Chapter 24
Interrogation
As the third year of Cylon occupation began, shortages on the Colony of Caprica became more evident. Replacement parts that kept air, land and sea transportation running smoothly became scarcer since most parts had been imported from several of the other Colonies. Hand-tooled parts were available but cost-prohibitive for all except the government and the larger transportation companies. Dwindling profits forced many smaller companies out of business and removed a layer of competitiveness from the marketplace resulting in higher transportation costs to the consumer. Dissatisfaction with President Adar and the government reached an all-time high in the polls.
-Bartell, History of the Second Cylon War
.
Kara was early getting to Zeno's Tavern. It was 5:30 on Wednesday evening, six nights after they had blown up the Cylon lab. According to the news at noon that day, there were still no leads on who had done it and no group had stepped forward to claim responsibility.
Jared and Frogman were supposed to meet her at 6:00. It would look like three friends getting together for a beer after work.
Zeno's was crowded for that time of day. Quickly she scanned the sides of the room. No booths were available. She headed for the bar and slid onto the first empty seat she saw.
There was a guy old enough to be her grandfather sitting on the barstool on one side of her. He barely glanced at her as she sat down before his eyes went back to the television screen above the bar and a game show.
The bartender was at the other end of the bar talking to a woman. Kara tried to catch his eye but was not successful.
The guy on the other side of her said. "Maybe the gods don't hate me as much as I think they do."
She turned and looked at him. He was young and cute with dark hair and dark eyes. He had the body of an athlete.
"Are you talking to me?"
"Actually I was talking to myself, pretty lady, but as long as you're listening, I'll keep talking."
"I'm waiting on someone."
"Pretty ladies are always waiting on someone. Sometimes they're even waiting on me. I know I've been sitting here tonight waiting on you. My name is Zak."
He waited a few moments and said, "You don't have a name?"
Some of Jared's caution had rubbed off on her. She smiled. "Not tonight."
"Isn't it just my luck that on the crappiest day of the crappiest month of the crappiest year of my life I meet the most beautiful girl I've ever seen, and she won't even tell me her name?"
He smiled. He had white, even teeth and a beautiful smile. He was even cuter when he smiled. He was also obviously trying to pick her up.
She asked. "What made today so special for you?"
"What made today so special for me? Today I got caught cheating on a test and I'm going to get kicked out of school. Then my father will kick my ass and maybe kick me out of the house. I deserve it, though. I am one major frak-up."
"Are you a student at Caprica U?"
"The Academy. My father is one of their more famous graduates. My older brother, too. Top of his class. He's always top of his class. He would have cut off his arm before he would have cheated on a test. I'm going to see if he'll let me crash at his place for a couple of days until Dad cools down. My bro practically raised me. He took care of me when our mom couldn't, and I love him, but I frakked that up, too."
"What'd you do?"
"He had a girlfriend. I said some stuff about her that I shouldn't have. We got into a fight."
"Fist fight?"
"Bad one. He doesn't have the girlfriend anymore, but that fight is still between us."
"Have you tried talking to him?"
"I was too angry for a while. I never wanted to go to the Academy, but he sided with my dad and they ganged up on me and then my mom got involved. She's emotionally fragile. I've done nothing but disappoint all of them. I wish I could go back to the beginning of the year and start over. I'd try harder."
"Too bad," Kara said. "A lot of us wish we could turn back the clock, maybe do some things different."
The bartender finally came over and she ordered a beer. He asked for her ID and she slid it across the bar face down. He was smart enough to realize why she'd done it like that and returned it to her the same way.
"Sneaky," Zak smiled.
"Careful," she smiled back.
"So how about you, pretty girl? I bet you never disappointed your parents."
"I didn't get the chance," she answered him and turned up the beer. "They died three years ago."
"I'm sorry. Cylons?"
"Yeah."
"You know something, you're not only beautiful, you're nice, too."
Would Zak still think she was nice if he knew what she'd done six nights ago?
His phone rang. He looked at it. "My brother," he said. "I sent him a text earlier and asked him to call me. Hey."
Kara heard only Zak's side of the conversation.
"At Zeno's close to your apartment…No, I'm not drunk. I've had a couple of beers…I can't go home. Dad will kick my ass. I only want to stay for a few nights until I can find something else…I know I'll have to face him sooner or later. I just can't do it right now…How late?...No, I'll wait for you…..Right this minute? I'm sitting here talking to a beautiful blond…No, she's not wearing tight black jeans…see you later" He put his phone back in his jacket pocket.
"Your brother is going to be late?"
"Two hours. He said he still had four more people to talk to before he could leave. He's a Viper pilot, but that's not all he does. I haven't talked to him lately. He was supposed to come to lunch last Sunday, but he had to work."
Kara glanced at the door and saw Jared. "My date's here. I've got to go. Slow down on the beer and eat something."
"Whatever you say, pretty lady."
She got to Jared before he got to bar. They were lucky. A booth had just opened and they waited for the table to be cleared.
"Who were you talking to?" Jared asked.
"Just some guy. There weren't any booths when I got here."
"He's still looking at you."
"I can't credit the tight black jeans this time, can I?"
"You want to ask him to join us?"
"No, I don't. Please don't start that crap tonight. I am not in the mood for it."
"You're not in the mood for anything anymore."
"I'm not going to talk about that right now so give it a rest. Here comes Frogman. You don't want him to know what a jerk you can be."
