Deluge (The Best Thrillers Book 2) by James Best (top romance novels txt) 📗

said. “We found seven deceased. We still have four missing persons. I suspect we’ll eventually find them beached further down the coast.”

“Have you called off the search then?” Evarts asked.

“Not until the end of the day,” O’Brian said. “Tomorrow, the teams go down to Ventura County to assist with the Castaic search.”

“Go up early. Spend the night with me in Santa Barbara.”

“No, the teams are going, but I’m too old for this shit. I’ll stay in Lompoc and do mop-up.”

Evarts had a thought. He glanced at Standish. “Jim, let’s leave the captain to her business. Do you have time for a cup of real coffee?”

He hesitated for only the slightest of moments. “I do.”

They left the station, and Evarts drove to a café on College Avenue. They took a booth, surrounded by noisy students from the high school on the next block. Despite the street name, there was no college in the vicinity. Evarts watched the kids for a few moments. They were rambunctious, but he guessed the after-school socializing probably was more boisterous in normal circumstances. They certainly had friends who were not present because of losing their homes, and possibly much more. These were not good times for Lompoc or Solvang.

O’Brian sipped his coffee and made a face. “I thought you invited me for real coffee.”

“You live around here, not me,” Evarts said, taking a bite of his chocolate croissant. “You could have directed me someplace else.”

“Naw, this’ll do. Nice to have some happy youngsters about. Reminds me that life goes on.”

“Jim, have you had any sleep since I saw you last?”

“One hour in the cab of your truck. Yourself?”

“Four hours in a cell at the Solvang police station. So, you’ve been trudging around in the mud all night and day. I bet you outlasted everyone else in SAR.”

“I held my own.”

“Then what’s this bullshit about you being too old to continue SAR operations in Ventura?”

O’Brian set his coffee mug down and gave Evarts a hard look. “You’re criticizing me? You think I’m shirking my duty?”

“No, I think you have orders to stay close.”

“Close? Close to what?”

“Vandenberg.”

“Time for a change of subject,” O’Brian said.

“Okay, let’s forget Vandenberg, because I don’t care about the base. But I need help in another area. Actually, my wife and the state of California need help. You’re a retired major general.” Evarts paused before proceeding. “Or maybe not retired.”

“If California needs help from the United States Army, I can give you contact information on active duty officers.”

“My wife doesn’t want to go formal yet. That’s why you came to mind. I believe you retain an informal relationship with the army.”

“I don’t.”

“Then with another government agency?”

“Come out with it. Tell me the type of help you need, and I’ll get you the contact information for someone who can work with you openly.”

That comment told Evarts a lot. It confirmed that O’Brian still worked in intelligence. Evarts assumed it was army intelligence because he was keeping an eye on a highly strategic air base, and air force intelligence focused on target assessment, not spy catching. It would make sense for them to turn to the army. Except that it wouldn’t. Something happened to motivate the Air Force to go to a rival service.

“When was the major breach at Vandenberg?” Evarts asked.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Jim, remember you’re talking to an ex-intelligence officer. You retired from the army, probably with an additional star as a lieutenant general, and became a contract employee of the Department of Defense to placate interservice rivalry. You were tasked with ferreting out a spy or spy ring here in Lompoc, or perhaps on the base, that stole our latest technology and gave it to unauthorized parties. You may enjoy getting outdoors and trudging through the backcountry, but you really joined SAR as a volunteer to get close to your best suspect.” Evarts stopped, thought a minute, and then smiled to himself. “No, not your best suspect, your target. You discovered that the base cooperated with SAR and allowed them to conduct exercises on base property. Your target used those exercises to break away from the search grid to photograph top-secret surveillance satellites or whatnot. How close am I?”

“Close, but no cigar. If I hadn’t read your file, I wouldn’t tell you this, but I know you’ve kept secret front-page New York Times kind of stuff.” He took a sip of coffee and grimaced in distaste. “I had the real spy dead to rights months ago. That person was inside, and we wanted to leave that person in place so we could feed misinformation to our advisory. But this spy knew that we were on to something. Since photographs accompanied the technical data, photographs that couldn’t be taken by our target, we ascertained that it was an inside-outside team. You’re right about SAR, but beyond SAR, the spy ring had additional members. We intend to arrest the outside team soon and let it be known that we believe we had caught all our spies. I’ll even get a medal for breaking the spy ring so quickly and thoroughly. That should put our inside person at ease.” He took another sip of coffee and grimaced again. “That’s more than I should have told you. Now, what kind of help are you looking for?”

“Munitions expertise. The USGS forecasts that this rainstorm will keep pummeling us for five or six more days. Four dams have already failed. I’m weak in this area, but as I understand it, even without more dam failures, the runoff from the western Sierras will flood the Central Valley. Maybe sixty feet or more in some areas. I’m told to expect additional dam catastrophes, and that means it’ll get worse. The problem is drainage. They’ve unencumbered every access to the Delta, but that’s not enough. In ancient history, the main outlet to the sea passed just north of Salinas.” He shrugged to convey skepticism. “My wife and her colleagues want to figure out if it’s possible to blow the