The Grays Read Online Free Page A

slightly.
    “Please take a seat,” Crew said.
    “I want to extend my sympathies, too,” Langford added. “Your father was a great man and a national hero. You should know that he’s going to receive the Intelligence Medal.” He paused. “And also the Medal of Honor.”
    She knew that her mouth had dropped open, because she had to snap it closed. “The Congressional Medal of Honor?”
    Crew nodded.
    She was stunned silent. In awe. In sorrow that he had not been able to share what terrors must have beset him in his work, and had killed him.
    “Do you remember the tests you took at Lackland?”
    What in the world did that have to do with anything? “I took a lot of tests during basic.”
    “One of them involved a page of numbers, and you were supposed to draw lines between them.”
    “Sure, I remember it,” she said. The test had been tucked in among the standard battery of aptitude tests she’d taken as a recruit. “Sort of connect-the-dots type thing.” She’d sort of doodled it, as she recalled. “I messed it up.”
    The two men stared at her, saying nothing. They looked, she thought, like people must look to an ape from inside his cage. “What on earth does it matter now?”
    “I have another test for you,” he said.
    “Another test? That’s what this is about? Because—”
    “Lieutenant, it’s terribly important.”
    Langford’s voice had an edge that told her to listen and keep her mouth shut.
    “You need to fill out a consent.”
    “I thought you were going to let me know something about my dad.”
    “I am.”
    She took the form he handed her, and was very surprised, as she read it, to see that it was no ordinary medical consent.
    She looked at Langford. His face was bland. A dentist’s face—that is to say, a mask. She read aloud, “Any commentary or discussion or unauthorized record of any subject or meeting or action carried out within the context of the project is prohibited conduct and subject to prosecution under provisions of the National Security Act of 1947 as amended.” She tried to laugh. They remained silent. “This is very heavy stuff.” Still nothing. “Excuse me, but this is a very serious document, here.” She pushed the paper back toward Crew’s side of the desk.
    “We can’t bargain with you,” Langford said, “and we can’t talk until you sign.”
    “Volunteer or be shot, in other words.”
    Langford pushed the paper back toward her. “Don’t miss this,” he said. “You’re first in line, Lieutenant Glass, but there is a line.”
    “If I sign and don’t like what I hear, can I walk away?”
    Langford turned toward Crew, who didn’t so much as blink. “I’m sorry, but the agreement is binding,” Langford said.
    “It commits me to something I can’t learn about until I’m in it? And then I can’t get out?”
    “I know it sounds unreasonable.”
    “Unreasonable? It’s downright scary. More than scary. I mean, the Air Force doesn’t handle things this way.” She wondered if that was actually true.
    “Sign it. It would be very helpful.”
    Maybe her dad was looking down on her right now. Probably was, assuming there was anything left of him, any sort of a soul.
    She picked up a pen off the desk . . . and had the odd feeling that these two guys were waiting, but in a funny way . . . like they were hungry, almost, and she was lunch.
    “So, I don’t think I need to do this,” she said. “No.” And she was more than a little ashamed.
Sorry, Dad, but this does not feel right
.
    Crew unfolded his long legs and leaned forward. She expected him to speak. But he did not speak. He just looked at her. It wasn’t a special expression, not at all. But it moved her. It did, definitely. A very serious, very important moment.
    “I can’t very well jump off a cliff without knowing what’s at the bottom, can I?”
    Crew sighed. Was it anger? Suppressed impatience? Boy, she could not read this guy. You thought saint, then you thought—well, something