Welcome to Paths Not Taken, the thirteenth Operation Quickline story. When a sting operation is set up on the resort owned by Lisa Wycherly’s father, she and Sid Hackbirn find themselves revisiting their high school jobs. And hoping their covers don’t get blown. You can read the first chapter here.
Lourdes had her first Saturday on the front desk that week. I was profoundly grateful that it wasn’t as crazy as usual. There were still a lot of families vacating, but that had more to do with their reservations being up. Several of them were kind enough to let us know that they’d be back the following year.
There hadn’t been that many cancelations, thank God. Enough to worry about, but the larger portion of the guests coming in had no idea that there had been a shooting. They weren’t likely to find out, either. Daddy had found somebody to rip out the playground slide on Friday, and while the replacement slide hadn’t shown up yet, a missing slide was more of a nuisance than a slide with bullet holes in it.
I watched Lourdes working with a feeling of deep satisfaction. Even better, as she finished with one family, they asked her a question and she turned them right over to Lyle at his new position on the desk. She then greeted the next guests as Lyle talked to the family with the question. I grinned. Not only was Lyle settled, with him answering questions while Lourdes checked families in, checking in moved a lot more quickly.
Lourdes had even arranged for the crib to be set up in Kathy and Jesse’s room when they arrived with their 11-month-old son, Keshon. Lyle teased the little guy, and Keshon shrieked with joy.
I embraced them warmly as they turned from the desk.
“I’m so glad to see you!” I grabbed the luggage. “Come on. I’ll take you upstairs.”
I also paged Sid, and he was waiting at the room door on the third floor when we got there.
Jesse grabbed Sid and hugged him. “Good to see you, dude!”
Jesse is a little taller than Sid, with mahogany skin. He was wearing his hair clipped close to his head that summer.
Kathy, who is slender and tall, with rich chocolate skin, had her hair in tiny braids. Keshon, it turned out, was already walking.
“So, how bad is it?” Kathy asked as Jesse got their suitcases into the closet.
I winced. “It’s been pretty intense.”
Fortunately, Kathy had a couple of reports for us, but as she was about to tell us, there was a knock on the door.
“It’s us!” Frank hollered.
We let them in. There were more hugs because Frank and Esther are just as close to Kathy and Jesse as Sid and I are, and Sid and I were close friends with Kathy and Jesse long before they got recruited into our business.
“Kathy has a report,” I told the others after the hugs.
“It’s not much,” Kathy sighed. “I haven’t been able to isolate a lot of the names that came up in the Social Security search. I did find Francine DiNovo, though, and she looks very clean. Not much of a work record at all, which leads me to believe that she’s been a housewife for a very long time. I checked a few other of my databases and finally isolated which Maria Sanchez we wanted. She, also, is very clean. Does human resources consulting.” Kathy handed me a printout. “Here’s her company’s information. She works mostly in the hospitality industry.”
“I suppose we should be encouraged that she’s coming here,” I said, flipping through the pages.
“And I found something today,” Esther said. “It’s your reservations manager Irene? Turns out she doesn’t know what a three and a half floppy is.”
“What’s a three and a half floppy?” Sid asked.
I groaned. “That’s the disk that Lipplinger was using, honey. They’re much smaller than the usual, and they have these hard plastic cases.”
“In other words, that’s what we’re looking for.” Sid sighed.
“Exactly.” I shut my eyes. “There are too many things going on.”
“Which is kind of the problem,” Frank said. “Irene wouldn’t have to know what the type of disk is, just that she’s supposed to pass it on to the Soviets.”
“Although, I don’t think she’s behind this,” Esther said, then sighed. “It’s just a feeling, which I know isn’t evidence, but it might be something to go on.”
“Something,” Sid sighed.
He looked at me and shook his head. We warned Kathy and Jesse about my father, then eventually took off. Nick volunteered to babysit Keshon that night, and all six of us went to dinner at the restaurant, where we talked about anything but the case.
