Dangerous Alliance

Then Dan laughed, something he hadn’t done often in the past two years. Maybe Libby’s tornadolike presence had so discombobulated Edwards that he’d foisted her off on the first person he could think of. Well, Edwards’s loss was his gain.

“Sir? Did you say something?”

Dan looked up. A marine staff sergeant stood in the doorway dressed in his summer uniform. “Uh, no…I was muttering to myself.” And then Dan became all-business. “I’m Captain Ramsey, the new assistant PM.”

The marine stepped forward and offered his hand. “Sergeant Joe Donnally, sir. I’ll be working with you. In fact, I’ll be your right-hand man around here.”

“Good, you’re just the person I wanted to see,” Dan said, turning around to pick up the report. “I’ve got a case I want you to investigate for me.”

“A case? Already, sir?”

“I know the feeling. I’ve only been here two hours.” Dan smiled slightly, liking the alert, predatory look in the sergeant’s eyes. “Think my name precedes me or something, Sergeant?”

Donnally tentatively returned the smile and perused the carefully printed report. “Must have, sir.” He frowned. “Is this a drug case?”

“No. Just a pedestrian one, Sergeant.”

“But…I was told you were going to set up a drug-rehab unit here on base.”

Dan waved his hand. “That’s correct, Sergeant. Read the report, and if you have any questions before you begin the investigation, come and see me.”

“Yes, sir. But I could send this over to Captain Adams’s people to handle. He usually deals with stuff like this.”

“No, don’t do that. We’ll take care of it.”

“Sure, sir?”

“Positive.” Libby would think he was passing the buck if he did that to her. And for some reason, Dan cared what she thought of him. “I’m sure it’s going to be a simple matter to clear up, Sergeant. No, we’ll handle it here through our office.”

Joe shrugged. “Fine with me, sir.”

Dan sat back down. “Stay a minute, Sergeant. If you’re my assistant, I’d like to know a little about your background. Have a seat.”

Joe did as he was ordered, sitting at attention in the seat facing the desk. “Colonel Edwards chose me to work with you, sir, precisely because of my background. I was born and raised in National City, close to the Mexican border.”

“A lot of drug activity around your hometown?”

“Yes, sir. I ran with a Hispanic gang growing up, and I know the southern-California territory.”

“Did you sell drugs?” Dan knew the man could lie to him if he chose to, but he wanted to gauge his reaction.

“No, sir,” Joe returned steadily.

“Why?”

With a shrug, Joe said, “I lost my sister, Maria, to drugs. I saw what it did to her and what her death ended up doing to all of us. No, sir, I never used drugs. I hated them. And I hate the people who sell them to the kids.”

“I’m sorry about your sister, Sergeant,” Dan said, meaning it. Donnally’s story hit too close to home. He’d lost Janna to cocaine addiction. Since then, all his anger toward the drug culture had been turned into a personal war that included cleaning up the Yuma air station, and now Reed.

“Sir, if I can be bold, there are a couple of other good men who really hate drugs that could be assigned to your office.”

“Excellent. Give me a list of names, Sergeant. We’ll be building this rehab clinic and an undercover interdiction unit from the ground up. I can use all the good men I can get.”

Joe nodded, liking his new officer immensely. Word had come down that Ramsey was a tough officer. Well, Joe didn’t mind that type, as long as they were fair-minded. Hope rose in him. Ramsey seemed a hell of a lot better than his predecessor, Captain Jacobs. Suddenly, excitement thrummed through him.

“Sir, when will you let us in on your plans and ideas for the base?”

Dan hid a smile, liking the sergeant’s intensity and enthusiasm. “Just as soon as we can get a pool of people who hate drugs as much as you and I do.”

Joe jumped up and came to attention. “Permission to leave and get started on this, sir?”

“First things first, Sergeant.” Dan motioned to the report in his hand. “Let’s get Ms. Tyler’s investigation out of the way, shall we?”

“Yes, sir. This’ll be a piece of cake.”

“I hope so. Dismissed, Sergeant.”

Dan pushed his fingers together in a steeple as he thought about Donnally. He liked the staff sergeant, who seemed to couple intelligence with enthusiasm—the combination Dan was searching for in the team he’d put together for Reed. Brig chasers were big, mean marines who reminded him of the old corps before all the changes. As a group, they had one hell of a reputation, and no one messed with them. Not even the highly vaunted recon marines. No, brig chasers were the perfect instruments to use against the drug world.

Glancing at the phone on his desk, Dan wondered how long it would be until it would be ringing off the hook with drug-related problems. Once he’d put his drug unit together in Yuma, the phone had become a living being, stalking him twenty-four hours a day.

Reed was a lot bigger than Yuma, boasting 48,000 military personnel and 4,200 civilian employees to the Arizona air station’s 12,000 military personnel. He exhaled heavily, wondering if the drug problems at this base could be corralled and eradicated. No matter what happened, Dan knew he had to give it his best shot. If people such as Donnally were available to him, his job would be a lot easier. Still, from what Rose, his new secretary, had told him, his office and personnel were in dire need of being shaped up. Captain Jacobs had left the unit in shambles, the morale low. It would only make his job tougher if he had to whip his men and women back into line.

As Dan continued to ponder, his thoughts revolved back to Libby Tyler. If she was this upset about those five horses, why wasn’t her boss, Stuart Garwood? Or was she one of those people who did, indeed, go off on a tangent and make mountains out of mole hills? Dan grimaced, wishing mightily that he was the one going out to the stables to investigate Libby’s allegations rather than Donnally. Somehow, Dan had to figure out a way to see her. Somehow.

Chapter Two

“Chaos.” Dan muttered under his breath so no one passing his office door could hear him. “Utter chaos.” He’d been at Reed exactly three days, and everything was a mess. The officer whom he’d replaced, Captain Arthur Jacobs, had somehow managed to transform his fifty-person contingent into a surly group who were bordering on disrespect—except for Donnally, who was turning out to be a godsend.

His desk was scattered with papers. The In basket was full and teetering with files begging for his attention. It was only a matter of time until the pile toppled.

“Captain?”

Dan looked up. Rose Tannison, his GS-12, government civil service secretary, stood in the doorway. She was a civilian who worked for the military. Her bulk filled it amply. “Yes, Rose?”

“We’ve got a problem.” She removed her bifocal glasses from the end of her nose. “Mind if I come in and shut the door while we talk?”

Groaning inwardly, Dan guessed it to be another personnel problem. Right now, he wanted to strangle Jacobs, a short-timer whose bitter attitude toward the Marine Corps had rubbed off on the enlisted people who worked under him. “Sure.” Dan glanced at his watch: 1145. For once, if this didn’t take long, he was going to be able to grab some lunch.

Rose smiled and sat down after closing the door. She fluffed her full pink cotton skirt. “Have you met Howard Parker, the police chief from Oceanside, yet?”

“No.” Oceanside bordered Reed’s territory and was a military town with all the inherent problems that accompanied such a dubious title. And Dan knew working closely with civilian law enforcement would be vital for his plan to be successful.

“Well,” Rose said, placing her glasses back up on her bulblike nose and peering over them at him, “you’d better pull out a big box of Band-Aids. He’s on his way here.”

“What does that mean?” Dan rested both his elbows on the desk.

“May I be frank?”