Next he went to check on the remains of General Yarrow’s Jeep—again. Some feds were finally scheduled to come to conduct an official investigation, so he wanted to make sure he’d done all he wanted to first.
The hulk was still locked in a secure area, although guards were no longer assigned 24/7. In fact, no one was here now.
And when Jason tried the door before inserting his copy of the key, it was already unlocked.
He froze momentarily, listening, in case someone had just preceded him inside. Even with his acute hearing, he heard nothing, so he slammed open the door and flicked on the lights.
No movement inside, no scent of an intruder. The remains of the general’s car were still there, perched on the same spot on the floor, a sorry-looking sight to someone who revered automobiles as much as Jason did.
But there was more: a hint of an odor similar to whatever had started Jason coughing during his attempt to search for clues. It wasn’t strong, but it still repelled him. Even so, he wouldn’t let it control him.
He strode into the room. Approached the metallic remains still decorated with black ashes.
And was surprised to see that someone had set up an AK-47 aimed challengingly at the car, as if adding a new threat—or taunting and ridiculing the sorry attempt at an investigation that had already been conducted.
He checked. The weapon was even loaded.
Where had it come from? Was this a statement that one of the people Alpha Force already suspected actually had been the perpetrator—a member of USFT?
That was absurd. Then was it an attempt to frame the USFT?
If so, by whom?
Or was this actually a ploy by members of that unit to make it appear they were being framed...an attempt to further hide the fact that they truly had done something to set the general’s car on fire?
Jason didn’t know.
But what Jason did know was that it made no sense.
And that he had to notify his cuz. Immediately.
* * *
Though tired, Sara got up on time and reached the Ft. Lukman kennels at exactly 0900, the time Jason had said to meet him.
Jason, however, wasn’t there.
Noel Chuma was, though. The sergeant who acted as aide to a couple of Alpha Force shifters seemed right at home with the dogs. He was already working with Zarlon, Marshall Vincenzo’s cover dog, in a paved inside courtyard area, not far from the lush kennel areas where the dogs lived inside the building.
“Good morning,” Sara called to Noel, who was using treats to encourage Zarlon to walk on his hind legs as a human would. Probably a good skill for a cover dog to know, Sara thought.
“Hi, Sara.” Noel gave a signal with his right hand to Zarlon, and the shepherdlike dog lay down and rolled over. “Are you just visiting, or is there something I can do for you?”
“Neither—but I’d like to join you with Shadow.” Jason had told her he hadn’t come for his dog last night.
Sara went to the kennel run, said hi to all the cover dogs present and patted a few heads. She then snapped a leash onto Shadow’s collar. He seemed happy to see her, nuzzling her in greeting then ready to run.
“I don’t know what all Shadow can do,” Sara said after rejoining Noel. “And though I’ve seen one training session, I don’t want to get the signals wrong.”
“Here, let’s trade.” Noel handed Sara Zarlon’s leash and said, “Sit,” giving a hand signal that looked familiar to Sara. Then he started putting Shadow through his paces— including getting him to walk on his hind legs the way Zarlon had done.
“Hey, that’s me over there,” said a voice near Sara. She had her back toward the wall of the courtyard and had been watching the training so intently that she hadn’t noticed it when Jason edged his way in.
She suspected, by the way he showed up practically behind her, that he’d planned it that way.
“You mean that dog who happens to resemble what you sometimes look like?” she said without looking toward him. “Nope, I don’t buy it. He’s much better behaved than you are in either form.”
Jason laughed briefly, then paused. “Sorry I’m late,” he said. “Something came up.”
The sudden hardness in his tone startled her and she turned to look at him. There was an expression on his handsome face that she couldn’t read.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“I’ll tell you when we’re finished here. In fact, maybe you can help me figure out how to play it when we’re all together with our USFT buddies at lunch. One of them, at least, may owe me an explanation—not to mention Drew and General Yarrow. I just had a brief, unplanned meeting with both of them.”
“Really?” But Sara couldn’t ask more questions then. Noel approached with Shadow and challenged Jason to a doggy duel—Zarlon against Jason’s cover dog. Which, in the hands of the right trainer, performed best?
Jason accepted the challenge, leaving Sara damned curious about what he’d been talking about.
But she had to admit—only to herself—that she liked his moves while working with the dogs. The two men looked as if they were training the canines for agility in the high-ceilinged internal courtyard, weaving their own forms between the obedient, nimble dogs.
Surprisingly, a few other people joined Sara’s observation, including Colleen—who didn’t look at all tired after her busy night—and Jock of Alpha Force, and Rynton, Vera and Cal of the USFT. They clapped and cheered along with her as Jason and Noel put the dogs through their paces.
Presumably the USFT members were welcome here, even when joint exercises weren’t being conducted, as long as they were in the presence of Alpha Force members— upstairs, at least. But not in the highly classified Alpha Force laboratories below.
Cal stood close to Sara. Too close.
“Do you like dogs?” she asked brightly, taking a step away. “Aren’t they wonderful?”
