Into the Fire

by Elizabeth Moon

  “When did it arrive?”

  “Corporal Bannister logged it in—Molly, what’s the time on the log?”

  “1730, Sergeant Major.”

  “And what time did you arrive today?”

  He should have seen that on the front desk log. “About 1115; I signed in here at 1117.”

  A shrill whine came from her office. One of the techs had gone in and turned on the security cylinder. “Sir, it’s showing a serious breach.”

  “How serious?”

  “Multiple sources: audio and video.”

  “Hold where you are; don’t touch anything else.” He turned to Morrison. “Sergeant Major, I’m going to suggest you leave the area; a serious breach means we have to do a forensic search in your office and in both offices on either side. You’ll be out of your office for hours—any personal gear you’ll need?”

  “Sir, I should secure the routine paperwork that’s on my desk. If your tech could bring it out, Corporal Gorse can file it, or we can lock it in the black box.”

  “That’s not a good idea. Someone’s seriously interested in your office—and maybe others—and I do not consider this box secure enough for the rest of the weekend. Did you check it with your cylinder?”

  “Check the box? No, sir, it never occurred to me.”

  “Wouldn’t have occurred to me without cause, either, Sergeant Major.” He turned to the door. “Tim, bring all those papers on the sergeant major’s desk, and her security cylinder, out here.” To Morrison he added, “If your cylinder and mine find that the box is compromised, we’ll have to turn this entire building upside down to find out if others are. And if it’s just you, we’ll have to find out why.” He pulled out his own cylinder and passed it around the classified safe. “Nothing so far. Would you open it please, Sergeant Major?”

  “Sir, if you will stand over there.”

  “Of course.”

  Morrison opened the safe and removed the blue envelope, still with its seal intact, and left the safe open. The major reached his cylinder into the box; it lit up.

  “This is very disturbing,” he said. “I’m afraid I’ll have to keep you and your corporal awhile longer, Sergeant Major. We need to get that”—he nodded at the blue envelope in her hand—“to a secure location, but if safes are being tapped—I think it’s time to call my boss.”

  “Sir,” Morrison said, “with all due respect, is it not likely that the orders to add surveillance to my office—and perhaps others—came from higher up in Security?”

  He looked startled for a moment. “That’s—no. You’re right. Let me think. The safety of that document is paramount. You cannot take it out of the building, but I am certain that the central Administration safe is not bugged, and even if it is, all you’re going to do is put that document inside. I will call for an escort; you and your corporal will take it there, sign it in, and you will take the other paperwork to—do you have a safe at your residence?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. You can take those out of the building to work on at home. We are going to tear your office apart this weekend and hope to have it ready by 0900—what time do you usually come in?”

  “0730, sir, but I can call ahead.”

  “Do that.” He held up his hand, accessing his skullphone, murmured his message to the Administration central office. “Someone will be down shortly. If you and Corporal Gorse will clear this area of anything you need—”

  “My jacket, sir,” Morrison said. Her jacket and Gorse’s both hung in the small closet to one side of the office. Gorse also had a sack.

  “My galoshes, sir,” Gorse said, when Hong’s brows lifted. “The forecast said it might rain later, and I’m on duty until 1530 today.” She opened the sack and revealed a pair of shiny pink galoshes.

  “They’re not regulation, Corporal,” Morrison said before the major could say anything.

  “I know, Sergeant Major. But they’re really waterproof and it’s a long way from the junior NCO parking area to my quarters, and my service galoshes leak. I do have a coat in the car that covers my uniform…”

  Stifling an urge to laugh, Morrison said, “You need to learn how to find and mend the holes in your service galoshes. There’s some really good sealant—comes in a tube with a blue, red, and yellow label—”

  “StickMagic,” one of the techs put in.

  “Thank you,” Morrison said. “I’d forgotten the name. You can get it just about anywhere, and it will hold maybe a half year before you have to replace it. It also works on the shoulder seams of your uniform raincoat.”

