The twins nodded. “He’s right,” they said in unison.
Atticus couldn’t stop the surprised look on his face. He wasn’t sure his brothers had ever agreed with him before. Ever.
“Yeah, I think Atticus is right,” Calliope said. “It appears Ms. Agnes was terminated with cause before she started working for Helping Hands.”
“Helping Hearts,” the twins said.
It was eerie when they did that. Some days they were more in sync than others.
“Follow the money,” Thomas reminded them. “Calliope, can you tell us who owns the clinic?”
“Hold please,” Calliope quipped. After several seconds, she said, “It’s a shell corporation. If you want me to figure out who owns it, that’s going to take a lot more digging than I can do on the phone with you.”
Thomas grunted in disappointment.
Something occurred to Atticus. “Who’s listed as the Medical Director?”
“Um…” Calliope started typing. “Dr. Joseph Reed, MD, Board Certified Psychiatrist.”
“What’s his story?” Jericho asked.
“Graduated from the University of Florida, did his residency at Johns Hopkins, a fellowship at George Washington University, and then went into clinical research.”
Atticus sat up a little straighter. “What kind of research?”
“According to his LinkedIn profile, he worked for Braddock Pharmaceuticals researching drugs to help people with memory loss,” Calliope said, then perked up. “Ooh, this is interesting. He was sanctioned by the board of medicine three times and then had his license suspended.”
“Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean much. There are a lot of shitty doctors out there,” Atticus said.
“Well, how about this? The next job listed is for the US Military, top secret clearance. Why would the military hire a disgraced doctor?”
“Did he work anywhere after that?”
“If he did, it’s not on his resume.”
Jericho gave Atticus a look. “Nothing?”
“Yeah, it says he quit working for the military in 2002 and then nothing.”
“It doesn’t list his position at Helping Hearts?” Thomas asked.
Calliope sighed. “No, that I got from their generic-looking website page.”
“So, we’ve got nothing,” Jericho said, disappointment obvious.
“We have everything,” Asa said, tone implying they were all stupid for not putting the pieces together. “Don’t you see? That dude’s resume screams psyops.”
Psychological Operations. Military warfare. He was right. A psychiatrist with a history of shady pharmaceutical research could be just what the military needed for persuading assets to spill their secrets.
“Psychological warfare?” Jericho asked. “How?”
Asa took a swig from the energy drink sitting in front of him. “Why else would a psychiatrist be working for a drug company? Drug companies hire eggheads like Atticus. PhDs, not MDs. MDs don’t usually come in until the local level. The clinical trials.”
Atticus was begrudgingly impressed with his brother. It wasn’t as if he thought Asa was stupid. He was a gifted architect and had designed numerous buildings that dotted their skyline. But he liked people to think of him as an idiot partier. Maybe that was just a deliberate move on his part.
“Why else would the military want to hire a psychiatrist for a position that required top level security clearance?” Avi asked.
“Calliope, can you do a blanket search for any kind of darknet site or message boards that mention Reed and the military or Reed and the drug company?”
