Authors: Vicki Hinze
“I remember.” Feet spread, Jarrod crossed his chest with his arms. “His metal rank reflected off the ceiling.” A strange look rippled across Jarrod’s face. Dread and regret chased it. “It was Foster.”
“Yes, it was.” Sara clasped Jarrod’s hand, knowing he was hurting.
Shank let out a sigh laced with resignation. “That proves it, then.”
“What it proves,” Sara interjected, “is that Foster is aware and involved. No more, and no less.”
Jarrod stilled, stiffened. “He’s under deep cover.”
“Could be.” Sara nodded, not at all surprised Jarrod had followed her line of thought. “Under deep cover and playing out his own hidden agenda.”
Jarrod looked down at her, enlightenment shining in his eyes. “Which is why he wanted you involved. To insure his cover.”
Shank caught the drift of the conversation. “The AID doesn’t know he’s involved Sara in this?”
Sara gave Shank a negative nod. “His missions worldwide would be in jeopardy. The security risks would render them worthless. Would he chance that?”
Jarrod paced a short path, strode back and forth, three steps in each direction. “No, this isn’t right. He’d never put his men in additional jeopardy. We’re off-base here.” On the fourth turn, Jarrod stopped. “You’re his out-of-the-system witness, Sara. You’re Foster’s alibi.”
Sara weighed the possibility: It fit. She could be Foster’s protection and proof, just as her copies of Fontaine’s forged peacock-blue notes were her protection and proof that Braxton existed.
Shank toed the grass. “This would make sense if one of the early patients were one of Foster’s men. Otherwise, how would he have become aware of this?”
Sara looked at Jarrod and saw his almost imperceptible nod. “That’s exactly how Foster found out. My brother-in-law, David, is Fred. He worked for Foster.”
“Then why not call in the IG?” Shank asked. “Why not follow the normal procedure of guilty until proven innocent?”
“Because Dr. Owlsley isn’t military,” Jarrod said. “He’s a civilian. Without hard evidence, Foster couldn’t touch him.”
Shank digested that. “So Foster’s either working with them and now weaseling out so he doesn’t jeopardize his star, or he’s attempting to get hard evidence to take Owlsley and Fontaine down.”
“I vote he’s gathering evidence.” Jarrod cocked his head. “That’s the only sensible reason I can see for Foster involving Sara in this. Foster’s under deep cover, and he’s involved. But not in selling the technology. He’s planning on buying it. That’s the only way he can be certain of keeping the technology safe.”
Sara had doubts about that deduction. “Where would he get the money to do that?”
“He inherited a fortune when his father died, and his wife, Rebecca, is independently wealthy. Stock market.” Shank darted her gaze from Sara to Jarrod. “So he’s under deep cover, and he’s afraid he’s so deep he can’t get out? Is that what you’re thinking?”
“Exactly,” Jarrod said with a nod. “He needed someone he could count on to help him.”
“Help him?” Sara guffawed. “I despise the man, and he knows it. He wouldn’t look to me to help him, Joe.” Sara shifted on the wheelchair’s seat. “Well, I did despise him,” she amended. “Now, I’m not sure what to think of him.”
“Regardless, you stayed on his back, Sara.” Jarrod stepped closer to her chair. “For five years, you gave the man hell, demanding information on David. You never let him intimidate you, you never let up on him, and you never quit.”
“I never succeeded in getting that information, either.”
“Didn’t you?” Jarrod smiled. “Sara, you do now know exactly what happened to David.”
She did. Sara frowned. “Okay.” She wasn’t sure she believed this, but a strong case could be built. “So I’m his protection and proof that he’s on the right side of this.”
“Or his patsy.” Shank shoved her hands in her pockets. “You could be no more than a front he put into place to cover his ass if he got squeezed.”
“That’s possible, too,” Sara conceded. It didn’t feel quite right, but then she wasn’t feeling quite right. Now wasn’t a great time to make decisions or deductions based on instinct and intuition. “There is one person who will know. We need to get to her to find out the truth.”
“Her?” Shank sounded baffled.
“Who?” Jarrod asked, sounding no more clear on Sara’s thinking than Shank.
“Rebecca.” Sara looked from one to the other of them. “Who would better know the man’s motives than his wife?”
Jarrod stared at Sara. “We’ve got to get out of Braxton—without Fontaine knowing it, or he and Owlsley will call off the buy and bury the evidence so deep an archaeologist couldn’t find it. And we need to get to the AID for help. This has gone too far and, as much as it kills me to say it, we don’t
know
Foster’s position in this. Even with whatever Rebecca tells us, we can’t be sure. Alone, we’re leaving too many people in jeopardy. We need help.”
“We could contact Foster.” Even to Sara that suggestion sounded hollow and foolish. “Ask him straight out what his role in this is.”
“We can’t,” Jarrod countered. “He’s acted outside AID perimeters. He’ll sacrifice himself and his star and reschedule the buy to save the country. He reschedules, and we risk Owlsley and Fontaine finding another buyer.”
“Reasonable,” Shank says. “So who in AID do we trust? Anyone we go to is going to consider Foster guilty as hell.”
“I’m not sure I don’t believe he’s guilty as hell.” Sara rubbed at her temples. A dull throb ached behind her eyes.
“First, we’ll call Donald O’Shea.” Jarrod gripped the handles on Sara’s wheelchair and began rolling it back toward the building.
“Who’s he?” Sara asked.
Shank answered. “Foster’s aide at the Pentagon.”
