Motive ; One Last Day ; Going Viral

by Dustin Stevens

  “Yeah, let’s go with that,” he finally said, a point of finality clear.

  “Sounds good,” Ridge replied. The thoughts of thanking the man for stopping by, of a dozen follow-up questions, all filed through his mind in short order, each dismissed just as fast as they arrived.

  Instead, he leaned back in his chair and folded his hands across his belt, waiting for McVey to continue.

  “Now, Sebastian gave me a quick overview of what you’re looking at here,” McVey said, “and let me be right up front and say, I don’t know a damn thing about any of that. I have no idea what happened to that boy, and I’ve got no pull with tracking down or recreating redacted files.”

  Again, Ridge forced himself not to display an outward reaction, not to tip off the fact that internally he was already feeling a bit of disappointment, his stomach dropping slightly.

  “What I do have is some institutional knowledge that might be able to help you out along your way,” McVey said.

  “Okay,” Ridge replied.

  “And when we’re done and I leave here, this conversation never took place.”

  “Okay,” Ridge repeated.

  “And if you ever see me again – in a restaurant, at a ballgame, walking along the street – you don’t know me.”

  The gambit seemed a bit much, the sort of thing that only drove home many of the stereotypes that existed about counterintelligence, though Ridge again made no sign of his thoughts.

  In a week’s time, he would be back in Wyoming, living on the family ranch, unlikely to ever attend a ballgame or walk down many public streets again. The sole restaurant in his town he had a hard time ever picturing McVey in, for a variety of reasons.

  “Understood,” Ridge replied.

  Waiting a moment to make sure each of the previous points was made, McVey nodded once, lowering the top of his shaved pate in confirmation.

  “Okay, then,” he said. “So here’s how it goes. As I’m sure you are aware, in the Army, the law enforcement division is broken into a series of different departments.

  “You’ve got your basic Military Police – the MPs – which handle everyday things. Bar fights, domestic disturbances, basically everything short of a felony.

  “These guys are housed in every base in the world, each with their own division, their own chain of command. Their jurisdiction is largely contained within the base and the surrounding area, though they can go outside of it after a soldier stationed there, or if they are called in from another base.”

  Most of the information Ridge was already familiar with, the data sounding similar to what he had encountered decades before in Vietnam. Some of the jurisdictional stuff he wasn’t quite as familiar with, though he let any further questions slide by, content that McVey would tell him anything extra he needed to know.

  “When the offense gets a little larger, rising to the level of a felony,” McVey said, “that’s when you start talking about CID, the Criminal Investigation Command.”

  Stopping for a moment, he waved a large hand before him, a flurry of long fingers passing by.

  “I know the letters don’t fit, but this is the army. Don’t try to understand it.”

  Unable to stop himself, Ridge felt his mouth curl up into a small smile, a smirk rocking back his head a half inch.

  “The CID uses special agents that come in to look at things,” McVey said, rattling off the information as if he was there just to impart knowledge and leave before anybody even noticed he had been in the building.

  “They can be employed by the military or civilians, and they can look into anybody – soldier or outsider – so long as the crime pertains in some way to dealings with the army. You follow me?”

  Surprised at being drawn back into the discussion, it took a moment for Ridge to respond, his mind registering one was needed just a split second before nodding.

  “I do.”

  “Good,” McVey said. “And then the third wing, the place they turn when things really get hairy, is my department - counterintelligence.

  “The elite of the army, we look at offenses like treason, sedition, espionage, things with some high-level ramifications.”

  Envisioning the structure in his mind, Ridge pictured it like something akin to a pyramid, MPs at the bottom, men like McVey at the top.

  “So I’m guessing the higher in the pecking order you go, the lighter the case load?”

  “Lighter in terms of numbers only,” McVey corrected. “I once worked a case for four years that probably saved a couple million people.

  “That was only one case, but...”

  This time he raised both hands, splaying his fingers out and spreading them wide, letting the gesture make his point for him.

  “Understood,” Ridge said. “And, thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” McVey said, no irritation or pride present on his face or in his voice, the response a simple reply to the thanks given.

  Waiting to see if there was anything more to be shared, Ridge paused a moment, until it was clear McVey was done speaking. Raising his elbows up onto the arms of his chair, he tapped the pads of his thumbs together, computing the last couple of hours, trying to make things fit together.

  “When I spoke to Sea Bass,” he said, reasoning through things out loud, “he mentioned CID being stated in the file.”

  “Right,” McVey said, “and he wouldn’t have asked me to stop by unless he thought counterintelligence had also been called in by CID to lend a hand.”

  Nodding, Ridge fixed his gaze on the desk before him, drawing his mouth into a tight line, continuing to parse through what he knew.

  “So whatever it was that Josh Tarby was involved in, or at least whatever got him killed, must have been some pretty weighty matters.”

  A few feet away, McVey shrugged his eyebrows, the top of his head listing slightly to the side.

