Page 48 - Three Adventures

Deflator Mouse

Lampson felt his pulse accelerate with the fuel of natural adrenalin.
“Well, I must admit it fits. What is his part in the Salamander
demonstration?”
Oscar death-gripped the wad of documents. “He is going to speak.
To a blue-ribbon panel of generals, congressmen, and GAO
watchdogs.”
“Uh-oh.”
“You said it. What an audience for a disarmament speech! We’d
have to drag him off his soap box kicking and screaming; that would
definitely cast a pall over the proceedings.”
“Wait a minute, Oscar. Does this guy have anything to do with the
demonstration itself, with the equipment or the wiring or anything
that could be booby-trapped?”
“No. No, I don’t think so. Let me look at his access level.
Shouldn’t have gotten in there. No reason to. His work doesn’t show
up on the model; it’s not made of any exotic materials, just off-the-
shelf components. But the real Salamander has to survive in some
very difficult environmental media. Wolfe was the best man in the
country for that job. I had to get him on the project team. It’s not my
fault he slipped through: the FBI should have caught this, right?”
“Never mind all that. We’ll find someone else to take the rap, don’t
you worry. Main thing now is to neutralize Deflator Mouse. Looks
like all we have to do is keep him away from those big-wigs
tomorrow.”
“Right. Well, his name is in the program, but that can be handled.”
“And I will make sure he spends the day elsewhere--on the grill!”
The two had then packed up their papers and gone home. The
next suspect to be put under the microscope would have been Ken
Oshima, whose file clearly delineated the branches of his family tree
vaporized in Nagasaki in 1945.
“Now,” said Oscar Beveledge, firmly in charge of the presentation.
“Litmus Industries is well ahead of schedule on Project Salamander.
The budget for research and development is not yet exhausted, and
we are already into prototyping. This means we have a definite design
to meet DOD specifications. Ladies and gentlemen, may I
present...Salamander!”

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