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Darlington worked for Federal Mail?”
    “Yes. Not very successfully, either. I understand he was fired for lack of performance.”
    “He never worked for Federal Mail,” Crow said. “He was actually a first lieutenant with an army organization called the Strategic Studies Group in the Tri-Border area.”
    Emery, the vice chairman, looked up and said, “Well, that’s a horseof an extremely different color. The only messages they delivered were thirty-caliber or larger.”
    “He left there with a price on his head,” Crow said. “The Guapos were offering ten million for it and they didn’t care if a body was attached. The whole Federal Mail business is part of a cover story. Mr. Darlington’s . . . attitude . . . if that’s what you might call it . . . is also referred to by the Veterans Administration as post-traumatic stress syndrome.”
    Fletcher was astonished. “Darlington? Was in the military?”
    “If what Crow is saying is accurate, he wasn’t just in the military,” Emery said. “The SSG was way out there. They didn’t have a lot of survivors.”
    Crow looked at the President: “The point being, behind the surfer-boy attitude that seems to disturb Dr. Fletcher so much, there’s not only a lot of money, but an extremely hard nose. From a review of his records, I would go so far as to say one of the hardest noses in the Western Hemisphere.”
    “I don’t see it as much of a problem,” Santeros said.
    “It’s not?” Crow asked, but with a smile. He didn’t know what was coming, but he knew Santeros.
    “Read the small print in the Universal Service Law sometime,” Santeros said. “I’ve done that. If the former Lieutenant Darlington gives us any trouble, I’ll draft his ass right back into the army.”
    Fletcher said, “Draft him? Into the military? Even with Darlington, that seems kind of . . . immoral.”
    Everybody looked at him for a moment, and then the group dissolved in laughter; except for Fletcher, who flushed, and Crow, who only grinned.
    Santeros tapped her computer again. “I’ve got to go. Dr. Fletcher, thanks for your time, but now you should be heading back to California to make sure your group stays in line, at least until Crow’s people can get out there. I’ll see all the rest of you tonight. We won’t be having a little tea party like this. Tonight, we get serious.”
    As the group rose to leave, Santeros said, “Mr. Crow, would you stay behind for a moment?”
    When they were alone, the President asked him, “Is Darlington going to be a problem? I really could draft him . . . but we’re talking about one of the biggest buttloads of money in America. If either he or his old man went off the rails, the whole thing could go up in smoke.”
    “I don’t believe that will happen,” Crow said. “Two things about Darlington: for all the surfer-boy bullshit, he started out as what you’d call . . . a patriot. I know it’s unfashionable, but that’s the only word that fits. He enlisted right after the Houston Flash, and was in the thick of things down at the Tri-Border. I think that fundamental impulse is still alive. The other thing is, I looked at his VA psych files, and I suspect Darlington does want something. Desperately. And we can give it to him.”
    “What’s that?”
    “He wants something to do,” Crow said. “Something serious.”

4 .
    A thousand kilometers above the Washington machinations, Captain Naomi Fang-Castro wrapped up the last meeting of the day, a report on the ongoing repairs to backup electrical storage units. The repair work was fine, but there was a shortage of critical parts, caused by a continuing army inspector general’s examination of the Earth-bound support bases.
    The bases wanted to show that they were fully stocked and ready to go for any emergency, and if they drew down stock lists to support U.S. Space Station Three, then they wouldn’t be at one hundred percent. Since Fang-Castro was in the navy, she