at my shoulder.
"Here, what's this?" Kellner was bouncing with excitement.
I turned on him. "Listen you; I said I was cold. Not once, but twice I said I was cold. Now, blast it, I want my clothes, and I want them now. Right now!" The airedale became a fish out of water. "Do I look like a ten-year-old in to get his tonsils out? I ask you a civil question and you smirk at me, you tell me to do this and you tell me to do that and never a please or a thank you or a kiss my foot. Don't pull that Doctor write the prescription in Latin on me, because I don't like it! Catch?" Stein was right on my heel when I headed for the door.
Poor Stein was wailing aloud. "Pete, you can't do this! Don't you know who Doctor Kellner is?"
"One big healthy pain!" I snapped at him. "Does he know who I am? I'm Pete Miller, Mister Miller to him or to anyone but my friends. I want my pants!"
Stein wrung his hands and slowed me down as much as I would let him. "You just can't get up and walk out like that!"
"Oh, no?" I came to a full stop and leered at him. "Who's going to stop me?"
That's the trouble with the doctors and lawyers and technical boys; they're so used to talking over people's heads they can't answer a civil question in less than forty syllables. Keep all the secrets in the trade. Write it in Latin, keep the patient in the dark, pat his head and tell him papa knows best.
When Kellner caught up with us he had help. "Here, here, my man. Where do you think you are going?"
I wished he was my age and forty pounds heavier. "Me? I'm getting out of here. And I'm not your man and I never will be. When you can admit that, and not act like I'm a set of chalkmarks on a blackboard, send me a letter and tell me about it. One side, dogface!"
One big fellow, just the right size, puffed out his cheeks. "Just whom do you think you are addressing?"
Whom. I looked him over. I never did like people who wore van Dyke goatees. I put whom and van Dyke on the floor. It was a good Donnybrook while it lasted. The last thing I remember was the gong in the next room clanging steadily while Stein, good old Stein, right in there beside me was swinging and yelling, "Don't hurt him! Don't hurt him!"
I woke up with another headache. When I sat up with a grunt and looked around I saw Stein and his nose four inches from a mirror, gingerly trying his tongue against his front teeth. I snickered. He didn't like that, and turned around.
"You don't look so hot yourself."
He was right. I couldn't see much out of my left eye. We grinned at each other. "Right in there pitching, weren't you?"
He shrugged. "What did you expect me to do?"
"Run for help," I told him. "Or stand there and watch me get a going over."
"Sure." He looked uncomfortable. "I'm supposed to keep an eye on you."
"So you did." I thought back. "What happened to Whom when I addressed him properly?"
It must have hurt his cheek when he tried to smile. "Still out, at last report. You know, Pete, you have a fairly good left—and a lousy temper."
I knew that. "I just got tired of getting pushed around. Besides, with no pants I was stuck to that chair."
"Probably." His tongue pushed gently against his sore lip. "You think that was the right way to go about making things better?"
Maybe not. But did he have any better ideas?
He wasn't sure, but he didn't think a laboratory was just the right place for a brawl.
"Just why I started it. Now what?"
He didn't know that either. "Kellner is having hysterics, and I just made some phone calls."
If the Old Man showed up I had some nice words ready to use. "Now we might get some action."
Stein gave me a sour look. "Not necessarily the kind you'll like. I'll be back after I try to talk some sense into Kellner."
"Hey!" I yelled after him. "Where's my pants?"
"Back in a few minutes," he tossed over his shoulder; "make yourself comfortable," and he left.
Comfortable with a cot and a mirror and a washbowl. I washed my face and lay on the cot with a washrag soaked in cold water on my throbbing eye. I must have dozed off. When I woke the Old Man was standing over me. I sat up and the rag fell off my eye.
"What's cooking, Bossman?"
I don't think his frown was completely genuine. "You, apparently."
I swung my legs over the edge of the cot and stretched. "Have a seat and a cigarette."
He sat down beside me and reached for his lighter. "Peter, I wish—"
I cut in on him. "Item one, I want my pants."
He gestured impatiently. "You'll get them. Now—"
"I said, I want my pants."
He began to get annoyed. "I told you—"
"And I told you I want my pants. I don't want them later or in a while; I want my pants and I want them now."
