Hereford nods. “I want to see the on-site facilities for the Ball Lightning program.” He stands. Lemon gets to his feet, surprised. They walk to the elevator, take it down to the ground floor and leave the executive building. Over to the engineer’s offices, and the big building housing the labs and the assembly plant. It’s your typical Irvine Triangle industrial architecture: two stories high and a couple hundred yards to a side, the walls made of immense squares of coppery mirrored glass, reflecting the obligatory lawns and cypress trees.

They enter and Lemon leads Hereford, by request, through all the labs and assembly rooms that have any part in the Ball Lightning program. Hereford doesn’t really look at any single one very closely, but he seems interested in determining their locations in the building, strangely enough. When he’s done doing that, he wants to survey the grounds outside the plant: the picnic benches in the small groves of cypress, the high security fence surrounding the property … it’s strange. Lemon’s beginning to get a headache thinking about it, out in the bright sun, coffee wearing off, stomach growling.… Finally Hereford nods. “Let’s go have some lunch.”

Orange County just can’t provide the kind of culinary sophistication that Manhattan boasts, which is galling to Lemon when he has to try to impress Hereford. He takes him down to Dana Point, and they eat at the Charthouse over the harbor. Hereford concentrates on the salad bar, eats with obvious relish. “They still can’t do this properly in New York, I’m not sure why.” A couple of young women in bathing suits sit at the next table, and Lemon says, “Yes, there are certain advantages to living in California.” Hereford smiles briefly.

When they’re done eating Hereford asks, “So what do you make of this rash of sabotages against defense contractors in this area?”

Ah ha. Here might be the explanation for the inspection of the grounds. Lemon says, “Our security thinks it’s a local group of refusniks, and they’re working with the police on it. Apparently they won’t attack any place where there are people working, because they don’t want to kill or injure anyone. So we’ve taken the precaution of having several night watchmen in the plant, as well as people patrolling the perimeter of the grounds, and the beach below us. And we announced the fact at a press conference—it was pretty well reported.”

Hereford is disturbed by this. “You mean you’re assuming these saboteurs won’t make a mistake, or change their policy? If it is indeed their policy?”

“Well…”

Hereford shakes his head. “Get all the night watchmen out of the building.”

“But—”