Broken Honor

by Potter, Patricia;

Amy almost decided to take Bo with her, then decided he would be happier here. She grabbed her purse, then left and drove to the campus just a mile away. It was still daylight, though it would be dark soon.

  An hour, she promised herself. Only an hour. It shouldn’t take longer than that to back up what she needed. If Jon didn’t appear by then, she’d try to call him again. She really wanted to go through those boxes before she met with an army investigator or whatever he was.

  The doors were still unlocked, and she took the stairs to her second-floor office. Jon’s office was about ten doors down and on the corner. He was a tenured full professor and thus had more space than her small cubbyhole. She went past her own office and down to Jon’s. She tried the door. It was locked.

  Amy turned to leave, then thought she heard someone inside. She stopped, listened for a second. Then she knocked, first tentatively, then louder. Nothing. She started back toward her office, then decided she would find the security guard, something she wouldn’t have considered two weeks earlier.

  Her skin crawling with the kind of fear she hadn’t known two days before, Amy took the steps two at a time, hoping she could find Claude, who was often on duty. He was a large, black man who exuded both goodwill and competence. She finally found him checking offices on the first floor.

  “Dr. Mallory,” he said with a grin that quickly disappeared when he saw her face.

  “Can you check Dr. Foster’s office? I knocked and no one answered, but I thought I heard someone inside.”

  He nodded. He used his cell phone to call the campus police office, asking for backup, then started up the stairs. “Stay here, Dr. Mallory,” he said.

  But Amy couldn’t do that. She followed him closely, her breath catching in her throat as they reached the last step. A feeling of dread smothered her. “Let’s wait until someone comes.”

  “It’s probably nothing. We’ve been having trouble with mice, and that’s most likely what you heard. Nothing ever happens around here.”

  Just then, Jon’s door opened and a man stepped out. A ski mask covered his face, and he was carrying a box. He saw them and stopped, the box falling from his hands. Then a gun was in his hand. The movement was fast. Incredibly fast, even graceful.

  Amy’s gaze went to Claude. His hand reached for his holstered pistol. The sound of gunfire came just a second after the crash of the box. It echoed through the empty hall.

  It was like nothing she’d ever heard before, so loud that her ears rang. She saw Claude stop, his hand dropping the pistol, blood blossoming over his uniform shirt. Paralyzed, she felt rooted to the spot as the man aimed at her and shot again.

  She felt as if a train had hit her. Shock clouded pain, and she felt herself fall. Then nothing.

  five

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  Dustin’s fingers tightened around the phone as he listened to the voice on the other end. “I just thought you’d like to know someone else is looking for the same records you asked about.”

  He swore under his breath. He hadn’t expected that. He’d hoped the whole bloody thing would just fade away.

  “Do you know who?”

  “An army investigator. Name of Flaherty. Ring a bell?”

  Dustin didn’t like the amusement in the voice on the other side of the line. Of course, he knew the name. One of the other generals implicated—or at least named—in the report.

  “What did they tell him?”

  “Same thing they told you. And gave you. No more. But my contact in the commission’s office said this Flaherty wasn’t going to back off. I just thought I should warn you.”

  “Thanks,” Dustin said. He hung up, leaned back in his chair, and stared outside at the view that was his, due to his position.

  He thought about the caller. Cecil Ford was a subordinate who’d hitched his star to Dustin’s. He was, in fact, Dustin’s gofer, a man who, like Dustin, would do nearly anything to get ahead. And had. Dustin trusted him only because it was in Cecil’s best interest to be loyal. If that ever changed.…

  Dustin weighed his options. He’d asked for a copy of the commission report and supporting documentation. He received the first. The latter had so much blacked out that it was of little use. Even the list of stolen items was incomplete; several pages from the original forty-five page inventory were missing.

  But the major theft—two trunks of gold—had been documented elsewhere. Two trunks of gold. They would have been worth millions at the end of the war.

  Dustin had never questioned the source of his family’s wealth, although his great-grandfather had emigrated from Scotland with very little. He had fought in World War I and won the Congressional Medal of Honor, which meant his son—Dustin’s grandfather—had a automatic appointment to West Point. In the ensuing years, the Eachan family became very wealthy. Dustin didn’t know the particulars. He’d just enjoyed it.

  But he’d never lied to himself, either. He knew much of his success came from his lineage. A heroic great-grandfather. A grandfather who was a three-star general. A father who was a career diplomat who had become an ambassador and finally president of a major university before his death in a plane crash.

  Dustin was easily admitted to Harvard despite less than exemplary grades. He had any number of sponsors, including the Vice President of the United States. He had immediately been scooped up by the State Department at graduation, and his family had a sufficient number of friends to speed him up the career ladder. He had every intention of eventually being appointed Secretary of State. That had, after all, been driven into him all his life. It was expected of him.

  Therefore he was very careful politically, and even more careful in his personal life.

  He wondered how quickly support would erode if it were suspected that his family had built its wealth on stolen gold—Nazi wealth.

  And if he discovered his grandfather was guilty, then what? Hide the evidence?

