Indispensable Party (Sasha McCandless Legal Thriller No. 4) (19 page)

“Yes, sir. I’ll send them right
up,” he said and hung up the phone. He focused on Sasha and said, “Mr. White is
ready for you. I’m sure he’ll provide you with water.”

She smiled at him. “Great.
Thanks.”

He turned his attention back to
Connelly. “Take the elevator to the third floor. Someone will meet you.”

Connelly crossed the lobby toward
the elevator. Sasha looked around for a set of stairs but saw none. He jabbed
the call button, and they waited in silence. A car arrived and the steel doors
opened.

As Sasha followed him into the
elevator car, she wished she’d thought to ask if they would be under
surveillance at all times, but she assumed the answer was yes. They remained
silent for the short ride. Connelly reached over and squeezed her hand.

The elevator thudded to a stop at
the third floor, and the doors opened to reveal a young man. His ramrod
posture, buzz-cut hair, and serious expression screamed
I’m a G-Man
. He was
swarthy, with dark skin and eyes. He looked vaguely Middle Eastern.

He offered his hand to Sasha and
Connelly in turn. He had a firm, quick handshake. “Mrs. Smith, Mr. Smith. I’m
Mr. White’s Assistant, Joey. If you’ll just follow me this way.”

He turned and led them down the
corridor, past three blank doors. At the fourth, he stopped and swiped a card
through the wall-mounted reader. After the soft beep sounded, he pushed the
door inward and ushered them into a waiting room.

Three squat chairs lined one
wall. A water cooler bubbled in the corner, next to a dusty plant.

“Did you still need water?” Joey
asked Sasha.

She turned to him, surprised. How
could he know she wanted water? As far as she knew, the man at the front desk
hadn’t told him. She felt naked. Exposed.

“No, thank you,” she answered.

Joey shrugged and said, “In that
case, let’s go in. Everyone’s waiting.”

Sasha glanced at Connelly as if
to say
who’s everyone?
She was off-balance, which was an unfamiliar
emotion. She was accustomed to walking into conference rooms with a plan—a
deposition outline or a negotiating position. Walking into a room filled with
unknown parties and unknown agendas in a secret building was unsettling.

Connelly seemed to be in his
element, though. Much more so than he’d been navigating the corporate politics
of the boardroom the previous night.

They trailed Joey to another
identical blank door, which opened into a large conference room. An elongated
oval table of light wood filled most of the space. Black, cloth-covered desk
chairs were crammed around the table, their arms touching. Over a dozen of the
chairs were occupied. She scanned the assembled suits. The faces that looked
back at her had a variety of hues, but they were all male.

Joey stepped forward, about to introduce
them, but he didn’t get the chance. An older, white-haired African-American man
walked around the table and clapped Connelly on the back.

“Leo, good to see you again. What’s
it been—four years?” he said. His expression was somber but his voice registered
genuine pleasure.

Connelly smiled and shook the
proffered hand. “Hank, I didn’t know you were involved in this effort.”

He turned to introduce Sasha. “Sasha,
Hank Richardson was the Special Agent-in-Charge of the FBI’s office in
Minnesota. I worked on an anti-terrorism matter with him that the Marshal
Service ran out of the Minneapolis Field Office. Hank, Sasha McCandless is
Serumceutical’s outside counsel for this matter.”

Hank’s handshake was warm and
firm, but unlike some men, he didn’t seem intent on crushing the bones in her
hand.

“Pleased to meet you, Agent
Richardson.”

“Oh, please, call me Hank. Okay
if I call you Sasha?”

“Of course.”

“And, Leo, you left just before I
came over, so you may not have heard—I’m not with the Bureau any longer. I’m
the Senior National Security Liaison at the Division of Homeland Security
Investigations. So, basically, all I do these days is run these ad hoc
inter-agency efforts.”

“I hadn’t heard, but you’re a
good man for the job, Hank,” Connelly responded.

Sasha was impressed that neither
Connelly’s tone nor his expression betrayed the fact that Senior National
Security Liaison was the plum assignment he’d been up for just before he was
unceremoniously axed for the help he’d given her the previous year.

Richardson smiled his thanks;
then he put a hand lightly on the small of Sasha’s back and guided her over to
a brass coat rack near the window.

