Tanner shrugged through a kink in his back brought on by an uneasiness that had nothing to do with a pinched nerve.
Inside the factory, the main warehouse gaped into a wide-open space. Tanner pulled off his sunglasses and hooked them in the neck of his flight suit.
Metal rafters webbed the ceiling over workstations. The rattle of machinery, grinding metal and repetitious clanging mixed a ragtag chorus with the low drone of Christmas music.
Jingle Bells gone rogue. How appropriate for his lack of holiday spirit.
From beside a workstation, a man stepped forward, wearing khakis and a red polo bearing the test facility logo. With a full head of prematurely gray hair, he might have been mistaken for older, but Tanner pegged him at around forty.
The man's easy swagger carried him across the warehouse toward Tanner and Kathleen. He squinted, staring at the name tags on their flight suits. "Captains O'Connell and Bennett from the base investigation. I heard you two were on your way." He thrust out his hand. "Quinn Marshall, head of this little corner of the testing world. What can I do for you?"
Tanner stepped up and returned the firm shake, trying to place why the man's name seemed so familiar beyond just a line item in a file. "We could start with a tour of the facility, while you give us a handle on the testing process."
"Certainly. Happy to do what I can to speed this along, so you folks'll clear on out of my work space."
"That's what we're hoping for. While we're walking around, we'd like your secretary to make copies of some files. We'll need all the test data on your modification for the load ramp's cargo-release system." Tanner watched for any hint of hesitation, a flash of reluctance, and found nothing.
"Of course." Quinn Marshall snagged a phone from the wall, punched in a number and clipped out instructions. Replacing the receiver, he nodded to Tanner and Kathleen. "All set. Follow me."
As Kathleen strode past, her minty fragrance lingered, distracted, so much so that Tanner almost missed the scowl pulling her mouth into a tight line. What had her twisted now? And why was he letting her moods crank a new knot in his back?
No way did he need to waste time, energy and waking thoughts, not to mention sleeping ones, on Kathleen. He forced his attention to Quinn Marshall's tour guide explanations.
"The modification in question on the C-17 load ramp has ten parts. Each of those parts was tested before being installed on the plane. Stress tests. Repetition tests. Heat tests. Then they were X-rayed for cracks."
Marshall pushed open a door, revealing a room about half the size of a football field, dominated by what looked like a huge pizza oven. A vent funneled heat to the outside, but the place still dripped with sweltering humidity. And that humidity now carried the distinctive scent of Kathleen's shampoo.
Tanner skimmed his finger along the neck of his flight suit and wandered toward the mammoth oven—away from Kathleen. "Nice roomy setup you've got."
"Square footage is cheap in the desert." Quinn stopped by a temperature gauge, thumping the dial. "Here's where we run heat tests. The spectrograph gauges ensure the metal heats evenly. It shows the purity of the metal."
Kathleen tugged a notepad from her leg pocket. "Every part goes through this before it's installed?"
"Absolutely."
"So if there's an undetected problem with one, there could be a problem with all of them."
"In theory."
Frowning, Kathleen nodded as she jotted notes on the pad. She walked alongside Tanner while they toured the warehouse room by room. Tanner peppered Quinn Marshall with questions. Kathleen scribbled pages of notes.
Tanner listened, yet couldn't stop his mind from winging back to his crew. He might be out of action, but he tracked his squadron's missions. At that moment supplies were being off-loaded in a Sentavian refugee camp. Without him.
What if one of those planes had a defective part and it kicked in on this mission or the next? He thought of recent flights with Lance, how he'd hauled Lance's butt out of the fire more than once. Tanner shifted from foot to foot restlessly. If he wrapped this up in a few days, he could be back in action for a full month before upgrade…
Except for his back.
He wanted to put his fist through a wall. Which would probably throw his back out. Kathleen would toss him in the infirmary before he could say "upgrade slot."
Quinn completed his tour, ending in the main hallway of the brick office sections. "The copies you wanted should be ready by now. Detailed test data…" He pointed through the door to a slender man talking on a cell phone by the soda machine. "All signed by that guy over there. The defense department inspector."
Kathleen thumbed through her notes. "Randall Fitzgerald."
"Right."
Tanner assessed the man by the vending machine—late thirties, clean-cut with suspenders. A government paper pusher worth interviewing later.
Pencil poised, Kathleen nodded. "So, Quinn, how long does—"