Frogman slid into the booth opposite them. "Sassy, Harley," he said. Then he looked at her. "You did a great job and I want to thank you. There're two guys who also want to thank you. They're alive because of you."
She shrugged. "The guys were the ones who did the great job. They local?"
"I don't know. I understand that one of them is high up in the organization. I was surprised that he took an active part in the mission."
"I'm not," Jared said. "Whenever I want something done right at work, I do it myself."
The waiter came and Jared and Frogman ordered beers. She was still sipping on the one she'd gotten at the bar.
"How's the leg? Jared told me what happened. We have someone in our group who's had some medical training. I offered to get him to take a look at it, but Jared said you were doing okay."
"I'm doing fine. No problems. Could I ask you something?"
"Shoot."
"Does the group ever help an individual with something?"
"Explain."
"One day I might need some help with something. It involves a man that I need to have a private conversation with. I might need to ask somebody's help getting him into a position where I could talk to him."
Jared said to her, "I've already told you that the group doesn't…."
Frogman held up his hand. "Let her talk. What do you need to discuss with this man?"
"He killed my father. He didn't pull the trigger. One of his men did that and he's in prison for it for rest of his life. I can't get to him, but this other man let it happen, maybe even told him to do it. He's going to be paroled soon."
Jared looked at Frogman. "This is a really bad idea. I've told her that. She won't listen to me. Maybe if you tell her."
"Who is this man?" Frogman asked.
"Tom Zarek."
A look passed between Jared and Frogman. "Told you it's a bad idea," Jared said to him.
"I realize I'm asking you to breach a rule about no names, but I need to know if I'm going to help you. What was your father's name and what happened?" Frogman asked.
"John Gallagher. And you don't need to worry about names. I don't have my father's last name. He was a pilot. Three years ago Zarek and his men hijacked my dad's ship. He left me behind so Zarek's men wouldn't…hurt me. Dad never came back for me so I know they killed him. Somebody in the camp where I met Jared told me that one of Zarek's men had been convicted of killing a pilot so I know that's what happened to him."
"Let me do some checking," Frogman said to her. "If what you say is true, then I'll see what I can do about getting you some private time with him."
Jared looked at Frogman. "I can't believe you're going to do this."
"I said I'd check into it." He finished his beer. "Now I've got to go. My better half is expecting me home for dinner tonight. I'll be back in touch about this other thing. And again, you did a great job. I know this was your first assignment and it was a big one, but you handled it like a pro. All of us in the group are grateful to you."
He got up and left them with a nod of his head.
"I can't believe you asked him to help you kill Tom Zarek," Jared said as soon as Frogman was out the door.
"This is not your concern. Just stay out of it."
"Zarek is one of us, Kara. I told you that. He has important contacts. As soon as he gets out of prison he's going to lead an important mission. It has something to do with Tauron. Frogman is not going to help you kill him."
"I'm not sure I still want to kill him. I do want to talk to him. I want to hear about my father. I want to know where his body is. I know my mother's body is back on Picon. Maybe my dad is somewhere I could visit and take flowers or something."
Kara glanced at the bar again. Zak was still sitting there and seemed to be engrossed in the game show. She looked at her watch. It had been almost half an hour since he'd talked to his brother.
"Let's get something to eat," Kara said to Jared.
"I'm going back to the apartment. Do you want to stay with the guy at the bar, the one who keeps looking at you?"
Maybe she was being too hard on Jared. She knew that ever since she'd gotten shot, he'd had a hard time dealing with the fact that she could have been killed. Karl had told her that Jared had started having nightmares about it. She also knew he blamed himself for telling her about the resistance and agreeing to bring her in. She knew Jared loved her. She knew everything he'd done had always been based on that love, even his jealously, even when he acted like a jerk. She looked at Zak again. He wasn't her problem tonight.
"Let's go back and go to the deli. I want one of their sandwiches. Then maybe we can go back to the apartment and play."
She saw the relief in Jared's eyes mixed with his love for her. "You don't want to stay with the guy at the bar?"
"You can act like a real jerk, but I still want to go home with you tonight, not pick up some kid who got kicked out of school and won't even remember me by tomorrow. He's waiting on his brother. He'll be fine."
Jared started to say something and apparently thought better of it.
As she walked away, she knew she'd made the right decision to go home with Jared. Zak was just a sweet-talking player, a guy who wouldn't remember her tomorrow. He'd be working on his next conquest before another sun had set.
...
Kara went back to work the next morning, arriving thirty minutes early. Jack always got there at 6:00. He was in his office and looked up when she came to the door.
"How's the leg?"
"I took the stitches out yesterday. I'm doing fine. I'm ready to get back on the bike."
"You sure?"
"Totally. I don't think I could go another day without riding."
"I had a visitor yesterday, a guy from the anti-terrorism task force. They want to interview my riders. I had to set up appointments for all of you. I told the guy I had one on vacation. The other three go this week. He gave me a slot next week for you."
"What do they want?"
"Apparently it has something to do with a certain lab that burned last week."
"Jack, if something happens, I'll say I took the bike, that you didn't know anything about it, which is the truth. What can they prove anyway? Nothing. Right? They've got no bullet. There's no way that guard could have identified me. I had on a black ski mask under my helmet. I had on a second-hand black ski jacket. The logo on the bike was covered up."
"Carrie, I'm not worried about the bike. I'm worried about you."
