Sex and the High Command by John Boyd Read Free Book Online

in the turning circle and couldn’t navigate to the curb. I hope you weren’t inconvenienced by the rain.”
    “We came equipped for heavy weather, sir. From Admiral Darnell’s words, I assume we have a national emergency on hand.”
    In a most congenial manner, the little admiral stepped between them, took their arms, and guided them toward the station wagon. “That’s the second-biggest understatement you’ll hear today, gentlemen. I’m about to utter the first: I am the world’s worst driver.”
    The admiral spoke truly. Without a hand salute to the boulevard stop, he pulled onto the street into the path of an oncoming taxi whose driver slammed on the brakes and sent the vehicle into a flat-out spin on the slippery pavement. When the admiral swung left toward the bridge, he was using the center line as a guide-on, and oncoming traffic veered to avoid him. Dying horn blasts and curses nubbed by the Doppler effect forced him back into his lane, but he swerved so quickly that a teenager who gambled his jalopy on a quick roll past him in the outside lane almost crapped out. Far behind them, cars slowed to a crawl, apparently figuring the admiral for a quick reverse. In his panic, Hansen blurted, “Is this woman thing a Red conspiracy, Admiral?”
    “You’ll be briefed on the background—Watch it, lady!—but it’s every man to his own interpretation, really. Mr. Powers, of the FBI, thinks fellow travelers are involved— Ti yabot, bazhalista! Curse them in Russian, Captain; that confuses them—but I don’t think so. I spent two years at our Moscow embassy.”
    “Right, Admiral!”
    As the admiral swerved, he continued. “The Reds couldn’t come up with this one. It’s all woman. Confidentially, we’re at a military stalemate with the Russians. We can overkill the Russians forty-eight times and they can overkill us thirty-six times. We have the advantage, but we’d have to be ghosts to exploit it.”
    “Then why the secrecy, sir?”
    “For the girls,” the admiral said. “If they figure we’re planning anything, they might speed up their operation.”
    Primrose roared over the river and under the mall, skittered up the freeway exit and whirled into downtown Washington at freeway speeds. A panel truck emerged from an alley, the driver misjudging the admiral’s speed, and the admiral slammed on the brakes, slewing the station wagon into the alley. “Well, if you insist,” he said to his vehicle, “we’ll take a short cut,” and he continued driving the wrong way through the alley. Again on a boulevard, he straddled the white line.
    “Admiral, sir,” the chief said, “please let me drive. The Navy can’t afford to lose both you and the captain.”
    “Nonsense, Chief. You’re worth more to the nation than all the joint chiefs.”
    “Then, sir, if I outrank you, I’ll take the con.”
    “Very well,” the admiral seemed vexed, “if you wish to pull rank on me.” He slammed the station wagon to a halt, jumped out, and scooted around.
    “Where to, sir?” the chief asked, easing himself under the wheel.
    “The White House executive office.”
    “Where’s that, sir?”
    “You volunteered for the job!” The admiral’s voice was a high, incredulous whine. “Oh, very well! Go down yonder and turn left.”
    With the chief under the wheel, the captain was able to relax, physically, but inner tension grew as he listened to the admiral. “We’ve got the Russians computed. Trouble with women, they don’t compute. Of course, they have this New Logic, but my analysis of New Logic shows that it applies only to their consideration of men.”
    Somehow the admiral’s remarks seemed ominous against his memory of Helga’s recapped figures of Johnson’s worth—Ralph Johnson’s. He had thought something was missing in her conversation, compassion, concern, surprise, but it might well be something had been added—logic. “We’re going to defeat them with their own weapon,” the admiral