Tracy smiled, but Janet was right. They could end up in prison. Well, Tracy could end up in prison. She might get caught. Might be convicted. But she wouldn’t be convicted of being afraid to risk all for the truth. She wouldn’t be justly accused of lacking substance, of being fluff.
While Janet pulled strings to get the equipment, Tracy phoned Colonel Hackett’s office and requested an appointment with him for that afternoon. He was a major wild c-and. If O’Dell had given Burke the orders and they hadn’t originated with the gutless O’Dell, then Hackett was the logical originator-just as Burke had said.
Less than an hour had passed when Janet returned to Tracy’s office with the equipment. The device was smaller than Tracy had imagined. It fit on her fingertip. And the tape and earphones for monitoring were about the size of a shoe box: far less cumbersome than expected, if every bit as daunting for what they represented.
Janet briefed Tracy on the equipment, on how to plant the device, gave her a crash course on the Intel rules and drills, and then strongly suggested Tracy put the taping equipment away from the office. When she left Tracy’s office, Janet was still swearing she had lost her mind and insanity was her best defense.
Tracy practiced planting the device several times, and when she felt she could do it discreetly, she drove home and set up the taping equipment on a nightstand in her bedroom.
She finished with fifteen minutes to spare before her meetings with Hackett.
Staring at the headphones, she swallowed hard. A river of fear flowed through her. She was doing the wrong thing for the right reason. But if she were caught, her actions certainly wouldn’t be viewed that way. She would lose everything. Yet if she didn’t take the risks, then Burke would lose everything. She could sit in the wings and do nothing. Take the safe route. But she wouldn’t like the woman it made her, and she doubted she could live with becoming that woman.
She tucked her hair behind her ear. If she failed and got caught, under no circumstances would she implicate Janet. Though he didn’t know it, Burke had given Tracy the tool to prevent her from doing that. Taking his cue, she’d give only her name, rank, and serial number-and never ask, but chance it that Janet would jump in and get to the bottom of all this.
Tracy only hoped she didn’t get caught and put Janet in the position of having to decide whether or not to bail her out, that the risks weren’t futile, and she gained proof of what had happened and why. Proof that Colonel Hackett was involved, as Burke believed.
But Hackett could be blameless. Innocent. And if so, she was about to do him a terrible injustice. Yet Adam Burke had been so sure … She was putting a lot of faith in a man she didn’t believe. But that grain of truth in what he had told her would surface somewhere. Until then, she could only move forward and pray to God her instincts proved right.
“I’ve got five minutes, Captain.” Colonel Hackett sat at his desk, wearing his infamous Jack Nicholas expression of being interested but unconcerned. “What do you need?”
By military standards, his corner office was plush, and prime real estate. It was pleasing to the eye, decorated in heavy oaks that shouted no nonsense would be tolerated here, and forest-greens that whispered of dignity, discipline, and decorum. His executive desk stretched across an expanse between two windows. A third window was on the east wall. Tracy had an office with no windows, only a mural of one, and it had taken two moves and more jockeying than goes on at the Kentucky Derby to get it.
She lowered herself onto his visitor’s chair, the device hidden in her palm. All she had to do was to remove the paper tab and stick the device to his desk. But how could she plant it out of clear sight with him in the room? That, she hadn’t practiced.
“Captain?” He looked down at his watch. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I have a tight schedule today.”
“I’m sorry, sir.” As vice to General Nestler, Colonel Hackett’s schedule had to be a bear. Everyone admired his ability to get things done. The man did have a marine’s mentality: anything, anywhere, any means-for the Force. But he reputedly had a conscience that bent to the will of the country’s best interests-as he, or General Nestler, deemed them.
Sweat trickled down between Tracy’s breasts, and she felt the weight of her locket dangling from its chain. Doubt crept in. Was she doing the right thing? Looking at Colonel Hackett, she couldn’t be sure. She offered him a smile. “I wanted to talk with you about Adam Burke.”
“Tragic situation. I lost four good men.” Appearing appalled by that, Hackett rocked back in his seat. “I hate to admit it, Captain, but I had high hopes for Burke. I thought he had potential. He did have a hell of a career going.” Hackett stood up, then paced a short path to his office window and looked outside, clearly agitated at himself for misjudging Burke. “He taught me a valuable lesson.” Hackett looked back at her, his intense green eyes shining regret. “You can never be sure about people, Captain.”