"I'll be okay, Jack. I just want to get back to riding."
"The guy who came in here didn't mention anything about one of my riders also having a gun permit. I hope that slips under their dradis. Don't mention it unless they know. Then don't lie about it."
"I've got a legitimate reason to have that permit. Don't worry. Am I riding shotgun this morning?"
"I put you back on your normal schedule. If the leg starts bothering you, let me know. You can sit behind my desk for a while. I'll ride the bike."
"You're a good boss…Doc." She grinned as she went out, but her cheerfulness belied her real feelings. For the first time since she had been in Caprica City, she felt a little bit of fear.
...
The roses arrived fifteen minutes before Agent Darren's and Major Parker's scheduled appointment. Adele brought them into Laura's office with a conspiratorial smile. "I'll bet I know who these are from."
"Who would that be?"
"A certain colonel." Adele put the vase on her desk. She got all the way to the door before she turned around. "Or a certain commander."
"Oh, Adele, hush. You know better. You might be surprised."
Laura knew exactly who they were from. He was playing his part in their fictional affair to the hilt. She unpinned the little sealed envelope from the ribbon and slit it with her letter opener. She took out the handwritten card.
For a gentle lady whose heart is as beautiful as she is. John
She held the card and closed her eyes for a moment. Some things in life were not only unfair, they were cruel. If only this were real for them. If only he weren't with someone else. If only their kiss had meant as much to him as it had to her.
Nevertheless she had to play her part. She picked up the phone and punched in John's mobile number. It went to his voice mail. "The roses are beautiful. You can't imagine how much they touched my heart. Thank you."
Adele buzzed her. "Agent Darren, Major Parker and a Mr. Doral are here."
"Thank you. Please, show them in and bring us coffee."
She got up and walked around her desk to greet them. She shook their hands.
"Please have a seat, gentlemen." She gestured to the chairs on the other side of her desk. "Adele is bringing coffee."
She was so kind and gracious that both Major Parker and Agent Darren had enough conscience to look ashamed of what they were going to do. Aaron Doral simply looked oblivious.
She made sure that she touched one of the roses as she walked back around her desk. She took her seat and let her gaze linger on the red, unfurling buds before she looked back at the men who had taken seats across from her.
"Please forgive me if I'm a little distracted. What can I do for you gentlemen today?"
She glanced down at the card on her desk, looked back up and smiled. She was going to have no trouble at all playing the part of a woman in love.
...
The first two rings of his mobile phone were part of the dream Lee was having although ten minutes later he couldn't remember what it was. He groped for the phone and finally got his eyes open. His bedside clock said 1:15. He had been asleep less than two hours.
"Lee, it's John. I'm sorry. I know I woke you up. I need a place to sleep for tonight. Is your couch available?"
"Sure. Zak went home yesterday. Where are you?"
"Out in front of your building. Just let me in and you can go right back to sleep."
Lee got up and buzzed the front door. He waited with his apartment door open until John got off the elevator. He had one overnight bag and was wearing the dark brown pants, tan shirt and dark brown tie of the uniform he wore when he flew. It looked like he'd come straight from the airport.
"Thanks. You don't know how much I appreciate this."
Lee yawned. "What's up?"
John put the bag down before he took off the bomber jacket and threw it on a chair. He loosened the tie and unbuttoned the top button of his shirt as he went into the small kitchen.
"Where do you keep the liquor?"
"Cabinet over the refrigerator."
John came back with a tumbler half filled with ambrosia and sat down on the couch. "Go back to bed, Lee. I know you need your sleep."
"What's wrong, John?"
"I caught Lissa frakking Dr. Gaius Baltar tonight."
"You're kidding."
"Do I sound like I'm kidding?" John turned up the drink.
"No. What happened?"
"First, I want you to know I'm not all that upset about it. It makes what I was getting ready to do a lot easier. I signed a lease on another place a couple of weeks ago. I'd already have moved out if this thing hadn't happened at the lab week before last. There's just one thing about what Lissa did that pisses me off. She was frakking him in our bed. That's one of the unwritten rules. You going to frak somebody else, you don't bring it home."
"I can't believe Lissa was that stupid."
"She obviously wasn't expecting me to come walking in at midnight. I was supposed to be on my way up to Antioch, but we couldn't get the damned ship through pre-flight. Problems with both the stabilizers and the hydraulics. Hell, half those ships belong in a damned junkyard. We can't get parts anymore. We've got most of them so pieced together it's a miracle they're still flying at all. We finally had to give up and cancel the flight. They were starting to off-load the cargo when I left. I got back to the apartment and saw Lissa's car in the parking lot. I figured she was already asleep so I was quiet. I heard them before I saw them."
"Right in the act?"
"When she realized I was standing at the bedroom door, what does she say? 'John, John, this is not what it looks like.' Now I ask you, Lee, if you came in and the woman you were living with was playing rodeo rider to another guy's bucking bronco, what would you think?"
"Do you think she's done it before?"
John shrugged. "Probably. It doesn't matter now anyway. Like I said, it's been over between me and her for a long time. I should already have moved out. You were right when you said that to me months ago. I should have done it then. Of course, if I'd done that, I wouldn't have been able to help Laura so maybe it all happened for a reason."
"You had no clue anything was going on?"
"Hell, she works all the time. Most nights she'd come home too tired to eat, much less do anything else. We've been like roommates for the last six months. I should have guessed she was having her fun somewhere else. You want to hear something ironic? I haven't cheated on her one time, not one damned time in the whole two years we've been together. Not that I haven't thought about it, especially lately."
