THE MIDDLE SIN

by Merline Lovelace

  Char­ged with pro­vi­ding pro­fes­si­onal in­ves­ti­ga­ti­ve ser­vi­ces to air for­ce com­man­ders, the OSI con­duc­ted cri­mi­nal in­ves­ti­ga­ti­ons and co­un­te­rin­tel­li­gen­ce ope­ra­ti­ons aro­und the glo­be. To ac­com­p­lish that mis­si­on, it fi­el­ded mo­re than eig­h­te­en hun­d­red fe­de­ral­ly cre­den­ti­aled spe­ci­al agents. And Cleo had on­ce be­en one of them.

  Cleo was es­cor­ted in­to the ge­ne­ral's of­fi­ce. Bar­nes was a tall, spa­re man who car­ri­ed every one of his ye­ars of ser­vi­ce stam­ped on his craggy fa­ce. To­day he wo­re a set of the new blue-and-gray stri­ped ca­mo­uf­la­ge uti­li­ti­es Cleo had he­ard we­re be­ing tes­ted for we­ar by air for­ce per­son­nel in the fi­eld.

  "'After­no­on, sir."

  The sir was in­s­tin­c­ti­ve. So was the ur­ge to whip up a sa­lu­te. Damn! The­re was mo­re of the mi­li­tary of­fi­cer still skul­king aro­und in her than she wan­ted to ad­mit.

  "What's go­od abo­ut it?" Bar­nes grow­led.

  Uh-oh. Things we­re not go­ing well in OSI-land.

  "Get Do­no­van in he­re," he bar­ked at his exec. Ges­tu­ring Cleo to the cha­ir in front of his desk, he sho­ved a fol­der in her di­rec­ti­on. "Whi­le we're wa­iting, you might as well ta­ke a lo­ok at this."

  This was an OSI fi­le on one Cap­ta­in Do­ug­las Cas­well, tan­ker pi­lot, cur­rently de­ce­ased. Cleo ab­sor­bed the de­ta­ils li­ke a spon­ge suc­king up wa­ter. Born, Min­ne­apo­lis. Gra­du­ated Uni­ver­sity of Min­ne­so­ta ne­ar the top of his class. Com­p­le­ted un­der­g­ra­du­ate pi­lot tra­ining in 1997, tan­ker tra­ining the fol­lo­wing ye­ar. Up­g­ra­ded to com­mand pi­lot in mi­ni­mal ti­me. Ear­ned an Air Me­dal and one oak le­af clus­ter du­ring ini­ti­al Af­g­ha­nis­tan sur­ge, anot­her clus­ter for sup­port of Ira­qi ope­ra­ti­ons.

  Pretty im­p­res­si­ve, un­til you got to the in­dex of ca­ses in which Cas­well was na­med as eit­her a con­tact or a pos­sib­le sus­pect.

  "Busy guy," Cleo mur­mu­red, skim­ming the exe­cu­ti­ve sum­ma­ri­es. "Inves­ti­ga­ted for pos­sib­le black mar­ke­te­ering in Tur­key. Na­med as sus­pect in a com­pu­ter porn ca­se, but ne­ver char­ged. Be­li­eved to be the in­s­ti­ga­tor of a re­gu­larly oc­cur­ring po­ker ga­me."

  Her brows lif­ted.

  "Sin­ce when do­es the OSI in­ves­ti­ga­te po­ker ga­mes?"

  Bar­nes shif­ted the Me­er­s­c­ha­um from one cor­ner of his mo­uth to the ot­her. "Sin­ce Cap­ta­in Cas­well re­li­eved a se­ni­or se­na­te staf­fer of ro­ughly six tho­usand dol­lars du­ring a Con­g­res­si­onal jun­ket."

  Her lips pur­sed in a si­lent whis­t­le. The cap­ta­in pla­yed for high sta­kes. Flip­ping the fi­le open, she was tre­ated to a di­gi­ti­zed ima­ge of what she as­su­med was for­merly Do­ug Cas­well's skull.

  "We're wa­iting for the autopsy re­port," Bar­nes in­for­med her. "Pre­li­mi­nary in­di­ca­ti­ons are he to­ok two.45 slugs to the back of his he­ad."

  Ouch! One wo­uld ha­ve do­ne the trick very ni­cely, thank you. Who­ever put the cap­ta­in down had wan­ted to ma­ke dam­ned su­re he ne­ver got up aga­in.

  "The shots we­re fi­red at clo­se ran­ge, from a si­len­ced pis­tol."

  "Whe­re and when?"

  "Mon­day night, bet­we­en se­ven and eight p.m., Lon­don ti­me. Cas­well was at his flat a few ki­lo­me­ters from Ro­yal Air For­ce Ba­se Mil­den­hall."

  "Any wit­nes­ses?"

  "No."

  "Sus­pects?"

  "No­ne so far, but gi­ven the cap­ta­in's ex­t­ra­cur­ri­cu­lar ac­ti­vi­ti­es, the list co­uld turn out to be a long one."

  "What abo­ut fo­ren­sics?"

  "The Brits are still wor­king the bal­lis­tics on the bul­lets. They al­so lif­ted fin­ger­p­rints and DNA from the flat, but I sus­pect this sho­oter was too smart to le­ave his be­hind. I don't sug­gest you hold yo­ur bre­ath."

  Cleo didn't in­tend to. Nor did she in­tend to go in­to any si­tu­ati­on blind. "The­re's an OSI de­tac­h­ment at RAF Mil­den­hall. They ha­ve res­pon­si­bi­lity for wor­king a ca­se li­ke this in co­nj­un­c­ti­on with the lo­cal con­s­ta­bu­lary. Why did the Brits re­qu­est re­in­for­ce­ments?"

  The pi­pe ma­de anot­her shift. The ge­ne­ral's eyes nar­ro­wed to a skin-se­aring la­ser. "That's what I'm sen­ding you and Do­no­van to find out."

  As if on cue, the exec rap­ped on the do­or and stuck his he­ad in. "Ma­j­or Do­no­van's he­re, sir."

  He step­ped asi­de and Jack stro­de in-tall, tan­ned, with tawny ha­ir and tho­se ri­di­cu­lo­usly thick, gold-tip­ped las­hes frin­ging his blue eyes. Li­ke the ge­ne­ral, he was in BDUs, but his we­re the stan­dard gre­en and brown that lo­oked baggy on most ever­yo­ne el­se but mol­ded Do­no­van's mus­cu­lar fra­me. The pants we­re ne­atly blo­used in his shiny black bo­ots, the sle­eves rol­led up to re­ve­al the scat­te­ring of sun-ble­ac­hed blond ha­ir on his arms.

  Cleo's sto­mach did a funny lit­tle flip-flop. Pretty ri­di­cu­lo­us, con­si­de­ring she'd spent se­ve­ral qu­ality ho­urs with the man just two we­eks ago. May­be the fact that they'd both be­en na­ked and bre­at­hing re­al hard at the ti­me had so­met­hing to do with her sud­denly con­s­t­ric­ted blo­od flow.

  "Sir."

  Do­no­van tip­ped a nod in his boss's di­rec­ti­on, but his eyes we­re all over Cleo. A happy so­und thrum­med at the back of her thro­at. It sta­yed the­re un­til Bar­nes yan­ked his pi­pe from his mo­uth and lan­ced the stem at her li­ke a sword.

  "The last ca­se you wor­ked cost the air for­ce a car­go ship and tons of mu­ni­ti­ons, North. Don't blow an­y­t­hing up on this one!"

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  11/10/2008