Bean wasglad he and his team were staying in Beirut until Garnet left. She said it would only take her a few days to fix the issues and get the site up and running. While she worked on the computer situation, he and his team would be looking into the staff at the embassy.
Someone wanted to attack the US. It wasn’t unusual in his line of work to run into someone who wanted to attack the USA. That was why his job existed. If everyone stopped wanting to kill people in the USA, his job would be irrelevant.
Bean stayed close to Garnet while she worked, searching for issues to fix. He knew computers, knew basic coding, but the stuff Garnet was doing was beyond his understanding.
The rest of his team began interviewing people who worked at the embassy. They had narrowed down the pool of people who could have had anything to do with the computer and networking problems.
One of the women hadn’t shown up at work for the last few days. That was concerning. Then there was another guy who had left on a planned vacation. Both of them seemed suspicious.
Around three that afternoon, Chase thought they had enough information to head over to the woman’s flat and check on her since she wasn’t answering the phone.
Before leaving with his team, Bean made sure two Marines were around to keep an eye on Garnet to make sure she wouldn’t be harmed. They both knew Garnet had been taken by terrorists and that someone might try to get to her again. He made the Marines promise they wouldn’t leave her alone.
All the way over to the employee’s flat, he worried about Garnet, but he had to push that away when they arrived. They probably looked odd to the neighbors. The seven of them stood out, but they had to check out this lead.
The woman didn’t answer the door when they knocked. Stanley moved around to the back of the building, and Bean followed. “Do you think she’s even here?”
Stanley’s eyebrows rose, and he angled his head toward the building. “I’m going to use the emergency ladder to find out. Looks like her shades are raised a few inches.”
“I’ll stay down here and watch for you.”
“Thanks.”
This wasn’t a war zone, and both of them didn’t need to be on the escape ladder at the same time. If the police came looking into why they were climbing the fire escape, it would be awkward. They had a good excuse, but the local police might not see it that way.
Stanley made fast work of the climb and was on the metal grate outside her windows in seconds. He bent, cupping his hands around his face to shield his eyes. He jerked back and then glanced over the railing, calling down to Bean.
“Tell Chase to call it in. She’s dead. From the looks of it, it was a violent murder.”
“Shit.” Bean texted Chase, telling him to call it in. The local authorities would have jurisdiction over the crime scene, but the embassy would be given the courtesy information once it was available. This could just be a random murder, but he didn’t think so.
This whole thing just got a lot more convoluted. One embassy employee was dead, the other on vacation. That didn’t bode well for any of them. He hoped Garnet wouldn’t be implicated in this woman’s death. She’d been in the country, and terrorists abducting her wouldn’t make her look innocent. He just hoped whoever investigated this murder would look elsewhere to lay the guilt.
Chapter 10
Garnet feltlike she wouldn’t ever be not tired. The intricate work of fixing the problems demanded an excessive amount of concentration. The one technical employee who hadn’t gone on vacation or stopped showing up for work was young and inexperienced.
The guy was an intern who was using this job to learn and had no idea how to even search for the issues Garnet had found. She had spent time teaching him what to do for a few hours, but thankfully, that person had to go help the staff fix the copy machine.
She’d been a young intern years ago, so she wasn’t mad at the guy. She just wished a more experienced tech person had stuck around to help. She figured she had another six hours of work to complete when Brady showed up at the embassy after going to look for the woman who hadn’t shown up.
He found her on the fourth floor, sitting on the carpet behind a desk. “You look like you’ve been busy.”
She snorted a laugh. “Very. So did you find the woman? Is she coming in to help?”
Brady’s gaze slid to the side, and his expression went serious. “About that. Here,” he pulled a chair out for her. “Take a seat.”
Stopping what she was doing would only delay her. But maybe she should take a break. Brady was a great guy, and she liked spending time with him. It sucked that the time they’d spent together had been because of weird circumstances.
She sat in the chair facing him, and he leaned in, taking her hand. “Listen, I don’t know how to put this, but she was murdered.”
“Oh shit.”
“Yes. It was bad. The police will probably have questions for you.”
“Oh, I don’t know that I really knew her. I showed up, and she was leaving, saying she didn’t feel good.”
“Yeah. We heard that she got sick. They are having their medical examiner look for poisons or toxins in her bloodstream.”
