by Melissa Good
Maybe that’s why she’d always been so damned sure she belonged in the Navy. Dar sighed. Even as a young child, there had never been a doubt in her mind that one day she’d be out there, living on the sea just like her father. It had been a world she’d been completely comfortable with—a world she’d been proud to be a part of.
Nowadays, it was considered a little old-fashioned to be patriotic.
Dar ran her fingers through the grainy sand, plucking out a bit of dried coral and examining it. Her father was, though; once upon a time, she had been, too.
Now? Dar’s lips pressed briefly together. With a slight groan, she pushed herself to her feet and shouldered her briefcase, walking slowly across the sand to the beckoning waves. She kept going until the water covered her feet, the incoming tide washing over her legs up to her rolled up pant legs, bringing with it the clean, tangy scent of the sea.
A bit of seaweed wrapped itself around her ankle, its touch a little prickly. Dar gazed off into the dawn, letting the onshore breeze blow her hair back as the sun lit up the waves.
KERRY SAT AT her desk, cupping her hands around a steaming mug of hot tea as she watched the sun rise through her window. She looked up as a knock sounded on her door, a little surprised. “Come in.” The door opened and Mark stuck his head in. “Morning, Kerry.”
Kerry’s blonde eyebrows lifted. “You’re here early.”
“Yeah,” the MIS manager agreed. “You, too.”
“C’mon in,” Kerry repeated. “Dar’s on a plane up to DC, so I thought I’d get in here and get some stuff done before the phones start ringing.”
Mark entered and crossed the mahogany carpet, settling in the seat across from Kerry’s desk. “Did she get what she needed from that array?”
“I think so,” Kerry said. “Now she’s just got to decide what to do with it. Sticky political situation, you know?”
Mark nodded. “Yeah. Speaking of.” He folded his hands together and rested his chin on them. “You figured out what you want me to do with Brent?” he asked.
“Is he here?”
“Yeah.”
Kerry exhaled. “Okay, send him over. I’ll talk to him,” she replied.
“Maybe we can get some communication going. I...” Another sigh. “It’s really too bad, because he’s a good tech.”
“Yeah,” Mark agreed. “He’s just got some weird hang-ups,” he said. “And talking about that crap—someone else is talking shit around the place.”
Red Sky At Morning 341
Kerry covered her eyes with one hand. “Karnak says ‘Clarice.’” She opened her fingers and peeked at Mark. “Am I close?”
“She’s a bitch,” the MIS manager stated flatly. “I didn’t like her when she was chasing after Dar the last time, and it pisses me off that she’s walking around here spouting crap.”
Kerry leaned back in her seat and sipped her tea. “Don’t hold back, Mark. Tell me how you really feel,” she remarked wryly. “I know. It’s really taken me by surprise, because I always thought she was a good worker; never had a problem with her before.”
Mark looked slightly uncomfortable. “She really had a thing for Dar,” he said. “Everyone knew it. Dar finally called her on it in a big meeting we had. Big time.”
Ahh. Kerry winced. “She didn’t mention that part.”
“You know Dar.” Mark half shrugged. “Clarice finally got over it. I don’t blame Dar, but it was pretty public and I guess now Clarice feels like, well, shit, after all that crap, and now—”
“Now us.” Kerry nodded. “Yeah.” She sighed again. “And that puts me in a really awkward position. But I guess I have to do something about it, huh?”
Mark looked around carefully. “You could just tell Dar,” he said in a low voice. “Let her handle it. After all, she’s, like...in the middle of the whole thing.”
Yes, she could tell Dar and let her handle it. But Kerry’s whole being resisted that, and in her heart she knew she’d lose a lot of respect for herself if she backed down on this one. “She’s offered,” she told Mark.
“But the woman works for me, so it’s my call.”
Mark didn’t look surprised. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll send Brent over.”
He stood up. “Lots of luck.”
