Kerney looked up. An unsmiling Demora stood in his open doorway.
Kerney stepped inside and sat down. A new plaque pronouncing Demora a valued member of another civic organization had been added to the wall.
Face time came cheap in Santa Fe.
Demora eased into his desk chair and quickly read Kerney out, using all the politically correct buzzwords and catch phrases of the enabling, empowering administrator. But it boiled down to this: He wanted his chief to be available when he called; he wanted his chief full-time at police headquarters running the department; he wanted closure on the Herrera reassignment, which meant Kerney was to meet with Officer Herrera's lawyer ASAP; he wanted weekly updates on Larry Otero's performance as deputy chief; he wanted to be kept fully informed, not blindsided by phone calls from unnamed sources complaining about things.
Kerney kept his cool by busily scribbling notes. He stopped and said,
"How have you been blindsided, Bill?"
Demora pursed his lips, sat up straight in his chair, and adjusted the drape of his sport coat.
"I'll give you an example: I've been told you're playing favorites, that you personally selected two senior officers for a special training seminar at the law-enforcement academy without going through the proper departmental channels. That kind of behavior doesn't engender confidence in your management style."
"I see. Anything else?"
Demora rocked back in his chair and forced a smile.
"Actually, there is. Over the past several days persistent comments have been made to me about your continuing probe into the successfully concluded FBI investigation of Mrs. Terrell's murder. It seems to me your time could be much better spent ensuring that your detectives bring Father Mitchell's murderer to justice. If I were you, that would be my first priority."
Kerney felt screwed. If the rumor mill had fed Demora information about his end run around the Bureau, that meant his finesse moves had surely failed. He was more vulnerable than he'd realized.
"Who's telling you this?" he asked.
Demora put his hands up to block the question.
"That's not the issue. I told you when you came on board as chief that I make myself available to any and every city employee as well as all the members of this community. My policy works because employees understand that they can speak freely without fear of reprisal, and citizens know their grievances and concerns will receive a fair and quick hearing."
"Tell me, are those voices of concern from inside or outside the department?" Kerney asked, trying to keep sarcasm out of his voice.
"Don't turn this into a witch hunt, Chief Kerney."
"That's not my style."
"Very well. To this point the concerns are internal." Demora's expression softened.
"We're both in the early stages of sorting out our working relationship, Chief. All I'm suggesting here is that we don't let small matters turn into big problems. Both of us need to stay alert and keep each other fully in the loop. Open, free-flowing communication is the key to good management."
Tired of Demora's control-freak bullshit, Kerney stood up.
"I agree with you wholeheartedly, Bill. I'll get everything back on track."
Demora flashed an approving smile.
"That's what I wanted to hear."
Lights were on in Kerney's bedroom and the only vehicle outside the cottage was his truck. He slid out of his unit at the front of the driveway, pulled his handgun, and used the shadows to approach the cottage. He went low under the living room window, flattened himself against the wall, and turned the knob to the front door. It was unlocked.
He quietly pushed the door open, listened, and caught the sound of movement in the bedroom. He eased his way inside, weapon in the ready position, let his eyes adjust to the darkness, and did a visual sweep of the living room. Clear. He took a quick glance into the galley kitchen.
Clear.
He backed into the kitchen, where he had a direct line of sight down the hallway leading to the closed bedroom door. He heard a hinge squeak on the bedroom closet door, followed by a thud as something hit the carpeted floor.
The door opened and light washed down the hallway. Kerney said, "Freeze.
Don't move, or I'll blow you away."
Sara stood backlit in the doorway.
"For God's sake, it's me, Kerney." She hit the hall light switch in time to see Kerney holstering his handgun.
"What are you doing here?"
"It's nice to see you too," Sara snapped.
"Didn't you get my message? I asked you not to come this weekend."
"That's exactly why I'm here. What is going on with you?"
"I'm sorry." Kerney walked to Sara and took her hands.
"I am glad you're here."
She pulled away and gave Kerney a blistering look.
"I don't believe you. Answer my question. Except for a short conversation and some confusing phone messages, I haven't heard from you all week."
"I've been busy, that's all."
"You've never been too busy not to call before. Are we going down the tubes, Kerney? Does the prospect of fatherhood have you scared?"
Kerney shook his head.
"That's not it at all."
"Then talk to me."
"Let's go out, get something to eat, and talk over dinner."
"I'm not hungry. Talk to me now, Kerney. What's going on with you?"
"Sara, its work. Just the job. It's not you, there isn't anything strange going on in my head, and it's not us. Believe me."
"I don't need reassurances, I need conversation. Something's wrong and I want to know what it is."
Kerney put a finger to his lips and pulled Sara into the bedroom. He showed her the telephone tap and the bug in the floor vent.
"Can we talk about it over dinner?" he asked again.
"I haven't eaten all day."
Sara's distressed expression lightened. Her green eyes scanned Kerney's face.
"If we must," she said.
