All Due Respect (33 page)

“Damn right you’re not.”

“I know you’re not him, okay?” She gave Seth a bittersweet smile. “But sometimes—if just for a second—at least for a while, I’m probably going to forget. When I do—”

“I’ll understand.” Seth hugged her hard. “Julia, I will love you enough to make you forget the bad times.”

“No, I can’t forget them and neither can you. We can’t I outrun our pasts, and we shouldn’t try. If we forget, we

open ourselves up to letting it happen again. As hard as

those experiences were to get through, we learned valuable lessons from them. We learned what not to do and how to be strong enough to build good lives in spite of them. I want Jeff to know that, too. That he can thrive in a loving home. I want us all to have that.”

“We will,” Seth promised.

They talked for over an hour, and Julia saw a side of him she felt sure no woman before her had ever seen: Seth’s soul. He opened up his most secret self and laid it before her, trusting her completely. Her heart filled and, and, feeling tender and poignant, she reached for him. They made slow, sweet love, and then Julia slipped into a restful sleep.

Sometime before dawn, Julia missed his warmth, and awakened. “Seth?”

“Right here, honey.” Dressing in the shadows, he stepped into a pair of Dockers. Tugged on a shirt.

“Where are you going?” She glanced at the clock. “It’s not even daylight.”

“Karl hasn’t called.”

“He’s not going to call.” She wadded up the covers. “I tried telling you and Matthew and that hardheaded Colonel Kane that, but none of you would listen.”

Seth sat down on the bed, stroked her hair. “I’m listening now.” Loving the smell of her hair, he bent low, pressed a kiss to her neck. “Why won’t he call?”

“He decided to kill me after all, Seth. We both know it now.” She turned over, sat up, dragging the cover with her, and then tucked the sheet under her armpits, over her breasts. “He has no reason to call.”

“He thinks you’re dead.”

“Yes. And that means you know it. He knows you know. That’s enough.”

“What about the right Intel on Home Base?”

“Jeff and I are both dead. Karl has no leverage to use against you to get it. Morse sure isn’t going to go toe to toe with him and expose his involvement.”

“You could be right.” Seth brushed her sleep-tossed hair

back from her eyes. “I’m going out to the base.”

“Why?”

“To work on my sensor.”

“Now?” She sounded shocked, but damn it, she was shocked.

“You’re safe here. Matthew has men watching the house.”

It wasn’t that. “Why now, Seth?”

He stared at the curtained window a long second. “Gut instinct,” he said, turning his gaze to her. “I need to run simulator studies on my sensor. We’re going to need it, Julia.”

“We don’t have it available.”

“Yes, honey, we do. I’ve done a prototype. But I don’t know—”

“You haven’t even done simulator studies. Seth, honey, how can you even consider implementing this without so much as the simulator studies?”

“I’m going to do the studies now,” he said. “Look, if Intel is accurate on this—and Matthew swears by all that’s holy, it is—then Benedetto’s beyond desperate. The loyalists found out about Karl burying you and Jeff and they’re holding Benedetto personally responsible.”

Julia’s heart ricocheted off her ribs. “He’ll attack soon.”

“Yeah, he will.” Seth pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Which is why I have to move fast and pray hard my technology is solid. If he launches the Rouge, it’s our only defense.”

“What will it do?”

“What Home Base can’t—I hope.”

Julia kicked off the covers and slid out of bed.

Seth stared at her. “What are you doing?”

“I’m going to help you.”

Seth stood up, gripped her firmly by the shoulders. “You can’t.”

“I have to. The two of us can accomplish far more—”

“Julia, you’re missing. Just like Jeff. I’m not exposing you to more danger.”

“Instead you’ll let half the country get torn up?”

“No. I’ll handle it. Just cooperate, okay?”

“Can you handle it?”

“Yes. The studies, I can do alone.”

“Okay. For now, you go alone.” She dropped back onto the bed. “But if you see that it’s close and you need help, you’d better bring me in, Seth.”

“I will.” He kissed her hard and quick, then headed for the door.

“Seth?”

He stopped and looked back at her.

“I mean it. If you let me sit here and die without you, I’ll be mad at you forever.”

She didn’t want to die without him. She loved him. She hadn’t gotten involved with him just for Jeff. She hadn’t yet given him the words, but Seth knew how hard that could be. When she felt she could, then she would say them. And God, but he hoped that would be soon. He’d waited a lot of years to hear them. “I refuse to die without you.”

