All Due Respect by Vicki Hinze Page A

“May I ask why you want this list?”
    “Certainly.” She smiled again.
    He paused, waited, and when it became evident she wasn’t going to elaborate, he laughed. Deep and hard. “I can ask all I want, but you’re not going to answer.”
    Her cagey response amused him. She’d take amusement, so long as she got her list. “I’ll answer if I must,” she said. “But at this time, I would prefer not to have to do it.”
    “It is for professional purposes.”
    Personal purposes would violate the Privacy Act. A huge, huge taboo. “Yes, sir.”
    He nodded. “That works for me.” He turned to his computer, booted up, and keyed in a request. In short order, a list began printing. “I take it you’d prefer this not to come to Colonel Pullman’s attention.”
    The lab commander. “With all due respect, sir, I’d prefer to keep it a private matter, between us.”
    Mason pursed his lips. “Is he still at that high-level WIND symposium in Switzerland?”
    She didn’t have to scan her memory through the military’s many acronyms to translate WIND. Weapons of mass destruction were all too familiar to her. “Yes, he is.”
    “Sounds intensive.”
    “I’m sure it is, sir.” Her heart rate ratcheted. Maybe, just maybe, Mason would go along with her request.
    The list finished printing. He retrieved the pages from the printer’s tray and then passed them to her. “I’m a little reluctant to divert a man’s focus when it’s on something as important as WMDs, so this’ll be staying between us. At least for now.”
    Julia took the list but didn’t look at it, or show her relief that he had agreed to keep the gutless wonder, Pullman, out of the loop. She stood up and shook Mason’s hand and, because he had just placed an inordinate amount of trust in her, she smiled. “Thank you, Colonel.”
    “You’re welcome, Doc. It was worth the laugh.” He smiled back. “People have you pegged as serious, but they’re wrong.”
    “Are they?” Seemed right as rain in her book. She was damn serious.
    “You’ve got a wicked sense of humor.”
    “Thanks,” she said, then thought better of it. “I think.”
    He laughed again, and she left his office.
    Near the transporter, she stepped to the side of the corridor and checked the list, scanning for first-switch access. As expected, all four people Seth had named had opportunity. Now, she held evidence proving it.
    Scanning the list again, she checked for sign-outs during the twenty-minute time span the thief had to get the codes out of the building and pull the second switch, giving Seth back his badge.
    Linda had signed out for the day at 1020—before the theft. Cracker hadn’t left the inner lab until after four. When a lockdown could occur at any moment, it seemed highly unlikely that he would sit on the codes inside the lab for five hours. If caught with the codes, Cracker would be arrested for treason. The man was a genius not an idiot.
    Cracker and Linda were innocent.
    But both Dempsey Morse and Marcus had signed out during the twenty minutes in question, had had the oppor
    tunity to pull both ends of the badge switch, and had had the opportunity to get the codes out of the building before a possible lockdown.
    Both had had opportunity and means, yes. But what about motive?
    ANTONIO’S restaurant was enjoying a quiet night. A fire roared in the dining room’s grate, but no motive revealed itself in the flames, or in Julia’s records search that day.
    She ordered herself to let go of some tension before her head or arm flared up again, and stared into the fire.
    “You okay?” Seth asked.
    “Frustrated.” She looked across the table at him, knowing she didn’t need to explain. She had filled Seth in first thing that morning. They both had been in motive search mode ever since.
    “You’ve looked peaked all day.” He glanced at her plate. “Let go, and enjoy your dinner.”
    She nodded, grateful for the short reprieve. And it would be short. Seth’s