by Emmy Curtis
She swiped her phone again—yes, she still had perfect reception—and headed outside to thaw the air-conditioned chill out of her bones.
The desert air should have been oppressive, but instead it relaxed her. She was all about the sun on her skin. She shrugged off her business jacket and stood for second, face to the sun, in her high-necked, sleeveless sweater and her black jeans.
She put on her sunglasses and looked around. It was definitely not business as usual. After the crashes, any remaining exercises had been canceled. Airmen stood around in huddles, all obviously devastated about the loss of the two pilots. She swallowed hard. She’d never lost a crew member in her whole military career, and the fact that she’d met Major Eleanor Daniels just before the accident hit her hard.
Her phone suddenly rang, and she juggled it in surprise. It was Malcolm. Thank God.
“Hey, babe,” he said.
How could he sound so unconcerned? “Did you get my message? We’ve lost two aircraft in what looks like—”
“Casey,” he said, his voice sharp in response. “Whatever you’re about to say, can it until you get back to the office.”
She couldn’t believe he wasn’t as devastated as she was. “I recognize the issue. I was in the control room as the news came in. There was static, and then—”
“I’m warning you, Casey. Drop it. Those confidentiality papers you signed when you started working? They will result in you losing everything. When TGO senses disloyalty, they’re…resolute in their response. And it’s not a good response, trust me.” He suddenly sounded a little shaky.
She said nothing, just looked at the photo of Malcolm on her phone. “You’ve got to be kidding. I won’t let them get away with it, if it is our product that—”
“Jesus, Casey. I wouldn’t kid about something like this. You think you’re still working for the military, but you’re not. Simmer down, have a drink, and forget this conversation. Think about what I’m saying.” His voice sounded as if a certain weight was put behind his words. She paused. Could they be monitoring her calls? Maybe everyone’s calls? Or was Malcolm just paranoid?
Well, shit. Now she was paranoid too. She put on a light tone. “Sure. You’re right. It’s just the heat getting to me. I’ll get some water and lie down. Al Chile’s when I get home?”
He sighed with what sounded like relief. “Sure. Guac’s on me.”
She forced a laugh. “Sounds good.”
He hung up. She shoved the phone in her skirt’s side pocket and took a breath. What just happened? What was she going to—
Her phone beeped. It was an email from Malcolm. Hurriedly she opened it, wondering if he was explaining on email something he couldn’t say over the phone. But he hadn’t written anything except “Wilcom = TGO.” He’d attached a link to the Connecticut Daily News.
She clicked on it.
Guilty Contractor Kills Self, Leaves Note
Newport, CT: June 26, 2008. James Turner, 46, was found hanged at his home in Newport, Connecticut, yesterday by his landlord.
Turner, who had worked as a data analyst for the military contractor Wilcom, lost a $50-million lawsuit against the company last January and had allegedly been unable to pay his rent for several months. Upon discovering the body, his landlord called 911.
In 2007, Wilcom claimed that Turner had leaked proprietary information to an online reporter and sued him for breach of contract. The information has never been published, and the police have been unable to find the recipient of the leaked documents. Nevertheless, Turner admitted to being a whistleblower, but according to the judge, it wasn’t enough to relieve him of his duties under the contract he had signed with Wilcom.
Funeral arrangements have yet to be made.
Casey’s breath became shaky as she reread the short article over and over. According to Malcolm, Wilcom was TGO? She took a deep breath. She knew that a lot of companies changed their name and “relaunched” when something had happened that could put a dent in their public reputation. Hell, she’d known one contractor to change its name to an unpronounceable series of letters, presumably to stop people talking about them.
Well, at least she knew what the penalty would be for talking to anyone about her suspicions.
The phone rang, startling her again. She looked at the screen. It was Colonel Duke Cameron. Her heart sped up, and she didn’t know if it was because of the stupid crush she’d had on him when she was in a neighboring squadron or if it was about all the PreCall problems she suspected but couldn’t reveal.
