"Groves!" Wakely spoke with soldierly pride. "Now there's a West Pointer for you! Four years and two billion dollars and he hasn't got it yet, but by Gad! the old West Point spirit never accepts defeat. He'll get a bomb if it takes fifty years and a hundred billion dollars. The Navy can't match that kind of guts, Tompkins. They're all yellow, the Annapolis crowd!"
"Of course this thing wasn't anything like so good as the Army's bomb, General," I assured him. "It was something whipped up in eighteen months and cost less than fifty millions."
"Pikers!"
"Well, the Navy rushed through this sneak-bomb of theirs and sent Chalmis with it on a surprise raid against the Kuriles, on the latest light carrier, the Alaska."
Wakely took a few portentous notes on a memo pad.
"Jacklin was assigned to the Alaska and our information is that he was with Chalmis in the ship's magazine when the bomb—er—accidentally—er—went off. The ship was a total loss and everyone aboard died in the explosion."
Wakely got to his feet and stood rigid for a moment.
"He was a brave man, Tompkins," he observed with soldierly emotion, "a damned brave man. By Gad, I'm almost sorry we're going to liquidate Z-2. We'd like to take you all over into M.I.D. but red tape won't let us, eh? Have to be in uniform, under West Pointers or it isn't regular. So Jacklin was one of your men and he died for the Army. He sank the Alaska and killed himself and the inventor of the thorium bomb, rather than let the Navy get away with this outrage. By Gad, Tompkins, General Groves will have a laugh over that one. I'll go and apologize to Mrs. Jacklin in person for our mistake. Von Bieberstein would never have done that job. As you know, it's the Nazis who are backing the Navy against the Army. If it wasn't for the Japs backing us against the Navy we'd have a rough time of it in this man's war. Now Tompkins, this thing is too big for us to handle. It's got to go up to the highest echelons."
I raised my eyebrows.
He nodded. "Yes, this has got to be laid before President Truman himself. By Gad, Tompkins, I'll see that you get to report to the President tomorrow morning if I have to take you there myself."