Remo The Adventure Begins (16 page)

“If you can’t make a rifle correctly how can you make an electronics space defense?” said Major Fleming.

General Watson started to answer, but Grove was going to handle this one himself.

“We are really so vast that different factories, different staffs produce different equipment. One has nothing to do with the other.”

“I would say that they do. Quality control is quality control. We lost a man with one of your lousy rifles. Now I hear that thing is being billed as America’s roof,” said Major Fleming, nodding to the metallic box with the metallic spider-leg rays suspended over the room. “Well, how do we know it is not going to leak?”

George Grove was going to answer that one when unfortunately an assistant of his named Wilson insisted he immediately had to go over to speak to an Undersecretary of Defense.

“I’m sorry, I have to go,” said Grove. He nodded his good intentions with a warm smile, as though if given time, none of them really would see a problem at all, especially the major who was upset.

“His name was Anthony D’Amico, Mr. Grove,” said Major Fleming.

“Excuse me?” said George Grove, following his elbow which was being tugged away by his aide, Wilson.

“The soldier who died testing your junk rifle. Private Anthony D’Amico,” yelled Major Fleming.

“I’m sorry,” said Grove, and when he was out of hearing distance, whispered, “What took you so long?”

“I was trapped by a New Zealander telling me everything that was wrong with New Zealand and Australia.”

“You’re lucky you got out this century. Who is that Major Rayner Fleming?”

“I don’t know. I am sure she must be someone on General Watson’s staff.”

“She mentioned the AR-60.”

“The leak?”

“If it’s not us, it must be them.”

“General Watson is careful about that. He may not know a bullet from a brassiere, but the man is an American flag officer. He does understand the danger of the press, even if he doesn’t always move quickly enough for you.”

“I know people, Wilson. That woman is upset. And she would leak. Warn Scott Watson about her. I don’t know what’s the matter with him for not spotting her himself. I would bet she was the officer who pushed through that bad AR-60 report also.”

Wilson nodded. Normally Grove himself would be the conduit to General Watson. But George Grove did not want to spare the time now. The future phases of HARP were coming up before Congress now, and the head of Grove Industries could not be bothered with a simple little rifle, or some major who was obsessed with it. Besides, if worse came to worst, Grove Industries could always manufacture the AR-60 properly no matter how much that would cut into profits.

At the other end of the room, General Watson was furious.

“Major, I am afraid that display at a Washington party will do little to advance your career,” said General Watson.

“My father fought all across Europe. He served in Korea. He fought in Vietnam. Three wars, and every time he went into battle he knew he had the best equipment his government could give him. We didn’t do the same for Private D’Amico. I went to his funeral. I made a promise to his grandfather, who fought for another country a long time ago. They did not go into battle with the best weapons.”

“I see,” said General Watson. When Grove’s man Wilson saw Watson the next day, the general told him:

“None of us will have to worry about Major Fleming anymore. I will not even have to mention that she spoke without permission to the press.”

“I would like to know what you are going to do. We want discretion about all things. We are not that concerned with the AR-60 in itself. That is not the major weapons system.”

“Don’t worry. I know a psychological case when I see one,” said General Watson. “She has difficulty working with people and unfortunately, she became too emotionally involved after seeing a soldier’s death. Now we all care about our brave men, but this officer went to the man’s funeral, even though he was not in her outfit. And I was there at a Washington party when she wildly called out his name to a manufacturer who wasn’t even all that familiar with that small product. She needs a rest, Wilson.”

“Very good,” said Wilson. He noticed the array of campaign ribbons on General Watson’s uniform. The uniform, Wilson had to admit to himself, didn’t do much for the man. The last really good uniform was that of the British Hussars, 1702 to 1755, but he doubted whether the American military would be interested in tassels nowadays.

Major Rayner Fleming knew her career might be over, and not because of calling a name out at a party. She knew it might be over because, faced with removal from monitoring the quality of the AR-60 and being ordered to a military clinic for “stress examination,” she defied orders.

She did not report to the hospital.

She took a very big risk, one she calculated had one chance in twenty. Alone, she went to an Undersecretary of Defense and took on one of the largest defense contractors.

“I believe, sir,” she said, “that Grove Industries is unqualified to manufacture arms for the United States military. I believe that in a barrel of generally good apples, providing the best military equipment in the world, this manufacturer provides rot. And I suspect that it is rotten throughout, and that it lives on rotting whatever it touches.”

The meeting was held in a small office with a view of the Potomac. A picture of an aircraft carrier hung behind the Undersecretary. Private D’Amico’s rifle looked like a very small thing in this office, where models of missiles sat on the desk, where problems affecting hundreds of thousands of men were solved.

But that rifle and that private were Major Fleming’s business. Even if this man might not remember the name of anyone with less than two stars, this lowly major had to do what she had to do.

The problem was apparent immediately. General Watson had outsmarted her.

“You say that you have been sent to a clinic for rest. I am sure your file will verify that. You say your problem is stress?”

“Yes,” said Major Fleming. She noticed the Undersecretary’s eyes glance lightly at her breasts and then move on up to her face. “My problem is listed as stress, but the real problem is that I give a damn.”

“That’s a serious charge, Major.”

“I understand that.”

“And you have bucked this out of channels, around your commanding officer?”

“Correct.”

“This could get you court-martialed, you know. There are channels. You could make a report.”

“And have it destroyed by the master of reports. General Watson is the best bureaucratic infighter in Washington. He may not remember who won World War Two or why, or what to do when an enemy is about to turn your flank on a battlefield, but he damned well knows how to wield a mean memo.”

“That is a further serious charge against your commanding officer. I would call it defamation.”

“And I would call it accurate.”

