Eileen Reed - Ground Zero Part 11

He looked up from his desk and glared at her. He was a thin man with fading blond hair, and if Lucy felt obligated to him in the slightest, she would have hated him as a boss. As it was, she could get a job in the civilian world as a computer engineer within twenty-four hours, and therefore Mills had very little power over her.

Mills knew it, too. Lucy knew he was offended by her. She knew he was offended by her dark Italian beauty, by her intelligence, by her casual att.i.tude toward himself as a boss and her job in general. The worst offense of all to Mills was Lucy's work, which was incredibly good. Mills couldn't stand that.

Mills wanted a WASP worker from the 1950s, Lucy often thought, a shrinking white man in a white pressed shirt whose future depended on the good graces of his boss, namely Steven Mills. Mills wore the fifties uniform, perhaps unconsciously. His pants were polyester and his shirts white, and he wore a pocket protector with no sense of irony. His hair was combed back and slightly dusty, and his teeth, though white, were hid behind lips that were always chapped and raw-looking. Lucy thought perhaps he had an ulcer, because sometimes she caught a whiff of his breath and it was chalky and desperate-smelling. She hated when she could smell his breath. She walked into his office and dropped into a comfortable chair without being asked. She smiled at him and rubbed her slightly rounded stomach.

"The baby needed the chow, Steve. So what's up?"

"We had a development in a related case," Mills said.

"The Missile Defense homicides?"

Mills nodded and rubbed his forehead with his small manicured hands. He looked tired.

"The FBI has had a suspect under surveillance for almost two years. The FBI contacted us today. He skipped town. Boarded a plane to Paris at noon and is just clean gone."

Lucy leaned back in her chair. The CIA didn't engage in surveillance in their own country; that was the duty of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI did the investigation and got the glory in the United States, although the CIA was often the controlling organization. American spies were handled in the press with great fanfare. Foreign spies sometimes made the back-page news as they were deported. It wasn't fair, but that was the way the business worked.

"What kind of suspect?"

"Espionage. NORAD, Peterson, Fort Carson, and Schriever. He posed as a corporate headhunter for engineers. Made quite a living at it, too. His name was George Tabor, and we had positive ID. We almost had him cold. He sold to everybody: the new Russian Republic, the Baltic States, j.a.pan. The only countries he didn't sell to were the Moslem countries in the Middle East, and China. He didn't seem to have any contacts in the Middle East, and he hated the Chinese."

"Schriever," Lucy said. "He was spooked by the murder? Wait a minute. He left at lunch? He must have been tipped off by someone at Schriever."

"Right," Mills said, irritated. Lucy had come to the same conclusion he had, only it took her about three seconds and it had taken him hours.

"So if he was tipped off, that must mean the murdered woman was involved. Maybe she was his contact. Or she smuggled information to someone who gave it to Tabor. What did she do?"

"She was a computer engineer. Software. In the Gaming division. Her name was Terry Guzman, and she'd worked there for almost two years."

"Gaming. She could get a lot of good stuff out the door," Lucy said angrily. Espionage offended her. She hated it. It was vile and disloyal, like cheating a member of your own family.

"Very good stuff," Mills said. "The latest algorithms for the battle managers. The whole Missile Defense program is mostly old technology, you know. Brilliant Pebbles are just fancy rocks. It's the computer programs that make the system happen. She's got-or she had, anyway-connection with all the latest."

"Could she have been killed because she wanted to stop?"

"I don't know. Right now her case is being handled by Detective Eileen Reed, Colorado Springs Police. She's probably still at Schriever. You can speak with her if you want, we can set you up as an employee of the DIA."

"That might be helpful," Lucy said slowly. The DIA was the Defense Intelligence Agency, the organization that handled security clearances. "But first I need to speak to Colonel Olsen. Is he aware of the Missile Defense homicides?"

"He's aware of the need for secrecy," Mills said carefully. "The only military official we brief on this project is the Missile Defense commander in chief. That's Admiral Kane. You'll have to keep this one sealed up. Don't even mention Tabor to Olsen."

Lucy felt a burst of irritation, but controlled it. Why in the world would the CIA want to keep a series of murders so quiet? Why wasn't this case a higher priority within the Agency? There were twelve dead people on that list.

"I'll get on the phone to Olsen. I can contact the FBI on this one?"

"Yes, but don't-"

"I know, I know," Lucy interrupted. She got up from the chair. "They don't know about the missile defense homicides, do they? I won't let it slip."

But as Lucy walked down the hallway to her own office, she made a resolution to herself. She was going to find some answers.

Conference Room, Schriever Air Force Base.

Eileen pinched the bridge of her nose, fiercely, the sharp annoying pain bringing her back into focus. She knew she had to quit soon, and leave this place, and get some food.