She’d learned that lesson five years ago, and it nagged at her again now. She wasn’t sure about Burke or about Hackett. She had to do this. “No, sir, unfortunately, you can’t.”
I “A damn shame, that.” He laced his hands behind his back, and gazed out the window, Seeing no reflection of the office in the window, Tracy recognized her chance and seized it, reaching around the side of his desk nearest the wall. Her fingers bumped into a little gray disc, attached right under the lip of the desktop.
Oh, hell. Oh, bloody hell Someone already had bugged Colonel Hackett’s office.
Chapter 6.
Tracy hesitated. What should she do now?
Hackett seemed so devoted and yet something had to be out of whack with him or there wouldn’t be a listening device stuck under the lip of his desk lid. Aside from her, who else would want to bug his office?
Do it! Do it now!
Instinctively reacting, she peeled off the protective strip, slapped the device to the wood beside the bug already there, and then straightened back in her chair, swallowing hard and ordering herself to calm down. He hadn’t seen her move or he would have reacted. The man had extremely expressive green eyes, yet she’d noted no change in them. No, he hadn’t noticed. God, but she hoped she wasn’t doing him dirty.
Until she had seen that plant, she’d almost believed him too good, too devoted to be involved in any conspiracy, much less one as godawful as Adam Burke had implicated hackett in, but now she had doubts. Doubts and more doubts. Would they never end?““Yes, sir. It is a shame that you can’t be sure about anyone.”
The colonel again checked his watch. “What did you want to know about Burke?”
“Just some basics. Your perceptions and personal observations, more than anything else. Your opinion is highly respected at the JAG office and, I’m told, you strive for objectivity. That’s rare in the Burke case, I’m afraid.”
“Even soldiers have emotions, Captain.” With a weary sigh, Hackett returned to his seat. “Burke’s actions hit them where they live.”
“Yes, sir, they did.” True, but did Burke actually commit the crimes?
That was the question. Odds were, he had. Yet there was a seed of doubt, that grain of truth. “Colonel, please be frank. Would it be more convenient to discuss this when your schedule isn’t so tight?”
“Yes, it would.” Hackett looked relieved. “I’m due at a briefing with General Nestler.”
His reaction alerted her instincts. He seemed too relieved for the reason to be just postponing a discussion about Burke. There had to be more to it. Tracy stood up. “I’ll phone your secretary, then.”
Hackett watched Tracy move to the door, interested but unconcerned. “That’ll be fine.”
“Thank you, sir.” She walked out of his office clutching her notepad so tightly her fingers stung. Her heart hammered against her chest wall, and a sick feeling slithered through her stomach. Hackett had looked relieved. Not angry that Burke had failed him-odd, since the man reportedly denied failure in his men as an option-but relieved that Tracy hadn’t pinned him down on specifics about Adam Burke. What had Hackett been expecting?
Obviously, worse than he had gotten. But who else had suspicions about him that were strong enough to warrant bugging his office?
That bug was damning evidence-at least, in her eyes. She hated to believe Hackett could be involved as Burke had said; hated it with a passion that surprised her. But she couldn’t let that hatred bury the possibility that it could be true. Was Hackett involved? If so, to what extent? Or had Adam Burke lied? The second bug could be unrelated.
With luck, the listening device would ferret out the truth. It wouldn’t provide any evidence admissible in court, of course. No one could know it was there-ever. But it could steer her in the right direction so she knew what to look for, and why she was looking for it, and that search could produce admissible evidence.
Provided Colonel Hackett was conspiring and he wasn’t totally innocent.
Provided Adam Burke had told her the truth.
Provided Hackett didn’t find the bug and have her arrested.
For now, she didn’t dare speculate further; there were too many unknowns. She could only move forward and try to unravel the threads. Take Dr. Kane’s advice and visit Major Gus O’Dell. Maybe, just maybe, she could stir up a little dust.
Half an hour later, Tracy drove down Hangar Row, crossed the flight line, then passed the climate-controlled hangar where tests determined planes’ endurance leavels. The huge red-needle thermometer attached to the outer front wall of the building read minus 28 degrees. They must be running a safety check on icing-probably on F-15s. About a dozen of them sat parked on the flight line, and one had crashed in Greenland due to ice.
