DARC Ops: The Complete Series

by Jamie Garrett

  Sam found Dave like he had the first time, his door slightly ajar, his voice from inside sounding tired, nasally, and eternally grouchy.

  “Can you stop playing games at my door like that?”

  Sam walked in and shut the door behind him. He figured he would save the professor the trouble.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Dave said, almost sneering. “You know I’m in here. Just walk in like a normal person.”

  “Did I catch you at a bad time?”

  “My office hours are from one to three, so yes, it’s usually an extremely bad time all the way through.”

  “For you or just your students?”

  Dave shut the book he was reading, the big, heavy hardcover snapping shut and sending a puff of wind across his bangs. “You know what,” he said, “it’s actually a great time. We’ll pretend you’re a student so you can clog up the whole time block. That okay with you?”

  “I can’t stay to three.”

  “That’s fine,” he said. “Maybe by two I’ll have had enough.”

  Sam knew enough about Dave to be a little concerned at the sight of his oily skin and glassed-over eyes. His hair, normally thick and exuberant, was matted flat and on a strange angle across the upper left quadrant of his head.

  “Did you sleep here last night?”

  “No.”

  “Okay,” Sam said. “So how are you doing?”

  “I slept in my car.”

  “Okay.”

  “In the Walmart parking lot.”

  Sam took a half second to visualize the law professor sleeping in the backseat under a pile of clothes, the harsh gray-green light of the parking lot lights filtered through fogged-up windows.

  “But I don’t want to hear about it,” Dave said.

  “The wife?”

  “The everything.”

  “Okay. Anything you want to talk about?”

  “Not particularly.” He loosened his tie. “So I take it you got my message?”

  “Yes,” Sam said. He cleared his throat, hoping to clear the whole mood of the suddenly boozy-smelling office. “And I really appreciate it, by the way.”

  “No problem.”

  “And the help with your friend at the courthouse, the assistant . . .”

  Dave smiled a little. “Vivian?”

  “Clara wants me to thank you for setting that up.”

  “She’s a nice gal,” he said, still smiling.

  “Clara?”

  Dave’s eyes seemed to have cleared up, his hand reaching down to his desk and grabbing a pen, twirling it between his fingers. “Her, too.”

  “Yeah . . .”

  “Do you want to talk about the Somalis’ lawyer?”

  “Please.”

  “Well, he just quit the case,” Dave said. “It just happened this morning. I heard through the grapevine that it was a matter of personal ethics.”

  “A lawyer with ethics?”

  “Take it easy,” Dave frowned at him.

  “Sorry.”

  Dave shrugged and said, “The guy bugged out. It was too weird for him, apparently. Made him feel gross.”

  Sam was about to joke about that, too, but Dave cut in with, “Save it.”

  “Okay, but tell me about gross. What’s he talking about?”

  “He seems to be of a similar belief as you, that these two, Kafi and Timir Khalid, are willing participants in the cover-up.”

  “Of course they are. They’re patsies.”

  “Precisely,” Dave said. “Martyrs, too. They have no intentions of fighting the case.”

  Sam’s head nodded, his excitement welling up from deep within and ready to burst forth.

  “But don’t get too excited,” Dave said. “They might be doing this for any number of reasons. They might think, and correctly so, that they have no chance in walking. So they could be after a deal, a lesser penalty.”

  “But then why would their lawyer quit?”

  Dave shrugged.

  “He has to know more than we do. Maybe he knows where these kids are getting their higher orders.”

  Dave shrugged again. “This could get all conspiracy crazy on us. I can already feel it. Don’t you?”

  “Well, of course it’s a conspiracy,” Sam said. “It’s a big group, and they conspired with each other, with these two kids.” He watched how Dave sat, slumped, listening to him. There was something slightly broken with the professor. Something worse than just the obvious hangover.

  The professor leaned forward. “Sam, I’m telling you right now, this could really eat you up if you keep obsessing over it.”

  “I’m not.”

  “You are. I texted you an hour ago and you’re already here. Shouldn’t you be with Clara right now?”

  “She’s resting,” Sam said. “And your office was just on my way.”

  “Sure.” Dave sat back in his chair and rolled his eyes.

  “So what do you think the chances are of me getting some contact with Kafi and Timir?”

  “What kind of contact? An interview?” Dave chuckled. “Absolutely fucking zero. Actually, even less than that.”

  “Okay,” Sam said. He pressed the heel of his palm into his forehead, absentmindedly rubbing his head. How the hell he could get access to the two suspects? Real access. Not just through a closed-circuit TV monitor. He wanted to ask and listen and watch. “Okay, but . . . what if . . .?”

  “Sam, come on.”

  “What?”

  “I think you need to focus elsewhere. Give it a rest.”

  “Focus on what? The chemical agent? I’ve already got a guy working on that.”

  “I mean, focus on Clara.”

  “Trust me,” Sam said, chuckling. “I’m focused on her more than you think. Probably focused too much.”

  “Well, it’s probably good for her right now. Her daughter, too. If there was any time that they needed a man . . .”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “You need to watch that Kurt character.”

  “I know that, too. Got any news on him?”