  “Like I told you before, that I don’t know.”

  Seizing on the insinuation, Ridge flicked his gaze to McVey, staring intently, waiting for the man to finish the thought.

  “But what I do know is, it would take something pretty heavy to get someone dishonorably discharged after they died on duty, and a hell of a lot of pull to make it all completely disappear from their file.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Despite the bravado he had displayed in front of Ames, Leopold Donner could feel the tension of the situation they were now faced with. Jackson Ridge was a man on borrowed time with egg on his face, a combination that could easily push someone into the realm of doing something desperate.

  In his experience, little good ever came from someone that found themselves in such a situation, the old adage a drowning man will always pull someone down with them being something Donner had learned at an early age, had always fully believed in.

  Most of the time, the predicaments people found themselves in didn’t really amount to much worth fretting over, their own heightened sense of self-worth and a societal inability to handle stress both contributing to making inconsequential matters seem much more severe.

  This case was different, though, something Donner had known from the moment it first showed up on the newscast, the very reason he had called Ames out of the blue and asked to meet.

  Sitting on the outer ring of the grounds of the Iwo Jima monument, Donner had waited until the general rose and walked away, following his stiff-legged gait as he limped across the open expanse, eventually disappearing from view.

  Once he was gone, Donner waited another full ten minutes, ignoring the cold as it nipped at his features, fighting the urge to so much as draw his phone out and glance at the screen, before rising and cutting a path in the opposite direction. Climbing into the front cab of his mid-sized SUV, he slid a compact laptop from beneath the driver’s seat and powered it to life, his every movement hidden behind glass tinted to within a degree of the legal limit.

  Outside, the sun sat just above the horizon, the calendar only a few days past the winter solstice, the sho
rtest days of the year still upon them.

  Around him, the last few stragglers of the day hurried for final photo opportunities, many pushing out plumes of white with each breath, their cheeks rosy as they walked in exaggerated strides.

  Ignoring them, turning his focus down to the device on his thighs, Donner started by opening a basic web page, going to the Senator’s website and scrolling quickly through the available tabs. Having already brushed up on Ridge, his background, and his policy measures earlier that day, he instead clicked through until he found a listing for staff.

  Operating under the fastest available web provider in the D.C. area, the laptop returned the site he was looking for in just a matter of seconds, the front page – replete with smiling photo of Ridge – disappearing from view, replaced by a vertical listing of a half dozen names.

  Beginning at the top was Susan Beckwith. Listed as Chief of Staff, her contact information was lined out as hyperlinks beneath it. Below her, in order, there were three entries for legislative aides, each of them parsed off according to subject matter, data on how to reach them appearing as well.

  Fifth in order was Ashley Guthrie, her official title listed as administrative liaison, which a lifetime of dealing with the bureaucracy of the military and their obsession with titles told Donner that the girl was a receptionist, most likely manning the front desk, answering the phone and smiling for the occasional guest.

  Last on the page was for someone named Micah McArthur, Office Coordinator for Ridge in Wyoming, the mailing address listed as Cheyenne.

  Lifting his right hand, Donner formed his fingers into a bracket, clustering the group of legislative aides together, flicking his gaze between the entries for Beckwith at the top and Guthrie at the bottom.

  For a moment he remained in that position, long enough to let his gaze blur, thinking on the best way to approach things.

  Ames had said to be as small and inconspicuous as possible, though he had also stressed the need to be thorough. Given what had happened so far, there was no reason to believe that anybody but Ridge had acted on things, at most perhaps sharing some information with Beckwith.

  Still, with less than twenty hours remaining on the man’s term, he might also be straying into a gray area, looking for help in places he may not otherwise, forcing Donner to do the same.

  For one last instant Donner kept his hand in place, staring at the screen, before pulling it back and snatching up his phone from the middle console. Using his thumb, he entered his passkey and moved down through the address book, finding the entry he wanted listed simply under the letter P, and hitting send.

  Three rings were all it took for the line to connect, a small burst of sound the first thing audible, followed quickly by total silence.

  “Packard,” a female voice said, short and terse. Despite the fact that Donner knew her well, spoke to her at least twice a week, had worked with her for a number of years, there was no greeting of any sort, nothing to pretend that his reasons for calling were anything but serious.

  Which was exactly why he had opted to go to her in the first place.

  “Donner,” he said, pausing for a moment to let her clear the room if she needed to.

  “Go ahead,” Packard replied.

  “We’ve got a job,” Donner said.

  “The Ridge thing this morning?” Packard answered, having already seen the footage, sounding like she had been waiting all afternoon for the call.

  “Very same,” Donner said. “General wants things to be as small as possible, so for the time being it’ll be a two-person op. You cool?”

  “Frosty,” Packard replied.

  “I’m splitting the targets in half,” Donner replied, keeping things as generic as possible over the phone. “Half for each of us.”

  “Roger that.”

  “Everything you need will be emailed within two. Follow encryption protocol six to view it.”

