"Right! Could Chalmis have deliberately destroyed Alaska and sacrificed his life in the interest of General Groves and the Army's bomb?"
Groves was a new name to me but I took it in my stride. I looked the Admiral full in the eye—a thing which Admirals rate along with a snappy "Sir!" as proof of initiative, intelligence and subordination on the part of their inferiors.
"I am not at liberty to answer that question, Admiral," I replied. "My orders forbid me to discredit any of the armed forces of the United States. After all, sir!" I added, "we must not forget that Professor Chalmis paid for his loyalty with his life."
Ballister's face lighted up with nautical glee. "I knew it! I knew it!" he roared. "By God! I knew there was something wrong the last time I consulted G-2, they were so smug and polite. I might have known that they were cooking up something to get even with the Navy for winning this war in the Pacific. My God! Grant, you have to respect the Army for their fanaticism, if for nothing else. Here is a civilian like Chalmis, a great scientist, proved 100% reliable by all of our tests. We checked him for twelve months before we even approached him on the thorium research. Yet the Army, the damned, stinking, two-timing, gold-bricking, double-crossing, medal-splashing, glory-grabbing, credit-claiming Army, gets next to him on the sly and persuades him to blow himself up rather than let the Navy get ahead with its atomic bomb."
I nodded admiringly at his flow of language. "Admiral," I told him, "when I came into this office I had a notion you were just another Washington desk-hero. No man who can express himself with such eloquence can have shirked his sea-duty. Mind you, sir!" I continued, "I do not state that the Army had a hand in this outrage. All I ask is that you give me clearance to the head of Army Intelligence, whoever he is now. They keep shipping them into quote war-zones unquote, so they can qualify for active service pay and allowances, campaign ribbons and citations, to back up a special act of congress for their permanent promotion to the rank of Major-General."
"West Point—" Ballister began and emerged panting five minutes later after a personally conducted tour of the United States Military Academy.
"Yes, Mr. Grant—" Ballister was all but chanting as he concluded—"I'll send you over to see that prince of double-crossers, Major-General Ray L. Wakely, director of Army Counter-Intelligence, so-called. Mind you, he probably won't admit you to the Pentagon, coming from me, or if he does he'll try to frame you—"
"Z-2, Admiral," I answered him, "is entirely familiar with General Wakely's methods and reputation. I can take care of myself, if you can get me into the Pentagon. I have some reports, entirely apart from the Alaska business, which belong to the Army and I should deliver them to Wakely in person. As you know, Z-2 is not allowed to take part in interdepartmental feuds."
"That's all very well," Ballister barked at me, "but right is right and wrong is wrong. You're not supposed to be blind to that, are you?"
"You ought to know where our sympathies lie, sir!" I snapped back. "But my orders are to see Wakely, if he's in charge of counter-intelligence."