The Select (21 page)

Shit!
Why hadn't Kurt called? That son of a bitch! Probably
admiring his reflection in the glass door when he should have been
watching the elevator. Verran vowed to kick his preening butt when
he got back.

But what about now? He was going to
get caught for sure. He resigned himself to that. But what the hell
was he going to say?

The bed moved as something bounced on
it. Not heavy enough for a person. Books? Christ, this was it. He
could feel it coming. He was going to look like an ass. He tried
thinking of some sort of explanation. He had a flashlight—he could
say he was looking for something. But even if he came up with a
remotely plausible story, it still would be all over campus before
morning: Chief Verran found huddling on the floor of a female
student's room. Tightass Alston would have a field day. He'd never
live it down.

Fucking Kurt ought to be
fired for this. Except he knew too much. Well, he'd see to it that
Kurt
never
screwed up again.

But now...now he clenched his teeth
and waited for the scream that would—

A door closed. Water started running
in the bathroom.

Hope burst in Verran's chest like a
flare.

He risked popping his head up and
checking the room. Empty. She was in the john. He didn't hesitate.
He jumped up and hurried toward the front room, gliding his feet.
He made it to the door, grabbed the handle, gave it a slow, careful
twist, then slipped through and into the hall. He closed it very
slowly, very carefully behind him, letting the latch catch with a
barely audible click.

Panting, sweating, his heart pounding
at two hundred miles an hour, Verran checked out the hall. Empty.
He hurried toward the exit, his sweaty palms enclosed in
fists.

Goddam fucking Kurt.

MONITORING

"She didn't come by me,
Lou. I was watching the whole time and I
swear
she never stepped out of those
elevators."

Verran stared at Kurt. They were
facing off in the center of the control room. Elliot was at his
console, munching a sandwich, trying to make like a chameleon and
blend in with the background. Kurt was awful convincing with his
hurt eyes and whiny voice. If Verran himself hadn't been in room
252 a few moments ago, he'd be ready to believe him. A first-class
performance.

"Then who was it who came into
Cleary's room, dropped their books on the bed, and went into the
bathroom? Little Red Riding Hood? The Tooth Fairy?"

"Maybe. But it wasn't the Cleary
broad, I'll tell you that. I never left the security station for a
fucking minute. Not even to take a leak."

"Oh, I believe you were there, all
right. But you were too busy admiring yourself in some piece of
glass to notice her when she passed by."

"Not fair, Lou."

"Admit it, Kurt. You fucked up. And
I'm warning you now, one more screw up and you're out on your
ass."

"Bullshit. I'm not taking the rap for
something I didn't do. Especially since you never forget,
Lou."

That last part was true, at least. He
did have a tendency to carry a grudge. And why not? Guy screws up
and damn near makes him look like an ass and he should just say,
What the hell, shit happens? No way. He wanted to grab a handful of
Kurt's perfect blond hair, rip it out, and feed it to
him.

"Then how did she get past you, Kurt?
Fly out a fifth floor window? Answer me that or—"

"Wait a sec," Kurt said. "I'll prove
it to you." He fairly leapt to his console and began typing
furiously.

"What now?"

"The locks. We issued her a key,
right? Let's see where she used it."

Verran stood over Kurt's shoulder and
peered at his screen. The electronic locks in Science weren't just
for show. They were linked to this control room, not merely for
security, but for monitoring as well. The system kept an ongoing
record of each time one of the locks was opened, not only of the
time and location, but whose key was used.

He watched as Kurt called up a list of
current key holders, highlighted Cleary's number, then plugged it
into an activity search with today's date.

The console beeped, and when the
results popped up on the screen Kurt slammed his palm on the
counter.

"There! What I tell you?" He sprang
from his chair and pointed. "What I fucking tell you?"

Verran stared at the screen. It listed
three locations where Cleary had used her key today. The first was
the fifth floor access slot in the elevator at 3:12 p.m.; the
second the fifth floor west stairwell door; the third the fire door
on Science's west flank at 5:16.

Shit. It hadn't been Kurt at all. The
bitch had gone out the fire door.

So now what? Verran felt like a
jerk.

Only one thing to do: Pull a
Swann.

Good old Ed Swann had been Verran's
direct superior at the Company. Back in the Iran hostage days, he'd
chewed Verran up and down for following the wrong Syrian Embassy
car around D.C. all day. But when it was discovered that he'd given
Verran the wrong license plate number, what did Swann
do?

He turned to Verran and offered his
hand.

Which is just what Verran did
now.

"My apologies, Kurt," he said, keeping
any hint of sheepishness from his tone. "She fooled us both. I
shouldn't have jumped on you like that. I'm sorry."

Kurt stared at him in shock for a few
seconds, then shook his hand.

"Yeah...okay, Lou," he said,
completely disarmed. "I guess if places were reversed I probably
would have thought you'd screwed up too."

Verran smiled—inwardly as
well as outwardly. Kurt had been poised to jump all over him, but
Verran had rocked him back on his heels with a matter-of-fact
apology. The tactic had worked for Swann, and it still worked like
a charm. Kurt had gained the high ground, but the apology made
Verran look like the bigger man—
and
defused a tense situation that might have
affected the usually relaxed working atmosphere of the monitoring
room.

He didn't want
anything
to interfere
with his operation.

He gestured to the screen. "She's a
tricky one. Almost caught me with my hand in the cookie jar. Better
not take anything for granted with that one."

Elliot finally must have thought it
was safe to open his yap. "You able to get the bug,
chief?"

