‘Why not?’ he asked, sounding annoyed. ‘Is it a military secret?’
I didn’t respond.
Tenney got up and went to a small painting behind his desk. It pivoted away from the wall like a door, exposing a small wall safe. He dialed in a combination and opened it. He took a thick document out of it and handed it to me. ‘Take a look at this,’ Tenney told me.
Stamped across the cover in large red letters were the words ‘Secret’. I looked at the cover only briefly then dropped it on his desk. I wasn’t going to read it.
‘Pick it up and open it,’ Tenney told me. ‘I promise you will not get into trouble.’
I wasn’t going to look at a secret document no matter how much he insisted.
Tenney pressed a button on his intercom. ‘Make the call we discussed earlier, Mrs. Messenger,’ he said, then sat behind his desk and smiled at me. ‘You’re not going to look at it. Aren’t you curious?’
‘I know better than to be curious, Dr. Tenney,’ I responded. ‘I’m going to leave now. I’m not comfortable with the direction of this interview.’
Tenney’s office door opened. I turned to look at who opened it. A man with gray hair, cut in a crisp flat-top came in. He wore a black suit, white shirt and blue tie. He carried himself much like my father did; an erect posture, athletic grace, and a confident bearing that bordered on swagger and arrogance but stopped short of it. He wasn’t tall. maybe five eight or five nine but looked like he could kick my ass without breaking a sweat. I knew he was military immediately. He took the seat beside me. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a pocket-sized leather folder and handed it to me. It held an Army identification card. It identified him as Lt. General William Q. Mackle.
‘Open the document and read it, Dr. Taylor,’ he said. ‘I’m authorized to allow you to examine the contents.’ I still hesitated. After a moment, he repeated himself, ‘Pick it up, Dr. Taylor.’
I reluctantly reached for the document and nervously opened the cover. I looked down at the cover page of my thesis. I looked back and forth between Tenney and Mackle in disbelief and with a sigh of relief. I didn’t think I’d get in trouble for reading my own research.
Tenney pressed the intercom again. ‘Take the rest of the day off, Mrs. Messenger. Lock up on your way out. I’ll see you Monday morning. No one said anything until we heard the outer office door close a few minutes later.
Dr. Tenney spoke first. ‘I’m sorry about the way things started out, Jonas. I had to pressure you discuss your paper. If you said anything at all about it, the interview would have ended. General . . . ‘
Mackle, Tenney, and I spent the next two hours talking about my experimental results and conclusions in more detail than I’d ever discussed the information. But they focused on aspects that I already knew had practical applications.’
Mackle got to the reason for our meeting. ‘We’re setting up a new lab at Jet Propulsion Laboratory. It will have its own staff and will not interact with other development programs on site. We’ll discuss the nature of what we want you to do later, once the lab building is ready. You’ll be one of three research leads but will not be privy to the work being done in other parts of the project, though the work is all related to our end goal. Project work begins in the fall, though you will be considered on staff and draw a salary beginning the first of June when you’ll come to Washington for two weeks of meetings and orientation. The lab building is expected to be completed by the end of August. The instrumentation and equipment from your lab await installation under your supervision. Additional equipment has been ordered and is being fabricated. There’s a budget for anything that will have to be developed as additional avenues of investigation and additional practical applications are identified.’