“Tony, I was just thinking. You know what would make this a way cooler drive along the ocean?”
Half an hour later, they were cruising up the Gaviota Grade in Nola’s T-bird with the top down and the music cranked up. Tony hated chick rock, and Nola hated sports talk, but he’d only agreed to take the convertible on condition that he drive, which left Nola free to get silly with her Sirius radio.
“California girls, we’re undeniable . . . Fine, fresh, fierce . . . We got it on lock! West coast represent, now put your hands up! Oh oh oh ohhhhhh!”
Tony’s face contorted in agony like the Nazi in Raiders of the Lost Ark who foolishly peeked into the Ark of the Covenant. Listening to Katy Perry was worse than water-boarding to any straight guy over the age of twelve. Nola decided she’d make it up to him by listening to “Jock Talk” on the ride home. There was always some sports opera going on about A-Rod or some other ego-balloon ballplayer. Once Tony got sucked into that drama, he’d forgive her this little bit of mindless afternoon fun.
Their plan, once they reached Vandenberg, was to try and ferret out who had slipped the classified SE40 log sheet to Dr. Waxman. Sounded simple enough, but when they arrived at the main gate of the third-largest military base in the nation, they had to navigate their way through a throng of reporters clamoring to get in.
Captain Taylor, the liaison officer Nola had liaised with over the phone, greeted them with hearty handshakes and handed them their ID tags. He had more sparkling teeth than a TV weatherman and a personality that was sunny all week with zero chance of gloom.
In spite of the holes it would leave in her tank top, Nola dutifully attached her ID and tried to ignore the admiring looks she was getting. She’d been regretting her wardrobe choice since they’d arrived. Tony had been right. Showing up to a military base in a short skirt was the equivalent of walking into church in crotchless panties. In another context, the attention would have been flattering, but at the moment, it was shaving molto points off her presumed IQ.
Tony shaded his eyes from the sun and surveyed the lowing herd of press assembled at the gate. “Looks like this morning’s story in the Reader’s getting some traction, Captain Taylor.”
“Not a word of truth to it, Detective. Air Force Munitions Account does daily reconciliations of all stockpiled weapons. Any mistakes would have raised a red flag on day one.”
Nola tried not to sound accusatory. “Any chance those inventories could have been doctored?”
“No, ma’am. Anything hinky and Major Burnell would have been all over it. He’s speaking at the press briefing today. Top brass wants complete transparency on this one. That reporter just got it wrong, plain and simple.”
Nola hoped it was true, mostly because no missing weapons meant a safer world, but also for Nancy’s sake. The image of a disgraced Ken in a bathtub full of Moët with no one to blow him would go a long way toward boosting her morale.
“Any objections if Detective MacIntire and I attend the briefing, Captain?” Tony asked.
“I assumed you’d be curious. I rescheduled your meeting with Dr. Waxman’s therapy group for after the Major’s talk. I’ll drive you over to the parade grounds now.”
Tony and Nola looked longingly at the kickass military jeeps and Humvees zipping by as they climbed into the back of the wussy little golf cart Captain Taylor had commandeered to escort them around base. Still, being chauffeured around in the back of a golf cart was better than being part of the press corps that was currently being force-marched to the briefing on foot.
Tony took advantage of the cart ride to ask a few background questions. “What exactly does SE40 stand for, Captain?”
“Forty is the percentage-per-milliliter of the active agent in the defoliant, and SE stands for scorched earth.”
A group of soldiers whistled at Nola as the golf cart tootled by. She pretended not to notice. “Scorched earth? Sounds pretty nasty.”
“Can’t shock-and-awe the enemy with fuzzy sock puppets, Detective MacIntire. The code name for SE40’s deployment was The Carthage Project.”
Nola decided to inject a little smart to make up for her miscalculation with the skirt. “As in the Romans salting the earth of Carthage at the end of the third Punic war in 146 BC, so it could never support life again?”
Captain Taylor’s big weatherman smile lit up again. “Roger that, very impressive ma’am.”
Nola inwardly cringed at the despised “ma’am,” but was glad to have scored the points. Tony rolled his eyes and murmured, “Overcompensating.”
