by Rachel Dylan
“I’m all for that.” Now wasn’t the time to hold anything back. “We should also try to get the CEO, Rex Barnett, in for questioning. I’m sure he’ll be even more lawyered-up than Mink, but we need to see what he has to say for his company.”
The next morning Lexi walked through the door of the Arlington DA’s office. She had told Marco that she’d find another JAG to assist her, but there was only one person’s help she really wanted, and that was Derek’s. She didn’t report to Marco, so she felt like she could make the judgment calls she needed to. The most important thing was getting to the truth.
She’d talked to Derek last night to develop their plan of attack. And that was exactly why she was here right now.
After a few minutes, Derek came downstairs to greet her with a warm smile. He looked particularly handsome, and as his brown eyes met hers, her stomach clenched. She’d done a good job managing her emotional connection to him because of the case, but now that they were no longer adversaries, she didn’t have to worry about that.
“How’re you doing this morning?” Derek stood beside her.
“I actually got some sleep for the first time in a while, and I feel like we are at least doing something instead of just waiting for something else bad to happen.” She was a woman of action, and today she planned to get answers.
“Right this way. We’ll go into my office and talk, but I can’t guarantee that the plan we cooked up is going to get results.”
They walked up the stairs and down the hall to Derek’s modest prosecutor’s office. His law school diploma hung on the wall, and there was one picture on his desk—she assumed it was of him with his mother, given the resemblance. His desk was clean, with only a few stacks of papers and file folders neatly organized on its surface.
Derek was right that their plan might not work, but they were still going to try. Although she did worry about whether he might get in trouble with his boss.
“I wanted you to sleep on it,” she said. “Are you sure you’re okay doing this? The last thing we need is for you to get fired.” Yes, she wanted answers, but there were other ways if the repercussions would be too big.
Derek closed his office door and walked over to her, taking her hands in his. “I did sleep on it, and I’m more convinced than ever that I need to do this. I’m not going to be an ostrich here and take the easy way out.”
She looked up at him. “And if your boss decides to give you the boot?”
He shook his head. “He wouldn’t do that. I know where too many of his skeletons are, if you know what I mean. He has bigger political aspirations than this office. I don’t want to play dirty, but if he threatens me, then I’ll play hardball right back.”
She wasn’t used to seeing the more aggressive and tactical side of Derek, but she appreciated his zeal in this instance. They were on the right side here. “Then I’m ready whenever you are. Are we just dropping in on him unexpectedly?”
“Yes and no. I talked to his assistant first thing this morning. She knows I’m coming.”
“What about me?” Lexi shifted her weight.
“You’ll be a surprise.” He smiled.
She followed Derek down the hall, up one more flight of steps, and into a reception area, where Derek chatted with the assistant for a moment before the two of them were ushered into a conference room.
A couple of minutes later, a tall blond man walked into the room. Lexi rose to her feet.
The man stretched out his hand. “I’m District Attorney Perry O’Shea.”
“Nice to meet you. I’m Lieutenant Lexi Todd with JAG.”
Perry firmly took her hand, and she could see flecks of gold in his hazel eyes. She also saw confusion as to why she was in his conference room.
“Please have a seat and tell me what can I do to help JAG today,” Perry said.
Lexi glanced at Derek. They’d decided it was best for him to take the lead, since he worked for Perry.
Derek cleared his throat. “This is actually about the Rogers case.”
Perry frowned. “Isn’t that case closed now that the suspect is dead?”
“It’s a bit more complicated than that,” Lexi said.
“How so?” Perry raised an eyebrow.
“You should know that Lexi was the suspect’s attorney,” Derek said. “She’s now working with NCIS and the FBI as they investigate a string of murders that includes Rogers as well as the two military personnel who were killed.”
“I get all of that, Derek, but what does any of this have to do with me?” Perry asked.
Lexi waited to see how Derek was going to play this out.
“Perry, I know you were talking to someone at the DoD about the Rogers case. I remember the heat you put on me about it, and given all the circumstances, including what we believe now is a murder made to look like a suicide, we need to know what you know.”
Perry crossed his lanky arms. “I have to say that I don’t appreciate your accusatory tone. Maybe it’s best that you and I speak alone without Lieutenant Todd in the room.”
Derek shook his head. “There’s no reason to be defensive. We just want to get to the truth—something I know that you, as the DA, care about very much. You could have critical information to the case and not even know it.”
“Then shouldn’t I talk to those doing the investigating and not you?”
Derek pushed forward. “We came to you first, but I know the two lead agents would be happy to talk to you. I thought it might be easier to have the conversation with us, though. I know you would never do anything to jeopardize anyone’s safety.”
“Who is in danger?” Perry asked.
Lexi spoke up, as she wanted Perry to understand how high the stakes were. “Pretty much everyone who has touched this investigation.”
A deep frown pulled on Perry’s lips. “I think you’re assuming I know things that I simply don’t know.”
“Anything, however small, might be able to help us.” Lexi hoped that being encouraging would help their cause.
