The morning brought more than good news about Eleanor. It also brought good news in the form of the special investigator that Conrad had mentioned the night before.
The U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations handled everything except petty crime. They were the NCIS of the air force. Major Harris Bowman visited her in her room and briefed her on his investigation.
Nothing good was going on there at Nellis, and the thought that anyone figured she’d had something to do with it burned her.
But Bowman was a good guy. She could tell that from the start. He told her they’d been looking at a certain contractor who had been caught on the base’s closed-circuit cameras several times at all hours of the day and night.
“If there are cameras, can’t they see who entered the hangars?” she asked, confused.
Major Bowman sighed. “The cameras only cover the two banks on base, the gas station, and the McDonald’s.”
“So, the important things, then,” she said in exasperation. “Touch an aircraft if you like, but God help you if you touch a hamburger?”
“Something like that,” he admitted.
He asked her to corroborate what Conrad had already told him, and she confessed that it was nothing except conjecture. She couldn’t prove anything.
He left and said he’d be back shortly.
Missy felt good after their talk. It was comforting that someone here other than Conrad believed someone else may have been responsible for tampering with Eleanor’s aircraft.
Nevertheless, when he returned an hour later, he was escorted by Lieutenant Colonel Janke. Fear spiked in her belly as he entered her room at the barracks. Just having him in proximity to her personal belongings made her twitch.
“Colonel Janke is here as an observer,” Major Bowman said. “It’s a courtesy my office has extended to him.”
“We’ve met,” Missy said shortly.
Janke said nothing, but it worried her how at ease he seemed. Nothing like the panic he’d shown the day before.
“Can you tell me what you saw in the hangar?” Bowman asked.
“When I was with Eleanor?” she asked.
Bowman nodded, but Janke suddenly looked startled and kept looking between them as if in shock.
“We went to our hangar that evening and found it locked. At first we thought the general had provided the lock so that the crews didn’t have to watch the aircraft at night, but an airman took the lock away when he opened it for us. As the hangar door was opening, three men came out on a golf cart. As I told General Daniels, I could identify at least one of them again.”
Bowman was making notes and didn’t say anything immediately.
Janke butted in. “What did he look like? Did he have glasses? Black hair? Was he short?”
Missy glared at him. He was none of those things, and she wondered if he was deliberately trying to mess with her memory of the man. “I could pick him out of a lineup. I mean, if he has base access, there will be a photo in our system for his pass.”
Janke looked worried. “What? You can just point at a random photo to get yourself off the hook? Right. That’s not going to fly. Right, Major?” He looked at Bowman for support.
“Actually, that works for me,” Bowman said. “Pack your things and go back to your room, Major. I got permission from Colonel Cameron last night to release you from house arrest, although you—along with everyone else—will be confined to base. Please come to my office at fifteen hundred hours to go through our pass photos.”
“Thank you, Major Bowman. I’d be happy to. The guy in the hangar definitely wasn’t military, by the way. His hair was too long.”
He pursed his lips and nodded thoughtfully. “A contractor, then?”
“I think so. Maybe TGO.” She fought the desire to look at Janke to see how he was faring under Colonel Cameron’s order, until she couldn’t resist the urge any longer. She glanced over at him to find him clamping his lips together, but not angrily. It was almost as if he were trying not to smile. The man had some weapon-grade crazy going on.
She really didn’t care anymore; Janke was Bowman’s problem now. She just wanted to get the hell out of Dodge, pack her shit, and head off to her new assignment.
Conrad, of course, was a different matter.