Finally found the right senator, one from Jason’s home state who had served himself, to step in.”
“Then that picture, that was at some sort of official hearing?”
“Very official. On Capitol Hill. Her testimony was the tipping point. She was like a force of nature. Every service guy I know was glued to it. They all knew she was fighting for the truth. For one of their own.” Rafe let out a compressed breath. “She showed more nerve and courage under fire than all of those suits and most of those top-of-the-heap guys sitting there with ribbons on their chests.”
“I remember hearing about this.” He’d just transferred to detectives, had still been learning his relatively new turf, so he hadn’t had much attention to spare. He knew only that it had been ugly, loud and figuratively bloody. “Didn’t a senator and even some presidential staff go down?”
“Yes.” Rafe wore an expression of grim satisfaction.
“What was the story?”
“The official version was that Burke’s squad had crossed a boundary they’d been ordered not to. That they knew if they crossed it, they’d be on their own.”
“But?”
Rafe’s expression turned sour. “There was no written record of such an order or boundary. Or anyone actually in action who had ever heard it. All the rank and file and even most of command denied any knowledge.”
“What finally happened?”
“In the end they were forced to release satellite imagery of the ambush and the surrounding territory. It showed not only that they weren’t even past that real or imagined boundary but that there was help within easy reach. A team that could easily have taken out the small force of attackers, and a chopper for air support. Once that came out, it all fell apart. Guys spoke up about how they had been ordered to stand down. And shut up about it.”
“Why was his squad there in the first place?”
“They were going to pull out one of their informants. The guy had given them info that had helped them round up several high-level targets. And twice he’d warned them of ambushes just like the one they drove into that day. But he’d been compromised and was about to be executed.”
Brett leaned back against the sofa cushions. “So they had good reason.”
“Not according to the powers that be. They were ordered not to go, thanks to that someone way higher up on the civilian power pole. Something about offending the local terrorists.”
Brett blinked. “Offend the terrorists? So they were supposed to just let the guy who helped them die?”
“Exactly.”
“But—”
“They went anyway.” Rafe grimaced as he shifted position. Brett wondered if it was what he was remembering or that his leg was bothering him. “That’s what the Skype call had been about. Jason wanted the truth in someone’s hands before they headed out. Sloan said her husband couldn’t have lived with himself if he’d just left the man to die. So instead they all died, because some hack who never had a uniform on in his life was covering his ass.”
Brett sat silently for a long moment. He wasn’t sure how this made him feel, that Sloan’s dead husband had clearly been a good man, a true hero, a man he would probably have liked and admired. It would have been easier, he thought, if the guy had been a jerk.
Just what would have been easier, he didn’t let himself think about.
“What was the final result?” he asked.
“She hammered at them for nearly two years. With all their stalling, it took that long for all the pieces to come together. In the end she brought down an area commander, that senator and his brother-in-law, who they’d been funneling rebuilding contracts to—that was what the informant had found out and was going to tell—and a couple of the staff who helped in the cover-up.”
“And they let her husband and his men all die for that? Some crony contracts?” He couldn’t help the outrage echoing in his voice, and approval flashed in Rafe’s eyes.
“Yes. Now Sloan helps others in like situations through an organization she started. Even the governor has come around.” Rafe snorted. “After she won, he pretended he was backing her all along.”
“Good for her,” he said softly.
“She was amazing.”
She still is.
Brett barely managed to keep from saying it aloud.
“You want to leave him here, take a break?” Rafe asked when he at last got up to go, and Cutter popped to his feet.
Brett considered the dog, who was looking at him steadily. With a bemused look, he said, “I suppose I’ll let him decide. Why change now?”
Rafe smiled. “A man who learns fast.”
“He’s pretty hard to ignore.”
“You’ll let me know if there’s anything we can do? I’m not much help with bureaucrats and paperwork, but Ty isn’t on vacation, and he’s a whiz at working through computer forests.”
“I will, if my guy can’t—” He broke off as his cell phone rang. Pulled it out and glanced at the incoming number. “Speak of the devil,” he muttered, and answered. “Rick? I’m with somebody interested in this, so I’m going to put you on speaker if that’s okay.”
“Sure.”
Brett switched the audio over. “Go,” he said.
“I found it,” Alvarado said without preamble. “The application was in a file in my boss’s office. Unprocessed.”
“After nearly four months?”
“Yeah. That’s so wrong. We’re not that backlogged. No idea why it’s in here. He doesn’t usually get involved until things are processed and need his signature.”
“Did you ask him?”
“He’s out this morning at some big confab in Seattle, so not yet. But it’s weird.”
“That he has it?”
“And that it’s nowhere else. Not even a computer record of it being entered in the system. It must have been misfiled or just caught up in the wrong stack of papers.”
“And what about this supposed land-use study?”
“It doesn’t exist, as far as I can tell. And there’s nothing about that area that would warrant such a study. Not saying it couldn’t be happening, but it’s not done yet, because a copy would have hit my desk at some point.”
“Can you find out?”
“Sure. But I’m thinking it all must have just been a goof.”
So. There it was. He was safely out of it. “It happens,”
