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He walked off, leaving Merlin and I alone.
“So,” I said, grinning over at him. “You and Dane Acker?”
“You and Pony?” he shot back. “It’s about fucking time.”
“Whatever.” I wasn’t sure I was ready to talk about what was going on with me and Max. Mostly because I still wasn’t sure what was going on. And that was fine, I was in no rush to put a name on anything. We had the rest of our lives for that shit.
“Did Frank say anything interesting before I showed up?” Merlin asked, both of us turning to wander the room and watch the grunts work.
“Nope,” I admitted. “They still haven’t found anything.”
“Can I ask you something?”
I looked over at him, surprised he’d even bother to preface it, but I nodded.
“Do you really believe Pony’s theory that Richard Blake is involved in this?”
I huffed out a breath as I dropped my gaze to the ground. I wasn’t sure what I believed. In all my years with Phoenix Squad, I’d never disagreed with Zane or Raptor. But then again, they’d never been at odds with each other on a theory.
I could absolutely see that Raptor could be biased against Blake. A hot, smart, techy billionaire who had a history with Scout…that could be a little jealousy inducing. And if Scout had given up on ever having Raptor, well, I couldn’t blame him either. Their personal lives were a mess and it would make sense that that could spill over into the investigation.
But Pony didn’t have that bias. He was coming fresh into the situation, and he went directly to the same theory that it was odd how much Blake’s name and company were coming up.
And honestly…I couldn’t help thinking it was odd either. But damnit, I just couldn’t figure out what Richard Blake would have to gain from any of it.
“I don’t know,” I finally admitted, looking up to meet Merlin’s gaze again. “I mean, it is weird, right?”
“It’s totally suspicious,” he agreed. “Then again, we’ve been fed incorrect information from the beginning. Someone planted all that financial shit for us to find, forcing us to look in the wrong place. This could be more of that.”
“I guess,” I said. But now it was nagging at me, too. Too many coincidences for it to not mean anything.
“Let me ask you this,” Merlin said seriously. “Why would Richard Blake want to frame you? Specifically you?”
“I don’t know, maybe he pulled my name out of a hat.” I shook my head. “Dude, none of this makes sense. On any level.”
“Agreed,” he said. “But let’s run this through. Blake plants information on the West Wing server for Scout to find, showing untraceable deposits to terrorist groups around the world. Blake gets the Secret Service and the Vice President to plot to kill Spencer Thomas. Blake steals five fuel trucks to blow up bridges in California, New York and D.C., using at least one person that could be traced back to him. Blake shuts down GPS satellites and takes out cell towers around the country. Blake pulls Pentagon files of black sites, covert operatives and decides to frame you. And he does all of this because…what? He wants Scout? Even if he knew about Phoenix before, even if he knows Scout is butt crazy in love with Raptor, how does doing any of this get him what he wants? And if it is true, why wouldn’t he frame Raptor? Get him out of the picture?”
Well, when he put it like that it sounded really fucking stupid.
“Wouldn’t it make more sense for someone else, someone with an actual agenda, to frame the company that controls the government computer systems?” Merlin reached out and rested a hand on my shoulder. “Dude, I’m actually on your side here. He’s the only suspect that makes sense at the moment.”
“Except he doesn’t make sense as a suspect,” I continued for him. “Which, fuck, if we were in a court room…that’s exactly how he’d want it to look.”
“Yeah,” Merlin agreed. “Fuck man…how would we prove any of this?”
“This is why Zane doesn’t want us going down this path,” I reminded him. “Because if we’re looking at Richard Blake and we’re wrong, then the real mastermind is getting away with it while we race in the wrong direction.”
“So, what are we going to do?” Merlin asked.
“Wedon’t go down this path,” I answered, turning around and walking toward the nearest agent. “Do me a favor,” I said softly to the young brunette who was seated at the terminal. “Check the visitor logs against the days the breaches occurred.”
“What am I looking for?” she asked, looking up at me with her brows furrowed.
I blew out a sigh and looked over to see Merlin smirking at me.
“I want to know if any BIH employees were on site during the breaches.”
“We’ve been told Blake Holdings was cleared,” she insisted.