He sat back and looked at me. "What's all this?"
I let fly. "For the record, I want my pants. I'm certainly no patient in this morgue, and I'm not going to be treated like one, so whatever you or anyone else has got to say to me is not going to be while I'm as bare as a baby. My mind's made up," and I scrunched together ungracefully on the little space that remained on my end of the cot and pulled the sheet over my head. Kid stuff, and we both knew it.
He didn't say anything, although I could feel his eyes boring through the flimsy sheet, and I lay there until I felt the springs creak as he got up and I could hear his footsteps retreating. When he came back with my clothes over his arm I was sitting up. While I was dressing he tried to talk to me, but I would have none of it.
When I was dressed I said, "Now, you were saying—?"
I drew a long speculative stare. "Peter, what's eating you?"
I told him. "I just got tired of being shoved around. With the physical exam over with you give me one reason why I should sit around in my bare hide. Am I a machine? My name's Miller, not the Patient in Cell Two."
He thought he was being reasonable. "And you think you get results by knocking around people that are trying to help you?"
"With some people, you do. I tried talking, and that didn't work. I got action my way, didn't I?"
He sighed. "Action, yes. Do you know what Kellner said?"
"Not interested. Whatever he's got to say to me is going to have a please in front and a thank you after."
Wearily, "Peter, must you always act like a child?"
"No, I don't," I blazed at him. "But I'm damn well going to. I'm free, white and a citizen, and I'm going to be treated like one, and not a side-show freak!"
"Now, now," he soothed. "Doctor Kellner is a very famous and a very busy man. He might not have realized—"
"Realize your hat! He's so used to living in the clouds he thinks the world is one big moron. Well, I may be one, but no one is going to tell me I am!"
"I see your point," and he stood up. "But you try to be a little more cooperative. I'll see Kellner now," and he started out.
"Cooperative?" I bellowed at his back. "What do you think I've been doing? What do you—"
He must have read the riot act. When they took me in to Kellner and his crew it was "please, Mr. Miller" and "thank you, Mr. Miller." The place didn't seem so cold and bare so long as I had my pants. I didn't see Whom and his van Dyke, but I hoped it was the tile floor and not me that gave him the concussion.
The rest of the tests, you can imagine, were almost anticlimactic. I stopped motors, blew tubes, turned lights off and on, rang bells and cooked the insulation on yards and yards of wire. My head they kept connected with taped terminals and every time I blew a fuse or a motor they would see the dials spin crazily. Then they would stand around clucking and chattering desperately. They took X-rays by the score, hoping to find something wrong with the shape of my head, and for all the results they got, might have been using a Brownie on a cue ball. Then they'd back off to the corner and sulk. One little bearded rascal, in particular, to this day is certain that Kellner was risking his life in getting within ten feet. He never turned his back on me that I recall; he sidled around, afraid I would set his watch to running backwards. You know, one of the funniest and yet one of the most pathetic things in the world is the spectacle of someone who has spent his life in mastering a subject, only to find that he has built a sled without runners. Long before we were finished I thought Kellner, for one, was going to eat his tie, stripes and all. Running around in ever-widening circles they were, like coon dogs after a scent. They didn't get a smell. The medico who ran the electro-cardiograph refused to make sense, after the fifth trials, out of the wiggly marks on his graphs.
"Kellner," he stated flatly, "I don't know just what your game is, but these readings are not true."
Kellner didn't like that. Nor did he like the man who wanted to shave my head. I wouldn't let them do that. I look bad enough now. I compromised by letting them soak my head in what smelled like water, and then tying or pasting strands of tape all over my scalp. A pretty mess I was, as bad as a woman getting a permanent wave. Worse. One whole day I stood for that. This specialist, whatever he did, had Kellner get me to run through my repertoire of bells and fans and buzzers while he peered nearsightedly at his elaborate tool shop. When the fuse would blow or the bell would ring, the specialist would wince as though he were pinched. Kellner stood over his shoulder saying at intervals, "What do you get? What do you get?" Kellner finally got it. The specialist stood up, swore in Platt-deutsch, some at Kellner and some at me and some at his machine, and left in all directions. The gist of it was that he was too important and too busy to have jokes played on him. Kellner just wagged his head and walked out.
