'So you let him drive right through with that lot buzzing and you don't stop him,' said Glaushof. 'We could have a Beirut bomb blast on our hands.'
'We didn't pick up the bleep till later.'
'Too later,' said Glaushof, 'I'm not taking any chances. I want the sand trucks brought up but fast. We're going to seal that car. Move.'
'It ain't no bomb,' said the Corporal, 'not sending like that. With a bomb the signals would be coming in.'
'Whatever,' said Glaushof, 'it's a breach of security and it's going to be sealed.'
'If you say so, Major,' said the Corporal and disappeared across the parking lot. For a moment, Glaushof hesitated and considered what other action he should take. At least he'd acted promptly to protect the base and his own career. As Base Security Officer, he'd always been against these foreign lecturers coming in with their subversive talks. He'd already discovered a geographer who'd sneaked a whole lot of shit about the dangers to bird-life from noise pollution and kerosene into his lectures on the development of the English landscape. Glaushof had had him busted as a member of Greenpeace. A car with radios transmitting continuously suggested something much more serious. And something much more serious could be just what he needed.
Glaushof ran through a mental checklist of enemies of the Free World: terrorists, Russian spies, subversives, women from Greenham Common...whatever. It didn't matter. The key thing was that Base Intelligence had fouled things up and it was up to him to rub their faces in the shit. Glaushof smiled to himself at the prospect. If there was one man he detested, it was the Intelligence Officer. Nobody heard of Glaushof, but Colonel Urwin with his line to the Pentagon and his wife in with the Base Commander's so they were invited to play Bridge Saturday nights, oh sure, he was a big noise. And a Yale man. Screw him. Glaushof intended to. 'This guy...what did you say his name is?' he asked the Lieutenant.
'Wilt,' said the Lieutenant.
'Where are you holding him?'
'Not holding him anyplace,' said the Lieutenant. 'Called you first thing we picked up the signals.'
'So where is he?'
'I guess he's over lecturing someplace,' said the Lieutenant. 'His details are in the guardhouse. Schedule and all.'
They hurried across the parking lot to the gates to the civilian quarters and Glaushof studied the entry in Wilt's file. It was brief and uninformative. 'Lecture Hall 9,' said the Lieutenant. 'You want me to have him picked up?'
'No,' said Glaushof, 'not yet. Just see no one gets out, is all.'
'No way he can except over the new fence,' said the Lieutenant, 'and I don't see him getting far. I've switched the current on.'
'Fine,' said Glaushof. 'So he comes out you stop him.'
'Yes, sir,' said the Lieutenant, and went out to check the guards, while Glaushof picked up the phone and called the Security Patrol. 'I want Lecture Hall 9 surrounded,' he said, 'but nobody to move till I come.'
He sat on staring distractedly at the centrepage of Playgirl featuring a male nude which had been pinned to the wall. If this bastard Wilt could be persuaded to talk, Glaushof's career would be made. So how to get him in the right frame of mind? First of all, he had to know what was in that car. He was still puzzling over tactics when the Lieutenant coughed discreetly behind him. Glaushof reacted violently. He didn't like the implications of that cough. 'Did you pin this up?' he shouted at the Lieutenant.
'Negative,' said the Lieutenant, who disliked the question almost as much as Glaushof had hated the cough. 'No, sir, I did not. That's Captain Clodiak.'