"Mr. Procell, I want that file," she said, and the slump of relief in Procell's shoulders was almost comical. "I will read it. I will look at it. If Terry is one of your murder victims, then hopefully I can hand off this case to whoever is working the other cases. Right now, they are all supposed to be accidents." She held up her hand as Procell started to speak. "But I will also look at this case as an isolated murder, and I will find that murderer. The best way I can do this is collect your file later. First, I need to find out about you. Is that clear?"

Procell smiled at her peacefully and relaxed back into his chair. "Yes, ma'am," he said. "All I want is for you to read the stuff."

"You got it," Eileen said grimly. She felt a kind of sickness in her stomach. She didn't want to lose this case to the Air Force bureaucracy that had buried Bernie Ames with such careless insult. She didn't want this case, but now it was hers and she intended to finish it, no matter how deep the waters got. If there were multiple murders going on at Schriever Air Force Base, then she was just going to have to solve them all.

She clenched her pen and looked at Procell.

"Now, tell me about you. How long have you been working here?"

"Almost ten years. I worked on another project down in New Mexico before this one."

"Did you know Terry Guzman?"

"Yes, I did. I-I don't want you to find this out later, and think that I'm hiding something, so I'll tell you now. Terry and I went to the same college. n.o.body else here knows that."

Eileen didn't hide her surprise. "Why doesn't anyone else know?" It seemed like harmless information.

"Because Terry wanted it that way. She had a bad marriage, I guess, and wanted to leave her past all the way behind her. So when we met again she pretended she didn't know me, and when I asked her later she ... well, she asked me not to tell anyone."

"What was the university?"

"University of Utah, Salt Lake City. We saw each other in a few computer cla.s.ses, is all, but you know Terry, she's-"

Abruptly, Doug stopped. Eileen saw the fact of her death strike Doug suddenly, as a reality and not a confirmation of his pet theory. The color washed from his face. For a moment Eileen was sure Doug was going to pa.s.s out. Doug reached out and gripped the table edge with one of his big hands, holding so hard the hand washed white and bloodless.

"Okay?" Eileen asked as Doug lowered his head.

"Mlright," Doug slurred. The seconds pa.s.sed. Doug pulled himself upright. There was sweat on the clear brow, but his eyes were focused.

"Okay?" Eileen asked again.

"I'm okay," Doug said, and sat back in his chair. His face was paper white.

"It hits you like that sometimes," Eileen said gently. Sometimes the fact of murder took a while to sink into the murderer too. "Just try to relax. You want some water?"

"How about a pop?" Doug still looked faint. "Takes you fifteen minutes to get one. You want to walk out there and back? The pop machines are all the way in the stairwells."

"That sounds like a great idea," Eileen said. "I would like to stretch my legs, actually."

Doug got shakily to his feet and led the way back through the maze of offices, empty now, and down the corridor to the submarine door.

"Why don't they have pop machines in here by the bathrooms?" Eileen asked. There were s.p.a.ces next to the rest rooms for pop machines, and heavy-duty electrical outlets. The rest rooms were by the submarine doors. There were no machines in the alcoves.

"That's a breach of security, you see," Doug said with a wry smile. "I'm the cla.s.s crazy, but even I think it's ridiculous that the Russians or the Chinese or whoever would put listening devices in our pop machines. If they can do that, why can't they just put listening devices in our pops, we carry them right back to our desks? I don't understand."

Doug spun the heavy door and stepped through with an ease born of long practice. He gestured Eileen to follow, then spun the door shut with a heavy, final sound.

"What a door," Eileen said.

"Your tax dollars at work." The color was coming back into Doug's face. "I don't mind the doors so much, there are some pretty sophisticated listening devices out there. I was at a Hughes Aircraft facility in Los Angeles once and saw a demonstration. Big Chevy van, not really an odd-looking antenna, not for L.A., and parked outside the Hughes building. Way far away, I mean more than a city block. And they had screens that were printing out what people were typing into their terminals, inside the building. Scary."

"That door stops that?"

"Stops everything. No mice, no insects. I've never seen a spider even. Like a big vacuum jar."

Doug led them to a door marked "Stairwell #3" and opened it. There were huge candy and pop machines humming next to the stairs.

"I've got extra change, let me," Doug said. "You learn to carry change around here. It's a long walk back to your desk."

The pop cans chunked down into the bins below. Eileen opened hers and took a long, grateful swallow.

"This will help," she said. Doug took a long drink of his own pop and opened the door back to the corridor. Eileen did not make it obvious, but Procell ended up going through the doorway first. The corridors were very quiet and very empty.

The conference room seemed even more stifling after the brief walk. Eileen sat down with a sigh. Procell took a chair.

"I feel better."

"Me too." Procell's fingers trembled faintly on the can of pop, but his mouth had lost its gray, pinched look.

