Max Collins - Executive Order

“For now... okay. So, Evans... or I should say Wooten... was, what? A mercenary?”

Nodding, Miggie said, “In that he got paid to do some bad shit, yes... but he was never open to the highest bidder. Never was a part of Air America or anything so mundane. He was, it seems, a contractor, but only for very specific employers.”

“Then we are talking CIA...?”

“Mostly... but also the occasional freelance job for employers within the government.”

“What kind of employers?”

“Highly placed ones. Generating the kind of classified activities that don’t get talked about even in congressional hearings.”

She processed that for a while. Then: “And this CIA asset, this governmental handyman, is who befriended Glenn Willard, to gain access to Secretary of the Interior Yellich... to assassinate her?”

“Sure seems that way.”

She stared past him at Washington, DC, out his window. “You’re saying... we’re saying... that someone within the United States government dispatched Wooten to kill Yellich. That simple.”

“That simple,” Miggie said. “That terrible.”

Her eyes went to his. “You’ve shared this with no one else.”

“Of course not.”

She nodded toward the monitor on his desk. “Is there a government computer that has any record of your searches?”

He made a face. “You don’t have to be insulting.”

She twitched the tiniest smile and rose. “We need to tell Hardesy.”

Miggie looked up at her in surprise. “He’s in Reeder’s inner circle on this?”

“He is. And with you, that makes four of us.”

She fetched Lucas from the bullpen, where he and the others were trailing in, and led him into Miggie’s office to hear what the computer expert had learned.

When Miggie finished, Hardesy — in the chair Rogers had vacated — was shaking his shaved head, making the overhead light reflect. “Un-fucking-believable,” he said.

Standing next to him, arms folded, looking down at him like a teacher checking a student’s paper, Rogers said, “You don’t buy it?”

Hardesy’s smirk was humorless. “No, I don’t want to buy it.” His sigh was deep and sounded like somebody had opened a distant boiler door. “So, there’s a rogue element in the government? This shadow group that Reeder posits?”

Rogers said, “Looks that way.”

“And they assassinated a member of the goddamn cabinet?”

“Yeah.”

He turned up both hands. “To what end?”

“It would be nice to know,” Rogers said.

“And nice to know,” Miggie added, “who in this rogue group put the Yellich murder in motion. Have to be somebody pretty high up.”

“Maybe as high up,” Rogers said, “as someone capable of getting CIA agents sent to Azbekistan.”

The color had drained from Hardesy’s face and wasn’t coming back very fast. “Do we think this case is tied to Reeder’s presidential mission?”

Her shrug was barely perceptible. “You tell me — or do you still think it’s a coincidence, dead CIA agents here and abroad, a mercenary taken out with extreme prejudice, and an assassinated cabinet secretary?”

“You had me at dead CIA agents,” Hardesy said dryly. “Okay, let’s say I’m convinced. Where do we go from here?”

She let a grave look travel from Hardesy to Miggie and back again. “I go to AD Fisk with what we know,” she said, “ and with what we suspect... and ask her to assign our task force to this case.”

Miggie asked, “Do we empty the entire bag on her desk?”

“We hold nothing back,” Rogers said, nodding.

Hardesy frowned. “Should we run all this past Reeder first?”

She shook her head. “We’ll fill him in at the next opportunity. But Wooten’s identity only confirms what Joe’s already thinking — he knew coming into this investigation that there must be some kind of government involvement, when the President’s own directive was ignored. Those four CIA agents didn’t just suddenly decide to check out Azbekistan as a vacation spot on the eve of a Russian invasion. No, Reeder’s already got a mission from the President, and he’s staying off the grid as he carries it out. Meanwhile, we need to get the Bureau to stand behind us on our side of it.”

Rogers made a quick call to AD Fisk’s office and learned that the Assistant Director was in a meeting, but should be free momentarily.

Soon, seated in Fisk’s reception area, she checked the burner phone to see if a text had come through from Reeder — it hadn’t — then got out her other phone, which had a text from Kevin about seeing her tonight. The AD’s inner-office door opened and a tall man with dark hair came out. Pleasant enough looking, he had a Cost Cutters haircut and generic gray Men’s Wearhouse suit that screamed government drone. He gave her the nod that was a stranger’s hello and strode out.

Two more minutes passed before the AD’s male secretary interrupted her perusal of the FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin on her cell phone, to say, “Ms. Fisk will see you now.”

Rising, Rogers took in a breath, let it out. She strode into the inner office to find Margery Fisk staring past her, her expression cold. Not welcoming.

But as Rogers neared the aircraft carrier of a desk, AD Fisk met her eyes and said, as if uttering an expletive, “Accountants.”

Obviously Fisk was referring to her previous visitor.

Taking the waiting chair opposite her seated boss, Rogers shrugged, smiled just a little, and said, “Accountants.”

“GAO’s threatening another audit,” Fisk said, her voice matter-of-fact, her eyes hooded.

The Government Accountability Office audited, evaluated, and ran investigations for Congress. Another GAO audit would be the first step in the process of stripping the Bureau of much-needed dollars. Theoretically, the GAO could recommend more funds, but Rogers knew that with the economy in a downturn, such a thought bordered on fantasy.

Sensing an opening, Rogers said, “Would it help if we successfully took on the biggest case the Bureau ever had?”

Fisk’s smile had a bitter edge. “I believe, Agent Rogers, that John Dillinger is no longer at large.”

Rogers kept her tone businesslike. “Suppose, just hypothetically mind you, that there was a rogue element in the US government. A shadow government within the government, manipulating certain events.”

To Rogers’ relief, the AD neither laughed out loud nor threw a paperweight at her. But the woman did say, “So, you’re a conspiracy theorist now.”

Rogers had expected a reaction like this, and had decided not to point out to her superior that just a few years ago evidence had finally surfaced clearing Lee Harvey Oswald.

“It doesn’t seem to be just a theory, ma’am. I’m confident I can prove it.”

Fisk straightened in her high-backed chair. She studied Rogers, as if perhaps the need for a major crime for the Special Situations Task Force had turned the younger agent desperate.

Then Fisk said, “Make your case.”

Rogers laid out everything that she, Altuve, and Hardesy knew, as well as what Reeder had contributed... without compromising his presidential mission, merely reminding the AD that four CIA agents had been killed in Azbekistan despite their presence in that country contradicting a presidential directive.

When Rogers was done, Fisk said nothing for several endless moments.

Just when Rogers thought she had blown it, her boss said, “About half of the dots you’re connecting aren’t there.”

Deflating a little, Rogers said, “But what about the other half, ma’am?”

Fisk mulled that, but only for a moment. “You may not have a convincing argument where your ‘shadow government’ theory is concerned... at least not yet... but your case for Secretary Yellich having been assassinated is sound. And obviously that is a very serious matter, a threat to the government itself. We’ll start there.”