An Officer and a Gentleman

by Rachel Lee

  “Good evening, Burke.”

  Well, damn, she thought even as her heart tripped into high gear. Of course he couldn’t just leave without stopping to say something. She looked up, and up, and thought that nobody with the extraordinary build and looks of Dare MacLendon ought to be allowed to parade around in a flight suit. He was smiling down at her, a pleasant, friendly expression.

  “Good evening, Colonel,” she answered politely.

  “Can you give me a minute?”

  “Of course, sir.”

  “Good.” He turned, looking over his shoulder to answer a remark from the departing pilots, and then pulled out a chair and straddled it. He rested his arms along its back and studied Andrea in silence as she leaned to one side to allow the waiter to serve her dinner.

  “Just a coffee for me,” Dare said in answer to the waiter’s question.

  Andrea felt pleased with the steadiness of her hands as she sliced into her chicken breast. She would not let him know how his proximity affected her. No way. Absolutely not.

  “You look tired, Andrea,” he said quietly in a tone so gentle that her throat tightened. When had anyone ever spoken to her with so much concern? If anyone ever had, she couldn’t recall it.

  She cleared her throat. “I’ve been busy, sir. Have you been flying?”

  “I took up one of the bombers this afternoon on a low-level run. I hear you’ve started a little investigation of your own.”

  Her hands tightened on her knife and fork, and she looked across the table at him. “Who told you that?” And why did she have to remember so vividly just how soft his mouth could be?

  “One of my people told me that one of your folks wanted to know who in the Wing could have had access to that damaged plane. I don’t need somebody to lay it out like a map for me, Andrea.”

  Anger sparked in her green eyes. Now it would come, she thought. He would tell her to leave it alone and to mind her p’s and q’s. And if he did she’d—well, she didn’t know what she’d do. “So?” she asked, and almost winced at the belligerence of her own tone.

  Dare’s eyes narrowed. His voice turned soft as silk, a dangerous sound. “You have a problem with the chain of command, Burke?”

  “No, sir,” she said swiftly, and then sighed. “I’m sorry. Not enough sleep. Right now I think I’m my own worst enemy.”

  He softened, recognizing her fatigue and admitting to himself that it had been easy for her to misconstrue the direction of this conversation. “I only wanted to know if you’ve come up with anything.”

  “Oh.” After a moment she gave him a sheepish smile. “Actually,” she admitted, “all I’ve done is chase my own tail so far. I decided there were three possible motives for the bombing—revenge, money and terrorism—and then I came up with reasons why it couldn’t be any of them.” Briefly she outlined her reasoning.

  He smiled, and the expression melted the last of the steel from his gaze. “Well, if it’s any consolation, that’s about all OSI has accomplished so far.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope. All that muscle and brainpower, and they’re still standing around scratching their heads. I’m not supposed to know that, of course, so don’t tell anyone else.”

  “How did you find out?”

  “I know a few people.” God, how he wanted to reach out and touch her. Wrong time, wrong place. Besides, he’d told her to call him if she ever wanted to be with him again, and she hadn’t called. Because of his position, he felt he had to let her set the boundaries on their relationship. He didn’t want her ever to feel that he was using his rank to pressure her into anything.

  “I can tell you one thing,” he said, and fell silent while the waiter served his coffee. He didn’t speak again until he was sure no one was near enough to overhear. “The plastic explosive is of U.S. manufacture. It’s typical government stock.”

  “Not a homemade brew,” Andrea remarked. “That’s interesting.”

  “Yeah, but it evidently doesn’t tell us much. OSI concludes from it that the incident wasn’t staged by known terrorist groups, but evidently U.S. manufacturers sell a lot of the stuff to other countries the same way they sell countermeasures and weapons. Theoretically it only goes to friend-lies, but who can say for sure?”

  “There haven’t been any calls to the press about it, either,” Andrea said. “That’s another mark against terrorism. Or have there been calls?”