“I’d like to see those shifters do the same kinds of tricks.” Cal sounded condescending, strange coming from a man who always resembled a simian. Apparently, he hadn’t decided to obey the orders requiring camaraderie. Or maybe he’d be friendly without sincerity.
In either event, Sara moved toward Colleen. “How are you this morning?” she asked to make conversation.
For an instant, Colleen looked startled, her feline eyes narrow in her pale face. Then glancing toward Sara, she smiled. “Just fine, despite not having a good night’s sleep. I got some rest, though, and it was enough.”
Soon the exercise ended. “Okay,” Jason said, approaching Sara. “Shadow’s telling me in canine-ese that it’s time for a walk. Care to join us? Oh, in case you’re wondering, I can communicate with other canines while shifted but not in any language. I teach them to follow commands in English. Gestures, too, just like everyone else does.”
Feeling glad to get away from the others for a while, Sara agreed to go along. Aloud she said, though, to make it clear that the walk fit within the parameters of her job, “We have some plans to discuss for General Yarrow. This’ll be a good time.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Jason said, and she half expected him to salute.
Once they had left the kennel building, they strolled along the sidewalk in one of the more remote areas of the base. Jason held Shadow’s lead.
“So tell me,” Sara said. She was horrified to hear what he described about the latest issue regarding General Yarrow’s vehicle. “Can we go look at it? I want to see what you’re talking about.”
“Sure. I told Drew and General Yarrow before. The sentries are going to be back again, although I don’t know what good they can do.”
“They can at least make sure that no one uses those guns and ammo,” Sara said.
“Or brings any more.”
They walked in silence, taking their time as Shadow sniffed their path and occasionally stopped to lift his leg.
After one such occurrence, Sara stopped and found herself smiling into Jason’s twinkling golden eyes. “No need to ask.
Yes, I do such things while shifted. I’ve got enough of my human consciousness, though, to do it in private.”
She laughed. And felt drawn in by the intensity of Jason’s gaze as it turned serious. And hot.
Hot enough for her to consider tearing her clothes off on this cool Maryland morning. There were no other people around.
But that was absurd. And Sara quickly reminded herself of the silent promise she had made. She looked away, but not as fast as she’d have liked.
“Jason, I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I just can’t—”
“I get it. Me, neither. It’s too unmilitary, and I’ve made my choice to stick this out for now, at least. So...let’s talk about cars.”
They had reached the garage where General Yarrow’s damaged vehicle was housed. On their way to that area, Sara half heard Jason’s description of which kinds of parked cars they passed that he knew, from working on them, were the best.
But Sara couldn’t help thinking about what else they had done, in Jason’s own car, in that parking facility.
Chapter 17
Danny’s Delicious Café was a family-oriented restaurant with a variety of foods. Its theme was deliciousness, and its walls were covered with posters of close-ups of all kinds of food served there—from soups to desserts.
Those posters included entrées, too—and Sara was glad to note, for the sake of the Alpha Force shifters, that some were delicious-looking steaks.
She was glad she’d called the night before, since there was a separate dining room at the rear that had been reserved just for the military group. It was lunchtime, and the rest of the place was crowded.
As Sara walked in with General Yarrow, others from Ft. Lukman behind them—all in camo uniforms—she felt some curious gazes on them. She also saw some people—patrons and servers alike—stop talking to one another, then start up again quickly.
Drew, behind Sara and the general, whispered, “There are still a lot of rumors around this town about werewolves and their supposed connection with Ft. Lukman.”
“I heard something about that,” Sara responded softly, dropping back to talk to Drew. “But I thought it was the result of some bad guys who were caught, and the town was set straight about the...false origin of those rumors.”
“Not exactly,” Drew said drolly.
No one had to mention that those rumors, though supposedly dispelled by the capture of someone who’d been using them for his own benefit, just happened to be true. And Sara continued to recognize that a person from Mary Glen could be causing the turmoil at Ft. Lukman...although getting onto the base, with all its security, would be problematic.
Sara had already had a few minutes to speak with the general and Drew, along with Jason—who followed them—about what had most recently occurred with General Yarrow’s destroyed car.
The federal investigators were now finally rescheduled for a day or two away. Drew had previously dispatched some trusted Alpha Force members who wouldn’t join them for lunch to photograph the newly besieged vehicle then collect the weapons and ammo to be checked for fingerprints.
Not that anyone believed whoever put them there would be so careless.
Since General Yarrow had arranged for this lunch, he got to determine who would sit where. “Join up with the people on your teams from yesterday,” he said. “Since these tables seat eight, each should accommodate two of those teams.”
Sara consequently sat at Jason’s table, seated beside him. She kept her gaze averted most of the time. But she couldn’t help looking at him now and then, enjoying the view, when he ran the conversation at their table.
He started, not unexpectedly, with his teasing demeanor. “Hey, all. Did you notice that bunch of civilians gossiping about us? What if we prove to them that all those Mary Glen werewolf rumors are true?”
A collective gasp circulated through their fortunately closed-off room. Not even any servers were with them yet.
