Cadet 3 by Commander James Bondage Read Free Book Online

can
give you cover IDs and disguises, but you can’t stay here for very
long. We have to get you out of Washington, and fast.”
    Kate took them through a door in the garage,
which led into the house. They went up a short flight of stairs
into a large living room. All the windows in the room were covered
with heavy drapes. The only lighting was provided by a few
low-wattage floor lamps. A woman in the dark blue uniform of a West
Point cadet was seated on a sofa next one of the lamps, which
illuminated her book but left her face hidden in shadow. When they
entered, she looked up, then stood and ran to Robin, wrapped her
arms around the latter’s neck and exclaimed “Thank God you got them
out, Kate!”
    “Merry!” Jodie and Robin chorused, greeting
Robin’s younger and even more beautiful sister, as she exchanged
hugs with Jodie. “When did you get here?”
    “The boss thought they would probably pick
her up too, and charge her with being part of your ‘spy ring’,”
Steph explained. “He figured they might use her to get at you, if
necessary.”
    “ ‘The boss’?” Jodie echoed. “So, who is this
mystery man that General Cafferson’s trusted as head of his black
ops squad?”
    “I was wondering the same thing,” added
Robin.
    “That would be me,” they heard a very
familiar voice say. From the stairway stepped a broad-shouldered,
gray-haired man in an Army uniform, with the silver eagles of a
Colonel on his shoulders.
    “Daddy!” “Major Bransom!” Robin and Jodie
shrieked, respectively. “What…?”
    He raised his hand, gesturing to them for
calm. “Colonel Bransom now, actually. Bernie jumped me up when he
re-activated my commission.” He smiled at the astonished women.
    “General Cafferson foresaw that there would
be trouble for you after he was gone, General Lawrence, and he
needed someone that he could count on to act when the crisis came,”
Colonel Bransom explained, directing his reply to Jodie. “When he
told me that Robin and Merry would be in danger, that might have been enough to get me out of retirement. If it was just that,
I might have simply told you girls to resign your commissions to
keep you from getting caught in the gears. But when he explained
that the plot would be aimed at you , General Lawrence, then
I had no choice. I could not turn down the job.”
    Robin and Merry looked at their father
inquiringly.
    “I’m sorry, girls,” he said to them
apologetically. “There is only one thing I love more than you: my
country. You, General…” he nodded respectfully at Jodie, “…are the
most important person in the United States, in the entire Free
World. Without you, we have no chance to stop the Chinese. I am
ready to give everything I have, my own life, the lives of my
daughters, if necessary, for you and for my country. I know it
sounds cold, Robin, Merry…” he finished, again addressing his
daughters,”…but that’s the way it is. That is the way it’s always
been, for me.”
    Merry and Robin surrounded him and hugged him
simultaneously. “You don’t have to apologize, Daddy. We knew that
about you already,” Merry said. “It comes with the uniform.”
    “We feel exactly the same way,” added
Robin.
    Colonel Bransom nodded approvingly. “In any
case, I am not about to let a cabal of traitors overthrow the legal
government of the United States,” he continued. “A handful of
little men are trying to suppress Bernard Cafferson’s political
testament and undo everything he has built by seizing power and
destroying his chosen successor, and I…”
    “His successor? Who do you mean, Daddy?”
Robin interrupted.
    The Colonel’s gaze swung to Jodie. “In his
will, General Cafferson instructed the General Staff to make
General Lawrence the new CGS…” (pronounced “sigs”) “Don’t tell me
you’re surprised, General.”
    Jodie blushed. “Not really. The one time he
brought the subject up, I told him that I didn’t want it, and he
never mentioned