Sweepers (51 page)

Train considered crouching down but then dismissed the idea. He was simply too big to hide behind anything much smaller than a house anyway.

The place felt abandoned. He had thought he had seen the dark silhouette of a fallen-in house up there among the trees near the top, and there were signs that there had once been a road or a driveway, now entirely overgrown, beyond the dead tree. Gutter disappeared behind the trailer and then reappeared a minute later on the far side.

Train considered his options. The dog would find anyone hiding outside the trailer, although not necessarily someone inside the trailer. Karen said the guy rode a motorbike, and there was no motorbike in sight. As the day warmed up, the aroma from all the trash around the trailer was becoming stronger, accompanied by the whine of flies. He could not imagine someone living like this, and yet he knew that there were lots of other trailers just like this in these parts. The dog came loping back to him, and Train, satisfied that no one was lying in wait ahead, decided to go check out the trailer itself He looked over at the huge dead tree lying across the road, then took Gutter back to it, instructing him to stay down underneath the trunk. Train was pretty sure he could handle Jack if he was in I that trailer, and while he would have preferred to keep Gutter with him, he wanted the Dobe between him and those two thugs down below.

He could always call him in if there was trouble. GUTTLVR flopped obediently onto his belly, giving Train a mildly resentful look.

Train patted him, reinforced the command, and then walked down the path lea . ding to the trailer, proceeding carefully, with the Glock in his right hand but held down by his side. He went straight up to the door, -knocked, and then stepped back, holding the gun behind his back. He kept looking around the clearing to make sure no one was moving, hoping that Gutter still had a view of the clearing. He knocked again and called out Jack’s name. Nothing moved inside the trailer. He knocked a third time, more forcefully, making the side of the trailer rattle. Then he tried the door handle and found the door unlocked.

He looked around again and then pushed the door in, hard enough that it banged all the way back to the wall. He called Jack’s name again and then listened carefully, but there were no sounds coming from the trailer. The gun pointed up now, he went into the trailer. He felt the floor sag beneath his feet as he took shallow breaths against the stink of rotting food and’filthy clothes. The interior looked a lot like the exterior, and the trailer had a definite sewage problem somewhere.

It felt empty. He checked out the other two rooms and bathroom, staying out of the tiny kitchen for fear of the mess he would find there. He looked around. The place was little more than an aluminum cave; all it needed was a pile of bones in one comer. But there was no one here.

He went back to the clearing and checked on Gutter, who was still on command, then focused on what looked like a ruined house a hundred yards or so up the hill from. the downed oak tree. It took ten minutes to push through all the undergrowth, and he was careful about where he put his feet.

It was only early afternoon, but already there were shadows forming under the trees. The house was a total wreck. Two enormous stone chimneys at either end were the only things vertical about it. It appeared to have . been a two-story woodframe house with porches running around three sides, but the second floor and the roof had long ago subsided into the Pound floor. The porches sagged and dropped like old spiderwebs. The steps were long gone, although the stone supports were still there. The ground-floor window frames were deformed and empty of glass and sash, and he thought he could see parts of the ground-floor ceiling sagging down into the front rooms. The front door was missing, leaving an asymmetric black hole facing the dying trees out front.

He walked around three sides of the house, but there were no signs of life or the detritus of vagrants. Huge old vines roped up the remains of the porches, and some had even gone inside. He was about to go back down the hill when a squirrel burst out practically from beneath his feet, giving him a good scare. The squirrel hightailed it up one of the old trees and Train watched it go damned near all the way to the top, which is when he saw the antenna. At first, it didn’t register. He moved closer to the tree, peering through the branches, and there it was, a radio antenna of some kind.

And a wire, cleverly concealed in the ragged bark of the tree, descended the tree and disappeared in the underbrush.

He rooted around the base of the tree, found it, saw which way it was pointed, and followed the route with his eyes until he found it again, disappearing under one of the porches. Well, well. Ruined, but not necessarily abandoned.

Still holding the Glock, he made his way around to the front steps.

