'I need you. Jen needs you.'
'What about?'
'Contractor stuff. Have you heard of SEERS?'
'Yes. That engineering system thing. Big contract. I haven't worked it, though. Different corporate entity.'
'I need to know…' Paul's voice trailed off. What do I need to know? 'If somebody was trying to hide something about SEERS, what would they do?'
His mother blinked a couple of more times, her hands fumbling around outside of Paul's vision. 'Coffee. I need coffee. Hide something? Hide what?'
'Uh, design features?'
'That's all protected. Industrial secrets and confidentiality. And then the Navy wanting to keep ship performance capabilities secret. None of it's going to be sitting out on any public site.'
'What about problems?'
His mother had finally found a coffee container and drank half of it before answering. 'What kind of problems?'
'I don't know. Reliability? Test results?'
'Hmmmm. What is it you're looking for exactly?'
'I'm looking for something no one's found yet.'
'That helps a lot.'
'Something no one would want to be found. I mean, suppose there were problems with SEERS and no one wanted anyone to know that. And they hid that evidence from the fleet and from the investigators and the evidence gatherers after what happened on the Maury.'
'That's a real big 'suppose.' Do you have reason to believe that's what happened?'
'No. Just a hunch.'
His mother looked to one side. 'I'll get your father. There's people we can talk to. Places we know to look. But you understand we're bound by confidentiality agreements for our work with contractors.'
'I don't know exactly what that means.'
'It means there's limits on what we can do.' She took a good look at him. 'You look awful.'
'Thanks, Mom.'
'Get some breakfast. I'll see what we can do. How urgent is this?'
'Life and death.'
Her eyebrows shot up, then she nodded. 'I should've realized that without asking. Oh-kay. Get something to eat. I'll call back as soon as I can.'
Paul tried to clean himself up, then went to grab a quick meal. Kris Denaldo, obviously coming off the quarterdeck watch, spotted him. 'Paul! Is…' Her voice ran down as she saw his face. 'What can I do?'
'How are you at miracles?'
She made a helpless gesture. 'Not much.' Coming closer, Kris put a hand on Paul's arm. 'You know whatever I can do, I will.'
'I know, but there doesn't seem to be anything.'
'Ahem!' Lieutenant Isakov squeezed by them, favoring Paul and Kris with an arch look that implied volumes.
Kris pulled her hand away and Paul glared after Isakov as she entered the wardroom. 'You can keep her away from me.'
'Like I told you, she's a bit of a psycho, Paul.'
'I'd already figured that out. Didn't you guys warn Randy Diego about her already?'
Kris shrugged. 'Randy's been a pain and he never wants to listen.'
'No, he doesn't, but letting her run him around… geez.'
'Okay, okay. I take it you've already talked to Randy?'
'Yeah. He didn't want to hear it.'
'What a shock. If he's determined to be Isakov's lapdog, there's not much we can do about it, Paul.'
'I know.' Paul looked upward. 'But it's something I can make a difference at. I hope. It's nice to know there's something I can still say that about.'
'You'll make a difference with Jen. There's nothing happening today?'
'No. Final arguments happened yesterday. Today's a day off but also a day for the members of the court to make up their minds. The court-martial reconvenes Monday morning.'
'Do you think they'll have a decision then?'
'I'm afraid they will.'
She nodded helplessly and Paul went back to the his stateroom, staring every once in a while at the outside phone connection while he pretended he was working on administrative tasks.
The phone finally rang. 'Hi, Paul. Care to meet us for lunch?'
'Does that mean you found something, Mom?'
His mother made a slight shushing motion. 'How's that place we ate at yesterday sound?'
'Fine.'
'We'll see you as soon as you can get there, then.'
His mother was drinking coffee again when Paul got to the restaurant. His father winked and gave him a thumbs up.
'Did you find something?'
His mother sighed, lowering her coffee cup. 'Now, Paul, I told you we probably couldn't help because of confidentiality agreements.'
'I…'
'But I did find that other thing.'
He looked at her blankly. 'What other thing?'
'You know.' She slid an actual piece of paper toward Paul's father, who glanced at it, nodded, then slid it over to Paul.
Paul examined the paper. Blank on one side, the other held a long web site address hand printed on it. 'Do you think-'
'I don't know. But, if there's anything like that, it should be there if it's anywhere. Various… indicators… point that way. Unfortunately, we couldn't get into it. You probably can't, either. But good luck.'
'Thanks. I hope you don't mind if I eat and run.' Paul folded the paper carefully and went in search of Sheriff Sharpe.
Half an hour later, Sharpe eyed Paul dubiously. 'Sir, what are you suggesting doing with that?'
'Try to break in.'
'No, sir. No way. I'm an officer of the law.'
'Meaning?'
'You know what it means, sir.' Sharpe pointed at the address Paul held. 'I only get to conduct searches with a warrant. If I search without a warrant, any evidence I find gets thrown out.'
'Oh, yeah.' Paul looked at the address bitterly. So close. Maybe. But I can't get into a web site myself. My skills don't run that way.
Sharpe seemed angry. 'I can't believe you'd suggest that, Mr. Sinclair. I can't believe you'd come to me knowing that only Warrant Officer Bob Rose might be able to break into a site like that and I couldn't possibly provide any assistance or involvement in the matter. Don't even ask me!'
'Okay, Sheriff. Sorry-'
'Don't even ask me if Rose's contact information is in the ship's data base. I don't want to tell you.'
'Uh, okay-'
'And even if Rose could maybe try to break into that site because part of his job involves testing government-related sites for security flaws, I wouldn't tell you, sir! Not a word. I am not involved, sir. Is that clear?'
'Yeah, Sheriff.'
'So don't talk to me about it. Don't say anything else. I'm an officer of the law. Just because someone like
