Joe said: “Sally, see if you can get your father to come here and talk. Haney’s right. Not in his office. Right here.”
Sally got up and went inside the house. She came back with an uneasy expression on her face.
“He’s coming. But I couldn’t very well tell him what was wanted, and—I’m not sure he’s going to be in a mood to listen.”
When the Major arrived he was definitely not in a mood to listen. He was a harried man, and he was keyed up to the limit by the multiplied strain due to the imminence of the Platform’s take-off. He came back to his house from a grim conference on exactly the subject of how to make preparations against any possible sabotage incidents—and ran into a proposal to stimulate them! He practically exploded. Even if provocation should be given to saboteurs to lure them into showing their hands, this was no time for it! And if it were, it would be security business. It should not be meddled in by amateurs!
Joe said grimly: “I don’t mean to be disrespectful, sir, but there’s a point you’ve missed. It isn’t thinkable that you’ll be able to prevent something from being tried at a time the saboteurs pick. They’ve got just so much time left, and they’ll use it! But Mike’s plan would offer them a diversion under cover of which they could pull their own stuff! And besides that, you know your office leaks! You couldn’t set up a trick like this through security methods. And for a third fact, this is the one sort of thing no saboteur would expect from your security organization! We caught the saboteurs at the pushpot field by guessing at a new sort of thinking for sabotage. Here’s a chance to catch the saboteurs who’ll work their heads off in the next twenty-four hours or so, by using a new sort of thinking for security!”
Major Holt was not an easy man to get along with at any time, and this was the worst of all times to differ with him. But he did think straight. He stared furiously at Joe, growing crimson with anger at being argued with. But after he had stared a full minute, the angry flush went slowly away. Then he nodded abruptly.
“There you have a point,” he said curtly. “I don’t like it. But it is a point. It would be completely the reverse of anything my antagonists could possibly expect. So I accept the suggestion. Now—let us make the arrangements.”
He settled down for a quick, comprehensive, detailed plan. In careful consultation with Haney, Joe worked it out. The all-important point was that the Major’s part was to be done in completely unorthodox fashion. He would take measures to mesh his actions with those of Mike, the Chief, Haney, and Joe. Each action the Major took and each order he gave he would attend to personally. His actions would be restricted to the last five minutes or less before shift-change time. His orders would be given individually to individuals, and under no circumstances would he transmit any order through anybody else. In every instance, his order would be devised to mean nothing intelligible to its recipient until the time came for obedience.
It was not an easy scheme for the Major to bind himself to. It ran counter to every principle of military thinking save one, which was that it was a good idea to outguess the enemy. At the end he said detachedly: “This is distinctly irregular. It is as irregular as anything could possibly be! But that is why I have agreed to it. It will be at least—unexpected—coming from me!”
Then he smiled without mirth and nodded to Joe and to Haney, and went striding away down the concrete walk to where his car waited.