Susan nodded and then swallowed before opening her mouth. “If I don’t eat it, somebody else will. And it’s uncomfortable out there—everybody seems more aggressive, but it wasn’t really that bad. Now all I have to do is give Officer Salazar my report and I can go home.”
“And I’m sure you could use the rest. And Ben, too, for that matter.”
“If you’re looking for Laskey, he headed for the Resource Room as soon as we got back. He’s working on the election protocols, so he’ll surely be there all night long.”
“The same as usual, then. Maybe I should bring him a sleeping bag.” In this case, though, he should be a perfectionist. Everyone wanted the system secure when they voted, even if it was just for a community leader without much authority. They had to have confidence in an accurate and unimpeachable tally, or it would’ve all been for nothing. We learned that the hard way. “Are you still keeping an eye out for trouble at George Radley’s house?”
Susan shook her head. “Salazar said not to worry. Since he resigned from the council they decided he wouldn’t be a target for anybody anymore. Or at least not enough of one to spend the manpower on. We are stretched thin as it is.”
Kat grinned. “That’s why I’m here, to help out.” They would be the three senior officers trying to run everything here while Tony was sick. Apparently he wasn’t trying to micromanage them anymore. That made her worry about him again. “Get home safely, Susan, and get some rest. You’ll need it. Everything will probably get worse as the election nears.”
“You’re always expecting trouble.”
And I’m usually right. Kat waved goodbye, then continued down the corridor—without any sense of urgency, since she hadn’t heard raised voices emanating from Tony’s office. Any ‘argument’ couldn’t be as bad as Hope had feared, or else it was already over and done with.
Though she found the door to Tony’s office wide open, Kat knocked loudly anyway—after she’d taken a moment to size up the scene before her. Sara and Salazar might have been shouting at each other earlier. It certainly looked like it. But now they silently stared each other down, with Sara standing in front of Tony’s desk hands on hip and Salazar leaning forward in Tony’s chair. Kat kept from making the first few comments that came to mind.
Instead, she coolly strode into the office as if she didn’t notice anything unusual and stopped side by side with Sara. She wondered if Michael thought he was seeing double. Like most men, he didn’t notice much beyond a woman’s figure and hair color. And she and Sara were both brunettes, the same age and the same shape—though Sara was shorter than Kat. But of course they looked nothing alike.
Sara’s shoulder-length hair was styled into a sophisticated wave with highlights, while Kat had hers cut in a serviceable bob. And it had never looked as good as Sara’s even when she’d worn it long. Sara’s makeup had been expertly applied to accentuate the fine bone structure and pale complexion. Kat didn’t wear any, and her face was fleshier, with a swarthiness that must’ve come from the Jewish side of her dad’s family. Not that she’d ever known them.
Trying to ignore Sara silently fuming beside her and focusing on Salazar, Kat made her offer. “With the boss out of action, I thought you might like having an extra hand around here, and I came to volunteer my services.”
Salazar shifted his glare over to her. “We hardly need another supervisor telling people what to do—there are too many of us as it is.”
“I didn’t come to try and run the place in Tony’s absence. I just thought you might like one more officer out there on patrol.” Last night Kat had helped by patrolling the compound on her own, in-between her guard duties. But she’d decided to be more responsible tonight and try to be a team player. “Isn’t this an all-hands-on-deck kind of situation?”
Salazar smiled. “So far there’s no indication it’s going to get that bad. Tonight. But if you are really just here to help, I could use it. I suppose you heard that Officer Courdray split up Paul and Sara’s partnership because of their romance?”
“Not the details. Not that I want to know them.” She agreed with Lisa based on what she’d heard. It was an inappropriate relationship for an officer and the trainee they were responsible for. Blushing, she thought of Tony and knew she was a hypocrite. But still. It didn’t make it right.
