There’s something about you that has captured me completely, and I hope it never lets go.”
Dar nodded slightly.
“So, I don’t give a damn, either,” Kerry went on. “I know I joke about it a lot. Maybe it was just that I bumped into a cute little gymnastic boy, and he stroked my ego for me.”
Dar eyed her. “When was this?”
“On the way down the stairs,” Kerry admitted. “He admired my muscle tone.”
“Ah.” Dar settled back against the wall. “Well, I just had a good-looking young woman tell me to take all my clothes off.” She eyed Kerry’s profile, which went suspiciously, suddenly still, save for the flaring of her nostrils.
“And?” Kerry asked.
“And I spent the next ten minutes being told what a lovely specimen I was.”
Kerry’s eyebrow lifted.
“Did you know I have dense bones and perfect symmetry?” Dar Red Sky At Morning 285
asked, arching a brow of her own.
Kerry half turned. “Who is this person?”
A puckish grin appeared. “The orthopedic surgeon.”
“Tch.” Kerry started laughing. “A lovely specimen, huh?”
Dar chuckled. “Nice muscle tone, huh?”
They both simply laughed for a minute. “Oh my God, Dar, I’m sweaty, and I’m tired, and I want to go home. Are they letting you out yet?” Kerry finally said.
“They’d better be,” her partner replied. “C’mon. Let’s go share a sponge and call Dr. Steve.” Dar stood carefully, and held onto Kerry’s arm as she joined her. “Thought I saw a tube of that bath soap in your bag.”
“The mango one?” Kerry put an arm around Dar’s waist as they climbed up the steps toward the tenth floor.
“Mm.”
“You thought right, my little subtropical perfect specimen.”
Dar snorted, then reached down and pinched Kerry’s butt. “Oh yeah, that’s nice tone all right.”
“Ouch! You wench!” Kerry felt her spirits rise into the bubbly range. “Wait ’til we get to that sponge. You’ll be sorry.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“SEND HER IN.” Commander Ainsbright twitched his jacket sleeves straight and folded his hands on his desk. Aside from the bandage taped over a gash on his left temple and a bruise the size of a mango on his jaw, he appeared the very picture of composed military dignity. He watched as the door opened and Chief Daniel walked in.
“Chief.”
The chief walked to the edge of the desk and saluted, then stood at ease.“Report,” the commander requested.
“It seems the training exercise caused a great deal of damage in three areas, sir,” the chief replied. “Primarily in the computer center, the telecom room, and the programming center.”
The commander nodded. “And?”
“I expect the systems will be down until we can replace about twenty percent of the hardware,” Chief Daniel said. “Apparently the backup systems were damaged as well, and we lost a good portion of our data storage.”
The base commander leaned back and propped a knee up against his desk. “All right,” he said. “Write up the damages, and I’ll charge the SEAL program for them. They had their instructions. They failed to follow them.”
“Yes, sir.” Chief Daniel kept her gaze firmly fixed on the desk.
286 Melissa Good
“Anything else you want to report, Chief?”
“No, sir,” came the quiet reply.
“Anyone asks you for anything, we don’t have it.”
“No, sir.”
“Dismissed.”
The chief turned and left the room, closing the door quietly behind her. Jeff Ainsbright sighed and shook his head. The phone rang, and he picked it up. “Yes?”
“Cleanup’s almost done,” a terse voice informed him. “We got lucky. Damn lucky.”
“Tell me,” the base commander snorted. “You get rid of everything? We’ll have a security team down on us at 0700 tomorrow morning.”
“Everything,” the voice answered. “Scrubbed to the bare steel. I brought a dog in just to be sure.”
Ainsbright nodded. “Good.” His eyes narrowed. “I’ve got those guards on court-martial for letting that damn bastard Roberts in here during off-hours. You know how close that was? They were in the goddamned computer center. I just hope we got everything.”
“We did.” The voice held infinite assurance. “She thought she was so smart. That data stream she has won’t tell her anything. We made sure of that.” A chuckle. “Don’t worry, Jeff. All they’ll find is some ruined equipment. I already reconstructed the database. It’s clean.”
“All right.” Ainsbright nodded. “It was too damn close, I tell you.
We should have shut down the minute that bitch came on the base.”
“You were supposed to take care of that,” the answer came back sharply. “You and that kid of yours, remember? He was supposed to distract her. Hell, I thought he’d end up screwing her—”
“That’s enough,” Ainsbright snapped. “Forget about it. We found another solution.” He checked his watch. “I’ve got to go. Chuck’s ship’s leaving, and I want to make sure he’s on it.”
“Right. Out of sight—”
“Out of my hair,” the commander snorted. “Bye.” He hung up the phone and took a deep breath. It had been close. Far too close, and the problems weren’t over yet. He wasn’t stupid enough to think he was rid of Dar Roberts, for one thing. She’d dug enough into the base to report back to Washington, and now it was up to his team to do damage control.
Negligence? Sure. Someone would be court-martialed for it.
Shoddy record-keeping, sloppy processes. Every base had them, and all it would generate was a damn study and recommendations as long as Roberts hadn’t found anything worse.
And she hadn’t. He was sure of it. All he had to do was get Chuckie out of here, then wait for the rep from DC. Thank God the damn JAG
had called to warn him. With a sigh, he put his hands against his desk and pushed himself to his feet, wincing at the ache in his bones.
Red Sky At Morning 287
Too dark, he’d been told, to see who’d hit him. “Sorry, sir. It was just too dark,” the SEAL captain had maintained stiffly. Yeah? Too dark my ass, Jeff Ainsbright scowled as he circled his desk and headed for the door.
Only to find it blocked.
He stopped in complete shock and stared at the dark blue-clad figure standing silently inside the door. There hadn’t been a sound. How in the hell? He took a cautious breath. “Andy.”
Ice-blue eyes watched him steadily. “’Lo, Jeff,” Andrew drawled very softly.
Ainsbright took a step back. “Didn’t hear you come in.”
Frighteningly, that caused a smile to appear on the scarred face.
“Folks never do,” the ex-SEAL allowed. “That’s how come I stuck around this long.” Andrew moved forward toward the commander with a curiously smooth amble. It combined an economy of motion with an impression of prowling energy that caused the commander to take another step back, then turn and retreat behind his desk.
“What can I do for you, Andy?” Ainsbright forced a tense smile.
“I’ve got a meeting I’m due at.”
“On Sunday? You ain’t visiting the preacher now, are you?”
Andrew asked.
The commander hesitated. “No, no, just a lunch date with my wife.” He was very conscious of the cold menace radiating from his old friend who, though retired and with all that gray in his crew cut, still posed a very potent threat he knew he had no hope of countering.