Captain's Call of Duty

“It’s two in the morning, Mendez,” he said, hinting not so subtly for her to get to the point of this little visit.

She glared. “I’m well aware of that. I’ve been working all night while you caught up on your beauty sleep.”

Vague surprise registered. What work would keep her up so late? She was a junior flunky—little more than an errand girl—in Chandler’s office. Surely the guy didn’t give her work to do that kept her up this late at night. “Congratulations. You win the workaholic award,” he declared. “So what do you want?”

“Get dressed,” she ordered tersely. “There’s something I need to show you.”

His eyebrows shot up. Since when was she the one giving orders? He was the unit operations officer. She was the lowly support tech. Not to mention, why was she so tense? She’d come to his unit with a reputation for being cool as a cucumber under pressure. That and the girl was a wizard with anything that had wires. She would give James Bond’s tech support guy, Q, a run for his British money. Something must be up. Something big.

Frowning, he stood up. “I’ll be right back.”

“Wear something preppy!” she called after him.

Preppy? What the heck? Off-duty his tastes tended to jeans and cowboy boots. But he was curious enough to dig out a pair of tailored khaki slacks and a dark-green polo shirt. He rooted around in the back of his closet and found a pair of deck shoes, too. He occasionally sailed with friends in Annapolis, and the shoes actually were handy on a boat. In keeping with the preppy thing, he skipped socks and slipped his bare feet into the shoes.

When he came back to the living room, she was perched on the edge of his pearl-gray leather sofa warily eyeing his coffee table and the foot-tall crystal sculpture of a seagull in flight on it. The piece was one of a kind, but he restrained an urge to slide it out of her reach. He snorted at himself. Apparently, it was an ingrained habit not to insult a pretty woman at this time of night.

“What’s going on, Mendez?”

Her dark eyes flashed with something unnamed. He might call it fear if it wasn’t Mendez he was looking at. She didn’t have a fearful bone in her entire body.

She answered, “I found something on Senator Chandler’s computer. I could’ve brought you a copy of the file, but you wouldn’t have believed me if I did. I need you to see it for yourself on his computer, as big as life.”

If he hadn’t known her pretty much his whole life, he’d say she’d lost her marbles. But Alex never had been prone to hysteria and didn’t look as though she was about to start now. She looked … scared.

They stepped out into the sleeping Georgetown street. He glanced around for her piece-of-crap Buick and didn’t spot it. “Where’d you park?” he murmured.

“I took the subway.”

“The Beast on the fritz?”

She snorted at the idea that any car of hers wouldn’t be in perfect working order. Good point. Her old man was the finest mechanic on the planet, and she wasn’t far behind the guy in what she knew about cars.

“I’ll drive,” he announced. Not only did he prefer his zippy little BMW on the Washington streets, but he wanted fast access to the Luger 9 mm semi-automatic pistol in the glove compartment.

Traffic was nonexistent at this hour and they were downtown in a matter of minutes. Shocking. It could take Jim an hour or more to make that drive during rush hour. He even found a parking spot less than a block from the Dirksen Building, where Chandler’s office was.

“How are we planning to get in?” he asked.

“We’re walking in the front door. I told the guard when I left to come get you that I’d be back with someone to help me in a little while. He’s expecting you and will sign you in as a visitor,” she answered disdainfully.

“No spooky ops for you, huh?”

“Hey. If you want to break in, I can take you around back and rewire the service entrance. But it’ll take an hour and then we’ll have to dodge the roaming guards who, contrary to what you see on TV, are very good at their jobs.”

He shrugged. “Why make it hard if we can take the path of least resistance?”

“Like I was saying. The front door.”

Touchy, touchy. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her this tense. His curiosity grew even more. What had she found to make her this tight?

“Good evening, Miss Mendez,” a night guard at the front desk said. “I see you convinced your colleague to come in and help you.”

She sighed. “Senator Chandler’s freaking out over some testimony his committee’s hearing tomorrow. He made me dig up a Subject Matter Expert and drag the poor man down here to help me develop a list of questions. This is Captain Kelley, by the way.”

The guard was thorough … and slow. But eventually, the badge with a big red V on it was handed over. Jim clipped it to his collar.

Playing his part, Jim said, “All right, Miss Mendez. Let’s get to work. We don’t have long if this hearing starts at nine.”

She nodded and led him through the metal detectors to an elevator bank. They stepped inside and the door closed behind them. She stared fixedly at the doors as if she was uncomfortable being in a confined space with him.

“What’s going on, Al? I can’t remember the last time I saw you so wired.”

The door opened. “Come on. I’ll show you.”

She followed him down a long hallway to a walnut door with a brass panel on it announcing this to be the office of Chester V. Chandler, the junior senator from Nebraska. She swiped her badge and then keyed a number on the pad below the card reader. A green light beeped and she pushed open the door.

They stepped into a darkened room. She reached past him to turn on the lights. With a quick gasp to announce it, she managed to get her feet tangled up and he had to grab her fast to keep her from falling over. Typical Mendez. He bit back a grin at the sight of her cheeks reddening.

“Lock that door behind you,” she mumbled.

He did so and turned around. Alex had already disappeared into the next room. He followed her in time to see her sit down behind a big mahogany desk and open a laptop computer sitting on it. Interested to see what had her so freaked out, he moved around behind her to look over her shoulder.

It booted up and she rapidly typed in a long password comprised of random letters and numbers.

“Impressive,” he commented. “How long did it take you to hack that?”

“Chet gave me the password months ago.”

“Seriously?” That surprised him. If the guy had secrets to keep, why would he hand out his password to some junior aide?

“Whenever he has computer problems, I’m his go-to girl.” She added dryly, “Turns out I have a bit of a knack with electronics.”

“You’re kidding,” he retorted, matching her sarcasm. By the time she’d hit her teens, it had been clear she’d inherited her dad’s gift for gadgets. He’d never seen a mechanical device of any kind that could best either one of them. Of course, the army had spent years further training her natural talent until she was downright frightening.

“Here it is,” she announced as she clicked on a file icon. As it loaded, she stood up. “Sit down and take a look at this.”

He replaced her in the leather desk chair. An email message popped up on the screen.

The package has been taken. ETA final destination 6:00 a.m. local. Will report when contents have been secured and delivery confirmation sent.

“Mendez, have you lost it? Why do I care about some damned package?”

“Look at the date of the message,” she replied.

“The twentieth of August. Big deal.”

“Wasn’t that the day your sister was kidnapped?”