Lady Justice

by Vicki Hinze

  “Go ahead then, ma’am. We’re running … three, two, one … now.”

  “This message is classified Eyes Only. Lady Justice to Commander Donald Conlee.” She paused to give Intel time to officially abandon their ears. “Commander, it’s Gabby. I’m issuing a Priority One request to activate Agent Grayson immediately.” Sorry, Max. I can’t protect you anymore. I need help—even if it just means someone I respect kills me.

  He was her partner. He owed her that much.

  He owes you a lot more, not that he will ever know it.

  Tuning out her internal dialogue, she focused on the recording. “There is one stipulation to this request, sir.” Obligated to lay out the situation in blunt terms, she swallowed hard and let the tremble in her voice reveal what she couldn’t express with words even on a secure communication. Issuing your own death sentence was extremely difficult, even for an SCO. “I’m in a lousy position here, Commander.” She broke into a cold sweat and dread covered her like a shroud. “Make sure Agent Grayson is up to doing whatever proves necessary. Otherwise, keep him at home and I’ll handle it myself.”

  Are you crazy? Handle it yourself? You can’t do that.

  I can, and I will.

  Silence, heavy and thick, hung in the air. Then the Intel monitor spoke up. “The commander will need to know the extricate-or-eliminate odds, Lady Justice—to make the best decision. Did you cover that, ma’am?”

  He was right, of course. That she hadn’t given it to him automatically proved how rattled she was by all of this. “Not yet. Odds of extricating me?” With Hurricane Darla bearing down on the Cove and a Global Warrior hunting her down? Sucky. “Ten percent.” And that was being optimistic.

  “Elimination odds?” he asked.

  Her heart thundered, knocking against her ribs. Worse. “Ninety percent.”

  Unfortunately, that prediction was even more optimistic.

  Chapter Eight

  Washington, D.C. Saturday, August 3

  There is no justice.

  If there were any, Max would be in his apartment, kicked back in his recliner, sipping a cold beer and watching the Yankees kick ass on TV. If there were a lot of justice, Gabby would phone him back for a robust session of phone sex, which was about as likely as her activating him on a mission. He’d settle for a call within the next three days—her equivalent of “right away”—and a sassy sparring session of flirting and matching wits, which he would relish until their next sassy session, knowing it proved just how pathetic his real life had become.

  That, of course, was Gabby’s fault. She had breezed into his life and highjacked his senses. Her pit stops ruined him for other women and her birthday card had his imagination in overdrive. But instead of baseball or stimulating calls from Gabby, Max was responding to Commander Conlee’s summons to Home Base on an SCO Code Red.

  Everyone in the unit understood the likely outcome of a SCO Code Red. The scum being investigated by a Special Detail Unit operative would live, and the senior covert operative doing the investigating would die. Where was the justice in that?

  Driving down the dark, dusty road to the top-secret A-267 site housing headquarters, Max swiped at his pants leg, hoping to hell he hadn’t been summoned to do the killing.

  A fence topped with razor wire stretched across the road, a gate and brick security shack in its center. A guard pulling duty walked out, wearing camo gear and carrying an M16. It was Fowler. Max braked, dimmed his headlights, and opened the window to flash his ID and reel off the day’s security code.

  Fowler waved Max through, and he drove on through A-267—a site that housed so much sensitive intelligence and technology that the entire site had to be classified—to the three drab-green hangars buried under a canopy of thick foliage that protected them from satellite view. He parked outside the far left hangar. It still housed Home Base headquarters—at least, temporarily.

  A short while back, during a missile crisis, several members of the press had breached site security. SDU, of course, hadn’t been compromised, but now Home Base needed new quarters to retain its anonymity. And just as soon as the commander put in a formal request to President Lance on a new location, it would have them. Odds were running four to one that Conlee already had the place chosen and a sleeper cell of operatives on site, smoothing the transition. Odds were one hundred percent that site would be in a rural community, away from Washington and any densely populated area. After the missile crisis, when D.C. and the surrounding states were in jeopardy of annihilation, adopting that policy seemed like a no-brainer to Max.

