Now You See Her

by Merline Lovelace

  The police hadn’t released the identity of the deceased yet, but an enterprising news crew had ferreted out Diane Roth’s name and military background. A picture of her in uniform flashed up on the TV screen. Serious and unsmiling, she still managed to look feminine and attractive. No small feat, as any woman who clumps around in combat boots day after day will attest.

  “According to witnesses,” the newscaster intoned, “Sergeant Roth risked her own life to save theirs.”

  The camera cut to a heavyset male in a blue jogging suit. The same one I’d last seen kissing the pavement outside the fitness center.

  “She’s a hero,” he asserted, blinking owlishly in the glare of klieg lights. “An honest-to-God hero. The rest of us scrambled for cover, scared out of our gourds. Sergeant Roth was the only one who took action. No telling how many people might have been killed or wounded if she hadn’t.”

  THE story dominated the early morning news, as well. Coffee cup in hand, I watched as a startled Diane Roth opened her front door the next morning and was confronted by a phalanx of media.

  She handled herself well. That cop training again, no doubt. After her first, surprised reaction, she shooed her kids back into her apartment and calmly refused to answer the questions hurled at her by reporters.

  “I’m sorry, I’m an MP. I’m also part of the ongoing investigation. I’m sure you understand that I can’t comment on it.”

  I gave a distinctly Pen-like snort. No way that would stem the barrage. I’ve had a taste of how these guys operate. Sure enough the questions kept coming.

  “Is it true you knew the shooter?”

  “Were you his target?”

  “What was his name?”

  “Please. I’m not cleared to give any statement to the press.”

  “Cleared?”

  “Before I speak to the media, I need to check with my supervisor and the public affairs office on post.”

  And the JAG, I added mentally. As a potential victim and the perpetrator of a violent death, she’d have to be very careful what she said to whom.

  I knew the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division would conduct its own investigation into last night’s incident. Having come into contact with a certain CID agent in the Fort Bliss detachment when my lab got torched, I felt nothing but sympathy for Diane Roth. Which was why I winced when she dropped my name.

  “All the witnesses we’ve interviewed say you’re a hero, Sergeant Roth. That you saved their lives.”

  “Again, no comment. But I wasn’t the only one who took action. Lieutenant Spade risked drawing the gunman’s fire when she shouted the warning that saved my life.”

  “What was that name?”

  “Spade. Samantha Spade.”

  Groaning, I dumped my coffee dregs in the sink. It’s not that I have anything against TV reporters. They’re just doing their job when they rip the flesh off the bones of the poor schmucks they pin in front of a camera.

  Profoundly relieved I’d be out of town for the next ten days, I loaded my gear into the Sebring. The early morning temperature hovered around fifty-five. Way too cool to put the top down. I grabbed my ABU jacket from the hall closet and was closing up the apartment when my home phone started ringing.

  I let it ring and hit the road.

  MY team and I convoyed out to our test site. Dennis and Rocky drove the van loaded with equipment and projects we’d scheduled for testing. Sergeant Cassidy hauled our supplies in his pickup. That left Pen and me free to tool along in my Sebring.

  It’s just a little over eighty miles out to the site as the crow flies. Those of us without wings have to follow a series of narrow county roads east, then south, then east again. I managed to avoid collecting another speeding ticket. Not for lack of trying, but the gods were on my side this time.

  The meandering route leads us to a remote corner of the Fort Bliss test range. It also takes us right through the town of Dry Springs, Texas. Dry Springs is just that. Completely, totally parched. Spring, summer, fall, and winter. I’m told it may get a quarter inch or so of rain once or twice a year. If so, I sure haven’t seen it!

  The town itself consists of a cluster of crumbling adobe buildings. One of them is a combination motel, convenience store, cafe, and bar called Pancho’s. The place has become a compulsory stop for FST-3 both going out to and returning from our test site.

