She sipped her scotch. “That was before I knew you better.”
“So you lied.”
“I used a standard tactic to allow me sufficient opportunity to calculate your trustworthiness.”
“So you lied,” Decker said again.
“But now I’m telling you how it really is. We have unauthorized back doors into our intelligence platforms.”
“Which means they’re hackable?”
“Which means they’ve probably already been hacked.”
“But now that you know about the theft, can you take steps to prevent further damage?”
“Easier said than done. The thing is, we don’t know precisely when Dabney conveyed the secrets. Thus whoever he sold them to could have already installed malware or spyware on the systems. We can’t shut everything down. And secrets may already have been stolen and national security compromised.”
Decker nodded. “I can see the problem.”
“No, I don’t think you do. I wish they had simply stolen stuff on tanks and planes. That takes a long time to build. This…this can be used against us immediately. In fact, it may already have been used against us. We could be sitting on a time bomb right now and have no idea where it is or when it’s going to go off.” She added coolly, “What do you think about that?”
“I think I’ll take that scotch now.”
She rose and poured it out for him before settling back down in her chair. Decker took a small sip of the drink and let it burn down his throat.
“How do you know exactly what Dabney stole?” he asked.
She drank some scotch before answering. “I have a DIA top secret clearance with an SCI, or Sensitive Compartmented Information, access kicker. Anyone at CIA or NSA with those security clearances from their agencies would not be allowed to know that information, because that’s just how our world works. There’s no reciprocity on that score.”
“Which is your polite way of telling me you can’t answer my question.”
She held up her glass in affirmation of his statement. “But what I can tell you is that we are satisfied that we’re correct in what was stolen. We just don’t know who has it, or how long they’ve had it. Or what they’ve done with it.”
“So how do we work this together?”
“Can you really remember everything?”
“More or less. Emphasis on the more.”
“How many people were in the restaurant tonight?”
Decker clicked through his frames. “Fourteen, not counting us or the staff.”
“There was a guy sitting at the right side of the bar. What was he wearing?”
Decker told her, down to his sock color. Then he added, “Your odometer reading on the BMW is 24137. Do you want to know your VIN? I saw it the first time you gave me a ride, so I’ve got that too.” He recited it for her. She grabbed her purse, took out her wallet, slipped out her insurance card, and read out the VIN. Her expression said it all—Decker had been perfect.
She sat back. “That’s remarkable.”
“So, again, how do we work this? Together?”
“As I said before, Dabney interests me more than Berkshire. Do you agree?”
Decker shook his head.
“Whoever got Dabney to kill Berkshire blackmailed him to do it. That means they know about the secrets he sold. And I’m betting that they know who he sold them to. It actually might have been one and the same party. We figure out the Berkshire end, then we solve your problem too.”
She put down her scotch. “That actually makes a lot of sense.”
“So you’ll work with us on Berkshire?”
She nodded. “Yes, I will.”
“Good, I might have some information that will help.”
“Like what?”
“Like maybe what Anne Berkshire used to be.”
CHAPTER
33
BROWN’S FEATURES FROZE for an instant. “What she used to be? You care to explain that statement?”
“It’s the reason I called you tonight. She has no past further back than ten years. But she had a résumé showing she graduated from Virginia Tech, only her first name was spelled differently. And she’s rich, and we don’t know how she came by the money.”
“Okay, what does that tell you?”
“I was speculating that she might be a spy. Maybe the one that Dabney passed the secrets to. But then why kill her? And we can find no connection between them. So we considered the Witness Protection angle, but I don’t think any of the people in that program are rich. And she volunteered and worked as a schoolteacher. That really put her out there in the public eye some. I don’t think the U.S. Marshals encourage that. They have their protectees keep low profiles.”
“Which leaves what?”
“She did something on her own that caused her to put together a new identity. And whatever she did in the recent past gave her great wealth.”
“Don’t keep me in suspense, Decker.”
“It stands to reason that the people who blackmailed Dabney might be in the military arena. Defense contracting more specifically. That allowed Dabney to have the access to get the secrets and them to buy the secrets or at least know he committed treason.”
“And that is all speculation on your part,” pointed out Brown.
“Without facts, that’s all we can do at this point. But I’m trying to deal in probabilities.”
“Okay, go on.”
“I think she could have been a whistleblower.”
Brown put her feet on the floor and stared at him. “Keep going.”
“If she was the whistleblower on some defense contract that went sideways, she might have gotten a reward. Sometimes they’re tied to a percentage of the amounts saved by the government because of the person’s actions. That would explain Berkshire’s wealth. She might have gotten some of the people she informed on sent to prison. That would explain why she adopted a new identity. To hide from them.”
“And those people might be out now,” said Brown.
“They might be, yes. And maybe some of them didn’t go to prison, but her whistleblowing might have ruined their business, caused them to go bankrupt, shut them out of the government feeding trough. That could be a motive to have someone kill her.”
“Yes, it could. How did you come up with this angle?”
“Something Todd Milligan said earlier about whistling in the wind.”
“So what do we do with this information?”
“We follow it up. We have to look at whistleblower cases.”
“There are a lot of them.”
“That’s where you come in. I believe this is tied to the defense sector.”
She nodded and took another sip of her scotch. “You’ll need to be read into some things. And you don’t have a security clearance, which makes things difficult.”
“I’ve applied for one through the FBI. I’ve taken and passed the polygraph, but they haven’t finished the background check on me yet.” He added, “My past is a little complicated.”
She gazed keenly at him. “I would imagine it is.” She set her glass down. “I might be able to work something out. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
*