Marcia Talley - This Enemy Town

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Hannah Ives is always ready to support others like herself who have been through the gauntlet of fear and uncertainty that a diagnosis of cancer often brings. So when friend and fellow survivor Dorothy Hart asks for help building sets for the Naval Academy's upcoming production of Sweeney Todd, Hannah readily agrees.
But it means associating with an old foe – a vindictive officer whose accusations once nearly destroyed Hannah's home life. And when one corpse too many appears during a dress rehearsal of the dark and bloody musical, Hannah finds herself accused of murder – and enmeshed in a web of treachery and deception that rivals the one that damned the "Demon Barber."
Caught up in a drama as sinister as any that has ever unfolded on stage, Hannah stands to lose everything unless she unmasks a killer before the final curtain falls…

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We had given the guy at Security Jack’s room number when we registered, so it was still fresh in my mind. “So if your office is in room 3E844,” I said, “that would be the third floor of the far outside ring, roughly in the middle of the eighth corridor.”

Jack smiled. “Exactly. There are seventeen and a half miles of corridor in this building,” he commented as he led us down one of them. “And they say it takes only seven minutes to get from any one point to another.” He punched the button to call the elevator. “Tell that to me when I’m juggling coffee and a doughnut.”

We rode up to the third floor, disembarking in a hallway that reminded me of a fine old hotel. Elegant dark wood paneling covered the walls beneath a chair rail, above which hung oil paintings of former Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the colors of the artwork vibrant in contrast to the creamy walls. On both sides of the hallway, dark paneled doors-some open, some closed-led to offices whose occupants, all high-level political appointees, were indicated by brass plaques bearing titles such as Secretary of Defense, Under Secretary of Defense for This and Under Secretary of Defense for That. Framed photographs of the incumbents and flags hung about everywhere.

As we strolled along the corridor, the large-scale oils gradually gave way to smaller works. Jack paused in front of one of them, an unassuming but competent landscape. “And this delightful little watercolor was painted by Dwight David Eisenhower,” he told us.

Ah, yes, I thought, as I studied the pleasant fall scene and wondered if it was in Pennsylvania, where Ike had retired with Mamie. Eisenhower, like his friend, Winston Churchill, had enjoyed painting watercolors in his spare time.

We all need a hobby, I thought. Mine was knitting. Would they let me have knitting needles in jail? If not, I might never get back to that cable-knit sweater I’d started for Paul last Christmas.

Still worrying about the unfinished sweater, I hurried to catch up with the guys, who were standing in front of a massive wooden door, waiting for me. “This is where I hang out,” Jack was saying to Paul when I approached.

The minute we entered the office, two well-trained secretaries leapt to their feet. Secretaries in the traditional sense-small s -they came out from behind their desks, greeted us warmly, took our coats and asked if we’d like coffee, which we politely declined.

Jack’s office adjoined the Secretary’s, capital S . It was smaller than I would have expected for a Navy captain, certainly small by Naval Academy standards, but large enough to accommodate his desk, a round conference table piled high with file folders, and several upholstered chairs, which we promptly settled into.

What is it they say? Location, location, location. Jack’s office had it in spades. Prime real estate on the E-ring, with a window overlooking the Potomac.

“Paul told me over the phone what you’re interested in,” Jack was saying just as I was getting comfortable, “and I’m only too happy to oblige. You asked about Lieutenant Jennifer Goodall. She was stationed here for two years before being assigned to the Naval Academy. The last year she worked here, Goodall was Admiral Ted Hart’s assistant.”

“What would that entail?” I inquired.

“Well, she would keep his calendar, check his e-mail, take his calls, sit in on all his meetings. In short, there wouldn’t be anything she wouldn’t know about the guy.”

“It’s my understanding,” said Paul, “that Admiral Hart is still here, in charge of Weapons Acquisition and Management for the Navy.”

“That’s right. His office is just around the corner from us, in the tenth corridor.”

“Hart’s wife is convinced the two were having an affair,” I cut in, “but I’m not so sure about that. When Goodall was at the Academy, she tried to hang an affair around Paul’s neck, too.” I caught Paul looking at me and smiled. “But she lied about that. At least she admitted that to me before she died.”

Jack leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. “I remember reading about her accusations in Navy Times ,” he said, “but no one who really knew Professor Ives ever believed a word of it.”

“That’s gratifying,” Paul said with a thin, grim smile.

“I did ask around as casually as I could about Goodall’s sex life,” Jack continued, “but there doesn’t seem to be any scuttlebutt about that. If Goodall and Hart were an item, they played their cards very close to their chests.”

“What about the possibility that Goodall was blackmailing Hart?” Murray asked, breaking what was, for him, an uncharacteristically long silence. “If not about sex, how about something else? Something job-related, for example.”

“But wait a minute.” I held up a hand. “If Hart were doing something dishonest, immoral, or illegal, wouldn’t he try to hide it from his staff, just in case any of them were the whistle-blowing type?”

Jack raised a hand, the stone in his Naval Academy ring a flash of blue in the bright light streaming through the window. “Consider this scenario. As Hart’s assistant, Goodall would normally sit in on all meetings. What if, all of a sudden, people started showing up who weren’t on his calendar? What if she were excluded from certain meetings? She might get suspicious, put two and two together, start nosing around.”

“My experience is mostly with the corporate world,” Murray said, “so can you educate me a little? What sort of mischief could an admiral like Hart get into?”

Jack took a deep breath. “This is pure speculation, you understand, and completely off the record…” He paused. When Murray nodded in agreement, Jack leaned forward in his chair and continued. “Hart may be looking ahead to retirement, angling for a job at one of the biggies like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, Raytheon, or Northrup/Grumman. It’s possible he’s steering business their way, in some sort of you-scratch-my-back-and-I’ll-scratch-yours kind of scheme.” Jack gazed at the ceiling, his green eyes completely innocent. “But you didn’t hear that from me.”

“Kickbacks?” I asked.

“Could be, but not necessarily. With that kind of arrangement, no money actually needs to exchange hands.”

“That’s drawing a pretty fine line,” Murray snorted.

“But wouldn’t there be safeguards in place to keep that from happening?” Paul wondered.

“Usually, yes, through a tightly controlled government contracting process,” Jack continued. “But there’s a war on in Iraq, and things need to get rushed through in the name of expedience, sometimes without the usual oversight. We call it fast-tracking.”

I couldn’t wait to put in my two cents worth. “Easier to explain why you let a government contract go to a crony than to explain to a grieving mother that her son died because he didn’t have a bulletproof vest, right?”

“Right. And troops have to be fed and supplied from day one,” Jack continued. “You simply can’t afford to wait around for the usual contract procedures to run their course.”

I’d dealt with government contracts before while working at Whitworth and Sullivan-writing a statement of work, advertising it in Commerce Business Daily , sending it out to perspective bidders, evaluating bids, awarding the contract, dealing with challenges from losing bidders who think they’ve been unfairly excluded. It could take years before the actual product showed up on your loading dock.

“But aren’t the fast-track vendors prequalified in some way,” I wondered, “like the blanket purchase order agreements I remember from back in the old days?”

“Many are, particularly for goods and services that we anticipated a need for, but now we’re dealing with companies capable of providing expertise to quickly gear up and handle critical large-scale public works projects like water, sewer, electricity, housing, transportation. It’s a whole new ball game.”

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