  Dustin felt no obligation to those people who once owned the objects. They were dead, and he knew it would be next to impossible to find any of their rightful heirs. He didn’t want the expanding scope of national recriminations over something that happened before he was born to destroy everything he had worked for. Damn the interfering fools who stirred up something that should have been forgotten.

  He also knew he couldn’t press any harder to see the top-secret files without having questions asked about him.

  Dustin wished he had more real friends. He’d always been somewhat of a loner. Oh, he could be loquacious enough in a crowd. And charming. But other than Sally, he’d never really had any close friends. He’d often regretted that, and wondered at it. What in him kept people at a distance?

  He ran down the list of his acquaintances in the government, someone who might ask the questions that he didn’t feel he should, not without drawing attention to himself. Cecil was out. He was already linked to Dustin. There was only one name that came to mind. Alf Adams had been his roommate his third year at Harvard. Alf—short for Alfred, which he hated—was now with the CIA. They continued an active, if not particularly chummy, tennis relationship. They tried to play at least once a week and, equally matched, they often traded wins.

  Dustin seldom asked favors, and he hated to do so now. Asking a favor meant having to return it. He hated that kind of debt.

  But first, he decided, he would go to his vacation home on the Maryland Eastern Shore. It was time for a long weekend anyway. Time to get back to the sea again.

  “I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,

  And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,

  And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,

  And a grey mist on the sea’s face and a grey dawn breaking.”

  He’d often wondered why Masefield’s poem so resonated in him. Now he knew. He wanted to feel free.

  Dustin rubbed the knots forming in the back of his neck before turning to the stack of papers on his desk.r />
  MEMPHIS

  Amy woke to waves of pain. She remembered being told that she would be all right. A nurse? A doctor? Then she’d been moved again. But everything was hazy, so hazy. Everything but the pain. When she moved, she felt as if a red-hot poker had been applied to her side. Her head pounded as she slowly opened her eyes. It took her a long moment to focus. She bit down to keep a sound from escaping her lips. Then she was aware of someone else in the room. No, two people.

  Sherry was sitting next to her. A man in uniform stood at the window, looking out. She tried to place him but she couldn’t.

  She moved, and he whirled around. In her foggy state, he did it with such grace and speed that it made her dizzy. Dizzier and more confused than she already was. What …?

  Then she remembered. The halls of the history building. A man in a ski mask. A gun. Grace. She’d had the impression of grace then, too. Then the sound of a bullet exploding from the gun. The stunning impact.

  The pounding in her head worsened. She felt as if it were going to explode.

  “Sherry.…”

  Sherry had been staring at the stranger. Now her gaze dropped back to her. “Amy. Thank God. We were all worried about you.”

  Amy’s mind frantically tried to recapture those moments before the shot. Something important. A man in a ski mask. A box. The security guard.

  “Claude … the security guard?”

  “He’s in critical condition,” Sherry said. “The doctors think he’ll make it.”

  Stunned, Amy could only look at her. Why had she asked him to go with her? Why couldn’t they have waited for someone to accompany them? He was married with two young children. She’d seen the photos.

  She closed her eyes for a moment. Grief was like a parasite, chewing her up inside.

  But then she heard movement next to her, and she opened her eyes again. The man in uniform was beside her, and despite the pain and grief, she was momentarily distracted. She knew now why Sherry had been so insistent on her meeting with him. He did have striking ice-cool blue eyes, and small lines—laugh or worry lines—crinkled around them. The color was a more intense blue than any she had ever seen before. His face in totality was not handsome. It was too angular for that, but an indentation in his chin broke its austerity. His lips had an odd little quirk that made him look permanently quizzical.

  He was, she guessed, in his early forties, but his face looked older, as if weathered by sun and weighty matters. Or command, she thought, as she saw the ribbons on his uniform and the oak leaf clusters. Ordinarily, she wasn’t impressed by the military. The exact opposite, in fact. But Sherry was right. He did look “cool.” And that was not a word she ever used.

  “I’m Colonel Flaherty,” he said, the twist of his lip turning into a half-smile that acknowledged her. As she’d suspected from Sherry’s smitten reaction, charm radiated from him.

  Amy did not smile in return. He was an intruder here, not a friend. And she certainly didn’t want to talk to a stranger. Not now, not until she got her thoughts together. She forced her gaze away from him and back to Sherry. “How … long have I been here?”

  “About sixteen hours,” she said. “They had to take a bullet out of you, but the doctor said you’ll be just fine.” She hesitated. “The police were here. They waited most of the night and today. They finally gave up, but they want to talk to you as soon as possible.”

  Amy weighed that. Something nagged at her. Then she remembered what she’d been trying to remember. Boxes. She started to mention them, then stopped. What was the stranger doing in her room?

  “Jon?” she asked. “I want to speak to.…”

  There was a stricken look on Sherry’s face. She touched Amy’s hand. “He’s dead,” she said reluctantly. “An automobile accident last evening. Hit and run.”

  The room started to blur. New pain ripped through Amy. A kind of pain far different from the physical pounding in her body. And anger. Deep, bitter anger.

  “No” she whispered. “It can’t be.”

