Lord! Was it really that long since med school? That many years since he’d tumbled into love with a bright-eyed Red Cross volunteer? Those days at Duke seemed as if they’d happened in another life. To a different man.
They had, he thought grimly as he yanked at the Navigator’s door. An entirely different man. Or so Alicia had claimed the night she’d stormed out of their house three years ago. Her last, furious tirade haunted Cody to this day. Not even a velvet night and a brilliant tapestry of stars could ease his soul-searing guilt.
He wasn’t about to admit he’d stopped out here in the middle of nowhere in the vain hope of finding solace, though. Particularly to a tough, no-nonsense military cop.
Wrapping his hands around the steering wheel, he stared into the darkness and waited for the major’s vehicle to appear.
Chapter 2
Radioing ahead, Jill advised Navy Captain Sam Westfall that one of his key team leaders had appeared on the scene well ahead of his estimated time of arrival.
“I’m escorting Dr. Richardson to the compound now.”
“Good,” the commanding officer replied in his deep, gravelly bass. “Bring him to my quarters when you arrive.”
“Will do, sir.”
Hands on the ATV’s wheel, Jill navigated the dirt road shooting straight as an arrow across the desert. The headlights of Doc Richardson’s SUV speared through the darkness behind her.
“I don’t know about this guy,” she muttered to Goofy as she flicked a glance in the ATV’s rearview mirror. “He sure doesn’t look like any brilliant research scientist I ever stumbled across.”
Not that she’d stumbled across all that many. After the brutal assault in her freshman year and a subsequent bungled investigation by the campus police, Jill had made up her mind nothing like that would ever happen to her again. She’d switched her major to law enforcement and enrolled in every available self-defense course available off-campus. And once she’d been commissioned as a military police officer, she’d pretty well lived, breathed, eaten, and slept in her fatigues. She hardly knew anyone who wasn’t a cop, much less a brilliant scientist.
“Think I’ll take another look at his dossier,” she murmured to Goof. “Something about his roadside stop to drink in the stars just doesn’t sit right with me.”
Mickey’s pal bobbed his head in vigorous agreement, as he always did.
Some forty minutes later, Jill slowed for the first checkpoint. The MP who came out of the modular booth that served as a guard shack recognized her in the glare of the spot angled down from the shack’s roof. The sergeant saluted respectfully but still asked for ID. Jill handed him a flat leather case, pleased that he hadn’t let her pass on mere visual recognition.
He aimed a small electronic sensor at her face, then ran it over her holographic ID. The flat, credit card size bit of plastic contained an astonishing array of photo imaging, retinal scan data, fingerprints, DNA information, and a special code signifying Jill’s level of access within the compound. The card also contained a built-in signal transmitter that allowed the Control Center to track the movements of the person carrying it. When the card reader gave two soft pings, the sergeant handed her back the leather case.
“You’re cleared for entry, Major.”
“Thanks. I’m escorting Dr. Cody Richardson to the site,” she told him, pointing a thumb at the vehicle behind hers. “He’s on your key personnel list.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The sergeant walked back to the idling SUV and requested the doc’s civilian ID. Angling his flashlight at Richardson, he scrutinized the physician’s face and compared it to the photo before taking the identification back into the guard post to check the access list. Tomorrow Jill would issue each of the cadre members a holographic ID similar to hers and considerably speed up the entry process.
After some moments the guard returned to Richardson’s vehicle and handed him back his ID. “Do you have a camera, computer, cell phone, or other electronic device in your vehicle, sir?”
“Just a cell phone.”
“Sorry, sir. I’ll have to take that.”
“Right.”
Reporting instructions had advised all cadre members not to bring their own computers or electronic notebooks. Encrypted versions would be issued to them. The same instructions had advised that personal cell phones used en route would have to be turned in on arrival. Any calls coming in to those phones would be routed through the Control Center to secure instruments on-site.
Once cleared, the doc followed Jill’s vehicle down another lonely five-mile stretch of road. The compound lights were mere pinpricks in the distance, almost indistinguishable from the bright wash of stars. Gradually, the pinpricks grew brighter and closer.
Jill stopped at a second checkpoint, this one guarding a cluster of prefabricated modular buildings and trailers surrounded by rolls of concertina wire. In the wash of lights mounted at regular intervals within the compound, the main site had all the charm and warmth of a lunar moonscape. There wasn’t a tree or a bush to be seen. White-painted rocks marked the roads and walkways between the buildings. Off in the distance, the hangar that would house Pegasus loomed over the rest of the structures like a big, brooding mammoth. Aside from a few picnic tables scattered among the trailers, everything was starkly functional.
Guards at the second checkpoint cleared Jill through. She waited once more for the doc, then drove across the compound to the trailer housing the commanding officer of the Pegasus test cadre. The Lincoln’s tires crunched on the hard-packed dirt as it pulled up beside her ATV. Cody Richardson climbed out, thudding the vehicle’s door shut, and gave her a questioning glance.
“These are Captain Westfall’s quarters,” Jill informed him. “He requested I bring you here.”
Nodding, Richardson followed her to the trailer. Jill’s knock brought Westfall to the door. The tall, spare Naval officer was still in his working khakis, which didn’t surprise her. The captain had only arrived on-site yesterday morning, but Jill had already formed the distinct impression he wasn’t the type to retire early or sleep late.
“This is Dr. Richardson, sir.”
She stepped aside, allowing the Public Health Service officer to brush by her and offer a crisp salute.
“Sorry I’m out of uniform, sir. I didn’t expect to report to you tonight.”
“Not a problem, Doc. Come in, come in.” Westfall speared Jill with one of his penetrating, steel-gray glances. “Thanks for delivering him, Major. Everything quiet out on the test range?”
“It is now.”
The captain raised a brow. Before Jill could elaborate, Richardson offered a cool explanation.
“The major and I ran into each other. Literally. I ate sand until she decided I was who I said I was.”
“Did you?” He tipped Jill an approving nod. “I’ll see you tomorrow at the in-brief.”
“Yes, sir.”
After an exchange of salutes, she made her way to her vehicle. Instead of driving back out to run the perimeter and check her patrols, however, she headed for the squat, dun-colored modular unit that served as her detachment’s headquarters and operations center.
A welcome blast of chilled air greeted her when she stepped inside, along with the even more welcome scent of fresh-brewed coffee. Rattler Control occupied the rear half of the unit; her cubbyhole of an office, the armory, and a small break area took up the front half.
She stopped at the armory first to turn in her rifle and ammo clips. That done, she made a beeline for the coffee. Filling a jet-black mug emblazoned with her unit’s self-designed crest—a rattlesnake coiled