about the guy who got sliced up?"
"Woman. Her name was Barbara Elaine Kruger. Nobody seems to know anything about her, except that she was maybe sixty, and her neighbors didn't like her. She had no relatives that anybody knows about," Hasenpfeffer said.
"Weird. Just her up there puttering all alone?"
"That's what it looks like. But now you are in for a grilling by the AEC, the FBI and Air Force Intelligence."
"Uh, that last is a contradiction in terms."
"Hush. Your story is that we heard an explosion and went to investigate. When we got there, we all fell asleep. You woke up once or twice and saw a number of flying saucers cruising in formation. Then you went to sleep again and woke up in the hospital."
"Hey, why not just . . ."
"Tell the truth? If we did that, we would loose a quarter of a million dollars, and possibly a good deal more," Hasenpfeffer said.
"Uh, okay. Why the flying saucers?"
"Because mentioning them is the best way to get things hushed up."
So for the next three weeks, until I got out of the hospital, I was grilled about twice a day by different people wearing white shirts and narrow ties. I just played dumb. Four years as a SAC Trained Killer made me a past master at the game of pretending that you're stupider than your boss, even though you've got seventy IQ points on him. Since most of the government bozos grilling me were even dumber than your average sergeant, none of them caught me at it.
Ian had more problems, since his training in college and at GM was all about how to look smart even when you don't have the slightest idea of what's going on. I wish I could have given him some pointers, but the rooms were generally bugged.
The hubbub about the radioactive explosion site died out surprisingly fast, without a single word of it getting into the papers.
Hasenpfeffer was released from the hospital in a few days, but another month went by before Ian and I were mobile.
Ian's company-paid Blue Cross-Blue Shield covered all his bills, and Hasenpfeffer somehow talked the Air Force into picking up my hospital tab. At least I had to sign a paper saying that it wasn't the fault of the U.S. Air Force, but they were treating me for radiation poisoning purely out of the goodness of their hearts and I wasn't allowed to sue the shit out of them for it later.
Hasenpfeffer didn't have to pay for his own bills, either, though I'm not quite sure how he worked that. Maybe he got one of the girls in billing to pad his bill into mine or Ian's. He was good at that sort of thing.
Because of the repeated interrogations we'd been through, with a strange assortment of unmannerly government types asking us nonsensical questions that varied from the stupid to the rude, we had been afraid to talk freely with each other in the hospital. Once I actually found a tape recorder in my room, and Ian was acting downright paranoid.
Finally, the ordeal over, we celebrated in a private dining room at the best restaurant Hasenpfeffer could find. He picked the place while we were in the taxicab on the way there, so we figured that they couldn't possibly have the place bugged.
"Gentlemen, I feel that a serious discussion is in order," Hasenpfeffer said as we sat back, stuffed with high calorie, greasy, salty, and glorious food after weeks of that disgustingly healthy hospital pap.
"Well, I don't feel like anything should be in order, except maybe another glass of this Grand Mariner stuff." I puffed on a two-dollar cigar. "Then, let's play vegetable for three hours, followed by having another pretty waitress bring us four more bottles of wine, another round of caviar, three more steaks, some more Cherry Jubilees, and then some more cigars and . . ."
"Tom, you sound like a first century Roman glutton," Ian said. "I'm due back at the plant in a few days. If I go back."
"Then again, I don't feel much like arguing, either."
"Excellent. To sum up, we find ourselves in a unique position. We are suddenly the proprietors of both
"Woman. Her name was Barbara Elaine Kruger. Nobody seems to know anything about her, except that she was maybe sixty, and her neighbors didn't like her. She had no relatives that anybody knows about," Hasenpfeffer said.
"Weird. Just her up there puttering all alone?"
"That's what it looks like. But now you are in for a grilling by the AEC, the FBI and Air Force Intelligence."
"Uh, that last is a contradiction in terms."
"Hush. Your story is that we heard an explosion and went to investigate. When we got there, we all fell asleep. You woke up once or twice and saw a number of flying saucers cruising in formation. Then you went to sleep again and woke up in the hospital."
"Hey, why not just . . ."
"Tell the truth? If we did that, we would loose a quarter of a million dollars, and possibly a good deal more," Hasenpfeffer said.
"Uh, okay. Why the flying saucers?"
"Because mentioning them is the best way to get things hushed up."
So for the next three weeks, until I got out of the hospital, I was grilled about twice a day by different people wearing white shirts and narrow ties. I just played dumb. Four years as a SAC Trained Killer made me a past master at the game of pretending that you're stupider than your boss, even though you've got seventy IQ points on him. Since most of the government bozos grilling me were even dumber than your average sergeant, none of them caught me at it.
Ian had more problems, since his training in college and at GM was all about how to look smart even when you don't have the slightest idea of what's going on. I wish I could have given him some pointers, but the rooms were generally bugged.
The hubbub about the radioactive explosion site died out surprisingly fast, without a single word of it getting into the papers.
Hasenpfeffer was released from the hospital in a few days, but another month went by before Ian and I were mobile.
Ian's company-paid Blue Cross-Blue Shield covered all his bills, and Hasenpfeffer somehow talked the Air Force into picking up my hospital tab. At least I had to sign a paper saying that it wasn't the fault of the U.S. Air Force, but they were treating me for radiation poisoning purely out of the goodness of their hearts and I wasn't allowed to sue the shit out of them for it later.
Hasenpfeffer didn't have to pay for his own bills, either, though I'm not quite sure how he worked that. Maybe he got one of the girls in billing to pad his bill into mine or Ian's. He was good at that sort of thing.
Because of the repeated interrogations we'd been through, with a strange assortment of unmannerly government types asking us nonsensical questions that varied from the stupid to the rude, we had been afraid to talk freely with each other in the hospital. Once I actually found a tape recorder in my room, and Ian was acting downright paranoid.
Finally, the ordeal over, we celebrated in a private dining room at the best restaurant Hasenpfeffer could find. He picked the place while we were in the taxicab on the way there, so we figured that they couldn't possibly have the place bugged.
"Gentlemen, I feel that a serious discussion is in order," Hasenpfeffer said as we sat back, stuffed with high calorie, greasy, salty, and glorious food after weeks of that disgustingly healthy hospital pap.
"Well, I don't feel like anything should be in order, except maybe another glass of this Grand Mariner stuff." I puffed on a two-dollar cigar. "Then, let's play vegetable for three hours, followed by having another pretty waitress bring us four more bottles of wine, another round of caviar, three more steaks, some more Cherry Jubilees, and then some more cigars and . . ."
"Tom, you sound like a first century Roman glutton," Ian said. "I'm due back at the plant in a few days. If I go back."
"Then again, I don't feel much like arguing, either."
"Excellent. To sum up, we find ourselves in a unique position. We are suddenly the proprietors of both
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