“Well, take off your coats and I’ll
introduce you to the rest of this motley crew. Leo, you may see some more
familiar faces. We’ve assembled quite the cast of characters.”

Presumably, Richardson was ‘Mr.
White.’ Inarguably, he was in charge of the meeting. The others stood, as Sasha
and Connelly shrugged out of their coats. Connelly took Sasha’s and hung it for
her.

Richard ushered them to the two
closest unoccupied seats. Sasha dropped her pale blue leather bag on the chair
and dug out a stack of business cards. She handed one to Richardson, who
slipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out one of his.

“You’re out of Pittsburgh, eh?
Wasn’t that where you had your last posting, Leo?” Richardson said, squinting
at the card.

Sasha felt her cheeks redden, but
she couldn’t tell from Richardson’s voice if he knew that she and Connelly were
involved or if he really was remarking on an apparent coincidence.

“That’s right, Hank. Sasha broke
my nose then stole my heart,” Connelly said.

Richardson nodded approvingly,
and Sasha heard a few titters behind her.

Connelly winked at her, and she knew
she probably should be dismayed that this roomful of men now primarily viewed
her, not as Serumceutical’s trusted attorney, but Leo Connelly’s travel-sized
girlfriend. But, he was looking at her with such affection, that she couldn’t
help smiling. Besides, being underestimated usually worked in her favor.

Richardson stepped closer and
said, “Broke his nose? I’m going have to buy you a drink and hear that story
someday, Sasha. But now, we should get started.”

He sped through the introductions
in a cloud of names and alphabet soup agency designations. Sasha smiled and
nodded, exchanging business cards as she went down the line. She would keep the
cards in order and draw a seating chart on her legal pad, numbering the seats
and writing in each person’s name where he sat. Then, she’d use the seat numbers
to identify who was speaking when she took notes of the meeting.

It was a trick she’d been using
since she defended her first deposition in a multi-party case with more than a
dozen attorneys seated around the table. It hadn’t failed her yet.

While Connelly chatted with an
ATF agent he knew from some training program, Sasha walked to the credenza at
the far end of the room, where a pitcher of ice water and a line of plastic
cups shared space with a carafe of coffee and a tower of Styrofoam cups. Although
she’d just turned down an offer of water, she waffled for a moment then reached
for the water pitcher and poured herself a cup. She rarely passed on coffee,
but then, she rarely felt as jittery as she had ever since she’d walked through
the nondescript doors into the building.

She caught Connelly’s eye and
motioned toward the drinks. He shook his head no and finished his conversation
with the guy from ATFA. As she walked back to her seat, she could feel the
government attorneys—who sat together in a cross-agency cluster of legal
degrees—watching her, assessing her.

She drained her water and tossed
the cup into the wastebasket by the coat rack. She reached the table at the
same time as Connelly. Because the chairs were crammed so closely together, he
stood back and let her slide into her seat first. Even so, her hip brushed his
thigh as she swiveled past him and into the chair.

She felt an electric charge,
followed by a wave of embarrassment. It seemed there was no end to the pitfalls
involved in representing one’s boyfriend’s company. She grabbed her legal pad
and focused on creating her seating chart and scrawling in the names from the
stack of cards she’d collected.

Richardson, who had returned to
his spot at the end of the table, leaned back in his chair and said, “Okay,
folks, now that everyone’s been introduced, let’s get started. We have a lot of
ground to cover, and I don’t need to tell you people the clock is running. For
our guests’ benefit, I want to make it clear that, while I grew up in the Bureau,
when I accepted the transfer to HSI, I did so out of a genuine desire to
coordinate investigations such as this one among the agencies. These ad hoc
task forces leave no room for pissing matches because they address critical
issues—and this one is a doozy.”

The room was silent, save for the
hiss of the old steam radiator under the window. Richardson looked at Connelly
and added, “Many of you know Leo from his time with Homeland Security. I just
want to remind this group that his clearances did not survive his separation,
and Ms. McCandless has no clearances. They’re here because Leo’s employer
apparently has some information that may prove useful. It’s a one-way street,
though. I’m sure Leo understands.”

The subtext was unmistakable:
you
used to be one of us, but you aren’t anymore.

