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Valentine had visited the "oddballs" inside now and then as a student at the war college, and had constant contact since in the form of debriefings every time he came back from the Kurian Zone. The debriefings were always by a variegated trio; a young student who served as stenographer, an intellectual-looking questioner, and then an older man or woman who silently listened, almost never asking a question him or herself, but sometimes calling the other two off into another room before the trio returned with a new line of questioning. He'd gotten to know a couple of the "oldsters"-by their faces, anyway-enough so that he hoped he could run down Post's mystery letter.
A pair of workmen bent over an addition to the entryway, adding a small brick blister next to the doorway. Valentine passed through a layer of glass doors. A second layer was in place, but the glass was missing.
The whole institution had a fresh-scrubbed smell to it. Valentine caught a whiff of wet paint from one of the halls.
Six feet of neatly uniformed muscle stood up from his desk. "Can I help you?"
Valentine wondered if the hand casually dangling at the edge of the desk had a sidearm in reach, or was hovering over the alarm button. Two more guards watched from a balcony on the second floor.
Procedures had changed since he was a student. The last time he'd just walked into the building and wandered around until he heard sounds of activity.
Valentine reached for his ID again, feeling a bit like he was still in the KZ. "David Valentine, for a follow-up to my 18 August debriefing."
The soldier made a pretense of checking a list.
"I don't have-"
"Sorry, Corp," Valentine said smoothly. "A few months ago I got a request for another interview. I'm just back from Dallas, and the creeps told me that whenever duties allowed, I was to report. Duties allow, so here I am."
"Could I see the request, sir?"
"It was in the regimental file cabinet, which fell victim to a 122 during the Dallas siege, and was buried with honors by every soldier with a drunk-and-disorderly charge pending. You want to phone the old man and unclog the pipes at your end, or should I hit the Saenger for the afternoon matinee and work on my complaint letter? Maybe I can get reimbursed for my hotel and expenses from your paycheck."
"Sorry, sir," the corporal said. "It's these pointy heads. They'd run this place like a fruit stand. You'd think security was the enemy. Could you wait a moment?"
"Why the new security?"
"Kurian agent. Six men shot each other running him down."
Valentine looked around for a chair in the foyer, but the only two in evidence held up an improvised coffee station for the workmen set up on one of the missing glass door panes. He settled for sitting on a windowsill.
"I'll wait. I think it was signed O'Connor. David O'Connor," Valentine said, dredging the name from his memory.
"Doubt it," the corporal said, a rugged military phone to his ear. "He bought it when they dropped Reapers on the campus."
"My mistake," Valentine said.
"His. He tried to capture one." The corporal connected with someone and turned ninety degrees away from Valentine to speak.
Whatever he heard made the corporal look at Valentine again.
"Yes, Doc." He replaced the receiver. "You want some coffee or anything, Major Valentine?"
"I'm good."
"One of the senior fellows will be right down, Major."
"And he'll hear how polite you've been as you've done your duty," Valentine said.
"Thanks. I mean it."
The two guards looking down from the balcony on the second floor lost interest, and Valentine heard footsteps over more distant construction noises.
A limp-haired woman wearing shapeless scrubs that looked as though they belonged in a hospital emerged from a door behind the security station and came around the desk, giving a friendly nod to the corporal as she passed. She extended her hand and Valentine shook it. She had an easy, confident manner that made Valentine think of the midwife from his youth in the Boundary Waters.
"Gia Dozhinshka," she said. Valentine wondered if he'd been greeted in an Eastern European tongue. "Zhin's the shorthand around here," she continued.
"David Valentine, or just Val. I don't think we've met."