  The colonel looked at Sherry. “Jon?”

  “A history professor at the college. He and Amy were friends.”

  And the burglar was coming out of his office. Amy’s heart beat faster, almost frantically. Sherry wouldn’t have known she had gone to see Jon last night, that she had wanted to retrieve her boxes. And now Jon was dead. A coincidence? She did not believe it for a moment, but she was not going to mention it in front of this man.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Mallory,” he said in a soft voice. “I wanted to reach you this morning, and called the college. Miss Machovitz had just arrived at the office and learned of your … injury. I don’t think anyone knew about your friend then.”

  His voice was deep, soft, and soothing. Too soothing. She didn’t trust it. She wondered whether he had connected the two … incidents. “Why are you here?” she asked.

  “The police were here all night, waiting to see you,” he said soothingly. “When they left to get some lunch, I told them I would stay with you.” He looked at his watch. “They should be here any minute.”

  Then it struck her. Flaherty. Sherry had not mentioned his name yesterday, and she’d been so busy with details with the insurance company she hadn’t asked. Flaherty. It was the same name as one of the generals in the newspaper story. Her eyes narrowed. Everything bad had started to happen after she’d read that article.

  “What do you want?” Amy asked.

  He looked uncomfortable, but determined. “Information. I don’t know if you’re aware of a recent commission report. On war thefts. Second World War.” He said it all in clipped sentences, his magnetic blue eyes studying her with an intensity that burned like a laser.

  “I’m aware,” she said simply.

  “I thought you might have some papers that would shed light on it.” It was both a statement and a question. It was a particularly effective form of interrogation. She had used it herself in interviews.

  She was silent. In truth, she didn’t know what she had. But after the last few days she was not going to share anything with anyone. “Why … would you believe I do?”

  “You’re a historian,” he said. “A very good one, I understand. And you’re the only descendant of General Mallory. It stands to reason.…”

  How would he know whether she was a good one or not unless he’d checked into her background? The thought chilled her. And that chill laced her reply. “It is not my field, Colonel.”

  “I know,” he said with some amusement in his voice. “Your field is war protestors. I probably shouldn’t have worn the uniform.”

  “Then why did you?”

  “It often helps me get into places I otherwise might not,” he said with a disarming charm that she knew had been lurking there, just waiting to be sprung on her. She was, however, in no mood to be charmed. Particularly by someone named Flaherty who got himself into her room through false pretenses, who had apparently snooped into her life.

  “Well, I can’t help you,” she said, tamping down on the waves of pain assaulting her. “I just want to rest. And,” she added pointedly, “to talk to the police.”

  He studied her for a moment. “Why were you in Sammons Hall last night?”

  “It’s none of your business,” she said, her anger overcoming curiosity. Too much had happened in the past week. Things she didn’t understand, and now this … stranger apparently wanted her to trust him. She didn’t. She wondered whether she would ever trust anyone again.

  She turned to Sherry. “Bo?”

  “As soon as I knew you’d be okay, I went to your hotel and explained everything. They let me in and I got Bo for you. He’s at my house.”

  “Who’s Bo?” the uniform said.

  “Amy’s dog,” Sherry said helpfully.

  Amy closed her eyes. She was tired, so very tired. Her head hurt, and her side felt as if it were on fire. She was also confused. Angry. She thought of Jon, and grief flooded her again and lodged in her heart. He had been a good frie
nd, and she would miss their conversations and his humor. And somehow, for some reason she didn’t understand, she suspected she was in some way the cause of his death.

  She opened her eyes again. The colonel was still standing there. Stiff and straight. Tall. Several inches taller than her own nearly six feet, which usually made her self-conscious.

  He was lean in build and she sensed, rather than saw, raw physical power. He also gave an impression of restlessness even where he stood still. She would bet her last paycheck that he ran three miles before breakfast and worked out daily in a gym. The thought did not endear him to her.

  His eyes, though, were difficult to read. He wore the investigator’s mask. She had seen it too much in the past several days. Resentment replaced some of her confusion. They wanted information. They seldom gave it. Well, not this time, buddy.

  “What do you do in the Army?”

  “I’m in criminal investigation.”

  She should have guessed from his insistence. “CID?”

  He looked startled. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I didn’t think colonels conducted investigations.”

  “You know about us, then?”

  “Oh, yes. I know about most law investigation agencies,” she said dryly. “Certainly enough to know that colonels supervise. Warrant officers and civilians do most of the … work.”

  He looked uncomfortable, and that gave her momentary satisfaction. She didn’t think he looked that way very often.

  “The police know I’m here unofficially,” he said after a short pause.

  She moved then, and the pain that had been under control—barely—became white-hot agony. She clenched her teeth to keep from moaning.

  But Sherry saw it. “Squeeze the button beside you,” she said. “There’s a drip to control the pain.”

  Amy didn’t want a drug. Not until she saw the police. Maybe not even then. She’d seen too much of what drugs did. She didn’t even take aspirin. Instead, she waited until the pain receded.

  “Go away,” she told the colonel.

  He hesitated a moment. “I told the police I would stay with you. They’ve checked my credentials.”