Indispensable Party (Sasha McCandless Legal Thriller No. 4) (28 page)

“So, that was easy,” Colleen
said.

“You met with Connelly already?”
Sasha asked, checking her rear view mirror. The roads had become icy as the
temperature had dropped and she’d climbed into the mountains. The last thing
she needed was for someone to rear end her.

“Yeah, I spent more time cooling
my heels while the FBI played their usual games than I did talking to Leo.”

“How is he?”

“He seemed fine. To his credit,
he didn’t talk to anyone until I arrived, but, as it turns out, they didn’t
really want to talk to him anyway,” Colleen said in a voice that didn’t quite
manage to hide her irritation.

“What?”

“When they finally decided to
give me access to my client, Hank Richardson intercepted me on my way into the
holding room. He said the government attorneys had decided they didn’t have
enough to hold Leo, but that the task force was hoping he would do them a
favor,” Colleen explained.

“A favor? Wait—back up. They
found a vial of a killer virus locked inside an office that only Connelly can
access. That’s not probable cause?” Sasha asked, perplexed and relieved at the
same time.

“Of course it’s probable cause.
Given the current political atmosphere, they could have disappeared him to
Gitmo!” Colleen exploded.

“Oh. Okay.”

Colleen exhaled loudly. “I’m
sorry. I’m not frustrated with you. I’m mad at myself, and worried about Leo.”

“Hang on, I’m going to pull over
so I can focus on this conversation. Give me a second.”

Sasha wasn’t sure what was going
on, but she felt that she needed to concentrate on what Colleen was saying. She
flicked her right turn signal, indicating her intention, and crunched over the
gravel shoulder covered with crusty snow. She put the SUV in parkand turned on
her emergency flashers. “Go ahead.”

“I should have known the feds
weren’t serious about Leo as a suspect. You told me it was mostly Kabuki
theater at the scene this morning. They barely checked your bag, for Pete’s
sake.”

Sasha found herself nodding. She
should have realized it, too. At the time, it seemed odd, but she’d been so
relieved, she’d just accepted it as good fortune.

“Colleen, are you saying the
entire thing was staged?”

The other woman hesitated before
answering. “Not the entire thing. I think they really did get an anonymous tip
and responded as they would to any threat like that. But, once they realized
Leo was involved, then, yeah, I think they were just running through it like a
training exercise. I think they know he didn’t steal the virus
and
I
think they know who did.”

“Who?”

“Oh, I don’t know. But, once they
released Leo, they sent me on my way and spoke to him privately. Based on everything
I know about the agencies involved in this—in particular, the OGA—I’m sure they
told him they had a suspect and asked him to help them in an unofficial
capacity,” she explained.

“OGA? You mean GAO—General
Accounting Office?” Sasha asked.

“No, OGA. Other Governmental
Agency. It’s shorthand for the CIA. You know, they’re supposed to limit their
activities to foreign intelligence and counterintelligence activities. But,
somehow, they always seem to have a hand in everything. Anytime an FBI, DHS, or
ATF agent mutters under his breath about the OGA, you can be sure the CIA is
sniffing around. Because of the nature of the threat—the virus came here from
France, they’ve been involved in this since the outset. If the CIA had
information about the suspect, I absolutely can see them demanding to
participate in the take down. But, they couldn’t use one of their own agents to
do it.”

“And you think the CIA would ask
a private citizen like Connelly to take part in a covert action? That’s insane.”

“That would be insane,” Colleen
agreed. “But your friend isn’t just a private citizen. He’s a former special
agent with the Department of Homeland Security who’s already neck-deep in this
mess. It’s a no-brainer. For the CIA, I mean—not Leo. Leo should tell them to
pound salt.”

Sasha’s stomach dropped. She knew
to a certainty that if Connelly was asked to help, he would help. “Why would it
be such a bad decision? I mean, hypothetically, if they asked him to do
something, and he did it?”

Colleen’s laugh lacked any humor.
“Because they want to use him so they have their precious plausible
deniability. If something goes wrong, no one’s going to admit that Leo was
working under the supervision of our federal government. He’ll be on his own.”