“Why don’t we start with who at the DoD called you and what they asked you for?” Derek suggested.
“All right. That’s easy enough. The person who called from the DoD is Alex Gomez, but he told me he was calling for someone else.”
“Do you know who?” Lexi asked.
Perry shook his head.
“That’s a lot of layers.” Lexi thought about the implications of a further cover-up.
“And what was Alex’s request of you?” Derek asked.
Perry leaned back in his chair. “He wanted to know how the Rogers case was going. He said that someone at the DoD was asking him to check into the status and to push for a quick resolution—one that made the guilty person pay. He suggested a speedy plea deal would be best for all parties.”
“Did you wonder why the DoD would care about a civilian construction worker?” Derek asked.
Perry looked down at the conference table before answering. “Honestly, I didn’t think that much about any of it. Alex and I served on a nonprofit board together a few years ago and became friends. So once he made the ask, I went directly to you, as the lead prosecutor on the case, and conveyed the request. After that, he followed up with me again, and that’s when I went to you a second time to ask for an update. But once I heard about the suspect’s death, I thought that none of this would matter.”
“And you didn’t think any of this was strange?” Lexi couldn’t help but ask.
Perry gave a shrug. “In my job, I get calls all the time about cases. It just goes with the territory. So I treated this the way I would treat any request, but maybe more seriously since it was from a trusted friend who worked at the Pentagon. I had no reason to read anything nefarious into it—just the opposite. I thought both he and I were helping reach the best solution for everyone.”
He seemed like he was being forthright and honest, and there was really no reason he’d have a direct role in any of this. But Perry’s story only made Lexi more susp
icious about how deep the conspiracy and cover-up might go.
“If I’m reading this situation right, you two think there is something nefarious going on here?” Perry asked.
“Unfortunately so,” Derek said. “But we have a million questions and very few answers.”
“I’m happy to connect you with Alex.” Perry pulled a card out of his suit jacket and wrote on it. “This is his direct line. If something bad is going on here, I’d have a really hard time believing Alex has anything to do with it. He’s a straight shooter. A real stand-up guy.”
“It’s possible he was just a conduit. We’re seeing a lot of that,” Lexi said.
Perry stood. “Well, if you two will excuse me, I have other matters I need to handle. Derek, please keep me informed. I want to do my best to protect this office from any blowback.”
What he really meant was to protect himself from it. Spoken like a man with real political aspirations, just as Derek had told her.
Derek rose from his chair. “Will do.”
“It was nice to meet you, Lieutenant,” Perry said, turning to her.
“Likewise, sir.”
Perry exited the conference room, and silence filled the space.
Her heartbeat thumped. “We need to talk to Alex Gomez.” She turned to Derek. “I can get us into the Pentagon. We just have to hope that he’ll talk to us.”
“Well, if Perry was telling the truth about his friend, then it shouldn’t be a big deal.”
Lexi nodded. “I guess we’re about to find out.”
Marco walked into the interrogation room with Bailey at his side. Barnett had quickly responded to their request for an interview. And while he’d brought his attorney, that was to be expected. It was also not a surprise that Barnett had a different lawyer from Mink.
The attorney rose and stretched out her hand. “I’m Evie Leonard, and I represent Mr. Barnett.”
They all exchanged pleasantries and had a seat.
“Mr. Barnett, thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to come in today. Have you spoken with Mr. Mink about the investigation?” Marco knew the CEO almost certainly had, but he had to ask.
“Yes. He debriefed me after you spoke to him.”
“Good. So you understand the situation we have here.”
Barnett looked at him. “I’d still like to hear it from you directly. Sometimes, as CEO, I get a sanitized version of events.”
Bailey shifted in her seat. “It’s pretty simple, actually. We have evidence showing that the three men who have been murdered were all employees of WSI—but not in the traditional sense. They were working secretive or off-book jobs. Now they’re all dead. We’re trying to get to the bottom of that.”
Barnett shook his head. “It really is a tragedy. I hate to lose anyone. Even though the type of work we do at WSI is high risk, losing someone stateside is even more difficult to come to grips with.”
“Let’s start at the beginning,” Marco said. “Mr. Mink told us that Battle came to him seeking employment. Is that how you remember it?”
Barnett rubbed his chin. “Yes, I believe that’s correct. I remember because we were excited about the opportunity to work with someone of his caliber. Then he suggested two of his friends, and we took them all on.”
“And you did that knowing two of them were full-time military?” Bailey’s tone was one step shy of accusatory.
“I realize it’s a bit unorthodox, but truth be told, we weren’t that concerned about it. If these men wanted to take on additional work, we were happy to have them. How they handled the military was up to them.”
“And you wired them cash payments to an offshore bank account?”
“Don’t answer that,” Evie interjected.
“We aren’t trying to come after you for tax fraud, but we are very interested in their murders, because there are three men dead, and they are all connected to your company, sir.” Bailey was more fired up than Marco had ever seen her.
“Agent Ryan, I don’t appreciate your tone.” Evie’s hazel eyes narrowed.
