by P. R. Adams
Rimes’s excitement drained away. “So everything really depends on this search.”
Kleigshoen settled into her chair and brought up her display. “We need to catch a break.”
He stretched. “Speaking of a break, I’m going to take a quick walk, see if I can clear my mind.”
Kleigshoen nodded and went back to her work. Rimes stepped out of the office. He walked several steps before turning back to see if Kleigshoen had followed. When he saw he was alone, he sneaked back to Marshall’s office, replaced the data sticks, and exited, closing the door behind him.
Getting the data out of the Bureau’s private Grid would be the next challenge. He regretted not having simply swapped out data sticks, but then he’d still have to get them out of the building somehow. With the data stored in his personal workspace, he would at least have access to it so long as he could access the Bureau’s Grid.
He needed to somehow get the data onto the Grid. And an idea of how he might pull it off was forming.
Rimes returned to his office. Kleigshoen looked up from her work for a moment. He settled into his seat and looked at the terminal. “Damn.”
“What?” she asked. “Is it done?”
“Almost. None of the hits match Kwon’s memories. I don’t understand. I was so sure.”
Does she know about Marshall? Would she tell me if I asked her? Maybe just ask about any travel Marshall took around the time of the theft. I’d have to word the question just right, or it would tip her off.
The search finished. There were four last hits.
Rimes flipped through each image, staring, hoping, willing. The first woman looked nothing like Kwon’s victim. The second had vaguely similar eyes, but nothing else. The third … he enhanced the focus.
It was Kwon’s victim. “It’s her!”
Kleigshoen came around the desk and looked over Rimes’s shoulder. “Duan Lek? She doesn’t even look twenty, Jack.”
“Reported missing in January,” Rimes said. “She would have been just barely twenty. The photo’s from her ID card, taken at eighteen. She was a little skinnier, a little more worn down by nirvana or some other stim, but that’s her.”
“The missing persons report was filed in Raleigh,” Kleigshoen said. “Was she a resident there?”
Rimes flipped to Lek’s travel records. “Immigrated with her parents at six. Moved from Los Angeles to Joliet, from Joliet to Baltimore, from Baltimore to Charlotte, then from Charlotte to Raleigh. Four years in the Raleigh area.”
“Arrests?”
Rimes shook his head. Lek was the wrong type of person to get the attention of the overtaxed police force. She got high, turned tricks, probably committed small-scale theft. There was no room in the prison system for petty criminals anymore.
Kleigshoen walked back to her chair, but just stood for a moment before shutting down her display. “Let’s pass it on to Marshall. He can have someone run it down. It still sounds like a long shot.”
“Have you ever been to Raleigh?” Rimes asked as he powered down his terminal.
“Just for jump school. That was about eight years ago. I didn’t really see much of it.” Kleigshoen stretched, slowly arching her back. She gave Rimes a sleepy, lingering glance. “It’s sort of pretty, I guess. What’d you think of it when you went through? The sort of place you’d like to go again?”
Rimes looked away. “Once was enough.”
Rimes had relatives from the area; it was a dangerous place to grow up, with a lot of violence between locals and recent immigrants. Lek’s experiences would have almost certainly been rough.
“What about Marshall?” Rimes asked. “Would he have any contacts in the area we could ask for help?”
Kleigshoen thought for a moment then shook her head. “I doubt it. He’s from Delaware. I think what’s left of his family is still there.”
Rimes sighed.
“Let it go, Jack.” Kleigshoen walked to the door and stopped, turning to give him a tired smile. “We can’t do anything more with it until we get more evidence. We’ll get what we need if we work together. We can do that, right?”
Rimes woke to the sound of his earpiece chiming, Molly’s ring. He set the earpiece in his ear and accepted the call. The hotel room was dark except for a thin sliver of light sneaking through the drawn shades.
Molly’s image took on a sickly glow. She looked weak and troubled. Rimes sat upright.
“Molly?” The display showed 0417.
