"I've got to talk to you," Kinsman said, "about this McGrath business."
Colonel Murdock was one of the few men Kinsman knew who could look furious and terrified at the same time. Now he also looked sheepish, with a little boy's caught-in-the-act expression on his chubby face.
He yanked the door open all the way. "All right, come on in."
"If I'm interrupting anything . . ."
Murdock glared at him. "Just a White House liaison man, a representative from the National Security Agency who briefs the President every morning. That's all!"
"I spooked him?" Kinsman punned.
Murdock ignored it. He went behind his desk and plopped into his swivel chair. "Make it fast. Kinsman. I've got a golf date that I can't afford to miss."
Taking the chair directly in front of the Colonel's desk, Kinsman realized he did not know quite where to begin.
"I ... it's this McGrath thing," he said. "I've been put squarely on the spot. If I can't turn Neal around, Moonbase goes down the tubes."
Murdock nodded. "That's right."
"I don't like it."
"You don't like it? You don't like what?"
"The whole setup," Kinsman said. "Making the whole Moonbase program hinge on my ability to pressure McGrath."
"You can apply all the pressure to him that you can lay your hands on. We'll back you."
With a shake of his head, Kinsman replied, "That's what I don't like."
"So what?" Murdock snapped. "You still have to follow orders, just like the rest of us."
"But Neal's been a friend of mine since—"
"Which is why you got picked for this job. You ought to be able to find a few things in his background that could help to persuade him. Everybody's got bones in their closet."
"Yeah," Kinsman murmured. "Everybody."
"It's either a success with McGrath," the Colonel pointed out needlessly, "or the whole Moonbase program goes into mothballs."
