CHAPTER 1

The list of people who thought their intelligence granted them immunity from the rules of the herd was a long one. On that list Staff Sergeant Barry Martin would not be exceptional. Master Sergeant Tab Gray sat staring across her desk watching her star student tap on the arms of the chair. Martin was incredibly intelligent and as a result of that intelligence he was an exceptional analyst, and a fine soldier, but an arrogant fool.
“Sergeant Martin, we have about ten minutes before security arrives – I think you owe me an explanation.”
He leaned forward slightly and raised a hand, his fingers curled into his palm.
“Owe you? There is nothing on that disc. I just forgot it was in my pocket. I haven’t done anything wrong.”
She rolled her eyes and spent a few seconds looking at the ceiling. Easily the best in her class he now descended to just a waste of her time. She had no idea if he intended to download information or introduce a virus into the system. She didn’t know if this was his first time. There was a possible compromise of classified information and the guidelines for handling that were clear.
“I will never know why you smuggled that disc in. And you did smuggle it in. You have buttons on your BDU pockets for Christ’s sake, you didn’t absent-mindedly slip that disk in there. Now, if you’re lucky and they find nothing, you may retain enough of a security clearance for assignment to an infantry division.”
“I’m not a spy, and when that disc is examined you’ll discover I’ve been caught at nothing.”
She leaned across her desk. She didn’t raise her voice, much, and she was proud of herself for that.
“That isn’t the goddamned point and you know it! You’ve committed a grievous security violation that will alter, if not end, your career. The investigation will stop this class. You inconvenience the other students whom you apparently hold in contempt. You inconvenience me and worse, you embarrass the command.”
“I didn’t trigger the investigation, you did. You could have just admonished me and let things go. Not every mistake is a treasonous act.”
His calmness infused her with indignation. Either this was a lark or he was playing something off but that was not her decision to make. She stood and as she did so he began to rise.
“Sit down sergeant. You apparently believe this is innocuous, but it is not. I wouldn’t let my mother walk out of here with that disc. If you, somehow, emerge from this investigation unscathed, try to remember you aren’t special despite your gift. We have stringent security procedures for a reason. You may think them tedious but for now they’re the best anyone can do. They only work if meticulously applied.”
He shook his head slightly and closed his eyes.
“It’s people like you who make bureaucracies insufferable.”
Two suits walked through the door. She looked at Martin.
“And soldiers like you make them necessary.”
Military Criminal Investigators wore civilian clothes so their rank wouldn’t interfere with an investigation. They were somehow supposed to dress professionally on a limited allowance, most of which went in support of a wife and kids instead. She handed them two pieces of paper.
“Here’s my statement. I’ll be here all weekend if you need further clarification.”
The older investigator took her statement and stuck out his hand introducing himself as Robert Zeligman. He looked at his partner.
“Take him outside and wait for me.”
He read through her statement, nodding his head a couple of times.
“Very complete. Thank you. What’s your take on this guy?”
“Yesterday I would have said he was destined for a stellar career. Today I think it’s a shame that he has squandered his talent.”
“So, he’s good, but you aren’t willing to go to bat for him?”
“He’s a staff sergeant in the US Army. He’s worked in this field for twelve years. He knows the rules perfectly. He has, up until this point, supposedly executed them perfectly. This may be an aberration. Or it may not.”
“You have no feelings about him, one way or the other?”
“Do you mean do I think he’s guilty of more than a security violation? I don’t know. Whether or not intentional, he violated security procedures. Determining the damage is your job. At the very least, the command will feel compelled to make an already oppressive security regimen more so.”
He sat in the chair across from her and crossed one knee over the other resting an arm on it and studied her. She leaned on her desk.
“Listen, Zeligman, instead of this game, I’ll just tell you straight out that there isn’t a connection between Sergeant Martin and myself. You needn’t worry that your investigation will dig up any indiscretions in my conduct with students.”
He gave a single nod and smiled.
“At least you understand the concern. I don’t normally find people so uh, enamored of the system.”
“I would hardly call it that. But I don’t have any better ideas.”
“So you’ll work this one until something better comes along.”
“Only game in town. If I didn’t believe in this system, I wouldn’t be here.”
“It’s probable you’re ruining this guy’s career. You OK with that?”
She sat back down in her chair and put her copies of her statement in a file folder. It always came down to this: How determined are you to see this through?
“He ruined his career. And I’m happier with that than other possibilities. I’m busy, so if we can just cut the banter…”
He suddenly got a smile on his face and stood. She knew what was coming next and should have seen it coming earlier.
“I’m going to Smitten’s tonight. Interested in a drink, maybe dinner?”
She smiled. Well, at least there wasn’t a trashy line. Was he asking her out or just creating an opportunity to dig deeper? He was good looking but if he was intelligent he was hiding it well. She had no desire to find out.
“Believe me, if there were any temptation it would be me asking you. Now, can we get on with things? I still have incident reports to write and submit.”
He stood and stepped toward the door.
“If you change your mind...”
She held his card up cocking her head slightly to one side and slid her voice up a notch.
“I know how to find you.”
As the door closed behind him she shook her head. Had she given some indication she was interested? Besides the fact he was investigating her as well as Martin, there wasn’t one chance this side of Dante’s front door she’d go out with a guy close to her age. They were always looking to settle in with some woman and stagnate. Besides, there weren’t marriages in America. Most women were settling for an untrained slave while most men thought they were buying a cow. And none of them knew why they did it.
She began studying the class schedule trying to figure out where she could make up the time that would be lost to this investigation – and how it would affect her time table for retirement. She prayed there were no elephants in SSG Martin’s hidden rooms.

