30
You can’t break
what you can’t touch.
Miggy Tremelo sat in Colonel McNamara’s commandeered office. There were still signs of the previous occupant’s interest in geology all over the place. McNamara leaned back and fiddled with his pipe. It was a ritual plainly designed to give the man thinking time. Tremelo played along.
“Your idea about using the men who had been on day one of operations worked. We only lost one of them.”
“Glad to hear it. The device must be selecting or detecting certain types of victims. That is the first decent step forward we’ve had all day.”
“But the damn thing is still expanding. And the snatch range just gets bigger.” The colonel puffed on his pipe. He fiddled with a match. Then he took a deep breath. “I’m not supposed to tell you what I’m doing. Orders from on high. But . . . it appears you’ll detect it anyway. And even if not, the NSA will probably tell you about it. We’ve got a specialist demolitions team coming in this afternoon.”
Tremelo nodded. “We advised them to try coned-steel-cutting demolition charges. One of our men will be accompanying them.”
“Humph. And I’m supposed to keep it a secret! However . . . that wasn’t what I wanted to talk to you about. If that fails, we’re to pull everybody back to outside a five-mile perimeter. They’re starting to talk about using a small tactical nuke.”
Tremelo raised his eyes to heaven. “And what do these geniuses think they’ll achieve with a nuclear explosion, besides a smaller package to deliver the explosive and some incidental radiation? Every single thing we’ve thrown at that alien device has bounced off. No, worse—the destructive energy actually seems to help the thing grow.”
The physicist stared at a rock hammer lying on a nearby bench. Following the direction of his eyes, Colonel McNamara chuckled. “Hey, Miggy, gimme a break. It’s not my idea, so busting my head won’t accomplish anything.” He blew out a cloud of smoke. “Truth is, I pretty much agree with you on this subject.”
Tremelo smiled. “Look, Frank. I won’t let on I heard about this from you, but I’ll get onto my contact at the NSC, and if necessary get hold of the President himself. I’ll do what I can to head off this tactical nuke scheme. Without knowing what we’re doing, that’s a recipe for disaster.”
McNamara gave him a level gaze. “You know how it works, Miggy. The Powers That Be want action. Half the time, at least, they’re more worried about their standing in the public opinion polls than they are about anything else.”
“I should have stayed in pure research,” muttered Tremelo. Then, firmly: “I’ll toss them a bone. I’ll suggest—as one of several alternatives—that we try a bomb-pumped laser. And you never heard me mention that either. Officially, the U.S. doesn’t have any neutron devices.”
He sighed. “I can’t say I like that idea much either, but by comparison the device we don’t have is a lot cleaner than a tac nuke. And more likely to be effective, if anything is.”
The colonel lit his pipe again. “It’s not being able to hit back that’s driving everybody nuts.”
“I understand that. And I’m aware that the government is under a fair amount of international pressure, too. Being as this is the University of Chicago, there have been a large number of foreign nationals snatched as well as American citizens. But the fact remains that ‘hitting back’ for the sake of it, when you’re swinging blind, is still just stupid.”
Colonel McNamara nodded. “No quarrel with that here. Especially since it’s my men who have to do the swinging.”
Tremelo stood up. “I’ll do what I can. Now, you’ll have to excuse me, Colonel. I’ve got to get back to the team doing the analysis of the snatch victims. This information about the men who were within range but not taken yesterday being ignored today could be a real lead.”
* * *
Marie was serving as Tremelo’s unofficial chauffeur as well as everything else, using—for mysterious reasons having to do with the intricacies of “expense accounts”—her own very-far-from-new Buick. On the drive back to his own office, Marie gave Tremelo a questioning glance. The physicist’s tight face was answer enough.
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