I doodled some more on my notepad as my boss kept talking. They were some dang good doodles, if I say so myself: a few horses and a cartoon crocodile coexisted on some kind of rocky cliff, and an abstract something or other slowly crawled its way up the side of the page. Lana had opened the supply cupboard for me last week and I had used the opportunity to snag a few notebooks while I had the chance; billions upon billions of dollars spent in the Department of Defense, but their Inspector General employees could only occasionally access office supplies. Amazing. The pens were apparently pretty cool though. I had my doubts. Supposedly, they're built to be able to serve as an emergency tracheotomy instrument, if needed, and write a mile, and yadda yadda. Mostly they write like you're on the verge of inkless-ness; I had never stabbed anyone in the throat with them to find out if they worked as advertised. I wondered how the contractor who sold them would product test that kind of thing. I wondered if the contractor sold their general inability to write as preserving ink. That would appeal to an agency against fraud, waste and abuse. Of course, the pens don't write properly, and no one uses them. That's government contracting for you. I always pick up a box of gel pens from Walmart to write with, but I had forgotten to grab them on my way out this morning.
My boss stopped talking, and I stopped thinking vaguely about pens and started speaking to the room at large, reading off my newly decorated notepad. Updates on what the division was doing (energy and weapons system contracting, as had been the case for the last two years); how the high profile Congressional request was going (badly, because SOCOM dragged their heels past three different milestones and then claimed that everything in the report was classified under FOIA exemptions 2, 4, 5, 7, and 9, which was ridiculous, since only 7 could MAYBE apply and there weren't even any wells involved – the lawyers were duking that one out, and were happy to do it); and an update on how many employees we had and whether we would meet the employee cap by the end of the fiscal year (no). The usual.
My boss and I had gone first in this briefing, and it took another half hour for all the agency heads to finish briefing the Acting IG. Still not sure why he hadn't been made the official IG; Inspectors General are usually exempt from the political maneuvering that goes on at the upper levels of government, so he should have been confirmed when the new President took office. He wasn't, unfortunately. I liked the guy. He was solid.
When he dismissed us, I moved to close my book and head out the door to meet my buddy Doug in DCIS, who had cheerfully informed the table this morning that DCIS netted another three admirals last week in the Glenn Defense case. The bastard. I didn't get very far before Ms. Carmichael, my boss, called my name in that polished tone of hers. You never quite realize how your name sounds until someone like her says it.
"Jordan," she said, and I got an awful feeling about my future prospects of not being assigned to a stupid project, "Mr. Far needs to speak with you." Yeah. Okay. I had no context for the IG wanting to talk to me; therefore, it was probably bad. Still, that's life. Ms. Carmichael pulled me over to Mr. Far, who had not left his seat, and we did that thing that you do with someone to whom you've spoken but you don't know well: said hi, talked about his favorite college basketball team, all that. Ms. Carmichael left. Alright then. That was weird; usually there's more than one person around when you meet with someone like the IG. It's a protocol thing.
"Jordan- Can I call you Jordan? – Jordan, there's an audit that's come up the chain to us, and it's classified as far as it goes. You're TS-SCI certified, correct?" He wouldn't ask if he didn't already know I had a security clearance, and you don't get as high as I did around here without one, so I nodded and waited for him to continue. "This is probably going to be the biggest audit of your career." Aren't they all? "Have you been on any of our Afghanistan tours, or to Qatar?"
"Yes sir. I did four deployments to Afghanistan, with our contingency operations division, and two to Qatar. That was when I was a project manager though, so it's been a few years. Is this audit over there?" If so, we had auditors permanently stationed there, so I didn't know why he would need me to go; it might be stepping on some toes. The DoD IG wasn't as territorial as the military we oversaw, but we still had our pride.
"No. In fact, you'll be going to Colorado Springs. But I ask because there's the same level of risk or more involved as in Afghanistan, and the same requirements for civilians in the case of emergencies." I stared at him.
"In Colorado Springs? What the- What do they have up in Peterson that's so dangerous?" It could be Schriever AFB, I supposed, but I doubt it. Most everything we audit of any interest in Colorado Springs is up in Peterson. NORAD and USNORTHCOM had a significant presence up in Cheyenne Mountain, and the Army ran things out of Carson, but Peterson was the big one up there.
