Cameron Talbot held her cup of coffee in one hand and reached for the door to her lab with the other. She saw General Landsdale in the hallway. “Afternoon, Jack.”
“Hello, Cammy. Good job on the Hill this morning.”
“Except for that spontaneous round of indifference I got from the congresswoman,” Cammy said.
“Forget about her. I’ve already had calls from two other Committee Members asking for more information on Q-3.”
“Let me guess,” she said. “Was one of those calls from Davis Metcher?”
“One and the same.”
She shrugged and walked inside with the General in tow.
“You know, he did seem pretty interested during the hearing,” Jack said. “And don’t forget, he is the chairman.” He studied her expression. “Do you have a problem with him?”
She hesitated. “No, I guess not. But you do know about his reputation.”
The General gave a half smile. ‘Oh, you mean how everyone says that Metcher rhymes with lecher?”
“That’s him.”
“Well, I’m sure you’ll manage. Just remember, we need his vote,” he said firmly.
The General knew a lot about how government worked. He had spent thirty years in the Air Force. He was still fit, though his face had the weathered look of the gray manzanita branches Cammy used to collect on Stinson Beach when she was a kid. Her family had lived at Travis Air Force Base outside of San Francisco, where her dad was an Air Force pilot. The General had been the Base Commander.
When her father was killed by an advanced version of the AIM-9L Sidewinder missile that malfunctioned on board his F-16, the General had handled the paperwork and tried to comfort the family. But Cammy had been devastated. She still had dreams once in a while about fiery plane crashes, and she still hated to fly.
She had tried to get over it. She had even studied aeronautical engineering and got her Ph.D. at M.I.T. That was when the General retired from the Air Force, took the job as CEO of Bandaq and offered her a job. She had accepted right away. But now, four years later, she was having such problems with her current project, she wondered if it would ever be developed and deployed.
Cammy set down her coffee. “Did Metcher say what he wanted exactly?” she asked. “I mean, I don’t think he’s the type to delve into too many operational details.”
“He said he wanted to come out for a briefing. Said it might be on short notice, depending on what’s happening on the Hill. Oh, and he mentioned that he was ‘impressed with your demeanor’ at the hearing,” Jack said, “and, he asked when we were going to stage a test in the field.”
Cammy pulled her chair out, sat down and switched on her computer. She clicked on Outlook and began to scan her email.
“Cammy, I said Metcher wants to know about a field test.”
She kept looking at her screen and said, “A test in the field? I’m not prepared . . .”
“Prepared? You’ve been preparing for this for months now.
She turned around to answer, “I like to follow the rule of the six p’s.”
“And they are?”
“Proper preparation precludes piss-poor performance” she stated.
The General crossed his arms, started to chuckle, then stared at her. “I hear you. But now you’ve got to hear me. We need another good simulation. We need to schedule a field test. We need to brief Committee members, and we need to get support from the board. Got that?”
“I’ve got it,” Cammy said with a nod.
“I know it’s all coming to a head now. But if you can impress the committee, we just might be able to get a decent chunk of money in the defense budget. And it’ll probably come right out of Sterling Dynamics’ appropriation. They had a pretty good lock on the missile contracts until you came up with Q-3, and I have to admit I like the idea of giving those guys a run for their money.”
Suddenly, Cammy pursed her lips. “You know how I feel about that company. I mean, it was one of their missiles that killed Dad. You can’t forget that.”
Jack reached over and touched her shoulder. “Wait a minute, Cam. You know the investigation didn’t prove anything.”
“Maybe not to you. But the fact is, it miss-fired, and you know that Dad was too good a pilot to have made a mistake.”
“You may be right. But that was ten years ago. Times have changed. Sterling has a whole new line of defensive missiles now.”
“And I’m going to do everything I can to put them out of business,” she said firmly.
“I doubt that we’d put them out of business, but we could give them a bit of grief,” the General conceded.
“Speaking of grief,” Cammy said, “When do you think Stan Bollinger will be taking over? I mean, is it a done deal?”
“I’m considering leaving at the end of next month. And yes, he’ll be the new boss. The board has always been impressed that he had worked on the acquisition side of the Pentagon, you know.”
“Okay. So he’s got the five-sided building on his resume. But I hate the idea of being his direct report.”
“I’m sure you can work with him. This has always been a pretty collegial place.”
“Maybe. For most of us. With Stan Bollinger, we’re still on a lastname basis.” She cocked her head and added, “Why do I think his middle initial must be ‘O’?”
“Let’s get back to the basics. We’re all feeling the pressure. You more than most.” He turned and headed for the door. “I really think you can pull it off, though. I never would have hired you and put you on Q-3 if I didn’t think you could do it. We’ve invested a ton of money in this system. I don’t want to lose it.” He added, “And I don’t want to lose you either.”