“I want to see my kids in Palo Alto,” Stoner said.
“You’ll be lucky if we let you put a phone call through to them on Christmas Eve,” McDermott snapped.
Stoner slumped back on the sofa again. “So they’re sending you to Kwajalein after all. Good. You don’t deserve Arecibo. Puerto Rico’s too lush for you bastards.”
“There’s no call for that kind of language,” Tuttle said.
“I’ve already been deprived of my liberty. Don’t try to take away my freedom of speech.”
“You’ve sent classified information to the Soviet Union,” Tuttle said, his round face going slightly red. “That’s a violation of the security laws. If we wanted to we could slap an espionage charge on you.”
“And I told you before, any half-decent lawyer would put your ass in a sling over illegal detention, duress, harassment…hell, nobody even read me my rights.”
Tuttle glared at him and Stoner realized that the mild profanity bothered the little guy more than the legal position he was in.
McDermott broke up their staring match. “Now, look here, Stoner. You’ve got to realize that what we’re sitting on here is so important that we’re not going to allow little legal quibbles to get in our way.”
“Try telling that to a judge. Or a jury.”
“You won’t get in front of a judge,” Tuttle said smugly. “You’re going to Kwajalein with us and you’re going to sit on that island until we’re ready to turn you loose.”
“Which won’t be until Project JOVE is completed,” McDermott added. “Listen to me, sonny. You can be either with us or against us, but either way you’re going to Kwajalein.”
“So what difference does it make?”
“Plenty! If you co-operate with us, work with us, then the Navy’s willing to forget any charges of security violation or espionage. Right, Fred?”
Tuttle nodded. “But if you won’t co-operate, we’ll convene a federal court on Kwajalein, try you there, and keep you in a Navy brig until we’re good and ready to transfer you to a federal prison on the mainland.”
Stoner took a swallow of Jack Daniel’s. “So it’s heads you win, tails I lose.”
“Exactly,” said McDermott.
“Military justice.”
“It’s legal,” Tuttle insisted. “I checked it out.”
Stoner laughed. “Legal. Military justice is to justice as military intelligence is to smarts.”
Tuttle took it seriously. “Don’t you go maligning military intelligence. I worked in Naval Intelligence. Nothing wrong with the smarts there. And we caught you, didn’t we?”
“Yeah, I know. You guys are so smart we won the war in Vietnam,” Stoner taunted.
“That was Army Intelligence! Westmoreland. All he wanted was good news. I know plenty of Army G-2 officers who got pushed further and further out into the boondocks every time they brought in a realistic intelligence report. After enough of them got knocked off by the VC, they started to realize that all Westmoreland wanted was high body counts and optimistic pipe dreams. So that’s what they sent in, and they always got rewarded with softer assignments, closer to headquarters, where it was safer.”
“And we lost the war.”
Tuttle nodded, a bit sullenly. “But that was the Army, not us. Why, if it wasn’t for my intelligence background this whole Project JOVE might never have gotten started. When Professor McDermott first told me about the radio pulses I was the one who thought of using Big Eye to search for anything unusual. It was my idea.”
McDermott’s face went splotchy, but he didn’t contradict the lieutenant commander.
Stoner said, “And that’s how I got drafted into this game, is it?”
“That’s right,” Tuttle said. “And you are in, for keeps. There’s no getting out.”
“So are you going to be with us or against us?” McDermott asked.
Stoner looked down at the floor again, at the map spread across the carpet. But his mind’s eye was seeing the photographs of Jupiter, the speck of moving light that was the alien spacecraft which had invaded the solar system.
Invaded? Stoner was startled at his own use of the term. Then he realized the importance of the question behind it. What is this—thing—doing here? Where did it come from? Why is it here?
Who sent it?
“Well?” McDermott demanded. “What’s your answer?”
Instead of replying, Stoner got to his feet and headed for the kitchen. “Get your coats,” he said over his shoulder. “I want to show you something.”
Puzzled, grumbling, they followed Stoner out to the back door of the house. They pulled on their heavy coats while Stoner slipped into a lined windbreaker.
It was cold outside, but clear and dry. The sun gave no heat, but the bulk of the house kept the wind off the tiny fenced-in area behind the kitchen.
“Hi, Burt,” Stoner said to the Navy guard out there. McDermott and Tuttle watched in mystified silence.
Burt was a civilian Navy employee who normally sat in an office in Boston. He was paid double time for standing by the chain link fence that surrounded the house’s rear patio. Stoner smiled at him. Burt was fiftyish, portly, with a body that had been strong once but now held more beer than muscle.
“Burt guards the house on Sundays,” Stoner explained to McDermott and Tuttle, “while guys like Dooley and the younger boys take the day off.”
“Hey, Dr. Stoner,” Burt said, grinning, “I been thinkin’ about those boards you broke with your bare hands last weekend. Next time I need some kindlin’ broke up, I’ll know where to go.”
Stoner smiled back at him. “You do that, Burt. You do that.”
He pulled himself to a ready stance and forced his body to relax. Tae kwon do is a discipline, Stoner told himself. The true disciple does not seek to fight.
He walked slowly, metering his breathing rate with deliberate care, to the chain link fence, his back to the three other men. Stopping in front of one of the steel posts that anchored the fence to the ground, Stoner gave the fiercest yell he could push out of his lungs and sprang up to kick the very top of the post.
The metal pole bent and twanged like a guitar string. The fence vibrated.
Stoner did it again, screaming savagely, with his left foot this time. And then again. The pole visibly sagged.
“Hey, Dr. Stoner! What the hell you doin’?”
Stoner turned a deadly serious gaze on the guard. “Just practicing, Burt.”
“Cheez, for a minute there I thought you was tryin’ to knock the fence down!”
Looking straight at Tuttle, Stoner replied, “I could if I wanted to.”
“I can see that.”
“Imagine what one of those kicks would do to a man’s head. Even Dooley’s.”
McDermott licked his lips, glanced at Tuttle.
“Do you carry a gun, Burt?” Stoner asked.
His hand involuntarily twitched toward the holster underneath his coat.
“Do you think you could get your gun out before I kicked your head in?”
Burt stared at him. Then grinned shakily. “Hey…Dr. Stoner, you’re kiddin’ me, ain’tcha?”
Stoner closed his eyes momentarily and nodded. “Sure, Burt. I’m kidding.” Then he stared into Tuttle’s frightened eyes and added, “Any time I want to break out of here, I can. I could pulverize Dooley and two other men with him before they could even react. The only reason I’m here is because I want to be here.”
Tuttle began, “I never thought…”
But Stoner stopped him with a pointed finger. “I don’t like being treated as a prisoner, but I decided the very first day to accept it, because I know—I knew long before he did”—he gestured to McDermott—“how important this project is.”
“Now, see here, Stoner,” Big Mac groused.