"But you'd better really talk to me, Kerney, otherwise I'm getting a hotel room for the night."
They ordered a light meal at a restaurant favored by locals. Gray headed couples danced to bland renditions of soft-rock tunes played by a trio of old men wedged together on a small platform near the entrance. Muted televisions above the long bar entertained a row of blue-collar workers drinking their way deep into a Friday night. Area politicos sat at the back of the tiny dance floor, talking loudly, and waving to any constituents they knew by sight. Civil servants and their families out for a Friday-night dinner filled circular dining tables adjacent to the bar and ordered up the specials of the day.
Sara listened as Kerney described the chain of events starting with the Terrell murder. He gave her the facts and his carefully thought-out suppositions about the case, and listed the reasons why he believed that military intelligence was heavily involved.
Sara's head swam. She knew Kerney to be an exceptional investigator and not one to exaggerate. But she didn't like what she was hearing.
Everything she knew about the regulations that governed army intelligence activities argued against his hypothesis.
On the one hand, she knew nothing about SWAMI or a secret training base in Colombia. On the other hand, she'd heard about Carnivore through her own contacts and a few brief news stories, and she knew about the controversy surrounding the School of the Americas. She also knew about how army intelligence kept an eye on its own, especially soldiers and civilians in sensitive, highly classified positions.
She bit back a desire to challenge Kerney's suppositions and let him finish up.
He looked at her expectantly, waiting for a response.
"Interesting," Sara said.
"That's it?"
"For now."
"You're usually not so noncommittal."
Sara toyed with her academy class ring.
"I have to think, Kerney. You've thrown a lot at me in a very short time."
"Do
you think I'm overreacting?"
"I don't know."
"I've caught you off-guard."
Sara replied with a weak smile. After a hellish week at the Command and General Staff College, made worse by draining bouts of morning sickness, she'd come to Santa Fe concerned and worried about Kerney.
Now that she knew more, it meant the timing was wrong to talk to him about the strong maternal feelings that were shifting her focus away from the army and making her yearn for a real home life.
They had yet to resolve the issue of whether or not Kerney would join her at her next permanent duty station or remain in New Mexico. She doubted he'd willingly transform himself into a full-time military dependent. So in theory, she'd be married and a mother. But in practice she'd be raising a child as a single parent, with occasional visits from a distant, part-time husband. The prospect held little appeal.
Her next assignment after school would most likely be a fast track staff position at the command level that would require twelve hour days and seven-day weeks.
She'd known women officers who'd left husbands and children behind for three-year assignments. And women who, for the sake of their children, had branch-transferred to jobs that cut short their advancement and froze them at their current rank until retirement.
Women like Sara, who'd been promoted ahead of schedule only to resign from active duty because their family life was suffering.
She reached out and took Kerney's hand.
"Let me think about it some more."
They drove home in silence. Kerney was tense, on guard, his eyes searching the rearview mirror. She believed he was being watched, followed, and spied on, that he'd been threatened with consequences if he didn't back off on the investigation. Over dinner he'd sidestepped her question about the risks he was taking with assurances that everything was under control. That, she didn't believe.
She decided she needed do more than just think about what Kerney had told her.
"I want to review your case material," she said.
"You're not part of this. It's not your problem."
"I'm not asking for permission, Kerney."
Kerney shot her a sidelong glance. A stern expression greeted him.
"Fine. You can look at it when we get home."
"I'm not staying with you tonight."
Kerney slowed the truck and gave Sara a long look.
"Why not?"
"Because I want to draw my own conclusions."
"You don't believe me?"
"Did I say that?" Sara asked in an icy tone.
"Take whatever you want, Colonel."
"Don't be sarcastic, Kerney."
Kerney pulled up at the cottage.
"Are we fighting?"
Sara jumped out of the truck.
"Yes, but for now it's just a skirmish."
Chapter 12
Sara booked a four-hundred-dollar suite at a downtown hotel, called for a cab, and hung up.
"I can give you a ride," Kerney said.
"Weren't we supposed to spend the weekend looking at some property?"
"We were."
"What's it going to take to get you to move out of here into something decent?"
"Enough free time to do it," Kerney said.
"You've got about six months," Sara said, patting her still-flat stomach.
"This baby isn't going to wait any longer than that."
"We won't be living here when the baby comes."
"Where will we be, I wonder." She made a dismissive gesture.
"Never mind."
Kerney followed her into the bedroom.
"Is that what you wanted to talk about?"
"Not now." Sara's gaze skimmed across the clutter of paper, files, and tapes, her eyes frost-green.
"We'd be up all night and I'm too tired for a marathon."
"Should I come to the hotel in the morning?" Kerney asked as he sorted through case notes and materials, passing pertinent items to Sara.
"Call me first," Sara said.
He gave her field notes, progress reports, document inserts, lists of names, lists of informants, and duplicates of Bobby Sloan's investigative reports.
"Perhaps we could meet at the hotel restaurant for breakfast," he said.