Balancing himself, he climbed up the stone step supports and then tiptoed across the bare floor joists of what had been the front porch and approached the open doorway.

The old wood creaked ominously under his weight, but just inside the door, he hit pay dirt again: There was a piece of plywood resting over the open floor joists about six feet inside that doorway. He eased his way through the doorway and saw that both front rooms on either side were filled with the wreckage of the second floor. Heaps of plaster and broken boards pointing every which way were all piled onto the ground floor. But straight ahead, in what looked like a main hallway, there was more plywood, ending in a closed door that seemed to be surprisingly intact.

He listened carefully, but there were no sounds. No smell* of human habitation, no candy wrappers or beer cans. But that wire had to go somewhere. That wire was new. And this plywood was new. He stepped out onto the first sheet and it held, although broken plaster scrunched underneath as he took the next step. The hallway got darker as he moved across the plywood, and he kept looking over his shoulder at the frame of the front door, where the glare of the afternoon light outside etched every detail of the front porch. He was about six feet from the closed door when he looked up and saw something shiny above the door-something round and glinting, as if made of glass. A camera? Oh Lord, was that a video camera?

The flash went off in his face, a sickeningly familiar purplish blast of light that overwhelmed his brain circuits even as he recognized it. As he reeled back, his brain paralyzed, he thought he heard an ominously familiar inhalation sound.

“Let him go,” Carpenter said after the yeoman brought in the pieces of the ID card. “He’s just mad right now. He’ll come around.”

Kensington dismissed the yeoman and waited for him to the door. “Are you completely sure those archives are an?”

Carpenter wasn’t sure of anything. He had been truly unsettled when Karen Lawrence turned on him like that. And God only knew what that von Rensel guy was doing. “Yes, sir, but I’m going to keep a security trap. in place until we have Sherman’s papers.”

“You said it was clean.”

“It is, but I don’t trust computers, or the weird bastards who can get into their brains and manipulate them. Like that guy those people sent over.”

Kensington nodded thoughtfully. “Do you realize how bad that whole business would look in today’s climate?”

“I don’t want to even think about it. Leaving a guy behind was one thing. Not trying to get him back was something else again. In today’s climate, the Navy’d be tom apart over this little story.”

They were interrupted by the EA. “Admiral Carpenter, your office has patched down a call from a Mr. Mcnair?

Says it’s urgent.

As they walked quickly away from Kensington’s office, Karen’s mind was spinning. Why was Carpenter doing this?

As a woman, she could understand Sherman’s decision to throw in the towel. But not why Kensington and Carpenter were doing this. Unless, of course, Sherman wasn’t the scandal they were really afraid of. She stopped short in the corridor, thinking about that locked file.

“Admiral, there has to be something more behind all this than just fear of a public-relations problem. And I think I know where we might find it.”

Sherman gave her a weary look. “Do we have time for theories, Karen?”

“I think We ought to make time for this one,” she said.

“I’d like to divert to my office before we leave the building, and hopefully before Admiral Carpenter gets back to his office. I need to get to my. computer.”

“Will the office be open? And what are we looking for?” He asked as she turned dawn the sixth corridor, heading toward the Investigations Review offices. Their voices echoed in the empty hallway.

Stem portraits of CNOS past frowned down on them.

“This whole thing began in Vietnam,” she said. “A week ago, I asked for the archive file of the original JAG investigation, when Galantz was lost. But when I tried to pull it up, there was a security block.

Admiral Carpenter, told Train that he had read it, and that it corroborated your version of what happened out there in Vietnam. But I’m wondering if there isn’t something else in that file.”

“Did von Rensel see it?”

“No, sir,” she said, turning into the D-ring corridor and quickening her pace. “He obtained the NIS file on Jack. But he thinks Carpenter is behind the security block.”

They arrived at the IR office door, whose translucent glass window was dark. She punched in the code and opened the door. Sherman followed her in and closed the door behind them as she turned on some lights. “Why would NIS have a file on Jack?” he asked.