  Dare shook his head. “None. My source would have mentioned it. No, OSI is just about convinced we’re dealing with an individual or a small group of individuals. The fact that there hasn’t been another incident of any kind in nearly a month even has them speculating that the shooting scared the guy off. That and your beefed up security. They’re still impressed with your squadron, by the way.”

  Andrea smiled. It was nice to hear, especially when she was feeling low and useless. “Well, if it’s not terrorism, that leaves sabotage or murder for possible intent, and greed or revenge for the motive.”

  “That’s how it looks.” Sipping his coffee, he studied her over the rim of the cup as she took another mouthful of her supper. He knew Andrea’s appetite, and he was disturbed to see her peck at her food the way she was right now. “Are you coming down with something?” he asked abruptly.

  Startled, she looked up. “I don’t think so.”

  He shook his head and set his cup aside. “You don’t look very good,” he remarked as he stood. “Get to bed and get some sleep. And call me if you come up with anything new. Good night, Burke.”

  She watched him stride away and thought once again that he shouldn’t be allowed to wear a flight suit. On him it was positively lethal to her peace of mind. With a heavy sigh, she tried to convince herself that she really didn’t mind the fact that he seemed to have no further interest in her. After all, she was leaving soon, so it really didn’t make any difference.

  As soon as she arrived at work in the morning, Andrea buzzed the front desk. “See if you can round up Sergeant Halliday for me, Crocker. I’d like to see him in my office.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I think he’s over at Delta Zulu checking something out. It’ll be a few minutes.”

  “Thank you.” What the hell had happened now? Andrea wondered as she replaced the receiver. What was Halliday doing over there?

  Twenty minutes passed before Halliday showed up, and he arrived looking cold.

  “Warm up with some coffee, Sarge,” Andrea told him, pointing to the pot on the file cabinet. “Did something happen over at Delta Zulu?”

  “No, ma’am. Just checking on things. It’s twenty-two below out there.”

  “I noticed.” Andrea watched Halliday fill a cup and take a seat across from her.

  “I worry about the systems,” he told her. “Especially after what’s been happening. The cold shouldn’t affect them, but you never know.”

  Andrea nodded. “You’re very conscientious.” Most people didn’t volunteer to go out in these temperatures. “Is everything okay?”

  “Right as rain, Captain.”

  “Well, I asked you to come in here because I need your help with something. You know how I pull these little inspections.”

  Halliday smiled. “Everyone knows about them.”

  “I think I’m getting a little too predictable. I also think the troops are getting too dependent on the electronic systems. So, what if I wanted to give them a real surprise? How could I bypass the system?”

  Halliday looked smug. “You can’t.”

  Andrea shook her head slowly. “No system is infallible, Sergeant. There has to be a way. Think about it.”

  Halliday shrugged. “I don’t have to think about it. I know the system like the back of my hand. Maybe better. Everything is redundant, especially around weapons storage. We’ve got backups on top of backups. To get around them you’d either have to knock out a whole section of the system at the control center, which isn’t easy to do, or you’d have to know where each and every sensor is. If you
want, though, I can disable part of the system for you so you can surprise the guys.”

  “You’re absolutely convinced I can’t do it any other way?”

  Halliday’s smile broadened into a grin. “I get the feeling you take that as a challenge, ma’am. You could memorize the layout. You might be able to do it then, but why go to so much trouble? It’s easier just to have me shut it down.”

  “Who besides you knows the layout?”

  “All the guys on my crew.” Halliday frowned. “Look, if something’s going on…”

  Andrea shook her head. “No. It’s just that I was asked about it at staff conference yesterday, and I realized I really don’t know as much as I should about how things are done. And that was when somebody remarked that my inspections must be getting predictable if I always avoid the electronic systems.”

  “Well, ma’am, there’s not all that much to it. I’m probably the only one who knows the entire system, because each of my technicians specializes in just one part of it. We’re the only five people who have access to the classified plans and blueprints on a routine basis. We keep a copy of all that stuff in the safe in my office. If you want to look at it, I can get it for you, or you can look at the copy the document custodian keeps. Anybody with a need-to-know authorization can look at the stuff. I don’t reckon there’d be too many folks other than me and my techs with a need to know, though.”

