Von Neumann’s War полностью

“Take a look around,” Roger said, sipping at his beer. “You’ll see most of these same faces over the course of the next month or so. At this point, practically everyone in this city is working on one defense project or another. Most of the waitresses work over at the base or for one of the defense contractors and moonlight here. For that matter, most of the stuff we’re doing isn’t even classified anymore. The probes don’t seem to care and the news media is too worked up about the city defense plans to pay much attention to what we do. So most of our security restrictions have been tossed. They always got in the way of communication anyway. And would you prefer to be sitting in a secure room sipping cold coffee?”

“No,” Bull said, laughing. He reached for the pitcher and a passing waitress slapped his hand.

“My job, Colonel,” the girl said, winking. “You’re the CO of the Redneck squadron, right? How’s the arm?” She moved on without actually waiting for a response.

“See,” Roger said. “There ain’t no such thing as secret no more. So, Alan, Tom and I have read your reports. Why don’t you and Rene give it to us again,” he suggested.

“I…” The colonel paused and frowned. “I know what you were saying about clearances, but…”

“You want me to call Ronny?” Roger said, frowning. “I suppose I should have gotten you briefed in. I’m not sure what my current title is…”

“Deputy Secretary of Defense for Advanced Defense Concepts and Testing,” Traci said, picking up a wing. “You never read memos, do you?”

“Who’s got time?” Roger asked frowning. “Did you say Deputy Secretary? Not assistant deputy’s assistant secretary?”

“That’s right,” Tom said. “You didn’t get the memo?”

“I dunno,” Roger replied. “You’re sure there wasn’t an ‘Assistant’ in there, somewhere, or an ‘Undersecretary’?” he asked, almost plaintively.

“Nope,” Tom replied. “You’re on the manning chart as reporting to the secretary of defense.”

“I haven’t talked to him but twice,” Roger argued. “Who the hell said I was a deputy secretary?”

“Uh, the President?” Alan replied. “I read the memo. You were appointed by the President, confirmed by the Senate and it was in the newspapers. Hell, it made the evening news, briefly. It was a nice little write up.”

“Crap, I have got to start reading my e-mail.” Roger sighed. “Anyway…” He paused at the expression on the colonel’s face. “What?”

“You’re…” Bull paused and swallowed. “Somebody had better not be pulling my leg.”

“Somebody better not be pulling mine,” Roger said, frowning at the far wall. “How the hell can I be a deputy secretary?”

“They’re not, Colonel,” Shane said, grinning. “I read the e-mail, too. Hell, I saved the link to the Washington Post article.”

“You don’t remember anything about this?” Tom asked, laughing. “I thought I was checked out!”

“Ronny said something about coming to work directly for the Defense Department,” Roger admitted, frowning in thought. “I just asked if I’d take a cut in salary and he said, no, the salary would be the same or better.”

“There was paperwork,” Traci pointed out. “Sally put it on your desk. You signed it.”

“Sally’s always putting stuff on my desk,” Roger said, shaking his head. “I don’t have time to read it!”

“Colonel,” Shane said, laughing and shaking his head. “You can assume that Roger has need-to-know. Director Guerrero said that I was supposed to show you around. These are the guys I was supposed to show you around to.”

Bull looked at the three, Tom with some chicken from his latest failed attempt to strip it off the wing speckled on his shirt, Alan with his Roll Tide ball cap and Roger, the “Deputy Secretary of Defense for Advanced Defense Concepts and Testing,” in his jeans and polo shirt with a hole on the sleeve, and shook his head.

“Any other deputy secretaries of defense sitting at the table?” he asked and laughed.

“Nope,” Tom said, shaking his head. “I’m an assistant under deputy secretary and Alan’s just a flunkie.”

“Hey!”

“I told you you should have got that Ph.D.”

“So anyway…” Roger said, stripping off a wing and stuffing it in his mouth. “Whu doh ou sta’t ah uh be’inin.” He swallowed and washed it down with some beer. “I mean, why don’t you start at the beginning and just tell us the story. What’s a better place for that than Hooters? And have a beer, for God’s sake! Who knows how long beer will be available. I mean, hell, we’ve already lost football! Hell, I’m so strung out I’d even watch a Canadian game, or arena, or Division II colleges, or high school, or shit, even NFL Europe at this point.”

“Yes, sir.” Bull laughed, taking a sip and looking at the far wall. A Hooters’ girl was just getting up on her tiptoes to shoot an order in and the thought that went through his mind was that she had very little metal on her body. If she got rid of the necklace she’d survive. At least the probes.

“It was a couple of months ago,” he temporized, picking up a wing. “My memory’s not as clear as it was. I was debriefed then—”