“Thanks.” Kerry shook her head as he left. Feeling the tension creep up her back and knot her stomach slightly, she turned her chair and looked out over the water. It was a great view, she reflected, and it fit the spacious office to which her position entitled her, but along with those perks came the responsibility of making the hard choices. She had a much better understanding now of how Dar had come to be the way she was, as a leader.
Leaders had to step back and see the big picture. For the greater good of the company or sometimes just because of hard dollars and cents reasons that fell within their areas, they had to make decisions that hurt individuals. “What would you have done, Kerrison, if you’d had to integrate a half-rate little software development services company with mostly mediocre employees and a pissant ops manager who told you off?” She drummed her fingers on the arm of her chair.
“Damn, I was lucky she liked me.”
Another knock at the door interrupted her musings. Kerry gazed plaintively at the horizon. “Luckier sometimes than others, however.”
She said, “C’mon in.” As the door opened and Brent entered, she turned 342 Melissa Good her chair and put down her cup. “Hello, Brent,” she greeted. “Sit down.
Let’s talk.”
Warily he walked over and took a seat, edging back as far away from her as he could. “If you’re gonna fire me, could you please do it quick?” he said. “I wanna miss traffic.”
Kerry sighed. It was going to be a very long day.
DAR GLANCED AROUND as she walked through the Pentagon, feeling a bit conspicuous even though her civilian dress blended in with that of a good percentage of the workers. She’d called Gerry from the airport and he was expecting her, but she felt a curious sense of reluctance as she walked down the austere hallway.
She recalled the last time she’d been here, picking up the government contracts that had, in the end, allowed her to salvage Kerry’s former company and permanently piss off the regional sales manager she’d upstaged. A smile appeared briefly, and she squared her shoulders as she opened the door to Gerry’s outer office and gave his admin a nod.
The woman smiled at her and pressed a button on her phone.
“General, Ms. Roberts is here.”
“Is she? Great. Send her in.” Gerry’s voice boomed through the intercom.
Dar walked past the woman’s desk and opened the inner door, entering and closing it behind her as Gerry put down the folder he’d been looking at and came around the desk to meet her. “Morning, Gerry.”
“C’mere, girl.” He opened his arms and enfolded her in a hug.
“First things first. How’s it having your daddy back?”
Dar put down her briefcase, forgetting about its contents for a moment. She returned the hug. “Awesome,” she replied simply. “When are you going to come down and visit? They’ve got a boat they’d love to show off to you.”
“Ah, munchkin. You got no clue how glad I am.” Gerry rubbed her back and gave it a pat. Then he pulled back and looked at her, shrewdly reading the expression on her face. “Bad news, eh?”
Dar nodded.
Gerry exhaled, releasing her and stepping back to perch on the edge of his desk. “Well, you tried, Dar. Can’t fault you for it,” he said.
“Did a damn risky thing. I’m glad no worse happened.”
Dar picked up her briefcase and laid it on his desk, releasing the locked latches and opening it. She lifted out a thick sheaf of papers secured with a binder clip and dropped it on the blotter pad. “Don’t thank me yet.”
“Eh?”
“It’s there.” Dar closed her case after removing a square box and Red Sky At Morning 343
putting it next to the paper. “Hard and digital copy.” Her
eyes lifted and met his. “I got all of it out of there.”
Gerry was visibly stunned. He slowly got up and circled his desk, sitting down in his chair and staring at the paper. “Did you?”
Dar put her case on the floor and sat in the visitors chair across from him. She leaned back and folded her arms, exhaling for a long moment. “I took a copy of the computer core before they came in and trashed the place,” she said. “I was able to reconstruct it.”
Gerry was silent for a long while. He pulled the stack of paper over and turned it around, flipping through a few of the pages. “Huh,” he finally murmured. “Dar, you skunked me. I figured I was going to have to bat my way out of a bunch of starched shirts looking to hang me for hiring some civ company who didn’t know their butts from a deck mop.”
Dar’s face twitched slightly. “You hired the best,” she said quietly.
“You got what you paid for.” Aside from the knowledge of what the information represented, Dar couldn’t deny a bit of pride in herself for doing what most people would have considered pretty damn near impossible. It had been, by anyone’s measure, a brilliant piece of reconstruction.