"Tell me about the War Game. Start out with your morning, every little detail. From the time you woke up."

"From the time I woke up?" Procell asked, puzzled. "What does that have to do with your case?"

"I don't know what it has to do with this case," Eileen answered steadily. Procell thought that over for a moment and then nodded.

"Okay," he said. "I got up at five-fifteen and showered ..."

Gaming Center, Schriever Air Force Base.

It was nearly six-thirty when Eileen picked up the conference-room phone to dial Major Blaine. Procell had told her every tiny detail of his day, and she had learned absolutely nothing. Eileen wanted to view the Game tapes, but she knew she was too tired. Harben needed a report as well. She'd seen Blaine lock and tape the entrance to the Gaming Center. Blaine set a security guard at the only entrance to the Center. The tapes were as safe as they could be, and Eileen was hungry.

"Security, Major Blaine speaking."

"This is Eileen Reed, Major Blaine. Can you come guide me out of this place?"

"I certainly can," Blaine said warmly. "I've been catching up on paperwork waiting for your call. I'll come right over and show you the door on our way out, and you can give me your report."

Eileen sat for a moment in silence, feeling her heart pound so loudly that her hand trembled on the phone.

"I report to Captain Harben," she said, much more softly than she wished. She was afraid her voice would crack if she spoke any louder. "But I'll be happy to discuss what I'll need for tomorrow."

There was a small silence. Eileen bared her teeth in a smile. She knew the way the military world worked. Major Blaine thought of Eileen as Captain Reed, a former Air Force pilot and the Major's subordinate. And a woman subordinate, to boot. Major Blaine wanted to give Eileen orders. She was not- not!-going to let that happen.

"Oh." The voice on the other end of the line showed annoyance. "Well-I'll be right there."

"Thanks."

Eileen set the phone down gently and took a few deep breaths. Her notes lay in an untidy pile in front of her. Now more than ever, she was bound to solve this case. How long did Harben say she had before the Air Force OSI officer arrived? Three days? Not enough time, usually, to close a case. She would just have to work harder on this one.

She flipped through her pad of notes, making an occasional correction or footnote, waiting for Blaine to arrive. The office outside the conference room was totally deserted now. The office lights were on, but the desks were empty. The screen-saver patterns that played on the computers gave an eerie kind of motion to the big room, as though right outside of Eileen's peripheral vision the computers were turning, moving, and whispering to each other.

"Creepy," Eileen said to herself. The silence and the motion were oppressive. Undoubtedly the murderer was gone from this building, just as the murdered woman was gone, but the murder itself remained. Eileen shared a solemn belief among police, that the physical location of violence, especially murder sites, retained some kind of malignancy long after the blood and remains were cleared away. Police liked to live in new houses, although they could seldom afford them.

Eileen felt certain she must have spoken to the murderer today. Despite Procell's file, which lay thick and as yet unread by her elbow, she felt certain that Terry Guzman was murdered by one of the people in the Center. She'd probably been murdered by one of the people Eileen had interviewed, though she hadn't the faintest idea who.

She turned to look at the file, bulging with newspaper clippings and paper-clipped reports, and felt an exhausted kind of impatience. She hated this whole military world, had hated it since before Bernie had died so senselessly, and here she was being drawn back into it. Joe Tanner was- "Well, Detective?" Blaine said from the doorway. "Let's go"

The last of the day's light was fading behind Pikes Peak as Eileen and Major Blaine stepped outside the building. The air was fresh and warm, and smelled of a recent thunder-shower. Eileen took a deep breath.

"How can they stand to work there?" she murmured to herself. Blaine shrugged and led the way to the sidewalk that would take them to the retinal scanners and Eileen's car.

"The pay is good, the work is good. How often do you really look outside the window?"

"All day long," Eileen said.

"You'll be back tomorrow?" Blaine asked, managing to make it sound like an order. He looked jittery, as though he'd had too much coffee or pop that afternoon. "I spoke to Air Force Special Investigations, the closest time they can have their man out here is in three days."

"I'll return tomorrow morning to review the tapes," Eileen said mildly.

There was silence for a while, as they walked along the flank of the huge building that housed the other s.p.a.ce communications center.

"Remember, there isn't anything out here except a weather station, once you leave the base," Major Blaine said stiffly, scratching at his arms as though he had old mosquito bites there. Perhaps she was making him nervous. Eileen liked the thought of that.

"I know. I've had clearances before. Didn't like 'em then, and I don't like it now."

"Tomorrow morning, then. Eight o'clock?" Blaine's light-colored hair looked faintly sweaty where it showed under his cap. The little mustache drooped. He looked tired.

"Sure. All I need is access to the room and paper and pencil. I'll supply the paper and pencil."

"I'll meet you at the gate, to get you through one more time. Then your badge and number and retinal scan will be enough."