boat. By the time the Army figured out what happened—he wouldn’t put it past ’em to blame it on methane gas—he and Hill and Stark would have sailed away.
He grinned. Stupid Army wonks . . .
“Sergeant,” came a masculine, if somewhat high-pitched, voice.
Startled, Carruth turned. It was that shavetail second lieutenant he’d passed earlier, standing three meters behind him. A big mistake on his part. He should have been paying better attention. “Sir?”
“What is your unit, soldier?”
Carruth repressed the urge to sigh. Just his luck to run into a kid officer who apparently had a eye for faces and didn’t recognize Carruth’s.
“My unit, sir? I’m on loan from the 704th Chemical, Arden Hills, sir. USASOC. I just arrived this morning to teach a class in decontamination procedure.” He took a step toward the lieutenant.
The younger man—he couldn’t be more than twenty-two or -three—frowned. “I don’t recall seeing a posting about that.”
Carruth stole another step. “I wouldn’t know about that, sir. I just go where I’m told and do what they say. I have my orders right here.” He reached toward his pocket, as if to remove them.
The lieutenant waved that off. “What are you doing messing around back here with the garbage cans?”
“I got lost, sir. Saw some trash on the ground and picked it up.” He didn’t have time for this. The clock was ticking.
He was close enough now, but maybe it wouldn’t come to that. If this idiot would just leave it, he’d be on his way.
“Show me.”
“Sir?”
“The trash you picked up. I want to see it.”
Aw,
“Yes, sir.” And with that, Carruth clocked the lieutenant, a short hammer-fist to the temple, putting his hip into the hit.
The lieutenant fell like his legs had vanished. He was out cold.
But he was gonna wake up in a few minutes and probably his memory would work just fine. That wasn’t gonna do.
Carruth picked the unconscious officer up, shouldered him, and carried him the Dumpster. He lifted the lid and dropped the lieutenant into the bin. Wiped the lid where he had touched it, then latched the top shut.
He walked away. Too bad for the soldier, but risk went with the job. Probably the explosion would kill him; at the least, it would mess him up enough that he wouldn’t be talking anytime soon.
Jay Gridley sat in Thorn’s office, looking, as he often did, like a teenager late for a date.
“You got the report on the base in Hawaii?” Thorn asked.
“I haven’t read it yet,” Jay answered. “It was in the spool when you called.”
“Somebody cut through the fence and blew up a Dumpster.”
Jay laughed. “Whoa. Big-time assault.”
“The bomber apparently decked a second lieutenant and put him into the garbage bin with the bomb.”
“Jeez. Kill him?”
“No. The trash somehow partially muted the blast. Blew out his eardrums, gave him a major concussion, ruptured spleen, collapsed lung, burns, and cuts. He’s in bad shape, but he’s still alive.”
“Poor bastard.”
“I’m expecting my phone to ring any second with an irate general on the line wanting to know what we have done toward catching these people. So—what have we done?”
“I’m grinding, Boss, you know how it goes. It’s like looking for one line of bad code in a million-line program —you don’t see it until you get to it.”
“I understand, Jay, but they won’t. Give me something. Anything.”
“The computer game is intricate and well built, so we’re dealing with a serious programmer, plus one smart enough to put it out there and then trash it without leaving an easy trail. I’m working with Captain Lewis at MILDAT, running down leads.”
Thorn nodded. “Whoever is doing this is trying to make a point. I don’t know what, but blowing up a Dumpster doesn’t have a lot of strategic value, any more than the raid in Oklahoma, where they knocked down an armory door, blew some windows out, and then turned around and left empty-handed. It looks to me like they are trying to show that they can get into these bases and do whatever they want.”
Jay said, “Selling keys to the candy store, maybe.”
Thorn nodded. “Yeah. Could be. There are loons running around out there who would pay big money for that. Demonstrate that there is an easy way into an Army base a few times, and the crazies will line up to buy your key.”
Jay said, “Or maybe these are just feints, designed to convince the military they don’t really need to worry, and they plan on something a lot worse. One of the bases in the bug game has tactical nukes on hand, and from the part of the DCP we got, there were ways to get past the first level of security. Hard to tell what is in the bits we missed.”
“You’ve told the Army about this?”
“Oh, yeah, it’s all in my report, ought to be in your in-box somewhere. They’ve changed security procedures on all the bases I matched, new codes, new guard routines, beefed-up whatevers. We might have short-circuited them.” Jay frowned. “Wait a second. You said a base in Hawaii?”
“Yes, a new one, not much there but a recon school. Near Hana, on Maui.”
Jay shook his head. “I don’t recall cross-referencing a base in Hawaii.” He paused. Then: “Shit!”
“What?”
“The guy has another game running!” Jay stood. “I have to get on the net. I should have thought of this before!”
“Go,” Thorn said.
After Jay was gone, Thorn sat at his desk. Net Force spent a lot of time stamping out little fires, and every now and then a big one, like this, or the Chinese general. And Thorn felt as if he had gotten better at running the agency, even with the switch in command. Still, it wasn’t what he had thought it would be when he left civilian life to do it. He could have retired a few years back and sat around thinking up creative ways to spend his money. He wasn’t super-rich, but he could live pretty well just off the interest his millions generated. Working for the military hadn’t gotten onerous yet, but he feared that it would eventually. If Hadden was right—if he was going to be made into a military general, even if it was more technical than real—what would that mean?
He didn’t want to be part of the problem. He’d taken the job as commander to give something back to his country, which had been pretty good to a poor boy from an Indian rez in Washington State. The tribe was doing better these days—they had a casino outside of Walla Walla, and were dickering for another one near the Idaho border, in a land swap with the feds. Not enough money coming in to make everybody rich, but enough so nobody would be poor. That was good.
Once he and Marissa were married? What then? She could quit her job at the CIA if she wanted. Or not. That would be up to her. And maybe he would quit if she did. He wasn’t getting any younger. They could travel, see things, do things together, enjoy life. Outside of his fencing and his collection of swords, he didn’t have any expensive hobbies. He had a nice house, was about to hook up with a fantastic woman. Life was short—he could get hit by a truck, a tree could fall on him, and all his money wouldn’t matter. Maybe it was time to pack it in at
