pulled the duffel open again, sifting through it and a smaller bag on the floor beside it, giving in to a growing suspicion as he did. Shoving a heap of detritus from the twin bed, he dropped the clothes onto it, then went to the closet and pulled out all the uniforms there, adding them to the pile.
Jessica stepped back and watched. “What exactly are you doing?”
“Thinking.” He pulled random articles of clothing from the bottom of the closet. “At any point in your career, especially when you were a young soldier, did you throw out every single one of your uniforms and start over with used ones?” Sean dumped the clothes onto the bed, then pulled a pair of jump boots from the floor of the closet and tossed them into the mix.
“I’d turn in old uniforms to central issue and get new ones, but usually not all at once. Some of it was used, but not much of it. We got new stuff before deployment, but I kept that back home and wore my old gear overseas. Less I had to buy later. Why?”
Sean swept a hand at the clothes on the bed, waiting to see if he was right or simply thinking sideways. “Tell me what you see.”
“A mess.” Jessica twisted her lips, but she didn’t step back and call him crazy the way she had at the food court. Maybe she was warming up to him.
She’d better. It would make this job a whole lot easier if he didn’t have to fight for her trust every step of the way.
After surveying the heap of uniforms for a minute, Jessica lifted an undershirt, then a pair of pants. One by one, she inspected tops and bottoms, setting them to the side and growing more thoughtful with each piece.
She had to see what he saw.
“Sean.” She stepped back, stopping spare inches before she backed straight into his chest.
Her warmth eased through his uniform top, forcing him to open up the space between them before he decided he liked the feeling. It hadn’t escaped his notice that she’d used his first name. It also hadn’t escaped his notice that he liked the sound of it when she did.
Jessica didn’t seem aware of his thoughts. “The gear is right, but the clothes... None of them are new. And none of them are Channing’s.” She turned on her heel, realized how close she stood to him and slid to the side, clearing her throat. “It’s all used, even has other people’s names on some of them, like she picked up every single bit of it at one of those surplus stores right off post. None of it has been issued to her by the Army.” She picked up a patrol cap and ran her index finger along the brim. “This is more than a soldier would need just to travel overseas.”
“Exactly.” Sean nodded. Her observation skills rivaled some of the best he’d worked with. “Something’s going on with your missing soldier, and I’m starting to think we’re right that it’s a whole lot bigger than the data on your laptop.”
* * *
Tossing Channing’s patrol cap back onto the bed, Jessica walked toward the window that overlooked the parking lot. “I don’t know. It seems like a leap to me.”
“A leap?” Sean stepped up behind her but kept his distance.
Good for him. She’d gotten a little too close earlier, and while the man might be a conspiracy theorist to the highest degree, he was every good thing Angie had guessed he was and more.
And that made him dangerous.
Jessica didn’t turn around. “In reality, I’ve got a soldier who has used uniforms and tried to steal my laptop and has now gone missing. I’ve got a mysterious powder in a cup of sweet tea. And I’ve got you.” Only one of those things was a proven threat.
“You skipped the part where your missing soldier pulled a gun on me while her buddy approached you with a knife.” Sean’s voice was way too matter-of-fact.
She hadn’t forgotten; she just wished she could forget. Refusing to talk about it seemed to be the easiest way to make that happen. “Okay, that, too. But that’s all. It seems localized to me.” Jessica finally risked turning to face Sean.
He was sitting back against the small desk in the room, arms crossed over his chest. “You forgot the whole reason I’m here.”
To be a pain in her neck? “What reason is that, Staff Sergeant?”
His jaw tightened slightly at the use of his rank, but he didn’t comment on it. “Chatter. We picked up specific chatter for this unit, for your specific computer. Chatter from known terrorists.”
Okay, so there was that. Jessica sank to the edge of the second twin bed. “You really think terrorists were after my laptop? There’s nothing on there they can use. No troop movements. No intel. No battle plans. Only thing on there is records and personnel data.”
“I think terrorists are after several laptops. Remember, yours isn’t the first. It’s only the one we were able to get a jump on.” He tipped his head to both sides, stretching his neck. “Give me a general idea. If I went on to your laptop today, what would I see?”
“It’s in my office, and you can go through it all you want. Channing pitched it when I was chasing her. But I’ll have to sign you in. You’d need my ID card because the laptop has a common access card reader on it.”
“You haven’t lost your ID have you?”
“Really?” Jessica smirked, then pulled her ID out of her thigh pocket and held it up between two fingers. “I’ve been around too long for that. And even if they had my ID card, they’d have to get my password to go along with it. I’m sure, if they’re the hackers you seem to think they are, they could gain access, but once in there, the most interesting information they’d get for their trouble is my calendar, some general emails, and...” No. Please not that.
“What?” Sean straightened, dropping his hands to his sides. “What would they be after on that laptop?”
“With the right information, they could get access to the DD-93s for the unit.”
“That’s not good.”
Jessica dug her fingernails into her palms. No, it wasn’t. The form DD-93 was the Record of Emergency Data. It contained contact information for soldiers’ next of kin if the worst happened. “There are names and addresses on there. If someone got access to that information, they could locate any soldier’s family they wanted.” Just the year prior, a local group had terrorized soldiers’ families on post in an attempt to bring the men home early. But terrorists? With that information, they could wreak havoc on families and tear down the morale of the entire military.
She consciously relaxed her fingers. “The good news is, they didn’t get my laptop.”
“But they got your first one...and others from other bases.”
“True, but to get access they’d have to know log-in information and passwords for the system and—” she wrinkled her nose “—to be honest, that’s risky. It’s got to be something else. They could hack that database without calling attention to themselves by stealing laptops. Access can come from any computer, not just a government laptop.”
“It’s something to think about. Anything else?”
“General information about soldiers. Honestly, whatever you think is on there is what’s on there. Your basic information for each of our men and women.”
She’d wasted half of her afternoon dealing with Sean Turner and his theories. He kept spouting things she didn’t even want to think about and, with her body aching and her mind fogging from lack of sleep, it was better to just be an ostrich, to stick her head in the sand, and pretend everything was normal. “I have to go meet a spouse at the Soldier Center. She lost her ID card and needs someone to hold her hand through the process.”
“Isn’t that the Family Readiness Group’s job?” Sean waved a hand toward the door for Jessica to go ahead of him.
“Normally, but I know the soldier, and