"I don't have much of an appetite in the morning, these days," Sara said.
"Just call, okay?"
He gave her Sloan's summaries of the videotape contents, his own chronological event log, crime-scene photographs, and transcripts of recorded conversations.
"Okay."
He pointed at the audio- and videotapes. Sara shook her head and zipped everything into her travel bag.
The taxi driver sounded his horn.
"Let me send the cab away," Kerney said. He passed her one of the new cell phones and a new number to use to get in touch.
"I'll take you to the hotel."
Sara grabbed her coat and stuck the cell phone in a pocket.
"I don't want you to. I'll see you tomorrow."
Kerney watched her walk out the door, wondering what they were really at odds about. He decided it was a bit of everything: the investigation, the baby, the marriage, the army, the cheerless cottage he lived in, their busted weekend plans.
Sara confirmed his observation when he heard the taxi door slam shut.
Two blocks from the Santa Fe Plaza, in the basement of the federal courthouse, Tim Ingram, just back from El Paso, reviewed transcripts of police radio transmissions and phone calls made to and from the Santa Fe Police Department.
Nothing appeared to be out of the ordinary.
Once a bomb shelter during the early days of the cold war, the basement had been converted to a sophisticated listening post that targeted suspected foreign agents working at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, thirty-five miles away. Within recent years a British Army major on detached duty at the lab and a visiting Israeli physicist had been uncovered trying to stick their hands into Uncle Sam's cookie jar of nuclear weapon secrets.
Four operators sat at consoles in the sealed room. Two worked the SWAMI data that flowed into computers from phone lines, cell phones, and wireless Internet devices. Much like the NSA computers, SWAMI automatically scanned for millions of key words and phrases and immediately downloaded any that were programmed for intercept. The current operating program was case specific to the Terrell-Mitchell containment operation.
A woman manned a Carnivore unit that tapped into the Santa Fe Police Department's on-line computers and retrieved electronic communications.
The fourth technician monitored vehicle tracking devices planted on key police department units, watched real-time video of the front of Kerney's house, and taped audio transmissions from external remote listening stations and the fixed bugs at the police department, Kerney's residence, and the state police chief's office.
Every person on duty was a member of a team of military intelligence specialists who'd been handpicked as watchers, listeners, and monitors.
When SWAMI launched in three months as a private corporate enterprise, every illicit, suspicious, or fraudulent electronic or wire transfer monetary transaction flowing out of Colombia would be tracked and either seized or frozen.
Because SWAMI could burrow into the data banks of financial institutions around the world, it would violate international laws, compacts, and trade agreements, and intrude on the sovereignty of nations.
Revolutionary in design and concept, SWAMI would also capture sensitive economic and financial data from foreign governments and multinational corporations. That capacity virtually guaranteed long-term continued American domination of technological intelligence gathering.
Ingram watched the videotape of Sara Brannon's arrival at Kerney's house, caught on camera by a transmitter placed on a neighboring house.
He watched Kerney's cautious approach and entry. He listened to the tape recordings of their conversations, including their after-dinner exchange in Kerney's truck that had been picked up by a mobile uni
t trailing a kilometer behind the vehicle.
Tim shook his head at the thought of Sara Brannon's involvement in the case.
With her army credentials and contacts, she just might be able to break through the Trade Source and APT Per forma corporate shields. While that wouldn't get her to the SWAMI secrets, it was unacceptable nonetheless.
Ingram knew Brannon personally. A recent blurb in the West Point alumni magazine had reported she'd been the first in their class to make lieutenant colonel and earn the highly coveted Distinguished Service Medal for exceptionally meritorious service while serving in Korea.
Elaine Cornell, aka Special Agent Applewhite, was a member of the same graduating class. He wondered how Applewhite would react to the news of Brannon's arrival.
He went to a SWAMI console, where one of the operators had locked into Sara's Internet server. The screen rolled data in from Saras laptop.
Information about Cornell from the West Point Association of Graduates Web site scrolled across the screen. It confirmed her cover as a resigned officer now serving as a special agent with the FBI. The next name Sara entered was his own.
Ingram clamped his mouth shut. How in the hell had she got onto him?
He was supposed to be embedded deep enough to be under anyone's radar.
Who had made him, and how? He had to report the breach.
Tim ran over the current body count in his mind. Too many had died in an operation that was supposed to be bloodless. Kevin Kerney they and Charlie Perry would soon join them. Would the brass be willing to neutralize Sara Brannon, too, one of their own?
Under the guise of national security it had been done to others before, quietly and away from public scrutiny. There were any number of ways to wind up accidentally dead in the military: training exercise disasters, chopper crashes, getting washed off the deck of a ship in choppy seas.
He wanted to call Sara, a woman he liked and respected, and tell her to get her butt on a plane back to Fort Leavenworth right away. But that wasn't possible.
He watched as names he didn't recognize got entered into government Web-site search engines from Sara's laptop.
"Who the hell are those people?" he asked the operator.
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