The general nodded slowly, pursing his lips. “Can’t argue with that, my friend,” he said. “But now I’ve got a whole ’nother kettle of fish I’ve got to deal with.”
Dar nodded. “I know.” She folded her hands. “Wasn’t what I expected either.”
Gerry got up and paced behind his desk, visibly disturbed. “Damn it,” he said. “This’ll blow out all over the damn place. Papers’ll have a damn field day.” He snorted. “Congress’ll have a damn field day with me, after that last mess.”
Dar simply sat and waited, having gone over the same issues all the way during her trip up from Florida. After a minute, however, she cleared her throat. “Can’t you handle it under the table?”
Gerry looked at her. “Once, sure. Now? Forget it. More leaks in this place than in my wife’s noodle strainer.” He sighed in disgust. “Well, let me get the legal folks in here. Sit tight.” He picked up the phone and dialed a number.
Dar drummed her fingers on one knee, just wanting it all to be over.
“IT JUST AIN’T right,” Brent muttered.
Kerry rested her chin on her hands, gazing at him with wry exasperation. “Brent, it’s not really any of your business, you know?”
“That ain’t so.” Brent kept his eyes on the edge of the desk. “Not when you big shots just parade around, pushing it out in everybody’s faces. It’s not fair.”
344 Melissa Good There was, Kerry acknowledged, a grain of truth in what he said.
“Look, Brent,” she sighed, “Dar and I do our best to keep our private life private. I’m sorry I wasn’t thinking when I came into Ops that night, and that’s my fault. I made a mistake.”
Furtively, he peeked up at her. “That’s right. It’s wrong.”
“Love is never wrong, Brent,” Kerry said. “I’m sorry if that doesn’t mesh with how you were brought up, but you know, it doesn’t mesh with how I was brought up, either.” She got up and circled her desk, watching him edge back nervously. “Sometimes you just have to learn to live with things. My question to you is, can you live with this?
Because if you can’t, and you continue to do things like spread false rumors about me or about Dar, then you can’t work here.”
“I didn’t spread no false nothing,” Brent protested. “All I said was you were meeting with some guy after dark here. It was true!”
“Why would you even tell anyone that?” Kerry queried.
“’Cause you were touching him all over! What was anybody supposed to think?” Now Brent was righteously upset. “Wasn’t me who said all that other stuff,” he added. “Go and find that other stuck-up woman, that one from Chicago. She’s the one who told everyone you was—I mean, she said about cheating and all that. I just said what I saw.”
Ah. Some of the pieces clicked together. Kerry felt a slow burn of anger start. “You mean Clarice?”
“If that’s what her name is, sure,” Brent said. “She heard me telling one of the techs, and then she was off and yabbling to everyone.
Thought it was one big joke.”
Kerry walked to her side table and poured herself a glass of water, more to give herself a chance to think than because she was thirsty.
“Okay.” She turned, leaning against the table as she sipped from the glass. “But that doesn’t answer the question. Can you do your job here or not?” One problem at a time, Kerry. One problem at a time.
Brent slid a bit lower in the chair. “I don’t want no trouble.” He averted his eyes again. “I do a good job here.”
Kerry returned to her desk and seated herself facing him. “That’s right, you really do, Brent,” she agreed. “You’re one of the best techs we have, and that’s why I was so disappointed about what happened. I like you.”Very slowly, his eyes lifted to meet hers.
“I don’t want you to leave. But I also don’t want you to be so uncomfortable around me, or around Dar, that it makes you crazy,”
Kerry continued, in a gentler voice. “So you think about it, and you let me know, okay?”
Brent was silent for a moment, then he finally nodded. “All right.”
He got up and scuttled around the chair. “I got stuff to take care of.”
“Thanks for coming by, Brent.” Kerry dismissed him. She waited for the door to close behind his stocky form, before she let her eyes Red Sky At Morning 345
narrow and her fingertips drum on her desk. “That,” she spoke aloud,
“was the easy one.” With deliberation, she got up and headed for the door.