“Jack? I’m sorry. I had a dream.” Her voice was sleepy, her words slurred.
Rimes shook his head. “No, it’s okay. I had to get up in a little bit to go for a run. This is all on the Bureau’s dollar right now.”
The urge to pull her close and hold her was maddening.
“I dreamed the baby was dead.” Molly took a deep breath then wiped her eyes. Tears welled up then rolled down her cheeks. “You killed it.”
“Whoa.” Rimes threw up his hands and motioned for Molly to stop. “You know I’d never kill our baby.”
Molly sobbed quietly for a moment. “Jack, I feel horrible. I feel fat and ugly and you disappeared for a week with that woman.”
Rimes froze for a moment. “Molly, you’re beautiful to me, you know that. I love you. Nothing’s going to change that.”
“Is she pretty?”
Rimes knew better than to lie. Molly had always been resentful of his old relationship with Kleigshoen. More than once, she’d worried aloud after a few drinks that he would leave her for his old flame.
There was no good answer to the question.
“She’s still pretty, just like you.”
“Did you sleep with her?”
“Molly, have you been drinking?” Rimes stood, fully awake now. He cursed inwardly. His blood was rushing, his parenting instincts fighting with his guilt.
“Did you sleep with her?”
Rimes began to pace. Molly had been in control of her drinking for nearly two years now. To lose control at such an important point in time …
“Molly, listen to me. If you’ve been drinking, you need to stop. Now. Alcohol isn’t good for our baby.”
“You slept with her. You bastard.” Molly began crying again.
Rimes ran his hand over his head. “I’ll be home in a few hours, Molly.”
“J.C. said Marty’s talking about leaving her.”
Rimes massaged his forehead. “He’ll never leave J.C. Molly, please. That’s the alcohol talking. Don’t let it. You’re too smart for this.”
“Are you leaving me, Jack? Is that it? Am I being punished for not being sexy enough?”
Rimes shook his head. “You know you’re beautiful. You’re everything I could ever want. I told you when I married you, it’s forever. You know that.”
She cut the connection.
Rimes tore the earpiece off and hurled it against the bed. It bounced off the bedspread, then settled in a tangle of sheets dangling over the edge of the bed.
She’s going to leave me when I tell her. I know it. I deserve it. But I made the mistake. I’ve got to own up to it.
Martinez threatening to leave J.C. was nothing new, but the timing was terrible. Rimes kicked the air in frustration.
Why couldn’t I control myself? Why did I have to create this situation? It’s part of my training: control the variables, limit the risks. Do the right damn thing, Jack. Damn it!
There was no returning to sleep.
With a heavy sigh, he retrieved his earpiece, pulled on his sweats and shoes, and headed out for a run. When he hit the cold morning air, he broke into a quick jog. He pushed himself, fighting through the stiffness of his healing wounds and welcoming the pain, despite knowing it wouldn’t save his marriage.
I’m going to save it, damn it. We’re going to work through this together. We’re going to have our family, and we’re going to be happy.
Jogging in the darkness, alone, there was no one to tell him otherwise.
35
11 March
2164. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
* * *
It was just after noon when Kleigshoen and Rimes stepped out of the Switzer International Airport terminal. He felt hollow, adrift, a failure. He shivered in a cool breeze’s embrace as they loaded into an automated transport along with a handful of fellow travelers.
Rimes examined the other passengers from behind drooping eyelids. Three were businesspeople—an elderly woman with white curls, and dark, judging eyes; the other two younger, ruddy complected, dark-haired men bristling with energy.
The elderly woman spent several seconds looking down her nose at her fellow passengers, passing judgment with cold glances before finally sighing and settling back in her seat as the transport left the airport. She closed her eyes against the intrusion of these others and collapsed in on herself.
The taller businessman sat next to his heavily-modified consort, who was very publicly absorbed in mind-numbing celebrity news feeds. Rimes had seen the feeds before. They provided vicarious thrills for those who could afford the services.
