Yet somehow alluring...
She’d taken pictures. She looked at them again. Then put her digital camera away, hidden deeply in a drawer. It provided more questions than answers.
Once more she tried in vain to focus on the large volume she held on her lap. She barely got through the first ten pages.
At six-thirty, she headed for the cafeteria.
The temperature outside remained cool but comfortable. Once again, others in camo fatigues also strode across the base, a few heading in the same direction she was.
But no one she recognized.
Would she see Jason in the cafeteria this morning? If so, what would she say to him?
Heck, he was the one who owed her an explanation. Maybe even an apology for playing games with her that way.
Unless it was real....
No, she wouldn’t go there.
She was soon immersed in the crowd entering the cafeteria, then stood in line. Though not especially hungry, she decided that comfort food wouldn’t be a bad idea. Never mind that she usually scorned pampering herself in any manner.
She paid for her pancakes, bacon and coffee then scanned the compact eating area.
And saw no one she recognized.
She shoved away the pang of regret that Jason wasn’t there. She wasn’t looking forward to their inevitable confrontation—was she?
Well, maybe a little.
Maybe he would be kind enough to provide an explanation, one she could buy—and one that wouldn’t make her feel like an utter fool.
No Alpha Force members were eating here at the moment, at least none she’d met. Did that have some significance?
She would find out. She’d learn all she needed to restore her sense of sanity and well-being.
For now she headed, tray in hand, toward a small table where the folks eating there all wore lieutenants’ insignias. Were any of them members of the Ultra Special Forces Team, or could they be Alpha Force people she hadn’t yet run into?
“May I join you?” she asked, stopping at an unoccupied chair.
“Sure,” said a female lieutenant whose name tag read Swainey. She held out her hand as Sara sat down. “Vera Swainey.” She looked at Sara expectantly.
“I’m Sara McLinder,” she said.
The others at the table introduced themselves, too—three men and another woman.
“Are you all stationed here?” Sara asked.
“That’s right,” said Lieutenant Manning Breman. “You?”
“I just got here yesterday. I’m aide to General Greg Yarrow, who’ll be stationed here on temporary duty for a few months.”
The friendly atmosphere at the table suddenly seemed to freeze into icicles of stares.
“You’re with Alpha Force?” Manning asked, his tone stiff.
“That’s right.” It wasn’t exactly true, but she hated the antagonism that seemed to waft around her. Maybe they’d explain if she pressed. “Tell me what’s going on here. I get the impression that your unit and Alpha Force aren’t exactly buddies.”
“You could say that.” Vera’s voice was also chill. “We were recently assigned here and assumed that— Oh, wait. I see the person we were saving that spot for. Cal, come over here.” She sounded relieved as Cal Brown, the lieutenant whom Sara had met on her floor in their BOQ yesterday, approached with a tray of food.
There were plenty of empty chairs at nearby tables that Cal could pull up to their table. But all eyes of those seated there remained on Sara, as if demonstrating that she had outstayed her welcome.
“Here,” she said to Cal as she stood abruptly, picking up her tray. “Have fun with this group. I certainly didn’t.”
She strode away, chose a small table near the door and sat down by herself.
She glanced at her watch. It was seven o’clock. She would phone General Yarrow soon. Warn him about the extent of the friction between the two primary units stationed here at Ft. Lukman.
Find out when he was planning on arriving that day.
She wouldn’t, of course, mention what she had seen, or thought she had, earlier that morning.
But when he arrived, she would talk to him as soon as possible. Maybe even show pictures.
He could tell her more about Alpha Force. He had, after all, warned her to expect a different atmosphere and different kind of unit. Had even hinted at what she’d seen.
He knew what Alpha Force was about. She had just preferred not to imagine that what he hinted at could be real.
Now she knew better—and she hoped he would explain it to her.
* * *
Jason sat back on the uncomfortable folding chair, surrounded by colleagues, both shifters and not. He looked around the small basement office in the main Alpha Force building at the far end of Ft. Lukman.
This was where they always met on the morning after a full moon. Other meetings were also held here for Alpha Force members in the secured laboratory area.
On the first floor, dogs were housed—those used as the cover, when necessary, for wolf shifters. Jason had a dog assigned to him: Shadow. He also enjoyed helping to train them in his spare time, although not today.
All the dogs had remained in their nice, well-maintained kennels last night—unlike the shapeshifters of Alpha Force.
“We need your report first this time, Jonas.” Major Drew Connell, Jason’s oh-so-perfect cousin, stood at the front of the room. He looked worried.
He’d really worry if Jason told him what he’d done that morning. Therefore, Jason wouldn’t mention it.
“Everything started out fine,” Jonas Truro responded as he stood up from his seat in the first row of four. He glanced around the group of shifters and aides who were present. “All our wolf shifters chose not to take the version of the elixir that would keep them in human form. Instead, everyone drank the kind that helped with human cognition while shifted but didn’t stop them from changing. Our cougar shifter Colleen did the same.” He nodded toward the woman who sat in the same row as Jason, a few people over.
The elixir was good stuff. Both formulas were. Jason gave the unit, and especially Drew, a lot of credit for that.
Now premixed bottles of both kinds were stored in a special refrigerated room nearby, even as Drew continued to upgrade the formulas for each.
Jason listened with interest as Jonas described everyone’s change in the clearing in the woods that
