The Walls Of Troy Part 4

As soon as we were in the house, Troy whistled. "Talos!" He whistled again.

A second later, the biggest of the household's four Rottweilers appeared, trotting down the stairs.

"Hey, buddy!" Troy knelt and held out his arms. "You miss me?"

I thought the dog was going to bowl him over, but he halted in front of Troy and dropped onto his haunches. Troy wrapped his arms around the enormous animal's neck.

Troy was broad in the shoulders, and he wasn't exactly short-I was six four and had maybe three inches on him-but the dog made him look tiny.

And he wasn't the least bit intimidated by Talos. I viewed a dog like that as something that would take my arm off at the slightest provocation, but Troy hugged the ma.s.sive thing like he was grateful beyond words for its presence.

I kept my distance and glanced around, searching for the other three dogs. At least they were big enough they probably wouldn't have much luck sneaking up on me. One would hope, anyway.

It wasn't that I disliked animals-my mom thought it was hilarious that I almost never set her cat down when I came home-but dogs scared the f.u.c.k out of me.

Troy stood but kept a hand on Talos's head. "Well, um." He cleared his throat. "I'm going to go upstairs and catch up on e-mail. I guess we don't have anything to study today, so..."

"Yeah. I'll just go check in with Max and drop off my weapon so I can get out of here."

Troy's jaw tightened just slightly, and he subtly drew Talos a little closer to his leg. "Okay. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Right. See you tomorrow."

He and Talos headed up the stairs. I watched them go, then continued down the hall to the security office.

As I stepped into the converted bedroom, Max was working on paperwork at the desk. Sitting up, he smirked and singsonged, "How was your first day of school?"

Laughing, I flipped him the bird. "Real cute."

"All right, all right." He gestured over his shoulder with his thumb. "Download your weapon and put it in the safe. I'll sign you in."

I took my service weapon out of the shoulder holster, dropped the magazine, and cleared the chamber. After I'd signed the log, I went to put the gun in the safe.

As I stepped around the desk, though, a huge black thing moved, and I d.a.m.n near fell on my a.s.s.

"f.u.c.k!" I stopped hard enough I had to grab the file cabinet for balance. "You could've warned me he was in here." I waved a cautious hand at the dog lying on the floor between me and the safe.

"Who, her?" Max laughed. "Calm your t.i.ts, MA1. Unless you're a burglar or a squirrel, the worst she's going to do is get in your way. Like that." He nodded toward her, and as if on cue, she rolled back onto her side with a groan.

"Um." I glanced at the dog. "So how do I get her to move?"

"Charlie." He snapped his fingers. Immediately, the dog jumped to her feet, moved toward him, and sat beside his chair, resting her head on his leg. As he petted her, he said, "There. You're all clear."

"Thanks." I gave the dog-Charlie, apparently-a wary look and felt like a bit of an idiot. Deep-seated fear or not, I always felt a bit ridiculous being afraid of an animal who was being so placid and gentle.

"What is it with you and dogs, anyway?"

I shrugged as I entered the code on the gun safe. When the latch clicked, I pulled open the heavy door. "Bad experience when I was a kid."

"With a Rottweiler?"

"No." I put my gun into its slot, then closed and locked the safe. "I don't even remember, to be honest. Happened when I was like two. I've never been comfortable around dogs since then." I gave Charlie another glance and almost fell for those who, me? brown eyes, but then went around the desk.

Max just chuckled and murmured a quiet command to Charlie. She wandered back to her spot in front of the safe, dropped with all the grace of a three-legged rhinoceros, and let out a long, heavy sigh. Then Max turned to me. "So how did it go with the kid?"

I eased myself into a chair and propped my boot against the desk. "Weird."

"Weird? How so?" He smirked. "I mean, besides the fact that every girl on campus looks like jailbait."

I laughed uncomfortably. "Yeah. Besides that." I rested my elbow on the armrest and scratched my jaw, nails hissing across the heavy stubble. "Well, uh. What happened to the notes that were left on Troy's car last semester?"