Barnett held up his hand. “No. I respect Agent Ryan’s passion on the topic, but I will also take my counsel’s advice on that last question. I think what you’re really trying to get at is whether I have any information about their deaths, and unfortunately, I don’t. If I had anything, I would’ve come forward immediately.”
Marco took a moment to size up Barnett. Was this man telling the truth? “What about speculation? Any theories about what could’ve happened to them?”
Barnett clasped his hands on the table. “You know, I’ve thought a good deal about it, and maybe they crossed the wrong guy or organization. They were willing to take on extra work even though their superiors surely wouldn’t have allowed it. That tells me these men were risk takers, and that type of man usually engages in behaviors that might not always be on the up-and-up.”
“Like what?” Bailey asked.
Barnett let out a loud sigh. “This is pure speculation, but I heard that Rogers was quite a gambler. So maybe the three of them got wrapped up in something like that and then crossed the wrong guy when they couldn’t pay up. We paid them well, but given they only did side jobs for us, it wouldn’t have been enough to cover large debts.”
Marco glanced at Bailey. She frowned but didn’t say anything.
“Do you know where Rogers liked to gamble?” Marco asked.
Barnett shook his head. “I don’t. Like I said, I’m basing this off the rumor mill, not any specific knowledge I have. And . . .”
“Go on,” Bailey said.
“There is a chance that what happened to these men is tied to their work for us. I would hate that to be true, but I’m putting it out there because I know you’ll be asking about that.”
“That gets us to what their assignments were. We got push-back from Mr. Mink on that.”
“I know, and I got the proper clearances to be able to provide some information on that subject.” Barnett nodded to his attorney.
She opened her briefcase, pulled out a piece of paper, and slid it across the table.
Marco skimmed the page. “This is short on details.”
“We still have active ongoing operations all over the globe. I’m sure you can appreciate our need for discretion, but at the same time we wanted to provide you with what we could.”
“And I’m afraid that’s all the time we have for today.” Evie touched her client’s arm. “Mr. Barnett needs to get back to his schedule. We already pushed some meetings around to accommodate this.”
Marco wasn’t going to make a scene about asking more questions. They needed to dig into what Barnett had provided. “We’ll be in touch. There’s someone outside the door to escort you out.”
Once it was just Marco and Bailey alone in the room, he turned toward her.
“Before you ask,” she said, “I’m going to check back with Organized Crime again on the gambling angle.”
He nodded. “What do you think of this list?”
Bailey ran a finger down the page. “It gives us the type of work, which we already knew was personal security services. Then it provides dates and regions or countries. But it’s not very specific. For example, the March entry says France. It doesn’t go beyond that.”
“That doesn’t give us much to go on.”
“I know we probably think he was just blowing smoke, but what if we’re wrong and it actually does have something to do with one of these jobs?”
“Then we have even more work to do than we thought.”
CHAPTER
NINETEEN
Izzy took a cat nap on the quick flight down to Georgia. They were making their second run at P. J.’s commanding officer and anyone else they thought they could talk to and get information from. By the time they got on base, Izzy was filled with energy and ready to go.
“This is going to be a lot different than our first meeting. I’ll just tell you that right now,” Jay said.
Izzy was glad they were
back. She felt there was still more they could uncover. “We didn’t get very deep with Colonel Hayden last time.”
“Well, that’s going to change.” There was determination in Jay’s eyes.
Izzy wasn’t so sure that the colonel would be excited to see them again. “I guess we’ll see how he takes a second visit.”
Once they got through the base bureaucracy, they were met once again by First Lieutenant Shi, who got them settled into a conference room.
“How long do you think the colonel will make us wait?” Izzy asked Jay.
“Not sure. It may depend on how much of a pain in his side he thinks we are. On one hand, I think he’d welcome our presence and our desire to solve the murder of his own man, but sometimes that can all go sideways, especially if the truth is inconvenient.”
“You can’t really think that the colonel had anything to do with this?” She had to keep holding on to the belief that there were good guys out there. There were far too many evil aspects to this investigation.
“Probably not, but at this point, I’m not taking anything off the table. People could be pawns in a deadly game and not even realize it.” Jay’s eyes softened. “Looked like you were able to nap on the flight.”
“Yes. No nightmares.” Izzy stared out the window. She’d thought long and hard about whether she wanted to tell Jay what was behind her strange behavior. She’d taken his advice and started seeing a counselor. Her counselor had suggested that it would be helpful to open up to him as a trusted friend. “Jay, there’s something else.”
He turned to face her. “What is it?”
“I think I’m ready to talk about what has been bothering me.” Her breath caught.
Jay looked right in her eyes. “Izzy, it’s completely up to you how much you want or need to share.”
“I know. The counselor thought it might be good to talk to you. Since you’re one of the only people I trust.” In the short time they’d known each other, she’d come to rely on Jay. “In fact, I just spoke about this for the first time ever with her, and that’s when she urged me to tell you. I think she knows that we’ve become close and that I feel safe with you.”