“Promise?”

“You sound like Jeff.”

“Where do you think he got it? Now, promise me. Yes, or no?”

“I promise.” Unable not to, Seth smiled. “You know, I think it’s going to be easy loving you.”

“Hold that thought.”

“For how long?”

“Oh, I don’t know. A couple of lifetimes should do it.” Her expression turned saucy. “And don’t think you’ll always get your way by giving me that sexy look.”

“How long will I get away with it?”

“Truthfully?”

He nodded.

“Maybe a lifetime.” She wagged a warning finger at him. “But just one.”

Yeah, she loved him. She really did. “I think I’d better watch myself or I’ll be the one in trouble here.”

RUNNING the simulator studies had been low priority. Now, every instinct in Seth’s body shouted they were a crisis priority.

He worked through the rest of the morning, through lunch, and on into the afternoon, pausing to attend a progress-report briefing with the team, less Mr. Sandlis and Marcus, and to listen to Linda lecture him on the benefits of having a well-rested mind when dealing with five thousand pounds of explosives on bombs-in-the-making. What didn’t surprise him was Dempsey Morse cornering Seth at the water fountain. God, how Seth wished they had enough hard evidence to nail his ass to the wall now.

“Julia hasn’t shown up again today,” Morse said, sounding tense and wary.

Seth took a long, cool drink. “Has she called in?”

“No. No one’s heard from her.” Morse darted his gaze. “Can we talk a second, in the conference room?”

The most secure place in the inner lab. “Sure.” Seth walked over, entered the conference room, and then took a seat. “What’s up?”

“It’s Julia.” Morse sat down across from Seth. His forehead wrinkled in a frown and he folded his hands over his round belly. “I know you’ve worked with her before and you have a lot of respect for the woman, but, well, frankly, I’m concerned.”

The son of a bitch was going to tag Julia with the blame for the breaches. “About what?”

“We’ve had more than a few… oddities… around here, and all of them have happened since Julia took over the project.” He couldn’t hold Seth’s gaze. “I have to be careful here. You know Slicer has millions invested in Home Base. Protecting its interests is my number one priority.”

“A successful project is your number one priority, Dempsey,” Seth countered. “Without that, you’ve flushed your millions.”

“True.” He nodded his agreement. “But I’m worried

about her sudden absence. Something could be wrong.”

“What do you recommend we do?”

“I think we should contact the OSI.”

The guy was a real piece of work. Seth leaned back in his chair. “If we call the OSI on an absent employee, we could look like total fools.”

“Why?” Dempsey shrugged. “She’s not a regular absent DoD employee. She’s Black World.”

“She also has a history of leaving without notice or warning.” Seth gauged Morse’s reaction. The damn fool didn’t bother to hide his relief that Seth had rejected the wisdom of contacting the OSI. Serious, serious tactical error. “If she’s just taken a couple of days off and we report it, then she gets fired and we look like idiots. We can’t afford that. Who’s going to continue to fund a project run by idiots?”

“Good point.” Morse stood up, began pacing alongside the conference table, end to end. “She’s put us in a compromising position. We report it, and we look like idiots. We don’t report it, and her absence turns out to be involuntary, then the OSI is going to cut us up into little pieces and feed our livers to Colonel Pullman and the brass at the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization.”

Seth fed Morse’s fears. “Higher headquarters would take us not filing the report personally. They’ve become real sticklers on security since the Los Alamos incident. We’re still dealing with the fallout. And you should know that Colonel Mason’s already threatened to take any discrepancy directly to the JCS.”

At the mention of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Morse paled.

Relieved to see it, Seth went on. “Bottom line is, if some hostile is responsible for her absence and we haven’t reported it, then we’re guilty by association. We’ll do time in Leavenworth, no doubt about it. So, do we risk it?” Seth shrugged. “It’s your call, Dempsey.”

“I don’t know.” Morse paced faster and faster. “I’m just not sure.”

“Make the call, Dempsey.”

He stopped, stared at Seth. “I say we wait a while. See if she shows up.”

Delay was one tactic, Seth supposed. Morse was looking for a way to pin Julia’s absence on Karl. But he wasn’t supposed to know Karl existed, so that threw a wrench in the works. One Morse should have already worked out and hadn’t. Evidently, he had planned on Karl being caught red handed, which kept Morse uninvolved. Now, Morse expected Seth to investigate Julia’s absence, which would again keep Morse totally on the outside. A piss-poor plan, but since the matter was academic anyway, why not let him delay? “Waiting a while works for me.”

