“So he didn’t want to talk to me?”
“Apparently not.”
Stafford didn’t say anything at first, and then he said, “That’s a good sign. I think.”
“You’re sure you’re not angry? It had been such a pleasant afternoon. I didn’t want to spoil it.”
“No, not at all. I’ve been thinking about what you said up there on the trail. You pointed out something that I should have seen. I could walk away from the DCIS tomorrow morning, and nobody would care. In fact, news of my resignation would probably brighten several peoples’ day.”
“How about your pension, things like that?”
“I’ve got a 401-K,” he replied. He turned to look at her. “I haven’t the foggiest idea of what I’d do next, but whatever it might be, it’d be better than what I’m doing right now.”
“It’s something to think about, then, isn’t it?” she said. “In the meantime, you could stay here for a while. My father’s old room upstairs is our official guest room, and there is something you could contribute here, something that I can’t do-These kids have either never had a father or have had a monster masquerading as a father. You said you’ve worked with kids in the Boys Clubs. You could do that here.”
She really is quite beautiful, he thought. He resisted an impulse to reach out and touch her hair. “If I did stay,” he said, “it wouldn’t be just because of this Carson mess.”
She looked away, and he wondered if he had made a mistake. He felt himself blushing a little, and he was glad that it was dark on the porch.
“I think you would be very good for the kids,” she said, still avoiding eye contact. “Beyond that, I think it might do you good to get away from your world for a while. It doesn’t seem to be doing you much good these days.”
“That’s for damn sure,” he replied, following her lead, grateful to talk about something else, but also a bit disappointed.
They talked for another half hour about the school and the kids. When he sensed the evening was running down, he got up to go. She walked him to the front porch. He had told her he would go to the motel for the night and then return in the morning. He added that he would have to call Sparks in the morning. She nodded, then seemed poised to say something else. He waited.
“Everything’s not as it seems up here, Dave,” she said finally. “There’s … history. Family history. I sense that you are interested in me — as a woman. You need to think about your future, and not about me.” She gave him a sad smile, squeezed his hand, and went back into the house. He stood there for a moment, feeling like a disappointed teenager, and then went down the steps to his car..
Well, he thought to himself as he drove down the drive, there’s your answer. Why in the hell should he have assumed she saw anything desirable in him, a one-armed civil servant whose career was on the rocks, along with his marriage, not to mention this little imbroglio with Carson and company? He turned on the car radio and brought up a country station, where a singer was wailing on about love and tears.
Perfect, he thought. Just fucking perfect.
39
Brigadier General Carrothers rendezvoused with the An niston team at a large Trans-America truck stop near the intersection of the Atlanta Perimeter and Interstate 20. The Anniston task unit consisted of four Army semis and six large Army MP Suburbans bristling with whip antennas and police lights.
Carrothers had been waiting at the truck stop for half an hour, sitting in thejdarking lot in a black government sedan requisitioned from Dobbins Air Force Base in northwest Atlanta. His driver, an Air Force sergeant, was a smoker. He was standing outside the car, puffing away anxiously among all the diesel fumes. Carrothers had come down on an Army Learjet by himself. The only other officers in the task unit would be the Anniston Depot operations officer and two Chemical Corps captains to supervise the decon sweep teams. Major Mason and Colonel Fuller had remained behind in the Pentagon to man up the CW operations room.
Carrothers had not wanted Fuller there, but it had become obvious that Fuller had had a talk with his old friend the CG. “
General Waddell’s sudden return to the Pentagon had been unpleasant, to put it mildly. The commanding general had also been very busy on the flight back from the West Coast. Waddell did not care for surprises, and Fuller’s back-channel revelations had come as a very unpleasant surprise. Ominously, Waddell had not indulged in any sort of shotting match. Instead, he had summoned Carrothers into his office and had him stand at attention in front of his desk.
“General,” he said, his face grim, “I thought we had a mutually agreed ‘right answer’ to this little problem, but evidently I was mistaken. And now we have some outsiders in the game. Is it your position that this missing cylinder might in fact be hidden somewhere in the Fort Gillem DRMO? That it did not end up in the demil machine?”
“Yes, sir, that might be the case, General. But—”
“Don’t want to hear any damn mights or buts. The only butts I have a long-term interest in have two t’s in their spelling and they are destined for some chain-saw surgery for disobeying my orders. That’s a problem we will discuss at some length later, as well as your future in this organization. Right now, however, I propose to take some direct action, and you are going to feature prominently as a co-conspirator in the effort to put this incubus back in its box, assuming you want to keep that star.”
“General Waddell—” Carrothers began.
“Be quiet, General,” Waddell interrupted. “As far as I’m concerned, we had this mess contained, and you have managed to uncontain it. Now, I have spoken to General Roman, and he agrees with my assessment that we are at the zero-option point. He has authorized me to proceed with some fairly drastic action. For the good of the Army and for the larger purpose of ensuring the national security, you are going to incinerate that DRMO.”
His instructions had been very specific: “You will go to Georgia and run this thing personally. You will destroy the Fort Gillem DRMO by fire.
General Roman has made available a team of Special Forces people, who will go to Fort Gillem. You will establish two perimeters: Anniston MPs on the outside, the Anniston CERT on the inside. The Fort Gillem MPs will be engaged in investigating a faked breakin at the Army-Air Force Exchange Service warehouse on the other end of the base when the action goes down, courtesy of the Special Forces team. The’ snake eaters will arrive early and will hide out at the abandoned airfield.
While they’re waiting, they will disable the firefighting water supply to the DRMO complex and sabotage the fire alarm systems. When they get the go order, they will go through that DRMO with thermite bombs. I want them in and out of there in fifteen minutes.”
The Gillem military police would be lured away to the other end of the base by the breakin alarm. Once someone noticed the conflagration at the DRMO, the Fort Gillem fire engines would respond, but by then, all the buildings would be fully involved. The’firefighters would be delayed at the scene when none of the hydrants worked. Then someone would tell them there might be explosives in the warehouses. The Fort Gillem post commander, who would be cut in on the plan, would make the decision to hold back the Gillem firefighters, on the premise of not risking lives trying to save obsolete military equipment.
When Waddell had finished, Carrothers tried to object again. “Do not argue with me,” Waddell interrupted. “It’s not like we’re destroying valuable government property. Those warehouses are fifty years old. All of that stuff is there because it’s obsolete or otherwise surplus. The dollars we lose in not selling it are far outweighed by the possibility — a possibility regenerated by you, as far as I’m concerned — that some lunatic fringe might get their hands on a can of Wet Eye. You know about the biologic component.”