  “Certainly not me,” Andrea said pleasantly. “Not that I could make much sense out of a lot of circuit diagrams.”

  Halliday smiled, his eyes pallid behind his glasses. “No, but you could read the map.”

  “And try to tiptoe past all that stuff?” Andrea laughed and shook her head. “Forget it, Sarge. It was a dumb idea.”

  Well, Andrea thought, now she could add even more names to the list, and she hadn’t eliminated any yet. How many people might be able to gain access to the plans? The document custodians sprang to mind, and there were surely others who had a legitimate need to see them. Nope, she had to come at this from a different angle.

  “But,” she said, asking one last question, “if I wanted to learn the layout, I could get past the system?”

  “Sure. It’s too damn expensive to carpet all those areas with sensors, so they’re scattered in a random fashion that makes it impossible to get by them all unless you know where they’re at. Captain, I swear, it’s a no-man’s-land. It’s more difficult to get through than a maze. You have to know what you’re doing to stand a chance.”

  Late that night Andrea lay in bed, restless and strangely sad, and tried not to think about Alisdair MacLendon. Just a few short days had passed since Christmas, but they felt like years. All her nerves seemed hypersensitive. The brush of her nightgown against her breasts made her think of his hands. A tingling ache filled her. A nagging sense of incompletion gnawed at her, and some traitorous part of her mind kept demanding to know why she was in bed alone.

  It was during the process of trying not to think about Dare that she had a realization so startling that it brought her upright in her bed: somebody wanted revenge, all right. They wanted revenge against Dare.

  The evidence for that was slim, so slim that it seemed almost ridiculous. What did she have to substantiate it? The fact that the trouble had begun with his arrival. The fact that it seemed to be directed against the Bomb Wing. The fact that the charge set in the bomber hadn’t killed anyone. And all those little pieces of so-called evidence could be argued against. The fact that the explosive in the bomber hadn’t killed anyone, for example, could have been purely accidental.

  Slender evidence indeed. Falling back against the pillows, Andrea considered. Her suspicion was so wild as to be embarrassing, but it felt right. She wouldn’t dare tell anyone without more proof, but she could use the assumption as a starting point. It might make her alert to things she would otherwise miss. And it might also make her blind to other things. Troubled, she tossed and turned well into the night.

  On the Saturday after New Year’s, Andrea stood in her kitchenette yawning widely and thinking that maybe when she got to Minot she would rent an apartment rather than live in the BOQ. Waiting for the coffeepot to finish brewing, she looked around at her cramped efficiency quarters and decided that it was time she stopped living out of a mental suitcase. If she had more room and owned some furniture, maybe she would feel as if she had a home. It would mean a longer drive when she got a call in the middle of the night, but maybe she wouldn’t feel so rootless. Maybe she wouldn’t feel like a tumbleweed, rolling here and there and leaving no mark anywhere.

  The tile floor was cold beneath her feet, causing her to shiver, and she rubbed her hands up and down the silk sleeves of the peignoir Dare had given her. It wasn’t warm enough for the draughty rooms, and it wasn’t practical by any stretch of the imagination, but she wore it often anyhow and then lay wide awake remembering Christmas. Remembering how it had felt to be a woman. Time and again she caught herself trying to think up excuses to go over to his house.

  Like a teenager with a crush, she thought sourly as she headed for the bedroom. Hadn’t she deliberately avoided this all these years? What was it about Alisdair MacLendon that made her forget all her common sense?

  She was halfway across the small living area when someone knocked on her door. “Who is it?” she called.

  “MacLendon.”

  Hurrying to the door, she released the lock and opened it a crack to see a very irate-looking Colonel MacLendon. Beneath his olive drab survival parka he wore his flight suit. He must have been flying again, Andrea thought. Rated pilots who’d been promoted to desk jobs were allowed to keep their ratings by flying a certain number of hours every month, and the Air Force provided planes for them.

  Raising her eyes to Dare’s face, Andrea took an instinctive step backward. There was murder in Dare’s face, Andrea took an instinctive step backward. There was murder in those icy blue eyes.

