Читать книгу Compromised Identity - Jodie Bailey - Страница 9

ONE

“I’ll gather the Casualty Notification Team.”

Staff Sergeant Jessica Dylan twirled her pen on the green cloth cover of her notebook, watching the black barrel spin to stop, pointing straight at the chaplain, who’d stood to gather his papers after leading the casualty briefing for rear detachment. She couldn’t shake the thought of a family who was going about their business right now, thinking everything was right in their world.

“You okay?” Captain Alexander, the battalion rear detachment commander, stopped behind her on his way out the door. “Did you know Specialist Murphy?”

“Only by sight.”

The captain didn’t even hear her. He’d already moved on, out the door before her reply could even get to him.

Jessica stacked her things and pushed her chair back, feeling older than her twenty-eight years. This was no way to start a Monday.

No, she hadn’t known Specialist Murphy, but she could picture his mischievous grin at the Family Readiness Group picnic when he’d paid half a week’s pay to shove a cream pie in his First Sergeant’s face. It was true to form for Murphy. He’d taken every opportunity to buck his chain of command. Having license to do it publicly, even for a fund-raiser, had apparently been too much for him to resist.

Pulling the book tighter against her chest, Jessica shook off weighted emotion as she walked across the small courtyard from headquarters to her company’s building. Death never got easier. If the captain wasn’t going to get upset, neither was she. She could fall apart when she got home away from anyone who would see her grief as a weakness.

Her boots thudded heavy on the industrial tile, but they slid to a stop as she neared her office. The door was cracked slightly, light from her huge windows leaking into the dark hallway.

She shoved her hand into her uniform pocket, feeling for the key, vividly remembering how the lock had stuck as she’d left for the casualty briefing. With her Rear D soldiers on a detail across post and everyone else of consequence in the briefing, there was no one who should have needed access to her office.

Laying her book on a desk in the outer office, she peeked around the corner.

A female soldier, her back toward the door, stuffed Jessica’s work laptop into a small black backpack, but her focus stayed on the desktop’s screen. She fidgeted back and forth as if she was waiting for something, then reached under the desk, pulled something from the computer’s tower and shut the machine down, just like Jessica had left it.

It had only been a couple of weeks since her other laptop was stolen, and that theft had brought wrath down on her head. No way was she going through that again. Jessica stepped back, giving the woman just enough room to exit the office. Arms crossed over her chest, she waited.

The door pulled fully open, and Specialist Lindsay Channing stepped out, intent on shutting the door quietly behind her before she turned. When she spotted Jessica, her steps stuttered backward. “Staff Sergeant Dylan. I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Funny.” Jessica dropped her arms and balled her fists loosely at her sides. “I could say the same thing about you. Care to explain?”

Channing’s gaze darted from Jessica to a spot up the short hallway, then to the floor before going back to Jessica. “I was just coming back from a meeting and was going to stop by and give you some paperwork but your door was open and...” She took a step forward, sliding the backpack into her hand.

“Try again.”

“That’s the truth.” Channing smiled slightly and then edged to one side, trying to slip around Jessica.

Not on her life. Not until she coughed up what she’d been doing in that office. Jessica stepped sideways with her as Channing lashed out and swung with the heavy backpack, catching Jessica against the temple.

Something clattered to the floor as the blow drove Jessica to the right and slammed her shoulder into the cinder block wall, shooting pain through her body like electricity. It took a moment for the world to clear, and Channing was running up the hall for the exit.

Jessica tried to shake off the blow, doubling over with her hands on her knees, shoulder screaming from contact with the wall. A few feet away, what had to be Specialist Channing’s cell phone glinted in the sunlight. Jessica shoved it in her leg pocket and took off out the door in pursuit, though each fall of her boots on the floor jarred an unbearable pounding through her.

One of the young soldiers on staff duty, tasked with keeping watch over the battalion area, stepped out of the headquarters building as Specialist Channing raced across the courtyard, flinging the backpack into the bushes as she ran.

“Call 911!” Jessica shouted at him as she rushed past, pushing to gain on the thief, praying he’d follow the order instead of gawking at their backs.

Jessica’s world spun in the chill of a November Kentucky afternoon, the ache in her shoulder intensifying in the cold. She would not let this slow her down. She. Would. Not. Rounding the corner of the building at the parking lot, she stopped and grabbed the rough metal of a small fence, willing the pain to stop, watching as a small red sports car screeched into the parking lot, throwing gravel in its wake.

Channing dove into the passenger’s seat, but the car didn’t move.

Gathering her reserves, Jessica pushed away from the fence and stepped forward, prepared to confront anyone who tried to get in her way. She was not going to get called on the carpet for another missing laptop. Her career couldn’t take that blow.

A man in civilian clothes climbed from the car, reaching into his coat for something she couldn’t see, setting off alarms that refused to be silenced. His dark eyes raked across her as he paused beside the vehicle not twenty yards away.

Jessica took a step back, catching her foot against the fence, reaching out to brace herself as the man pulled his hand from inside his coat, a thick knife glinting in the late-afternoon sun.

* * *

Staff Sergeant Sean Turner was out of his small rental car and halfway to the building when the man exited the little red sports car and stalked toward Staff Sergeant Dylan. Three days he’d been pulling surveillance on her and nothing. Now, everything exploded at once.

He pushed hard across the asphalt as the man pulled a knife and stepped closer to his victim.

If Jessica Dylan died in front of him, Sean would have one more sin to add to his list of unforgivables. That list was long enough already. “Back away!” The shout echoed off the buildings on the other side of the nearly deserted parking lot, competing with his footfalls for volume.

