John Michael Sharkey - Minor Detail.pdf - John Michael Sharkey - widez2

Minor Detail

Sharkey, John Michael

Published: 1959

Type(s): Short Fiction, Science Fiction

Source: http://www.gutenberg.org

Also available on Feedbooks for Sharkey:

• The Dope on Mars (1960)

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Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Amazing Stor-

ies November 1959. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that

the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and

typographical errors have been corrected without note.

THE Secretary of Defense, flown in by special plane from the new Capit-

ol Building in Denver, trotted down the ramp with his right hand out-

stretched before him.

At the base of the ramp his hand was touched, clutched and hidden by

the right hand of General "Smiley" Webb in a hearty parody of a casual

handshake. General Webb did everything in a big way, and that in-

cluded even little things like handshakes.

Retrieving his hand once more, James Whitlow, the Secretary of De-

fense, smiled nervously with his tiny mouth, and said,

"Well, here I am."

This statement was taken down by a hovering circle of news reporters,

dispatched by wireless and telephone to every town in the forty-nine

states, expanded, contracted, quoted and misquoted, ignored and mis-

construed, and then forgotten; all this in a matter of hours.

The nation, hearing it, put aside its wonted trepidations, took an extra

tranquilizer or two, and felt secure once more. The government was in

good hands.

Leaving the reporters in a disgruntled group beyond the cyclone-

fence-and-barbed-wire barriers surrounding Project W, General Webb,

seated beside Whitlow in the back of his private car, sighed and folded

his arms.

"You'll be amazed!" he chortled, nudging his companion with a bony

elbow.

"I—I expect so," said Whitlow, clinging to his brief case with both

hands. It contained, among other things, a volume of mystery stories and

a ham sandwich, neatly packaged in aluminum foil. Whitlow didn't

want to chance losing it. Not, at least, until he'd eaten the sandwich.

"Of course, you're wondering where I got the idea for my project," said

"Smiley" Webb, adding, for the benefit of his driver, "Keep your eyes on

the road, Sergeant! The WAC barracks will still be there when you get off

duty!"

"Yes, sir," came a hollow grunt from the front seat.

"Weren't you?" asked General Webb, gleaming a toothy smile in

Whitlow's direction.

"Weren't I what ?" Whitlow asked miserably, having lost the thread of

their conversation due to a surreptitious glance backward at the WAC

barracks in their wake.

"Wondering about the project!" snapped the general.

"Yes. We all were," said the Secretary of Defense, appending somewhat

tartly, "That's why they sent me here."

"To be sure. To be sure," General Webb muttered. He didn't much like

tartness in responses, but the Secretary of Defense, unfortunately, was

hardly a subordinate, and therefore not subject to the general's choler.

Silly little ass! he said to himself. Rather liking the sound of the

words—albeit in his mind—he repeated them over again, adding embel-

lishments like "pompous" and "mousy" and "squirrel-eyed." After three

or four such thoughts, the general felt much better.

" I thought the whole thing up, myself," he said, proudly.

"I wish you'd stop being so ambiguous," Whitlow protested in a small

voice. "Just what is this project? How does it work? Will it help us win

the war?"

" Sssh! " said the general, jerking a quivering forefinger perpendicular

before pursed lips. "Security!"

He closed one eye in a broad wink and wriggled a thumb in the direc-

tion of the driver. "He's only cleared for Confidential material," said the

general, his tone casting aspersions on the sergeant's patriotism, ancestry

and personal hygiene. "This project is, of course, Top Secret !" He said the

words reverently, his face going all noble and brave. Whitlow half-ex-

pected him to remove his hat, but he did not.

They drove onward, then, in silence, until they passed by a large field,

in the center of which Whitlow could discern the outlines of an immense

bull's-eye, in front of a tall, somewhat rickety khaki-colored reviewing

stand, draped in tired bunting.

"What's that?" asked Whitlow, relinquishing his grip on his brief case

long enough to point toward the field.

" Ssssh! " said "Smiley" Webb. "You'll find out in a matter of hours."

"Many hours?" Whitlow asked, thinking of the ham sandwich.

General Webb consulted a magnificent platinum timepiece anchored

to his thick hairy wrist by a stout leather strap.

John Michael Sharkey - Minor Detail.pdf

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