"Strictly business, I'm afraid," he said crisply.
"Business? With whom?"
"With you." The lips opened and shut in his face like a ventriloquist's dummy.
He was strictly business, I thought. "With me?" I turned to Hallam. "What have I done now?"
He didn't smile at my feeble joke. "It's not what you've done, John, it's what they want you to do. Colonel Jones is from the CIA."
"Oh oh, the cloak and dagger boys," I thought. "Trouble coming up." Out loud I said, "We might as well sit down and be comfortable while we talk. Pat, how about some beer?"
The Colonel was obviously impatient but he tried to swallow his irritability with his beer.
"It's nice being a civilian at times," I was thinking. "I don't have to take any more guff from the brass. This guy's obviously a West Point type in a hurry and it must gall him to have to wait on my royal pleasure. He wants something. Let him wait for it!"
It was a rebellious thought but I'd been prodded painfully by his classmates on occasion in the past. I couldn't resist getting a little of my own back.
"All three of you are cleared for Top Secret," Jones said. "I checked before I came out here."