  Inside the cavernous hangar, he cleared Level One security. In the hallway, his shoes squeaked on the white tile floor, grating on his raw nerves. He stopped outside the elevator that would take him down to headquarters and processed through the biometric iris, bone structure, and DNA cross-match rituals, clearing Level Two.

  The elevator door opened. Max stepped inside and, moments later, he descended to the area most SDU operatives referred to as “the tomb.” Home Base was buried so deep in the bowels of the earth that no missile known to man could penetrate it. That added protection wasn’t essential to Home Base’s mission. It was a perk the unit enjoyed due to other classified concerns at the site.

  The elevator stopped and the door opened.

  Just outside, Brad Gibson stood behind the sleek station desk, pulling Level Three security. Though young and brash when first assigned to Home Base a year ago, Gibson had lost a little of his attitude and a lot of his innocence. Narrowly averting a national disaster that had started on your watch could do that to a man, and that missile crisis had done it to plenty of them. Even President Lance hadn’t been exempt. He’d taken Oversight, which monitored Special Detail Unit’s mission activities, away from Senator Cap Marlowe and had put it directly under Vice President Sybil Stone’s wing.

  SDU undeniably had benefited from the change of command. The veep had made it her business to make sure the honchos knew how important it was that the nation have a strong last-line-of-defense. “Well,” Max said to Gibson. “I see you’re still hitting the books.” He’d stated his intentions earlier in the bar. “How’s the mentoring going?”

  Gibson set the Regulations binder he had been studying aside and grunted. “Commander Conlee used to make me nervous. But after getting reamed by Agent Kincaid, talking to the commander’s a breeze.”

  A new respect for Gabby that hadn’t been there before registered in Gibson’s voice. Max was glad to hear it. “I’ll take one of his chewings over one of hers any day,” Max said, and then reeled off the day’s clearance code.

  Gibson double-checked it, verified, and then nodded. “You’re clear to proceed, sir.”

  Max took the corridor to the conference room, where he would meet with Commander Conlee, who ran SDU with an iron fist and the full weight of the Presidential hammer. Seeing a Secret Service agent standing just outside the door put dread back into Max’s step. The honchos had been called in, too. Bad sign.

  Nodding, he walked past the man, and entered the conference room. For the moment, it was empty; security must have just finished its sweep. Without Gabby standing in it, the place felt different. Colder. More distant. Intense. And it looked as barren as it felt.

  Lined in copper to decrease the odds of conversations being intercepted by hostile or friendly forces, the conference room held only the scarred conference table and straight-back wooden chairs—nothing to invite a man to sit or encourage him to linger. That seemed appropriate, considering anything that brought people to this table, brought them there to resolve a crisis that couldn’t be resolved through ordinary means or by overt U.S. agencies.

  As soon as Max took a seat, the still silence and the weight of what he feared would soon happen here bore down on him.

  If there were any justice at all, he wouldn’t be here, and he definitely wouldn’t be about to receive orders no covert operative—whether assigned to the elite Special Detail Unit, or to the more typical CIA or FBI—ev
er wanted to receive. On his birthday, no less. He sighed. You’re batting a thousand, Max.

  “Grayson.” Commander Donald Conlee strutted into the conference room with the gait of a man in his twenties, not his mid-fifties. His mouth was twisted into a sour curve, his unlit, stubby cigar clenched between his teeth. “Thanks for coming.”

  The light from the overhead fluorescent shone down over his short, spiked gray hair and onto a face hard-lined from too many tough decisions and too little laughter. Max respected Conlee. He was tough, but fair. Still, he was the last man Max wanted to see tonight—and judging by the grim line of Conlee’s mouth, he wasn’t any happier about having to see Max.

  A bitter taste filled his mouth, and Max stood up. “Commander.”

  “I’ve asked Agent Westford and Vice President Stone to join us.” Conlee motioned for Max to sit and took his own seat at the head of the table. “They’ll be in momentarily.”

