They looked more serious than usual. Usually nobody took the weekly Intelligence meeting with any seriousness at all.
The colonel, sitting at the head of a worn conference table, returned Charles’s salute.
Charles sat down and unlocked the brief case. He was acting for Major Blayert, the Staff Intelligence Officer at the base. As assistant, Charles was not always even present at these Staff Intelligence meetings. But the major had been detached, temporarily, to duty at the new briefing school in Flagstaff.
“We have,” the colonel said, “some new, secret orders. From Washington.” Eames looked at the officers. “They are pretty elaborate and they mean plenty of work here at the base.”
Nobody appeared to be overjoyed at that news.
“As you know, contrails have been spotted for years, over Alaska, over Canada.”
“And we’re ordered to go up and erase ’em?”
Captain Pierce said that. It was like him. He was an anything-but-dour New Englander, a man with a wisecrack for every situation. Everybody liked Captain Pierce. But the colonel, at this moment, was not amused. “In other words,” he went on, ignoring the remark, “we’ve known for a long time the Russkis have reconnoitered our northern defense perimeter. Lately”—He tapped his own brief case—“they have moved in over the United States.”
“Is that positive?” Major Wroncke asked sharply. “Rumors—”
“I know.” The colonel hesitated. “Civilian spotting has fallen down badly. And with the last appropriations cut by Congress, the radar defense has had to be reduced.” He glanced unconsciously at his shoulder, at the eagle on his right shoulder.