Honor (30 page)

Linc reached into the bag and held out a wrapped burger, but Kenzie swiped it.

“Not fair,” Randy complained.

Kenzie unwrapped the burger and took a big bite. “Mmm. Sorry,” she said when she swallowed. “Seriously, I could airship you some in a cooler.”

“Thanks. I’ll live. So tell me what you guys found out.”

Linc sat on the bed next to Kenzie. “Not much so far.” He noticed how Randy’s gaze moved from him to Kenzie. She had to be thinking that they were a couple. He didn’t mind.

He looked at what was behind her, seeing low plywood walls and USB cables draped over them. Not a military setup. He saw signs in French.
Médecins Sans Frontières
. Doctors Without Borders.

Neutrals, Linc thought. Randy Holt was being careful.

“I latched onto some X-Ultra vests,” he began. “Plus a standard Improved Outer and a Modular Tactical for comparison.”

“Don’t forget the cop vest,” Kenzie reminded him.

“That too. Kenzie and I used up a lot of ammo. The army stuff held up. So did the cop vest. There were two fails out of twenty X-Ultras.”

“Got it,” the medic said. Her clean-scrubbed face looked suddenly older. “Thought so. I guess I should tell you guys that we’re talking to a colonel sometime in the next couple of weeks. Me and two other medics,” she clarified.

“That’s great,” Kenzie said.

“Maybe he’ll listen to us. Maybe not.”

“He should,” Linc said.

“Ya think?” Randy asked tiredly. “Gee, maybe something will happen before the troop drawdown we keep hearing about.”

Kenzie and Linc exchanged a look. Randy Holt was on the front lines in more ways than one. She had reason to be suspicious of empty promises.

“But keep on with what you’re doing.”

“We will,” Linc said.

“Is there anything else you think we should do?” Kenzie asked.

“Your call, people. I’m in Afghanistan.”

Kenzie looked to Linc, then back at Randy. “Um, he’s going to bring the vests we shot at and new ones out of the box to a ballistics lab.”

“Where?” Randy asked.

Linc shot her a look that he hoped the medic would get across five thousand miles. Neutral connection or not. “Take a guess.”

“I think I understand,” Randy said. “Keep me posted any way you can. I’d like to be able to hand an official report to the colonel.”

Kenzie took a deep breath. “I wish we had more to say,” she began. “I guess I was thinking we could solve it just like that. Wave a sword, go for the glory.”

“Yeah? Watch out for glory. It can get you killed.” The medic’s words were blunt and friendly. “Listen, you guys did great. Above and beyond.”

She didn’t have to say
the call of duty
. Linc and Kenzie knew what she meant.

“You still there?”

The call began to show interference. Zigs and zags. Static crackling.

“We’re losing you,” Kenzie said.

“Yeah.” Randy’s voice faded. “Same here.”

The screen froze but they could still hear her garbled voice. Then she came back, clear and strong. “Reminds me of my grandma’s old Philco. She doesn’t want a new TV. I guess she likes the special effects.”

The screen went black.

Later that night, Linc called Mike from his car.

“We tested the vests. Two fails.”

“Out of how many?”

“Twenty.” Linc was pushing the point. They hadn’t tested them all.

“Two out of twenty is ten percent,” Mike said.

Linc resisted the temptation to tell the lieutenant he was a mathematical genius. “Yes it is. So?”

“That could be manufacturing error.”

“Error? On the extreme end of what scale?”

“Mine.”

“No way,” Linc argued. “I would say one percent is reasonable for manufacturing error. If that.”

“Ten, one—there’s no such thing as one hundred percent perfection,” Mike said dismissively. “So you and Kenzie shot up a couple of vests and they look like swiss cheese. That isn’t proof that someone forced Christine off the road because of it.”

Linc was irked. “And there’s no such thing as one hundred percent proof either.”

The lieutenant interrupted him again. “Equipment fails all the time. Companies recall it, issue a fix or make good—”

“I don’t think SKC operates that way,” Linc said, exasperated. “I just toured the place and I saw too many people who looked chained to their cubicles. Most of them wouldn’t even glance my way.”

“Your point?”

“They’re scared to death. The place had a bad vibe. I didn’t like it.”

“Vibe, bad. Let me make a note of that,” Mike said.