Sid’s Voice –
Lisa, Nick, Janey, and Daddy had just left for mass the next morning when I got a page from Lillian Ward. She’s the head of Quickline. I called her right back.
“I heard from Hattie that you had a bit of a blow up out there yesterday,” Lillian said.
“We did.”
“Oh, dear. Marian was right. We’re going to have to do more to keep Dale in line. But that’s our job, not yours. I’m sorry. I had no idea he was using your father-in-law’s resort. Lisa must be furious.”
“She is. We both are.”
“I can imagine.” Lillian sighed deeply. “Just please be careful with Dale. He’s always said he has a plan for you, and I must say, it’s worked very well so far. That is part of Dale’s genius. He used to be a chess champion when he was in high school. I’m not sure what happened, but he went into the Army instead of college, although he managed to get an undergraduate and a law degree while serving. And he is incredibly good at seeing the big picture.” She paused. “I suppose I shouldn’t say this, but he is carrying around a deep sadness of some sort. Perhaps it’s a shattered dream. I don’t know. It’s not something he’s going to talk about, but I do believe it’s why he’s always trying to run people’s lives. He wants to make them happier than he is. I was so glad when he and Adrienne found each other and she decided to retire.”
“From modeling?”
Lillian chuckled. “No. From intelligence work. She may not look like it, but she was an incredible spy. The intel she got out of Europe in the seventies… She ran a production company, making films, and no one caught on.”
“That’s interesting.” I thought for a moment. “I’m afraid it’s time for me to have a talk with Dale. I know you said keeping him in line is your job, and I’ll mostly leave that to you. But there’s also his plan for me.” I winced. “I’ve got a bad feeling there’s something personal driving it, something about me, and I’m the only one who can get through on that level.”
“You’ve got an excellent point. Alright. Just keep me posted, please.”
“I will.”
I hung up, not happy, but knowing what I had to do. I drove to Dale’s home at the north end of town. It was a huge Swiss-style chalet. Dale answered the door when I rang, then led me into the cavernous living room in front.
“Let me guess,” he said, still standing. “You’re here about the other day.”
“You threatened my family, Dale,” I said quietly.
He gazed out the huge front picture window. “I do what I have to do.”
“I get it.” I took a deep breath. “The problem is you don’t let anyone else in on it and the wrong people are getting hurt.”
“I’m not the one who’s prone to gross insubordination.” Dale turned on me. “If I could count on you to follow orders, we wouldn’t have this problem.”
“Bullshit. This isn’t about insubordination. It’s about you deciding that you know what’s best for me better than I do.”
“Maybe I do, Sid.” He held my eyes.
I looked right back. “Not always. And did it ever occur to you that you might get better cooperation if you worked with me instead of manipulating me into everything you wanted me to do?”
“You were up against rape charges, son. Two weeks into boot camp.”
“And you know damned well I didn’t rape her. That the base commander was calling it rape in revenge for me staining his precious little girl. That’s why you were able to get me off.” I looked away. “And, okay. You might have been right about pushing me into intelligence. But you didn’t give me much of a choice.”
“You still could have chosen to go into the stockade.”
“Maybe. But you didn’t give me a choice when I got out. Dale, I don’t get what this paternal thing you have toward me is, but it’s really fucking things up.”
“Paternal?” Dale winced. “It’s like I told you three years ago, Sid. You reminded me of myself when I was your age. Young, lost, utterly alone in the world. I didn’t get to go to college. I had a chess scholarship, but it wasn’t enough and I didn’t have anyone to pay for the rest. So I went into the army and it saved my life.”
“You were alone?”
Dale looked away and sighed. “I don’t have a family, Sid. I was raised in an orphanage.”
“That sucks.”
“A lot of life does, son.”
“That still doesn’t give you the right to decide what’s best for me.”
“I know what I’m doing.”
“Yeah, but I don’t.” I held him with my glare. “That’s the problem. It’s like the shit you pulled with Bill Wycherly. He didn’t know he was being used, and when he found out, guess what? You lost him. If you’d been up front with him, you might still have a damn good asset on your side. And I can promise you, Dale, if you keep this up, one of these days, you’re going to go too far and you’re going to lose me, too.”