Sasha didn’t know what to say. As
a lawyer, she had to agree with Colleen: Connelly shouldn’t get involved in any
covert actions to help a government agency that would hang him out to dry if it
needed to. As Connelly’s girlfriend, she knew it would be nearly impossible to
talk him out of it.

“So, what do we do now?” Sasha
asked.

“Now, you wait. And pray to
whatever god you pray to that nothing goes wrong.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Sasha decided to
turn around and drive back to D.C.

She knew she really shouldn’t—she
had far too much work to do. But she wanted to see Connelly and, if she could,
talk him out of whatever Hank was trying to talk him into. Besides, she told
herself, she should return his vehicle. The rationale rang weak even to her own
ears.

Before she reached an exit,
though, Connelly called.

“Hey,” she answered the ringing
phone.

“Hey, yourself. Thanks for
finding me a lawyer. She was great.”

“It was no problem. Colleen said she
didn’t really do anything—they decided they didn’t have enough to hold you.”

She was careful not to ask any
questions, but he must have heard the inquiry in her voice, because he said, “Yeah.
They want a favor in return, though.”

“Are they getting it?”

Connelly took his time answering.
Finally, he said, “I’m not sure. Right now, I’m not available to help them. I’m
packing.”

“Packing?”

“Tate called me about a half hour
ago to let me know Serumceutical no longer needs my services.”

“He fired you?”

“We mutually agreed that,
although the company appreciated my service, the optics of the situation could
detrimentally affect the stock price. So, I have a nice, fat separation
payment, and Grace has a nice, fat new job.” He mimicked Tate’s lawyerly,
dispassionate delivery.

“I’m so sorry,” she said.

“Don’t be. Grace is much better
suited to surviving in that viper pit than I am.”

“Still.”

There was silence on the other
end.

A mile marker flashed by on the
roadside. Her chance to turn around and return to D.C. was just ahead.

“Listen, I’m turning around. I’ll
be there in two hours, tops.”

Connelly chuckled. “Don’t do
that. I told you—I’m packing.”

She ignored the sting she felt
from his response and said, “Oh. Where are you going?”

“Pittsburgh. Someone very special
to me lives there.”

A smile made its way across Sasha’s
face. “Oh?”

“Yep. Will you pick me up at the
airport at four o’clock?”

“With bells on, Connelly.”

“Skip the bells—that’s just more
to take off.”

Anna knew
Russell was wrong. She told herself there was no reason to bother Jeffrey about
the accusation. But as she followed the path from the quarantined cabin back to
the recreation center—which Jeffrey had rechristened the command center—she
could feel an uneasy weight settling in her heart.

She’d been Jeffrey’s wife her
entire adult life. She’d given him six children. She should have known beyond
any doubt that he would never attack the country they both loved. And yet she
found herself walking slower and slower—putting off what should have been an
easy conversation.

You’re being ridiculous
,
she told herself and quickened her pace.

She pushed open the door and
hurried through the mess hall. Three women were wiping down the tables after
lunch. From the distant kitchen, she could hear laughter and banging metal, as
another group washed and dried dishes. She kept her head down and avoided eye
contact.

Now that she’d resolved to talk
to Jeffrey, she wanted to get it over with.

She rapped on his office door
then pushed it inward without waiting for an invitation.

George Rollins and Bud Newton
were leaning over Jeffrey’s shoulders staring down at some documents—possibly a
map—with their brows furrowed in twin ruts of concentration. Jeffrey casually
turned the papers upside down and smiled up at her.

“Do you need something?” His tone
was kind but it carried an undercurrent, a suggestion that he was busy with
important matters and she was interrupting him.

She plowed ahead. “Yes, I do.”

She looked first at George and
then at Bud with a steady, unblinking gaze.

Bud got the message faster.

“Uh,” he said, clearing his
throat, “George and I can come back in a bit.”