Salazar grinned. “Well, with her partner down with the flu, Lisa has Paul with her on days now. It leaves Sara on nights without a partner, though she wants me to countermand Officer Courdray and get Paul back for her. But that would be awkward.” He didn’t sound as if he’d mind reversing Lisa as much as if he wasn’t sure it would stick. “So now Sara says she wants to go out patrolling on her own, but I can’t allow that. Even if she weren’t still a trainee. I told her she can stay and work in the office, freeing Gabe and me to go out patrolling, but she refuses to do it. Maybe I could take her out with me instead of Gabe, but I won’t be bullied into it.”
Kat saw where he was headed and didn’t mind. “I can take her out with me, as my partner. Then we will have two teams out there, in case it does get that bad. But who’ll hold down the fort here?”
“Hope’s out front for another couple hours, and Ben is upstairs—he can coordinate calls with us and issue alerts even while he’s working on the FURCSnet. They can call for help, too, if they need it.”
Supposedly he meant if someone was deranged enough to try attacking Security HQ itself. That was no longer something she considered completely out of the realm of possibilities, but it remained a highly unlikely scenario. “Alright. Any special advice?” It wouldn’t be an order, since she wasn’t subject to his authority.
“Just one request. Please go ahead and take her out of here right now. Her shift has already started, and she clearly has a lot of excess energy she should get rid of.”
Sara herself objected to this arrangement, turning her glare from Salazar to Kat. “Don’t they have you in charge of the Guards at night, and aren’t they down a couple men too?”
Kat sighed. “Sgt. MacTierney is on duty and can take care of anything that comes up. And if he can’t, he can always call me for help. And there are plenty of guards to spare—they’re not short-staffed like we are. Now, let’s patrol. And that’s not a suggestion.”
At least Sara followed her out of the building in silence, without even grumbling when Kat bypassed the electric carts and kept walking at a fast clip. Out in the fresh air, she finally did complain, and it was the expected gripe.
“I don’t see how it’s anybody’s business who I’m in a relationship with, or how Lisa can do this to me by herself, or why everybody’s backing her up on it.”
Kat held her hand in the air as a barrier to more on this topic. “Stop. I really don’t want to hear any more about this. I don’t care either way about your relationship with Paul. As for being split up as partners, that was for your superiors to decide, and you have to lump it whether you like it or not. Whether it’s fair or not. Once Tony returns you can appeal to his judgment, but until then you ought to keep quiet about it. Especially around me.”
Sara snorted as she kept pace with Kat. “Tony’s biased against me, or he wouldn’t have kept me as a trainee this long. And hearing about me and Paul is not going to help.”
She was right about that last part, but Kat shook her head at the idea that Tony was biased. If he had held off on promoting Kat’s old friend, she was sure he had his reasons, ones that seemed good to him at least. Kat wondered what they were. Perhaps she’d get a glimpse of them as she spent the night patrolling with Sara.
“We haven’t had time to hang out together since the compound was sealed. I was so busy with Security. Then by the time you’d signed up I was already over with the Guards.”
“Huh.” Sara swiveled her head, scanning in all directions as they approached the Green. “So where are we going to patrol? You’re not going to keep me away from the action, are you?”
“Far from it.” At least that was a protest Kat understo
od, and related to far too well. And the Green wasn’t where anyone would expect to find action, at least not the kind Sara had meant. Though Kat had thought the same about the Community Hall until it had become the scene of a near riot several months ago. “This is just the shortest route to the southern residential section.”
“I wouldn’t expect trouble there.”
“Neither would I, in the usual course of things.” All the houses there belonged to the upper echelons of the administration and FURC society. Most students and worker bees lived either in smaller, closer houses or in the dormitories. “But things are hardly normal right now, and that’s where George Radley’s house is, and the director’s.” Among others. “So we should keep a watch out for anybody looking to vent their frustrations.”
“Naturally people are angry at Brandon Radley, but why would anyone be mad at his dad? I can understand going after your dad, but not George.”