“What’s that, Detective Angellotti?” Captain Taylor apparently had the ears of a bat.
“The Romans, I mean,” Tony lied. “Bunch of smarty-pants showoffs, don’t you think?” He pointedly grinned at his showoff partner, who acknowledged his taunt by sticking out her tongue.
“Actually, they were some pretty tough hombres,” Taylor replied, unaware of the goings-on in the back of his cart. “But I’m sure our team could give ’em a run for their money. Not that the Air Force is out to damage the earth. We’re actually very pro-environment. The 30th Civil Engineer squadron’s been installing solar panels here on base as part of a renewable-energy pilot program. Our voltaic fields generate sixteen kilowatts of sustainable power at peak daylight hours. That’s enough energy to support all 18,000 military and civilian personnel on base and still put power back in the grid.”
“That’s very impressive, Captain,” Tony said, then whispered sideways to Nola, “Rehearsed.”
“Shh. Play nice. It’s a great thing,” Nola whispered back.
Having delivered his information payload, Captain Taylor pulled the golf cart to a stop on a big lawn in front of a viewing podium. As Tony and Nola climbed out, he promised to collect them at the end of the briefing. One last “sunny with a chance of afternoon breezes” smile, and he was on his way.
Tony and Nola staked out a good vantage point and watched the news cameras jockey for position while Barbie-and Ken-doll reporters did last-minute touchups to their hair and makeup. Nola scanned the crowd looking for one Ken doll in particular. If she’d remembered to be looking with the eyes of a young girl in love, she might have realized that the cute, dark-haired guy in the clichéd Abercrombie safari jacket was, in fact, the pedestal-worthy pinnacle of masculine perfection that Nancy had described — only perhaps using a few less Ps.
Ken was milling around the crowd, wishing there was some way to let everyone know that he was the one who broke the story that was the cause of all the excitement. Unfortunately, a byline in the Santa Barbara Reader didn’t come with a picture, so until he got a chance to ask a question (“Major, Ken Levine from the Reader . . . according to my sources . . . blah blah blah . . .”), he was fated to remain in dull anonymity. All morning, he’d been emailing copies of his story to the managing editors of TV news stations across the country. A scoop like this was a career maker. No more small-town paper; his star would most certainly be on the rise in the blathersphere as the day wore on.
An Air Force major stepped up to the microphone; the assembled reporters went quiet with excitement. Positive that the next few moments would make him famous, Ken had to lower his clipboard just a little below his belt line as the briefing began.
Twenty-Four
In Nola’s mind, the military was a few Great Santinis barking orders at a lot of progressively smaller Santinis, but like an ill-chosen shade of nail polish, a mind can easily be changed.
There were no camouflage fatigues capable of disguising the breathtaking sexiness of Major Bryan Burnell. Taut and tan and buff and gorgeous, he made every straight woman’s libido snap to attention as he stepped up to the microphone and took command of the briefing. Even the military buzz cut couldn’t diminish the effect he was having on the collective female pulse. He was the man Nola had been asking Santa to bring her for Christmas ever since she hit puberty. For a moment, she thought she might need a fainting couch.
“Holy smokes!”
“Ha
ve we finally found your type?” Tony asked with a twinkle.
“Well, I wouldn’t kick him out of the foxhole for eating kale chips.”
Mid to late forties, intense brown eyes, skin the color of warmed honey . . . it was practically a biological imperative that the Major mate with a Sports Illustrated swimsuit cover-babe to ensure the planet would never run out of supermodels. But still, a girl could dream. And then he started to speak. . .
“Afternoon, everybody, seems we have a situation here that requires some clearing up.”
It was starting to feel like a joke. Even his voice was handsome. It was that soothing, pilot-over-the-intercom voice that makes you feel like no matter how much turbulence you encounter, you’ll arrive at your destination safe and on time.
“I know you all came out here for a story, but contrary to what was reported in the Reader this morning, there are no missing super-secret weapons. Twelve canisters of SE40 were sent to this base from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and that’s still how many we’ve got. All of ’em scheduled to be neutralized today.”