  Dave took a deep breath.

  “Or do you think you could put me in touch with Vivian?”

  “No.”

  “What? Why? She’s been such a great help to Clara.”

  Dave’s hand was playing with the pen again, jiggling it. “I talked to her last night.”

  Sam studied his friend, the way his eyes kept on his desk. “Dave?”

  “It’s probably best to just leave her alone for awhile.”

  “Dave . . .”

  The professor loosened his tie even more and then slipped it over his head, the red tie looking for a brief second like a noose before it came around and off his head.

  “That’s not good,” Sam said.

  “What’s not good?”

  “What you just did.”

  Dave sat quietly for a moment, holding his tie, and then he tossed it into his drawer and slammed it shut.

  “I think I really fucked things up, Sam.”

  “Yeah? How’d it happen?”

  “Have you seen this girl? Vivian?”

  “No.”

  “And she comes over here, talking about how I owed her a favor now, and, man . . .

  “What?”

  “She’s always been a little flirty, but . . . I guess I just got too excited. Acted a fool.” He covered his face with his hands. Dave exhaled heavily through his fingers, cursing at himself a few times.

  “Hey, Dave. How about we wrap up office hours for now?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “I can’t drink any more even if I wanted to.”

  “I meant to just go for a walk.”

  He drew his hands from his face and took another breath. “I’m alright,” he said. “I’m alright.”

  “So you wanna go?”

  “Yeah.”

  Outside in the fresh air, Dave did seem to be a little more “alright.” Or maybe it was because the conversation had returned to other people’s problems. Th
is latest problem, of course, fell again on Clara’s already burdened shoulders.

  “That was why I was encouraging you to focus on her,” Dave said. “Instead of this terror attack. Leave that up to the Feds.”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  “And stop bothering them, by the way. You want them to do their job, right?”

  That that was precisely the problem. They hadn’t been doing their jobs. Sam looked out across the campus, watching all of the innocent students walking by. Maybe it was part of his inner professor coming through, but he was worried about them. He was even worried about the protestors, whom he could still vaguely hear. There was also the faint odor of tear gas wafting in the breeze.

  “Okay,” Sam said, running a hand through his hair. “So tell me about Kurt.”

  “That’s actually the main reason I called you over here. That, and getting me out of office hours.” Dave paused for a moment, watching the slender bare legs of a pretty young student as she passed by.

  “Dave?”

  “So Kurt went missing from his halfway house.”

  “Missing?”

  “He’s court-ordered to stay there, like house arrest, for two months. But he only managed two days.”

  Sam felt a chill right down to his bones. “He’s here, isn’t he?”

  “Well, hold on.”

  “He’s here,” Sam said. “I saw him the day of the attack. I swear I did.”

  “You saw him where?”

  “Out front of the courthouse, with everyone else. This was right after. He seemed to be walking around, looking around. I think he was looking for Clara.”

  “Well, I don’t know about that,” Dave said. “But the latest records show that he’s switched the location of his parole meeting from Angola to New Orleans.”

  “Dave, he’s already here. He was there.”

  Dave slowed his walk. His head turned to Sam, his eyebrows raised. “You’re not seriously implicating Kurt in this, too, now, are you?”

  “No,” Sam said, trying not to make it sound like an obvious lie. But it also wasn’t an obvious implication. He just thought it was weird, so very fucking weird that Kurt had been at the crime scene, and that he’d been acting the way he did. Sam remembered how he’d been inspecting the damage, as if he was compiling a report about it.

  “Sam? Don’t start up with all that conspiracy shit again . . .”

  “Well, it’s not so crazy anymore. You just said he’s got a parole meeting in New Orleans. You’ve just corroborated with me.”

  “If that’s the way you want to look at it,” Dave said, picking up his pace again. “I can’t stop you from being irrational. But if you actually want my opinion, which lately I’m suspecting more and more that you don’t care for . . . But my opinion is that you refocus on Clara, and do it before it’s too late.”

  Sam was beginning to feel a little tired of getting that same lecture from the man who, as it sounded, had stepped out on his wife and kids with some young legal assistant—especially since this assistant was being so helpful to Clara. Why would Dave go ahead and try to fuck all that up?

  “You want to start compiling evidence,” Dave said. “Everything. The phone calls, the threats, Kurt going rogue from the halfway house. You especially want to include him showing up at her place of work. That’s a huge red flag. If you follow my advice, and put everything together, all the right pieces, maybe throw Vivian a few bucks and have her take the case . . . If you do all those things, then she should be able to get a restraining order, no problem.”

  “Vivian’s not putting one out on you, is she?”

  “No,” Dave said. “But your face might want one from my fist.”

  Sam believed him.

  19

  Clara

  Clara took a bite of her steak, her eyes closing involuntarily at the savory burst of flavor. Since the hospital, her sense of taste seemed to have intensified. All of her senses, in fact, everything coming alive again just as she was reborn to this amazing reality. It was all so vivid, as was Clara’s appreciation for her unique second chance. And for Sam, especially.

  Clara had a hard time not smiling when she opened her eyes, when she saw that he was still there, that they were still in a restaurant. That they were still together and, so far, feeling like nothing terrible had happened only a few days before.

