No Fortunate Son (Pike Logan, #7)(28)

She closed her eyes and rubbed her necklace. She pictured her uncle’s friend. An executioner who would eradicate every single one of their despicable, cowardly captors. A hunter she dared hope was searching for her right this minute.






18




As if I were slow, the airman manning the gate handed me my pass and repeated, “You can go in, but the lady and the taxi cab must remain out here.”

I said, “What sense does that make? If I’m cleared, then I’ll vouch for them.”

He said, “I can give you a pass based on your ID, but you can’t sponsor her since you don’t work here and you’re not active duty. And his cab company isn’t on an approved list to enter.”

“So what am I supposed to do? I need to get to the NATO Fusion Centre.”

“Sergeant Major, you’ll have to walk.”

“Walk from here? Seriously?”

I knew fighting the idiotic rules of the US Department of Defense would get me nowhere. Actually, I was surprised to see the front gate of Molesworth being manned by US Air Force in the first place. I figured it would be manned by British soldiers. They’d let me in because of my retired military ID card but wouldn’t let in anyone else, which, once again, aggravated the hell out of me for not getting a rental car.

According to the dumbass rules of DoD, if I had a rental, I could drive it in—albeit leaving Jennifer at the gate—but since we’d taken a cab, I was out of luck.

Jennifer and I had argued the point, and I’d eventually backed down when I couldn’t find the air base on Google Maps. She’d said a British cabdriver from Cambridge had a hell of a lot better chance of locating the base than we did driving around the English countryside and asking questions at every intersection. I’d relented, then we’d paid the damn cabbie to drive around and ask questions. I guess we paid for the accent. Eventually, we’d passed through the old, World War II outer barbwire gates and driven up to the security checkpoint, only to find that they wouldn’t let us in. Which was becoming par for the course on this little adventure. We were getting nowhere.

After finishing in Kylie’s dorm room, Blair had taken us to the Eagle, which had turned out to be one of the coolest places I’d ever seen—a pure English pub with a history that made it hallowed ground in my mind. According to the sign outside, over a pint two scientists had solved the riddle of DNA, but what meant much more to me were the names on the ceiling put there by the smoke of a cigarette lighter. All were from American or British bomber crews from World War II, left in between missions over the Continent. I couldn’t help but wonder how many had drunk a pint, left their name, then never returned.

One day, I’d be back under better circumstances.

We’d talked to a manager, but as could be expected, he had no idea about Kylie or anyone else on the night in question. To make matters worse, when I asked about waiters or waitresses to interview, I’d been told that all orders were placed at the bar, and the food was sent out by table number. They had no system where a waiter or waitress would remember anyone for any length of time.

I’d walked about the interior, seeing the various little pillbox rooms and the outdoor patio, and knew I was out of luck. Without knowing exactly where she’d had dinner, there was no way I could find someone who would remember Kylie. The place was just too big and chopped up, with nooks and crannies all over. But she’d been here, of that I was sure.

Standing on the patio, staring at the gate to the Corpus Christi campus and trying to find a thread, I was about to throw my hands up when Jennifer had said, “Pike, look above the gate.”

I did, and saw a CCTV camera. I then went through the area again, looking for surveillance. They had a camera in almost every room. The entire place was wired. I went back to the manager, pointing at the camera over the bar.

“How long do you keep a recording of this place?”

He said, “I have no idea, but it’s irrelevant. I can’t show them to you.”

“Why not? I’m not looking to get you in trouble for anything. I’m just trying to find a girl.”

He held his hands up. “I know. It’s a privacy thing. The owner won’t show them without a court order. I’ve seen it in the past. I don’t even know how to if I wanted. We don’t keep tapes here. It’s all contracted out.”

“You mean like it’s downloaded somewhere else?”

“Well, yeah. Like the cloud. The surveillance company maintains the cameras and keeps the footage. It’s all done over the Internet. We don’t have it here. It gives the owner a firewall when folks like you come asking.”

Which was very good news. It was a firewall, all right, but one I could penetrate with the Taskforce, saving me from cracking this guy in the head and stealing old-school VHS tapes.

“What’s the name of the company?”

“Sentinel Security. Out of London.”

We left at that point, knowing we wouldn’t get anything else, and drove to Molesworth to explore the mysterious visitor’s pass, only now I was going to have to hoof it to figure that out. Proving yet again how little sway a retired commando had.

The gate guard saw my expression and repeated, “Sergeant Major, if you want to go inside the post, you’ll need to park the taxi in the visitor area and walk.”