“No, Winston, I don’t have a book to wave for your watchers to run out and listen to. Sorry about that.”
“Well, I wanted to wave it if it was there to wave, sir.”
“Thank you, Winston.”
“So there you have it folks,” the reporter said, turning to face front on into one of the cameras. “As you’ve no doubt heard, Princess Kris Longknife is back. We know nothing about the battle she may or may not have fought, but the general here has told us, and you’ve been the first to hear, that Kris’s back, along with her flagship, the Wasp, and the Greenfeld Grand Duchess Victoria. This is Winston Spenser, returning you to your regularly scheduled programs.”
He paused until a disembodied human voice announced, “Cut. Well done, Winston, and thank you for your time, General.”
“Thank you for having me,” Trouble said, noticing that the cameras were still showing little red lights on the wall. One of them even zoomed in on him as he watched.
“Was it a good interview?” he asked Winston.
“I was afraid it was going to be very short when you balked on the neutron torpedoes.”
“I wasn’t aware of what was in the public domain. My wife mentioned something about them yesterday. I should have asked her to brief me on what she knew.”
“We do have those torpedoes, right?”
“If you’re asking me to validate what has been published in the public domain, sorry, son. You need to talk to someone whose job that is. I’m just a retired old warhorse who no one tells nothing.”
“But you were called to the king’s private chambers last night, weren’t you?”
Trouble moved quickly to deflect that with a nonlie. “I had supper last night with my loving wife. She ordered up delicious Greek fare that I could not name to save my life. What else I may or may not have done is not for me to say.”
“We have the picture of you hurrying out of a cab and entering the Grand Hotel de Wardhaven.”
So there was more gotcha. “Then I guess you can play it, but you won’t get me commenting on it, or anything Ray Longknife and I may have discussed about our peripatetic great-grandkid. Though, if you push me, I will tell you that I’m proud as punch of her, just like I am of all my kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids. And if you press me on it, I can produce pictures of each and every one of them. Even a few of them with their bare bottoms on a bear rug.”
“Now one of Kris so flagrantly delectable might be worth me sitting through all those pictures.”
“You can let him go, now,” that disembodied voice announced, and this time, the cameras did go from red to green.
“You are one smart cookie,” Winston said.
“I’m alive. A lot of dumber or just plain unlucky folks aren’t.”
“Yes. May I walk you out?”
“Yes, please. That was quite a rat’s maze they led me through.”
Winston did walk Trouble through the corridors and out through the main lobby. Only when they were back on the street did he speak.
“General, I’m rooting for your grandkid. There are a lot of folks in this business who aren’t. We get a lot more coverage when we’re tearing people down. Not so much when we’re reporting how they did something good. I think she did something good. I’ll try to get that message out if I can get past all the dragons, who start with my producer and include management and sponsors.”
“I figured your job wasn’t all skittles and beer.”
“Not as deadly as your profession, sir, but not a bed of roses, either.”
“Well, you do what you can, and I’ll do what I can.”
“Say hi to the king for me the next time you see him,” Winston said, as Trouble took his leave.
“You’ll likely see him before I do,” Trouble said over his shoulder. He didn’t turn back to see how the reporter took the answer.
“In a pig’s eye,” may or may not have been Winston.
Trouble didn’t get to the end of the street before his computer was telling him he had incoming calls. Ruth’s wasn’t the first in line, but he took her call before the rest.
“You didn’t do too bad, dear. Did you know they were distributing you live?”
“Nope. They didn’t mention it. Must have slipped their mind,” Trouble said, ruefully. “And, honey, I made a mistake last night. I should have had you brief me about what was in the public domain about those damn torpedoes.”
“Oh, you did just fine without it, dear. I take it you’ve been thinking about how you would have used them if you were there with Kris.”
“It’s been a thought as I try to get to sleep after bothersome days.”
“You didn’t tell me that Vicky came back with our Kris.”
“It may have slipped my mind last night. You were very distracting.”
“The day my old body distracts you from anything green or blue will be the first time,” she shot back at him.
“That is a cruel canard on my manhood. There have been two or three times when you have most successfully distracted me.”
“Two or three times in eighty years.”
“That’s better than most career Marine’s wives, I assure you.”
“I guess I’ll have to settle for that. Well, no doubt there are a lot of calls coming in for you. Networks that want to talk to you now that you’ve dropped a few crumbs more than His Royal Chambers have.”
“Hmm. Speaking of the devil’s own home, I’ve got a call from said Royal Chambers.”
“You better take it before Ray splits a gut.”
“Yeah. I wouldn’t want to have to attend an old war buddy’s funeral because I killed him now, would I?”
“In Ray’s case, I might just give you absolution.”
“Yes, but trust me, the next ten folks waiting in line for his job are a whole lot worse.”
“Likely you’re right. See you for dinner, love?”
“I might be a bit late if they want to call me on the carpet and read me the riot act in person.”
“I’ll keep it warm for you.”
“You always keep everything warm for me.”
“You just be sure to come home, you hear?”
“We aren’t likely to hear anything new from Kris until tomorrow morning at the earliest. What could keep me from you, my love?”
“You want me to read you my list? It’s long and growing.”
“Trouble out,” he said.
“Ruth waiting,” she said, ending the call.
The computer asked him who he wanted to talk to next.
He glanced down the long list of incoming calls. The vast majority were from media outlets. No doubt they’d seen him with Winston and figured their expert interviewers could extract more from him or maybe twist him better in the wind.
But there was one from the Royal Chambers. “Answer the royal call,” he told his computer.
“Where are you?” came an unidentified, demanding, and not at all respectful voice.
“Who wants to know?” Trouble shot right back in just as demanding a voice.
“King Raymond wants to see you right now.”
“Okay. I’m walking home from an interview.”
“We know about that interview. We’ve got a car waiting for you right outside the media headquarters.”
“It wasn’t there when I came out,” Trouble snapped. He was developing a definite distaste for this person on the line.
“Well, activate your beeper, and the car will come to you.”
“Computer, give them a homing beacon.”
“Activated, sir.”
“They’ve got it. Stay right there.”
“Who is this? Because if you don’t have four stars on your shoulder, this four-star general is going to eat your ass for lunch.”
Trouble found himself talking to a dead circuit.
“Kids these days. They ought to have to storm a Black Mountain or two. They’d learn some respect. If they lived through it.”
A car pulled up. The Secret Service man riding shotgun quickly dismounted and trotted toward Trouble.
“Are you General Tordon?”
“You see anyone else with a ramrod backbone around here?”
“No sir, I do not. May I ask you to please join us in the car?”