“If we knew any less about the objective,” Carmen whispered at Kaitlin’s side, “we’d be going in completely blind.”
The sentiment echoed Kaitlin’s own thoughts. How did you plan an attack on an objective that you hadn’t reconned, that you hadn’t even seen for two years?
“We have been working on a plan of battle,” Avery went on, “one that will allow us to approach Tsiolkovsky with a fair chance of success. The operation, as we see it so far, will require a two-pronged attack, beginning with an assault on these perimeter defenses…incapacitating the enemy’s long-range radar.
“Three gets you five he had nothing to do with the planning,” Rob whispered at her side. “This had to come from the very top.”
Kaitlin shushed him, then leaned forward, trying to capture every word. He was now describing a new vehicle, which he called the new and improved LAV, and how it would be used for the initial phase of the Tsiolkovsky attack.
The plan, she thought, was nothing short of brilliant. Risky…even dangerous, but brilliant nonetheless….
Discharge Office
Joliet Federal Prison
1543 hours CDT
“Sign here, sir…and here.”
David Alexander signed the release forms on the indicated lines. He’d already had his personal effects returned to him…the suit he’d been wearing the day he’d been arrested, his digital Rolex, his Sony PAD, his wallet with eighty-five dollars, pocket change of three dollar coins and a quarter, and a small globe-and-anchor pin one of the Marines had given him as a keepsake after the return from Mars; he liked to carry it as a good-luck piece.
“Thank you, sir,” the prison clerk said, checking the form over inside his cage. “That’ll do it.”
“It certainly will,” David replied.
“Is it, ah, true what they’ve been saying? That you’re gonna sue the government for false arrest?”
He considered a sharp answer and discarded it. The clerk was a part of the system, but he wasn’t the system and certainly had had no part in David’s arrest and illegal imprisonment. He smiled. “My lawyer recommended that I reply to that question with a firm and definite ‘no comment,’” he replied. “But damn it, you people stole almost four months of my life, maybe even derailed my whole career. You can bet that pretty blue uniform of yours I’m at least thinking about the idea!”
“Well, that’s your business, of course.” The clerk looked uncomfortable as he countersigned the papers, then typed something into the computer on his counter. “I’ll bet you’re looking forward to getting to sleep in your own bed tonight! Here ya go.”
The clerk slid the prison-release form through the slot in the cage front, and David pocketed it. Julia Dutton had told him that morning to be damned sure he kept all of the paperwork they gave him; it would all be evidence at the trial when they sued for wrongful arrest and imprisonment.
He still wasn’t sure what had happened, exactly. His lawyer had seen him in the prison’s visitor center that morning, ecstatic with the news that he was to be released. Apparently, he’d had some pretty big guns on his side and not even realized it. If Dutton had her facts straight—and she always seemed to—then General Warhurst himself, with a small army of JAG lawyers in tow, had dismantled at least part of the Justice Department in Washington, DC, threatening all-out war if David Alexander’s case was not investigated, reviewed, and brought out into the open. The investigation had taken weeks; according to Dutton, there’d been some deeply entrenched political powers behind the scenes trying to delay or derail the process, but Warhurst and his legal legions had triumphed in the end.
David had met Montgomery Warhurst several times, both before and after the MMEF expedition to Mars, and been impressed with the man’s sharp intelligence, determination, and sheer guts. What David didn’t know yet was why the commandant of the US Marine Corps had gone on the warpath for him. Sure, sure, he was an honorary Marine, and all of that, but the way Dutton told the story, Warhurst had been that close to declaring war on Justice and the FBI both.
And hell, he had shared information with foreign nationals. Had Justice decided to try his case, instead of trying to pressure him into spying on his friends, he had little doubt that he would have ended up as a guest at Joliet for ten to fifteen big ones.
“This way, if you please, Dr. Alexander,” the guard who’d accompanied him through the bureaucratic circles toward release said. “There’s someone here to meet you.”
Funny, David wasn’t going to be able to think of the man or his comrades as anything other than screws from now on. Prison life had a culture and a language all its own. “Lead on,” he said. “Who is it, my lawyer?”