“Certainly, sir. That is—we still do.”
General Boyce, Major General Boyce, paced in front of a desk, on the thick carpeting.
Mayor Clyde followed him for a little while, gave up, leaned against the desk and wiped his face with a big linen handkerchief. He got out a cigar and lit it. The general faced the room abruptly.
“What’s your opinion, Berdich?”
A man wearing eagles, a man with a thin face, very white skin, pale gray eyes and an Adam’s apple that traveled up and down above his collar when he talked, said, “Can we properly call this an emergency? Our radar has a range of better than two hundred miles. So far, we have accounted for every blip—”
General Boyce lost his patience. “Good God, Berdich, I don’t want a résumé! Just, ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’”
“No,” Colonel Berdich said.
The mayor looked at him in a gratified but still-frantic fashion.
“Tetley?” asked the general. A tall, dark man, who looked more like a college professor than a soldier, stepped forward through the group. He was a major.. He said, “I say Yes.”
“Why?”