“What do you have to say, Miles?”
Miles Corrigan’s official title at ACRE was that of Liaison Director, a euphemism for watchdog. Aloof from the hierarchy of line managers who reported to Edwards, Corrigan took his orders directly from the Technical Coordination Bureau in Washington, an office of the Pentagon that provided a rationalizing interface between the Defense Department and the various centers of government-directed scientific research. Through the Bureau, the activities of practically all the nation’s scientists were controlled and coordinated, both among themselves and with the activities of the other allies in the Western Democracies. The payer of pipers was firmly calling the tune.
Corrigan’s job was to make sure that the right things got done and got done on time; that was the publicized part anyway. The unpublicized part involved simply maintaining a political presence—a constant reminder that whatever things went on in the day-to-day world of ACRE, they were always part of and subordinate to the grand design of loftier and more distant architects. His brief was to watch for, track down, and exorcise “counterproductive influences,” which meant wrong attitudes, uninformed opinions, and anything else of that nature that threatened to affect adversely or undermine the smooth attainment of the Establishment’s assigned objectives. Corrigan could track a subversive rumor back to its source with all the skill and tenacity of an epidemiologist tracing an outbreak of typhoid to its prime carrier. To avoid any witch hunts, it was safer just to say the kind of things you were supposed to say, or at best, not to say the kind of things you weren’t. The scientists at ACRE called him the Commissar.
By temperament and background he was well qualified for the job. After walking through a first-class honors degree in law at Harvard, he had set up a lucrative practice in Washington, specializing in defending the cases of errant politicians—at which he had demonstrated a prodigious skill. In the course of a few years he had incurred the lifelong indebtedness of a long list of fixers and string-pullers—the only kind of friends that meant anything on his scale of values—and their tokens of gratitude soon added up to a permanent end to all of life’s potential financial problems.
He married the daughter of a senator who had made his first million in a series of clandestine arms deals that had involved the offloading of whole ship-loads of substandard ammunition on unsuspecting recipients in Burma and Malaysia—or so it was said. The allegations of the senator’s involvement were never proved after becoming bogged down over a legal technicality. Miles Corrigan had seen to that.
Through the influence of his father-in-law and the goodwill of a number of friends with the right contacts, he entered government service at the right level to further his ambitions. His assignment to ACRE represented the final stage of his grooming before he made his debut on the international political scene. He had made it while still in his prime and was all set to fly high.
He took the cue, sensing a turkey being set up for the kill. When he spoke, his voice was icy and menacing, like the hiss of a cobra measuring its distance. “I’m not interested in k-spaces, hi-spaces, or any of the other buzz-phrases. If all this boils down to saying that you’ve got something that serves the national interest, then tell us about it. If you haven’t, then why are you wasting our time?”
He confronted Clifford with the sneering, unblinking stare that had destroyed innumerable confused and hostile witnesses. His eyes were mocking, inviting the scientist to court disaster if he dared; at the same time they were insistent, demanding an immediate reply. He caught Clifford completely unprepared.
“But . . . that’s not the point. This is . . .” Clifford was surprised to hear himself stumbling for the right word. Even as he spoke he realized he was on the wrong foot and walking straight into the trap, but it was too late. “We’re talking about fundamental knowl—”
“Will it help us kill Commies?” Corrigan cut him short.
“No, but . . .”
“Will it help stop Commies from killing us?”
“No . . . I don’t know . . . Maybe, someday . . .”