“Mm,” Dar murmured encouragingly.
“Jane came over and saw how trashed I was. She offered me a handful of amphetamines and a shot of coke and told me it would get me through the two assignments, no problem.” Kerry took another bite thoughtfully. “I took the drugs from her.”
Dar bit into a cherry and skillfully separated the fruit from its pit.
“And?” She echoed Kerry’s earlier question.
“I came pretty close to taking them,” Kerry admitted honestly.
“And would you believe, it was my father that kept me from it?”
Dar’s eyes opened very wide. “Your father?”
Kerry laughed softly. “He had this speech he used to do about people needing crutches. You know, Dar, that old thing about liberal programs being a crutch for the poor that kept them from really going out and making a living?”
“That’s such a crock of shit,” Dar stated.
“Not the point. It reminded me that I’d chosen to take this double 222
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major, and if I couldn’t handle it, I shouldn’t use an illegal substance as a crutch. Either do it, or don’t do it, but don’t fake it,” Kerry replied. “I wanted to do it on my own, so I could look back and say, yeah, I did that. No one helped me.”
“Hmm.” Dar depitted another cherry and took another bite of her banana nutbread. “Yeah, I see your point,” she admitted. “So, what did you do?”
Kerry thought back to that long night, with its aching struggle she’d spent alone. “I worked through it. I wrote the systems design first, because you need brain cells to do that, and the creative writing paper...” Now a smile crossed her face. “Dar, do you know I still don’t know what I put in that paper? It got me a B, but I have no idea what I wrote.”
Dar chuckled. “Whatever works.” She looked hopefully at the plate. “Any more of that bread?”
Kerry turned her head and eyed her. “What’s it worth to you?”
Dar poked out her lower lip.
“Ah. So you think that’s all it takes to get me to give up this really great tasting nut bread?” Kerry inquired.
Dar gave her a sad look.
“You’re such a brat.” Kerry handed it over. She peeled a banana and settled back as Chino put her chin down on her thigh hopefully.
“Oh no, madam. Last time we gave you fruit, you got sick, remember?”
The phone rang, and Kerry shot a look back at Dar, then she picked up the portable receiver and answered it. “Hello?”
“Ah...yes, is Dar there?”
“Yes, General. Just a minute.” Kerry handed the phone back and half turned, resting her chin on the couch as she listened.
Dar took a breath before she pressed the phone to her ear. “Gerry?”
There was a soft knock at the door. Kerry frowned, then scrambled to her feet and trotted over to it, peeking through the eyehole. “Uh-oh.”
She hesitated, then realized she really had no choice and opened the door. “Hi.”
“Howdy there, kumquat,” Andrew drawled. “Y’all going to let us inside there?”
Oh boy
. Kerry slipped outside instead, closing the door behind her.
DAR GAVE THE condo door a curious look as she listened to the voice on the other end of the line. “Gerry, we’re not equipped for that.”
Dar closed her eyes against the throbbing she could feel growing in her neck. “I have security teams that can protect data, sure, but this is a damn Navy base.”
“I’m aware of that, Dar.” Gerry’s voice was uncharacteristically serious. “The trouble is, we can’t shake a team loose to go down there for at least forty-eight hours.”
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By then, it would be too late. “Damn.”
“John Taylor from the JAG office is on a plane headed your way,”
General Easton stated. “He’ll handle the official part, but if there’s any way your people could protect the evidence—”
“Gerry, people could get hurt,” Dar said. “This isn’t the kind of thing we get involved in. Corporate double-dealing, yeah, but smuggling? I’m responsible for these people, and for their safety.” She paused. “And I don’t know how many bastards are implicated.”
Injudiciously, she shifted, and stifled a gasp. “Shit.”
“Dar?” Gerry spoke quickly. “Are you all right?”
Dar bit her inner lip for a long moment, then exhaled as the sharp pain receded. “Yeah, I’m fine. I just twisted something.”
“Well, listen, my friend, I’ll find some other way of doing this,”
General Easton replied. “If nothing else, we’ll just round up the lot of them and start shaking.”
The unfairness of that, Dar acknowledged, was exactly what she’d been afraid of. “Hang on a minute, Gerry.” She put the phone down and let her head drop back on the pillow, thinking hard about her options.