  As she stepped back, Dare stepped in, easing through the opening and closing the door soundly behind him.

  “Tell me, Burke,” he growled down at her, “do your troops sleep on the job? Or are they doing dope?”

  Andrea blinked rapidly and drew herself up to her full five foot six. “Sir! I can’t let you say—”

  “I’ll say anything I damn well please!”

  Andrea stood her ground, chin thrust forward, arms folded across her breasts.

  “I almost died this morning,” Dare said, advancing on her. “I almost augered in at Mach 1 because somebody fiddled with my hydraulics. That upsets me, Burke. That upsets the living hell out of me.”

  Andrea froze, horrified by the image evoked by his words: Dare’s plane nosing into the ground at the speed of sound.

  As he spoke, he cast his parka aside and took another step toward her.

  “And all the time I was fighting the damn stick and pedals and trying to keep from being splattered all over the state of North Dakota, I could only think about one thing. This!”

  Grabbing her with hands like steel, he hauled her up against him, forced her head back, and seized her mouth in a punishing, ruthless kiss.

  Andrea fought him, twisting and turning like a wildcat, but he held her effortlessly. Moving with her struggles, he made her feel as if she were wrapped in an invisible net, never once hurting her, but giving her no escape from his ravaging mouth.

  Suddenly Dare lifted his head and looked down at her with burning eyes. “What if I’d died?” he asked.

  Andrea went utterly still, her swollen lips parted, her green eyes huge. What if he’d died? she asked herself.

  Dare saw her lower lip quiver, and then she melted against him where she belonged, closing her arms around his waist in a fierce hug. She cared, he thought, shutting his eyes with relief. Whether she would admit it or not, she cared. At twenty thousand feet, when only brute strength had given him any control at all over his plane, in those interminable minutes when he’d been sure he was about to die, he’d wondered about that.
He’d wondered if he would ever find out, and it had seemed incredibly important to know.

  Wrapping his arms around her now, he held her as close as he could, as tightly as he could, without hurting her, and wished he could pull her right inside him. “Kiss me, Andrea,” he said hoarsely. “Kiss me. Please.”

  She lifted her face and sought his mouth blindly, seeking the warmth, the passion, the essence, of this man. One of her hands crept upward to cradle his rough cheek, to slide into his hair and then hold on for dear life. Without reservation she gave him the kiss he wanted.

  “I need you, Andrea,” Dare said raggedly when he let her catch her breath. “We’ve got to talk. About this. About what happened. About everything.” His blue eyes were intense as he tilted her head up. “We can’t do any of that here.”

  With difficulty, Andrea concentrated on what he was saying. At the moment the only thing that seemed important was that a half-dozen steps would carry them to her bedroom. “No,” she agreed, dimly aware that before long everybody in the BOQ would know Dare was here.

  “Call Dolan,” Dare said. “Tell him he’s in charge for the rest of the weekend. Meet me at the Gasthaus in Devil’s Lake.”

  Andrea blinked, coming to her senses. “I can’t just—”

  “You can,” he interrupted her. “You can damn well do anything you please. When are you going to believe that?”

  “But your hydraulics! We need to—”

  “We’ll talk about that later. Right now there’s not a damn thing you can do about that.”

  Releasing her, Dare stepped back. “I’m going to Devil’s Lake,” he said. “I’ll give you until one o’clock to meet me. It’s up to you, Andrea. It always is. But I won’t ask again.”

  Without another word, he left.

  Nothing was up to her, thought Andrea miserably. Nothing had been up to her since Dare had crashed into her life. Closing her eyes, she clenched her hands into fists and tried to tell herself that she wouldn’t do as he’d asked.

  She didn’t believe it herself. For an entire week now she’d been lying awake, full of yearnings no amount of argument could quash. In little less than a month she would be leaving for Minot, and in all likelihood she wouldn’t see Dare again for years, if ever. Why not have a fling during these few weeks? Why not give in just this once in her life? Chances were she would never again have such an opportunity.