"What did Baltar do when you caught them?"
John started laughing. "I think he wet the bed. That almost made the whole ugly scene worth it."
"You didn't…hurt him, did you?"
"I never laid a hand on him. He was pitiful, shaking and holding the sheet up to his chin. I didn't even say anything to him. I just started packing some of my stuff. Of course Lissa and I had a few words after she tried to justify what she was doing by starting in on me again about Laura Roslin. Lissa and I had already covered that subject about a dozen times. There wasn't anything left to say about it. I should have just kept my mouth shut."
"I saw Lissa's interview. They blindsided her with the information that you and Laura were seen having dinner together. Carrying on with Laura while you were living with Lissa was not fair to either one of them."
John turned up the drink again. "I told you why I've been having dinner with Laura. And I'm not carrying on with her either."
"Come on, John. How many dinners did it take for you to tell her what they were doing in that lab?"
"A couple. Okay, I want to see her. I'll admit it. I want to be with her. So you just go ahead and laugh at me, or say, 'I told you so,' or whatever you're going to do. I'm not sleeping with Laura, but I'm sure as hell in love with her."
"Oh, boy," Lee said. "This just keeps getting better."
"Letting people think we're having an affair was her idea. She's doing it to protect me…and Lissa, too, since that's where I got the stuff I told Laura. To be so smart about some things, Lissa is really dumb about others. She can't understand that Laura is laying her career on the line to protect both of us, not just me. Laura and I will keep up this pretense for a few more weeks to make it look good and then she'll dump me."
John's mobile phone rang. He looked at the caller ID and turned off the phone.
"Are you not even going to try with Laura?"
"Right now I don't know what the hell I'm going to do. I've got to get my stuff moved out of Lissa's place and get settled in this other apartment. At least it's furnished. I don't have to go out and buy furniture right now. As soon as I can get another job, I'm giving my notice at the cargo company. I want a job where I don't have to spend most of my in-flight time praying the damned ship will stay together until we get it back on the ground. My life is really frakked up right now. I need to get a few things settled before I try to start a real relationship with Laura."
"How does Laura really feel about it?"
"She and I have a connection. At first I kept telling myself I was imagining it, but now I think she feels something, too. I asked her if my situation were different would I stand a chance with her. She didn't exactly answer me with a yes, but I'd just kissed her and that kiss said she wants to give it a chance as much as I do."
"You kissed her? You just finished telling me you weren't carrying on with her."
"I'm not. I swear to you. I kissed her goodnight so her doorman could see us. She just melted against me. Damn, talk about that kick-in-the-guts feeling. That's all I've thought about since then. I might even start believing that I could get lucky twice in my life."
"Where did you get an apartment?"
"In the historic district. A rich old widow has a big house and a separate garage where her husband used to keep a couple of antique cars. There's a nice little one-bedroom apartment over the garage. I'd have gone there tonight but I don't have the key yet, and there's no way I was going to wake the widow or her housekeeper up at midnight."
"Doesn't Laura live in the historic district?"
"Yeah."
"How far from your new place?"
"Six blocks."
"Damn, John, you have got it bad."
"Pathetic, isn't it?"
Without a word Lee went into his bedroom and got the extra pillow off his bed and got a blanket out of the closet. He took them back into the living room.
"Get some sleep. Don't sit up drinking all night. And no smoking in the apartment, either."
"I quit. I haven't had a cigarette in almost three weeks. I've climbed the frakking walls a hundred times, but I haven't given in yet. If that doesn't prove I'm in love, nothing will."
Lee smiled. "I'm proud of you. Maybe one day if I ever start dating again, we can go on a double date. I'd really like to see how you act around a member of the President's Cabinet. I mean you being just a cargo pilot. Am I quoting you right on that?"
John started laughing. "Go back to bed, Lee, before I hurt you."
...
Kara sat in the break room at work with several of the other employees. She had stopped buying lunch every day from a fast-food place. Instead she was bringing a sandwich from home and getting a pack of chips from the machine. She'd gotten Jack to help her and they had taken a thorough look at her financial situation. He told her that if she was careful, she could have enough saved in a few months that she could put a deposit down on an apartment, get some furniture and move. She had also decided not to mention it to any of the others until it was done.
Jared would be crushed, but he would have to deal with it. She cared about him, but he loved her and there was a big difference in the intensity of their feelings. In the long run living with him wasn't going to work, especially if Karl and Maggie moved out in the fall and went to the Academy. Then it would be just the two of them. He would probably get even more possessive of her. She would definitely have her own place by her seventeenth birthday late in the summer just before Karl and Maggie left.
Saving for an apartment meant she wouldn't be able to buy the motorcycle from Fisk, but he told her that she could borrow it anytime she wanted. He had ridden it into work one day and had Galen Tyrol working on it in his spare time. Chief thought he was fixing it up for Jack.
Antwon Trevor, the other day-time bike rider came in, got a drink out of the machine and sat down at her table. He was a big guy, dark-skinned and over six feet tall. She had always thought he looked too big for the motorcycle, but he was a good rider, a good, careful rider. Antwon had a wife and three kids.
"Hey, Trev, how's it going?"
"I can't complain. You have a good vacation?"
"Great. Have you been to your interview down at the military base yet?"
"Last Friday."
