Meadows opened his mouth, no doubt to do more grouching and grandstanding, but Hannah was wilting beside Sam. She sank lower in her chair the longer the video call lasted. And her expression had changed from tired to downrighthaggard. He stopped Meadows by lifting his hand, palm-out.
“Sir”—he worked hard to keep his growing exasperation from coming across in his tone, but he wasn’t sure he succeeded—“I understand I overstepped some bounds on this one and that I dragged my coworkers with me, your daughter included. And I understand in order to keep your daughter’s job here with us a secret from the various alphabet agencies who’ll no doubt be investigating this matter, you’re gonna have a bit of a mess to clean up. But the simple truth is, if we’d waited to pass along the information we had, if we’d hesitated even a couple more hours to act, Texas would be going dark as we speak.”
His own jaw hardened as he added, “The mole the Chinese put inside the plant was going to upload the malware today.This morning.” He pulled out the thumb drive they’d taken off the custodian and brandished it in front of the laptop’s camera. “Ozzie has confirmed this carries the malicious code.”
He took a deep breath and the smells of home, ground metal and bitter coffee, tunneled up his nose. He usually took comfort in them. But right then, they only reminded him how tired he was, and how much he wanted toendthis conversation.
“Now,” he finished, “instead of having a national emergency on your hands, you have a suspect whom you can interrogate to your heart’s content.” He made a face. “Not that I think the sorry S.O.B will be able to give you much. From what I got outta him, he was nothing but a patsy. Still, it doesn’t hurt to try.”
“Unfortunately”—Meadows shuffled papers on his desk—“if Mr. Romano knew more than he was able to tell you, we’ll never hear it. The man is dead.”
“Dead?” Sam blinked uncomprehendingly. “No.” He shook his head, horror filling his chest at the thought of his misplaced bullet ending the man’s life. As a precision shooter, he prided himself in knowing that each and every one of his kills had been intentional and that he’d never taken down anyone he hadn’t meant to. “That can’t be right. We stopped his bleeding. He wasunconsciouswhen we dropped him at the ER, but he was still very muchalive.”
Meadows glanced up and his mouth tightened into a thin line. “He’s not now. I called the local FBI office down in Austin as soon as Eliza let me know what happened, right before you all jumped on the plane back to Chicago. I asked them to guard Mr. Romano until he regained consciousness and then—” he made a rolling motion with his hand “—interrogate him accordingly. Vincent died before they could get there.”
“Vincent?” Fisher chimed in. “I thought his name was Vick.”
More shuffling of papers. More frowning from the chief of staff. Finally, he said, “Apparently, he was using an alias. His fingerprints revealed he was actually Vincent Romano, arrested a few years ago on some sort of credit card scheme. Paid a fine. Did some community service hours.”
Something about Vick’s…uh…Vincent’sdeath didn’t sit right with Sam. And not just because he’d been the one to pull the trigger.
“What did he die of?” he asked. “Blood loss?”
Meadows shook his head. “Not according to the attending physician. She’s guessing it was a heart attack or stroke. But we’ll know more after the autopsy results come back.”
“Shit.” Sam ran a hand over his beard…uh…his stubble. It was odd to reach up and find himself void of facial hair. Setting aside his feelings regarding the part he potentially played in Romano’s death, he focused on the more important matter at hand. “So we’ve hit a dead end when it comes to finding out if he knew anything more about Bishop.”
“Bishop?” Meadows barked, his face contorting into a scowl so fierce it gave him jowls like a bulldog.
“Oh.” Eliza nodded, still gripping her locket. “Right. In all the hubbub I forgot to tell you about that part. Vick…uh…Vincentmentioned his Chinese contact, Yang, was working with an American counterpart. A man Vincent said was named Bishop. We have it all on video. I’ll send it over to you now.” She hit a few keys on her laptop, ostensibly emailing to her father the video Fish had taken of the custodian’s confession.
“B-but Bishop is dead,” Meadows sputtered. “He couldn’t handle the thought of being labeled a traitor and offed himself before he could stand trial.”
“Exactly,” Fisher nodded. “Which means Yang had to have been feedin’ Vincent a line of dog doo. Because the alternative is that the man we fingered in the Grace Jackson plot wasn’t the real mastermind but simply a pawn. Which would mean therealBishop, therealthreat to this country, is still out there somewhere pullin’ strings.”
“Christ.” Meadows ran a hand through his thick thatch of salt-and-pepper hair. “This entire situation keeps getting worse.”
“You’ll need to inform the FBI about Vincent’s mention of Bishop,” Eliza said. “Send them the video we took. They’re going to need to look into it.”
Besides the death grip on her locket, Eliza was doing a bang-up job of keeping her composure in the face of her father’s displeasure. Sam was proud of her.
“I’ll add it to the list of chores I have to do to cover your tracks down in Texas,” Meadows gritted through clenched teeth. “There’s the security footage at the plant and the hospital that needs to be wiped. Is there anything else I should know about? Anyotherlittle tidbit you’ve left out, dear daughter of mine?”
The venom in the man’s voice made Sam wince. But Eliza only shook her head. “That’s it. You know all of it from top to bottom.”
“Except for there still remains the question of Hannah’s innocence,” Sam interjected. “Or rather, it’s not a question anymore. It’s a fact. You have Vincent’s video confession to prove it.”
When Meadows took a sip from his coffee, it prompted Sam to do the same. But the brew was bitter on his tongue and burned in his belly. Mostly because, from the corner of his eye, he saw Hannah wilt further.
Peanut, ever sensitive to the needs of any woman in his vicinity, hopped into her lap and started making biscuits on her thighs. His purr sounded particularly soft and content, as if he was trying to counteract the harshness of Meadows’s tone.
Half the time I wanna kill that cat,Sam thought as Hannah buried her face in the feline’s scruff.The other half I wanna kiss his furry face.
“I’ll make sure the FBI gets the video of Romano admitting to framing Miss Blue, along with my assurances that the information there should be considered vetted and factual,” Meadows promised gruffly.
This had Hannah straightening in her chair. But she kept scratching the base of Peanut’s tail, making the cat up his biscuit production. The nervous hope in her voice nearly broke Sam’s heart. “Does that mean I can go home?”
Meadows nodded, and if Sam hadn’t been sitting right beside her, he’d have missed the little hiccupping sound of happiness Hannah made. He tried not to take it personally that she couldn’t wait to get hell and gone away from Black Knights Inc.
