Read "The Secret Martians" by Jack Sharkey online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
_Phobos II_, for obvious reasons, was berthed in a Top Security spaceport. Even so, they'd shuttled it into a hangar, safe from the eyes of even their own men, and as a final touch had hidden the ship's nameplate beneath magnetic repair-plates.
I had a metal disk -- bronze and red, the Security colors -- insigniaed by Baxter and counterembossed with the President's special device, a small globe surmounted by clasping hands. It gave me authority to do anything. With such an identification disc, I could go to Times Square and start machine gunning the passers-by, and not one of New York's finest would raise a hand to stop me.