This is a small segment taken out of my book for various reasons:

Cutting the morning mists of rolling farmland like a scalpel, sucking orange segments, engine screaming, she dreamed of art - her measure of a society. Gone now were the autumn hues, given way to the gray skeletons that would wait so patiently for life’s eventual return. Gone were the flocks of doves, and their short shrieks, startled skyward by the slightest motion. Each curve brought another fence line holding cows against the wind and each hole in the clouds a shock of light with no promise of warmth before disappearing across fields mute against a gray sky. What had gray to do with the absence of life, anyway?
She had only another hour of driving freedom before she would hit I-25 and its boring straightness. She wanted to wring every second dry, to caress this winding road , feel the light pressure of her car as it responded to her subtle suggestions, leaving no evidence of her passage except the momentary track left in dampness. She powered through every curve, downshifting, feeling the car’s response, demanding precision, desiring that lightness that speed gave her.
Hurtling along the road in her cocoon, leaning, twisting, dropping in curves to flatten them out, she allowed the cold morning drizzle into her state of mind. As she raced to the droplets she imagined each one striking her with an evaporative sizzle, cooling a pinpoint area of her surface and each behind it cooling a little deeper until they drove the heat from her. Purified, she watched the road unwind before her and relaxed her hands on the wheel. Mark had once said power to control others was a balm for those who cannot control themselves. He had wished her love. She went faster. She turned the music louder, threw her head back and laughed loudly. She did not fear him.

A thought for JD

A thought for JD

My candle burns at both ends,
it cannot last the night.
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends –
it gives a lovely light. –Edna St. Vincent Millay

I once believed in live and let live.
Natural selection.
That I was not my brother’s keeper.
Everyone chose their course in life,
and it was their obligation to navigate that course.
No matter the storms and shoals,
It was their course to sail.
But I no longer believe that.
History and experience teaches us otherwise.
We are responsible for each other.
We are the winds of the storms
that blow the ships in our lives about.
And we can, by the smallest things we say,
by the love we give generously or withold,
blow those ships to safe harbor
or upon the most dangerous shoals.
Now, there are people who can repair those ships,
those crashed upon the rocks,
still it is only patchwork,
material to cover the damage done,
never able to make them new.
But we are, each one of us,
able to keep them new,
by saying the things we want to hear,
by giving the love we want to receive.
We are responsible
for blowing those ships to safe harbor.
Paul said:
If I speak in the tongues of men, or of angels,
but do not have love, I am but a resounding gong
or a clanging cymbal.
If I have the gift of prophecy,
and can fathom all mystery, and all knowledge,
and if I have faith to move mountains, but do not have love,
I am nothing.
If I give all of my possessions to the poor,
and give my body over to hardship that I may boast,
but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Love never fails.

My brother JD, you were a man of great vision, but the love you
so desperately needed you were unable to see.
Do not fear, you will never be alone for
a part of me will always be with you.

OK, I'm on the downhill slide in preparing for Thrillerfest - that would be the slide that increases time passage and you begin to realize that time is suddenly an enemy. That time when you think you have your schedule set and everything is humming along and you wake up one morning to realize time has turned on you. Or maybe it isn't time but attitude that has turned on you. Maybe you realize that this is no longer a dream you're playing with and it's time to put up or shut up. And then you have the thought that maybe the shut up path is the more luminous and then it becomes the more intelligent as you think about it. You could just write for your friends, surely that would provide the necessary satisfaction for your ardor. Or, you could epublish if you needed more exposure and find the audience that liked your work. But now you've come to the crux of it: you have to hang yourself out there. You know you do. If you don't the primary question that propelled you down this path, the question you've so ardently expounded to anyone who would listen, won't have an answer. And time will again favor the devil and, for what it is famous, slip smugly away.

I'm going to Thrillerfest! This will be the biggest moment in my writing career. I've been to other conferences, actually several other conferences, but this is the ultimate conference. It's for thriller writers. My manuscript is finished. My pitch line is ready. A little more polish on my synopsis but I have until July. So what's the worst that could happen? Well, everybody could hate it. Or they could laugh at it. But at the very least, I'll get professional feedback and know what I have to do.
And it's still four days in the company of the best thriller writers in the country. It's a chance to listen to them, to hear how they think, to learn where they get their ideas, to find out if they're like me or if I'm as strange as friends and family think I am.