"What kind of stuff did they ask you?"
He shrugged. "Not much…my name, where I worked, what I was doing on the night that lab burned. Stuff like that."
"That's all?"
"My height and weight. I told them the truth about my height. I'm six two, but I fudged a little on the weight, said two-twenty. It's closer to two-thirty. They didn't put me on a scale. I wasn't in that room five minutes. I got the feeling once they'd seen me they weren't too interested in me anymore, almost like they were just going through the motions for the interview."
"Why do you think that?"
"I don't know. Just a feeling. The guy who talked to me looked fried...like he'd been up for a couple of days or was takings stims or something. His name was Akeron, Ackermon, something like that. You haven't been yet?"
"Not yet. I go next week."
"The whole thing is stupid anyway. Like one of us would be a terrorist."
"Imagine that."
She was nearly through with her sandwich when she realized why they had lost interest in Trevor when they saw him and why they asked the questions about his height and weight. He was too big. The guard in the car must have gotten a good enough look at her to give them a rough description of her size. They were looking for someone smaller. Her only advantage would be that the military was probably looking for a guy.
...
Lee was tired. He'd been working ten hours every day for the last two weeks with only one day off. There were three fifteen-minute interviews scheduled every hour for eight of those ten hours with an hour for lunch and another hour for reviewing the day's interviews. During lunch he and the others shared their experiences. So far they hadn't found a single anomaly worth pursuing.
The reactions of the riders they had interviewed had run the gamut from fear to obsequiousness to resentment to outright hostility. Eventually even the most resentful had been co-operative when they were made to understand the seriousness of why they were there. So far Lee didn't think they'd found even a potential terrorist. He and the other interrogators were tired and frustrated with having to continue to pursue four thousand motorcycle riders without finding a single lead.
The guard in the car had gotten a good look at the rider in his headlights. He had been certain that the guy was between five feet four inches and five feet eight inches tall, somewhere between a hundred thirty and a hundred sixty pounds. He said the guy had on a bulky ski jacket so weight was harder to estimate than height, that he might have been a little heavier or lighter.
Lee's last interview subject had not shown up so he was standing in the second-floor break room drinking a cup of coffee. He was one of the few still relying on coffee to keep him alert. He was certain most of the others were using stimulants or stims. He wasn't going to go that route. He'd seen the bad effects of stims on one of the Triton's pilots. He'd seen the short temper and the paranoia and the impaired judgment. Lee wanted no part of that.
He was standing at the window looking out when he saw a motorcycle rider stop at the gate, get a visitor pass from the Marine guard and ride up to the parking spaces in front of their building. He was just about to turn around when the rider took off his helmet…or rather her helmet. It wasn't a guy at all. It was a girl, a blond.
His breath caught. She sat for a minute with her feet planted firmly on the concrete on either side of the bike. From his vantage point on the second floor, the image was graphic and sexual. He felt the first twinge of desire. He watched as she caught the fingertips of her right-hand riding glove in her teeth and pulled the glove off. Then she did the same thing to the other glove. She folded the gloves together and stuck them in the pocket of her jacket. She pulled the elastic fastener off her ponytail and slid it over the clutch lever before she leaned forward over the bike, almost like she would lean over a lover. He was aroused long before she ran both hands backwards through her hair, sat up and shook her head. Her hair fell around her shoulders.
The minute she swung her left leg over the bike and stood up he was certain she was the girl he'd seen that night in Zeno's, the hot blond in the tight black jeans, only today she was wearing black leather pants and a tight black leather jacket. She unzipped the jacket as she started walking toward the front entrance. He recognized the confident walk. He must be doing something right in his life. The gods had delivered the hot blond to his doorstep.
He grabbed his clipboard from the table and turned back to the window. He could hardly breathe. He looked at the names of the people he would be interviewing for the rest of the day. All guys. Someone else had the beautiful blond.
He looked back out the window. She had already entered the building. If she got to a room he wouldn't get to see her up close.
He rushed into the hall and down the steps to the first floor. There was no one in the reception area. He went up to the young corporal sitting at the desk.
"I need to know who's interviewing the rider who just came in, the blond."
"That would be Sergeant Ackerman, sir. I've already sent her back."
"What's her name?"
The receptionist checked the log. "Carrie Warner from MediFirst, sir."
"What room?"
"Twelve."
A slim young man came through the front door and up to the desk. "I'm Roy Hardy. I ride a motorcycle for Mid-Town Couriers. My boss told me to come here today and talk to somebody."
Roy Hardy was Lee's next interview. "He's mine, corporal. I need to speak with Miss Warner before she leaves. If she comes back out before I get back here, please ask her to wait."
"Yes, sir."
"Right this way, Mr. Hardy. You'll be talking to me today."
...
Kara sat at a small metal table in the interview room looking at Sergeant Ackerman's back. He was a slender man, about her height, mid-thirties, pale skin, blond, thinning hair. She'd seen his eyes when he'd briefly greeted her and told her to sit at the table. They were pale blue.
Already she didn't care for his attitude or his tone of voice. She agreed with Trevor's assessment. Ackerman was on stims. He definitely looked fried. He adjusted something on the compact video and audio recording device attached to the wall next to the door. She pushed her chair back. Ackerman either saw her in the monitor or heard the chair scrape across the floor.
"Please leave the chair where I put it," he said curtly. "This thing isn't auto-adjusting the focus like it's supposed to. Cylons want us to find out who blew up their frakking lab and they give us crappy equipment to work with."