  He’d caught her staring. “What?”

  “You’re back in front of your shrimp and grits,” she said. “All must be right in the world.”

  “It feels that way.” Sam put his fork down and reached for a glistening glass of white wine. “Back at Maison Rouge.”

  “Mm-hmm . . .”

  “Back in front of you. I think it’s all about that last part.”

  “Back in front of me?”

  He took a sip of wine, his eyes on her throughout. He licked his lips after, and said, “I wasn’t sure if I would have any of this ever again.”

  “Well, the restaurant would still be around. You could go without me.”

  He shook his head. “It would be dead to me. Everything would, this whole town.”

  “And then you’d finally have to move back to D.C.”

  “See?” Sam said. “The world would just be so much more of a shitty of a place without you.”

  “But I think that was always the attraction, though. That I was your excuse to stay away.”

  “Well, at least it shows I was thinking about the long term. I was taking my excuse very seriously.”

  “And how about now?”

  “Now? Hmm . . .” He took another sip, contemplating. “Well, I think now you’re not so much of a reason to stay away from D.C. so much as you are . . . a reason to live.”

  The man was way too damn smooth sometimes. “Alright,” she said, a smile playing on her lips despite her best efforts to hide it. “Just shut up and eat your grits.”

  “With pleasure.”

  They finished their meal in a comfortable silence, the type that lingered over the dinners of seasoned married couples. But this one was still feeling fresh and exciting even in its quiet comfort. How long could they keep that up? With her new appreciation, her new senses, she felt like it could linger like that forever. Their relationship: one giant, suspended, and delayed gratification. She knew her heart had the endurance for it.

  When the bill came and he’d left for a moment to take care of it, Clara reached down into her bag, poking around. It wasn’t a cigarette pack she’d felt, but several pages stapled together. She ran her finger down the side, feeling the razor sharpness of the paper’s edge. It made her shiver a little, thinking about what was to come. She had less than an hour before it was show time. But at least this time, she had Sam. He would be the only person in the audience, the only one she’d see. And forty-five minutes later, he was indeed the only one. A warm, glowing light in the darkness. He was everything.

  “My name is Clara Miles,” she said into the microphone, feeling vaguely absurd, but persevering on. “And, some of you might have listened to me read last week.” Clara took a breath, subconsciously waiting to hear someone, or the whole room, crack into laughter at the memory of her last excruciating performance. But the room was silent. She continued, “And . . . some of you might have seen my name, or my picture, in the news.”

  There was some quiet murmuring in the crowd.

  “I was at the courthouse, one of the hundreds of people exposed to the gas. And just like everyone, I was lucky to have no lasting effects. But I do have lasting impressions. And those are of the brave men and women who risked everything to help all of us, from the first responders rushing into the danger of the unknown . . .” She kept her eyes on Sam. He nodded encouragingly. “ . . . to every member of hospital staffs of this great city. I want to take this opportunity to share my thanks and appreciation. And I dedicate this to you.”

  The room burst into applause, even before she’d read a single line of poetry. But it didn’t matter. Her thank-you note was the truest
, most sincere thing she’d ever written, and now, read aloud to a large crowd without a single quiver of nervousness.

  After her performance, Sam had spent the first fifteen minutes being nice and supporting, and so much the gentleman. He had stood by her side in the crowd that surged for her afterward, smiling at the countless introductions, and looking fine as hell in that tight sweater while doing it. Clara was amused at how many of her well-wishers assumed that he was one of her first responders. Built like a firefighter, he looked the part. They could probably all see it playing out in their minds, her and Sam’s first meet in the form of a storybook’s brave rescue. The funny thing was that they were half right. He had been there immediately after, rushing in, looking for her. But their real courtship, their romance, had been stretched out much longer. Theirs was a slow, yet extremely hot smolder.

  Yes, he was so much the gentleman, so well behaved for the first while after her show. But once they had a second alone, he made sure that his hard body was pressed up to hers, his hips and his lips, and something else harder, pinning her against the side of his car in the underground parking garage of a downtown hotel.

  It was supposed to be this five-star fancy resort, The Grand Marais, a hotel she’d never imagined affording, let alone stepping foot in. But all that was lost on her now. She couldn’t care less if it was the Grand Marais or a one-star highway hideaway. All she wanted was four walls and a locked door.

  Even the bed was optional.

  No room service. No thousand-channel cable package. No time to waste.

  All she’d wanted, for the last week, was his body stripped naked with hers. His body, his hunger, his choice in how they’d make love. His discretion. His wants and needs as fulfilled as hers.

  They stumbled into his hotel room, into the darkness that smelled so much of fresh bed linens, his cologne, him. He pushed her back, deeper into the room, rougher now with his arms picking her up, sliding and bouncing her onto the bed.

  He knelt onto it between Clara’s legs and then began crawling up to her, his heavy palms coming down on either side of her shoulders, the bed rocking in the dark, until his lips pushed against hers, suckling, kissing like he’d never done before. Their breathing, hard against each other’s faces, locked so naturally into a rhythm, the same rhythm that had set their bodies writhing together in unison.