  Pen and I arrived first. Naturally. That Sebring is sweeeeet! When we pulled into the dirt parking lot and trooped into the cafe/bar side of Pancho’s, a barrage of familiar scents assaulted us. I ignored the lingering cigarette smoke and stale, musty smell of the crushed pistachio shells on the floor. Instead, my nose zeroed in on the spicy bouquet emanating from the pot of green chili stew Pancho keeps bubbling seven days a week.

  The proprietor himself was swiping down the wooden counter that ran the length of the place. He peered at us with his right eye—a black patch obscures the left—and twitched his bushy black mustache into a wide grin.

  “Hola, Lieutenant!”

  “Hola, Pancho.”

  “Good to see you. And you, Penelope.”

  I’ve heard several different versions of how Pancho lost his eye. Some say it was in a riot after a soccer match in Mexico. Others contend that one of his wives ground a thumb in the socket in a fit of jealousy. Since he’s not talking and he left any and all wives behind when he hightailed it out of Mexico, no one can verify either version.

  I tend to lean toward the second theory, however. Mostly because Pancho has a thing for the ladies. You can deduce this from his bar’s decor. Decades worth of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition covers obliterate almost every square inch of the walls and ceiling.

  Oddly enough, the ladies have a thing for Pancho, too. Maybe it’s the twinkle in his good eye. Or the flash of white teeth under his handlebar mustache. Whatever it is, every female under the age of ninety who enters his establishment is expected to give him a ritual kiss on the cheek. Even Pen, who’s not normally prone to public displays of affection.

  After the requisite buss, Pancho poured coffee for me and rooted around under the counter for the tea canister he keeps for Pen. She imbibes the most gawdawful stuff and is always pestering the rest of the team to do the same. We try to hold out, but after a few days at the site she usually wears down our resistance with frequent lectures on the benefits of herbal infusions.

  “Heard your name tossed around on the news this morning,” Pancho commented as he nudged the tin toward Pen. “Sounds like you had a little excitement last night.”

  “Just a little.”

  “What’s the story?”

  I told him what I knew but cautioned him against sharing it with his other customers. I didn’t want to get crosswise of any investigation the Fort Bliss CID guys might be conducting. Again.

  Thoughtfully, Pancho stroked his mustache. “Lot of that PTSD going around these days. A trucker passed through a few weeks ago. Told me he had a son who couldn’t take the nightmares. Kid slashed his wrists and bled out in a car parked in his old man’s driveway.”

  “Oh, man. What a thing to do to your parent.”

  I don’t remember my father and have this love- barely tolerate-love relationship with my mother. I might leave a voodoo doll with pins stuck in it on her doorstep after one of those marathon sessions when she catalogues all my faults, but I wouldn’t bleed out in her driveway. Not by choice, anyway.

  The rest of the team arrived a few minutes later. After the general bustle of greetings and dishing out bowls of stew, Pancho took Pen into the convenience store side of the place to write down her order for organic produce while I tried to put the grim topic of PTSD out of my head.

  IT returned with a vengeance later that afternoon.

  My team and I were still in the process of unpacking and setting up operations in Chuville. That’s one of our more polite designations for the cluster of Containerized Housing Units that constitute our test site.

  The military uses CHUs for office
s and troop housing at forward bases. They’re aluminum boxes, about eight feet wide by twenty feet long, which doesn’t make for a whole lot of living or working space. But they’re insulated and air-conditioned, and they come with a door, a window, an air vent, and power cabling.

  We have five CHUs at our test site. The three men on the team sleep in one. Pen and I share another. (In case you’re wondering, Dr. England snorts and whinnies while awake and asleep.)

  A third CHU serves as our combination rec center and D-FAC. That’s military jargon for dining facility, which used to be called a chow hall. Before that it was the mess hall. You can guess why they changed the terminology. Our D-FAC/rec area contains a small kitchen, a miniscule eating area, a TV with a satellite dish, and a Universal Gym. The gym is Staff Sergeant Cassidy’s exclusive domain. The rest of us prefer more sedentary pursuits.

  The remaining two CHUs are linked together to form our administrative center and test lab. They arrived on site a few months ago to replace our torched units. We had to replace much of our equipment and computers, too.