Was it dangerous?
Be honest, Dar. Sure it is. Look what happened to you last night, and
Chuck was a friend of yours.
Dar rubbed her forehead. This was a military base, full of sailors and Marines, an unknown number of whom could be involved in criminal activity and react with violence.
But...
If she didn’t help, innocent people could and probably would get blamed, and the criminals would probably get away. Dar mulled that over. Question was, how could she help Gerry, help the base, protect the innocent, and keep her people safe at the same time? “Jesus, Paladar,” she murmured to herself. “What the hell do you think you are?”
Finally, she picked up the phone again. “Gerry?”
“What’s that? Oh, still here, Dar.”
“Let me see what I can do.” Dar heard herself say the words, and wondered how she was going to back them up. “Maybe I can get a small volunteer team inside.” Then an idea occurred to her. “With an escort.”
There was a momentary pause. “Dar, do me a favor, eh? Don’t take chances. I want to see your whole family this Christmas. Been waiting for that for a long while now.”
Dar evaded the question. “See if you can contact that JAG staffer, send him over to my office. We’ll get things moving here. Talk to you later, Gerry.” She disconnected and put the phone down on her belly, considering what to do next.
IT WAS A crowded doorstep. Kerry stood effectively blocking the entrance, despite her relatively small size. “Dar’s on the phone,” she 224
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explained. “It’s business.”
“Uh-huh.” Andrew crossed his arms. “Not like we’d know one word in six she was using.” He eyed Kerry curiously. “Something bothering you, kumquat?”
“Me?” Kerry exhaled. “Uh, no, no. I’m fine.”
“How’s Dar?” Ceci asked casually.
Ah.
“She’s... Why are you asking me that?” Kerry temporized.
Dar’s parents exchanged knowing looks. “All right, kumquat.
What’s going on?” Andrew asked. “I knew something wasn’t right.”
Oh boy. “It’s—”
“She get hurt last night?” The question snapped at her.
“Well—”
“That little half-assed bastard hurt my kid?”
“W...y...” Kerry sucked in a breath. “Yes, that’s what happened, but—”
“Son of a biscuit.” Andrew was visibly angry.
Kerry put both hands out in a calming gesture. “It’s not that bad.
We’ve already been to the doctor’s and had tests done. It’s more painful than anything else.”
“You got her to go to the doc’s?” Andrew had both fists planted on his hips. “I am going to whip her behind for not tellin’ us.”
“Dad.” Kerry gave him a pleading look.
Ceci ruffled her silvered-blonde hair. “Some things just never do change, do they?” she murmured. “Keep your BVDs on, Andy. I can remember many a time I had to drag you kicking and yelling to the base hospital.”
Her husband gave her a look. “That is not the point,” he replied with a scowl. “We are not talking about me.”
“No, no.” Ceci patted his arm. “We’re talking about your daughter.
Remember her? The tall, blue-eyed, dark-haired girl with an attitude and more guts than sense?”
“Hey. She’s got a lot of sense,” Kerry objected.
“Exactly,” Ceci remarked.
Andrew scowled harder. “If I’d a known that little—”
“Yes, which is why Dar didn’t tell you.” Ceci circled his arm with both hands. “Now, come on, let’s go in and see the poor kid. See if you can make her feel better instead of yelling at her, hmm?”
“Ah do not like Dar thinking she can’t tell us something like this,”
Andrew replied. “Ah do not like it one bit.” He nudged past Kerry and opened the door. “Son of a biscuit,” he muttered, leaving Kerry and Ceci behind to gaze at each other in amused sympathy.
“He’ll be nice,” Ceci told her. “He talks a good game, but the minute she looks up at him, he’s going to cave in like one of those marshmallows you toast over a Bunsen burner.”
“I know.” Kerry smiled. “I’ve been on the receiving end of those baby blues.” She sighed and opened the door. “But we’ve got a big
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problem. I’m sort of glad you’re here.” She followed Ceci inside. “Dar went looking for trouble down at that Navy base.”
Ceci stopped, watching Andrew kneel at Dar’s side. “And?”
“And she found it,” Kerry replied grimly.
DAR SAT ON the couch, watching her father pace. The brick of cocaine was on the coffee table, and her mother was sitting across from her, staring at it in bemused fascination.
