CHAPTER
32
THEY PRINTED OFF the files from the flash drive and spent the rest of the day going through them at the WFO. Bogart and Milligan had joined them.
“They have a lot of clients, big and small,” observed Milligan.
Bogart added, “And most of them have been with Dabney for decades, which doesn’t make it easy to separate the wheat from the chaff.”
“Maybe it’s one of the partners,” suggested Jamison, as she went over some pages. “A number of them have been with Dabney since nearly the beginning. He told his daughter you think you know someone but really don’t. That might apply more to a fellow partner you see every day rather than a client.”
Decker said nothing. He kept going over the files, imprinting all of the information onto his memory.
Bogart said, “If we interview each of these people and companies, it could take months, maybe a year. And by then whatever intel was stolen could be used to attack us.”
Decker still said nothing. He was hearing everything that was being said, but his focus was on the files. Bogart was right. They had to cut this list down somehow. The answer might not even lie in these pages. Dabney might have been referring to someone outside his business. And while Decker believed that the comment Dabney had made to his daughter was connected to all this, he couldn’t be absolutely certain of that either.
Milligan dropped a file, sat back, and said, “I hope we’re not whistling in the wind here.”
Decker glanced over at him, then abruptly rose and left the room. The others didn’t notice right away.
A few moments later Bogart said, “Wait a minute, where did he go?”
Jamison just looked toward the doorway and shook her head.
* * *
“You know I can’t really come running every time you call me.”
Harper Brown was staring at Decker across the front seat of her BMW.
“You tend to show up when you want to show up,” said Decker, who was in the passenger seat.
She ran her fingers over the steering wheel. “Your call was intriguing, I have to admit.”
Decker just stared at her, making no move to speak.
“You have quite the gift of patience, waiting for the other person to speak, and maybe slip up.”
Decker put his hands over his belly. “Do you want to slip up?”
“Why in the world would you say that?”
“You seem to have been skirting around the edges ever since you showed up in the middle of this investigation.”
“It’s dinner time. You hungry?”
“Look at me. I’m always hungry.”
“I know a burger place,” she said.
“You don’t strike me as a burger sort of person.”
“You don’t really know me yet.”
They drove to the place, parked, and walked in. It was a dive, and Decker could smell the lard coming from the kitchen before he passed the first table in the small dining area.
They found a semi-private spot near the hall to the bathrooms. When the waitress came, Brown said, “Number Twelves for the table. And two Especials. Just the bottles, save the dishwashers some work.”
The woman nodded and walked off. A moment later they could hear her calling out the order to the cooks in the back.
“Number Twelve?” said Decker.
“Trust me, you’ll love it.” She leaned back in her chair, stretched out her long, jean-clad legs, and looked at him. “Slip-ups?”
“You open the tap and then turn it off. You tease. You play bad, then good. You sort of agree to help, but pull back. You threaten to kick us off the case, but won’t or can’t make good on it.”
She shrugged. “Just trying to do my job.”
“Bogart checked on you with a buddy of his at DIA.”
“Good for him.”
“He didn’t know you. Never heard of you.”
“Where is this ‘buddy’ assigned at DIA? We operate in over one hundred and forty locations overseas in addition to a big footprint here.”
“DISC in Reston.”
“Defense Intelligence Support Center. He’s probably a civvie and a paper pusher. I’m neither. And are you somehow implying that I don’t work at DIA?”
They began to eat. She poured ketchup onto a small plate in the middle of the table and said, “Hypothetically speaking, let’s say you’re right. How would you attack the problem?”
“Dig on both ends. We met today and discussed going at it from the two angles like I said. Maybe we get lucky and end up meeting in the middle.”
She took a bite of her burger, while Decker chewed on an onion ring.
She said, “Dabney’s end has a lot of potential suspects. Guy’s had a long career in the industry.”
“It was suggested that it might be somewhat like Strangers on a Train. The third party who has a beef against Berkshire gets Dabney to kill their enemy in exchange for their not revealing what he’s done. Dabney may have no connection to Berkshire at all.”