First Family (Sean King & Michelle Maxwell 4)

“Would that be because they supply a certain government entity? Like the military? Like sodium in MREs?”

“If you knew about the meals-ready-to-eat angle why are you wasting my time?” Waters said angrily.

“I suspected. I didn’t know for certain until you just told me now. And since you obviously knew already, it would’ve been nice if you had volunteered the info before now.”

“I’m running an investigation here, King, not a consulting service.”

“There are commercially available MREs. For like the survivalists. You sure it’s not that sort of sodium?”

“The sodium level in the military MREs are higher than the commercially available stuff. But so it was military, so what? That only narrows it down to millions of people.”

“Maybe, maybe not.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“If the perps are military, can’t you run the hair sample for a DNA match through the Pentagon’s enlistment records? They require DNA samples from everybody now.”

“I tried to, but their damn system crashed. Fighting two wars has apparently strapped their budget for computer maintenance. Won’t be back up for a couple weeks.”

“Great.” Sean clicked off and looked at Michelle.

“So where do MREs get us?” she said.

“Now we know the odds are very high that the perp was military. It’s at least good to confirm that. But we still have the little issue of tracking him d

own. It doesn’t sound like we’ll be getting a DNA match anytime soon.”

“He couldn’t still be in the military, could he?”

“And went on some R and R to conduct a little kidnapping? And got back to base with his face all scratched up and a bullet bruise on his chest?”

“So discharged?”

“Presumably. Either honorably or dishonorably. But that still doesn’t help us. Because there are literally millions of former members of the military.”

Michelle was staring at Sean’s chest.

He looked down. “Coffee spill?” he said.

“He was wearing body armor. Sure, you can leave the military with some government stuff, but body armor?”

“You can get that on the street.”

“Maybe, or you can just take it with you.”

“Pretty tough to hide that when you’re discharged.”

“What if you left without being discharged?”

“AWOL?”

“Cuts down on the millions we’d have to check. Know anybody who can look into that for us?” she asked.

Sean picked up his phone. “Yeah, I do. A two-star I met when I was in the Service. I might be able to shake him down with an offer of Redskins tickets.”

“You have Skins tickets?”

“No, but for a worthy cause I can get them.”