And every morning she showed her badge to the MA on duty.
Unfortunately, while her routine remained consistent, the MAs did not. Some, like this lug nut making her take the ID out of the plastic slip, were anal about their job. Next would be a cavity search—of him, not her.
She fought the urge to say something sarcastic, tried not to become frustrated, told herself the MA was just doing his job, but she was also butt-ass cold and wanted to get inside, get coffee, and get warm.
“Do you have a chip reader or can I just slide the card in a slot?” she said, handing the MA her card.
The guard looked up, puzzled. “Excuse me?”
“I’d also like fifty dollars cash back and a couple of Powerball lottery tickets.”
The MA didn’t smile. Maybe he was practicing to be a member of the Queen’s Guard at Buckingham Palace. His eyes shifted from the ID to Battles and back again. She smiled, wide.
He handed back the card, apparently not expecting the rank. “Thank you, Lieutenant.” He even saluted.
Battles returned a halfhearted salute, slipped the ID into the sleeve, and tucked it beneath her top. She pushed away from the booth but didn’t bother to clip her shoes back into the pedals—she could coast down the slope in the road—turned on Barclay Street, and cut across the parking lot to building 433. The last door on the right was the Defense Service Office, West Detachment Bremerton, or DSO—her home away from home. Like Naval Base Kitsap, which emerged from the reorganization of Naval Station Bremerton and Naval Submarine Base Bangor, the DSO had been reorganized from the Naval Legal Services Office (NLSO), which had provided both defense services and legal assistance—things like drafting wills, landlord-tenant contracts, and other exciting crap. The civil and criminal offices had been separated, and thank the Holy Trinity for that. Battles hadn’t signed up to fight over who got what or who lived where.
Battles removed her bike helmet, entered the last four digits of her Social Security number on the touch pad to unlock the door and record her presence, and went inside the building. The warm air on her chilled skin felt comforting. Darcy, the receptionist, greeted her from her seat at the front desk, as she did every day. “What’s up, ma’am?”
“Sun and sky, Darcy,” Battles said, walking past. “I’ll let you know when they aren’t.”
Battles walked to her office, which was just past the lobby, but before she could step inside, a voice called out from down the hall.
“Heard you had a busy weekend, Lee.” Brian Cho, the prosecution’s senior trial counsel at Kitsap, approached. He was grinning.
Cho had an office on the second floor near the courtroom. The fact that he was downstairs indicated he’d been waiting for Battles to arrive, or had seen her come through the Charleston Gate from his window. He wore blue-and-gray camos—what the Navy called NWU, which officially stood for “Navy Working Uniform,” but which Battles unofficially dubbed “North West Ugly.” Sailors referred to the uniforms derogatorily as “blueberries,” and there had been talk the Navy was considering ditching them altogether; seemed they were unsafe to wear while fighting a fire. Flammable uniforms! Nice. Even the Secretary of the Navy was said to have taken a swipe at them. “The uniform provides great camouflage,” he was reported to have said, “if you happen to fall overboard.”
Battles ignored Cho because, well, he was Cho, and continued into her office to her desk. She turned on the Tiffany desk lamp that had once adorned her father’s desk and tried to look busy. With no windows, the office had the charm of a prison cell, offering no natural lighting. It could feel claustrophobic, especially in the winter, when Battles often arrived before sunrise and went home after sunset.
Cho, not to be deterred by subtle rebukes, followed Battles into her office. “I heard about Trejo and the probable cause hearing.”
With Cho, she straddled the fence between being collegial and unloading her Krav Maga training on his butt. A good-looking Asian man with a smile as dazzlingly white as the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, he didn’t hide the cadre of women at his beck and call. He was also arrogant and sarcastic. And those were his good qualities. Battles surmised that if Cho had heard the news, it meant the head prosecutor had already prepared a situation report, or sit-rep, and had put that report on the desks of all the head honchos on base. They weren’t wasting time, meaning they were likely taking jurisdiction.
“Then you know as much as I do.” She dropped her bike helmet onto her desk.
“You moved awfully quickly; heard you met him at the jail.”
She didn’t take the bait. “He called. I had the phone and I was already over there.” She kicked off her bike shoes. She kept her uniform and her black boots in her closet. Cho, however, didn’t take the hint to leave.
“Where’s Trejo now?”
“Lewis-McChord,” she said.
“So we’re taking jurisdiction?”
And there was the subject of Cho’s interest. “Like I said, you know as much as I do at this point. We just tried to keep him out of the county jail.”
“Enemy combatants?” Cho said, a hint of sarcasm in his voice.
“You know the drill.”
“You talk to him?”
“Nothing specific,” she said.
“I heard this one is coming back,” Cho said. “That we’re taking jurisdiction.”
She didn’t respond, picking up papers and pretending to read. “Wouldn’t surprise me.”
“You’re bucking for it, aren’t you?”
There it was—the purpose for his visit. “Was that part of the rumor too?” She set down the pleading.
Cho gave her a sardonic smile. He loved getting under people’s skin. “Case of that stature would look good on the resume.”
“Are you talking about yours or mine?” She moved toward the door; the women’s bathroom might be the only way to ditch this dolt.
Still grinning, Cho cut her off. “My resume doesn’t need any help, Lee,” he said, letting the comment and his smile linger before he departed.