Free Aim and Fire by Cliff Ryder Page B

He’d sent the report upstream anyway yesterday. But why? And why lie to me about its importance? There could have been any number of reasons, she supposed. Perhaps he didn’t want a leak to be revealed before the article was published. Was there some kind of turf battle at headquarters? Most likely, the top brass was pressuring him for something they could show to the press, and he had seized on this. But she couldn’t understand why he’d told her he was going to delay it, then pass it up the chain right away. Is he just that much of a glory-hogging dick? Maybe they’re pressuring him for something from the department, and he’s parading this out as his own idea, she thought.
    After clearing security, Tracy walked to her cubicle to find a triple latte sitting at her desk, and Mark sitting across from her with a copy of the Post in his hands. “Congratulations, you really nailed that one.” His expression, however, was hangdog.
    “Thanks, but at my meeting yesterday, Gilliam told me the actual threat level was too low for review, and he was going to sit on that report for the next few months. I don’t understand why he told me that, then rushed it upchannel so fast.”
    “So you haven’t heard? Gilliam’s taken the credit for your report internally. He’s saying it was his idea from the start, and that you had expanded it only under his explicit direction.”
    “What? That’s totally untrue! I can’t believe he’d stoop to…” Tracy trailed off as she replayed the conversation in her mind. “Oh, my God.”
    Not catching her last words or the incredulous look on her face as she sank into her chair, Mark kept talking.
    “What I can’t believe is why he thinks you won’t contest his version of events—I mean, by all rights, he should be Aim and Fire
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    trumpeting your work on the project all over the place. This is low, even for him.”
    “Because he knows I won’t say anything, that’s why.”
    Tracy shook her head in despair. “At our meeting yesterday, he said that my app for the fusion center was being approved, and asked if I’d thought about where I wanted to be stationed. He claimed he’d put in a good word for me. Like an idiot, I said I was looking at the Virginia center. If I speak up now, he’ll be sure to kill any chance I have of getting the assignment. There must be something else going on above us that we don’t know about.”
    “What, you mean like everything? All I can say for sure is that I can smell the stench of backroom wheeling and dealing from here.” Mark spun around in his chair and woke up his computer. “I’m just sorry you got caught in the cross fire, or whatever’s going down with this.”
    “Yeah, me, too—maybe I’ll get lucky, and can work this into that fusion center assignment anyway. After all, he needs me to remain quiet about this, as well, else I could raise a big stink about it.” She raised the steaming cardboard cup of coffee with a malicious grin. “Thanks for the java, by the way.”
    “I figured you’d need it, especially after you saw that headline.”
    Tracy killed the screensaver on her computer and scrolled through her e-mails. The first one from Gilliam was as terse as ever, making her brow furrow in annoyance.
    Send all related data on sewage-contamination analysis to me ASAP.
    He hadn’t even bothered to sign it. Now Tracy’s blood began to boil. It’s bad enough that he snakes this report 78

CLIFF RYDER
    from me—now he’s treating me like his personal secretary, she fumed. She compressed the hundreds of pages of technical analysis she had used to generate her report into a single file and sent it off, wondering all the while why he had requested it, since there was zero chance he’d even be able to comprehend it, much less utilize it in a manner that would make any sense. “I hope he chokes on it,” she muttered.
    Still angry, she scanned through her other messages, sorting items that needed immediate attention from the