Murdock went over and over what they knew about the North Koreans assault on the United States of America. He charted it and evaluated it and grouped the acts and separated them, and in the end came up with nothing. It could have been run by one master control, or six or eight different groups could have been launched, funded, given the know-how and weapons, and told to go and do as much damage as they could. He drove home with the start of a headache.
When he pulled into his parking slot at the apartment, he saw lights on in his second-floor unit. For a moment he tensed. No, if the Ks were coming for him, they wouldn’t turn on the lights. Either he had left them on when he left the last time, or someone had come for a visit.
He ran up the steps, pulled open the front door, and found Ardith Manchester a step away. She wore a pure white silk blouse and a sleek, tight-fitting black skirt. Her long blond hair hung over one shoulder and framed her beautiful face.
“Hi, sailor, welcome home,” she said with the sly grin that he had loved forever.
He swept her up in his arms and walked her across the room to the sofa, where he put her down gently, sat beside her, and kissed her soundly.
She came up for air smiling. “Now I know that tourist-class flight was worth it. Master Chief MacKenzie said he thought you’d be home tomorrow.”
“He’s not always right.” He pulled her into his arms so her head rested on his shoulder. “Now, any other reason you flew all the way out here from Washington, D.C.?”
“One small reason, not really important.”
“How unimportant is it?” He watched her. She was hiding something. There was a hint of excitement in her voice and her brows were a little too high for normal.
“Nothing we need to talk about really. I was just about to get dinner. I’ll change the menu. I see you have some good-looking pork chops in the freezer.”
He held her fast. “Ardith, that other unimportant reason why you came?”
“Oh, nothing. Actually it’s minor, just a small job offer. Now let’s get dinner. Do stuffed pork chops sound okay?”
He held her. “Just a small job offer? A job for a midget, right? Nobody over three feet tall need apply?”
Ardith laughed. “Well, the job is for a normal-sized person, but I’m not sure that I want it. I’m just feeling them out. They talked to me in Washington.”
“And they bought your ticket out here?”
“Well, yes. But that’s common enough.”
“Just some little job offer. So tell me about it.”
He let her go, and she pushed back and he saw the sparkle in her eyes, the anticipation spreading over her face.
“It’s a highly respected firm in the software industry. Yes, a dot-com, but one that isn’t tied to dot-com customers. It’s keyed to industry as a whole, and works for many hundreds of different clients in every field.”
“And what would you do for them?”
“I’d be the assistant manager of the creative applications department. We take a company’s problem, figure out a solution to it, and design and develop the software to take care of the problem. It’s so creative and exciting that I can hardly sit still.”
“But your background isn’t in computers.”
“Doesn’t have to be. In fact they told me they wanted someone in the creative side who wasn’t a computer person. Then I wouldn’t be thinking ahead that it couldn’t be done, or it would be too expensive or too time-consuming. I get the ideas and build the plans to solve the problem. Somebody else does the design and application work.”
“Some little job offer.”
“Okay, so I lied. It was worth it to see your expression when I explained it.”
“When?”
“I go in to see them tomorrow.”
“Now we talk about the other. Do you really want to leave government work? You’ve been happy back there with all the conniving, backbiting, lying politicians. Your father excluded, of course.”
“We’ve talked about this before. I love my work in D.C., but this seems so much more exciting, so on the edge of the science of business, education. They even do some work for state governments. Do I want to leave? I’m not sure. If this job works out, it would be a tremendous move.” She reached up and kissed him tenderly. “Then there is that other reason I want to come out here. But we don’t talk about that.”
Murdock gently eased her down on the sofa and lay half on top of her. He kissed her nose, then both eyes, and gently brushed her lips with his. “Now, little lady, let’s talk about that other reason for you to move out to San Diego.”
He kissed her again and she moaned softly. When the kiss ended she stroked his face lovingly.
“Hey, there, cowboy. Do you want dinner sooner or later?”
“I think I’ll vote for later. Do you want to call the roll?”
“Then later wins by a landslide.” They sat up and both grinned. He cupped one of her breasts and bent and kissed it through the white silk blouse.
“Hey, maybe it would be better if we continued this discussion on the merits of the issue before the Senate in the bedroom.”
“I’ll vote for that,” Murdock said. “We can have dinner any old time.”
Much later, over dinner, Ardith was enthusiastic about the job. That was part of it, he knew. She also glowed as she always did after a good romp in bed.
“It’s a firm offer. I can take it or turn it down. One good thing is the salary, a hundred and fifty thousand a year.” Her eyes were bright. He could see her anticipation, her delight.
“Wow, that’s three times as much as I’m making. Won’t that irritate me and make me angry?”
“No, because we’ll have a joint account.” She said it with a straight face, then laughed and kissed him. “The money is good, I get a stock-option plan, insurance, a matching retirement plan, and I’m in line for manager of the department as soon as the current one retires in about a year.”
“No lawyer work?”
“Not a bit. Oh, I’ll do some pro bono for one of the shelters or a woman’s rape group or some such, but none on the job.”
“Sounds like you have it all worked out,” he said, his voice neutral, noncommittal.
Ardith studied him. This was a surprise. She thought he’d be enthusiastic, maybe ecstatic. “I did some investigation of the firm,” she said. “It’s listed everywhere. Most agencies came up with a solid four points for them out of four. Locally, they do a lot of charity work, and are involved with two high schools. Yes, I do think it would be a good career move for me.”
Murdock picked her up and hugged her, then spun her around off the floor, one slipper flying off her foot.
“Marvelous, wonderful, great. I just wanted you to be sure. I didn’t want to seduce you out here and have you pining away for good old D.C. and the government flap. I’m delighted. Now quit frowning. If you want the job, I’m all for it. How did you find it?”
“They found me actually. A friend of a friend knew they were hunting. She turned them down. Her husband wouldn’t let her leave D.C. So she gave them my number and they called, we talked. I gave them a tour of the Senate, and one luncheon led to dinner and then a day later, the firm job offer was faxed from here in town.”
He kissed her seriously, and sat her back down at her place at the table. “Your dinner is getting cold,” he said.
After the dishes were stashed in the washer, Murdock brought up his small problem. He told her everything she didn’t know about the North Koreans and what they had done, and asked her how to evaluate how they did it. Was it a mass of individuals set loose or a closely controlled campaign?
Ardith made a list as he talked, then went over it. “You say it started with a strange ship near an oil-drilling rig, and then an undersea structure of some kind near the rig. Then all these other elements.”