“I need you, Sid,” Dale gasped.
“I don’t give a fuck. I don’t know what this big plan of yours is for me, but if I don’t like it, I’m not playing.”
“You don’t get it.” Dale turned on me. “You’re the only person who can do what I do. You’re the first person I’ve met who can see the whole board.”
The light dawned. “You want me to replace you?”
“Eventually.”
I shook my head. “I’m not going into politics. Sorry.”
Dale laughed in spite of himself. “That’s the least of what I do, and, yeah, being on top of the House Committee helps. But you don’t need to be in Congress, and frankly, you’d suck at it.”
“At least you have some faith in me.”
“I have a lot of faith in you, Sid.” Dale looked away again and sighed. “There’s a lot I can’t tell you right now. It’s how things work at the top regarding the intelligence units. But the reason I am where I am is because I can play all the pieces. I can see the moves coming. So can you. That’s one of the reasons you’re still alive. You’re damn good at it. Nobody would have thought Lisa Wycherly would make a great spy. You spotted that. When we had the leak on the Yellow Line, you got ahead of that and caught them.”
I shook my head. “I got captured. It was Lisa who led Lillian and the others to the whorehouse.”
“You trained her, and, yeah, the two of you together are incredibly effective that way. But it starts up here.” Dale tapped his temple. “Being able to look at a situation and see all the vantage points, all the places an enemy can come from. You’ve always been able to do that. I’ve never met anyone else who could. That’s why I have plans for you and why I work around you. I can’t afford to lose you. This country can’t afford to lose you.”
“This country.” I snorted. “I’m not indispensable, however good I may be. And like I said, it’s not that you want me to do things. It’s that you don’t give me the chance to make the decision myself. I can’t work that way.” I looked at him and sighed. “We may have more in common than I like to admit. But I’m not a chess piece and I don’t like being moved around, and if you keep it up, then you’re going to regret it.”
“I’ll see what I can do.” He looked away.
I sighed, but pressing it further would not do anything. Dale manipulated and kept his plans to himself because that was how he operated, and if I’m honest, probably how he’d survived.
I left and went to meet Lisa and the others at the casino buffet, not sure what all I would tell Lisa about our conversation.
Lisa’s Voice –
Sid seemed pretty bemused when he caught up with us at the buffet where we went after mass. I’ve always had a feeling that Janey is onto us, but she’s never said anything, so we’re not going to. Daddy was also looking at Sid as if he was wondering, but wasn’t going to say anything, either. Janey hung close to Sid, as she always does when he’s bugged.
It was a pleasant afternoon, and we returned to the staff lodge just in time for all hell to break loose.
The screaming had already started as Sid and I approached the outside door from the porch. Thank God it wasn’t loud enough to attract attention from the guests. We burst inside to find a young man, about average height with long, straggly brown hair, wrestling with Donna, while Marina screamed near the door to the stairs.
“What the hell?” Daddy yelped from behind me.
Sid was already on top of the young man while I pulled Donna away. The new kid came back at Sid, throwing punches wildly, but Sid just dodged him, tripped the kid, and had him down and a knee in his back in record time.
“What’s going on?” Daddy asked again, more softly.
I looked at Marina, who was crying now.
“I didn’t know I had it until later,” she sobbed. “He gave me a book to hold, and it had something in it.”
“It’s mine, dammit!” the kid screamed. “It’s mine, and you got no right to keep it.”
“Time to call the cops?” Daddy asked as Sid bucked and held firm.
“That would be nice,” Sid said.
I followed Daddy into the apartment. Daddy went to the phone and requested a little discretion, which the police understood. I found the bit of cocaine that Marina had given me. Daddy looked at me.
“It’s a long story,” I said. “But she did hand it over without me having to push and I’m pretty sure she’s on the level.”