The other businessman pretended to ignore his fussy assistant, a bronze-skinned Adonis in a tailored suit.
Rimes relaxed, distractedly enjoying the warmth of Kleigshoen’s body pressed close against his by the cramped seats.
He stole a quick nap, waking minutes later at the car rental facility. Following a quick transfer, he and Kleigshoen were on the turnpike, heading south for Fort Sill.
Long-dead trees, weed-choked ponds, muddy earth—a dying world—drifted by. Even inside the car, the air smelled tired and depleted.
He found it hard to concentrate. Molly’s accusation and relapse with alcohol; Perditori’s cryptic manipulation; the T-Corp 72 data; the stolen X-17; the Commandos’ involvement. Marshall’s duplicity.
For just a moment, Rimes wanted a simpler life, a life without obligations to a still-forming family, a corrupted military, and a world poised on the brink of implosion.
Rimes closed his eyes and imagined himself and his team aboard a UH-121, coming in nap-of-earth, thick forest canopy skimming by a meter beneath them. There was a thrill in the imagined memory, a security and a sense of happiness. Imminent combat, life and death hanging in the balance. All the while, knowing each member of the unit had the other’s back.
“You’ve been awfully quiet today,” Kleigshoen said. “Is everything okay?”
“Molly,” Rimes said, looking from the countryside to Kleigshoen. “We have some things we need to work out.”
Sunlight and shadow battled across her face until a stretch of trees along the roadside draped her fully in shadow.
Rimes looked back at the road, empty except for a few automated transports and a luxury vehicle in the distance.
“She knows?”
Rimes sighed. “Knows? Intuits. Maybe. I don’t know. She’s very jealous of you. Always has been. She didn’t take it well when I told her we were working together.”
Kleigshoen stared straight ahead for several minutes, then said coldly, “I can drop you off at your apartment. We’ve got a case to focus on, Jack. I—we—don’t need the distractions. There’s no need for me to get involved.”
Rimes shook his head. “We’re already involved.” He rubbed his knees, as if by working out the stiffness there he could drive away his anxiety. Finally, he stopped and simply grabbed his kneecaps. “Dana, I need to know if I can trust you.”
Kleigshoen tensed. “Jack, what happened between us was just for fun. How you handle it with Molly is your business.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Rimes said, stung by her dismissive response.
She hasn’t changed.
Kleigshoen glared at him. “What is it, then?”
Rimes wrestled with the idea of lying, testing Kleigshoen somehow. No easy test or lie came to him. It simply wasn’t in his nature.
“How much do you trust Marshall?”
“Trust him?” Kleigshoen’s brow wrinkled. “In what way?”
“This X-17 investigation, for instance. How did you and Brent end up involved with that?”
“I told you. Brent was on the fast track. This was a high-profile case. Jim was under a lot of pressure. Wrap the case, and it was a big feather in all our caps. Everyone knows Director Vaughn plans to retire after the next administration. Jim has the inside track to replace Vaughn, and then Jim would’ve filled his old position by appointing Brent. For leading such a sensitive investigation.”
Rimes rubbed his face in frustration. “Why did you recruit me?”
She hesitated, closing her eyes and pinching the tip of her nose. “We needed someone inside your unit who wasn’t compromised. Add to that your experience in Singapore and on the Sundarbans mission, and it was a perfect fit.”
Rimes thought for a moment. “So how did you know it was my unit?”
Kleigshoen sighed heavily and rolled her eyes. “When Jim got the case, he called in his top analysts. The first thing they did was assess all the available intel. The second thing they did was posit potential actors. We looked at elite units worldwide—military, metacorp, mercenary, even intelligence operators. Every lead we chased down fell apart over the course of several weeks, except for one.”
Rimes looked at her face, saw what he needed to see there: acknowledgment of the pain she’d inflicted and of the situation’s seriousness.
It’s not something petty or spiteful for her. It’s real.
“So the evidence pointed to an inside job. Where could Moltke have gotten the information he needed to pull off an inside job? He’s a Commando. I’d never heard of X-17 before word spread about the theft. None of us had.”
