Protecting Dallas

“By then I was deep,” said Dietz. “Too deep to get out. At least not immediately. Not without attracting attention.”

“What kind of attention?” asked Kane.

“The kind that got my commander killed.”

The murdered man was Wesp. His death was officially ruled

an accident. Dietz almost brought the whole dirty thing to the man above him, but then that man showed up in the circle of bad people as well.

“They were trading secrets,” said Dietz. “Failed bio-weapon projects. High level intelligence from the old New Orleans lab that people had forgotten about. Only not these guys. There was an old timer from the lab — a guy by the name of Cameron — who turned everyone on to what they had. He thought it could be useful. But I don’t think this guy realized what they’d be doing with it.

“You’re talking about him in the past tense,” said Maddox.

“Yeah,” Dietz nodded grimly. “Good catch on that.”

He went on, talking in detail about how things progressed. The story only got worse from there.

“With Cameron out of the picture, no one knew what they were doing. They had free reign over the old database. Two guys started picking it apart, while a third went and started looking for buyers. They cut a deal with someone over the border. Started drip-feeding the database to some very bad characters, in exchange for—”

“Drugs,” Kane finished.

Dietz nodded in confirmation. “They’ve got one big dealer from Vegas who buys everything in bulk. He picks it up from out in the desert, and his network deals it to the tourists.” His lip curled into a snarl. “If I told you how much money they’re raking in, it would make you—”

“I don’t care about that,” Kane growled. “I care only about the guys harvesting and selling bio-weapon secrets.”

“The guys who had Connor killed,” Austin added.

Dietz nodded his acknowledgment. He motioned for another beer, and Maddox brought him one.

“So how are you involved?” asked Maddox. “Why were you even down there last night?”

“Because I have full security clearance,” Dietz said, “for the lab and otherwise. This makes me invaluable to them.”

Kane sneered at him. “And when the fuck were you gonna stop trading military secrets for drugs?”

“He already stopped,” Austin cut in. He held up a small, grey thumb-drive. “According to Connor.”

Everyone turned Austin’s way. Dietz tipped his bottle toward him gratefully.

“The chip from Dallas’s necklace contains a complete report of everything that went on,” said Austin. “The whole undercover operation, including Wesp’s files up to and including his death.”

The room went silent for a moment. Details were coming fast, and there were some questions I wasn’t sure I wanted the answers to. I stepped forward anyway and let out a shuddering breath.

“So where does my brother come in?”

Dietz took one look at me and his expression completely changed. He looked genuinely sad.

“I brought Connor in,” he lamented. “He’d already figured out some stuff for himself, and was getting in way over his head. The others were noticing. They were talking about… about…”

“We know what they were talking about,” I said calmly. “Go on.”

Dietz nodded appreciatively. “I got to him before they could,” he said. “That’s when I told him everything. I gave him everything, all of it, and told him to take it to someone far enough up the chain that it would actually matter.”

Maddox nodded. “He tried that. Only it didn’t work.”

“Woodward,” Dietz confirmed. “Yes.”

“So then what happened?”