“Looks like about three weeks, judging by his published schedule.”

“I’ll come out for it.”

“Good, I’ll see you then.”

Thus McPherson is in a foul mood, apprehensive and angry and hopeful all at once, when Dan Houston comes by at the end of the day and asks him to come along to El Torito for some drinks.

“Not tonight, Dan.”

But Dan is insistent. “I’ve really got to talk to you, Mac.”

Sigh. The man’s hurting, that’s clear. “All right. Just one pitcher, though.”

They track over and take their usual table, order the usual pitcher of margaritas, start drinking. Dan downs his first in two swallows, starts on a second. “This whole BM defense,” he complains. “We can barely make these systems work, and when we do they work just as well against defensive systems, so in essence they’re another offense. And meanwhile we aren’t even paying attention to cruise missiles or sub attack, so as for a real umbrella, well that isn’t even what we’re trying for!”

McPherson nods, depressed. He’s felt that way about strategic defense for years. In fact that was his big mistake, accidentally letting Lemon know how he felt. And his dislike for the concept springs from exactly the reasons Dan is speaking of; every aspect of it has spiraled off into absurdity. “You’d think the original system architects would have thought of these kinds of things,” he says.

Dan nods vehemently and puts down his margarita to point, spilling some ice over the salt on the rim. “That’s right! Those bastards…” He shakes his head, is already drunk enough to keep going: “They just saw their chance and took it. During their careers they could make it big designing these programs and selling them to the Air Force, making it all look easy! Because for them it meant bucks! It meant they had it made. And it’s only after it was put in space and began to come on line that the next generation of engineers had to make the system work. And that’s us! We’re the ones paying for their fat careers.”

“Well, whatever,” McPherson says, uncomfortable with Dan’s raw bitterness. There is a sort of team code in the defense industry, and really, you don’t say things like this. “We’re stuck with it, anyway, so we might as well make the best of it.”