“Anyone who’d be trying to make trouble at all, at a time like this when we’ve got enough problems as it is—they won’t be acting rationally. People acting from rage rarely think about what they’re doing. And anybody going without their donuts is likely in withdrawal as well.” It didn’t matter that there was an abundance of potatoes and rice, milk and cheese and eggs, not to mention the fish floating all around them—people who were addicted to their scones or bagels or muffins didn’t care. “Deny someone their pasta fix and see how they react.”
Sara grinned. “Well, we will see, won’t we? It’ll be a reality soon enough.” She was not only managing to keep up with Kat, she wasn’t having any trouble talking as they walked. The girl—they were the same age, but Kat couldn’t help thinking of her that way—was certainly keeping herself in shape, so that wouldn’t be why Tony was holding her back. “So we just hang around these houses hoping for villains to show up? I might as well have stayed in the office—there’s a lot of paperwork waiting for me.”
Kat bit back a smart remark. “No, that’s not my plan.” She certainly wasn’t hoping for trouble—just the opposite—but if it came, she wanted to be there when it happened. Or at least close by. “I do want a word with our former councilor, to warn him. But I also intend to swing through this area fairly often as we make the rounds.”
The two of them had long ago left the Green and were now striding along a well-lit walkway between the first set of homes in the southern section. While troublemakers usually preferred to avoid witnesses, sticking to the dark and deserted areas, Kat knew if there was going to be trouble tonight, it would happen here. In this brightly lit section, among the nice homes. She could smell it.
Of course fights often broke out where the large groups of people congregated at night—especially if those people had been drinking. But with the flu going around, not too many would be feeling sociable.
Sara snickered. “What’s the use of warning Mr. Radley? What’s he going to do, lock the door? And if you’re going to alert anyone, shouldn’t your mom be our first stop?”
“My mom?” Kat could understand people being angry with her father, though she didn’t think it was fair. Since he was the one who had to make the difficult decisions, he took all the blame whenever anything went wrong. Whether he deserved it or not.
“Well, your dad’s sick, right? So what’s he going to do about it? Anyway, your mom is on the council now, and we all need to watch our backs. Especially anyone who’s going to run in the election.”
Did Sara mean Caroline? All that political stuff had nothing to do with Kat, and she had managed to forget that Sara was on the Community Council and involved in the wrangling. But what was worse was the thought of Kat’s mother leading the community. So she refused to consider the possibility.
Unfortunately, Sara wouldn’t leave well enough alone. “Anybody who puts themselves forward that way, they might as well paint a target on their back. At least the way things are right now. For someone who is literally in bed with the administration, such as your mom…”
Kat barely restrained herself. She couldn’t help that her parents’ relationship had become a subject of gossip and speculation among people who didn’t know the least thing about it. She had never understood their marriage herself. Surely outsiders stood no chance.
What would her dad think of Caroline’s running for community leader? What was his opinion about anything? Kat didn’t know and knew it was useless to ask. Another thing she shouldn’t be doing was allowing herself to get worked up over something that normally never phased her, such as Sara’s snide remark. She blamed Tony for that.
“I suppose people angry enough to become violent might go after anyone they see as an important figure in the community—we should swing through here every once in a while to check on things. Don’t you live in this neighborhood as well, Sara?”
“My parents do. I live at the dorms like the other students.”
Sara’s family was among the elites of the FURC, but it didn’t sound as if she wanted to be associated with them. Kat could sympathize—she’d rather not be known as the director’s daughter, or as Caroline Sanderson’s, but as her own person. And like Sara she’d stretched her wings by moving out, first to the dormitories and again to a home of her own. Hopefully this time it would stick.
Thankfully Sara had run out of things to say, so they were both quietly scanning their surroundings when they heard the sound of glass breaking. They turned in that direction as one, then began running toward the trouble. They sprinted across an empty yard and around the corner of a darkened house to see a lone man outside the Radley house shaking his fist at a broken living room window. Apparently he had just thrown something through it.