“Hi. This is Duke. Can you spare me a few minutes and come up to my office?”
Oh God. She looked at her phone screen again as if it may have the answer to all her problems. She hesitated. She couldn’t tell him anything. She had to be really careful.
“Sure! I can be there in five?”
“Perfect. See you in a minute,” his said in his smooth, low-toned voice.
She stood on the tarmac, wondering if anything could happen that would prevent her from having to face Colonel Cameron. A lightning strike? A heart attack? Nothing.
If only she didn’t have suspicions that her company had caused the crash. If this were any other day, any other place, finally out of uniform, she could have set about getting him out on a date. She had crushed on him from afar for over three years while she was a pilot in the air force. It wasn’t one of those crazy fixations that she taken with her everywhere she went, but every time she had seen him while they were both officers, she had always entertained the “what-if.”
But today wasn’t the day to pursue that. She took a deep breath and a long blink against the sunlight, steeling herself for the meeting. She was going to have to lie to him, and she wasn’t looking forward to that.
She strode into the office building again, put her jacket back on, and turned her phone off. Malcolm had given her the idea that TGO could be listening to her, or tracking her, or something. Cameron’s executive assistant, Captain Moss, opened his office door for her.
“It’s been a long time,” Duke said with a smile, gesturing to the seat in front of his desk.
“I can’t believe how excited I was when I heard I’d be coming back to Red Flag, but now…I just don’t know.”
“I feel the same,” he said. “But right now, I really need an update on how your search and rescue is going. Do you have any new information?”
“They’ve sent a lot of people out there, eight sorties in total I believe. No sign yet.”
“That’s what I can’t believe. We had the location of at least one aircraft, but nobody’s found the pilots?”
“It seems not. They would have told us, obviously, if they had.”
“And you don’t think that’s strange? Why is TGO so determined to do search and rescue today when we have a unit of pararescuers on-site?” Cameron leaned forward and put his elbows on his desk, spreading out his hands in appeal. “Wouldn’t you want the pararescuers to come for you?”
She hesitated, trying to figure out a response that wouldn’t get her into trouble, either with her company or with Duke. She watched as he picked up a pen and started tapping it furiously on his desk. That wasn’t a good sign either.
“TGO has the best SAR in the industry, and we have the best technology.” She tried to speak confidently, because she was speaking the truth. But still, she had a thought stuck in the back of her mind that if it had been their technology that had caused the planes to crash, they might also be looking to destroy the evidence.
He stared at her for a long time before saying anything, and she struggled not to fill the silence with any kind of blabber that might give her away.
“Let’s get together later at the officers’ club. We can catch up, maybe grab some nachos,” he said, thankfully before she let anything slip.
Her heart leapt in her chest. Did she have a date? Or was he going to grill her about TGO? If only he’d asked yesterday, under totally different circumstances. “I’d like that. What time?”
<
br /> “Seven?” he suggested.
“It’s a date.” She’d be optimistic.
They shook hands, and she left, passing another colonel who was asking Duke’s exec to make time to see him on an urgent matter. She swiveled her head as she passed, wondering what his urgent matter was. Could it be something to do with the crash?
Maybe he’d tell her tonight. Maybe she could trust him with what she knew or what she thought she knew. But was it worth her career, and maybe every cent she earned from that day onward?
Was TGO really that vindictive? Or was Malcolm just being dramatic?
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Conrad tugged at the sleeves of his blues jacket before being shown into Colonel Duke Cameron’s office. He recognized the woman who was leaving as he arrived; he just couldn’t place her. Damn, he was getting old.
“Good to see you,” Cameron said.
“You too. Who was that who just left? I think I recognize her.” Conrad took the offered chair in front of Cameron’s desk.
“That was Casey Jacobs. You probably ran into her at a previous Red Flag when she was an MC-130J pilot. She left a couple of years ago and got a job with TGO,” Cameron said, straightening the pens on his desk.