Linc told him where to put the note and his notebook. The lieutenant only laughed.

“I walked through a room where you could smell the fear. The drones are afraid of management and management is afraid of the execs. Guess who’s raking in the big bucks and doesn’t care.”

Mike coughed. “Show me the tax returns.”

“Come off it, Lieutenant. You know how big corporations work. SKC is getting bigger and richer every day.”

“A military supplier is going to make hay while the sun shines. There is a war on. When it ends, there will be another one.”

“It’s not right.”

There was a pause.

“You vote, Linc?”

“Yeah. Hell yeah.”

“Then that’s about all the say you have. It’s a free country. SKC and Lee Slattery are allowed to get rich.”

“Not for the wrong reasons.”

“You have to prove wrongdoing. I keep saying that. And then you have to prove they meant to do wrong.”

“The ballistics lab will—”

Another bark of laughter cut him off. “They will get back to you. In, what, weeks? Months?”

“I don’t know.”

The lieutenant shut up for a few seconds. “I’m trying to keep you on the straight and narrow, Linc. Call me back when you find some evidence.”

Linc ended the call with a push of a button. He longed for the old days, when telephones were heavy enough to kill someone. Slamming down a receiver would have been a lot more satisfying.

C
HAPTER
14

T
he rehab center was a low structure comprised of several buildings joined by glass-walled corridors. Kenzie walked down one with Alf Corelli, holding Christine’s bags and carrying a hand-crocheted blanket over one shoulder. They had arrived ahead of Mrs. Corelli and Christine, who were coming in a patient-transfer van that had one other stop to make.

Colder weather had arrived in the area and both of them wore heavier jackets. Alf had added a snap-brim hat to his outfit and Kenzie had a muffler wound around her throat. The sun-splashed corridor was a pleasant place to walk, if too warm for what they had on.

The center was a lot more open than the hospital. A little too open, though she didn’t want to say so to Alf or his wife. She pushed aside her feelings of uneasiness. They couldn’t live in bunkers. It was bad enough that she hadn’t been back to her apartment even once.

Besides, there were a lot of people around. Staff. Patients—it was center policy to get them out of their rooms at least twice a day. She noticed that the corridor was more than wide enough to accommodate wheelchairs going in opposite directions or side by side.

Several patients were strolling or being pushed in wheelchairs between one building and another. A few people were making their way using walkers. Most wore regular clothes. Kenzie was very glad that Christine was out of the baggy-gowns-and-shuffling-slippers stage of her recovery.

Alf tipped his hat to an elderly lady who was going slowly and not without difficulty. She brightened and gave him a little smile, walking just a bit faster.

Kenzie wished that men still did things like that. It was a shame that being gallant was considered old-fashioned. Then she thought about Linc and smiled to herself.

It took a while to get Christine settled in her new surroundings, and she seemed irritable. She knew she was somewhere different but she didn’t seem to know why. The jiggly suspension of the van had made her doze off and she’d been groggy when she awoke. Dr. Asher had warned them that it would take her time to adjust to a change of this magnitude.

It occurred to Kenzie that Christine had never quite seemed to know that she was in a hospital. Her room here was a lot more homelike.

Her parents had left to complete the paperwork for the transfer, and Kenzie was in charge.

“It’s nice here,” she said encouragingly. “What do you think?”

“There’s too much light,” Christine said in a low voice. “I can’t turn it off.”

Kenzie looked toward the picture window and the clear fall sunlight streaming through it. At the hospital, Christine’s room had beige curtains that were often drawn over the one small window. The ceiling fixture was usually dimmed, unless the doctor was there. She understood why Christine would feel uncomfortable at first.

She went to the picture window and fiddled with the pull cord until a pleated drape lurched forward, stopped, and got stuck for good halfway. Kenzie was afraid of breaking the cord. She would have to call a nurse assistant or wait for Alf.

Christine turned her back to the window and stared at the wall. There was no picture on it. Kenzie thought of the bright posters framed behind plastic that she’d taken down the last time she painted her apartment. One or two of those would add a cheerful note if the rules allowed it.

Right now there wasn’t much she could do. She heard the familiar but unexpected noise of scrabbling nails on a smooth floor and turned to look a moment before a brown-and-white dog entered the room.