"Of course." He reached into his coat
pocket. "It's right..."

The pocket was empty. He tried the
other side. Empty too. He patted his pants pockets, pulled them
inside out.

"What the hell?"

"What's the matter, Lou?" Kurt
said.

"The bad bug. I know I had
it."

"You lose it?" Elliot said.
"Shit!"

Shit is right, Verran thought as he
pawed through his pockets again. He prayed he hadn't lost it;
there'd be hell to pay if the wrong person found it.

Kurt rummaged in the cabinet under his
console. At first Verran thought he might be looking for the
electronic sweeper, which would do no good since electret mikes
were non-radiating. Instead he came up with a metal detector. He
turned it on, adjusted the controls, and approached
Verran.

"Here. Empty your pockets and I'll
give you the once-over. If it's on you, we'll find it."

After Verran had dumped all his change
on the counter, Kurt began waving the business end of the detector
over his clothing. As the wand worked its way around his body,
Verran watched the indicator needle in the handle. It would start
to move when it crossed something metal. It lay dormant.

"It's not on you, Lou," Kurt said.
"You must have dropped it somewhere."

"How could I drop it?" Verran snapped.
"I distinctly remember putting it in my pocket."

"Well, it ain't in your pocket
now."

Elliot chimed in: "Which means it's
gotta be somewhere between here and the room."

"All right, all right." Verran was
pissed and there was no one to get pissed at but himself. "Let me
think."

Kurt and Elliot stayed mum while
Verran retraced all his moves since switching the bugs. He was sure
he'd put it in his pocket, just before he'd put the chair
back...which was just before he'd heard the key slipping into the
door lock...

Acid surged around Verran's
ulcer.

"Christ," he said. "It must have come
out of my pocket when I hit the floor."

Kurt held up the metal detector. "Want
me to go back to the room and see if I can find it?"

"No," Verran said, glancing at the
clock. "They'll all be wandering back from dinner now. No way you
can get in and out without being seen."

"You can't just leave it
there."

No, they couldn't just leave it there.
The discovery of an electret mike in a dorm room might tip the
first domino. The whole scenario played out in his head: Questions
asked, jokes made, talk about the place being bugged, people
starting to search their rooms...

That one little mike could bring down
the whole operation.

"It's small. If it's in the room it's
on the far side of the bed by the window. Nobody's going to see it
there. We're okay. We'll pick it up tomorrow. No sweat."

No sweat? he thought. Then why am I
shaking like a little old lady inside?

TWELVE

Quinn pinned her ID badge
onto her new lab coat—her
white
lab coat—and turned to Tim.

"How do I look?"

Tim glanced up from the
spare bed in her room where he was stretched out on the spread
reading this morning's Baltimore
Sun
. He had his shoes off and looked
perfectly at home.

"Very scientificky. But I still say
you'd score more points in your running shorts."

"Fine," she said quickly. She didn't
want him starting in on her legs again. "Be like that. While I'm
out toiling to push back the frontiers of medical science, what'll
you be doing?"

"Reading the funnies."

"You going to stay here?"

"Yeah, just for a little while, if you
don't mind. Kevin's sacked out—he was up late studying last
night—and I figured I'd let him sleep."

Quinn shook her head. She didn't mind
at all. In fact she wished he'd stay until she got back. Not just
because she liked having him around; it had been kind of creepy
coming back to the room during the dinner hour yesterday. The floor
had been deserted yet she'd had the weirdest feeling that someone
was lurking about.

"Stay as long as you want. Why not
hang out till I get back and I'll buy you dinner."

"Deal," Tim said and stuck his head
back into the newspaper.

*

Matt Crawford let himself into his New
Haven condo and tossed his notebooks onto the couch. He dropped
into the recliner, turned on the TV with the remote, flipped
through the thirty-four channels in as many seconds, then turned it
off. He sat there and stared at the blank screen.

He was feeling low and not sure why. A
brand new high-rise apartment with a panoramic view of the harbor
and the Sound beyond, luxury furnishings selected and arranged by
the decorator his mother had hired, a fully-stocked fridge, all to
himself.

Maybe that was the problem. Too much
to himself these days. Never anyone around—at least not anyone he
had anything in common with. Unlike The Ingraham, Yale and most
other medical schools had no dorm. Students lived wherever they
could find a place they could afford. Matt's dad had jumped on this
condo not only as a great place for Matt to live, but as a great
investment as well.

He was half right.

At times like this, Matt almost wished
he were at The Ingraham. But then if he were, Quinn would be
somewhere else, sweating her tuition payments as well as sweating
her courses.

He felt his mouth twist into a crooked
smile. "'Tis a far, far better thing I do than I have ever
done."

Quinn's strawberry-blond head with its
wide blue eyes and red cheeks appeared in his mind and suddenly he
had to talk to her. He pulled out his address book and punched in
her number.

A groggy male voice answered on the
third ring.

"'Lo?"

Matt wasn't sure what to say. "Is, uh,
Quinn there?"

"Matt?"

Now he recognized the voice. "Tim?
What are you doing there?"

"Didn't Quinn tell you? We moved in
together. In fact, she's right beside me here in bed."

Matt was struck dumb.

Quinn and Tim...was it
possible? He'd seen them both back in August before they'd left.
Tim was being Tim and Quinn seemed to be barely tolerating him. Ms.
No-nonsense and the goofmeister. A lot could happen in a couple of
months, but this was too much.
Definitely
too much.