"They should have given all of you a centurion. I'm sure they can record and play back, too."
Ackerman didn't turn around. "I always get the class clown. I guess you think that was funny."
Kara realized she should keep her comments to herself. This guy was really on edge. When he couldn't seem to get the recording device fixed, though, she finally said, "I haven't got all day. I'm on the job right now. Could we go to another room?"
"No…we…can't." Ackerman clipped each word. "And you'll be here just a long as we want to keep you here."
He kept making adjustments and was finally satisfied with the image. When he turned around, Kara had her left foot on the edge of the small metal table and was polishing a spot on the toe of her boot with the cuff of her black turtleneck.
"Put your feet on the floor."
"Sure. Just trying to put the time to good use." She gave the spot one last buff. "Wouldn't want to scratch this crappy piece of metal furniture."
She couldn't understand why she was baiting this guy. He definitely looked whacked out.
"For the record state your name, age and where you work."
"Carrie Warner. I'm nineteen, and I work for MediFirst Incorporated."
"How long have you worked at MediFirst?"
"Eight months."
"Where did you work before that?"
"I was a waitress for a couple of weeks at DeAngelo's. Before that I was in a refugee camp near Antioch for almost three years. But I wouldn't call that work exactly. It was more like surviving. Of course surviving in the camp was hard work. So I guess you could say my first real job was surviving."
Ackerman took a deep breath and looked at the ceiling before he blew it out. She thought he was going to comment. Instead he asked, "Your height and weight?"
"Five six…and a half…and I don't know about the weight. I haven't been on a scale in a long time."
"Estimate it."
"A hundred, maybe a hundred ten. I really don't know."
"What do you do for MediFirst?"
"I deliver medicine to clinics and hospitals."
"How do you make these deliveries?"
"On a motorcycle."
"Where were you on the night of January 17th?"
"What night of the week was that?"
"A Thursday."
"Let's see," Kara said. "Thursday's are my Bingo nights unless I have to work."
"You work nights?"
"Sometimes."
"Were you working on the night of January 17th?"
"I'd have to go back and check my schedule."
"You don't know when you work?"
"I rotate three days on and three days off so it varies for six weeks and then it starts over. I normally work the seven a.m. to seven p.m. shift except once in a while I fill in and work the seven p.m. until seven a.m. shift. I don't remember whether I was working on January 17th or not. If I could call my boss, I'm sure he'd look it up for me. If you'd sent me a copy of these questions ahead of time, I could already have answered them and saved us both a lot of time."
"You're really trying to make my life difficult, aren't you?"
"Now why would I do that? I really don't remember."
"If you weren't working, what would you have been doing...besides playing Bingo?"
"Hanging out with my three roommates."
"How do you feel about the Cylons?"
"I think they're great. Best thing that happened to the Colonies since the invention of FTL technology."
"You can lose that attitude right now, Miss Warner."
"What attitude would that be, Sergeant Ackerman?"
"That frak-you attitude you've had since you walked into this room."
"Too bad I'm not a Cylon. A little adjustment to my programming and I'd kiss your ass like you seem to think I should do just because you're in the military."
"Not only did I get the class clown, I got myself a real smart-mouth, too."
She thought of her father. He had called her a smart-mouth. Right now he would probably tell her to shut up and cooperate. Then again, maybe not.
"Okay, you want to know how I really feel about the Cylons? Here's how I really feel. The Cylons were built to serve us. Not the other way around. Just like the military is supposed to serve us."
Ackerman went over to the wall and did something to the device. She saw the blinking red light go dark. He had stopped the recording. She had a bad feeling.
"Do you want to finish what you were just saying? The military is supposed to serve us. Who do you think we're serving?" He walked around behind her.
She didn't say anything.
"Who, smart-ass? Finish it. You had the guts to start it. Now finish it. Who are we in the military serving? Let me hear that smart mouth of yours say it."
"The frakking Cylons," she snarled. "You're serving the frakking Cylons, doing their dirty work for them, hauling hard-working people like me into little rooms and treating us like criminals when they're the criminals. They killed billions of us! We're not the bad guys. The Cylons are the bad guys."
"I'm doing my job just like you're doing your job."
"At least on my job I don't have to bend over every day for some metal motherfrakker. You do. Then again, maybe you enjoy it."
She was completely unprepared for his reaction. He grabbed the back of her hair and slammed her head into the table. She managed to twist her neck just enough that the blow didn't break her nose. A sharp pain lanced across the front of her skull, and for a few seconds all she saw were dancing red and black dots in front of her eyes. There was a dull ringing in her ears that quickly subsided into no sound at all.
Her head was on the table. She realized that much as she became aware again. There was something wet against her left cheek. The smell in her nostrils was metallic…blood or the table top? How long had she been unconscious? Seconds? Minutes? What was he going to do to her?
Her right arm was hanging by her side. She could almost reach her boot. She put her left hand on the table like she was trying to push herself up. She could hear Ackerman breathing hard. He was still behind her. She moved her foot, got her right hand into the top of her boot and got her thumb and forefinger on the switchblade.
Using her left hand she slowly pushed herself into a sitting position while at the same time she used her right hand to remove the switchblade from her boot and slip it into her palm. She saw the blood on the table and felt it trickling down the side of her face from somewhere above her left eyebrow. She blinked her eyes several times. The room came back into focus.
