With No Strings Attached | Page 2

Protestant Americans back at least as far as the American Revolution without exception, and who are worth at least ten millions, and who can show that the fortune came into the family at least four generations back. No others need apply. It is said that this club is not a very congenial one because the two members hate each other.
The club in which Lacey and Thorn ate their dinner is not of that sort. It is composed of military and naval officers and certain civilian career men in the United States Government. These men are professionals. Not one of them would ever resign from government service. They are dedicated, heart, body, and soul to the United States of America. The life, public and private, of every man Jack of them is an open book to every other member. Of the three living men who have held--and the one who at present holds--the title of President of the United States, only one was a member of the club before he held that high office.
As an exclusive club, they rank well above England's House of Peers and just a shade below the College of Cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church.
Captain Lacey was a member. Mr. Richard Thorn was not, but he was among those few who qualify to be invited as guests. The carefully guarded precincts of the club were among the very few in which these two men could talk openly and at ease.
After the duck came the brandy, both men having declined dessert. And over the brandy--that ultra-rare Five Star Hennessy which is procurable only by certain people and is believed by many not to exist at all--Captain Lacey finally asked the question that had been bothering him for so long.
"Thorn," he said, "three months ago that battery didn't exist. I know it and you know it. Who was the genius who invented it?"
Thorn smiled, and there was a subtle wryness in the smile. "Genius is the word, I suppose. Now that the contracts with the Navy have been signed, I can give you the straight story. But you're wrong in saying that the thing didn't exist three months ago. It did. We just didn't know about it, that's all."
Lacey raised his bushy, iron-gray eyebrows. "Oh? And how did it come to the attention of North American Carbide & Metals?"
Thorn puffed out his cheeks and blew out his breath softly before he began talking, as though he were composing his beginning sentences in his mind. Then he said: "The first I heard about it was four months ago. Considering what's happened since then, it seems a lot longer." He inhaled deeply from his brandy snifter before continuing. "As head of the development labs for NAC&M, I was asked to take part as a witness to a demonstration that had been arranged through some of the other officers of the company. It was to take place out on Salt Lake Flats, where--"
* * * * * * * * * *
It was to take place out on Salt Lake Flats, where there was no chance of hanky-panky. Richard Thorn--who held a Ph.D. from one of the finest technological colleges in the East, but who preferred to be addressed as "Mister"--was in a bad mood. He had flown all the way out to Salt Lake City after being given only a few hours notice, and then had been bundled into a jeep furnished by the local sales office of NAC&M and scooted off to the blinding gray-white glare of the Salt Flats. It was hot and it was much too sunshiny for Thorn. But he had made the arrangements for the test himself, so he couldn't argue or complain too loudly. He could only complain mildly to himself that the business office of the company, which had made the final arrangements, had, in his opinion, been a little too much in a hurry to get the thing over with. Thorn himself felt that the test could have at least waited until the weather cooled off. The only consolation he had was that, out here, the humidity was so low that he could stay fairly comfortable in spite of the heat as long as there was plenty of drinking water. He had made sure to bring plenty.
The cavalcade of vehicles arrived at the appointed spot--umpteen miles from nowhere--and pulled up in a circle.
Thorn climbed out wearily and saw the man who called himself Sorensen climb out of the second jeep.
From the first time he had seen him, Thorn had tagged Sorensen as an Angry Old Man. Not that he was really getting old; he was still somewhere on the brisk side of fifty. But he wore a perpetual scowl on his face that looked as though it had been etched there by too