Scavenger Vanishes (The SkyRyders Book 3)

by Liza O'Connor

  Clearly, his harsh dealings with colonels in the satellite forts had made an impact on his staff as well. He saw Marge Williams and Captain Tucker standing at the front of the receiving line. Logan had mixed feelings about seeing Tucker. He was glad as hell to have him back with a Class Five ranking, but he was having trouble getting out of his head Powell’s comments about Alisha providing Tucker with “comfort”.

  He wasted little time on the receiving line. Showing up now was too little, too late. He ordered Marge and Tucker to accompany him to his office and gave the rest little more than a glare and nod.

  The second they entered, he ordered the door closed and told Marge to give him the rundown of what she hadn’t said in her emailed reports.

  Marge looked surprised. “You felt my reports were incomplete, sir?”

  “Cut the bull, Williams,” he snapped. “I’m tired, dirty, and entirely without patience.”

  “It could wait until tomorrow,” she offered, but seeing no change in Logan’s annoyed expression, she looked at Tucker. “This isn’t really something for a captain’s ears.”

  Logan turned to Tucker. “Welcome back, Tucker. Good job on getting your Class Five.”

  “Thank you, sir!” Tucker replied, snapping to attention.

  “I’ve just one question,” Logan said. “The general implied in an email he sent me that you were provided “comfort” in the wind tunnel by your instructor. Is that true?”

  Tucker blushed. “No, sir!”

  “Do I have to hook you up to MAC to get an honest answer?”

  “I’ll do whatever you ask to prove it’s not true, sir. But it is my fault the rumor got started.”

  Logan relaxed slightly, but he still wasn’t happy with Tucker. “May I ask why you started a rumor that would harm a colonel who had gone out of her way to help you?”

  “I didn’t start it, sir!” Tucker quickly assured him. “But my own history caused it to start. I had received “comfort” in the wind tunnel with another cadet. And I had told certain friends it really helped my progress. Before I knew it, I was the Don Juan of the wind tunnels. Evidently somebody saw the colonel in the tunnel with me when she was teaching me how to use the slats and started the rumor. I denied it to anyone who would listen, but once those things get started, you can’t stop them. The only thing that got them off my back was a new piece of bullshit about her giving lap dances to all the men in her squad. You know she got demoted to private, right?”

  Suddenly a new meaning to those lap dances occurred to Logan. If Alisha was the lowest ranking member of her squad, then the “lap dances” could have been a gang rape.

  “We’ll discuss this later,” Logan cut Tucker off, not wanting Marge to hear this conversation. “Right now, I need to inform you of your promotion to colonel, effective immediately.”

  Tucker was so stunned it took him a few moments to react. “Thank you, sir!”

  Logan swept his thanks aside. “Don’t thank me, Tucker. I’ve just given you one hell of a job. You can ask Colonel Williams here, if you doubt me. This isn’t the West Coast, and being an officer on the East Coast is about as much fun as running the Capital marathon.”

  Logan hoped he understood the warning. Capital Marathons were notorious for the injuries runners inflicted on each other. During a typical event, there’d be twelve knifings, three shootings and so much poisoning of water that you wouldn’t even think about taking a new bottle halfway through the course unless your own mother handed it to you.

  “We’ll have an official event later on, but right now Colonel Williams needs to give me the lowdown on what happened while I was away.” Logan turned to Marge. “You and Tucker are the only two colonels I trust. And I need you two to trust each other, to watch each other’s backs and mine as well. Marge, I recognize you’ve gotten as far as you have by trusting no one, but that has to change. There can be no secrets between the three of us.”

  Marge gave his words a moment of thought. “Well, I’m not happy about bringing in a rookie to watch my back, but I’m somewhat comforted you don’t think your tour de force has solved your problems or made you safe. And we would be safer if there are more of us and less of them.”

  “Is there anyone else in my staff you think could be let into our confidence?” Logan asked, thinking perhaps he had misjudged someone.