“Oh, I see. Yes, maybe that’s where I know her from. So, she’s TGO now?”
Cameron regarded him steadily from across the desk. “Yes, she is. Why?”
It was now or never. “My weapons officer, Major Malden, has been taken into custody by TGO. Do you know anything about that?” Conrad leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees and trying not to grip his hands too tightly together.
Cameron sighed. “I heard. That had nothing to do with me. General Daniels gave the order, and TGO carried it out. Although, I will say that what he’s asked for—house arrest—isn’t exactly legal under the uniform code of military justice.”
“What does that mean?” Conrad asked.
“It means that she’s confined to barracks, but there’s no actual law that says she has to stay there.” Colonel Cameron swiveled in his chair and gazed out his window. “I don’t know for sure, but I suspect that General Daniels was trying to give her a little leeway without alerting TGO.”
Conrad took a breath and prepared himself for the moment he put his career, and Missy’s, on the line. “Can we speak off the record?” he asked.
“As long as you are not confessing to a crime,” Cameron replied with a slight smile.
Conrad hesitated. In some respects he was confessing to a crime.
At his hesitation, Cameron frowned and closed his eyes. “Tell me you had nothing to do with this.”
“Oh God no! Of course I didn’t. But neither did Major Malden.” Conrad looked to his hands, and then sat back in his seat and held Cameron’s gaze steadily.
“And how exactly do you know that?”
“Well, firstly, I know her. I’ve flown with her for years. I know she would never do anything that has been suggested she might do. And secondly”—he closed his eyes briefly—“she was with me most of the night.”
Cameron frowned. “Well, why didn’t you say so to begin with?”
Conrad stared at him meaningfully and raised his eyebrows.
Awareness washed over Cameron’s expression. “Oh. You mean she was with you.”
“Yes,” he said. His heart started racing, wondering what the colonel’s reaction would be.
“You’re having a relationship with your weapons officer? How long has it been going on?” Cameron leaned forward and again, arranged and rearranged the pens on his desk, to the nearest millimeter.
“I’m not…I wasn’t…We’re not having a relationship.” For fuck’s sake. Why was he suddenly stammering like a teenager? “It was the first time we’d…” He let his voice trail off.
“Sweet Jesus. You were with her all night?”
“Let me start at the beginning.” Conrad took a breath and told him everything he knew about TGO—especially the man who had followed Missy into the hotel—plus the golf cart in the hangar, and about the lipstick graffiti on Eleanor’s aircraft. He couldn’t believe he had only just remembered that. And then he confessed that Missy had left his bed before he awoke.
Cameron nodded, and that morphed into him shaking his head at Conrad. “So really you’ve got nothing, except somebody writing ‘bitch’ on Eleanor’s aircraft, TGO employees in a hangar—for which, until we find Eleanor Daniels, you only have Major Malden’s word for—and a TGO employee going into lodging at the same time as her. It’s hardly concrete.”
This was exactly why Missy hadn’t spoken up herself. Conrad dropped his head for a second and then nodded.
“I have Major Malden’s file here,” Cameron said. “What can you tell me about her parents or her family?”
Conrad was taken aback. “I don’t…Nothing, really.” He kicked himself again. Why didn’t he know anything about her background?
“What about anything that happened to her before she enlisted?” Cameron asked.
“You mean commissioned, not enlisted. She is an officer.” Conrad’s patience was nearing its end.
“No, I mean enlisted. She was given a choice at the age of seventeen: enlist in the military or go to juvie.”
He sat back in his chair, aghast. How did he not know this about her? He didn’t even know who she really was. He’d never asked her about her family, or school, or her degree. Nothing. He really didn’t know her at all.
