He Who Dares: Book Two (The Gray Chronicals 2) (3 page)

“But why the secrecy?”  Gable asked.

“That is something we are still trying to work out, Gable.”  Mike carefully inserted the data key, hearing a faint humming sound as he did.  Then he opened the box to reveal six data pads, nestling in foam cutouts.

Each box had three layers of pads, and six pads per layer.  That was a lot of data, and after unpacking them, they laid them out on a worktable.  None of them contained the long hoped for ship design, or drawing, just the design specification for all of their new equipment.  Mike passed several of the pads to Gable and Adam and began reading.  The pads were long on engineering specifications, and short on explanations, even so he waded through each of them in turn.

“Oh my lord!”  Adam exclaimed.  “Have to see these new power plants?”  He looked up, excitement written all over his face.  “No, no, of course you haven’t, silly of me.”  He dived back into the data, laughing to himself.

Mike went through each of the data pads, committing the basic information to memory.  For three days he didn’t nothing but read, driving Conner to distraction trying to get him to eat.  He took the pads back to his digs, and it wasn’t unusual to find him still sitting at the table in the morning staring into space, or scribbling furiously in a note pad.  On the third day, hollowed eyes and looking drained, he and Conner arrived at the office and Conner was thankful that at least he didn’t have his nose stuck in a data pad any more.  Now he just looked distracted.  They entered the office, and Conner immediately put the coffee on to brew, as he turned away from the machine, something caught his eye, and he stopped.  All four of them made it a habit to kick off their overshoes when they came into the office, so as not to track snow and mud all over the place.  This morning was no exception, so why were there wet footprints tracking across the office.  His eye’s flicked around the room, his suspicion deepened when he saw a wet spot under Mike’s desk.  He checked Mike’s shoes, and even in his present mood, he’d still kicked off his overshoes.

“Excuse me, sir, but I think we may have a problem.”

“What?”  Mike looked up.  “What problem?”  In answer, he pointed to the wet spot under the desk, then at the other wet footprints around the office, but Mike was so distracted he failed to grasp their significance.

“I think we’ve had a visitor, sir.”  He said, seeing Mike’s blank look.

“A visitor?”

“Yes, sir, someone was here last night.”  Mike looked at the footprints again, his face brightening.

“Damn!”

“Coffee, sir?”

“What?  Yes, of course, but...“

“I’m sure it was just the cleaning crew, sir, nothing to worry about.”  Mike shot him a puzzled look as he sat down.  “Oh, by the way, sir.  We need to go and have a word with Mr. Harwood before we do anything else.”  Even in his present distracted mood, Mike didn’t fail to pick up on the name.

“Yes, I agree, he should be in the shop by now, shall we go?”

“Yes, sir, the coffee should be ready by the time we get back.”  Without another word, they left the office and went down into the workshop.  There wasn’t much going on, but Conner headed for a hull plate polisher and walk around behind the massive machine.

“This should do, sir, what with the static and noise, we shouldn’t be overheard.”

“Your reference to our late departed spy, Harwood was a brilliant move, Chief.”

“Thank you, sir.  I thought it might get your attention.”

“So what dark deeds do you see afoot this time?”

“We don’t have a cleaning crew, sir...”

“I’m aware of that, Conner.”

“So who was wandering around our office last night to leave the footprints, melted snow, I imagine.”

“Yes, there was a snow storm last night.”  Mike muttered.

“The question is, what were they doing there?”

“I take it, that the reason we are standing here having this conversation, it’s also a question of what they may have left behind.”

“Yes, sir, that thought did cross my mind.”

“We need a scanner.”

“Yes, sir, and I know just where we can get one, and solve another problem at the same time.”

“And that is?”

“Any Naval Command is entitled to have a security contingent on hand, isn’t it, sir?”

“Yes, depending on your definition of a command.”

“Do you think that Admiral might just consider this a command?”

“There is no harm in asking.”

“Nor telling him of our suspicions, sir.”  Conner added.  “A Sergeant and a couple of Marines should be sufficient, sir.”

“Yes, you go and waylay our Leftenant’s and bring them up to date, and I’ll put a call into the Admiral.

Conner saluted and took off to locate Gable and Adam while Mike keyed his comm unit.  It took a while, but finally the Admiral’s aide called him back.  The conversation was short and to the point, and surprisingly, his request was granted immediately.  For most of the morning, they stayed out of the office as much as possible, but Mike did check the security boxes.  He didn’t find any evidence of tampering, and all the data pads were there except the ones he’d taken with him.  That wasn’t to say someone hadn’t got in and looked.  Gable disagreed.

“It would take very special equipment to get into those boxes, and if I had an interface unit I could tell you if someone other than yourself tried to open them.”

“That’s not to say that whoever it was isn’t going to come back with the right equipment and try again.”

“That’s a point.”

“We could set up our own security camera and see who it is, if they come back.”

