“I don’t have anything like that,” said Hake.
The young man nodded, unsurprised. Thinking it over, Hake remembered the thirty-second pause in the vestibule on the way in, waiting for the automatic door to open; no doubt at the same time capacitators probed for metal on his person.
His escort was a little old lady, motherly and smiling, who tottered along at slow-march, crying in a thin, piercing voice: “Uncleared personnel coming through! Uncleared personnel coming through!” Hake didn’t look into the offices because he was getting the uneasy feeling that something was going on that had high stakes involved and orders had better be followed; but he was aware of a rustling of papers being covered and charts being turned to the wall from every doorway they passed.
It did not surprise him that “Lo-Wate Bottling Co.” was some sort of government installation. Even if he had not expected it, “follow the following instructions” would have been a dead giveaway.
All the walls were bare, except for what looked like ventilators but might have concealed surveillance equipment; government-issue cream-colored paint; no windows visible anywhere. Hake wondered about the outside of the building. Surely there had been windows in it? But maybe they were dummies.
The motherly woman reached her destination—a closed door that bore a frame for a nameplate, but instead of a name it had a number: T-34. The guide carefully checked it against a card in her hand, knocked twice and waited. When the door opened she averted her eyes and stared at the ceiling. “The gentleman with whom the gentleman had an appointment is here,” she said.
Hake walked in and shook the hand of the gentleman, accepted a seat and a cigarette and waited.
The gentleman slung himself into a fat leather chair behind a steel drawerless desk, and lit a cigarette of his own. He was short, slim and hairy: not only a Waspro that fluffed out in all directions, but a sloppy beard and sideburns. His general appearance was not of a man who had decided to grow long hair and facial hair, but of someone who simply stopped doing anything about it at some remote point in time. He wore chinos and an Army jacket, without insignia, over a blue work shirt open at the throat; and around his waist he had a gunbelt with a holstered .45.
“I imagine,” he said, “you’re wondering what you’re doing here, Horny.”
Horny let out a long breath. “You are very right about that, Mr.—”
The man waved a hand. “My name doesn’t matter. I suppose you’ve already figured out that this is some kind of cockamamie cloak-and-dagger operation. If you haven’t, you’re pretty dumb. So we don’t give real names to people like you, but you can call me—” he paused to lift a corner of one of the papers on his desk—“ah, yes. You can call me Curmudgeon.”
“Curmudgeon?”
“Don’t ask me why, I don’t decide these things. Now, the first thing we have to do is recall you to active service. Please stand up and repeat the oath.”
“Hey! Hey, wait a minute. I’m thirty-nine years old and draft-proof, and besides I’m a minister.”
“Oh, yes, you certainly are. You’re also a fellow who took ROTC in college, right?”
“Now, that’s ridiculous! I wasn’t really in Rotsy. I was in a wheelchair. It was just some kind of public relations thing, for extra credit—”
“But you took the oath, and when you signed up you signed for twenty years in the Reserve. And that hasn’t changed, has it? So stand up.”
“No,” said Horny, for whom things were going much too fast. “I mean, can’t you let me know what this is all about first? I guess it’s some kind of CIA thing, but—”
“Oh, Horny, you’re tiresome. Look. The CIA was disbanded years ago, after the scandals. Didn’t you know that? There’s no such thing any more. What we have here is just a team. With a job to do.”
“Then what kind of job—”
The man stood up, and suddenly looked a lot taller. He said in a flat voice, “You have two choices, Hake. Take the oath. Or go to jail for evasion of service. That’s only a five-year sentence, but they’ll be hard years, Hake, they’ll be very hard years. And then we’ll think of something else.”
It took about three seconds for Horny Hake to catalogue his alternate choices and realize that he didn’t have any; reluctantly and sullenly he stood up and repeated the oath.
“Now, that’s much better,” the man said warmly. “The first thing I have to do is give you three orders. Remember them, Horny. You can’t write them down, but I’m recording the orders and your responses—which, in each case, are to be, ‘I understand and will comply.’ Got it? All right, first order: This project and your participation in it are top secret and are not to be discussed with anyone at any time without the specific authorization of me or whoever replaces me in the event I die or am removed. Got that?”
“I guess so—”
“No, that’s not it ‘I understand and will comply.’ “
“I understand and will comply,” said Hake thoughtfully.
“Second order: The declassification of any material relating to this project can be only at my explicit order in writing, or that of my successor. It is without time limit You are bound to it for the rest of your life. Okay?”
“Right,” said Hake dismally.
“Wrong. ‘I understand—’ “
“All right. I understand and will comply.”
“Third: This security classification also applies to the fact that you are recalled to active duty. You may not inform anyone of this.”
“What am I supposed to tell my church?” Hake demanded. The man wagged his head. “Oh, all right: I understand and will comply. But what am I supposed to tell them?”
“You’re very sick, Horny,” Curmudgeon said sympathetically. “You have to take time off.”
“But I can’t just leave—”
“Certainly not. We’ll supply you with a replacement And,” he went on, “there are certain advantages to this from your point of view. For payroll procedures, you will be placed on retainer by Lo-Wate as a consultant at an annual salary equal to a GS-16—which, if you don’t know, is currently about $83,000 a year, counting bonuses and cost-of-living. That’s, let’s see—” he took a notebook out of his inside shirt pocket—“looks like better than thirty thousand more than you’re making now from your church. And we’ll take good care of you in other ways. The Team takes care of its people.”
“But I like being a minister!” Even as he was saying the words, he felt their total irrelevance. “Why me?” he burst out.
“Ah,” said the man, all sympathy, “how many people have asked that question? Men dying on a battlefield. Girls being raped. Children with leukemia. Of course,” he said, “in your case it’s a little easier to explain. We put through a sort for persons on active service or capable of being activated for our team. Age at least twenty but no more than forty-five, of Middle Eastern but non-Jewish and non-Moslem extraction. I guess there weren’t all that many, Horny. Then we evaluated in point scores. Point scores,” he said confidentially, “usually means that we don’t really know who we want. We figure out a couple of things— Eastern-Mediterranean languages, knowing the customs of the area, free of obligations that would interfere with leaving for parts unknown for prolonged periods. That sort of thing. And you won, Horny, fair and square.”
“You want me to go be a spy in the Middle East?”
He coughed. “Well, that’s the funny part. It says here your first mission will be in France, Norway and Denmark. It’s a strange thing,” he said philosophically, “but every once in a while the system screws up. Well. It’s nice talking to you, but you’ve got two other people to see before you leave. Let me have you taken to your next appointment.”