True Blue

CHAPTER 83

HELLO, Beth.”

Beth looked up to see Sam Donnelly and Jarvis Burns coming toward her. It was the next morning and they were in an auditorium at the FBI’s Washington Field Office where Beth was to give out some awards to local teenagers enrolled in the Bureau’s Junior Agent Program.

“Sam, Jarvis, I didn’t expect to see you two here.”

Burns’s eyes crinkled. “Why not? Some of these young people will be the intelligence operatives of the future.”

Donnelly added, “And one can never start too early looking for talent and molding personalities.”

“By the way, I spoke with your guys. I appreciate the effort you made.”

“Well, they’re not technically my guys,” Donnelly said quickly. “But I value your professional friendship highly. Indeed, Beth, if you hadn’t pursued a career in law enforcement you would’ve made a hell of an intelligence agent.”

“High praise coming from you. So Reiger and Hope don’t report to you?”

Donnelly and Burns exchanged a quick glance. Donnelly said, “Not even the same intelligence platform. Quite frankly, I made a few phone calls, did the Potomac two-step, and ended up with that pair. They seem quite capable. And their superiors obviously gave the okay to brief you.”

“Well, it wasn’t much of a briefing. National security tagline basically.”

“That, unfortunately, is often the case. You know how these things work. No one wants to read anybody else into anything. The old cold war adage still applies as much today: Don’t trust anyone.”

“Do Reiger and Hope have any military connections?”

Burns shot her a penetrating stare. “Not that we know of. Why do you ask?”

“Just an observation. They had DHS creds but told me they’d once worked at the Bureau. And I checked into their backgrounds and quickly found that my security clearances weren’t high enough to even have a peek into where they really came from.”

Donnelly said, “With DHS, the FBI, and sixteen intelligence agencies floating around, it’s nearly impossible keeping any of it straight. I know the goal when creating the Director of National Intelligence position was to orchestrate better oversight and coordination among all these unwieldy alliances, but-and you didn’t hear this from me-it is a herculean task. Some might say impossible.”

“I’m sure. I just have one city and four thousand cops to keep track of. You have the entire world.”

“Don’t sell yourself short. That one city is the nation’s capital. And one of your constituents just happens to be the president.”

“Who went for a pizza run yesterday, which cost me two hundred officers off the street for the motorcade deployment.”

“The world’s most powerful man can do what he wants when he wants.” Burns drew closer. “As an aside, I heard you made an arrest in the murder of that female lawyer in Georgetown. Congratulations. The director actually mentioned it at our morning briefing.”

Donnelly said, “That’s right, Beth. Good work.”

“Well, let’s hope the case sticks.”

“A homeless vet I understand?” said Burns.

“Louis Dockery. A homeless vet with a chest full of medals, including a pair of Purple Hearts and a Combat Bronze.”

Burns wagged his head, his silvery hair tipping onto his broad forehead. “So very sad. I can certainly relate to the Purple Heart, I have a pair of those myself.”

Donnelly said, “I have one of my own. But unfortunately the two ongoing wars are adding enormously to both the military and the VA’s burdens. There’s simply not enough funding to cover all the problems.”

Beth said, “Well, Washington better rework its priorities. I can’t think of a more important goal than taking care of the people who’ve defended this country with their blood.”

Burns patted his bad leg. “When I got out I sought psychiatric counseling, although there was a certain stigma attached to that. Hopefully it’s less so now.”

“Well, you turned out all right, so there’s hope.”

“Some would argue with that.”

“That there’s hope?”

Burns smiled. “No. That I turned out all right.”

Donnelly pointed to the teenagers set to receive their awards. “Now, go give them a great pep talk, Chief. In ten years they’ll be the first line of defense for this country.”

“Preventing attacks instead of responding to them, you mean?”

“Much better to crush the enemy before he can act instead of pulling the bodies of his victims out of the rubble. We save lives, Beth, you and I. We just do it a little differently in my part of the spectrum. But the goals are the same. Always remember that.”

The men walked off and a moment later Beth’s phone buzzed. She looked at the caller and her brow wrinkled. She almost didn’t answer.

“Mace, I’m right in the middle of something. Can this wait? What?” She listened intently for sixty seconds. “I’ll take care of it.” She clicked off, glanced at the FBI agent emceeing the program, and held up one finger. He nodded.

She rushed to a corner of the auditorium and made a call.

Lowell Cassell seemed surprised. “All right, Beth, if you say so. It’s easy enough to check for that. But if it’s true that certainly will complicate things.”

“Yes, it will.”

“How did you come by this theory?”

“Take one guess.”

“Your sister is keeping busy.”

Beth clicked off and rushed up to the stage to personally greet the teenagers and then settled at the lectern to begin her remarks.

From a far corner, Donnelly and Burns, who’d been watching her intently while she’d been on the calls, turned and left the room.