"You call that a prelim?" Sterling asked.
"You know Mia. She's thorough." She laughed. "How about we start with Granger Frost?"
"Whatever you say." Sterling leaned against the desk and braced for a lengthy dissertation.
"This is the easy one," Dove said. "Nothing really to report. He's exactly as he appears. He rebuilt here in the US with the help of our government and a few local backers after the corridor collapsed. One of them happens to be Harlan Koda, and Mia thought that was interesting enough to flag."
"It is." Sterling uncapped the marker and wrote Harlan's name on the board.
"Who's Koda?" Cullen asked.
"A rich asshole who sits on boards, invests money, and helps direct the political climate of our country." Sterling stared at the board. Koda was a prick, that was for damn sure. Last Sterling had heard, he’d sat on a couple of think tank advisory boards and continued to testify before Senate subcommittees. He was definitely an asset when it came to protecting free governments and democracy in the western hemisphere.
But that didn't make him a nice guy.
"Why don't you like him?" Dove asked.
"I won't deny he's done good things for our country and for others," Sterling said. "But he doesn't understand war, missions, or the dangers he often speaks about when he's discussing geopolitical risk. He's a theorist that got lucky, made a shit ton of money, and in the process, he hasn't filled the gap between the country’s poverty and prosperity. If anything, his ideology has only made it bigger."
"Why don't you tell us how you really feel," Cullen said.
"I wouldn't want to offend Scutelet." Sterling went back to his desk and leaned against it.
"Call my child that again, and you'll have a baby gator in your desk drawer." Dove flipped the page. "Nothing more on Granger."
"And you didn't know Granger or his company from that op?" Cullen asked.
"I didn't." Sterling drummed his fingers on the top of the desk. "But that brings up an interesting question. Did Granger ask for me? Because I only asked Doyle if his boss did—not if the client did. Nor did I ask if Granger knows anything about me or what's in my brain. That would change things."
"That's one degree of separation too far." Dove set down the pages. "Why wouldn't Granger hire Aegis directly if that were the case?"
"Too obvious if he knows about me." Sterling snagged the marker and went back to the whiteboard, adding a note to Granger's column about wanting Sterling's mind. He made an arrow to Doyle and then one to himself. But then he added a third arrow, going in an opposite direction from Granger to nowhere with a question mark. "However, if it turns out Granger is clean, that means someone might want what's in my mind and they could be using Granger's connection to the corridor, or Doyle. And that's so convoluted it almost makes sense."
"You're giving me a headache," Dove said.
"Me too," Cullen added.
Sterling filed all that away. "What else did Mia send over?"
"A bunch of shit on Meridian." Dove slid a fresh stack across the desk. "We need our own Mia."
"The new office out west is getting their own security person, and the Jacksonville office already has one," Sterling said. "We'll probably always share Mia. But she can handle it."
"She's the best," Cullen agreed.
"Now that we all agree. Give me what she found on Meridian because a Google search didn’t get me much."
"Small operation. Just one office in Charleston. Rutgers doesn't speak about it much publicly, or even privately. But Mia managed to locate a few people who said he likes to run a lean operation, and that's a quote."
"Where did she find that?" Sterling asked. "Never mind." However Mia discovered intel, Sterling didn't want to know. Better that way.
Dove laughed. "Mia listed out services. Risk mitigation, executive protection, threat work, etc." Dove ran a finger down the page. "Small client roster, but the ones they've got pay morethan we charge." She leaned forward. "Good fucking lord. We need to increase our price list."
"Focus," Sterling said.
"Here's a pretty comprehensive client list." Dove handed over a stack of papers.
Sterling scanned the words on the pages, committing them to memory. It wasn't hard. Not for him, and this was the blessing of his memory. At least today it was.