  Oh, man. A consensus briefing. Jonathan Westford was SDU’s Assistant Commander, Conlee’s right hand. He was also Vice President Sybil Stone’s fiancé, and she was the head of Oversight. That they both had been asked to attend this meeting had Max’s stomach doing double gainers. Conlee clearly intended to issue Max the orders he had dreaded receiving from the moment he had been summoned to headquarters.

  Only one order required the veep’s consensus prior to Conlee issuing it: an order to cancel an SDU covert operative. And knowing it left just one question in Max’s mind.

  Which operative would he be ordered to murder?

  Chapter Nine

  Washington, D.C. Saturday, August 3

  At exactly twelve minutes after midnight, Conlee launched the briefing and, gauging by their sober expressions, both Vice President Stone and Agent Westford had no illusions about why they had been summoned to Home Base’s conference room. Clearly, they found the meeting as distasteful as Max.

  “About a year ago,” Commander Conlee said, “the director of Homeland Security asked me to review three criminal cases that Intel had red-flagged for suspected judicial corruption. All three cases had transferred from other parts of Florida to Carnel Cove for trial. Judge Andrew Abernathy heard all three cases, and in each one, he ordered a suspended sentence.”

  “Am I missing something, Commander?” Sybil asked. “I don’t understand why this isn’t being handled through the Justice Department. What makes it significant to Homeland Security, much less to us?”

  “All three defendants were on the SDU watch list, ma’am.” Conlee’s mouth flattened to a slash. “We think they were Global Warriors.”

  Max leaned forward, riveted. Of all the challenging adversaries SDU faced, the Global Warriors were currently the most worrisome. The reason stemmed from demographics. The Warriors weren’t loyal to any country, or motivated by any set of ideals, any religion, or any convictions. Simply put, they were an international group of hired assassins who would murder anyone for the right price. The Warriors enjoyed killing and they were good at it. That made them extremely dangerous, extremely difficult to locate, and extremely difficult to eradicate.

  Conlee stuffed his cigar stub into his shirt pocket. He always carried one, but hadn’t lighted up in years. “During our initial review, a fourth suspected Warriors’ case was transferred from Miami to Carnel Cove. Since the opportunity presented itself and I was on the verge of ordering deeper investigation, I inserted Agent Gabrielle Kincaid in Carnel Cove as a judge.”

  “Gabby?” Vice President Stone stiffened. “This is about Gabby?”

  Max’s stomach clutched. Gabby. Not Gabby. She was his partner, but she was also the closest thing the veep had to family. They had been college roommates and best friends; like sisters.

  Pity flashed through Conlee’s eyes. Regret chased it. He didn’t answer the veep directly, just continued his briefing. “Gabby’s mission was to identify the players, investigate the circumstances, and gather sufficient evidence for the appropriate overt Homeland Security agencies to prosecute and convict Judge Abernathy—if guilty—and all Global Warriors she could directly link to the corruption, or to any other incidental crime. Frankly, we wanted whatever she could get to arrest or deport them.”

  “Are they still in the country?” Westford asked.

  “Not legally, but who knows? Our borders are still like sieves.”

  Max stole a glance at the veep. Her coloring had gone from a flushed pink to pasty white. She was controlled, but this news wasn’t going down easy.

  “I followed typical protocol, in case Gabby required emergency backup or extraction, and assigned Agent Grayson—” Conlee nodded toward Max “—as Gabby’s absentee husband. His cover is that he’s a subject matter expert, a governmental consultant who primarily works in Third World countries, establishing health and safety standards.”

  Sybil slid Max a look heavy with accusation. “If Gabby is in trouble, then why aren’t you there, helping her?”

  Max had been aware of the assignment, of course, but he hadn’t been told particulars. Hell, he’d only learned mission details while sitting at this table, and he hadn’t been given an opportunity to review the records. The commander had followed standard operating procedure on that, too, and had sealed them. The veep knew that every case designated a “Special Project” and referred to SDU by an overt agency for disposition required the mission records being sealed. It minimized interagency leaks that could blow the case. She also knew that Conlee granted access on a “need to know” basis, and that on this mission, until now, only he and Gabby’d had a need to know. Max hadn’t been activated. But while the veep knew all this and more, she wasn’t immune to her emotions, and this was personal. Holding that in mind, Max softened his response. “She hasn’t permitted me to or asked for my help, ma’am.”