"That was fun," she said. Her words sounded strange because her ears were still ringing.
Ackerman seemed to realize for the first time that she was bleeding.
"What did you do to yourself?"
She had to get him out from behind her. She put her left hand to her cheek and wiped. It came away red.
"What did…I…do…to myself? You're joking. Right? Come on, where am I bleeding?"
He stepped around to her left side. "Just a nick over your eyebrow. You must have passed out and hit your head. Are you on drugs? Do we need to get you to pee in a cup?"
Is that how this was going to go? She shut her eyes and acted like she was getting dizzy again. It wasn't much of an act.
"I'm not on drugs. Can I go now? Is the interview over?"
"We're just getting started. I'm sure you've got something else smart you'd like to say to me."
"Nope, I'm all through talking to you."
"I decide when you're through talking to me, smart-ass."
She opened her eyes and judged the distance to Ackerman. She was on her feet in the same second she thumbed the release on the switchblade. Grabbing the front of Ackerman's shirt with her bloody left hand, she shoved him roughly into the wall beside the table, slid the blade of the knife between his legs and brought it up hard against the inseam of his uniform trousers.
He barely had time for the shock to register on his face before she hissed, "That's a six-inch switchblade. Don't you frakking move a muscle unless you want to kiss your love life goodbye."
"You've just frakked yourself big time," he snarled, but he didn't move.
"I don't think so. I'm leaving. I got nothing more to say to you."
She saw the heat and anger in the pale blue eyes. "You're on a military base. How far do you think you'll get?"
"I don't care as long as it's away from you."
With the knife still in front of her she backed away from him and grabbed her jacket from the back of the chair. She reached the door, got her hand on the doorknob and opened it. She glanced at Ackerman. He was still standing against the wall, her bloody handprint on the front of his shirt.
She turned quickly. A man was standing in the hall just outside the door, a dark-haired, incredibly handsome man who was wearing a blue uniform instead of a tan shirt and pants like Ackerman. Her eyes met a pair of eyes as startled as her own.
The eyes now locked on hers were blue, as blue as the sky at twilight. Without thinking she glanced at his chest. There were the wings over his heart, the golden wings of a Viper pilot. Olliver. She had found Olliver.
A wave of dizziness swept her and she leaned back against the door's jamb. She realized that she was trying to say his name even as she fought to stay on her feet.
Lee could hardly believe what he was seeing. The beautiful blond was holding the switchblade and she was staring at him wide-eyed like she'd seen a ghost. There was blood on the side of her face coming from a cut above her eyebrow. He looked into her green eyes, into John Gallagher's eyes. The girl in his dream…Kara…but not Kara…Carrie…Carrie Warner.
"I'm not going to hurt you", he said gently to her. "I'm going to help you, but first give me the knife. I can't help you until you give me the knife."
Kara closed the knife and handed it to him. Olliver. She had found Olliver.
Lee stepped into the doorway. "What the hell happened here, Sergeant Ackerman?"
"The little bitch passed out, hit her head and then she pulled a knife on me. She assaulted me. See where she grabbed my shirt. She must be on drugs."
"Go get the first aid kit now. Whatever happened, that cut needs attention."
"Sir, I don't think…"
"Do it right now, Ackerman. Do it or go get Major Parker."
Lee took Kara's arm and led her back into the room. Ackerman went past them out the door. Lee helped Kara to the chair.
"Is he telling the truth?"
"I'm not on drugs," she answered him.
"Did you pass out?"
"With a little help from him."
"Did you assault him?"
"I…grabbed the front of his shirt. I didn't know what he was going to do to me."
"If I play back that recording what am I going to see?"
"He turned it off."
Ackerman came back with the first aid kit.
"That will be all, Sergeant. I'll take it from here."
"That's not a good idea, being alone with her," Ackerman said. "You saw her. She pulled a gods damned knife on me. She assaulted me!"
"I've got the knife, but if you think I still need help, then go get Major Parker."
Without another word Ackerman went out and shut the door. Lee opened the kit and took out a packet that contained an antiseptic-soaked pad. He tore it open.
"I need to clean the cut to see how bad it is. You have some blood in your hair, too."
"That's what shampoo is for."
Lee pushed the hair back from the side of her face and carefully cleaned the blood from her cheek. He made sure there was no wound there and threw the gauze pad into the trash can. He opened another one. She shut her eyes as he gently cleaned the left side of her forehead. When he got to the cut, she winced slightly. She was the girl in his dream and the first time he touched her he was hurting her.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I know this hurts."
"You're doing a good job. Keep going." She thought about the bullet that Fisk had cut out of her leg. "I've had a lot worse. I'm doing all right."
"Do you want to tell me what happened?"
"No."
Lee looked at the blood on the table. "Ackerman did this, didn't he?"
"Look, I have a smart mouth. I said something I shouldn't have, okay. But I'm willing to forget about it if you'll forget about the knife and let me go. I was afraid. He was standing behind me. I didn't know what else he was going to do to me. One time before a guy caught me from behind. I was lucky I got away."
That was half-true, anyway. She didn't know what Ackerman was going to do to her, but she was angry instead of afraid.
Lee concentrated on her injury. "The cut isn't long but it's still bleeding. I don't know if a butterfly will keep it closed. I think it needs a couple of stitches."
Kara opened her right eye and looked at him. "Sew it up, then."
"I'm…uh…let me keep pressure on it for another minute and see what happens."
