The boarding stairs butted gently against the aircraft. Kelly rocked slightly and the two attendants released him. ” ‘I say,’ ” he quoted with a grin. ” ‘I say.’ You know me, Red. I say what I mean.” He took the precedence the general offered with a hand and strode aboard the Airborne Command Post.
“This way, please,” said a female attendant whose dark skirt and blazer looked like a uniform, though they had no insignia – military or civilian. Kelly followed her, keeping the figure centered in a hallway which seemed extremely dim after the sunblasted concrete of the Spanish airport outside. The corridor was enclosed by bulkheads to either side, so that none of the light from the extensive windows reached it.
There was a muted sound from the outer hatch as it closed and sealed behind them, and all the noises external to the aircraft disappeared.
Offhand, Kelly couldn’t think of any group of people with whom he less cared to share a miniature universe than the ones he expected to see in a moment.
“They’re here,” said the female attendant to the pair of men outside the first open door to the right. The guards could have passed for brothers to those who had received Kelly on the boarding stairs and who now tramped down the hall behind him. The aircraft was already beginning to trundle forward.
One of the guards turned his head into the room and murmured something. The other shifted his body slightly to block the doorway, but he focused his eyes well above Kelly’s head so that the action did not become an overt challenge.
“Yes, of course!” snapped a male voice from within, and the guards sprang aside with the suddenness of the Symplegades parting to trap another ship. Kelly gave the one who had blocked him a wry smile as he passed. Working for folks who got off by jumping on the hired help wasn’t his idea of a real good time. By now, at least, they must realize that Tom Kelly wasn’t part of the hired help.
The plaque of layered plastic on the door said Briefing Room, and within were thirty upholstered seats facing aft in an arc toward an offset lectern. “Good morning, Pierrard,” the veteran said to the miasma of pipe smoke which was identifiable before the man himself was, one of a score of faces turned to watch over their shoulders and seatbacks as the newcomers arrived.
“Sit down and strap in, Kelly,” directed the white-haired man in the second of the five rows of seats. “We’re about to take off.” He pointed to the trio of jump seats now folded against the bulkhead behind the lectern.
Kelly slid into the empty seat nearest the door instead. The upholstery and carpet were royal blue, a shade that reminded the veteran of Congressman Bianci’s office. For a moment he felt – not homesick, but nonetheless nostalgic; he didn’t really belong in that world, but it had been a good place to be.
Redstone, whose seat the agent had probably taken, grimaced and found another one by stepping over a naval officer with enough stripes on his sleeves to be at least a captain. “It’s no sweat, Red,” Kelly called over the rumble of the four turbofans booting the 747 down the runway on full enriched thrust. “I’m cool, I just like these chairs better.”
Everyone waited until the pilot had lifted them without wasting time, though with nothing like the abrupt intent of the Starfighter at Diyarbakir some hours before. It was still a big enough world that traveling across it took finite blocks of time. Within the atmosphere, at any rate; the orbital period of Fortress was ninety-five minutes, plus or minus a few depending on how recently the engines had been fired to correct for atmospheric friction.
That was the maximum amount of time before any particular point on Earth became a potential target for a thermonuclear warhead on an unstoppable trajectory.
After less than two minutes, despite what it felt like to all those in the briefing room, the big aircraft’s upward lunge reached the point at which cabin attendants on commercial flights would have begun their spiel about complimentary beverages. Kelly turned his eyes from the windows, past which rags of low cloud were tearing, and took a deep breath. He might or might not switch planes again. Either way, this room and these men – they were all men – were the last stage of the preliminaries.