Jace (River Pack Wolves 2)(13)

The Joint Base was south of Tacoma, a sprawling enterprise of on-base housing, training grounds, workout facilities, and all manner of Army and Air Force operations. The building she was most interested in was near the center of the several mile wide complex—the command center. She hoped Daniel’s key card would gain her access to the red-bricked and stoic-looking building… as well as a secure terminal to search for clues as to Noah’s location.

Of course, hacking into the Army’s database was highly illegal, but she was doing it for a good cause—and it was something the Army itself should be doing for her brother, if they cared at all about their shifter soldiers. He was just another grunt to them, but he was everything to her. And she worried that his shifter abilities had maybe caught too much interest from them. As she well knew, the Army put their soldiers to maximum use, deploying all their assets. Her secret hope was that they’d simply recruited him into some dark program where he was using his shifter abilities to fight the bad guys. She’d even be proud of that.

But she knew her little brother—he would have bragged about that to her. Endlessly.

Piper edged forward in the car line, sandwiched between two rows of pointed orange cones half the size of her vehicle. The guards quickly waved through the people ahead of her, but when she reached the front, the middle-aged one in charge asked for her ID with a short wave of his fingers. She gave it over with a bright smile that she hoped would convince him she had the IQ of a fluffy bunny and posed just as much of a security risk… and couldn’t possibly be civilian counterintelligence trying to hack their secure databases. This wasn’t her first time convincing people she was something she wasn’t, but she couldn’t go too far with the dumb girl act. The Joint Base got a lot of civilian traffic, spouses and significant others of soldiers traveling on and off base, but her ID said she had top-level security and thus access to the more secure buildings on the grounds.

The guard took too long to scrutinize her ID. “State your name,” he said without looking up. His gruff voice sounded like he’d already been up half the night.

“Daniela Wuldinger. On reassignment from the Senator’s office. Temporary.”

The guard lifted one eyebrow, still examining her ID. For far too long.

A nervous sweat broke out between her shoulder blades, but she kept the smile at full force.

Then he gave her a short nod. “Just a moment, please.”

His hard-soled shoes scuffed the pavement of the street, then the concrete of the guard shack floor as he stepped inside to consult with his computer and a fellow guardsman. They were both wearing the desert camouflage that was standard for active-duty personnel on base, as well as a bright yellow reflective vest, presumably for the traffic.

Piper waited, forcing the smile to remain on her face… as if she had no concerns whatsoever that her completely falsified identification would be discovered. She truly was connected to the Senator’s office, as a consultant to the defense subcommittee—but her altered ID was a hodge-podge of hers and Daniel’s real clearances mixed with a falsified name. She’d conjured worse IDs in much more hostile territories in her operations around the world, but security in the US was actually competent most of the time. Which made it a higher bar she had to hurdle. And this false ID was a slap-dash effort at 4 am in her apartment, not going through her normal chain of command… not least because it would never have been approved.

There was far too much discussion going on in the shack.

When the original guard finally returned to her car, he said, “Welcome to Lewis-McChord, Ms. Wuldinger.” He handed her ID back to her.

She did an impressive job of not letting the sigh of relief show.

He leaned in with one hand on top of her car, gave her an appreciative look, and smirked. “You might want to stop by the Soldiers Field House during your stay, Ms. Wuldinger. We’re having a Combatives Tournament today. I’m afraid civilians can’t compete, but Senator Krepky might want a personal report on the fine fighting form of our active-duty personnel.”

She returned his flirtatious grin. “A bunch of sweaty grunts, muscled up and testing their hand-to-hand combat skills? Wouldn’t miss that for the world. Thank you, Corporal.” She mock-saluted him.

He just stepped back, grinned, and waved her through.

Piper had only been on base at Lewis-McChord once before, but the directions around the sprawling military city were fairly straightforward, and she’d mapped out her route anyway. She sailed right past the red-bricked, colonial-style Headquarters with the large brass cannon on the front lawn and headed for the command center, which had the high-security access she needed. It was just a short drive along the nearly-empty early-morning streets, near the center of the base.