  “Thank you, Sergeant Major…Tech Waldstrom.”

  A half hour later, after depositing the blue envelope in the safe upstairs, Morrison and Gorse headed out the front door. No rain, but the bright morning had clouded over. Down the passage on which Morrison’s office was located, techs in white coveralls and bright-yellow gloves were busily doing whatever forensic techs did.

  Morrison drove home, let Ginger into the apartment, and talked to her as she might to a person, if she’d been the gabby sort. Her real target was the additional bug Ginger had found. “You would not believe, pup, what happened this morning. It has to be one of the weirdest days in my career, even weirder than the day Corporal Trum got high on whatever that was and came into work carrying a harpoon as a sidearm and wearing nothing but beach shoes and that ridiculous hat. Highlight of my early career for sure.” Corporal P. Trum’s court-martial transcript had gone the rounds of Land Force III Corps to hysterical laughter and was still read aloud to favored juniors by their sergeants. She grinned as she thought of it. Old Colonel Barringer had included every semi-relevant fact.

  “Someone’s bugged my office at work. Not the usual, either. Luckily, I’m the steel-rod-up-the-rear sergeant major my reputation suggests—stop, it, Ginger. No dogs surfing the counter! So I always do check my office for bugs, even though there’ve never been any, and this time the thing lit up and whined. Yes, girlie pup, just like you.” She had her late lunch in the skillet by then and bent to ruffle Ginger’s ears, then wiped down the counter and washed her hands. “And so, dog, what have you been doing all this time while your mom worked, other than sleeping and pooping? Granted, I’m home early. Got groceries yesterday…maybe I should go back over to Kris’s and let her stab you for a few cells. Don’t worry, you won’t have to carry a bunch of pups around. That’s what surrogates are for. Or—stay home and do paperwork. Yeah, I’d better do that after lunch.”

  And think about whether to tell the major about the extra bugs at her house. She finished the remaining paperwork in less than an hour, with Ginger’s head weighing her left foot down. “All right, pup. That’s done. Want to go for a run?”

  Ginger was on her feet in an instant, tail wagging.

  “Yeah, you’re ready. Let me just put these things away.”

  Outside, the clouds were thicker but no rain yet. Morrison walked two blocks briskly, then started jogging, waving at other NCOs she knew in the neighborhood. She knew the distances in all directions, and set out on a modest 5K route. She was just past the second kilometer when her skullphone pinged.

  “Sergeant Major? This is Major Hong—I tried your residence—”

  “Sorry, Major. I finished the other paperwork and went out for a run with my dog. Do I need to come in to the office?”

  “No—I’d like to come by your residence and see if there’s any…uh…security problem there. I’ve got a full team working on the offices near yours as well as yours and—I’d prefer to tell you personally.”

  “Of course, sir. You have the address.”

  “Yes. I’ll be there in ten.”

  “Sir. I might still be a block away.”

  “That’s all right.”

  She looked at Ginger. “We’d better take the shortcut, pup. I promise, I’ll give you a longer run later.”

  A small park—retention pond, grass verge, benches and an exercise set on one side—connected the street she was running
on to her own, making dead ends of the street in the middle. She cut through, ignored by the few people in it, though not by one woman’s small dog. Ginger ignored the dog, switching to a lope as Morrison increased her pace.

  When she reached her own street and turned onto it, she had several blocks more to go. The exercise felt good. She had to stop at one corner for a car on the cross street, but jogged in place. Then on—and ahead she could see a white van that was near, if not at, her duplex. Hong, with his team? She ran on. Another white van passed her and pulled up behind the first. That was odd. Why would it take two sets of techs to check out her residence?

  As she came to her own block, she slowed to a walk. Arriving out of breath wasn’t a good idea. Now she heard yelling, and a group of men emerged from her driveway, shouting and gesturing. One of them grabbed another’s arm; the second man pulled free, swung at the first. Then it was a melee, four—or five?—men yelling and fighting. She had an answer for that. With the full volume and authority of a sergeant major, she bellowed at them. “Stop that now.”