“Of course. I know you’re busy,
so thanks for taking the time to meet with us. Serumceutical asked me to reach
out to the General Accounting Office because of an issue we uncovered with
regard to our fulfillment of the killer flu vaccine stockpile. When I called a
friend at GAO, he suggested this group would be interested in hearing what I
have to say. I’m here with the approval of Serumceutical’s Board of Directors,”
Leo said, slipping into his role as an officer of a private corporation with no
outward reaction to Richardson’s pronouncement.

“
Before you get started,
do you mind telling us why you have counsel with you? Are you looking for
immunity or cooperation credit?” The question came from within the sea of navy
blue suit-wearing men.

Sasha checked her chart. Devin
Bardman, attorney with the CIA’s Office of General Counsel. He was asking if
the company was coming in to self-report a crime in the hopes it would qualify
for leniency.

Connelly said, “I think I’ll let
Ms. McCandless field that one.”

Sasha swept her eyes across the
knot of attorneys across the table before settling on Bardman. “Serumceutical
does not believe it’s broken any law or federal regulation, so, from our
perspective, leniency’s not at issue. I’m here because the company does have
civil claims against a third party arising out of the vaccine contract and
there is an issue of performance under the contract. So, that said, when we
meet with the GAO to work out the contract issue, we would certainly hope that
our meeting with you would be taken into consideration as a show of good faith
and an attempt to mitigate any damages. But again, no laws were broken. At
least, not by my client.”

A few small nods greeted her
answer.

“Fair enough,” Bardman said. “So,
what’s the issue? Breach of contract?”

Connelly leaned forward, ready to
answer, but Sasha put her hand on his forearm to stop him.

“Yes. We have reason to believe
that the first shipment of vaccines to Fort Meade was missing approximately
eight hundred doses,” Sasha said.

The expectant faces around the
table fell, deflated. Apparently they were expecting something juicier.

“You think you shorted the
shipment?  That’s it?” Bardman asked.

“We believe an employee planted
by a competitor—ViraGene—stole the vaccines as part of a corporate espionage
strategy. We’ve confirmed that more than seventeen hundred doses were taken
from pallets prepared by that employee and awaiting shipment to Fort Meade; we
suspect she also took doses from the pallets that already shipped,” Sasha said.

Bardman snorted. “You called this
meeting over a rounding error?”

Richardson interjected, “Your
theory is ViraGene wants to force the government’s hand to stockpile the AviEx antiviral,
is that it?”

“Yes,” Sasha said, ignoring the
CIA attorney and turning to address Richardson. “Well, it was our theory, and
it still makes sense except that the employee who stole the vaccines is in the
wind and…” She trailed off and looked at Connelly, unsure of how much she
should say about the preppers.

“The employee appears to be a
member of a Pennsylvania-based prepper cell. And, in addition to being missing,
we have a report that she is very sick, possibly with a flu-like illness,”
Connelly said.

That information recharged the
group.

“That’s serious. How good is your
source?” Vince Drummond, the ATF agent, asked.

It was Connelly’s turn to look at
Sasha. Gavin was her contact, not his. If someone was going to vouch for him,
it should be Sasha.

“He’s former law enforcement, and
he’s trustworthy,” Sasha said.

“But going to remain anonymous, I
take it?” Drummond said.

“For now,” she answered.

She could tell they were bursting
with unasked questions, desperate to pepper her and Connelly with specific
inquiries, but they were waiting for a cue from Richardson. They almost
certainly assumed she and Connelly were in the dark as to the theft of the
virus and would be hesitant to ask any questions that might hint at the
possibility of a coming pandemic.

The Project Shield agent who’d
tipped off Connelly had broken several laws by sharing that information, so
they couldn’t let on that they knew.

As a result, the government
agents just stared at them, and Sasha and Connelly stared back. Everyone was
unwilling to show their cards.

Finally Richardson spoke. “Leo,
although I’m sure the bean counters at GAO will be hopping mad that you all
screwed them out of some bottles of vaccine, I can state with authority that we
can make that a no-harm, no-foul situation. But, we’re gonna need your help
identifying these preppers and locating them. Now, I hate to do this, but I
have to run your name up the flagpole and see how much I can tell you.”