“Nothing you have done today here in my office with these unsubstantiated charges would indicate that General Watson was not absolutely right. It appears from your extremely tense demeanor and wild charges that you do indeed suffer from stress. Now, I will attribute all of this to your malady and let you go on to your rest. I know how hard and tension-filled a job like yours can be.”

Major Fleming inhaled deeply. The Undersecretary was letting her walk back off the limb. She could say forget everything, go to a hospital for a few weeks, come out with a clean bill of health and resume her career. Or she could do otherwise.

“No,” she said. “I stand by it all.”

The Undersecretary nodded, somewhat sadly. This beautiful officer had just all but scuttled her career. He almost wished she was right about Grove Industries and General Watson. Because what she had done just now was say to the United States government, it was either her or them.

“I will accept a written statement from you on this matter,” said the Undersecretary, “and then I would advise you to proceed to that hospital.”

He paused and then with a sigh said:

“I’m sorry. That is all I can do.”

It was them.

• • •

Ordinarily Major Fleming’s report would not go far beyond her own file to provide proof that her commanding officer had made the right decision in dismissing her. It would get a review from a board, and the board would find her “hysterical,” a term more loosely used for women than men.

But on this particular board was someone who had orders to forward all reports, no matter how unsubstantiated, to a file in one of the many monitor offices in Washington.

He was not sure exactly what it was. Someone told him once, but that didn’t matter. The important thing was filing this report in a computer-coded manner, one of many computer-coded manners he filed reports in all day long. He didn’t know where the others went for certain, and therefore felt little concern for this report’s destination either.

The Fleming report, however, had what were called “flags.” A program seeing one of these flags would pick up the report and forward it. The Fleming report had three strong flags.

One, it concerned the AR-60, for which a flag had been set.

Two, it concerned Grove Industries, for which another flag had been set.

And three, it set a flag for anyone reporting malfeasance concerning the above two items.

Within a microsecond the screen of Harold W. Smith, in that Wall Street cover, was alight with an interruption. He had personally set the flags. As he read the report on Major Fleming, his native New England reserve contained his excitement.

What Harold W. Smith had discovered was what he had seen in so many branches of the armed forces despite general opinion to the contrary. An officer was ready to go all the way for what she believed. But what excited Harold W. Smith was that now he had the one person to use against Grove, inside the system. If the major were willing to risk her career without good informational support, then she certainly was not going to break under any other pressure and she certainly was not going to be bought off.

Good for you, Major Fleming, thought Smith. You’re the one real man in that command.

If Smith were a whistler, he would have whistled that day as he worked. He created orders and counterorders. He created a whole system that had not only cleared Major Fleming of any sign of emotional weakness, but added a merit report, and transferred her neatly away from General Scott Watson, whose name would now be flagged on anything to do with malfeasance.

And even better yet, Major Fleming would not be alone anymore. She would get all the support she needed even though she would never know where it came from.

The orders arrived at the hospital before Major Fleming. She was not to be treated at the hospital, but return to Washington to join the staff of the Joint Chiefs. And she was ordered to investigate two projects. The AR-60, and one to do with the Air Force, perhaps the most glamorous defense project in the history of the nation, HARP, America’s roof against the nuclear rain.

George Grove, because he ate sparingly, rarely felt like vomiting. But this day in the crucial congressional subcommittee hearing in Washington, he wanted to vomit up the salad and mineral water he had eaten for breakfast. Then he wanted to strangle Wilson. And maybe General Scott Watson, as well.

Walking to the opposite side of the table set before the congressional bench in the closed-door meeting was the major Wilson had promised Watson would get rid of. She arrived with a thick sheaf of notes. Grove forced himself not to look at her, to pay attention to the Air Force officer’s smooth presentation on why America should move forward from HARP I system into HARP II.

It was winter and the good Jamaica tan hid Grove’s seething red rage.

“And so,” concluded the Air Force officer’s excellent presentation, “I can only reiterate, Mr. Chairman, that the HARP system is a key element in our defensive shield in space . . ."

Grove nodded sagely. The chairman, a representative from Chillicothe, Ohio, glanced at his watch. He had heard this presentation many times before. He figured the officer could wind up now in time for everyone to take two good stiff cocktails before dinner.

“I think everyone in this room,” said the officer, “shares a dream. A dream that one day our nation will be invulnerable to nuclear attack.”

The chairman whispered to the representative on his left about the quality of the winter heating in the Capitol. He noticed the contractor was nodding. He was supposed to. He noticed the other Air Force officers were paying rapt attention, even though they probably had brainstormed every comma in the report. But one strange thing was happening at the testimony table. An Army officer was taking notes, quite seriously.

And other members of the committee were watching her.

“What a pair, huh?” whispered another representative.

“Her and who?” asked the chairman, also in a whisper.

“Them on her,” answered the other representative.

“I don’t like the heating in here,” whispered the chairman, who knew the presentation almost as well as the Air Force officer. This whole thing was a foregone conclusion. America was as committed to HARP as it was to electing its national leaders.

“HARP,” said the Air Force officer, his pointer resting on a chart of America’s space borders, “can bring us closer to that dream in our search for the ultimate weapon of peace. I recommend that we proceed to system level development on HARP II with all possible speed. Thank you.”

Good, thought the chairman. We are all going to make cocktails tonight. It was over. The other congressmen were gathering their papers when he said:

“I think we’re all agreed then. If there are no objections—”

“Mr. Chairman. There is one point I’d like to raise,” said the beautiful major.

Grove tasted the watercress come up, and swallowed it back down with his anger.

“We are all aware of the strategic importance of the HARP system to our national defense. But I question the advisability of pouring money into HARP II when we haven’t seen anything of HARP I yet.”

There was silence in the closed hearing. Two congressmen on their way to the door sat back down at their table. Everyone looked to Grove and the Air Force officers.