Nola hoped the future Mr. Nola MacIntire was telling the truth. She could never rescue and raise two shelter dogs in a weathered beach house with a bald-faced liar, no matter how GI grope-able he was.
In the center of the crowd of buzzing reporters, Ken was starting to feel his first pangs of self-doubt. Was this the opening salvo of a full-blown military cover-up, or was it possible his informant had been, ironically, misinformed? But he hadn’t just taken the information on faith. The proof had been downloaded from a computer right here on base. Twelve canisters had left the Livermore Lab, but only ten had been logged in on the inventory roster, and military inventories, especially ones pertaining to secret biochemical weaponry, didn’t lie.
Before Ken could throw out his first question, Rachel Palmer, Action News’s lissome Lois Lane, beat him to the punch. “Major, according to the story in the Reader, twelve canisters of SE40 left Livermore, but only ten were logged in here at the base. How do you explain the sudden reappearance of the other two canisters?”
Major Burnell flashed a smile so bright it added a few degrees to global warming. “There was no sudden reappearance, Ms. Palmer. All twelve canisters were logged in, just not together. They were transported in a vehicle that contained other ordnance, so they were logged in as they were unloaded: first ten, then later two. Apparently, the reporter from the Reader only got half the paperwork. If he’d bothered to call us to verify his intel before he went to press, we’d have been happy to save him some well-earned embarrassment.”
Nola whispered to Tony. “Question: If I say the thing in Dr. Waxman’s smashed hand was a flash drive with the downloaded partial inventory, are you going to say, ‘no shit, Sherlock’?”
“Yep.”
“Good to know.”
Having established a verbal beachhead, Major Burnell pressed his advance. “I know this comes as a pretty big disappointment to some of you. Let’s face it, your jobs go well when things go wrong. But I’m afraid you’re just gonna have to live with the fact that no threat levels are up and no lives are in danger.”
There was panic-sweat in the folds of Ken’s safari jacket. He’d been called out, and if he didn’t answer, his reputation, and very likely his career, would take a ball-scalding hit. Ratcheting up his courage, he called out, “Major? Ken Levine from the Reader. Do you expect us to just take your word for it that there are twelve canisters here on base?”
Nola’s head practically spun off her shoulders as she strained to get a better look at the cause of Nancy’s broken heart and her own dwindling stash of Skinnygirl margaritas. Ken was a cutie, she’d give him that, but like every other guy in a hundred-mile radius, he suffered in comparison to the man at the podium who was about to have him for lunch.
“Well, no, Ken, I don’t just expect you to take my word, any more than I’d expect you to do a better job of verifying your information before going off half-cocked and wasting everybody’s time on a Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot story.”
“That means ‘what the fuck’ story,” Nola translated for Tony.
“Again, no shit, Sherlock.”
“Well how do I know if you speak Air Force?”
The Major continued, “The canisters are made of a high-grade protective alloy and are clearly marked for safety reasons. After we’re finished talking here, I’m going to take you all out to the weapons depot so you can see ’em with your own eyes. We’ve even flown in the head honcho from Livermore to verify that they’re the same twelve canisters that left his lab in the first place. You good with that, Ken?”
Nola felt a flash of guilty pleasure as she watched Nancy’s tweet-dumping boyfriend squirming on the hook, unable to construct a meaningful response.
As Ken struggled to sputter out an answer, a helmet-haired anchor from a Los Angeles affiliate jumped in with a follow-up question. “Major, isn’t using a defoliant like SE40 considered to be biochemical warfare? And if so, why was the military trying to develop it in the first place? After the recent New York Times story about chemical weapons in Iraq. . . ”
The sixteen-megawatt smile vanished as Major Burnell cut him off. “Let me make something crystal clear here. SE40 was developed to aid our allies’ efforts to destroy poppy and coca fields — crops our enemies use to buy weapons and fund terrorism. However, once tests showed it posed a residual ecological danger, the whole damn project was scrapped. That’s why we’re destroying the stuff. We’re the good guys, remember?”