Kleigshoen bit her lip.
“Bio and chemical weapons are illegal,” Rimes said. “X-17 never should have been developed.”
Kleigshoen said quickly, “It was meant to be a deterrent … a deterrent needs to be an effective weapon, Jack. It needs to intimidate enemies. X-17 kills quickly, without leaving a trace. It breaks down quickly, so it’s not generally effective over large, open areas. Wind, rain—they’d render it useless fairly quickly. That means it wouldn’t be ideal for most battlefields.”
“So what’s it intended for? Assassination?”
“No one really knows,” Kleigshoen said. Her brow wrinkled. She started to speak, then hesitated. “It’s the craziest thing, if you think about it. The research was authorized nearly thirty years ago. Jim had access to the historical records, but we didn’t have the need to know. Given the way it works, though, I’d say it was for assassination, extortion, close-quarters urban operations. Maybe limited actions. When you think about it, it’s very much a weapon of modern warfare in that sense, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” Rimes considered the information in silence. He looked out the window, watched the devastated countryside roll by.
Marshall’s involvement made less sense in light of what he now knew. Then again, the very existence of X-17 itself didn’t really follow any sort of military logic.
Thirty years ago, the last vestiges of religious extremism fueled many of the world’s conflicts. But now, with most of the world living in poverty, business being shipped off-planet, and the last petroleum deposits long tapped out, the extremist movements that would have made the weapon relevant had already lost most of their momentum.
Kleigshoen whispered, “Jack, why did you ask whether I trust Jim?”
Rimes watched for Kleigshoen’s reaction carefully. “He was at the bar with Moltke and Kwon.”
He tried not to allow vindictiveness to influence his perceptions. She’d hurt him with her revelations about his unit’s involvement, and her coldness toward the damage she’d done to his marriage. He needed to be sure what he saw from her was authentic, and not what he almost wanted—expected—to see.
Kleigshoen stared at the road intently for a long, quiet stretch, her knuckles whitening on her lap.
Finally, she wiped her eyes and turned back to him.
“Brent didn’t like the way Jim was
handling the case. I thought—he was being overly ambitious, playing the angles, looking at how he could leapfrog Jim.”
Rimes sat up straighter. “How did he think Jim was handling it wrong?”
“At first, Jim wanted us to focus only on the metacorporations. He said ADMP might be behind the theft, because they’d purchased one of the companies that had done the early research. Then the analysts showed ADMP hadn’t had any resources in the area during the theft, and he had to back down. And he resisted considering military units almost to the end, giving the exact reason you did: they wouldn’t have had access to the data.
“Once we locked on to your unit, Jim tried to give the case to a couple of rookies. He said their youth and inexperience would actually be an advantage in a case like this … they’d be able to think outside of the box easier.
“Brent … I guess you could say he sort of threatened Jim indirectly. He pulled Jim aside and told him he was putting his career at risk. If the rookies failed, there would be a lot of questioning about Jim’s judgment.”
Rimes kept watching her eyes. “Did you ever suspect Marshall was behind this?”
“Behind the theft?” Kleigshoen shook her head. “I thought Brent was just being greedy, trying to get us assigned to the investigation instead of the two rookies. It was our work that identified Moltke as a prime suspect. We were all set for credit. But … it makes sense. I feel like I failed Brent by not supporting him when he questioned Jim. I … challenged Brent’s judgment.”
“Does Jim know you challenged Brent?”
Kleigshoen nodded. “Jim asked me to be sure Brent was clear there were no hard feelings. They’d been friends for years. Jim mentored Brent.”
They rode in silence the remainder of the way. A steady, sand-laden wind had kicked up, impairing visibility. The car pulled into the apartment complex’s parking lot and stopped outside Rimes’s apartment building.
“What time should I pick you up tomorrow?” she asked.
Rimes didn’t answer. His eyes were locked on a barely visible highway patrol cruiser parked at the end of the row.