"Frankowski,.Leo.-.Conrad.Starguard.7.-.Conrad's.Time.Machine" - читать интересную книгу автора (Frankowski Leo)

abilities were considered unmanly.

The ATC had two Chevrolet ignition keys, mounted ten feet apart,
so that it took two men to operate it, at least from the front. They
used it for calling practice alerts, scrambling the bombers, and
starting wars.

The controls inside the back of the ATC were a different matter.
Once, Chris got to playing with the buttons back there and
managed to scramble the 99th Bomb Wing. Those guys were over
Hudson Bay, fueled up and with bombs ready, awaiting orders
from the President, before anybody else knew they were gone.

Nobody got on Chris's case for it, though, since none of the brass
would believe that an airman had enough brains to pull a stunt like
that. Me, I knew that Chris had an IQ in the 160's, but it would never
occur to them to ask me about it. To them, I was just another dumb
trooper, too.

What got Chris thrown into the guardhouse this time was sweeping
dirt under the floor. Not under the carpet, you understand, but
actually under the floor. Chris was very strong, and he had a
penchant for doing things the hard way.

Well, what with Chris in the guardhouse and me gone for the
weekend, that only left Johnny Quest qualified to work on the
machine. If something happened to Johnny and the ATC went
west, SAC's third alternate Combat Operations Center would be
out of business, and you never could tell when they might want to
start a war.

And while I hated the Air Force, I still loved my country, so on the
girl's phone, I admitted to the sergeant that I was me.

I had to turn around and leave. I tried to kiss the chick goodbye, but
she wasn't the understanding sort. She screamed a lot about my
wasting her whole weekend and told me not to come back.

That night, I drove all the way back to Massachusetts without
sleeping and got on base with seven spare minutes to change into
fatigues, report, and find out what was happening.

What it was, was that the colonel had decided that the squadron
area needed some beautification.

Having a full bird colonel in command of a squadron was strange,
but then a nine hundred man squadron was pretty weird, too. The
guy had been a hot fighter jockey during World War II. He'd made
all his rank during his first three years in the service, and hadn't
been promoted since. This made him an unhappy man, and he