The bomber was right. There was no way she would have let that big-eyed boy wear what might be an incendiary device on his shoulders.
She slanted her head back and stared at the carousel’s canopy. The paint was flaking and peeling in spots. She’d be sure to mention it to the manager of the attractions company they’d contracted. Not that they’d care. She’d pointed out a few places where the facades of the games and rides had looked a little worse for wear when they’d done their safety inspection, but the man had always seemed to be in a hurry to be elsewhere.
She could almost hear him now saying nobody ever looked up when riding a carousel. And he was probably right under normal circumstances. She conceded the point in the argument with herself but didn’t mean proper maintenance could be skipped.
“Ms. Walker? You wanted to see me?”
She glanced over and saw Colonel Aronson approaching. He was a tall man with a well-worn face and a no-nonsense demeanor. The colonel stopped off to side of the carousel and planted himself with his feet spread wide and arms clasped behind his back.
Cassidy smiled when she realized he was standing in a Parade Rest stance. “Did you serve, Colonel?” she shouted as she whirled past.
Aronson didn’t answer right away, but the next time she came around, he gave a brief nod and said, “US Marine Corps, ma’am.”
“USAF,” she called back to him as she took a ride around the back once again.
“So I hear,” he replied. “What can I do for you?”
Cassidy quickly surmised that the site commander had no intention of hopping onto her merry-go-round of torture, so she came quickly to the point on her pass.
“I need to put a call in to the base at Jacksonville. I was in the Security Forces there when on active duty.” She completed another circuit, but the second he came into sight it again she began speaking. “Some of the messages I’ve received make it clear whoever’s doing this knows about my service.” She had to wait for another circuit to pass. “They likely know my assigned duties. As you can imagine, Military Police aren’t terribly popular.”
Aronson nodded some more. “Concur,” he said as she circled around again.
Cassidy swallowed her annoyance at the man’s taciturn conversational style. After all, he was the one up there trying to direct teams ready to defuse bombs when she was simply sitting on one.
“I’m going to need help sifting through the data. If I can get someone,” she amended. “Reading isn’t easy up here.”
“I can imagine. I’ll see what I can do.”
She winced as she forced the next part out. “I may also need some weight thrown behind my request.”
Aronson straightened. “I think you could ask the governor for about anything right now, ma’am.”
She gestured to her mobile phone and then tapped the magnetic battery pack attached to the back of it. “We can only assume my phone is compromised. Bud Thompson is supposed to be bringing me another, but I’d like to get this moving as quickly as possible.” She paused, looking for any sign of compliance. When he continued to return her stare, she knew she would have to be more direct with her request. “Would you put the call in?”
The colonel frowned in confusion. “To the governor, or to the base?”
“Both. Either. I think the request would have more heft coming from you, sir.”
“I don’t know anything about how they run things at the base,” he told her.
“Listen, I know our best offense is a good defense, and all, but I believe we should take some action. We can’t sit here and wait for things to play out on this joker’s timeline.”
By the time she came around again, Aronson had moved closer to the ride. “I agree with you. I’ll put in a call to the governor’s office and see if someone will reach out to the base commander. I can also get somebody from our Cyber Crime Division to help look for patterns in whatever data you can get from the base.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“You’re doing great, Ms. Walker.” Aronson began to back away, but before he cleared the security fencing, he turned. “Hey, since we’re asking favors… When you see Donovan next, would you remind him he reports to me and not you?”
Cassidy spluttered a laugh. “Yes, sir. I certainly will.”
He touched a finger to the edge of his helmet in a small salute. “We’ll get you out of this,” he assured her.
The moment he turned away, Cassidy stretched out on her side, facing the back of the bench, but she couldn’t maintain the position for long. Oddly enough, she found it harder to fight off the nausea when she couldn’t track where she was in the circuit.
Gripping the edge of the bench, she pushed up and twisted her body until she could take the same position but facing outward. She locked in on chip in the bench across from her and focused on sorting the possibilities.
Number one, if it was somebody from her Air Force days, it would somewhat certainly be someone who considered her more foe than friend. Military Police or Security Forces—it didn’t matter what you called them—the people charged with the duty of keeping other people in line were never the most sought-after friends.
