The Inner Sanctum by Stephen W. Frey

Author:Stephen W. Frey [Frey, Stephen W.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2020-03-24T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 21

One by one they filed silently into the dimly lighted meeting room. It was unusual for them to reconvene so soon, but circumstances had dictated the meeting.

Senator Webb hesitated for a moment, allowing the others time to take their designated seats. “If we’re all ready, I’d like to begin.” His gravelly voice brought the meeting to order over the strains of Bach.

The members nodded in agreement as they pulled their chairs to the table.

“The first topic tonight will be the security leak I mentioned at the last meeting,” Webb began. “As I told you then, someone had stolen a file from Neil Robinson’s river place before we got to it. We believe the file contains incriminating information concerning the Senate race between Malcolm Walker and our associate Elbridge Coleman.” He nodded in Coleman’s direction. “Tonight I’m happy to inform you that we’ve identified the individual who took the file,” he said triumphantly.

“Who was it?” Finnerty asked, arms crossed tightly across his chest, a worried expression on his face.

“A woman who works as a revenue agent in Baltimore. She reported to Mr. Robinson before his untimely demise.”

“How did you identify her?” Admiral Cowen wanted to know.

Theodore “Ted” Cowen was the Chief of Naval Operations—the United States’ most senior naval officer—and Webb suddenly wondered how the man had managed to achieve that position three years ago. Cowen was overweight, swarthy, and for such a senior official, constantly focused on unimportant details. But he had proved malleable on bigger issues, like the A-100, and able to influence the Secretary of the Navy and the Secretary of Defense at opportune times, so his minutia fixation could be overlooked.

“We recovered a glove we believed was worn by the individual when she took the file from Robinson’s house,” Webb explained. “We traced the glove to a store and then matched the list of people who had purchased those types of gloves from that store in the last six months to the names of the revenue agents. She was on both lists.”

“Excellent.” Cowen smiled. “It sounds as if we have a positive identification. No chance of mistaken identity.”

“No chance,” Webb assured him. Of course, there was always a chance of mistaken identity. All you could ever do was take the physical evidence you had gathered and make the best deduction possible. But if Cowen felt better hearing there was no chance of mistaken identity, so be it.

“Good.” Cowen rubbed his large belly. “I just wouldn’t want to have any innocent people involved.”

Cowen was so damn self-righteous. It was all right with him to kill someone as long as you were certain it was that person who had committed the offense. A crime so horrible as usurping a simple file. But hold the train if it might be an innocent bystander. What a crock of shit that was, Webb thought to himself. It must be the military training, he guessed. Perfectly acceptable to eradicate anything interfering with a mission. Unacceptable to use force otherwise.

“I don’t want this to be a loose end any longer than is absolutely necessary,” Art Mohler said.

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