A red service-animal jacket was strapped around the dog’s plump midsection, but Kenzie could see that she was a female and young. The dog seemed to be in charge, tugging at a leash held by a smiling young woman with curly hair.

Kenzie glanced at Christine, who was sitting on her bed, still withdrawn. “Look who’s here. Did you ask for a visit?”

Christine shook her head and turned away slightly, as if she didn’t want to look at the dog or her handler.

“I’m sorry. Peach is new here and she tends to just charge in.” The volunteer took a step backward and looked at the room number. “No, my fault. I have the wrong room. Well, my name is Ginny. It’s nice to meet you, Christine.”

Kenzie hesitated when Christine didn’t reply.

She’d sat in on the team meeting with Mr. and Mrs. Corelli. A social worker had emphasized that neuro-rehab patients were expected to speak on their own without being urged to do so, or worse, interrupted by well-meaning people speaking for them. A psychiatrist made sure they knew the move to rehab might cause Christine to regress to some extent or behave strangely at first.

They got the idea: The recovery process was never easy and cognitive therapy was unpredictable. Kenzie could see that for herself right here and now. Christine talked more, but she sounded uncertain and very young. She got stuck on some subjects and then forgot about them in the next second.

It was something new to worry about. But everyone on the staff seemed genuinely involved and concerned.

Ginny didn’t seem at all fazed when Kenzie introduced herself but not her friend.

The dog came forward and got busy sniffing Kenzie’s ankles, circling around slowly. Kenzie laughed, pinned to the spot.

“This is her first week,” Ginny said. “She doesn’t know the rules. Peach, behave.”

The easygoing handler wasn’t making a point of it.

The dog tugged her over to the bed and set her front paws on the edge, peering curiously at its occupant.

“Now, that’s not good manners,” Ginny began, unsure of Christine’s reaction. Christine remained indifferent.

Both she and Kenzie smiled with relief when Christine reached out a hand and began to stroke Peach’s head. The dog let her tongue loll to one side, giving Christine a comical grin of enjoyment.

“She has pretty eyes,” Christine said in an almost inaudible voice.

“Yes, she does. She gets those from her mama,” the young woman explained.

The dog made the most of her moment in the spotlight by gazing soulfully at Christine. Then she stretched up another inch, bracing herself with her paws, and licked the tip of Christine’s nose.

“Hello,” Christine murmured, “you’re sweet.”

The ice broken, she invited Peach up on the bed by patting it. The plump dog was happy to oblige, sniffing at the blankets and getting her nose into the folds.

“What is she doing?” Christine asked. She still asked questions in a tentative way, as if she was afraid she might not understand the answer.

“Oh, she’s wondering if you have a treat for her. But she’s on a diet right now. Peach is a little too fond of food,” Ginny said. “She gets that from her mama too.”

Kenzie chuckled. “Her mother must be the beagle part.”

“That’s right,” Ginny said.

“Kenzie knows everything about dogs,” Christine said. She adjusted her position so that Peach could come onto her lap. The dog settled down and the red service jacket scrunched up around her neck as she gave Christine another adoring look.

“Not everything,” Kenzie said. “But a lot.”

“Oh, do you work with dogs?” Ginny asked.

Kenzie explained briefly.

“That must be so interesting.” Ginny seemed eager to hear more, but she didn’t ask, returning her attention to Christine and the dog in her lap. “Look at you, Peach Pie. You’re so silly.”

“I think she wants to take a nap,” Christine said softly. The dull expression on her face had been replaced by one of interest. She rubbed the dog between the ears until Peach closed her eyes in bliss.

Ginny smiled and shook her head. “How did you know? Napping is her favorite thing besides food. But she has friends to see.”

Christine lifted a floppy ear and pretended to whisper in it. “I need a nap too. But come back.”

She rumpled the dog’s fur under the jacket to rouse her. Peach opened bright brown eyes and grinned again.

“Faker.” Ginny laughed. She gave a slight tug on the leash and the dog left Christine’s lap, pausing on the edge to gauge the distance to the floor from the bed.

“Go.” Christine gave her a light pat on the rump and Peach made the leap. Christine looked up at Ginny with a wistful smile. “Can she come back? Today?”