“I’m assessing the situation.It’s what I do.”Marshall walked toward the porch.“Let’s get started.”
Inside, the kitchen table that had served as Daniels' and James’s command center for weeks was covered in its usual layer of documents, legal pads, and printouts.Daniels had added a second folding table to accommodate the growing volume of evidence.James was taping a composite map to the wall—Ben's hand-drawn sketch of the airfield overlaid with satellite imagery, expanded and annotated over multiple sessions.Begaye sat in the corner with her tote bag and a legal pad, already taking notes.
Ruth emerged from the back room when Kari came through the door.She didn’t speak.She crossed the kitchen and took Kari’s face in both hands and looked at her—a long, searching look that inventoried everything words couldn’t reach.Then she released her and went back to her loom.
Kari watched her go and felt that look settle behind her ribs, where it stayed for the rest of the evening.
Daniels ran the briefing.He’d organized the material into a sequence that built from established facts to new evidence to the gap they still needed to close, and he presented it with the methodical clarity of a man who’d given hundreds of briefings to people who needed convincing.
The established facts: Anna Chee’s research documenting seventeen suspicious deaths over two decades.The decoded notes revealing the lithium deposit.The Devco Holdings corporate structure and its network of shell companies.Ben’s testimony about the airfield, the mining equipment, the interrogation.
The new evidence: Nathan Whitmore’s laptop, containing geological data that independently confirmed the lithium deposit, photographs of active extraction preparations, and a contemporaneous written record documenting illegal survey activities and evidence tampering.The financial trail connecting Devco’s offshore accounts to Ben’s frame-up, to contractor payments going back eighteen years, and to a sixty-thousand-dollar payment shortly before Anna’s death.Begaye’s pattern analysis showing six FBI agents appearing across eleven collapsed investigations, all connected to Devco’s corporate network.
Marshall absorbed it in silence.She didn’t take notes.She didn’t ask questions until Daniels was finished.She sat with her hands folded on the table, her posture completely still, processing the way Kari had seen her process the Ashford case—taking everything in before giving anything back.
When Daniels finished, the room waited.Marshall looked at the map on the wall, then at the stacked documents, then at each person at the table.She was running an assessment—not just of the evidence but of the people presenting it.Their reliability, their motives, their judgment.Kari recognized the process because she did the same thing every time someone brought her a case that sounded too big to be true.
Then Marshall asked three questions.
“The financial records—are they admissible?”
“The Whitmore laptop was given to us voluntarily by his girlfriend.Chain of custody is documented.The bank records came through a Treasury contact—usable for intelligence, not admissible in court without a subpoena.But the DOJ can issue that subpoena once they have cause.”
“The FBI agents in Begaye’s analysis—any of them currently assigned to this region?”
“Rivera is in Phoenix.Garza is in Albuquerque.Both are active.”
“And the physical gap.You need evidence from the Devco site itself.”
“Core samples we control from collection to lab.Documentation of active mining operations.And if possible, evidence connecting Devco’s security contractors to the killings—personnel records, communication logs, anything that puts specific individuals at specific locations on specific dates.”
Marshall looked at the map on the wall—Ben’s hand-drawn layout of the airfield, the trailer, the surrounding terrain.She studied it for a long time without speaking.
“I’m Art Crime,” she said finally.“My jurisdiction is theft, forgery, and trafficking of cultural property.What you’re describing is a RICO case with elements of murder, fraud, corruption, and conspiracy.It’s not my division, it’s not my mandate, and if anyone at the Bureau finds out I’m involved, it’ll end my career.”
The room was quiet.Ruth’s loom had stopped.
“But,” Marshall continued, “I’ve spent twenty years in an institution that I believed to be working the way it was supposed to.What you’ve shown me tonight suggests that belief was naive, at least in this region and at least regarding Devco Holdings.Six agents running interference for a corporate conspiracy that has killed people—including a fellow investigator’s mother—is not something I can see and then unsee.”She looked at Daniels.“What do you need from me?”
“Federal authority.When we go onto that land, I need someone with a badge and a warrant.And when we bring the evidence to DOJ, I need a senior agent from an uncompromised division vouching for the package.”
“I can provide both.But the warrant will have to come from outside the Albuquerque office—I’ll go through Denver.And the operation itself needs to be quiet.If Garza or Rivera get wind of this, Devco will have the site cleaned before we’re across the fence.”
“Agreed.”
Marshall nodded once—the same brisk, economical nod Kari had seen her use to close briefings at the field office.A decision made, a commitment locked.No further discussion needed.
The planning started immediately.Ben walked Marshall through what he knew of the airfield—the trailer where he'd been held, the hangar nearby, the access road, and the fence line from his escape.It wasn't much, and he said so.James overlaid Ben's sketch with satellite imagery he'd pulled from a public database—the images were six months old, but they filled in what Ben couldn't: the full footprint of the facility, the perimeter roads, the new structures that hadn't been there when Ben escaped.
Between the two sources, a picture emerged.Incomplete, but workable.
Begaye, who had been quiet through most of the briefing, spoke up at the end.“I want to be clear about one thing.Everything that happens on that property needs to happen under the authority of a valid federal warrant.If any evidence is collected outside the scope of that warrant, it’s inadmissible and the entire operation becomes a liability.”
“The warrant will cover the property and all structures,” Marshall said.“I’ll draft it myself.”
“And if you encounter resistance?Armed security?”
“Then we have a problem.”Marshall looked around the table.“I can authorize myself and my agents.I can coordinate with tribal police and local law enforcement.But I can’t bring tactical resources from the Bureau without going through channels that are compromised.If this turns into a firefight, we’re on our own.”