  Marge almost choked at the suggestion. “No!”

  “All right,” Logan said, accepting her assessment for the time being, but only because it corresponded with his own. “Then tell me what happened while I was away.”

  “Well, first, they bugged your office this morning,” she announced. “But I cleaned it out right before you landed.”

  Logan wasn’t happy about her declaration. It meant they had breached the bioscan security. “Can you explain how someone got into my office to bug it?”

  “The same way I did, I imagine. I hacked into the security files and listed myself as the proper owner of this room. Came in, did my sweep, and then changed the code back to yours.”

  “That takes a skill level of hacking I wouldn’t have expected among my colonels.”

  Marge shrugged her shoulders. “Not really that hard. It’s not like I hacked into MAC. This fort never converted over to MAC security.”

  Logan was stunned into silence for a moment. “This fort is on its own security system?”

  “Yeah, and it’s quite simple to hack into.”

  Logan made a note on his pad. “May I ask why?”

  “Well the official reason is because the T1 line can’t carry the load.”

  Tucker coughed. “You’re using a T1? With all the fiber that’s laid, you’re using two-hundred-year-old copper wiring to talk to MAC?”

  Marge smiled. “Well, we’re a bit old-fashioned over here. Besides, an independent security system has its benefits…”

  “When you want to steal supplies?” Logan asked.

  “You’re catching on fast, General.” A beeping noise emitted from her jacket. She held up her hand for a moment of silence and pulled out a small black electronic device. She held it level, then followed it to the door and declared in a loud, angry voice, “There is nothing beyond my report, general, and I’m insulted that you think I would file an incomplete report. And if you think I’m going to take this sad little whelp under my care, you are mistaken, sir!”

  Her hand gestures indicated she wanted Logan to reply for the benefit of someone outside the door. “You are damn close to insubordination, Alisha,” he bellowed. “When I tell you to assist Colonel Tucker in his new role, I’m not asking a favor, I’m giving an order.”

  She held up her hand in a stop gesture. “They’ve moved on, thanks to the security I posted. Hopefully, that gave them enough to get off my back.” She returned to her chair. When she saw both Logan and Tucker staring at her as if she had grown a third head, she held up the black device. “A high-frequency signal scanner. It picks up the latest eavesdropping devices. Although this frequency would suggest an old-fashioned sound probe used in the early part of the century by our CIA.”

  It was suddenly clear to Logan why his strategist was a piss-poor battle planner. She wasn’t a battle planner at all. Her skills were in a slightly different category of intel and security. Yet there was nothing in her file to indicate such expertise.

  “I take it personnel files are not kept on MAC either,” Logan said.

  Marge smiled. “Actually, they are. But you know the old adage: garbage in, garbage out. For example, you did an impressive job ridding yourself of Brags Ryders this last month, but you’ve still got some mystery histories in your command, some of whom you promoted in your clean-up.”

  “Exactly what are you saying, Marge?” Logan asked, growing tired of her cat-and-mouse method of releasing information. How he longed for Alisha’s straightforward honesty.

  “Well, you do know my name. When you called me Alisha a moment ago, I started feeling really depressed, thinking, Here I am, sticking my neck out a mile,
and this dam general doesn’t even know my first name.”

  “I called you Alisha,” Logan stated in disbelief, then looked at Tucker for confirmation. Tucker nodded.

  “I guess I should be flattered,” Marge stated. “From what I gather, she’s a real wildcat.”

  Logan didn’t like her tone or implication, but he wasn’t going to allow her to goad him into talking about Alisha. “Back to your report. What else have you decided I should know at this time, Marge?” Logan asked, acknowledging who was actually controlling this meeting.

  “Well…I noticed you took a note on the security system. Are you planning to fix that?”

  “I am,” he assured her.

  “When you fix it, you’ll be able to fix your theft problem as well.”

  Logan lost all patience. “Colonel, if you know who is stealing, tell me now, and I’ll fix the problem right this minute!”