She hurried over to her cubicle, debited with herself about turning off the lights, and decided against it. She went over to the yeoman’s desk and booted up the network server, and then she went to her desk to bring up her own system.

“I’m not sure they had a file on him, per se. They apparently have access to multiple databases, and they can do what the telemarketers and the credit checkers can do, only with some federal muscle.”

“What a concept,” he muttered.

“Okay, system’s up ” She sat down at her desk and put through a request from’the IR system to the JAG local-area network. Sherman paced around the empty office while Karen’s fingers flew over the keyboard.

“Any luck?” Sherman asked from across the room.

“Almost,” she replied, opening the’access screen and keying in her original request number. The screen asked for her personal identifier.

She keyed that in. A red banner exploded across the screen. It told her that her access was invalid and that the restricting authority was being notified.

“Uh-oh,” Sherman said from across the room.

“Uh-oh is right,” she said. “Access denied. And I’ll bet Carpenter’s office is getting an alert right now telling them I’m trying to get into this file.”

“Maybe we should shut down and get out of here, then,” he said. “Before the rent-a-cops show up. Or worse, some of the CNO’s Marines from Opnav security.”

“I can’t imagine anything like that,” she said. “It’s not as if I was doing something illegal. This is a system I use all the time.”

“See if you can log into your division’s LAN E-mail system,” he suggested. “See if this denial is file -specific, or user-specific.”

She frowned but then exited the archive system and opened E-mail.

Another red banner. “It’s me, she whispered.

“I was afraid of that,” he said. “Let’s go. Now.”

“I have to shut the system down. If I don’t, the server will-“

“Screw the server,” he said, reaching down to hit the computer’s power key. “We need to get out of this building and down to Aquia as quickly as possible.”

Karen got up hurriedly and turned off the office lights.

They opened the door and looked out into the empty corridor.

“No sounds of approaching jackboots,” Sherman said.

“Follow me.”

“Where are we going?” she asked, hurrying to keep up in her skirt and heels.

“Don’t think we ought just to waltz out the South Parking entrance,” he said over his shoulder. If that was a network trap, there’ll be a security alert. I’m not sure what’s going on here, but somebqdy’s locked you ‘out of the system, and recently. We’ll take these stairs right here.’ He ducked sideways into a small stairway in the middle of the corridor. Karen followed, her heels clattering on the concrete steps.

“Where does this go? I’ve never used this one. “

“Spend enough years in this building, you learn some shortcuts. This’ll get us down to the first floor, and then we’ll go around the B-ring to corridor four. Stay out of the A-ring in case security vehicles are on their way. Damn, I wish it weren’t Saturday. The building’s empty as a tomb.

We’re going to be conspicuous.”

“Where will that take us?” she asked.

“And I may have to take these shoes off.”

He turned around to look and then apologized. “Sorry. I forgot about heels. I guess there’s no need to run.” But even as he said that, as they were about to cross the sixth corridor through the B-ring, they heard the urgent beeping sound of an approaching electric security vehicle coming down the A-ring to their left. They stopped and ducked back into the B-ring, flattening themselves against an office door.

There were two large glass doors across the sixth corridor, where they could see the reflection of the security vehicle, a large electric golf cart with a rotating amber beacon, go humming by. There were four armed men riding in the vehicle.

Sherman swore. “Reaction force. Probably on their way to the main entrances. That may or may not be for us, but if it is, we’re going to have to hurry.”

Karen popped her shoes off and began to trot in her stockinged feet. As long as they were on the polished corridor floors, it wasn’t too bad.

They moved quickly along the angled segments of B-ring, across the fifth corridor and then into the fourth corridor. She had to put-her shoes back on to get across the garage and utility street between D-ring and E-ring, and she left, them on as they went back up a small stairway to reach ground level. Sherman paused just inside a doorway.

“Okay,” ‘he said. “What we’re trying for here is the heliport door. It’s an exit that’s open only on workdays. Usually, there’s a guard, but probably only an alarm system ‘right now. It opens directly into the heliport area, and from there it’s only a hundred yards or so to South Parking. It’s all I can think of.”