The Old Man said, "You're not one bit different from anyone else."
"Sure," I said. "I could have told you that long ago. It shouldn't take a doctor."
"Miller, what in blazes are we going to do with you?"
I didn't know. I'd done my share. "Where do we go from here?"
The Old Man looked out the window. The sun was going down. "Someone wants to see you. He's been waiting for Kellner to finish with you. We leave tonight."
"For where?" I didn't like this running around. "Who's 'he'?"
"For Washington. You'll see who it is."
Washington, more than just a sleeper jump away. Washington? Oh, oh.... Well, let's get it over with. We did. We left for the capital that night.
We slipped in the back door, or what passed for the back door. Pretty elaborate layout, the White House. Our footsteps rang as hollow as my heart on the shiny waxed floors.
The Old Man did the honors. "Mr. President, this is Mr. Miller."
He shook hands. He had a good grip.
"General Hayes, you know. Admiral Lacey, Admiral Jessop, Mr. Hoover you know, General Buckley. Gentlemen. Mr. Miller."
We shook hands all around. "Glad to know you." My palms were slippery.
The President sat, and we followed suit. The guest of honor, I felt like my head was shaved, and I had a slit pants leg. You don't meet the President every day.
The President broke the ice. It was thin to begin with. "You have within yourself the ability, the power, to do a great deal for your country, Mr. Miller, or would you prefer to be called Pete?"
Pete was all right. He was older, and bigger. Bigger all around.
"A great deal of good, or a great deal of harm."
No harm. I'm a good citizen.
"I'm sure of that. But you can understand what I mean, by harm."
Likely I could, if I really wanted to. But I didn't. Not the place where you were born.
"Naturally, Pete, it makes me feel a great deal better, however, to hear you say and phrase it just like that." The light of the lamp glittered on his glasses. "Very, very much better, Pete."
I was glad it was dark beyond the range of the lamp. My face was red. "Thank you, Mr. President."
"I like it better, Pete, because from this day on, Pete, you and I and all of us know that you, and you alone, are going to have a mighty hard row to hoe." That's right; he was a farmer once. "Hard in this respect—you understand, I know, that for the rest of your natural life you must and shall be guarded with all the alert fervor that national security demands. Does that sound too much like a jail sentence?"
It did, but I lied. I said, "Not exactly, Mr. President. Whatever you say is all right with me."
He smiled. "Thank you, Pete.... Guarded as well and as closely as—the question is, where?"
I didn't know I'd had a choice. The Old Man had talked to me before on that.
"Not exactly, Pete. This is what I mean: General Buckley and General Hayes feel that you will be safest on the mainland somewhere in the Continental United States. Admirals Lacey and Jessop, on the other hand, feel that the everpresent risk of espionage can be controlled only by isolation, perhaps on some island where the personnel can be exclusively either military or naval."
I grinned inwardly. I knew this was going to happen.
"Mr. Hoover concedes that both possible places have inherent advantages and disadvantages," the President went on. "He feels, however, that protection should be provided by a staff specially trained in law-enforcement and counter-espionage."
So where did that leave me? I didn't say it quite that way, but I put across the idea.
The President frowned a bit at nothing. "I'm informed you haven't been too ... comfortable."
I gulped. Might as well be hung for a sheep. If the Boss likes you, the Help must. "I'm sorry, Mr. President, but it isn't much fun being shifted around pillar and post."
He nodded slowly. "Quite understandable, under the circumstances. That, we'll try to eliminate as much as we can. You can see, Pete," and he flashed that famous wide grin, "it will be in the national interest to see that you are always in the finest physical and mental condition. Crudely expressed, perhaps, but the truth, nevertheless."
I like people to tell me the truth. He could see that. He's like that, himself. On his job, you have to be like that.
"Now, Pete; let's get down to cases. Have you any ideas, any preferences, any suggestions?" He took a gold pencil out of his breast pocket and it began to twirl.
I had an idea, all right. "Why not just let me go back home? I'll keep my mouth shut, I won't blow any fuses or raise any hell, if you'll excuse the expression."
Someone coughed. The President turned his head out of the circle of light. "Yes, Mr. Hoover?"
