Colt gave him a long look. "I'm here checking on the defensibility of the launch center. Be easy for the Reds to knock this place off—all they'd need's a couple bazookas."

Kelly fought down a surge of anger. The black man was right, he knew that. "But they'd have to trek over the surface to get here," he pointed out. "The tunnel can be defended pretty easily."

"Hey man," Colt grinned, "you're making noises like a soldier!"

"And anybody moving on the surface is damned vulnera- ble," Kelly finished, ignoring the thrust.

"They're vulnerable if you know they're coming and you realize their intentions," Colt said.

"We could set up perimeter alarms—lasers, low-power ultraviolet, so they wouldn't be seen."

Colt raised his eyebrows. "Yeah, that'd work, wouldn't it?"

Damned right it would work, superhero, Kelly said to himself. Aloud, he repeated, "I've got to talk to you. Privately."

With a glance around at the chatting, relaxing launch crew, Colt said, "Okay, let's go back down the tunnel. I want to check on how secure the heat and power lines are, anyway."

As they stepped onto the power ladder they heard one of the launch crew sing out, "Beta's acquired our bird on their radar—on trajectory, time and angle on the double-oh."

Down in the long chilly tunnel, in the glare of the overhead fluorescents, Colt's skin looked bluish. Otherworld- ly. "Okay, what's this all about?" he asked Kelly again.

Pat suddenly wished he were somewhere else. Change 390 the subject. Forget the whole thing. But he heard himself saying, "It's Chet. He's been making some damned broad hints about refusing to fight, if and when the time comes."

Colt's expression turned sour. "Yeah, yeah. So what else is new?"

"Frank, I think he means it. He really will refuse to obey orders—maybe he'll turn us over to the Russians!"

Colt raised his hands as if to grab Kelly's coverall front. "Listen," he snapped. "Chet may be a do-gooder and an easygoing fool, but he's not a traitor. Understand that? He won't sell us out. He might need a little push when the time comes. That's why I'm here."

They walked for several moments in silence, listening to their shoes clicking against the rough stone flooring of the tunnel.

Finally Kelly said, "You and Kinsman have been friends for a long time. But I've been looking over his shoulder for the past couple of months. I know what he's been saying and what he's thinking. He's ready to do anything rather than fight. He's been palling around with Leonov and letting Russian nationals into our side of the hospital. He's closer to them than he is to our own people Earthside."

Colt said nothing.

"If he ... fails to obey orders," Kelly went on, "he won't think of it as treason. He'll think he's doing the right thing. But he'll be crippling America's chances of winning the war."

"You're bringing your wife and kids up here, aren't you?" Colt asked suddenly.

Kelly stopped walking. "What's that got to do with it?"

Shrugging, Colt replied, "I'd think that you'd be on Chefs side of this. You anxious to have a shooting war up here, with your family on the way?"

"They'll be safer here than Earthside," Kelly said. "But I'd rather have them in the middle of a battle here than hand them over to the Soviets. We're Americans. We're ready to fight for freedom if we have to."

"Ready to die for it?"

Kelly nodded.