see who had arrived. He waited for a moment, but no one came to the door. He stared at the front of the house, scanning the windows along the porch. And he saw Gutter’s face pressed against one of the windows.
Swearing out loud, he got out of the car and trotted up the steps to the porch. The front door was not locked, and he opened it to let the frantic dog out of the house. Gutter ran out onto the lawn to take care of business, then came back to Train.
“Where’d she go, Gutter? Where is she?”
At the sound of his voice, the dog immediately sat down.
“C’mon, then,” he said, and went into the house. With the dog at his heel, he made a quick search of the house, calling out Karen’s name several times as he went through both floors. There was no sign of a struggle or any other commotion. Everything was in order.
Where the hell was she? He was trying to figure out what to do next, like maybe call 911, when he heard her voice outside, calling her dog.
Gutter uttered a low growl. Train walked back through the hallway to the front door, surprising her.
“Sorry to bust in,” he said. “I couldn’t get you on the phone, and the front door was open and Gutter inside. I was worried.”
“Hi,” she said, pushing a lock of damp red hair off her forehead. She was dressed in tight tan jodhpurs and a sleeveless white shirt. “I decided to go for a ride. Just sitting in the house was beginning to spook me.”
“You should have kept Gutter with you,” he said, trying to keep an edge out of his voice.
“You said to keep him inside until he learned the outside perimeter,” she retorted. “I was afraid he’d run off or something. I took Harry along, though.” She looked down at the old Lab, who, having spotted the Doberman, was slinking under the porch. Train rolled his eyes. “I’m thinking the heavies have maybe made a move,” he said, and then he explained what the OP-32 yeoman had told him about Sherman being on leave, with no other explanation. ‘ “Those bastards,” she exclaimed, getting a bottle of mineral water out of the refrigerator. “They didn’t even wait for the cops to do the financial checks.”
Train went over to a stool and sat down carefully. “So you think they’ve put him in some kind of suspension?”
“Or sent him on temporary additional duty. Sounds like that to me. He called earlier with the data on Jack. He didn’t mention going TAD.”
“Let me call that data into the NIS, and then I need to fill you in on a lunch meeting I just had with an old FBI buddy.
He made the call to the database administrator and then told Karen the essence of what Johnson had said. Karen was walking around the kitchen, chewing on a knuckle when he was finished.
“Sweepers? I’ve never heard of such a thing,” she said.
“They sound like some kind of vultures.”
“I debated with myself about telling you any of that,” he concluded. She whirled around on him.
“What’s that supposed to mean? That I need to be protected from knowing the extent of the danger?” Train was taken aback by her sudden anger.
“Well, I guess to a certain extent, yes, that’s what I was thinking. You had a pretty good scare last night. I didn’t want to-“
She put up a warning hand. “I’m a big girl now, Train.
I need to know what’s going on here. lid appreciate it if you wouldn’t treat me like some kind of damsel in distress, okay?”
“Whatever you say, lady,” Train replied in a brisk tone of voice. He was getting a little tired of the mood swings.
She’s being emotional, he reminded himself, because she’s scared. Don’t go gettingall hurry. But Karen wouldn’t let it go.
“I hear that condescending tone in your voice, the one men use when they think they’re around a woman whose emotions are out of control. I just want to make sure we both know where things stand here. We are conducting an investigation. I appreciate your bringing a guard dog. I really do. But you can’t go holding out on me because you think I’m just a frail little thing who’ll fall apart at the first hint of physical danger, okay? I believe you were talking about my not sharing information with you just the other day, rights”
Train put both hands up in mock surrender. “I only felt that way because you’re a lawyer,” he said with as straight a face as he could muster.
“But that’s ridiculous! And besides, you’re a-oh, you bmtard!” But she was smiling again. “I’m sorry. I guess I am being emotional.”
He wanted to reach out and hold her hand. “It’s kind of like you stepped over a black snake,” he offered. “And then you find out the next day that it wasn’t a black snake, but a cobra. Anyway, I definitely won’t tell you what Admiral Carpenter said this morning. About keeping you safe being a big part of my mission in life.”
She gave him a suspicious look. “Did he say that?”
“I’m not going to tell you anything about that, remember? Yeah, he said that. There’s more. My FBI buddy told me that the Navy had been warned off the Galantz problem through intelligence channels. Carpenter, for reasons unknown to me, failed to tell me that, which I think means he wants us to stay in this game, at least for a while. He says it’s because Sherman deserves a chance to clear himself.”
She put the bottle of mineral water back in the refrigerator. “I should hope so. I can’t believe how they’re treating him. Just because he’s been accused-no, not even that, because he’s been sideswiped by two homicides. Hell, even the cops don’t think he did them.”
Train got off the stool and headed for the phone. “I don’t understand, either, but for now we press ahead, agreed?
Let’s see what the database termites can do with John L. Sherman.”
He called into NIS while Karen went up to change her clothes. He asked for an urgent open-filter screen on an individual and gave the terminal operator Jack Sherman’s name and Social Security number. He went on hold for two minutes. Then the operator came back to him.
“Okay, Mr. von Rensel. I can transmit all this to your PC over in the Pentagon, but they said you wanted a verbal right now, so here’s what I’ve got on this guy: bank records, credit -cards, home and work address, military service records-that’s admin, pay, and health-make and mod of vehicle, prior arrest records-that was as a juvie- sexual preferences, firearms purchases. for the past two years, and let’s see what else, here.”
Train was astonished. He hadn’t pulled a data dump from the NIS database for three years, not since the Malone case over at the Naval Research Labs. “Should I be calling you database or Big Brother?” he said. “Since when does NIS have this level of detail on a guy?”
“Since the government became a customer of the telemarketing data banks, just like everybody else is. Total access on demand. Shit, that’s not the half of it. You wanna talk about people who keep score, those sumbitches know everything, and I mean everything. Scary, isn’t it? You wanna know where he went for the past year? We’ll take a look at his gas credit cards. How about how well hislemme see, here-his Kawasaki Vulcan Eight Hundred runs since he’s owned it? He’s used a Visa card at the auto-parts store there in Triangle three times this year alone. Wanna know what he bought?”
Train just shook his head. “Orwell was right,” he muttered.
“Who’s this Orwell guy? You wanna see if he’s in the system?”
Train smiled. “That’s okay. Look, right now I need to know where Sherman lives, and, if possible, where he works.”
“Right. He lives in an area called Cherry Hill. Th#t’s near Triangle, Virginia. No property-tax records on him, so he’s a renter. Hang on one and lemme check something. Stand by. Yup, here’s a catalog listing. For guns, no less. Good deal, huh? Now lemme find out which delivery service delivered and when.” There was another minute’s pause.
“Right. The guy’s actual address is number four Slade Hill Road. He also has a PO box at the Triangle, Virginia, post office. Now, work address: the helicopter-repair activity at the Quantico Marine base.”
“What’s he do there?”
“Lemme get his tax return up here. Stand by. Okay. His most recent tax return lists his occupation as rigger. Hminm.
The W-2 doesn’t show a govemnwnt check. Not sure what a rigger is.”