George nodded his agreement, and
both men saluted Jeffrey, then scurried past her into the hallway.

As George pulled the door closed
behind him, Jeffrey stood and walked around the desk. He took Anna in his arms
and hugged her close briefly. She had just snuggled into his chest when he
pulled back and held her at arm’s length, peering into her face.

“It’s good to see you. These past
two days, we’ve been so busy getting the troops organized, I feel as though I’ve
hardly spent any time with you.” He smiled down at her—not his broad, public
smile but a private, quiet smile she knew well.

She smiled back at him but then
steeled herself.

“It feels like we’ve been distant
even longer than that,” she said.

He frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Preppers PA has always been
ours
,
almost like one of the kids. A shared responsibility and joy,” she began.

His eyes softened. She’d been
watching him reel in skeptics, critics, and fence-sitters for years. Step one
was always to establish common ground.

“That’s still true.”

She shook her head. “No. You’re
keeping secrets from me.”

He began to deny it, but she
fixed him with a look that stopped him cold.

He looked briefly, then he raised
his head and met her gaze. “I have. I’m sorry.”

She reached for his hand. “But,
why?”

“I want to protect you,” he said.

Despite the teachings of their
church and their own conservative values, they’d always been true partners in
all of their endeavors, including rolling up their sleeves and breathing life
into the prepper organization. It was true that Jeffrey would, on occasion,
tell her about certain projects that were of questionable legality only after
the fact. But, this vaccine business was taking that to a new level—he’d been
actively avoiding telling her anything unless she pressed him.

So, press she would.

“Come on, Jeffrey. This is me you’re
talking to.”

“Anna, honestly, there are just
too many moving parts to preparing for the pandemic. Hundreds of people are
counting on us. I’ve had to bring George and some of the others in on the
planning. It’s no reflection on your abilities—or my love—I need you to focus
on the family. Our family and the other families. Tending the hearth fires is
noble and important work, too.”

She laughed bitterly at the blatant
flattery. Her eyes fell on the map sitting face down on his desk.

“Don’t lie to me, Jeffrey. If
nothing else, you owe me the truth.”

The anger that welled up in her
chest masked the fear that was also clawing its way to the surface: maybe
Russell was right.

He reversed course and nodded
somberly. “You’re right. I do. I owe you the truth and much, much more, Anna.
Forgive me. It’s just difficult to explain our next steps.”

Anna appraised her husband.
Despite his serious expression, she recognized the excitement building within
him—his eagerness to appease her and get on with his mission.

“Are you planning a terrorist
attack?” she asked.

Just like that. The words rang in
her ears, and a dizzy heat flooded her body, but she stared coolly at him until
he answered.

“I take issue with the phrase ‘terrorist
attack.’ That implies there’s a legitimate government that’s been targeted,” he
finally said.

It was true.

Anna forced herself to breathe. “Jeffrey,
you can’t attack the United States government—a legitimate, functioning
sovereign—just because we have some vaccines and have amassed a few hundred
followers. That’s madness.”

He shook his head, rejecting her
words.

“The government
has
broken
down, it just doesn’t know it yet,” he insisted. His eyes shone.

Anna shivered at the zealotry in
his voice but persisted. “Listen to yourself. You’re playing word games, not
addressing the issue. What do you have planned?”

“I didn’t mention this to you,
because I didn’t want to worry you, but I was able to get a small sample of the
Doomsday virus.”

He rocked back on his heels and
watched her face as she processed what he’d just said.

She blurted out a flurry of
questions. “You have the virus? Where is it? Did you bring it into our home?
What in God’s name do you plan to do with it?”

He raised a hand and made a
slow
down
motion.

“I know it’s a lot to take in.
The French network contacted me and told me an American had been sniffing
around certain parties, looking to hire someone for wet work.”

She looked at him blankly.

“Murder, Anna. The American had
found a source who could obtain the virus, but he wanted to kill him
afterward—to remove the risk he would talk. Claude put him in touch with …
someone capable of doing the task. And then Claude put me in touch with the
American after he had the virus.”