  Hate to admit it, but the arsonist actually did us a favor. My boss came through with some of the newest and latest in test equipment. Rocky begged, badgered, and cajoled the rest from his former associates at headquarters. Our reconstituted lab now contains enough computers and super-high-tech equipment to measure the speed and intensity of a supernova, or so Rocky assures me.

  Sergeant Cassidy and I had unlocked the storage shed behind the lab and were gassing up the two ATVs stored there when my cell phone launched into “The Eyes of Texas.” I dug it out of my pocket, glanced at the screen display, and grimaced.

  “What?” Noel asked.

  I aimed the display in his direction. “Detachment Six, CID.”

  “Don’t answer it!”

  Sergeant Cassidy had previous personal contact with criminal investigators. They weren’t what you would term friendly encounters.

  I should mention here that Noel is six feet, three inches of really beefed-up muscle. With two combat tours under his belt, he was on his way up the ranks in the exclusive Special Ops community until he propositioned a sweet young thing.

  Turns out she was a not-so-young he working undercover with the John Squad. Noel beat the solicitation rap but is still trying to recover from the blow of discovering he got all hot and bothered for a guy in net stockings and spike heels. Hence his aversion to criminal investigators of any size, shape, or variety.

  Based on my one previous contact with the breed, I wasn’t all that much fonder of them. I debated letting the call switch to voice mail. Common sense won out. I’d have to talk to them sooner or later.

  “Lieutenant Spade.”

  “This is Special Agent Andrew Hurst.”

  Eyes closed, I summoned a mental image of Andy Hurst. He was so rail thin and intense I’d dubbed him Scrawny Guy at our first meeting. The eight or nine strands of straw-colored hair he scraped across his otherwise bald pate had quickly changed his nom de plume to Comb-Over Guy.

  “I need to speak to you, Lieutenant. Can you come to my office?”

  “Sorry. My team and I are at our test site.”

  “For how long?”

  “We just arrived and are setting up now.”

  “For how long?” he bit out.

  “Ten days,” I bit back. Can you tell I don’t like this guy?

  “I’ll drive out there. Give me three hours.”

  The connection went dead.

  “Great,” I muttered to Noel. “Special Agent Hurst is gonna pay us a visit.”

  “Us?” he echoed, throwing me a narrow glance from his hunkered-down position beside one of the ATVs.

  “Okay, me.”

  “He wants to talk to you about the shooting last night?”

  “He didn’t say, but that’s my guess.”

  Noel mumbled something unintelligible under his breath. I didn’t ask for a translation.

  You would think the gods would be kind to someone who’d recently dodged bullets. Who rushed to the aid of a sister in arms. Someone who’d just relocated to the backside of beyond.

  Not so. “The Eyes of Texas” belted out again just a few moments later.

  “Oh, no,” I groaned. “It’s Dr. J.”

  “Don’t answer it!” Noel said again.

  This time I followed his advice. I like my boss. I really do. What’s more, I respect him tremendously. I mean, how many people do you know who’ve earned a string of degrees a mile long? And served two terms as president of the National Institutes of Health’s Black Scientists Association, besides being a fellow at Harvard’s prestigious Center for the Study of Science, Technology, and Public Policy?

  The problem is, Dr. David Jessup accepted a position as a program manager in DARPA’s Tactical Technology Division the same week my boss at the Air Force Weapons Laboratory shuffled me off to DARPA. Dr. J still isn’t quite sure how he got stuck supervising me, a lowly lieutenant at the end of a very long leash. Neither am I. Suffice to say, we tread warily when dealing with each other. Which is why I listened carefully when his call went to voice mail.

  “Samantha, this is David Jessup. An agent from the Office of Special Investigations just stopped by my office.”

  Uh-oh. The OSI is the Air Force’s counterpart to the Army’s CID. This wasn’t good. The last time the OSI had visited Dr. J was after my lab got torched. He and I had both ended up churning out reams of reports. Not an experience I wanted to repeat anytime soon.