  “Nobody’s going to jail on my word,” she assured him. “Fix the security and you’ll find out.” She looked at Tucker. “And whatever you do, don’t put Tucker in charge of supplies. Give him some ambiguous, harmless position, such as Communications Coordinator. That way he can travel on duty, but no one will feel threatened when he comes and goes.”

  “Would you like to sit here, and do the job from this side of the desk?” Logan snapped, growing weary of the way she acted as if she were the only one who knew how to solve a problem.

  “No sir. A, I’m not qualified to be a general. B, as a woman, I would not be accepted as a General, and C, even if these two barriers were removed, my own self-preservation would stop me. You are aware of the average lifespan of generals here on the East Coast, aren’t you, sir?”

  Logan was not, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to ask her. “Back to your report, Colonel Williams. Are there any other items you wish to bring to my attention?”

  Marge gave it some thought, looked at Tucker, and then at Logan. “No, I think I’ve given you enough to work on for the moment. Our new colonel looks as if he might want to transfer back to the West Coast.”

  “No, sir! I’m with General Logan.”

  Marge stood, suddenly looking tired when faced with such youthful enthusiasm. “As am I, Tucker,” she said with a heavy sigh, then gave Logan a look that said, “Don’t disappoint us.”

  Chapter 9

  Logan looked up from his report to find Marge sitting in the chair facing his desk and observing him with her cold, steely eyes. How the hell had she managed to open his door, come in, and sit down without him noticing? He showed no surprise at her presence. Instead, he laid the report down as if he were finished with it and now had time to address her.

  “What can I do for you, Marge?”

  She tilted her head and studied him a bit further, as if she were trying to decipher some annoying puzzle that had been on her mind.

  Logan fingered the report he had laid down. He really didn’t have time for these long pauses she was so apt to take. “Should I return to reading and ask again in another five minutes?”

  In response, she smiled. “I like your Colonel Tucker. He may be young and inexperienced, but he has a good head on his shoulders and he flies straight. And he listens to my advice…”

  “Unlike the general?” Logan asked, referring to himself in the third person.

  She smiled. “Well, the general’s the general. He listens, but doesn’t always take my jewels of wisdom to heart at first. However, he does well enough to keep me throwing a few more into the well.”

  Logan raised his eyebrows. “Are you about to throw a few more jewels at me, Colonel?”

  “Oh dear, we’ve gone from Marge back to Colonel. This isn’t progressing well at all for the point of my visit.”

  “And the point would be?”

  “Well, the point is, I actually think you’re going to pull this thing off.”

  “And what thing would that be?”

  “Cleaning up the East Coast. Making the Corps back into what it was meant to be,” she replied, her voice finally betraying some true emotion.

  “I am going to do it. Does your presence here mean you’ll stop dancing around and throw your full support behind me?”

  Marge’s eyes rounded as if offended. “Are you saying I haven’t supported you?”

  Logan leaned forward. “I am saying, Colonel Williams, the help I’ve received from you is just the tip of a very large iceberg of what you could provide. You clearly have skills and knowledge you’ve deliberately withheld. From this, I conclude you still don’t trust me.”

  He expected her to deny it, but instead she just shrugged. “The fact I’ve let you see those skills reveals I do trust you. The day you landed with your West Coast surfer boys, I didn’t think you had a chance in hell of surviving. Yet even from the first officers’ meeting, I took a liking to you. You were obviously a decent, hardworking, talented leader who created great loyalty and respect in his men. I thought MAC had lost its little digital brain sending you into this hellhole.”

  Logan had thought much the same. “What changed your mind?”

  “When you asked me for a plan to get rid of your problem captains. I didn’t think you had such ruthlessness in you.”

  “What I did, I did for the wellbeing of the Corps. It’s not something I enjoyed or am proud of.”