“I’m heading out,” Morse said, rubbing his stomach. “Think I’m getting Marcus’s flu.”

“Keep in touch.”

Morse left the conference room moving double time. He was definitely the project mole working for Benedetto, but he was also either a lousy strategist, or he was in the dark on the Hyde facet of Benedetto’s strategy. Seth’s instincts shouted it was the latter. Morse recruited Karl. Benedetto arranged for Karl’s release from prison and struck a side deal with him. Morse didn’t know about Jeff’s kidnapping and the burials. If obtaining information from Julia by force failed, then Karl would take the fall for the ethics breach, insulating Benedetto and Morse. At least until Benedetto was through with Morse. Then he’d have to die. Benedetto couldn’t risk letting Morse live.

Thoughtful, Seth went back to his office and dialed the phone. “Agent 12, please.”

“One moment, Dr. Holt.”

Mrs. Anderson. Seth recognized her crisp voice.

“Don’t you ever sleep?” Matthew grumbled. “I close my eyes for the first time in thirty-four hours and you call. This had better be good, Seth.”

“Morse just paid me an exploratory visit about Julia’s absence. He’s definitely our man.”

“We’ve already determined that.”

“Yeah, we have. Now, we’ve confirmed it.”

“So what’s your point?”

“I don’t think he knows about Karl burying Julia and Jeff.” Seth had second thoughts. “Actually, I don’t think he knows about Karl at all.”

“You sure?”

“It makes sense. Benedetto needs data from Julia. Julia fears Karl. Benedetto gets Karl out of jail to get the data.” Seth twiddled a pencil on his blotter.

“Logical, so far,” Matthew said.

“It stays logical.” Seth stared at the dimpled ceiling. “If the loyalists find out about Karl burying Julia and Jeff— which we now know they have—then Karl takes the fall. A new loyalist who doesn’t make the grade. Honor code breach insists on Karl’s death. Benedetto has Karl killed, keeping with the code, and he stays protected. He can’t blame Morse for bringing Karl into Two West; he needs him to get Home Base up and running. This way, if Karl fails, Morse is protected—until his services are no longer required.”

“There’s value in telling Morse. Hyde switched cars at a Winn-Dixie grocery store about half an hour ago. We lost him.”

He was a pro. A capable, skilled one, to have outmaneuvered Matthew’s men. “Does Julia know?”

“No. Colonel Kane’s orders. She’s stressed to the max.”

“He’s been reading the Intel reports on her.”

“Yeah,” Matthew said. “But the two operatives watching her know Karl’s on the loose. They’re prepared.”

Seth had mixed feelings about that, but Julia was already stressed to the max. Should Seth give her a heads up, anyway? “We could let Benedetto lead Morse to Hyde.”

‘The risks are too high.”

The news kept getting worse and worse. “Benedetto’s a loose cannon already, eh?”

“Worse than you can imagine. He’s losing it, Seth. The profilers are going crazy, trying to figure out what he’s going to do next. The drug abuse only makes their job harder.”

Seth grimaced. Stared through the glass wall at Cracker working the computer. Benedetto’s next move was decidedly easy to figure, regardless of the drugs. “He’s going to launch the Rogue.”

“We’d better hope not.”

“It’s coming. Bank on it.” .

“Why are you so sure?”

“He’s an addict on the edge with firepower and a lot to prove—to us, and his loyalists—and even more to hide. His best bet is to bury his skeletons in rubble, Matthew.”

“Crunch time.”

“Yeah, crunch time.” Karl hadn’t died as a result of the operation, as planned. The truth that Benedetto had recruited him would come out. Benedetto knew he was damned to die—by the loyalists’ hands or his own—and he wasn’t going to die alone. He was going to take as many people with him as he possibly could. “Is Jeff okay?”

“He’s fine. Beating the socks off Colonel Kane at poker.”

Seth blinked hard. “Kane’s pulling duty watching Jeff?”

“Yeah, his wife, too. He promised Julia.”

Seth understood. The man felt honor bound to personally keep Jeff safe. And he felt a little guilty for not listening to Julia sooner and checking out the apartment earlier. When he couldn’t be there, his wife would. They relied on each other, like Seth and Julia.