Nola looked on smugly as Ken lobbed a final Hail Mary. “But what proof do we have that the canisters you’re going to show us actually contain the original compound? How do we know the material in at least two of the canisters wasn’t replaced by another substance as part of a cover-up?”
Major Burnell’s gentle chuckle made others want to laugh along with him. Half the press corps was doing just that without knowing why. “Well, Ken, I suppose someone could have pulled off the old switcheroo. Of course, they’d need the proper multimillion-dollar safety facilities to avoid killing themselves and God knows how many other people in the process. This isn’t something Joe Terrorist can just siphon into a thermos and go out and destroy the great north woods. Your unnamed source should have explained that to you while they were feeding you all that half-assed information. By the way, I’d really like to have a talk with that individual.”
Ken’s solid jaw clenched tightly. “In good conscience, I can’t reveal my source.”
“I’m surprised you have a conscience, kid. You scared people half to death with a story you didn’t bother to vet. I’m guessing because you saw it as a stepping stone to bigger things. Well, I’m afraid your dreams of being the next Anderson Cooper just fizzled out on the launch pad. It’s a tough lesson, but you’re young. Better you learn it now.”
And with that, the briefing was over. Major Burnell had, as his pilot-on-the-intercom voice promised, brought them to their destination safely and on time. A line of Humvees pulled up to escort the reporters to the weapons storage depot.
Nola watched Ken feverishly texting someone as he waited his turn to board. But just as repeatedly pressing the button for an elevator doesn’t make it arrive any faster, repeatedly texting doesn’t ensure a quick response; for the moment, Ken Levine was Tango, Foxtrot, shit out of luck.
Nola and Tony decided to opt out of the weapons tour, knowing that all twelve canisters would be produced as promised, that the scientist from Livermore would attest to their authenticity, and that proper paperwork would be furnished to back it all up. The Air Force would have dotted their Is and crossed their Ts before escorting the press on any significant fact-finding mission. Of course, that didn’t mean everything was as up-and-up as Major Burnell made it out to be. An Air Force major should be fairly adept at subterfuge. On the other hand, it was equally possible he was telling the absolute truth. Some gung-ho soldier, seeing a partial inventory list, might easily have jumped the gun, crea
ting a daisy chain of bad evidence: soldier to Waxman — Waxman to ROTC70 — ROTC70 to Ken. If Nola and Tony’s guess was right, that soldier was most likely a member of Dr. Waxman’s therapy group. The prospect of interrogating soldiers suffering from PTSD had been making Nola uneasy all morning. Now that it might lead to one of them being court-martialed over a well-intentioned screw-up, she wondered if she wanted to go there at all. She decided to test the waters with Tony.
“I’m not sure I like the idea of getting a soldier with post-traumatic stress in trouble for leaking a faulty story. I mean, aside from getting the press riled up, it’s pretty much no harm, no foul.”
Tony was nodding before she finished her sentence. “Under the circumstances, I’m inclined to give it a pass myself.”
“Whew! I was afraid you’d say I was being too soft because I’m a woman. So how do we conduct this interview under the prying eyes of Captain Taylor without landing some misguided whistle-blower in a crossfire hurricane?”
“Beats me.” He shrugged. “Lots of rocket scientists around here. Maybe we should ask one of them.”
“We haven’t released the information about Waxman’s smashed hand. If we keep it under our hats, the connection to the stolen intel will be a lot less obvious.” Nola’s voice trailed off as she watched the handsome major hop down off the podium.
Tony was watching her watch. “So what do we tell them?”
Nola’s mind snapped back to the issue at hand. “We’ll say we’re just investigating a routine accident, keep our questions vague, and hand out our cards when we leave. You good with that?”
“As gold,” he said, jealously eying the line of Humvees filling up with press. “All this high-level military intrigue feels like we’re in a movie.”
Nola spied Captain Taylor zipping his way across the parade ground to collect them. “Yeah, only if this were a movie, I’d be a twenty-year-old martial arts expert in a skin-tight catsuit hijacking one of those Humvees, instead of a fossilized blonde about to be picked up in my grandmother’s golf cart.”
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