“Uh-huh. And he had to send you to ask?”
Kerry’s lips tensed, masking a smile. “I volunteered.”
Ah. Dar felt an absurd contentedness. Kerry had come to check up on her. Mom was bringing her milk. Next thing she knew, she’d be in a rocker with someone putting a shawl over her shoulders. “Tell him to try an extended packet size on TCP/IP—look for an added four-byte segment.”
“Oh.” Kerry got up. “Okay, I’ll go tell him. Thanks, Dar.” She started for the door, but paused as she heard Dar get up to follow her.
They walked together past the consoles and edged out into the hallway.
“Everything else going all right?” Dar asked in a low voice. “We’ve got the transfer going here, Ker. I estimate another twenty minutes, and we’ll be done.”
Kerry looked up and down the hallway. “I don’t know. This place is giving me the creeps today, Dar. Dad went off a little while ago, and 244 Melissa Good he hasn’t come back yet. It’s just too quiet.”
“Yeah.” Dar exhaled. Okay, so maybe she didn’t come to check on me.
“Maybe he’s just scoping the place out. He knows his way around, and he can take care of himself, so there’s no point in worrying about that.”
“Hmm.” Kerry folded her arms. “Any sign of that petty person?”
“No,” Dar stated. “No sign of just about anyone, except for the two console ops in there. Everyone else must be watching the war games.”
“Mm.” Kerry murmured again under her breath. “You okay?” she finally asked. “You took your sling off.”
“Had to type,” Dar explained. “I’m all right. It’s just sore.”
Kerry once again looked up and down the hallway, then she leaned foreword and very gently kissed Dar’s injured shoulder. “Be careful.”
One hand lifted and rubbed Dar’s belly. “I worry about you.”
And then she turned and strode back down the hallway, the twitch of her shoulders indicating her awareness of Dar’s watching eyes.
Which weren’t precisely on her shoulders, despite the situation and the ache in her arm, and the worries that were now running through her mind. Boy. Dar couldn’t help the observation: she’s got a sexy walk. It had a little swagger to it, a gentle roll to her hips and a muscular strength that Dar found very, very attractive. She watched her lover until she turned a corner at the far end of the corridor, then she sighed and returned to the ops center.
“Ms. Roberts?” The console operator stepped into her path. “Are you part of this exercise, ma’am? I was just wondering... We weren’t told to expect you, and Dave and I figured you got stuck in just for a challenge. Are we right?”
Exercise? Dar stopped and eyed her warily. “Are you talking about the war games?”
The Navy tech exchanged glances with her partner. “It’s not a war game, really. It’s a security drill,” she replied. “You mean you didn’t know?”
“Security drill? At the gate they told us it was a SEAL exercise,”
Dar stated. “Graduation for some new teams.”
The sailor named Dave got up and trotted over. “Well, yeah, but they’re graduating from the Urban Warfare School,” he explained eagerly. “They’ve got to counteract a terrorist infiltration of a critical operations center.”
“Crit—” Dar glanced around. “You mean here? This is the target?”
The woman tech nodded. “Yeah, we were expecting the terrorists.
We thought you were them when you came in, but then we fi—”
The door slammed open with a loud bang, and the room suddenly filled with grungy-looking men in green-and-brown fatigues. “Don’t move! Don’t move!” the one in the lead screamed, brandishing an M16.
“Get back against the wall, you pigs!”
Dar felt the situation explode out of control with frightening speed.
Two of them men rushed at her and grabbed her arms, causing her to let Red Sky At Morning 245
out a startled yell of anger and pain. “Cut that out!”
The man on her left slammed her against the wall and leaned against her. “Shut up! Shut up, or we’ll kill you!”
Dar struggled out of pure panicked instinct, wrenching her body around and shoving off from the wall, throwing her surprised attackers back as she twisted, ignoring the pain. One grabbed for her again and she swiveled, lashing out with a kick that caught him in the gut as she tried to move away from the second one.
Something exploded against her head, and she was barely aware of slamming against the wall as her knees buckled and darkness quickly overcame the stars in her vision. She was unconscious before she hit the ground.
Chapter
Fifteen
KERRY WAS AWARE of every creak of wood and every scuff of her boots against the tiled floor as she walked down the hallway. The atmosphere was getting creepier and creepier every second, and she had to keep herself from looking around nervously as she walked.
C’mon, Kerry, she finally told herself in irritation. Stop acting like a terrorist is going to jump out of every doorway.
As she passed the next one, a shadow shifted and suddenly engulfed her. Kerry reacted by letting out a yell, which was half muffled as a hand clapped itself over her mouth and strong hands grabbed her.
“Hey...hey...kumquat...relax.” Andrew’s voice almost made her go completely limp. “Stop that hollerin’, willya?” Cautiously, the ex-SEAL
released his hold and looked anxiously at her. “You ain’t hurt, are you?”
“No.” Kerry leaned against him in relief. “Sorry, this place is just making me nuts. Where’ve you been?”
Andrew awkwardly patted her back. “Just checking things.
Somethin’ ain’t right here. Saturday’s quiet, but not like this is.”
“So I’m not just imagining things?” Kerry said. “Okay, let me go tell Mark what Dar said to do, then we can come back here and see if we don’t want to just cut this all short.” Kerry started down the hall with Andrew ambling along beside her with his loose, powerful stride.
“What do you think is going on?”
“Ah do not know.” Andrew’s head was swiveling back and forth, watching everything. “Haven’t found anybody t’ask.” He glanced at her. “Dardar all right?”
Kerry looked behind her. “I think so,” she answered. “She seems okay. Tired, though. I think her arm’s hurting.”
“Aw.” Andrew patted her shoulder. “She’s a tough kid. Don’t you worry.”
“That’s true.” Kerry sighed. “I just wish this was over— Hey!” She found herself suddenly grabbed and yanked back into a doorway, with a large, warm hand covering her mouth.
“Hush,” Andrew barely whispered. “Don’t you move none.”
Kerry nodded in understanding and stayed perfectly still. The doorway in which they were standing was dark, and she could almost Red Sky At Morning 247
feel the shadows reaching around her, but she couldn’t hear anything, and she wondered what, exactly, they were hiding from.
Then she saw the soft, gray, almost indistinguishable reflection on the tile floor, inching toward the gap where the door met the hallway.
She strained her ears, but she still couldn’t hear anything, though she could see that tiny shadow moving closer and closer. Puzzled, she looked up at Andrew’s face, able to see only the utter stillness there, save for the faint flaring of his nostrils.
The shadow slipped closer and closer, and Kerry felt her breathing increase. She glued her eyes to the edge of the doorway and almost jumped when the edge of a rifle barrel cut the straight line. Oh, my God.