  “Roger that,” Packard repeated.

  At that, Donner ended the call, flipping the phone onto the passenger seat before going back to the device on his lap.

  He had an email packet to send.

  Chapter Nineteen

  In the wake of Lucious McVey leaving, Jackson Ridge sat at his desk and pondered the information he’d just been given. Reaching to his collar, he loosened the tie he was wearing, undoing the top button and pulling the material a half-inch away from his neck. Running a finger along the inside of it in either direction, making sure things settled just so, he could feel late day stubble already beginning to form, loose skin shifting as well.

  Once he was a slight bit more comfortable, he returned his hands back to his lap, lacing his fingers over his stomach, his gaze fixed on the desktop before him.

  His first hope was that Murray might have been able to pull some information from the original file, though that had turned into a dead end. Instead, he had gotten a visitor that knew even less about the situation at hand, making it quite clear that he had no interest in being dragged into the fray.

  What the man did have, though, was a mountain of tangential information, the subject matter something Ridge had familiarity with to varying degrees, though nothing to the level of depth that had just been dropped on him.

  With the introduction to so much new data, what had started as simply trying to make good on an awkward conversation with a constituent had now morphed many times over, shifting from a vanity play to an appeal to basic humanity to whatever it now was, which felt a lot more like a detective novel than something he had envisioned a few hours earlier.

  Such a realization also managed to compound the repercussions of the meeting with McVey, causing Ridge to wonder what all the new information could possibly mean, and more importantly, what he was going to do with it.

  Sitting behind his desk, the last gasps of the afternoon sun pouring in through the glass behind him, offering bright light completely void of warmth, he allowed the milieu of thoughts and facts to percolate through his mind.

  On one hand, he had already done what he said he would. He had made some phone calls on behalf of the Tarby family, had even cashed in a favor, which had in turn cashed in a favor. He had braved the cold, and even put the woman up at the Hilton on his own dime.

  Any bit of bad press he might have received that morning was now more than corrected, by the woman and by public opinion. He could walk away now, and never once be the worse off for it.

  He might have to turn his head and squint a bit, but an argument could be made that he had his win.

  That was no small part of what this was all about anyway, if he really wanted to get down to it.

  For as much as he wanted to believe that, though, to put it behind him, to call his staff back and have one last nice dinner on the taxpayer dime, he knew whatever he was now wading through went much further than that.

  The tone of Murray’s voice had made it clear that something was awry, the general comments from McVey only adding to that impression.

  Beyond that, there was something even more basic that Ridge knew would never leave him if he were to quit now, a fact that would perpetually bother him, perhaps more than anything else that he had done in his time in Congress, and that was the face of Clara Tarby seated across from him.

  The emotional turmoil she was in, the psychological carnage she had endured, was as real as anything he had ever witnessed.

  With it came back memories, recalled days gone past, bringing with them things that would never leave him as long as he lived.

  There was no way he couldn’t see this through, come what may, and he knew it.

  Rising from his chair, Ridge crossed back over to the coat rack, grabbing at the lapels of his overcoat and pulling each side out wide. Rifling down through the pockets, he found the personal cell phone that he had used to talk to Murray just moments before, the device still stowed away, McVey’s unexpected arrival keeping him from taking it out earlier.

  Padding back across the room, he moved parallel to his des
k and stood in front of the window facing toward Union Station, a steady line of Hill workers already heading toward the train, their clothes all uniformly dark and drab in color, battered bags hanging from their hands or shoulders.

  Flipping the phone open, he scrolled through the meager list of contacts he had, finding the one he was looking for. Not even sure if the digits there were still good, he felt his pulse rise slightly as he clicked on the number to call, his shoulders rising and falling with a deep breath before he pressed the phone to his ear.

  The tone on the other end sounded abnormally shrill, no question a result of his own trepidation more than any change in the device’s settings, as it rattled off a half-dozen times, concluding with a mechanical voice telling him to leave a message.

  Nothing more, not even a mention of the owner’s name came with it, Ridge’s shoulders sagging another inch as he cut it off without leaving a message and turned back toward his desk.

  Just three steps into his journey the device in his hand began to vibrate, a single name popping up onto the screen, the very same one he had tried to contact a moment before.

  Stopping where he stood, Ridge accepted the call and returned the phone to his cheek, saying nothing, waiting for the other side to initiate.

  It took the better part of a minute, but eventually, they did.

  “I was hoping I would never see this name pop up on my phone again.”

  The voice was male, older, gruff, heavily laced with a vitriol Ridge couldn’t help but match in kind.

  “August 11-“ Ridge began.

  “Yeah, yeah,” the man said, cutting him off. “I know the date and I know what happened.”

  Still standing at an odd angle in his office, Ridge said, “And now I’m calling it in.”

  On the other end, there was no response for a moment, nothing but dead air before a long sigh could be heard.

  “Yeah, I figured this call would be coming at some point.”