DAR STOOD WITH her arms folded, looking out the window of Gerald’s office. Behind her, the general was hashing over her data with a tall, constipated-appearing major from the military legal office. The major wasn’t happy. Gerald wasn’t happy.
Hell, I’m not happy. Dar observed a black and yellow bird settle onto a branch outside, its mouth opening in song she hadn’t a chance of hearing.
“Ms., ah, Roberts.”
Dar turned to face the major. “Yes?”
“The security group that reviewed the base reported back to us a very different story than what you present here,” the major stated. “We found some small infractions, yes, and my office was preparing administrative sanctions against the base commander, but nothing close to what you are alleging.”
“I,” Dar stated flatly, “am not alleging anything. I’m just an information services professional who is tendering information to you.
If that information looks bad, that’s not my fault.”
The major watched her warily. “We found no indication of major offenses at that base,” he repeated. “There was no hint in any of their systems of any of this.”
“Exactly why I asked Paladar to retrieve the records,” Gerald interrupted him. “Figured if there was anything dicey, butts would be covered post-haste.” He tapped the report. “Now, Ted, let’s call spades spades. We got a problem here.”
The major looked even more constipated. “General, I’m sorry, but I have to call these ‘facts’ into question. I refuse to believe an entire intelligence team could have failed to find even a hint of this.” He threw his hands up. “This could all be fabricated!”
Both of Dar’s eyebrows shot up and she started forward, pausing when Gerry put a calming hand on her arm. “What would be the point in that?” Dar demanded.
“Well, Ms. Roberts, your company has a certain reputation to maintain.” The major gave her a smug look. “Busting the Navy would certainly put a shine on your cap, wouldn’t it?”
“Easy, Dar.” Gerry put his arm over Dar’s shoulders. “This nitwit in a starched suit has no idea who he’s talking to.”
“Sir!” the major protested.
“You listen here, youngster.” Gerald rode over him. “Dar and her people didn’t risk their hides to get this stuff out for the likes of you to pooh-pooh it. Now, thi
s’s the real stuff. I don’t like it, you don’t like it, and believe me if you don’t believe her, Dar doesn’t like it. But there it 346 Melissa Good is, and now you, sir, have to deal with it. Go kick some kiester and stop wasting my time.”
“Sir,” the man rested his hands on the table, “let’s just think about this for a minute.”
Dar straightened and circled around to the other side of the table.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you just didn’t want to blow their little scam. You in on it?”
The major stood up dead straight, his jaw clenching. “How dare you.”
Dar lifted her hands and spread them out to either side of her.
“Government has a certain reputation to maintain, doesn’t it?
Appropriations? Budgets? Scandal’s always bad for the expense account, isn’t it?”
“Dar.” Gerald gave her a warning look. “Now, I know Ted here just wants to cover our butts. Don’t blame him. Once he gets a look-see at all this, I know he’ll do the right thing.” He turned and stared directly at the major. “Isn’t that right, Ted?”
The major glared at Dar.
“Ted?” The general stepped between them. “You know as well as I do, it’s no good trying to stuff this bilge under the bunk. Didn’t work last time, won’t work this time. Just bite the bullet and get moving on it.” After a moment, the major nodded. “You’re right, sir,” he answered quietly. “I just hate to see it. We’ve come so far since...”
“I know.” Gerry sighed. “Always an ass dropping crap when you least expect it.” He half turned his head. “Pardon me, Dar.”
The major picked up the stack of paper and the box next to it and tucked it all under his arm. “I’ll get to work on it right away, General.
Don’t you worry.” He ignored Dar, turning his back on her and walking directly to the door, opening it, stepping through, and closing it with sharp precision.
Gerry sighed, and sat down on the edge of the table. He glanced at Dar, who was still visibly steaming. “Can’t really blame him, munchkin.
He’s third-generation Navy, and you know how we get.”
“He’s a first-generation jackass,” Dar replied. “Can he even read?”