“I’m not sure how much good that will do us, as I doubt we, or anyone else would recognize them.  Still, if might be a good idea.”

“I’ll take care of that as soon as the Marine detachment arrives.  I scanned the office and found four bugs, sir.”

“Shit!”

“Not to worry, sir.  I disabled them.”

“Well, at least the enemy knows we are onto them.”

“True, sir, but we won’t be leaving anything around for them to find, or look at, so all they have is a suspicion that we are up to something more than just inspecting repairs on ships.”

“The question is why would they even suspect we were doing anything else?”  He raised one eyebrow at Conner.  For a moment, Conner looked blank before nodding in reply.  It was a very good question.

Just after lunch, a deep rumble sounded in the distance, like distant thunder.  They all heard it and recognized the sound of an assault shuttle as it came in over the water in a typical Marine landing.  It slowly moved up the estuary and settled gently on the dock/landing pad near where they were waiting, the hull still hissing as the cold rain hit the hot metal.  That meant the pilot made a fast re-entry, and bent a few traffic rules to get here.  The main ramp thumped down, and twenty-five fully equipment Marines disembarked a few moments later.  Much to Mike’s surprise, Sergeant Rice led the way.  He formed them up in two ranks, brought them to attention, then turned and saluted smartly, a broad smile on his face.  Mike looked suspiciously at Conner, then returned the salute.

“Good to see you again, sir!”  He snapped.

“Same here, Sergeant Rice.”

“Reporting for duty with detachment as ordered, Sir!”

“Stand your men easy, Sergeant, and a word in your ear.”

“Troop!  Stand easy!  Corporal Jerkins, you’re in charge.”

“Yes, Sergeant Rice!”  There was crisp to the Marines now, and Mike couldn’t see a surly face in the bunch.  Even Sergeant Rice seemed more alive.

“We have a situation here, Sergeant, but I’ll let CPO Blake fill you in on the details.  Suffice to say, I want a twenty-four hour guard on this shipyard, and would prefer that it wasn’t obvious.”

“Do you want a parameter guard, sir.”

“In this weather, good God no, that would be asking too much even for Marines.”

“We are fully equipped with winter gear, sir.”

“No, assign your men to different parts of the yard and tell them to watch for anything unusual or suspicious.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I know that’s going to be a tall order, as work crews will be working around the clock.”

“We can handle it, sir.”

“It will mean your people will have to get to know who’s who very fast, and what they are supposed to be doing.”

“Yes, sir, we can spot pin cams around the place linked back to the shuttle and monitor them from there.”

“Good idea, also, change the shifts every hour, so the men don’t get sleepy.”  Rice smiled, the Skipper wasn’t so green after all.  Long watched make men tired, and that’s a fact.  Tired men make mistakes, and miss things.

“I’ve arranged temporary quarter for you and your men in a hanger, but I wasn’t expecting this many men.”

“We’ll make do with whatever you can provide us with.

“Good man.  I’ll arrange for supplies and other amenities with the yard super, so you shouldn’t be too uncomfortable.”

“Any idea how long we will be here, sir?”

“Trust you to start complaining the moment you get here.”  Conner laughed.  Rice stood his head.

“No, sir, I didn’t mean it like that.  I was hoping we, the platoon, and I could get attached to your command on a permanent basis.

“Rice!  I am definitely going to get you an appointment with the trick cyclist.” Conner growled.

“Oh good, I’ll be next in line after you.”  He chuckled.

“I have to agree with the Chief.  This could be a no where assignment, Sergeant.”

“Yes, sir, like a nice safe rescue mission, we were supposed to go on.  Meaning no disrespect, sir.”  Rice smiled.

“In a pig’s eye.” 

“By the way, sir.  In case anyone hasn’t congratulated you already, congratulation on those.”  He nodded to the twin ribbons on Mike’s right breast.

“As I told this lump of granite here, one of these rightfully belongs to you and your squad.”  Even before he’d finished, Rice was shaking his head.

“We’d be either dead, lost, or in a Sirrien prison camp by now without you, sir.”

“He’d got that right.”

“These will do me nicely, thank you.”  He looked at the three stripes on his arm proudly.

“All right, you two, let’s get to work.”  They saluted and broke up their little gathering. 

Rice and his team did discover more bugs in his office, and carefully removed them, installing their own in their place.  Mike left orders they weren’t to apprehend anyone sneaking into his office, just record the activities, and get a face shot of whoever it was.  Once his office was clear, Mike went back to work, but it wasn’t long before he was reading the specifications again.  Conner watched and worried as without warning, Mike would jump up and go running down the stairs heading for one workshop or another as something occurred to him.  Gable and Adam couldn’t make head or tail of it, even going so far as to ask Conner Blake what was going on.

“Can’t really tell you, sir, it’s just that he’s got a bee in his bonnet about that damn ship.”

“What on Earth is he going to do without drawing and specifications?”