  “The agent informed me that you were involved in a shooting incident in El Paso last night. He also informed me you weren’t hurt. I’m not sure why I had to hear this from him and not you,” Dr. J continued in a pained voice, “but I’m relieved you escaped injury. Please call me and tell me what the hell is going on.”

  Double uh-oh! That was a first. Dr. J never resorted to expletives. Acting as my supervisor must be exerting more pressure on the man than I’d realized.

  When he disconnected, I was left with the uneasy feeling that forces beyond my control had me in a slowly tightening vise. I didn’t appreciate how tight until Special Agent Hurst drove up to the site three hours later in a dust-covered sedan.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  HURST brought some backup with him. Both investigators wore civilian clothes. I guessed their khaki Dockers and open-necked shirts topped by casual sport coats were supposed to project a friendly, approachable air. It didn’t fool me for a moment.

  I met them outside the lab. The February afternoon had warmed up. So much so that I spotted an orange-and-silver snake basking in the sunlight a few yards from our lab. I knew it was a nonpoisonous Mexican king snake. Pen had lectured us often enough on the flora and fauna of the Chihuahuan Desert. Still, I cut it a wide swath when I went to greet the two investigators.

  Comb Over did the intros. “Lieutenant Spade, this is Special Agent Richard Sinclair from CID headquarters. They’re handling the Austin investigation.”

  I wondered why the case had been bumped up to the guys at headquarters as Sinclair showed me his credentials. He was a few inches shorter than my five-seven and built like a tank. He also had laser blue eyes and a bruiser grip.

  “Where can we talk?” Comb Over asked.

  “The rest of my team is powering up and calibrating equipment in the lab. We can use the D-FAC.”

  My team had put away the perishables, but cartons of unloaded supplies still crowded the counters. The cartons gave me an uneasy, hemmed-in feeling as I faced the investigators across the small dining table.

  Sinclair placed a palm-sized tape recorder on the table. “We’d like to record this session, unless you object.”

  “Should I?”

  Some nasty thoughts buzzed around inside my head. Chief among them was the fact that I’d conducted an unauthorized test. In a civilian setting. Under uncontrolled conditions. I was fully prepared to argue the test hadn’t resulted in any toxic fallout and had, in fact, possibly saved several lives when Sinclair re
assured me.

  “You’re not the subject of this investigation, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  His comment eased my nagging conscience. A little.

  “Please tell us in your own words, Lieutenant, exactly what happened.”

  I didn’t bother to point out that I’d already given statements to the first officers on the scene and the homicide detectives who’d caught the case. As Mitch had laconically explained, cops liked to give witnesses and/or suspects plenty of opportunity to trip over their own words.

  I managed not to trip. I think. I also managed to downplay the whole NLOS thing. Sinclair didn’t seem particularly interested in how I spotted Austin. His focus was on what happened once I had.

  “Let me be sure I understand the sequence,” he said when I’d finished. “You say a bullet shattered Sergeant Roth’s car window?”

  “Correct.”

  “At which point you shouted another warning?”

  “Also correct.”

  “And that’s when she spotted Austin?”

  “Right.”

  “Then she accelerated and aimed her vehicle in his direction?”

  “Her Tahoe rolled toward the fitness center at first,” I said, my forehead scrunching as I tried to recall those terrifying seconds. “Diane—Sergeant Roth—had dropped down, out of my sight. I thought she’d been hit. I remember jumping up and sprinting toward her vehicle. I was afraid it would cream the people who’d flattened themselves against the pavement.”

  “You ran toward the Tahoe? That wasn’t in the report you gave the El Paso PD last night.”

  “I was still a little frazzled when I gave my statement. I guess I forgot that minor detail. It doesn’t matter anyway, since Diane yanked on the wheel and aimed it at the white van shielding the shooter.”

  Sinclair tapped a finger against the tabletop for a moment or two, a carefully neutral expression in those electric blue eyes.

  “You stated that when Sergeant Roth crashed into the van, the rear end of her Tahoe fishtailed and slammed Austin against the wall.”