"It ... eh, hasn't come down to my level. Too sensitive. But 1 don't understand what's got you so spooked. You killed an enemy soldier. You ought to be proud ..."
"Enemy," Kinsman echoed bleakly. "She couldn't have been more than twenty years old."
Murdock's face went slack. "She?"
"That's right," said Kinsman. "She. Your honest-to-God hero murdered a terrified girl. That's something to be proud of, isn't it?"
Age 31
LIEUTENANT COLONEL MARIAN CAMPBELL drummed her fin- gers lightly on her desktop. The psychological record of Captain Kinsman lay open before her. Across the desk sat the Captain himself.
She appraised him with a professional eye. Kinsman was lean, dark, rather good-looking in a brooding way- His gray-blue eyes were steady. His hands rested calmly in his lap; long, slim pianist's fingers. No tics, no twitches. He looked almost indifferent to his surroundings. Withdrawn, Colonel Campbell concluded.
"Do you know why you're here?" she asked him.
"I think so," he replied with no hesitation.
Marian leaned back in her chair. She was a big-boned woman who had to remind herself constantly to keep her voice down. She had a natural tendency to talk at people in a parade-ground shout. Not a good attribute for a psychiatrist.
"Tell me," she said, "what you think you're here for."
When she tried to keep her voice soft it came out gravelly, rough. The voice had the power for an opera stage or an ancient amphitheater, despite the fact that its owner was tone-deaf.
Kinsman took a deep breath, like an athlete about to exert himself to the utmost. Or like a man who is bored.
"I've been under psychiatric observation for five months now. Suspended from active duty. Your people have been trying to figure out the effect on me of killing that Russian girl."
Colonel Campbell nodded. "Go on."
"You're the chief of the psychiatric section. I guess my case is in your hands for a final decision."
"That's quite true," she said. "It's up to me to decide 121 whether you return to active duty or not."
Kinsman regarded her steadily for a moment, then shifted his attention to the window. The blinds were half closed against the burning afternoon sun. For a moment he seemed like a little boy in a stuffy classroom, yearning for the bell that would free him to go outside and play.
"Colonel Murdock wants you permanently removed from duty. He'd like you honorably discharged from the Air Force, except that it might look bad in Washington."
"I'm not surprised," Kinsman said.