  They paused, looked around, stared in her direction, then two of the men bolted for the first van. Morrison slipped the leash off Ginger and said, “Hush, dog!” Ginger charged, a red-gold streak, and hit one of the men solidly in the side. He staggered and fell. Morrison yelled “How many times?” at Ginger, and the dog swerved after the second man as he dodged around the van. She heard a cry and assumed Ginger had hold of him.

  “What is going on here?” she said in a slightly lower tone. Her neighbors had all come outside by now, standing outside their doors.

  “That’s what I want to know, Sergeant Major.” Major Hong, his uniform jacket pulled awry and what looked to be a split lip and a rising bruise on his right cheekbone, limped a little as he walked toward her. “The men in that van”—he pointed to the first one—“were inside your house when we arrived. I asked who they were, what they were doing, and they pushed past us to get out of your quarters. My team and I tried to stop them, but we’re cyber security, not a military police riot squad.”

  “Get off me, you brute!” came from the other side of the van.

  “Hey, you! Quit hitting the sergeant major’s dog!” Master Sergeant Rusty Rustowsky, from across the street, had come as far as the curb. “Need some help over there, Sergeant Major?”

  “Please—if you could take that man into custody—” She turned to Major Hong. “Excuse me, sir; I’m going to get my dog back on leash and see that that man does not get away.”

  “Go ahead.” He swiped at his lip. “I think my guys have the other one.”

  They did, though not in any hold approved by military police. Hong fished out his comunit. “I’m calling the MPs.”

  When she came to the far side of the van, Rustowsky had his man braced against the side of the van, feet wide, hands spread high. “Good dog,” she said to Ginger, and slipped the leash back on. “Very good dog.”

  “She can hit ’em when she wants to,” Rustowsky said. “Not just a pretty girl.”

  “She can indeed,” Morrison said. “Major Hong has called the MPs—”

  She could just hear the siren in the distance. Ginger pressed against her leg. “I’d better go put Killer here in her run; I don’t know what they’ve done to the place inside.”

  “I’ll keep him here.” Rustowsky, not quite as tall as Morrison, was the senior NCO boxing champ and a combatives instructor. Morrison led Ginger back around the van, where one of Major Hong’s techs had handed him something to wipe the blood off his chin.

  “I’m putting my dog up, Major,” Morrison said as she walked past him. He nodded. She found the special snack box for Ginger, put the dog in the run and tossed her two of the treats, then went back down the drive, where the dying howl of the siren indicated the MPs were arriving. By now everyone’s front door was open.

  The moment the MPs got out of their van, Major Hong, his techs, the other two techs, and Rusty Rustowsky all started talking. Morrison said nothing, but watched carefully. Another MP van pulled up. Morrison’s neighbor on the other side called over to her. “Sergeant Major, what did you do?”

  “Nothing—I took my dog for a run and when I came back this was happening. I knew Major Hong, so when I saw him go down I let Ginger after the others.”

  “Your dog is a trained guard dog?” one of the MPs from the second van asked.

  “And so listed on her license.”

  Morrison’s steady, unemotional tone seemed to be getting through to the MP. “You do know it’s illegal to set your dog on someone—”

  “Unless they are committing a crime, or resisting arrest. Major Hong had told them to stop. I told them to stop. Apparently Major Hong had reason to believe they might have been committing a crime. So I told my dog to hold them. That one—” She nodded toward the van now holding the first prisoner. “He was kicking and hitting my dog. Master Sergeant Rustowsky saw that and intervened.”

  “Your dog is tagged?”

  “Yes. Her registration number is CD-G-2973.”

  “I’ll need to get that off her collar, or is she chipped?”

  “Both. Come on back.”

  Ginger walked up to the fence, now clearly lame, and whined. “Up, pup, this man needs to read your collar.” Ginger started to rear up, then winced and went back down. “Hurt, girl?” Was that blood on the paw that just touched the ground? She turned to the MP. “I’ll lead her out, just a moment.”