“Is that a wise move?” Sara saw serious flaws. “What if this O’Shea contacts Foster? What if O’Shea’s been to IWPT? Owlsley profiles everyone. Who’s safe and who can be turned into an assassin with a keyword or a trigger?’
“I’ve considered this, Sara.” Jarrod began pushing the chair back toward the building. “O’Shea is our only choice.”
Sara supposed O’Shea was their only choice. He would likely be loyal to Foster. Hopefully, that would encourage him to keep his mouth shut.
And if he didn’t?
Everyone at Braxton would be canceled.
Shank got Beth out of the way,
and Sara ran interference, giving Jarrod the all-clear sign.
He left her office and went to the nurses’ station. Using the secure line, he phoned O’Shea. “Donald, I need help at the local level. Security Condition Delta.”
Sara swallowed hard. Delta. Level four. Highest priority in security circles, reserved for the most severe threats.
“No,” Jarrod said into the phone. “No one in the group, but someone in the loop on Red Haze.”
Jarrod listened, glanced at Sara. She checked the hallways, then nodded that everything was fine.
“Eglin. Pensacola NAS is closer, but I highly recommend keeping it in-house.”
He meant,
within the Air Force
, Sara thought.
“Captain Marshall Grant.
Yeah
, I know him. Eglin. Thanks.” Jarrod paused, then added, “Cancel Lieutenant Kane’s security clearance and get an arrest warrant on him. He’s compromised. Hold off serving him for forty-eight hours.” Jarrod listened, then added, “Oh, really?”
Sara’s antennae perked up, and she lifted a questioning brow in Jarrod’s direction.
He raised the mouthpiece and whispered, “Grant got Kane booted out of the AID program. Deficient ratings. He’s got an axe to grind.”
And Kane was grinding that axe by getting himself assigned to IWPT where he could get involved on the opposite side of Operation Red Haze. “Does Kane have a problem with Foster?” Sara asked in a whisper. “Or did Foster recruit him?”
Uncertainty clouded Jarrod’s eyes. “We’d better prepare for either possibility,” Jarrod said, then talked into the phone. “Code Nine, Donald.”
That, Sara couldn’t decipher.
“I’m sure,” Jarrod said. “He could be sacrificed.”
Foster, Sara deduced. Don’t tell him, or he could be sacrificed. Jarrod didn’t mention that Foster could sacrifice himself, Sara noted. Was that intentional? Or was Jarrod’s faith in his boss wavering?
In a way, it bothered her that Jarrod’s faith could waver. By his own admission, Jarrod had trudged through hell with Foster hundreds of times, and no doubt he had trudged through it hundreds more times under Foster’s orders. But then she too had doubts. How could she hold Jarrod to a standard she couldn’t meet herself?
She couldn’t. They didn’t know the truth about Foster. That was the bottom line. Jarrod not questioning Foster would be the most dishonorable act of all. It would mean he had put the man before the good of the country. That would be easier on Jarrod as a human being, but he would hate himself for it. It would cost him his self-respect. And, she confessed, it would cost him her respect.
No one man, no matter how important and respected and valued, could rate more important or valued than the country. That would be the ultimate act of betrayal to its ideals and values, and to all that had been sacrificed over the centuries to provide and protect them by men like David and Lou.
Jarrod hung up the phone, rounded the edge of the desk, and joined Sara. “Ready?”
“We’re leaving now?” She’d only gotten rid of the IV an hour ago.
“We’ve got a lot to do between now and the meeting in D.C., Sara. We can’t do it here. Are you up to traveling?”
Picking up on his worry and his skepticism, she nodded. “I’m a hundred percent.”
Clearly relieved, he motioned toward the stairwell. “Let’s go.”
“Joe, they’re not going to just let us walk out of here.”
He clasped her hand. “I know that, honey. While you were recouping and sleeping off the effects of the drugs, Shank and I developed a plan
. . .
”
Awaiting Koloski’s nod, Shank peeked around the corner.
He stood talking with William, outside the Plexiglas barrier at the Isolation nurses’ station.
“Something’s wrong,” Koloski told William. “Joe’s pulse is weak and thready, his skin is clammy, and he’s not verbally responsive. The man’s in real trouble, and I have no idea what’s wrong with him.”
William reached behind the barrier, hit the
,
buzzer to open both doors, then headed toward the heavy metal ones. Koloski nodded at Shank and then followed William.
Jarrod lay waiting. When the door opened, he prepared. William rushed across the pads, and Jarrod attacked, slamming a fist into William’s stomach. Koloski grabbed William from behind, Jarrod from the front, and Shank hurried in, syringe poised and ready.
“Let go of me,” William shouted. “What are you idiots doing?”
“You’ve got Reaston’s flu.” Jarrod immobilized William’s arm, exposed his inner elbow, then squeezed his upper arm. The vein bulged, and Jarrod nodded at Shank. She inserted the needle, then emptied the syringe.
William’s knees folded, and Koloski and Jarrod let him slide to the floor. Shank and Koloski began stripping off his clothes. Jarrod shrugged out of his pajamas and put on a pair of jeans and a blue shirt, while Shank and Koloski put the pajamas on William.
Shank buttoned the last shirt button. “Position his back to the camera so his face isn’t visible.”
Koloski shifted William on the floor pad. “How long will he be out?”
“About four hours,” Shank said.
“That’s not long enough.” Jarrod tucked the tail of his shirt into his jeans. “The meeting isn’t until tomorrow.”
“We can handle that,” Shank said. “Koloski, put him on a four-hour injection schedule, but give the first two every three and a half hours, just to be safe.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Koloski stared down at William. “There’s going to be hell to pay when he comes out of this.”