Page 42 of So Sinister
Miranda frowned.“No, sir.I don’t think so.”
Chastain was quiet for a long moment.“You think he’s working.”
“Yes.”
Another pause.Then, “I see.I’ll reach out to Policy.In the meantime, keep looking for him.If he shows up at the office, do what you need to do.”
“Of course.”
He hung up, and Miranda sighed and shook her head.“I work with fucking idiots.”
She got to her feet and sent a mental command to Asset Sierra-9 to follow.The dog did, falling into step behind Miranda.So far, the Brigade had succeeded at training four dogs to receive and follow basic commands likecome, follow, sit,andstay.They hadn’t succeeded at more nuanced commands, and they’d achieved success with theattackcommand only in training.If they were to carry this project to its conclusion and move on to the human phase, they needed to work through that obstacle.
But they would succeed.Miranda wasn’t a scientist, but she knew dogs.Sierra-9 had refused to kill that homeless person because she hadrefusedto, not because she’d misunderstood.She knew better than to do that again.Miranda had painted some very clear mental pictures of what would happen to her if she refused such a command again.
She would do her duty.They both would.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
David’s heart pounded as he showed his ID to the desk officer at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Manassas, twenty miles west of Fairfax.He kept his expression nonchalant and gave the officer what he hoped was a bored smile when she glanced up at him.
“And you’re from the D.C.office?”she asked.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Why are you looking at a case in Virginia.Aclosedcase?”
The lie rolled off his tongue.“We’re training our MEs next week, and I needed a case of vehicular trauma.I chose a closed case for obvious reasons and this one because it’s a little more complex than your usual broken neck or blunt force trauma.”
The officer nodded, “All right.Fair enough.I’ll issue you a visitor’s pass.You know how to get to Records?”
“No, not yet.”He flashed her the aw, shucks grin.“First time here.”
“Take the elevator to the third floor.It’s the sixth door on the right.”
She stamped the card, folded it in half and clipped it to a lanyard, then handed ID and lanyard to David.He fitted the lanyard bearing the visitor’s pass for Dr.Gabriel Allen around his neck, gave the officer another smile, then headed for the elevator.
His heart continued to thud, and his hands trembled as he pressed the button.He really needed to get that under control.If that officer wasn’t too bored to care about anything, she would have noticed how nervous he was and wondered about it.
The elevator chimed, and David started forward.He squeaked and leaped back when a man in a business suit stepped out of the elevator flanked by two doctors in white lab coats.All three looked at him with vague amusement as they walked past.
David released a ragged breath, stepped inside the elevator and pressed the button for the third floor.The doors slid shut, and the elevator rose.
“Oh God,” he whispered, wiping a shaking hand across his throat.“God, this sucks.”
He took a deep breath, and when the door opened, he was wearing his aw, shucks smile again.He passed three more MEs on his way to Records.All three spared him a quarter second glance before forgetting entirely about him.
He entered the Records office and found himself in a library-esque study room with fifteen different computer terminals lined along three walls.Eight of the computers were occupied, which wasn’t encouraging at all, but he expected something like this.
He sat down at the nearest terminal, took a deep breath, and cracked his knuckles.The man sitting next to him gave him a dry look, and he reddened and pressed the enter key.
Username:
Password:
He stared at the screen for a long moment.Son of a bitch.
He hadn’t thought about a password.Neither had Jeff or Greg, who were waiting in the parking lot.They’d been focused on getting him an ID that wouldn’t trip alarms the instant it was scanned.Neither of them had considered that he might have to have actual credentials to access the records they needed.
