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Wassen rolled his tired eyes. As chief of staff he wore many hats and one of them was to protect his boss from herself. She was a great campaigner, because like Stonewall Jackson she did not possess the ability to retreat. It was always attack and never give the enemy quarter. This, and a few other reasons, was why Wassen often fed her information one bite at a time. That way he at least stood a chance of nudging her in the most thoughtful direction. “There’s something else I haven’t told you.”

“You did sleep with him, didn’t you?” Lonsdale’s brown eyes were practically bugging out of her head.

“Enough about my sex life, all right? I did not sleep with him and I will never sleep with him, and if you bring it up again, I’m going to throw your stapler at you.”

“Fine,” she said, as if Wassen were the one who was being unreasonable.

“Have you bothered to stop and ask yourself why Rapp would do something like this?”

“You mean hit another man? I don’t need to. He’s a homicidal maniac.”

“I’ve warned you, I don’t know how many times.” A look of real intensity gripped Wassen. “If you are going to take Rapp and Kennedy on, you need to stop underestimating them.”

“Would you like to argue the last point?”

“No…Rapp definitely has some homicidal tendencies, but I don’t think he’s a maniac.”

“Well…let’s just agree to disagree for the moment. What’s this other thing you have?”

“You haven’t bothered to ask why Leland was trying to arrest Rapp.”

“Fine…why was Leland trying to arrest Rapp?”

Wassen clapped his hands together and got ready to deliver the bombshell. “Remember the two high-value targets we saw while we were over there…Abu Haggani and Mohammad al-Haq?”

“Yes.” Lonsdale stabbed out what was left of her cigarette. “And I remember leaving specific orders that they were to be treated in exact accordance with the Geneva Conventions.”

“Yes, you did, but apparently Mr. Rapp didn’t get that memo, because sometime in the early hours of this past Saturday morning, Rapp and several other unidentified individuals arrived at the base disguised as officers from the Air Force Office of Special Investigations.”

“You’re sure about this?”

“According to Captain Leland. Rapp then went to the special interrogation facility that housed al-Haq and Haggani.” Wassen stopped for dramatic effect.

“And?” snapped an impatient Lonsdale.

“He beat at least one of the prisoners and allegedly threatened the other.”

“Beat?” asked an excited Lonsdale. “Define beat. Are we talking smacked, kicked, punched…be more specific.”

“Punched and choked. Apparently there was a lot of blood.”

“Please tell me this captain has it on tape.” Lonsdale reached for a cigarette and allowed herself a moment of anticipated glory over releasing a tape of Rapp beating a helpless prisoner.

“They can’t find the tape. Either Rapp disabled the security cameras or someone has destroyed the tapes.”

Lonsdale winced at the setback and took in a deep breath before speaking. “Who else saw what happened besides Leland?”

“The base commander and several MPs.”

Lonsdale quickly wrote down a few notes. “And the base commander hasn’t filed a report?”

“No, in fact, according to Leland, the base commander and Stephen Roemer, the special assistant to the secretary of defense told him to sit on his official report and wait until he gets the facts straight. They’ve promised him any posting he’d like.”

“Oh…this just keeps getting better.” Lonsdale set her pen down. “We’ve got the crime and the cover-up. Now the only question is how I keep this away from the Armed Services Committee and Intel.”

“That’s going to be tough.”

Lonsdale looked back at him. “I’ll make it a straight civil liberties issue.”

Source: www.allfreenovel.com
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