J. Edgar Hoover was diffident. "Er ... Mrs. Miller has been informed of her husband's ... demise. An honorable one," he hastened to add, "and is receiving a comfortable pension, paid from the Bureau's special funds."
"How much?" I wanted to know.
He shifted uncomfortably. "Well ... a hundred a month."
I looked at the President. "Bought any butter lately?"
The President strangled a cough. "Have you, Mr. Hoover, bought any butter lately?"
J. Edgar Hoover couldn't say anything. It wasn't his fault.
I flicked a glance at General Hayes. "How much does it cost the Army for an antiaircraft gun?" I looked at one of the admirals. "And how much goes down the drain when you launch a battleship? Or even a PT boat?"
The President took over. "Rest assured, Mr. Miller. Your wife's pension is quadrupled, effective immediately." He swung his chair to face Hoover; "Cash will be transferred tomorrow to the Bureau from the State Department's special fund. You'll see to that?" to the Old Man. So that was what he did for a living. That State Department is a good lifetime job, I understand.
That took a load from my mind, but not all. I spoke to Hoover directly.
"How is my ... widow?"
As tense and as bad as I felt just then, I was sorry for him.
"Quite well, Mr. Miller. Quite well, considering. It came as a blow to her, naturally—"
"What about the house?" I asked him. "Is she keeping up the payments?"
He had to admit that he didn't know. The President told him to finish the payments, pay for the house. Over and above the pension? Over and above the pension. And I was to get a regular monthly report on how she was getting along.
"Excuse me, Mr. President. I'd rather not get a regular monthly report, or any word at all, unless she—unless anything happens to her."
"No report at all, Pete?" That surprised, him, and he eyed me over the top of his bifocals.
"She's still young, Mr. President," I said, "and she's just as pretty as the day we got married. I don't think I'd want to know if ... she got married again."
The quiet was thick enough to slice. If they talked about Helen any more I was going to throw something. The President saw how I felt.
"Now, Mr. Miller—Pete. Let's get back to business. You were saying—?"
Yes, I had an idea. "Put me on an island somewhere, the further away the better. I wouldn't like being around things without being able to be in the middle. Better put me where I can't weaken, where I can't sneak out a window or swim back." Everyone was listening. "Keep the uniforms away from me, out of sight." The Brass didn't like that, but they heard me out. "Feed me a case of beer once in a while and a few magazines and some books and right boys to play euchre. I guess that's all I want."
The gold pencil turned over and over. "That isn't very much, Pete."
"That's all. If I'm going to do the Army's and the Navy's work they can leave me alone till they need me. If I can't live my life the way I want, it makes no difference what I do. My own fault is that all my family lived to be eighty, and so will I. Is that what you wanted to know?"
The gold pencil rolled off the table. "Yes, yes, Pete. That's what I wanted to know."
I tried once more. "There isn't any way I can just go home?"
A slow shake of his head, and finality was in his voice. "I'm afraid there isn't any way." And that was that.
The President stood up in dismissal, and we all rose nervously. He held out his hand. "Sorry, Pete. Perhaps some day...."
I shook his hand limply and the Old Man was at my elbow to steer me out. Together we paced back through the dark hall, together we stepped quietly out into the black Washington night. Our footsteps echoed softly past the buildings of the past and the future. The car was waiting; Stein, the driver. The heavy door slammed, and the tires hissed me from the pavement.
The Old Man's voice was gentle. "You behaved well, Peter."
"Yeh."
"I was afraid, for a moment, that you were going to kick over the traces. The President is a very important man."
"Yeh."
"You are, too. Right now, probably the most important man in the world. You took it very well."
"Yeh."
"Is that all you have to say?"
I looked out the window. "Yeh," and he fell quiet.
Stein got us to the airport, and there was waiting an Army ship for the three of us. I might have been able to see the Monument or the Capitol when we were airborne. I don't know. I didn't look.
Later I asked Stein where we were going. He didn't know. I prodded the Old Man out of a doze. I wished I could sleep.
He hesitated. Then, "West. Far west."
"West." I thought that over. "How much out of your way would it be to fly over Detroit?"
"You couldn't see much."
I knew that. "How much out of your way?"