"You'll be briefed when you get up there, and it's Cheyenne Mountain. I know we don't usually do things this way, but Colonel Morrison informs me that you're pretty flexible. And open minded. You'll need both. Before I send you though, I need to know that you're willing to accept the danger; you'll be eligible for hazard pay for as long as it takes."
Well. Who was I to say no to adventure? Or at least hazard pay.
I returned to my office, discarded my notepad on the desk next to my plants, stuck my access card in my laptop, and waited for it to load the generic lock screen. I pulled up the Cheyenne Mountain base site, and opened a lync screen. Our office skype wasn't the best, but since the floor was secure and we weren't supposed to have our phones, it would have to do; I sent good morning messages to a few of my team, and requested status updates on our projects. The DLA audit was coming along, the ESPC audit was floundering, and the EPA audit was a hot mess. So no change from yesterday. The NORAD site wasn't loading on chrome, so I grimaced, groaned, and pulled up Explorer. Government employees must be some of the last people in the world that use the stupid thing for anything other than downloading another browser.
While I waited for the screen to load, Christopher walked into my office. With his stupid smart water. I glared at him, not that he paid attention.
"I see you brought your stupid water today. Like always."
"Good morning to you too, sunshine. How's the young person today? Cheerful as ever?" Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Morrison was a big ball of sunshine wrapped up in a six-foot frame, dark skin, and that ugly Army uniform. He was several years older than me, and most of our conversations were-
"Well, some of us aren't mere inches away from dying, or contracting senility, so I'm pretty good old man." I grinned at him. I am incapable of being annoyed, angry, or aggravated at Christopher.
"You're inches away from death, you keep talking like that."
"I bet I could take you." He eyed me doubtfully. "Fine. I bet I could push you in front of oncoming traffic and make it look like an accident."
He rolled his eyes, and scoffed, and mimed being stabbed through the heart. All very theatrical. "If I die, I'm haunting you until you feel bad," he threatened cheerfully.
"You'll be around a while, then. I bet you'll get bored."
"Nah, you'll have feelings one day. They're an incurable disease. I have faith you will be infected. Either that or you're an alien and you'll live forever, and that would be interesting, so. You know." He gave me a fist bump, and then, instead of leaving after our morning banter, he closed the door and sprawled in one of my guest chairs. I stared at him.
"This is about that audit, right? The one you told Far I would be good for." I abandoned the NORAD site, because here was a much more useful source. Also, it wasn't loading, because government websites suck. "What is it? Can you tell me?"
Christopher fiddled with the cap on his smart water. "Look," he said, "I was stationed in Cheyenne before I came here, okay." I opened my mouth, and he said, "Zip it smarty pants, I know I tell everyone I ran an NSA facility. And that's true. I just had a stint in Cheyenne between the NSA and Bagram. It's pretty classified. There's a lot of money going into the mountain though, and some Congress-people in the know want some kind of oversight, you feel me? Grassley and that crew. And by a lot of money, I mean the program's running up into the billions at this point."
"So they're definitely running something other than training and deep space telemetry in there, huh." I muttered to myself to think, but I knew he wouldn't reply. As of now, I couldn't know anything; I wouldn't be able to until I got there. I looked at him. "So why not get one of the nuclear program folks to handle it? ISPA? Even SPO, really, it might be under their purview."
"A few reasons. I recommended you, and my word carried a lot of weight in this case, since I worked there." His slow Alabama accent matched his wink perfectly, the flirt. "But I recommended you because you're a pretty good shot, you roll with ridiculous things, and you're flexible when it comes to finishing the mission instead of following the rules, and knowing when someone made the right call." He shrugged, and he fiddled some more with his water cap; I hadn't seen him this fidgety for a long time. "I told Mr. Far that, and it came down to you and one of the auditors in ISPA. But the ISPA guy's former military, and we want it to be very clear that the results of this audit aren't colored by favoritism to old friends or the uniform."
"Okay, I suppose that makes…some sense." I made a face. Some sense, but still very odd. "Why would me being a good shot have anything to do with an audit? How dangerous is this, exactly, because I certainly didn't have to shoot when I went to the Middle East."
"Never know. Better to have it than not." Andrew stuck the cap on his water and stood up. "When you get there, you'll probably want to scream at someone about the whole thing. Feel free to call whenever." He smiled at me, opened the office door, and sauntered out.
Ridiculous.