"Am I your first patient?"
"How could you tell?"
She grinned. "For starters you forgot to put on the latex gloves. We're sharing germs."
"Oh frak! Hold this."
He took her hand and placed it on the square of gauze he was holding tightly against the cut. He pulled a pair of gloves out of the kit and put them on. He put his gloved hand back over hers and she relinquished the square of gauze.
"This doesn't look as bad as I first thought. Maybe a couple of butterflies will close it after all. If it keeps bleeding you've got to promise me you'll go to the emergency center. If it needs stitches, a doctor should do it. You're so beautiful I wouldn't want to see you have a scar from this and my sewing would be kindergarten level at best."
Beautiful? Olliver thought she was beautiful?
"Whatever you say. Can I go now, please?"
"Let me put the butterflies on and bandage it. You've got some swelling around your eye. I'm not sure you should ride a motorcycle or operate any kind of vehicle right now. I can get you a ride back to where you work."
"I need the motorcycle for my job. I'll be fine."
"I don't know…"
"I'll be fine." She looked at his chest again, at the wings over his heart. "What's a Viper pilot doing questioning people anyway?"
"Too many jobs to do and not enough people to do them. How do you know I'm a Viper pilot?"
"The wings. My father was…" She'd almost screwed up. She'd almost told him her father was a Viper pilot. Was it the blow to her head or being so close to Olliver that had her rattled. She had to tell him about Carrie's father, but she didn't know anything about Carrie's father so she improvised. "My father was good friends with a Viper pilot."
"Here in Caprica City?"
She repeated the story Carrie had told her. "Antioch where we lived. My parents and my brother and sister died when the Cylons bombed Antioch. If I hadn't sneaked out of our apartment to meet my boyfriend in the park that night, I'd have died, too. The whole building was destroyed. Nothing left but a big hole in the ground."
Lee felt an unreasonable twinge of jealousy at the mention of a boyfriend. "I'm sorry about your family. Lucky for you that you were disobedient."
She felt him press the butterflies into place and then a small bandage. "That's me. Disobedient. It goes along with the smart mouth and the frak-you attitude."
"So are you still with the boyfriend?"
She repeated another part of Carrie's story. "Nope, he ditched me for some skanky little blond over in B-sector. I spent some time in a refugee camp near Antioch…like almost three years."
Lee had heard from his father how bad conditions were in the camps, about how much worse they would have been were it not for Laura Roslin. Maybe that explained some of Carrie's toughness and her readiness to pull a knife on a guy.
"I heard the camps were rough."
"I survived. So what's your name?"
"Lee Adama."
"Lieutenant Lee Adama. I'll remember you. I'm Carrie Warner. You'll probably remember me, too."
"I will. You, uh, you should probably get some ice on the eye. It'll help the swelling."
"Thanks for the advice. Can I go now?"
He blurted, "Have you ever been to Zeno's Tavern?"
"Maybe. Why?"
"I think I saw you in there one night about a month ago with two guys."
"One was a spare in case the other one dumps me for some skanky blond."
He smiled and it lit his blue eyes. He was as handsome as Connelly, maybe even more handsome than Connelly. But then he should be. He was Olliver. She had found Olliver. She was looking at him. He had touched her. He was real. He wasn't a dream anymore. Jared had been wrong.
"I need to go. My boss probably thinks I took off with his bike."
"Would it be all right if I called you?"
"Are you asking me for a date?"
Lee shook his head. "I'll need to follow up on this incident. I'm going to have to report it to my superior. I want to make sure you're okay."
"Sure. Call me."
"You have a number where I can reach you? I, uh, really would like to talk to you again."
"Call MediFirst and leave a message. I'll call you back."
"I've heard that before."
"Maybe I'll see you at Zeno's."
"I'll come over and speak…if you're not with two guys. Come on, I'll walk you out."
She was so beautiful that Lee could hardly think. She was the green-eyed girl in his dream. He'd been wrong about only one thing. She wasn't Kara, but she was the one. And now he knew where to find her. He knew where she worked. He relaxed. When she wasn't so close to him he would be able to figure out what to do next. He would be able to make a plan.
He walked all the way to the motorcycle with her. When she straddled it and put both feet on the concrete, he had to concentrate on her eyes. She zipped the tight jacket, then pulled the elastic fastener off the clutch lever. She pulled her hair back and wrapped the elastic around it before she took the helmet and switched on the transmitter inside. She got the black leather gloves out of her pocket and put them on and then gingerly slid the helmet over her head. He saw her wince as it momentarily came in contact with the bandage.
"I'm not sure I should let you ride away right now."
"I'm fine. I'm really a lot tougher than I look."
"Be careful."
"You sound like my boss. I'm always careful."
She started the bike. He watched her back it out of the parking space and ride away. He watched her until she was past the gate and he couldn't see her anymore. As he turned to go back inside, he stuck his hands in his pockets and felt the switchblade. He would need to return her knife. It was a beginning. He smiled at the thought that the girl in his dream might be a terrorist. How crazy was that? This beautiful green-eyed girl couldn't be a terrorist. No frakking way.
Kara handed the visitor pass to the Marine at the gate. As she rode away, her thoughts were on Lee Adama. Why did it have to happen like this? He was in the military, the military that was hunting the resistance. She had finally found Olliver. She had finally found her prince with eyes as blue as the sky at twilight and wings over his heart.
And he was her enemy.