Max rolled his eyes. "As far as I know, they might not even exist."

"Really?"

"Well, I mean, they exist." He leaned down and opened the bottom drawer of the file cabinet. "But I'm not sure if they're real." He sat up and dropped a couple of sealed plastic bags on the desk. I picked one up.

The handwritten note made my skin crawl: f.a.gs end up in bags.

I lowered it. "So why the doubts?"

"Have you seen Troy's handwriting?"

I shook my head.

He pointed at the bag in my hand. "You're looking at it."

"What?" I blinked. "You think...you think Troy is writing the notes and putting them on his own car?"

"The handwriting is d.a.m.ned close. And no one's seen anything. There have been no other reports of h.o.m.ophobic hara.s.sment at Virginia Southern. No notes. Not even so much as a dirty look or any Facebook trolling. And there's no witnesses except Troy."

I glanced at the bag containing the note. "Why, though?"

He shrugged. "Attention? Status symbol?"

"If he wanted to flaunt the fact that he's got a bodyguard, why would he insist I go in plainclothes? Without any evidence I'd ever even heard the word 'Navy'? You'd think he'd want me in uniform and openly carrying a d.a.m.ned M16 if he wanted attention."

"Beats me." Max shrugged again, even more dismissively this time. "But that kid's not right in the head."

Well, something is definitely going on in his head, but...

"It just doesn't seem-"

"Zander, it's not our job to decide what's going on in his head, but that kid..." He waved his hand.

"Iskander," I said tersely. "And, if you're right, what do you think we're doing? Protecting him from ghosts?"

"Protecting him from ghosts, giving him attention his old man doesn't give him." Max put up his hands. "h.e.l.l if I know. But the admiral tells me where to be and what to do, and as long as the Navy keeps paying me to do it, I will." Before I could speak, he leaned forward and folded his hands. "Look, Ayhan. You're not working as a cop right now. You're personal security. This isn't an investigation. It's just protective detail."

"Okay, but does that mean I should ignore any possible leads? We're here to protect this kid, so if there's something we should be protecting him from, I think-"

"Ayhan." He shook his head. "Every cop goes through this. We all did." He locked eyes with me. "All you need to do is stay with him, keep your eyes open, and make sure nothing happens to the kid. If someone poses a threat, do something about it, but this isn't some targeted a.s.sault on him. It'd be more interesting that way, but it's just random hara.s.sment, a.s.suming it's even real and not all inside his head. When the day's over, go home, get some sleep, and be ready to come back the next day. That's it."

"And what if there is a threat specifically targeting him?"

"If there was, we'd already know about it." Max waved a hand again. "It's just some a.s.sholes with a low tolerance for queers."

I ground my teeth. "Are we sure of that, though?"

"Do you have a reason to believe otherwise? Besides the kid being jumpy?"

I swallowed. "Nothing concrete. Just a gut feeling."

Max shook his head. "Don't read too much into it. Honestly, the only thing this kid needs is a therapist, not a bodyguard."

"Is he going to a therapist?"

Max snorted. "You want to be the one to suggest that to the old man? Really, I dare you to tell him something might be all in his golden child's mind."

You haven't seen what I have, Max...

I cleared my throat. "I'll pa.s.s, thanks."

"Good idea. Now get out of here, man. Get some sleep." He grinned. "And do your homework."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah."

"Your grades reflect on your eval, you know."

I rolled my eyes. "Whatever. Have a good night."

"You too."

I headed out of the office but paused in the doorway.

"Something else?" Max asked.

I chewed my lip. Then I closed the door and faced him again. "What's the deal with Troy and the dogs?"

"f.u.c.k if I know, man. The head of security before me said the family's always had Rotties, and the kid's always liked dogs, but ever since that s.h.i.+t started last year?" He shook his head. "I'm surprised he didn't try to get the university to clear him taking Talos with him to cla.s.ses."

I inclined my head. "And that doesn't seem weird to you?"

