Morganville (Justin Bieber)

Chapter 120

The gates of the university were shut, locked, and there were paramilitary style men posted at the gates, all in black. Armed. Eve coasted the big car slowly up to them and rolled down the window.

"Delivery for Michael Glass," she called. "Or Richard Morrell."

The guard who leaned in was huge, tough, and intimidating--until he saw Hannah in the backseat, and then he grinned like a kid with a new puppy. "Hannah Montana!"

She looked deeply pained. "Don't ever call me that again, Jessup, or I will gut you."

"Get out and make me stop, Smiley. Yeah, I heard you were back. How were the marines?"

"Better than the damn rangers."

"Don't you just wish?" He lost the smile and got serious again. "Sorry, H, orders are orders. Who sent you? Who's with you?"

"Oliver sent me. You probably know Eve Rosser--that's Anastasia Ian."

"Really? Huh. Thought she'd be bigger. Hey, Eve. Sorry, didn't recognize you right off. Long time, no see." Jessup nodded to the other guard, who slung his rifle and pressed in a key code at the panel on the stone fence. The big iron gates slowly parted. "You be careful, Hannah. This town's the AfPak border all over again right now."

Inside, except for the guards patrolling the fence, Texas Prairie University seemed eerily normal. The birds sang to the rising sun, and there were students out--students!--heading to class as if there were nothing wrong at all. They were chatting, laughing, running to make the crosscampus earlymorning bell.

"What the hell?" Eve said. I was glad I wasn't the only one freaked out by it. "I know they had orders to keep things low profile, but damn, this is ridiculous. Where's the dean's office?"

I pointed. Eve steered the car around the winding curves, past dorms and lecture halls, and pulled it to a stop on the nearly deserted lot in front of the Administration Building. There were two police cruisers there, and a bunch of black Jeeps. Not a lot of civilian cars in the lot.

As we walked up the steps to the building, I realized there were two more guards outside of the main door. Hannah didn't know these guys, but she repeated our names and credentials, and after a brief, impersonal search, they were allowed inside.

The last time I had been here I'd been adding and dropping classes, and the building had been full of grumpy bureaucrats and anxious students, all moving at a hectic pace. Now it was very quiet. A few people were at their desks, but there were no students I could see, and the TPU employees looked either bored or nervous. Most of the activity seemed centered down the carpeted hall, which was hung with formal portraits of the former university deans and notables.

One or two of the former deans, I was just now realizing, might have been vampires, from the pallor of their skins. Or maybe they were just old white guys. Hard to say.

At the end of the hallway we found not a guard, but a secretary--just as tough as any of the armed men outside, though. She sat behind an expensivelooking antique desk that had not a speck of dust on it, and nothing else except a piece of paper centered exactly in the middle, a pen at right angles to it, and a fancy, black multiline telephone. No computer that I could spot--no, there it was, hidden away in a rollout credenza to the side.

The room was lushly carpeted, so much so that my feet sank into the depth at least an inch; it was like walking on foam. Solid, dark wood paneling. Paintings and dim lights. The windows were covered with fancy velvet curtains, and there was music playing--classical, of course. I couldn't imagine anybody would ever switch the station to rock. Not here.