Cody Walker's Woman

When she was done, D’Arcy sat back, holding the FBI report from nine years ago in his hand, perusing it. He read it through twice before putting it back in the folder. “Suspicious circumstances?” he asked.

“Yes, sir,” Keira responded promptly. “The author of the report was killed as he walked home from the subway. It looked like a simple mugging, but there was one thing that stood out to investigators at the time. His wallet was taken, but he was wearing an expensive gold watch and a wedding ring, neither of which was touched. The case was never solved, even though the FBI supposedly threw the resources of their office behind the investigation.”

“Supposedly?” D’Arcy asked, unerringly focusing on the most crucial element of her statement.

Keira nodded. “I can’t find a record of anyone in the FBI’s New York office being assigned to the investigation, but...the SAC reported to his superiors that the investigation was ongoing.”

“In other words,” he said, voicing what they were all thinking, “the SAC—who is now the junior senator from New York—buried the report connecting the New World Militia to the Russian mob, arranged for the author of the report to be killed, and hindered the subsequent investigation into the murder.”

“Yes, sir,” Keira confirmed.

“Great. Just great.” D’Arcy swiveled his chair away from Cody and Keira, staring at the far wall. “No wonder,” he said softly to himself.

“Sir?” she asked.

“That was the last unanswered question I had from six years ago,” he said, turning a cold face to her. “Brooks betrayed Callahan’s partner, Josh Thurman, to the militia, but he never would say how he knew—that information was compartmentalized, and he shouldn’t have known anything about Thurman. Now it all makes sense.”

He added softly, “And here’s something you might know, but maybe not. Brooks was killed in prison less than a year after he and Walsh began serving their sentences. Shanked by a fellow inmate in the prison yard. And Walsh died—ostensibly from a heart attack—four months later.”

“So, someone got to them...on the inside,” Cody said. “Sounds more like the Russian mob than the militia.”

D’Arcy frowned. “Doesn’t matter either way. They’re both dead, so neither one can add anything to the official record.” He looked at Keira, then back at Cody. “So, what’s your plan now?”

Keira glanced at Cody, shaking her head slightly, and he knew she was telling him she wasn’t prepared with an answer. She’d uncovered the critical links, but...

“The Praetor Corporation is the key,” Cody said, an idea coming to him. “Pennington’s son—although he goes by the name Michael Vishenko, he’s still Pennington’s son—owns the company through a series of shell corporations. Keira already found the link between it and NOANC. But there’s got to be a paper trail between the Praetor Corporation and the Russian mob, as well as between the Russian mob and the New World Militia. We just have to find it.”

“Any ideas?” D’Arcy asked. “And how do those last words of Callahan’s neighbor tie in? What about that key he gave Callahan?”

“No ideas yet,” Cody told him. “We haven’t figured out what Tressler’s words mean, either, or what the key is for. But there’s something you should know. Callahan wants in on the investigation.”

D’Arcy picked up the FBI report again and looked from it to Cody. “We owe him,” he said grimly. “The FBI recruited him to go undercover with the militia in the first place. He sacrificed his career and risked his life to put Pennington behind bars. He trusted us—me—to protect him when he went into the witness security program. We failed him.” His voice was filled with savage self-recrimination. “I failed him.”

He paused to gain control of his emotions. “The militia—or the Russian mob—had men inside the FBI, inside the U.S. Marshals Service. Because of that, Pennington had Thurman, his wife and his baby son murdered trying to get to Callahan.”