King of War Tech novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Kneel

Wesley kneels to apologize before the family; afterward Imogen puts Clyde's dog tag on his table and says she got to his hiding place first.

Stellan's study smelled of cigars and new leather.

The whole family was there.

Marjorie sat in the wing chair with her black cane across her knees.

Imogen stood by the window with her arms folded.

Stellan leaned against his desk, and the chief of security stood behind me with the tablet.

"Play it," Stellan said.

The video ran.

Me, the Admiral, the napkin.

"Ten minutes at the loading dock with the head of Navy procurement," Stellan said.

"A man who mops my floors."

"Explain it."

Every part of me wanted to tell him.

I thought of the six families and of Clyde's last call.

I thought of what a smart man does when he stands in a room with his enemy.

He lowers his shoulders.

"I asked him for a job," I said.

"A job."

"A real one. Something with the Navy. I'm tired of the night shift."

Stellan laughed.

It was a short, delighted laugh.

"You asked Admiral Wetherington, who has never heard of you, for a job in front of a camera at six in the morning."

"Yes."

"What did he say?"

"He said he'd think about it."

Marjorie struck the floor with her cane.

"Disgraceful," she said. "You embarrass this family every single time you breathe."

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Merrick."

"Sorry doesn't mean anything on your feet," Stellan said. "Get on your knees and say it to my mother."

I looked at Imogen.

She was looking at the window.

"Wesley," she said, without turning. "Do it."

Three years of that voice.

I knelt on Stellan's carpet in front of Marjorie Merrick and said, "I'm sorry I embarrassed you."

"Louder."

"I'm sorry I embarrassed you, Mrs. Merrick."

Stellan clapped once, softly.

"There. Was that so hard?"

It was not hard.

It was something I could do all day, because every second I knelt there, nobody in that room was looking at what I was thinking.

I was thinking about the chief of security's tablet.

I was thinking that he had shown the video to Stellan, but not the audio.

If Stellan had heard the audio, he would not have stopped at an apology.

"Go back to the pool house," Stellan said.

"And Wesley, one more thing."

"If I see you within a hundred feet of the Admiral again, you and my sister leave this house."

"Yes, Stellan."

I stood and walked out through the garden.

The pool house sat at the far end of the property, a one-room box with a kitchenette and a bed too narrow for two.

Imogen had never slept in it.

I'd lived in it for three years.

I turned on one small lamp and sat on the edge of the bed with my hands between my knees.

I took slow, steady breaths until my racing pulse quieted.

Then I got down on the floor by the closet and pressed on the third board.

It lifted.

Under it, in a velvet pouch, should have been a steel dog tag on a chain.

Clyde's tag.

The pouch was empty.

My stomach dropped through the floor.

I was still on my knees when the door opened behind me.

The lock turned.

The only spare key hung on a hook in the main house kitchen.

I turned.

Imogen stood in the doorway in her black dress with the garden dark behind her, the brass spare key in her hand.

She stepped inside and shut the door.

She did not look like the woman who had stood at the window.

She looked tired, and white around the mouth.

She crossed the room, took something from her handbag, and set it on the table beside my lamp.

A steel dog tag on a chain.

CLYDE T. MERRICK, it read, and under it, a blood type.

I stared at it.

"Stellan's men searched this room last week," Imogen said.

Her voice was quiet.

"They found the board and the pouch, and they were about to find the tag."

"I got here first."

I could not make a sound.

She picked up her bag again.

"Hide it better next time," she said.

Then she walked out, and the door clicked shut behind her.

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