Fallout by James W. Huston

are in some financial trouble. Perhaps I could arrange a loan . . .” He watched Merewether’s face for any offense. There was none. “It would allow you to take care of all your problems.”
    “Yushaf, I can’t pay back a damned loan. Every cent I make goes to my wife and her house and her car—”
    “It would need to be paid back only when you were able to pay it back at one time, in one lump sum, in cash. Until then no problem, no interest.”
    Merewether thought of what he could do with money. It would solve everything. He could quit his job and finally go do whatever he wanted to do. “How much of a loan did you have in mind?”
    “Without knowing your needs, I could only estimate, but I thought something around two hundred fifty thousand dollars might help.”
    Merewether tried not to gasp audibly. It was ten times his current net worth. He looked at Yushaf and noticed that he was sweating. “How soon could you get the . . . loan to me?”
    “Tomorrow.”
    “If I have it tomorrow, I’ll approve the school and get you your quotas. How many?”
    Yushaf took a breath. It felt like the first one he’d taken in days. “Four.”
    “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
     
8
     
    Luke opened the front door and walked out in his flight suit and boots to retrieve the morning newspaper. He had an early brief, but he lacked his usual enthusiasm. It had started to feel pointless. He knew that his time was limited. It was hard to hurry to work, excited to get every day under way as he had since reporting to TOPGUN. He’d begun to feel like an outsider.
    He glanced up at the sky the way he always did. It was cool and clear. The stars were fading. He bent over and picked up the newspaper on the long dirt driveway and noticed a black sedan parked in the mouth of the driveway just off the state road. It startled him. He was annoyed he hadn’t seen it before. There was never any traffic on the country road in front of their house, and no one ever turned down his driveway by mistake. This sedan had turned down and stopped. Luke felt exposed and vulnerable. He looked at the car again. There was no frost on the windshield and no dew on the hood.
    The hell with this, he thought. He walked straight at the car, armed with only his newspaper. He approached the driver’s side. His muscles tensed as he approached. He noticed that the windows were tinted just dark enough to keep him from seeing inside. He could see a man’s hand on the steering wheel and slowed as he got nearer to the car. He wanted to go back the other way. The hair was beginning to tingle on the back of his neck.
    The driver’s door suddenly opened, and a tall man in his twenties climbed out. “Lieutenant Henry,” he said quietly as he walked toward Luke. “We’ve been waiting for you.”
    “Who are you?” Luke said as he started backing up, shocked to hear his name from someone he’d never seen before in his life.
    “I’m Jason Townes. You have a minute?”
    Luke put his hands on his hips and tried to control his breathing as he examined the young man, who was about his size and very intense-looking. “What are you doing sitting in front of my house at six in the morning?”
    “We need to talk to you.”
    “
We
who?” Luke asked, his annoyance growing.
    The young man glanced at the sedan, and the back door opened. Merewether got out, closed the door, and adjusted the coat on his blue pin-striped suit. “Good morning, Lieutenant.”
    Luke was speechless. He couldn’t imagine what the Undersecretary of Defense was doing in front of his house on a Tuesday morning at six o’clock. It was disturbing. “Mr. Undersecretary,” Luke said. “I’m surprised to see you here, obviously.”
    Merewether nodded sympathetically. “I wanted to catch you before you went to work, but I didn’t want to call and wake your pregnant wife.”
    Luke’s eyes narrowed. “How did you know she was pregnant?”
    “You told me in Washington.”
    Luke didn’t remember