Dale Brown - Act of War

“To tell the truth, Sergeant Moore seemed a little like a mama’s boy the first time I met him.”

“He got this gun from his mother, as a birthday present.”

“Doug gave you the gun he got from his mother? Sounds like you two are engaged to be married already!”

“Bite me, J.”

A woman walked up to the table, notepad in hand. “Anything else I can get for you guys?” she asked.

“Just the check, please,” Jason said, finishing off the last of his barbecue sandwich.

“Nothing else at all? A doggie bag, a refill on your sodas—or how about a damsel in distress that was rescued by a robot knight in shining armor?”

Jason’s eyes bugged out in surprise, and his eyes snapped up at the waitress—only to find Kristen Skyy standing there, smiling at him, pretending to be a waitress with a reporter’s steno book in her hands. She was wearing a faded leather bomber jacket, a gray scarf, faded blue jeans, snakeskin boots, and an Albuquerque Isotopes minor league baseball team cap, obviously dressed to look like one of the locals. “Hi there, Major Jason Richter, Dr. Ariadna Vega. Good to see you two again.”

Jason got to his feet and gave Kristen a hug, and she returned it with a kiss on his cheek very close to the corner of his mouth that sent a shiver of electricity through his entire body. He led her to his side of the booth as Ari moved over to let him sit beside her. “This is quite a surprise,” Jason said after he and Kristen locked eyes for a few moments after they were all settled in—long enough that no one noticed Ariadna’s amused grin as she watched the two unabashedly gazing at one another. “What a coincidence. What in the world are you doing here?”

“Are you kidding me, J?” Ari interjected, rolling her eyes in mock disbelief at Richter’s apparent naiveté. “This is no coincidence. She tracked us down.”

Kristen looked into Jason’s eyes, trying to figure out if Richter was baiting her or not; she decided not to test him. “Yes, I did track you down,” she said with a smile. “Hope you don’t mind. I should have called, I guess, but when I got the information I decided to come right away.”

“How did you find us?”

“I have my sources,” Kristen said. “But I assure you, it wasn’t hard. My producers don’t even really have to lie—they usually mention that they work for Kristen Skyy or SATCOM One News and that’s enough. But most of the civilized world saw us together on television, and they might figure we’re already an…item?”

“And you want to know more about CID?”

“Of course,” Kristen said. “Your technology is simply amazing. It could revolutionize not just armed combat but policing high-crime neighborhoods, search and rescue, relief activities…”

“Sounds like the usual spiel from our public affairs office,” Ari said suspiciously. Kristen shrugged, admitting the fact. “What’s the real reason you’re here?”

Kristen smiled at him and nodded, apparently deciding to tell him everything—she obviously figured Ariadna would challenge her on anything she thought might be spin. “My sources say that the White House is planning on starting a secret terrorist-hunting unit, in response to the Kingman City attack,” Kristen said. “They’re preparing some sort of major antiterrorist policy statement, and they want this secret unit ready to go once the President makes the announcement.

“Now, if I was going to build a secret military antiterrorist force, I’d start with CID. You’re not at Fort Polk anymore; the Army Research Lab says you’re on temporary duty but they won’t say where, and not available for interviews. But while we’re at Fort Polk’s visitor’s center waiting to talk to someone who can tell us more about you, one of my staff members observed two civilian tractor-trailer trucks, which looked like they were loading gear up from the building where your office is. The trucks are from a moving and storage company in Shreveport, and they headed north on Interstate 49 toward Shreveport—Barksdale Air Force Base, I’m guessing.

“I have a source who’s an Air Force reservist, flies A-10 Warthogs out of Barksdale, and he tells me that each of the trucks had two twenty-foot steel army camo cargo containers that were loaded aboard an Air Force C-130 transport. He says that Base Ops said the C-130 was heading to Cannon Air Force Base but was not accepting space-available passengers. I head out to Cannon. I can’t get onto the base and public affairs won’t talk to me, but the locals tell me about the secret test ranges west of the base, almost as secret and well guarded as Area 51 in Nevada. They also say this place is a popular hangout for Air Force types. We’ve been watching it for a couple days now. Suddenly—poof, here you are.”

“You’d make a good intelligence officer—or spy,” Ari said. Jason looked at her but with a weird expression—not anger or exasperation, but with surprise at her comment.

“I’m a good investigative TV journalist, which most times is the same as being a spy,” Kristen said. “Anyway, here we are. So, what can you tell me?”

“Not anything more than what you know right now,” Ari said. “We’re here. Sorry you came all this way just to learn that.”

“Are you involved in a secret government antiterrorist unit?”

“If we told you, it wouldn’t be ‘secret’ anymore, would it?”

“This conversation is strictly off the record,” Kristen said. “It’s deep background, nothing more.”

“Does anyone ever buy that line?” Ari asked. “It doesn’t mean a thing except what you reporters want it to mean.”

“What it means, Dr. Vega, is that I would never use anything you told me in any article, not even if I ‘quoted unnamed sources,’ ” Kristen said. “I would use your information as a stepping-off point to finding information from other sources. It lets me know if I’m getting warmer or colder, that’s all.”

“And it’s guaranteed never to get back to the source, huh?”

Both Jason and Ari could see Kristen Skyy finally putting up her professional’s steel-curtain defensive shield. “No, Ari, I can’t guarantee anything,” she said stonily. “But many times it protects a person who has something to say and badly wants to say it. Information is purposely leaked all the time in exactly this way. The press gets the story it wants, and the government or groups get the information they want disseminated without revealing the source—namely, themselves. Governments, businesses, organizations, and individuals take advantage of the constitutional and professional protection the press can provide. I have kings and terrorists alike agree to make deep background comments every day.”

“So you just broadcast any information you receive from unnamed sources?”

“Of course not,” Kristen retorted. “We realize why the information is being leaked: it’s propaganda, pure and simple. We always double-and triple-check information we receive with other sources. I’ve already received deep background information about a new government military antiterror unit being considered; you are one of the corroborating sources. I’ll need another couple sources to verify your information, and on and on it goes. But I’ll go to prison before I reveal my sources.”

Ariadna was obviously unconvinced, and she scowled a little at Jason when he didn’t decline Kristen’s request. What’s the matter with you? Jason? she asked him silently. “We’d better go, J,” she prompted him, none too subtly.

“Wait,” Jason said.

Ari couldn’t believe it. “We can’t talk to her, J,” Ari said emphatically. “We’re already in hot water.”

“Oh?” Kristen asked Jason, her eyes dancing. “Stirring up trouble, are we?”