The man straightened and whipped around, knife at the ready.

This was not going to be fun.

Especially not without his weapon and with his shoulder still healing. There was no way to get authorization to carry a gun on post without compromising the mission. He’d have to get through this altercation with what existed inside his own skin.

Holding up his hands to show he wasn’t armed, Sean stopped a few feet away from Jessica Dylan, edging slowly to the left to put himself between the man and his prey. “If you put down the knife, we’ll stop this now.” He motioned for Jessica to slip around the end of the fence—anything to put a barrier between her and the man creeping closer.

“Staff duty called the police.” Jessica spoke from behind him. “They should be here any second.” There was no fear in her voice, just fact.

If the situation weren’t so dire, Sean would break away to high-five her cool in the heat of battle. She didn’t even sound out of breath.

The other man didn’t flinch at Jessica’s declaration. He took a step to the left, seeming to calculate the shortest distance around Sean to Jessica. Never once did he turn back toward the car, his likely escape route.

Sean’s heart hammered harder. Whoever this guy was, his focus wasn’t on getting away. It was squarely on Jessica Dylan.

That changed everything. If keeping her quiet was more important than saving his own life, there was more at stake here than it seemed on the surface. This guy had to have orders from someone who scared him more than jail time.

Sean balled his fists and stepped forward, leading the offense rather than playing defense.

“I wouldn’t do that,” a second voice called out from the red sports car.

The female soldier who had run from the building stood by the passenger door, pistol aimed over the roof at Sean.

Nope. Not fun at all.

The back of Sean’s mind tried to spin up images of the last time he’d been unarmed and cornered, of the nightmarish days that followed, but he swallowed the fear and refused to give in. That was last time. This time, he had to win. His life wasn’t the only one to consider.

And he had orders of his own.

Sirens spun up in the near distance, stealing the two assailants’ attention for the brief second Sean needed. “Run!” He fired the word over his shoulder to Jessica, hoping she’d obey.

Her attacker was already in motion, diving through the door of the car before Sean could even get traction to follow him. As soon as his accomplice was inside, he floored the vehicle in a spray of gravel as the scene exploded, a military police cruiser roaring into the parking lot as two more soldiers ran around the corner of the building.

Sean waved an arm toward the sports car and yelled to the police. “That’s them! Go!” The car hesitated, and then took off in pursuit. Satisfied the officers had things in hand, Sean turned his attention to the woman he was supposed to be keeping an eye on.

Jessica Dylan sagged against the chain-link fence, fingers laced through the metal as she watched the car roar away. The instant she realized he was watching, she straightened and tugged the hem of her jacket, her face rearranged into an impassive mask.

This was a soldier who wanted him to know she was fully in control. No victim here.

Before he could reach her, the two soldiers who’d raced from the building swarmed her, but Staff Sergeant Dylan waved them off. “I’m fine.” She turned on two of the younger soldiers, eyeing them with an expression Sean hoped he never saw aimed in his direction. “Explain to me how Specialist Channing got into the company building when it was locked.”

Must be staff duty. And one of them had made a huge mistake. For their twenty-four-hour shift, those guys were responsible for manning the area and making sure everything stayed safe and low-key. From walking the battalion to answering the phones, they were the first line of defense. Sean would like to know the answer to how this all went down right in front of them, as well.

One of the soldiers stepped forward and Sean angled to read his name. Specialist Thompson. “I had stepped away to take a message to Captain Alexander. My runner was at the desk.”

Staff Sergeant Dylan tipped her head toward the younger soldier, a Private Meyers. “So you let her in?”

“She needed to drop something off in your office, so I let her in and came back to my post. I didn’t think it was a big deal.” Private Meyers kept his gaze just over Jessica’s shoulder.

Sean couldn’t blame the kid for not looking at her. He was facing a world of hurt leaving the desk unmanned and giving access to a soldier on the very day trouble went down. Sean stepped closer, drawing Staff Sergeant Dylan’s attention again, and she stepped away from the other soldiers to approach him, left hand extended, the only indication she’d been through trauma: a slight tremor in her fingers.

“I’m Staff Sergeant Jessica Dylan.” She grasped his fingers tightly in hers, her hand chilled from the elements and likely mild shock. “Thanks for stepping in.”

Something was wrong. Sean released her hand and eyed her carefully. “Most people I know extend their right hands, Staff Sergeant. Are you injured?” The way she angled her shoulder slightly back was a telltale sign. He looked past her to the two soldiers trudging back toward their post. “Private Meyers, call for an ambulance.”

“Meyers.” Jessica Dylan pulled herself taller and turned her back to Sean. “Do not. I’m fine.”

Meyers and the other soldier hesitated, and then seemed to choose their own chain of command over the random stranger, turning to walk back toward the building. Only Private Meyers cast an uncertain, slightly amused glance back at them.

She whirled on him so fast she wavered on her feet. “I don’t know who you are, but I said I’m fine.” Her eyes swept the rank on his chest, and she seemed a little prideful to find it equal to hers: Staff Sergeant.

Holding his hands up in surrender, Sean took a step back, giving her space before she took out her anger and fear on him.

“I’m fine, by the way. Just took a dive into the wall shoulder first. I’ll have it checked out, and I’m sure it will be bruised tomorrow but none the worse for wear.” She met his eyes with authority. “Again, thank you. I don’t know what made you do it, but I appreciate the help.” Without looking back, she turned and walked away.

The help? He took two steps to follow her, then stopped, unsure whether he should reveal his mission yet or not. Based on all he’d seen in the past five minutes, that man would have killed her. Without Sean, Jessica Dylan would be dead.