Not too much. He nodded to Stein, who got up and went forward. After he came back and sat down the plane slipped on one wing and straightened on its new course. No one said anything more after that.
We hit Detroit about five thousand feet, the sun just coming up from Lake Ste. Clair. Smith was right. Although I craned my neck I couldn't see much. I picked up Gratiot, using the Penobscot Tower for a landmark, and followed it to Mack, and out Mack. I could just pick out the dogleg at Connors, and imagined I could see the traffic light at Chalmers. I had to imagine hard. The way we were flying, the body and the wing hid where I'd lived, where—the cigarette I had in my fist tasted dry, and so did my mouth, so I threw it down and closed my eyes and tried to sleep. Somewhere around Nebraska we landed for fuel.
Maybe it was Kansas. It was flat, and hot, and dry. The Old Man and Stein and I got out to stretch. There was no shade, no trees, no green oasis for the traveler. The olive drab tanker that pulled up to pump gas into our wing tanks was plastered with "No Smoking" tabs, and we walked away before the hose was fully unreeled. Off to our right was the only shade, back of the landing strip, a great gray hangar glutted with shiny-nosed, finny monsters. Out of the acrid half-pleasant reek of high-octane, we stood smoking idly, watching the denimed air-crews clamber flylike over the jutting wings. From the post buildings off to the right jounced a dusty motorcycle. We watched it twist to a jerking stop at our refueling ship, and the soldier that dismounted bobbed in salute to the two pilots watching the gassing operation. Two motions only they used; one to return the salute and another to point us out in the shadow of the hangar. The soldier shaded his eyes from the sun to peer in our direction, calculated the distance with his eye, and then roared his motorcycle almost to our feet.
"Post Commander's compliments," he barked. "And will the gentlemen please report at once to the Colonel's office?"
The Old Man eyed the motorcycle and the empty sidecar. He looked at Stein.
"Better stay here," he said thoughtfully. "If I need you, I'll come back." He climbed awkwardly into the sidecar, and the soldier, after a hesitant acceptance, kicked the starter. The Old Man gripped the sides firmly as they bounced away in the baking breeze, and Stein looked absently at his watch. It was close to noon.
At twelve-thirty the gas truck rolled ponderously back to its den. At one, our two pilots struck out across the strip for the post buildings, shimmering in the heat. At one-thirty, I turned to Stein, who had been biting his nails for an hour.
"Enough is enough," I said. "Who finds out what—you or I?"
He hesitated, and strained his eyes. The Old Man, nor anyone, was not in sight. The post might have been alone in the Sahara. He chewed his lip.
"Me, I guess." He knew better than to argue with me, in my mood. "I'll be back. Ten minutes," and he started for the post. He got no further than half the distance when an olive sedan, a big one, raced toward us. It stopped for Stein, sucked him into the front seat, whirled back past me to our plane standing patiently, and dumped out our two pilots. A final abrupt bounding spin brought it to the hangar. The Old Man leaned out of the back door.
"In, quick," he snapped.
I got in, and the soldier driver still had the sedan in second gear when we got to our ship. One motor was already coughing, and as we clambered into the cabin the starter caught the second. Both propellers vanished into a silvered arc, and without a preparatory warmup we slewed around and slammed back in the bucket seats in a pounding takeoff. Stein went forward to the pilot's cabin, and I turned, half-angrily, to the Smith. His face was etched with bitterness. Something was wrong, something seriously wrong.
"What's up?" I asked. "What's the big hurry?"
He flicked a sidelong glance at me, and his brows almost met. He looked mad, raving mad.
"Well?" I said. "Cat got your tongue?" I noticed then that he was fraying and twisting a newspaper. I hadn't seen a newspaper for what seemed years. Stein came back and sat on the edge of the seat. What in blazes was the matter?
Smith said something unprintable. That didn't sound right, coming from that refined face. I raised my eyebrows.
"Leak," he ended succinctly. "There's been a leak. The word's out!"
That was a surprise. A big one.
"And it's thanks to you!"
"Me?"
He flipped the newspaper at me. I caught it in midair, and there it was, smeared all over the face of the Kansas City Sentinel. Great, black, tall shrieking streamer heads: