Page 147 of The Session

Nothing had been laid out in an easy way for someone else to understand. It was just a lot of different information—ninety-nine percent of which didn’t make any sense to Mark.

“What’s in it?” Tru asked.

“I’m still trying to figure it out. Conversations with people who I assume are code names. McC, I think that’s probably McCready. There are some images of documents, records, things like that—things that were sent to him. I went to the earliest part of the conversation, and it seems like it picked up from another conversation. McCready had reached out to Kevin and was trying to tell him about Future Strategies.”

“Is there anything about Morris in there?” Lightman asked.

“I saw some mentions of somebody called M. I assume that’s him. I did see a mention of the Canadians. One of McCready’s last messages to Kevin was to watch out for them.”

“The Canadians. Who are they, specifically?” Tru asked.

“I’m not sure,” Lightman said.

“You’re not sure, or you’re not saying?” Marnie countered.

“A silly code name for Russian military contractors. Former Wagner Group mercenaries, veterans of the Ukraine war. A while ago, Safid mentioned to me that if we ever needed something done that Andromeda or Constellation couldn’t handle, he had a group that could.”

“Mercenaries?” Marnie asked.

“Blaise made them sound like hit men,” Mark said.

“How did Blaise know about them?” Tru asked.

“When I talked to him, it sounded like he had his nose in everything. And if he was working with Nichols, he could have learned. He seemed to think that they were an internal team for Summit,” Mark told them.

“Definitely not,” Lightman insisted.

“How would you know? So many things have gone on behind your back here,” Mark shot back.

“That’s Nathan’s doing,” Lightman said.

“And who empowered him?” Mark asked.

Mark could see Lightman glaring for a moment. He wasn’t used to anyone talking back to him, let alone his bastard son.

“Mark, you have to understand,” Lightman said.

“I hope to. But after we’ve dealt with Morris, you need to take a look around you.”

Mark thought about the contents of the phone. There was a lot on it. Some of it might implicate his father directly, but it could also exonerate him. One thing was for sure: For Morris to have Kevin killed, there could have been much more on it—something vital and/or incriminating.

“What if we made a deal with the authorities that are after you and gave them the phone?” Tru asked.

“Do we know everything that’s on there?” Lightman asked, echoing Mark’s thoughts.

“He might have wanted me to decide,” Mark replied.

“So Kevin’s the one who sent you the grant,” Tru said.

Mark nodded. “Somehow he knew about me.”

“He knew,” Lightman agreed.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I didn’t tell him. He found out and asked me about you.”

“What did you say?”