  “You can’t go in yet,” he said as she started for the side door. “Forensics is coming.”

  “There’s no gate,” Morrison said. “Regulations.”

  “I’ll read her tag later. Come with me.”

  Major Hong had straightened his uniform; the bruise on his face was more obvious now, but his split lip had quit bleeding.

  By the time Forensics had come and gone, the MPs had turned the investigation over to another officer, a captain, who immediately called his boss. Smart move, Morrison thought, though she didn’t say so. She could feel Hong’s anger from a meter away, and no captain wanted to “investigate” an angry major with a split lip. Two hours had passed; the light was fading under the clouds, and the temperature had dropped.

  “Can we move this inside?” Morrison asked. “It’s getting chilly out here.”

  “I’m sure when Colonel Peleu gets here, he’ll do that, Sergeant Major, but he said to stay put.”

  “Yes, sir,” Morrison said. She glanced at Hong and let the shift of her weight from one foot to the other convey sympathy. He relaxed a trifle.

  Colonel Peleu wasted no time on the way, and soon seven people were crowded into Morrison’s small front room. Peleu turned out to be a quick, efficient analyst. He asked a few pertinent questions the MPs had missed, and then turned to Hong. “Major Hong, what was the purpose of your coming to the sergeant major’s quarters? Was the sergeant major under suspicion?”

  “No, sir,” Hong said. “She had discovered earlier today that her office security had been compromised in her absence, while she was on remote duty.” He went on to give the details, including what he’d found was wrong during his team’s examination of her office and those on either side. “So I called the sergeant major, who said she was out on a run with her dog, and told her I wanted to check out her residence as well. I don’t know why someone would be hacking her security.”

  “Sergeant Major, do you know why someone would be hacking your security?”

  “No, sir, not with any certainty. I was on a classified mission, whose results are Level Two classified. It’s possible someone wanted to find out what that was about.”

  “You can’t tell me.”

  “No, sir, not without authorization from Colonel Nedari.”

  “I think Colonel Nedari needs to be notified of this problem,” Peleu said.

  “I sent a message to Colonel Nedari, suggesting he have his own security tested,” Hong said.

  “Excellent. Any response?”

  “No, sir.”

/>   “I believe the colonel said something about taking his family to Falls Park today,” Morrison said.

  “Ah.” Peleu jotted something down. “He may have turned his personal com off, if he took a day’s formal leave. He’ll get his message when he comes back, then.”

  “I still need to go over this house,” Hong said. “And Forensics needs to go over that other van—they didn’t while they were here.”

  “It will be towed to the main lab,” Peleu said. “If you’d like one of your techs to consult, that’s fine.”

  “If those two were part of the hacking team, they might have tried to remove equipment they put in here,” Hong said. “It might be in that van.”

  “Thank you,” Peleu said. A little edge to his voice told Morrison that he’d already thought of that. Hong took the hint, she noticed.

  Peleu finished up quickly and turned as he was leaving. “Sergeant Major, I’d appreciate it if you’d stay in contact range; were you planning to leave base in the next twenty-four hours?”

  “Sir, my dog’s lame; I know that man kicked her and hit her, and I want to take her to the vet when this is over with.”

  “Oh—of course. Who’s your vet?”

  “Off base. Kris Stevenson at Petsational. Depending on the diagnosis I might be there several hours.”

  “Not a problem. In fact, there’s no reason to confine you to base; you didn’t create this mess. Just let me know if you want to go beyond Port Major, or if you’re assigned another trip.”

  “Yes, sir. If they want me to work downtown—if the work on my office on base takes too long—I do have a downtown apartment. The address is on file, of course, but I could give it to you now.”

  “On file’s fine. I need to get this organized and see if Colonel Nedari has shown up from wherever he went. Good day, Major Hong, Sergeant Major.”

  Morrison looked at Major Hong. “Sir, I would like to go out and check my dog.”