“She had a hard life before the air force,” Cameron said, tapping one of his meticulously placed pens on Missy’s file. “She worked hard, got a degree, and was commissioned as a second lieutenant. You’ve only known her for the past four years of her life. You have no idea what she is capable of, and neither do I. So don’t go putting your career, or your liberty, on the line for someone you don’t seem to know that well.” He stood and opened his office door. “I think we can both carefully consider what we’ve heard today, can’t we, Colonel?”
Conrad stood quickly, tugged at his sleeves again, and left, pausing only to say, “Yes, sir.” He strode out of Cameron’s office, kicking himself. It was exactly as Missy had anticipated.
Missy. How had he known so little about her? Why hadn’t she talked about her past? Why had she kept him in the dark for all these years? The truth was, he didn’t know anything about her at all, and despite it being his fault, it was beginning to freak him out.
As he walked past other airmen, saluting and offering a morning greeting to each, he couldn’t help but notice that everyone was taking this accident personally. No one smiled; no one looked happy, or lighthearted, or even distracted.
He wished he could join the Animal’s posse. Nothing would clear his mind and make him feel better than leaving the base and going to look for Eleanor and Dex. If push came to shove, he would smuggle Missy out of Nellis and…He didn’t know what would happen after that. Going on the run sounded a little unstructured to him.
Sergeant Cripps was loitering outside the lodging when Conrad walked up. “Sir, they’re taking Major Malden to the MP’s office to be questioned. I thought you’d want to know.”
“Thank you, Sergeant. Is there anyone there…” How could he put this to an enlisted man?
“…who can help you? Who’s not in TGO’s pocket? Sure. Sergeant April Heron. She’ll tell you what’s going on.” Cripps wrote her name on his notebook and tore out the page to give him.
“April Heron. Got it. Thanks.” General Patton was right: enlisted men are cunning and should be watched. For the first time in what felt like ages, he smiled.
Missy and Colonel Janke were staring at each other in her holding cell. She knew she’d made the right call. He was supposed to be her JAG—her advocate—and yet he was threatening her? Why was he looking so panicked? “I want a new JAG,” she repeated.
His fists clenched by his side, and she wondered if she’d gone so far down the insubordination road that she wouldn’t be able to make her way back. But she held her grou
nd, and his gaze.
“Why don’t you just tell me the extent of the conversation Major Daniels shared with you? The one she had with her father. What did she say happened?” The slight manic look in his eyes didn’t invite the sharing of confidences. Who was this man?
This was about Eleanor and her father? About the conversation she’d had about the men in the hangar?
Several things clicked into place inside her brain. But she knew enough not to give anything away.
He picked up her file from the table and left without a word, slamming the door, making her jump.
What the hell was going on here?
Whatever it was had to do with the men she’d seen in their hangar the first evening of Red Flag—when she and Eleanor had been shooting the shit about men and other pilots. It had been only two days ago, but already it felt like another lifetime.
A female sergeant came to escort her back to her room in the stale-smelling barracks. When she opened the door for her, Missy’s mouth dropped open. Instead of the cot bed, there was a proper bed—made with sheets and a blanket and a proper pillow. There was a jug of water and a glass on top of a chest of drawers.
“I got someone to bring some essentials for you. I don’t care what TGO says; there is a minimum level of care we offer to people confined to barracks,” the sergeant said.
“Thank you so much. What’s your name, Sergeant?”
“April Heron, ma’am. Just shout if you need anything.” The woman turned away and closed the door behind her.
Missy looked into the chest of drawers. Someone had brought her PT clothes, an extra uniform, and her underwear. A towel and her washbag were in the second drawer, and in the third was another washbag. She frowned. Had they accidentally packed Eleanor’s bag too?
She pulled it out and opened it. Inside was her Kindle, her phone, and her charger that fit both, two Twinkies, some pretzels, some jerky, and…She closed her eyes. Someone had packed a brand-new vibrator for her. Conrad, of course. At least she hoped so. Not that she wanted to see him, but the thought of someone else putting it there was just plain creepy. Where the hell had he gotten that on lockdown?