Suddenly all the lights in the house switched on and more popped into life in the neighboring homes and Kat’s FURCS pad began to buzz. It had to be an alarm call being relayed through Security. But they were already on the scene, so there was no reason to answer right away.
First she turned to Sara. “You want to show me what you can do? Why don’t you handle him yourself?”
The girl nodded and ran on ahead as Kat slowed and took out her pad. She watched Sara approaching the man who was clearly drunk, belligerent, and confrontational. Glancing down at the screen in her hand, she saw the message wasn’t from Security but Chief Cameron’s wife Fiona. Wondering why Fiona would contact her, Kat skimmed the text while witnessing Sara tossing the vandal to the ground, then levering his arm and pushing his face into the grass.
Kat read Fiona’s message again, more carefully, as she stalked up to Sara and the man she’d pinned down. “Alright, that’s enough. Zip-tie his hands so we can check him out and make sure he’s okay. We may have to take him to the hospital before bringing him back to Security.” Sara had certainly been a bit rough with the guy.
Sara smirked. “Whatever.”
Kat put her pad away and tried to copy the stern look she had seen her mother employ to great effect, as Sara was slow to comply with the order. “No, not whatever.” Now she knew why Tony had been holding the girl back, and her attitude was only part of it. “Not only were you too hard on him, you forced the technique. You’ve been working out, and you think you’re tough, but you can’t rely on brute strength.”
Sara sulked. “I know what I’m doing.” And she lifted the man off the ground with little effort. “I’ve got the muscles, why shouldn’t I use them?”
“I know you’ve got the training as well, but you need to relax and rely on what you were taught. Or someday you’ll run into someone who’ll show you a lot of force and an attitude only get you so far.”
Maybe the girl only needed more experience. It looked like there would be plenty of opportunity for that, unfortunately, but it would be up to Kat or one of the other officers to make sure Sara benefited by the practice she was sure to get.
Sara snorted. “Was that Salazar calling to check up on me? Are you going to report me?”
“No and no. It was personal.” While Fiona was not showing any symptoms yet, Chief
Cameron had a high fever, and they’d both gone to the clinic to be isolated. Apparently Cameron hadn’t been wearing that paper mask to protect himself from the flu, but to keep from spreading it to other people. Trying to avoid being put in isolation, no doubt. “It looks like Chief Cameron’s out sick now too.”
Sara gave Kat a long, level look. “I suppose that means you’re in charge of the Guards now. Are you going to run back there and make me go back to the office?”
“Not on your life. Sgt. MacTierney can get along fine without me looking over his shoulder.” Though Kat would have to end the night early, if she wanted to squeeze in a short nap. “And if something comes up and I do have to go back to help him, I’d just drag you with me.” Sara wasn’t safe on her own yet.
Just then they heard angry shouts in the night—a couple blocks over by the sound of it. This was the more trouble Kat had been expecting. And the best way to show Sara how to do the job would be by her own example.
“Set that guy down. We’ll leave him for Salazar and Gabe, since they’ve got a cart to pick him up in. I’ll send a message for them to come get him and the others we’ll soon have ready to be hauled away. For now, I just want you to follow my lead.”
Then Kat was running across the lawn, focusing on her surroundings and forgetting her concern for her father, Chief Cameron and his wife, and even for Tony. As well as pushing her issues with Sara to the back of her mind. Now it was all about the action.
Chapter 6
A New Situation
7:40 a.m. Wednesday, May 21st
DAVID shed the paper gown they’d put him in and grabbed the polo shirt and casual slacks he’d had on Monday morning for work, snatched them from the cabinet where someone had stored them, in the private room they’d moved him into. By Monday evening he’d been feeling a lot better, and early Tuesday they’d moved him out and away from Director Miles and Chief Nelson, though Dr. Harker had said it was already too late. And this morning he’d woken feeling like a brand new man.
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