Stoner ignored him. “I’m here and I’ll stay. So don’t try to threaten me. I’m not some little kid who scares easily. Remember that.”
For several moments no one said a word. McDermott and Tuttle glanced uneasily at each other. Stoner listened to the wind sighing past the house, the bare trees whispering.
“You’ve made your point,” Tuttle said at last, his eyes on the bent fence post. Then he grinned slightly. “I’m glad you’re on our side.”
Stoner nodded and started for the kitchen door.
“But we still have to maintain a tight security control on everybody in the project,” Tuttle said, following after him.
“I understand that. But don’t make any cracks about my not being allowed to phone my kids.”
“All right…as long as you don’t try to smuggle any more letters out of here.”
“I won’t.”
They went into the kitchen and Stoner peeled off his windbreaker. Tuttle and McDermott headed straight for the front door, and the car outside in front of the house, waiting for them. Stoner went with them to the door, looked outside at the driveway that led to the road. No fences there.
Tuttle went to the car and started its engine. McDermott hung back by the doorway, an uncertain scowl on his beefy face.
Finally he turned to Stoner and said, “Don’t expect Jo Camerata to come waltzing up here anymore. I’ve taken her off courier duty.”
“You…what?”
“I know she took care of that letter for you,” McDermott said, his voice a low rumble, “no matter how much either one of you deny it.”
“That’s no reason to…”
McDermott broke into a malicious grin. “Listen, sonny. She’s just as happy to be out of this courier routine as she can be. She’s gotten everything she can get out of you—which is nothing but trouble. But I can get her into the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the university. She wants to be an astronaut, you know.”
Stoner wanted to punch that leering, grinning old face. Instead he merely said, “I know.”
“So she’s after me now. You’re out of her game plan.”
Tuttle honked the horn once, lightly. McDermott started toward the car. Over his shoulder, he said to Stoner, “Don’t worry. I’ll take good care of her.”
Stoner stood trapped in the doorway, unable to move, seething.
Chapter 15
TOP SECRET—NO FOREIGN NATIONALS
Memorandum
FROM: V. J. Driscoll, ONM
TO: Lt/Cdr F. G. Tuttle, ONR
SUBJECT: Transfer of Project JOVE
DATE: 5 January
FILE: 84-662
REF: ONM Log/vjd
1. Planning phase of Project JOVE transfer is now complete.
2. Logistic buildup at Kwajalein is under way, preparatory to reception of Project JOVE personnel and equipment by 15 April.
3. Administrative responsibility for Kwajalein and adjoining facilities will be transferred to the Navy by 15 January.
4. Port of debarkation for Project JOVE personnel will be Navel Air Station, South Weymouth, MA. All personnel will be airlifted by MAC in two (2) C-141 transports. MAC will provide a third C-141 or one (1) C-5A, as required, for equipment.
5. It is imperative that all personnel and dependents be prepared to embark no later than 15 April. Facilities for dependents can be made available at South Weymouth NAS for Project JOVE families, if necessary.
Sally Ellington kicked off her sensibly low-heeled shoes, reached across her cluttered desk and picked the phone receiver off its cradle. For a long moment she hesitated. Then, with a glance at the locked door that connected to the empty outer office, she quickly punched out his number on the phone’s keyboard.
His voice sounded sleepy, grumpy, when he answered.
“It’s me,” she said. “Sally.”
“At this hour?”
“Be quiet and listen,” the President’s science adviser commanded. “I’ve got something that will make your boss the next President.”
No reply from the other end. I wonder if he’s alone in that waterbed of his? she wondered.
“Well?” he demanded.
“The President’s decided to inform the Russians about…you know.”
“JOVE?” he asked immediately.
“Yes. He’s going to use the Hot Line.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“When that becomes public knowledge, his chances of winning next November are gone.”
“I don’t know. He…”
“I do know,” Sally Ellington said. “Better than you. He’s finished, if and when this news leaks to the press.”
“So why are you telling me? If I tell the Secretary about it…”
She smiled to herself. “That’s your decision to make. I just wanted to be sure you knew.”
“I see.” His voice faltered momentarily, then, “I appreciate this, Sally. I owe you one.”
She nodded, picturing in her mind how he would repay her. In that waterbed.
In Massachusetts during the winter the sun sets by four o’clock. It was nearly six and as black as midnight outside the observatory windows as Jeff Thompson pored over the computer printouts that covered his desk.
Jo Camerata sat alongside him, tracing with her finger a long column of numbers. Thompson could smell a trace of herbal scent in her dark hair. Her fingernail was unpainted, but carefully shaped.
You’re a happily married man, Thompson told himself. Then he added, But you’re not dead!
“I know the figures look screwy,” Jo was saying, “but that’s what the computer is spitting out at us. I ran through the program three times, just to be sure, and the numbers came out the same each time.”
Thompson could feel the warmth of her body. She was almost rubbing her shoulder against his. Forcing himself to concentrate on the work in front of him, he asked, “And this is the latest run?”
“Yes,” she said. “All this column is the data from the latest set of Big Eye photographs.”
Thompson frowned at the numbers. It had been years since he’d been faced with a problem in orbital mechanics. Not since he had received his doctorate and gone to work at the observatory under McDermott’s direction had he been forced to calculate orbits and trajectories. That’s what graduate students were for: they did the dog work.
But this latest batch of numbers churned out by the computer made no sense. It looked so crazy that he had to give it his personal attention.
Thompson shook his head. “You’d better hand this set to Keith. It’s more in his line than mine.”
Jo moved slightly away from him. “I’m not allowed to go up there anymore. Professor McDermott doesn’t want me to see him.”
“You’re not a courier anymore?”
“No. Mac doesn’t even want me to talk to him on the phone.”
Pushing his eyeglasses back up over his brows, Thompson gave her a long look. “How do you feel about that? I thought you and Keith were, well…”
Jo shook her head. “I’d rather not talk about it, if you don’t mind.”
“You can’t even phone him?”
She made a helpless gesture with her hands. “The phone at the house is tapped. Mac gets a record of all the incoming and outgoing calls.”
“Jesus Christ, we might as well be in Russia.”
Jo said nothing.
“Well,” Thompson said, “I guess somebody else’ll have to deliver this can of worms to him.”
“Or we could send it over the computer line,” Jo said softly. “He’s got a terminal up there at the house.”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“Am I doing something wrong?” Jo asked, looking back at the printouts. “Or is the computer glitching on us?”