Daddy nodded. The police arrived in an unmarked car, found the little packet of white powder in the kid’s pants where I’d put it, and were happy to slap the cuffs on and take him out the back door.
“You okay, Donna?” I asked.
She was crying and had a bloody nose. “Yeah. My face hurts, though.”
Sid fetched the ice pack while I got her settled on the couch.
“I took self-defense last semester,” she said. “I thought it would help.”
“It looks like it did,” I said, smiling. “But it helps to practice and keep studying.”
She smiled weakly.
Things quieted down in time for dinner. Donna didn’t seem like she had a concussion, but Marina took her to the hospital just in case. Sid, Nick, Janey, Daddy, and I all went to my parents’ house and amused ourselves playing poker with Dusty and Desmond. Nick was thrilled when he won several hands. It’s not easy beating Daddy, Janey, or me at poker. We also ate dinner there, then Sid, Nick, Janey, and I headed back to the apartment.
Donna was back – there was no fracture or concussion, but her nose and cheeks had a spectacular bruise on them. The other kids prevailed on Donna and Nick to tell them what had happened, then they all decided to watch a movie on the common room TV.
I took Sid back to the apartment.
“It’s been a day,” I said.
Sid snorted. “More than.” He looked at the door to the common room. “Donna did pretty good getting that kid down today.”
“Yeah.” I frowned. “A lot better than I would have thought. She’s always seemed so mousy.”
“Just like someone else I know.” Sid flashed me a fond half-smile.
“I wonder what that means in terms of Dusty,” I said, thinking hard. “I don’t quite see her as a KGB assassin, and if she is, it doesn’t account for Yuri Voskoff being in town. Still, she could have had that gun and some other connection to the Soviets.”
“We should probably have Esther or Kathy pull her school records.” Sid shrugged. “She’s at Sac State, right?”
“Yeah.” I looked at him. “Where were you this morning while we were at church?”
Sid took a deep breath. “I went to have a talk with Dale O’Connor.”
I watched him carefully, and he chuckled softly.
“Truth be told, I don’t know how much of our conversation needs to stay between us. He didn’t really specify.” Sid looked at me. “It’s something Lillian told me this morning. He’s got some deep sadness within him. He told me he was an orphan. That’s why he was so interested in me. I didn’t have any family to speak of, either.” Sid looked at me, then took a deep breath. “When I first got busted for sleeping with the base commander’s daughter, Dale – as Colonel Landry – got assigned my case as the judge advocate. That’s why he was able to talk the base commander out of accusing me of rape and how he got me hooked into intelligence.” He sighed. “I had it out with him for using me the way he does, and he told me that he needs me to replace him eventually.”
“In Congress?” I made a face.
Sid laughed and shook his head. “No. Not in Congress. I’m not sure what, exactly, Dale’s position is, but he’s in some sort of supervisory role and needs to keep tabs on all the players and pieces. He says I have the same skill.”
I thought about it. “You know, you do.”
Sid shrugged. “It was just weird, is all. I don’t know if I got through to him. He’s been operating this way for a very long time.” He looked at me sadly. “You’ve always liked our side business.”
“Yeah.” I shrugged. “I haven’t liked the barriers it’s created between me and my family. I don’t like worrying about you or Nick or any of our friends getting hurt or killed. But it is kind of fun and it does make us special.”
He smiled softly at me. “As if you weren’t already so incredibly special.”
“Okay. You’re looking pensive again.”
“Something Dale said. I spotted you as a potentially good spy. I never really thought about it that way, but, yeah, I did. And I was right.”
We got cozy for a little bit, but then Janey came in after the movie and Sid and I had to move to the bedroom and keep the noise down.
[I was a little worried about how much to tell you, but I shouldn’t have been. I knew I would. It’s who you are and what I still love about you. – SEH]
Thank you for reading. For more information about the Operation Quickline series, click here.
Please check out the Fiction page for the latest on all my novels. Or look me up at your favorite independent bookstore. Mine is Vroman’s, in Pasadena, California.