Drew, at the same table, stood as if to do something dire to silence his cousin. “Look, Jason,” he said. “You—”
“You didn’t let me finish, cuz—er, sir.” Jason went on to elaborate in a completely joking manner. “Too bad we didn’t think to bring along wolf costumes we’ve collected to provide cover now and then. If we did, our USFT members could wear them as they pounce on the civilian tables next door.”
Outrageous. Way over the top, Sara thought. Yet it was interesting to watch the reactions. Almost everyone, from both units, laughed and bought into the fun Jason suggested so whimsically. General Yarrow scolded Jason, but General Myars guffawed over the idea—because, he said, he’d heard about those ridiculous rumors even before the Ultra Special Forces Team was deployed to Ft. Lukman, and thought the townsfolk must be the most gullible folks anywhere.
And so the discussion went.
At their own table, the ice had been broken by Jason’s silliness. Jonas Truro was the other Alpha Force member. Also seated with them were Rynton Tierney, Vera Swainey, Manning Breman and Samantha Everly. The next table over accommodated both generals, Colleen Hodell, Jock Larabey and some USFT members including Cal Brown. Sara noticed that Rainey Jessop was absent and wondered if she was still ill.
Sara saw Cal glaring daggers toward Jason. Obviously, he chose not to get the Alpha Force’s humor. But every once in a while that gaze went toward her. Was he resentful she hadn’t joined his attempts at flirtation?
Maybe he had been attempting to hide, all along, that camaraderie with Alpha Force members was not his preference.
Did he hate the shapeshifting unit enough to try to kill its CO by setting Greg Yarrow’s car on fire?
Did he exacerbate even that by planting the weapon and aiming it at the car’s remains when they were supposedly secure and out of the way?
Sara chose not to act as disturbed as she felt. Instead, she made it a point to keep talking with everyone at her table. Crack jokes designed to outdo Jason’s.
Suggest that maybe she’d like to trade places with him someday—and describe to everyone that she actually had, in a way, done so that morning as she had helped to train Jason’s cover dog Shadow.
Servers came and went. The conversation was edited when they were around to ensure that any eavesdropping, which would obviously be easy, wouldn’t yield anything to stoke the rumors that might be circulating in the outer restaurant area.
The idea of grabbing a glass of wine intrigued Sara, but it was only lunchtime and this was, in effect, a military exercise. Instead, she chose a diet soft drink, then a Cobb salad. She also helped Jason goad the USFT members into ordering hamburgers or steaks like the shifters did—keeping the terms light and only alluding to any reason why some of the people at this luncheon might want to select meat dishes over salads.
Even so, the servers occasionally exchanged glances. Sara now felt certain they’d share their experience, and possibly their suspicions, with the restaurant’s other guests and employees.
All the more reason to make it appear that they were only cracking jokes.
Sara enjoyed her salad. The others all appeared to find their meals tasty, too.
And the discussion? It turned military. Each person at the table described prior assignments and deployments—making it absolutely clear that no one described any parts of their former assignments that were classified.
Eventually, most everyone had finished. General Yarrow stood. “Okay, let’s turn this into an abbreviated game of musical chairs. I want all USFT members to stay where you are, and Alpha Force, each of you replace someone else in your unit at a different table. On the count of three—one, two, three...”
The room became suddenly, and briefly, chaotic, as the Alpha Force personnel rose and complied with General Yarrow’s orders.
That included Sara. And Jason. They wound up at different tables—and Sara wasn’t happy with her own feelings of regret at their separation.
Given her preference, she wouldn’t have sat with him in the first place, she reminded
herself.
This time, Sara sat with Colleen Hodell as well as some USFT members she hadn’t met before.
The cougar shifter seemed at home, asking right away for the others at the table to tell why they had decided to enlist in the military in the first place, and then why they had gravitated to an elite, demanding—and highly regarded—unit like the Ultra Special Forces Team. They all seemed pleased to talk, proud of their highly classified and uniquely skilled sight and marksmanship abilities.
Colleen herself mentioned how thrilled she had been to discover the existence of Alpha Force, and how it had made such a big difference in her life. She didn’t go into detail, but Sara recalled their discussion at Colleen’s apartment where she’d admitted to a difficult childhood as a shifter. Now in Alpha Force, her shifting abilities were accepted. She seemed happy to Sara.
Alpha Force looked like a good fit for a lot of people—especially shifters.
But Sara hoped that no one would turn that kind of question on her. She’d have no problem discussing why she had joined the military. It had been her goal for years. Yet she would have to be careful in the rest of her response.
She had mostly been thrilled to have been selected by General Yarrow to become his aide. But she would never be able to tell strangers, even those she was ordered to get along with, what she had originally thought of the strange yet compelling abilities of Alpha Force.
Especially some of its members...
Jason now sat at a table that included Captain Samantha Everly—again. How did that happen? Sara thought they were all supposed to find different members of the other unit from those they’d already talked to.
But she hadn’t really kept track of who was with whom. The thing was...well, the usually haughty and commanding captain seemed to listen to every word Jason said. Maybe even leaning her curvaceous body toward the man that Sara was fighting her own attraction to.
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