"I know that. I meant this object."
"Sir, it appears to be a train."
"It's a locomotive!"
The clerk pretended to look more closely.
"Yes, sir. I believe the general is correct, sir. It does appear to be a locomotive."
"What's it doing there? Is this a joke?"
"No, sir. Those are the raw transmission photos."
"You looked at them before handing them to me?"
"Yes, sir."
"And you didn't mention this."
"What would I have said, sir?"
CINCNORAD looked at the clerk. He fumed. His face reddened. The clerk stood perfectly straight. He held his breath.
"You could have warned me! Damn! Now what am I supposed to tell the White House-assuming it's still standing?"
"I don't know, sir," the clerk protested.
"Son, let me give you a piece of advice. Never-I repeat, never-hand a superior officer a hot potato like this."
"What should I have done, sir?"
"I don't know what you should have done, but if I were you, I would have lost this photo. The other two are fine. You can't tell what the hell the hostile is. But this one distinctly shows a locomotive."
"You wanted the hostile identified, sir."
"I wanted a reasonable explanation. Something I could kick upstairs with confidence. How am I going to explain this?"
"Recon photos don't lie, sir."
Just then, someone came up to the general. "The White House on the hot line, sir."
The general looked at the clerk like a drunk seeing an old enemy coming out of a bad bottle.
"I'll deal with you later," CINCNORAD said, accepting the red receiver and thinking wistfully that if the damn hostile had only been a nuke, he wouldn't now be in this ridiculous position.
The object did not impact on Washington, D.C.
It came down in Bethesda, Maryland, just outside the District of Columbia. It impacted on a golf course, which was itself not unusual. It would have been more unusual had it struck in the Bethesda area and not hit a golf course. Most of official Washington played golf in Bethesda.
The object totally obliterated a sandtrap at the eleventh hole and pulverized several nearby trees. Scorched grass continued to smoke even after an Air Force team led by Major Cheek reached the scene less than an hour later.
After surveying the site and ascertaining no presence of radiation or other lethal agents, Major Cheek called the White House, where a nervous switchboard operator put him through to General Martin S. Leiber.
Before taking the call, General Leiber looked over his shoulder. The President was busy at another phone, trying to learn if Washington had sustained any significant damage. General Leiber turned his attention back to his call. "Give it to me straight."
"It looks like another one, General."
"Can you tell for sure?" General Leiber demanded. He shifted in his seat. He kept the paper-bag-wrapped steam-engine model between his thick thighs, holding it with one hand like a little boy who has to pee but is afraid to ask the teacher if he can be excused.
"I can't, but all the signs are the same. What do we do?"
"Haul it off. Make sure. I want a report as soon as possible. You still have the Metallurgical Consultants on hand?"
"Yes, sir."
"Use 'em. I gotta go."
Sweating, the general put in another call. He was going crazy. He needed answers. Real answers. Serious, scientific answers. Anything. As soon as the President had a handle on the situation upstairs, he was going to remember the package. And General Leiber would have to have a lot more than a plastic steam engine when the President asked.
A man finally picked up the line. "Hello?"
"Bob, this is Marty."
"Marty! Hello. Uh, there's no problem with that last batch of stuff, is there?"
"No, the carbon-carbon was fine. Listen, you're with NASA. You know a lot of scientific space crap.
"I stay informed."
"I got a hypothetical for you."
"Shoot."
"Suppose-just suppose -I wanted to launch something across the Atlantic. Something big."
"How big?"
"Oh, four, five hundred tons."
"That's a lot of throw weight."
"That's what I've been saying."
"Excuse me?"
"Nothing. This is strictly theoretical. I want to launch this thing, but I can't have any on-board propulsion. What would do it?"