  “No, which only makes me respect you more,” she countered. “Because you’re right. It was what had to be done. And you did it, hard and fast. Your enemies never had a chance to stop you. They tried, but they couldn’t process the paperwork fast enough. We had all sorts of system problems while you were gone,” she admitted with a wry smile. “By the time we got them sorted out, the whole issue was moot. The old plan was out, the new plan was in, and the results were spectacular. Within a month, the Cartel has become a minor inconvenience instead of our inevitable destruction. Who can complain about the lives of a few captains compared to the results you’ve had?”

  “I don’t think you ever mentioned having systems problems before.”

  “No, but you’ve probably deduced I’ve a little experience in that area.”

  Logan leaned forward. “What I’ve deduced, Colonel Williams, is you are highly skilled in intelligence gathering and security, neither of which shows up in your files. Now, I’m aware files within MAC can be altered, but I believe MAC itself has altered yours. I believe you are secret service.”

  Marge was no longer smiling. “I hope you have been careful in the inquiries that have led you to such a deduction, Logan.”

  Logan could tell he’d nailed it. He leaned back and enjoyed his moment. “I didn’t make any inquiries. I didn’t have to. You’ve given me enough hints that I’d have to have been sound asleep not to notice.”

  Marge relaxed and gave him a half smile. “I guess I have, at that. I’m not allowed to reveal whether I am or am not a secret service agent, but I will say your intuition about your staff has proven to be very good.”

  “Your file says you were transferred here four years ago.” Logan observed.

  “Correct. They’d tried to get a couple of agents in through the ranks, but they never made it. So I suggested a different strategy. Walk right through the front door.”

  “So they sent an attractive woman.”

  Marge smiled. “Why, thank you for the compliment. I was beginning to think you hadn’t noticed.”

  “What you look like is immaterial to me, Colonel Williams. All that matters is your performance.” Then Logan gave her a smile. “And between your piss-poor battle plans and your attitude, I wasn’t impressed at first.”

  Marge smiled and nodded. “Well, I wasn’t supposed to actually show any competence. Excelling would be a sure-fire way to get a laser sweep across your back in this fort. My place in the pack of wolves was as the alpha female. Are you familiar with the rankings of a wolf pack?”

  Logan nodded for her to continue.

  “First, there is the alpha male. He isn’t just strong, but clever and ruthless. The other m
ales in his pack will be his children. The young males will develop a pecking order of dominance, and challenges for a higher rank occur frequently. However, the really clever old wolves weed out the superior children early while they are still small and unable to take on the alpha male.”

  “But that weakens the pack,” Logan said.

  “But the alpha male doesn’t need the strongest pack: he only needs a moderately competent pack. Anything more will eventually cost him his life. And believe me, he’s programmed to care more about his life than the success of the pack.”

  Logan wasn’t going to argue. He wasn’t sure that was the motivation of a typical wolf pack, but it sure as hell described his East Coast soldiers.

  “Now, the alpha female doesn’t have to worry about all those wannabe males. All she has to do is keep the attention of the alpha male. As long as she has that, she’s the second most powerful dog in the pack.”

  Logan didn’t like the conclusion of her story. “So you became the general’s partner.”

  “Three generals, actually. They don’t live long on the East Coast.”

  “When they die, don’t you become at risk?” he asked, trying very hard not to show his distaste for her method of securing her place within the pack.

  “Look around, General. Until recently there have only been two female colonels in the Corps: a married, temperamental prima donna, and myself. It wasn’t hard to keep my place in the general’s bed, whoever the general happened to be.” She studied him for a moment. “I can see you don’t approve.”

  She saw too damn much. “Truthfully? No. I don’t think the Corps should ever place a woman in a position where such a choice is necessary.”

  “We all make sacrifices for the Corps,” she observed. “It wasn’t a big deal to me. One man’s pretty much the same as another. If it would help me do my job and keep me safe at the hub of activity, I had no problem with it.”

  “Still, you shouldn’t have been asked to do that.”