  “Actually, she has.” Conlee corrected Max, and then looked at the veep. “That’s why we’re here now, ma’am.”

  She nodded, and Conlee went on. “Shortly after Gabby was inserted in Carnel Cove, Judge Abernathy refused to hear the fourth case. He cited failing health and retired.”

  “Did he get tipped off about Gabby?”

  “No evidence of that, ma’am. She thinks he just had a keen sixth sense about her.”

  “Or a guilty conscience.”

  “That’s possible, ma’am,” Conlee agreed. “Regardless, Abernathy retired and that left Judge William Powell in charge.”

  Westford spoke for the second time since entering the conference room. “What’s Abernathy been up to since his retirement?”

  “He spends most of his time at his fishing camp, which is on a lake about twenty miles north of Carnel Cove. His best friends, Mayor Faulkner and Carl Blake—he’s a bank president and local businessman—”

  “What kind of business?” Westford interrupted.

  “Several,” Conlee said. “Car lots, a fleet of school buses and pest-control trucks, a lot of real estate—nothing out of the ordinary.” Conlee set down his coffee cup. “Anyway, Faulkner and Blake often drive up to Abernathy’s camp for the weekend. Judge Powell used to go up fairly often, too.”

  “When did Powell stop going?” Westford asked.

  “When he died.” Conlee gave Westford a flat look. “As mentioned, last February, he contracted EEE, according to the coroner’s report.”

  “Do we think it was something else?” the veep asked, picking up on the commander’s strange wording.

  “Within forty-eight hours, he was dead, ma’am.”

  Eastern equine encephalitis that ran its course from incubation to death in forty-eight hours? Max barely suppressed a curse. The usual incubation time on EEE was ten to fourteen days. Powell’s version had to contain an accelerant. “EEE or Z-4027?”

  “Gabby’s determining that now.” Conlee stabbed the point of a pencil to the blank yellow pad on the table before him. “FBI contacted the local coroner. He swears it was EEE.”

  And for reasons of national security, Conlee hadn’t openly challenged that diagnosis, tho
ugh he clearly doubted it. Max mentally reviewed the details of the New York incident where an accelerated EEE, dubbed Z-4027, had first surfaced in the U.S. It had occurred last February, too, on a hotel elevator and had killed eight people. The accelerant hadn’t been seen before, and Max hoped they weren’t seeing it now. But with all the contaminations lately, only a fool would rule out that they could be. Regardless, in February Conlee had recommended counterterrorism grants and contract awards be issued immediately through the Department of Defense to study the EEE accelerant. President Lance had approved them, and the Special Project had been code-named Z-4027, though as a national security precaution, everyone referred to it as EEE.

  The U.S. could hardly announce that a deadly superbug had been turned loose inside the country when it had no defense against it. Whoever had unleashed this monster would ransom it off on the black market to every terrorist group in the world with an ax to grind, and they would use it against the U.S. Work on a vaccine and a pesticide, since the superbug worked equally well at destroying vegetation, crops, wildlife, and humans, was ongoing. Max blinked hard and fast. “Judge Powell was one of the victims?”

  “Maybe. But he wasn’t in that New York elevator.” Clearly worried, Conlee thumbed the handle on his coffee cup. “If Powell got Z-4027, he contracted it in Carnel Cove. We’ll know as soon as Gabby finishes running the tests on the tissue specimens.”

  The Vice President frowned at the commander. “The man died in February. It’s now August. Why haven’t these tests already been done? Obviously, you’ve had these suspicions Z-4027 was involved.”

  “We couldn’t get authorization to test the tissue, ma’am. Powell’s widow, Elizabeth, refused on religious grounds to give anyone official authorization.”

  “But,” Westford interjected, turning his gaze from Conlee to Sybil, “national security overrides religious grounds.”