She parked and then entered the mammoth metal hangar housing the simulator chamber. O’Dell stood at the far end of it, just outside the actual gaschamber simulator, leaning against a wooden sawhorse, looking disgusted and bored with a group of simulator training attendees. Other than the chamber and its control board, a couple of fire extinguishers and oxygen tanks lined up against the outer west wall, and spare masks and chemical gear stowed on wooden shelves, the huge hangar designed to house several airplanes stood empty of equipment. What was that smell?
Gin?
She cast a suspicious look at O’Dell, and walked over, her heels clicking hollow sounds on the concrete floor. He didn’t look drunk, but he had been drinking. Red rimmed his eyes and the sour smell of alcohol oozed from his pores. He wasn’t heavy-no one in uniform was allowed to be heavy-but he definitely bent toward the far side of acceptable limits on weight for a man five foot nine. His dark hair was threaded with gray, his features were sharp and angular, and his mouth appeared huge stretched open as he bellowed at some young lieutenant fitted out in chemical gear who looked a breath away from piddling on the floor.
“Why the hell did you hit the panic button, Harrison?”
O’Dell shouted not a foot from the young man’s flushed face.
“I couldn’t breathe, sir.”
“Well, excuse me, son.” O’Dell waved a wide arm.” Did you hear that, men?” he shouted to the fifteen others, two of whom were women. “Lieutenant Harrison couldn’t breathe.” O’Dell harrumphed, then riveted a scathing gaze onto Harrison. “Well, now. Let’s just stop the war because the lieutenant here can’t goddamn breathe in his chemical gear.”
He again waved an expansive hand, his voice echoing, bouncing off the walls.
“Oh, wait. Wait.” O’Dell touched a hand to his temple, then fostered a feral smile. “It’s okay, Harrison. You don’t need to breathe anymore because you’re dead. You pushed the panic button, son. You killed yourself and all these other men, and you contaminated half the base. Now, isn’t that a fine day’s work you’ve done?”
The lieutenant did his best to sink through the ground.
Tracy wanted to rescue him; he looked like a lost, wounded puppy. But she knew better than to interfere. Not only would it tick off Gus O’Dell, her superior officer, it would make Harrison look even worse in front of his peers to be rescued by a woman.
Some things never changed. Men’s egos ranked among them.
Had that been, in part, what had kept Adam Burke silent after his arrest? No. Not ego. -Not with him. Even beaten and ‘ shackled, he’d retained his dignity. He was too self-confident to be intimidated. But being confident didn’t make him innocent. He had to be guilty. Had to be.
O’Dell ranted himself out, and Harrison slunk back into the sixty-by-ninety-foot, metal-lined concrete chamber for another run at it.
When he was sealed inside, looking like a frog in his mask, O’Dell glanced at her. “What do you want, Keener?”
She didn’t waste time on small talk. Already she had decided she didn’t like Gus O’Dell, and she didn’t want to give him the opportunity to return the disfavor. “Was there any evidence of mitosis in Burke’s team members’ eyes?”
“I have no knowledge of mitosis being an investigative finding.”
O’Dell didn’t so much as glance at her. He kept his gaze pinioned on the window in the metal chamber door. God help Harrison if he pushed that red panic button. “I understand you spearheaded that exercise, sir.”
“I spearhead many missions, Captain.” O’Dell nodded at one of the trainees, “Crank, get ready to haul Harrison’s panicky ass out of there.”
Tracy stepped into O’Dell’s line of vision, and then smiled. “On that mission, did you issue Burke orders to separate from his men?”, “No, Captain, I did not.” O’Dell looked past her shoulder, checking on Harrison through the window. “If there’s nothing important to discuss, I’m a little busy at the moment.
A man’s life. Nothing important? “Just a few more questions, Major. Please.”
He let out an exasperated sigh and scowled.
Tracy backed.up a step, until she realized he was still looking past her at Harrison. The lieutenant now lay prone on the chamber floor.
“Get him out of there,” O’Dell ordered.
Crank reached for the chamber door.
“Wait!” O’Dell shouted, the color draining from his face. “Hit the green button!”
Crank stopped dead in his tracks. His eyes stretched wide and his Adam’s apple bobbed three times. Hard. “Oh, shit.”