Final Winter

‘Good morning, detective,’ she said. She wore a tiny microphone headset that looked out of place in her thick auburn hair, and held a small redialing device in her left hand. She had on a yellow dress that showed a nice expanse of cleavage, and because of the way her legs were placed under the desktop the dress displayed a lot of leg as well. There were no chairs or coffee tables stacked with Time and Newsweek and Adweek, for Callaghan Consulting discouraged visitors, and Stacy — dressed as she was — was also part of the discouragement process. The way she was positioned, the way she was dressed, was to stop men — even dangerous men, men who were on a mission — just for a precious second or two as they came through the door, and give her enough time to use her other hand, her carefully manicured right hand, which Brian knew right at this instant was wrapped around a Colt Model 1911 .45 semi-automatic pistol in a middle drawer of the desk.

Earlier on during his assignment with this oddball group, Brian had made clear his interest in seeing Stacy in a more relaxed, out-of-work setting, and she had eagerly taken him up on it, only insisting that she would pick the day and place. The day had been a Saturday, the place had been the indoor shooting range at the Berwyn Rod & Gun Club in nearby Bowie, and in the space of a half-hour she had out-shot him in every type of target and environment. That had been their first and last away-from-work encounter.

‘Still carrying that nine-millimeter piece of junk?’ Stacy called out as he walked past her desk to the short hallway behind her. Office doors lined each side of the hallway where some of the support staff worked.

‘It’s a lightweight piece of junk, compared with the cannon you’re carrying,’ Brian said, smiling back at her, seeing the carefully hidden consoles on the other side of the desk that gave immediate readouts from the explosives and metal detectors outside.

Stacy laughed. ‘I know how to carry it, and how to use it, and that’s all that counts.’

He yawned again. Up to the door at the end of the hallway, a door that looked like wood, which it partially was: wood covering metal. At the lock near the doorknob, he punched in the number combination and let himself in. The door opened to reveal a small wood-paneled room housing an elevator with exactly one button. Brian got in, pressed the button, and felt that little surge in his stomach as the elevator went down into the Maryland soil.

The door slid open. Brian went out and through another door, along a short hallway, and into a small conference room. There were six chairs around the table, and three were already occupied. He nodded at the other people in the room and sat down, sprawling out his legs. One of the two remaining empty chairs awaited whatever guest might be attending this morning, and the other, at the head of the conference room table, was reserved for their team leader. Who was always late, and who had an office out at the other end of the underground complex, along with the other team members. Coffee and juice and pastries and doughnuts were set in the middle of the table. On the far wall was a thin plasma screen, displaying nothing save a pale blue light. Laptops were set up in front of the other three participants, and Brian didn’t feel guilty that his own laptop was locked up safely in his own little cubicle.

At his left was Montgomery Zane, a black guy about his own age who was about the same height as Brian but who easily had fifteen pounds on him, all of it muscle around his neck and shoulders. He had on a dark blue polo shirt and grunted a greeting as Brian sat down, the good side of his face toward him. The other side — the left side — of Monty’s face had ripples of burn-scar tissue running down to his thick neck. Brian sneaked a peek at Monty’s laptop screen, saw that he was playing some sort of Tetris-like game, which immediately made him feel better about being laptop-less. At his right was Darren Coover, who was about ten years his junior and so slight and blond he looked like a stiff breeze would knock him over. Darren didn’t even seem to notice as Brian sprawled out, and a quick glance at Darren’s laptop screen showed streams of numbers and letters, nothing that seemed to make sense.

Across from Brian was Victor Palmer — or, as he preferred to be known, Doctor Palmer. Like Brian, he was on loan and was hating almost every minute of it. Brian quickly realized that he didn’t like the look on the doc’s face. Usually the doc had this air of superiority, like the rest of the group weren’t fit to wipe his ass after he’d taken a dump, but not this morning. He was looking around the room and nervously licking his thin lips, eyes blinking behind his round, horn-rimmed glasses. That look made him seem scared, scared for the first time in a long time, and Brian said loudly, ‘Anybody know when the princess is showing up?’