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“No, Devine. There are tests being run at various Army facilities across the country chambering the Norma and other ordnance with apolymercasing, but it has not been officially deployed. You know how that goes. Army needs to shoot a shit ton of it under every conceivable combat environment before it has any chance of getting approved for mass deployment.”
“Who’s the manufacturer?”
“Warwick Arsenal. A small firm out of Georgia.”
“So, the question becomes: How did a still-in-testing .300 Norma polymer round produced by a firm in Georgia end up at a crime scene in Maine?”
Campbell said, “We’ve spoken with the people at Warwick. They have checked and rechecked their inventory and found nothing amiss. But to me that’s meaningless because they’ve shipped hundreds of thousands of these rounds to Army facilities throughout the country, with hundreds of personnel taking part in the testing. There is no way that every single round can be accounted for. Proverbial needle in a haystack.”
“So someone could have pocketed the polymer casing and given it to someone and then it goes through various hands and ends up being used to kill Jenny Silkwell. Was it important she was shot with that particular bullet? Did she have any involvement with its development?”
“None. And I have no idea if the use of that particular bullet is significant or not. That’s your job to find out during your investigation. By the way, the local cops are also working the case. You’ll have to team with them.”
“And why would they team with me?”
Campbell took from his desk drawer what looked like a black leather wallet and slid it across. “Here’s why.”
Devine opened what turned out to be a cred pack, complete with shiny badge, and examined it. He looked up in surprise. “I’m a special investigator with Homeland Security? Seriously?”
“Your cover is rock-solid.”
“Only I’m not a trained investigator.”
Campbell gave Devine a drill sergeant death stare. “Don’t sell yourself short. You carried on investigations in the Middle East in addition to your combat duties. And you did a pretty damn good job of sleuthing back in New York on the Brad Cowl case. And you’ve done stellar work with the other assignments I’ve given you. Now, you are to find out who killed Jenny and why. And determine if any of our national security interests have been compromised. And find her laptop and phone.”
“Well, that sounds simple enough,” said Devine dryly.
“Rise to the challenge, soldier,” retorted Campbell.
“Why don’t the feds have a joint op platoon of agents on this? Central Intelligence goes scorched earth when one of its own goes down. And the FBI, too.”
“CIA has no jurisdiction on American soil. And if we deploy an army of FBI the press will start to pry and word will get out. Then our enemies could see us as weakened and themselves emboldened. Jenny Silkwell might very well have been killed because of something having absolutely nothing to do with her status with CIA. If so, we want to go in stealth and stay that way if the facts on the ground allow. So right now you, Devine,arethe ‘army.’”
“And if my ‘rock-solid’ cover gets blown?”
“We never heard of you.”
CHAPTER
3
ALIGHT DRIZZLE WAS FALLING ASDevine pulled through the open gates of Clare Robards’s mansion in Kalorama in northwest DC. It was one of the most expensive areas in the capital city, with the median price of a home well north of seven figures.Kalorama, Devine had learned, was Greek for “beautiful view.” And itwasbeautiful, if one had the hefty entrance fee.
Embassy Row was on nearby Massachusetts Avenue, and the Dutch and French ambassadors’ official residences were in the vicinity, along with thirty foreign embassies. Jeff Bezos also had a home nearby that he had laid out twenty-three million for, and then bought the place next door for another five mil. Billionaires apparently needed a lot of room, or else a healthy buffer from the merely rich, Devine thought.
At that level it’s just Monopoly money anyway.
The Robards’s mansion was substantial, made of stone and large rustic timbers with small windows and cone-topped metal turrets. The property had wide, sloping lawns, and mature trees and plantings. No money spared and no detail overlooked to create a display of subdued, old money wealth that judiciously managed not to overwhelm with inflated grandiosity.
He had phoned ahead, so the well-dressed professional-looking woman who answered the door led Devine directly down a long marble-floored hall to a set of imposing solid oak doors.
She knocked and a woman’s cultured voice from inside the room said authoritatively, “Come in.”
And so Devine stepped into, perhaps, the Lioness’s Den.
Clare Robards was perched regally on a settee in a room that was lined with shelves, which were, in turn, filled with leatherbound books. Against one wall a small bar was set up. Was it his imagination or did Robards’s gaze slide toward it?
The lady’s light green dress was exquisitely tailored to her thin, petite frame. She had allowed her shoulder-length hair to turn an elegant white.