"Of course it does. What isn't weird where this kid is involved?"

Though the sarcasm made my teeth grind, there was something to his question. This entire a.s.signment was weird. Troy's behavior and demeanor were weird. Everything about this was weird.

"Fair point," I muttered. "Anyway, I'm going to call it a day. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Sounds good. G'night, MA1."

"G'night, Chief."

On my way down the hall, I slowed my gait at the grand staircase. Though there was no one else around, my mind superimposed Troy shuffling down the steps like he was annoyed with gravity and me and G.o.d knew what else. Combining that phantom Troy with the one who'd broken out in a sweat on the way to the cafeteria...

Shaking my head, I continued toward the front door.

I wondered if it was a deliberate choice on the admiral's part to keep Max in the security office while someone else accompanied Troy to cla.s.ses. Max didn't strike me as malicious, but he obviously didn't take this situation all that seriously. If anything, he reminded me of a gate sentry who'd been on a quiet base so long he didn't believe anything bad could happen. When it came to standing sentry duty on a gate, there was a difference between a normal day and being hypervigilant because of a confirmed threat. In the former, we checked IDs, watched for suspicious behavior, and generally prayed for the long line of cars to go away so we could slip into the heated or air-conditioned guard shack for a few minutes. In the latter, we stopped just short of keeping a finger on the trigger. Everyone coming onto the base was a potential suspect. No one pa.s.sed through the gate without being scrutinized from their car to their ID card to their body language. Bomb-sniffing dogs were a constant presence.

For Max, guarding Troy was everyday sentry detail. Cake duty with an almost zero percent chance of anything actually happening. The more time I spent with Troy, the more I couldn't help wondering if this was an ID-inspecting, bomb-sniffing scenario.

I continued out to my car and headed down the driveway. As the plantation-style house faded in the rearview, a knot grew in my gut.

High-ranking officers were notorious for fraud, waste, and abuse. There was, after all, a reason "fraud, waste, and abuse" had become a catch-phrase around the military, and it wasn't just lower enlisted guys stealing office supplies. No one within the ranks would ever be surprised by Navy royalty like Admiral Dalton having frivolous bodyguards.

But something wasn't adding up here.

Admiral Dalton seemed genuinely concerned about his son's wellbeing, as any father would be, and I couldn't convince myself that he didn't legitimately believe his son was in some kind of danger. Whether having a bodyguard and full security detail was overkill or not, I was having a harder and harder time believing this was fraud, waste, and abuse.

And more and more I was convinced there was something going on in Troy's head. Was he delusional? Was this a bid for attention? He wouldn't be the first kid to go to insane lengths to get a high-ranking parent's attention. My last commanding officer's daughter had used the pool table in his bas.e.m.e.nt as the setting for a g.a.n.g.b.a.n.g p.o.r.no involving half a dozen Marines. I never did find out how their court-martial ended, but the video had gone viral and she'd certainly gotten Daddy's attention.

My mind kept going back to that moment in the hallway when Troy had nearly jumped out of his skin. He couldn't have planned that. He wouldn't have downplayed it so much if the whole point had been attention.

And then there was the way he interacted with Talos-that wasn't a typical guy who loved his dog. I had no doubt Troy did love the dog, that Talos was his companion like my cat had been when I was a kid, but he was a completely different person when he had the Rottweiler beside him. As if he could breathe as long as Talos was close by. As if the enormous dog was his sworn protector. But from what?

What are you so afraid of, Troy?

Chapter Four.

"What the h.e.l.l is going on today?" I looked around the packed courtyard between the campus's main buildings. "I've never seen it this crowded."

Troy shook his head. "No idea. Must be another one of their festivals."

"They do this often?"

"A buddy of mine started here last year, and he said this place has a festival for every f.u.c.king thing." He snickered. "Don't be surprised if they have one for Hug Your Hamster Day or Pirate Appreciation Week."

I tilted my head. "Please tell me those aren't actual things."

Troy shrugged. "Guess we'll find out, won't we?"