Kerry entered and sat down next to her lover, absently slipping an arm around her back and gently rubbing it. “I know it seems bizarre,”
she stated. “We certainly never expected this.”
Andrew halted, and shook his grizzled head. “Ain’t that saying something.” He walked over and crouched down in front of Dar, putting a hand on her knee. “You know who done all this?”
Dar met his eyes, so very much like her own, and shook her head.
“I haven’t had time to analyze all the data we copied, and a lot of the structure is in the programming.”
“You think Jeff knows?”
Dar shook her head again. “I don’t know. I’d have to check the physical documentation, see what had his signature on it or what passed through his personal authorization.”
“What’s yer gut telling you?” Andrew persisted quietly.
That took some thought. Dar focused her mind inward, reviewing the facts she did know and the assumptions she’d made. She was vaguely aware of Kerry’s arm, warm against her back, and she could feel the slim fingers tracing a soft, irregular pattern against her skin.
It felt really good. She leaned against Kerry a little, and the blonde woman’s embrace tightened as Kerry rested her cheek against Dar’s shoulder.
Dar set the puzzle pieces out and examined them carefully. One, she had a situation that was obviously a long-term plan in progress—
the evidence she’d seen indicated it had been going on for quite some time. Jeff Ainsbright had only been in charge at the base for three months. Not enough time. Dar put a tick in that mental column.
Two, whoever was organizing the situation had technical skills beyond Jeff’s, and the general sense she got of the meticulous arrangements didn’t fit the commander’s personality. Dar put another tick in the column.
Three, with the number of people apparently involved, it would be damn near impossible for the base commander to be blind to the fact that something was going on. Dar put a tick in the opposing column.
Was it possible Jeff Ainsbright thought, as Dar had, that whatever irregularities he noticed in the books and procedures were evidence of some harmless, petty larceny to which he could safely turn a blind eye?
Three months wasn’t a long time to get a handle on a place as big as that 226
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was, after all.
Be honest, Dar, her conscience quietly spoke. If this were just another target acquisition of Alastair’s, would you even be considering the question? Or would you assume the worst?
Dar’s eyes narrowed.
Ceci sat back in her chair and tucked a leg up under herself, watching the silent tableau with fascinated eyes. Her daughter was obviously deep in thought, the blue eyes unfocused and remote, their lids flickering lightly as the mind behind them worked. Ceci had always had respect for the intellect she’d watched Dar develop, despite its edgy restlessness that often made her daughter hard to deal with.
She’d had her child tested, without Andrew’s knowledge, when Dar had come home from grade school one day with a note from her fourth grade teacher informing Ceci that he was giving up on trying to retain Dar’s attention in class. Even then, she’d tested years older than her age, and Ceci had been shocked to find out just how high octane her little fourth-grader’s mind was.
Genius, the doctor had told her, was a two-edged sword. On one hand, Dar’s potential was unlimited. On the other hand, the very fact of that intelligence put Dar on a plateau that separated her at a time in her life when being different was tantamount to a prison sentence.
And there she’d been—someone who’d had a high school education, and had grown up in a family who valued the price of a person’s car more than the depth of their thoughts—trying to deal with decisions on what to do about the whole thing. Ceci had felt so out of her depth raising her child.
Now, watching that same intellect, grown and matured and shaped by Dar’s intense personality into the sharp, incisive force that it was, she wondered if she’d ever have been able to deal with Dar, even if she hadn’t had her so young and been so isolated.
Dar’s head lifted, and the introspective look vanished as she drew in a breath and returned to the here and now. A cool expression settled over her face as she met her father’s patiently waiting gaze. “No.” Dar’s voice was calm. “I don’t think he was involved.”
Andrew’s eyebrows lifted a trifle.
“But I do think he was aware,” Dar went on. “The question is, to what degree.”
Kerry nodded slightly, as though confirming thoughts of her own.
“We won’t know that unless we get all the data.”
“Exactly,” Dar replied. “Call Mark. Have him call in a security team. Make it five or six people, but tell him volunteers only.” She turned and regarded Kerry. “I want them to know where they’re going, and that there’s a possibility of getting hurt. No pressure.” She watched Kerry nod. “We’ll meet at the office.”