“I have no problem with that,” Rogers said. “But I would request that everyone here keep in mind the context that I’ve provided. If the people we’re up against are as powerful as I think, then every person in this room is an insect that could easily be swatted.”
Wade shifted his long-legged body and said, “Okay, so we’ve got a case, and just the kind of major-league case that might just keep our little Sit boat afloat. Where do we start, boss?”
“We’ll begin with computer checks,” she said, for the benefit of any bugs in the room. But on the whiteboard she wrote: NO USE OF BUREAU EQUIPMENT. WILL EXPLAIN. STRICTLY SUB ROSA. Then she wiped it clean.
“Why?” Bohannon asked, a question that might have been for either the spoken comment or the written one.
Rogers said, “They may have left a computer trail, and we’ll get Miggie all over that.” But again, as she spoke, she wrote: MOLES. TRUST NO ONE BUT THE TEAM. She wiped the board clean.
“Reeder can be considered a part of this team,” she went on, “but he has his own agenda. Our focus is, as Trevor has correctly advised, finding out who is behind the murder of Secretary Yellich.”
As she spoke, she wrote: NO PERSONAL PHONES. NO BUREAU EMAIL. Again she wiped the board clean.
Bohannon rose, smoothed his suit coat, and went to the whiteboard, taking the marker from Rogers, and wrote: HOW DO WE COMMUNICATE? He erased that and watched her write: BURNER PHONES ASAP. She erased that, and Bohannon nodded and returned to his desk.
Wade asked, “So, where do we start, boss?”
Writing REAL ASSIGNMENTS on the whiteboard, Rogers said, “Reggie, you and Jerry take another look at Yellich — personal life, her staffers... make sure we didn’t miss anything.”
Wade nodded. Bohannon, too.
“Miggie, these people must have left a trail somewhere. Find it. Follow it.”
She wrote: APARTMENT HOUSE SHOOTER’S DNA. FROM DC HOMICIDE.
Miggie nodded as she erased the message.
“Lucas,” she said, “you, Anne, and I have a job in the field to do.”
She wrote in very big letters, and underlined: WATCH YOUR ASSES. Then she swept the board clean.
When she, Hardesy, and Nichols were in the corridor, Rogers said, “We’re going to visit Tony Wooten’s parents.”
“Do you think they know,” Hardesy asked, “what kind of mischief sonny boy was up to?”
Bohannon said, “Name a terrorist who lived at home whose mommy didn’t know he was making bombs.”
“Good point,” Hardesy admitted.
“Don’t assume the worst about them,” Rogers advised. “Remember, they won’t have been informed about their son’s death — Miggie’s digging is what turned up Tony Evans’ real identity, and so far we’re the only good guys who know it.”
“Understood,” Nichols said.
Soon, with Nichols at the wheel of a Bureau Ford, the two-hour drive to Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, was spent going over Wooten’s file as e-mailed by Miggie to Rogers’ burner, though there was precious little in it.
Wooten had entered the military after getting an associate degree in police science from Harrisburg Area Community College. Rogers figured that (like her), Wooten had intended to become an MP, but (unlike her) never made it into the Military Police. Instead, he’d entered sniper school, at which point his military record became conspicuously sparse; nothing of note beyond an unremarkable tour of duty stateside. It was as if he went to sniper school then just disappeared for eighteen months until his honorable discharge.
Rogers wondered where Miggie had gotten the information about Wooten’s black ops in Afghanistan. Were there more off-the-books activities of Wooten’s in that part of the world, or others for that matter?
A sleepy burg of fewer than 25,000 souls, Chambersburg depended mostly on tourism — thanks to its rich history, quaint downtown, and Appalachian setting — though with the surrounding communities, the greater metro area swelled to about 50,000 with some decent manufacturing jobs available. Amish and Mennonite farmers beyond the city limits made up part of the population as well. It reminded Rogers of her home area back in Iowa, even down to the fields of corn surrounding the town.
The biggest employer, though, was five miles north — Letterkenny Army Depot, the place from which Wooten’s father had recently retired. Amos and Constance Wooten lived in a brick bungalow on a two-lane highway called Edenville Road, where lawns large enough to require riding mowers overwhelmed modest houses like theirs.
Rogers left the car in the driveway and the three FBI agents walked up a brick walk. The quietude reminded her of her farmland home, too — this was just far enough toward the edge of town not to get regular traffic, with only the barking of a dog and the breeze whispering through trees to test the silence.
Rogers knocked on the door and waited. She was just about to knock again when a shadow crossed the thin curtains behind the wooden door’s glass.
Another second and the inside door opened, leaving only the screen between her and a slender man in his sixties with thinning gray hair and Tony Wooten’s nose. He wore a Philadelphia Eagles T-shirt and new-looking jeans.
“Mr. Wooten?”
“Yes...?”
She held up her credentials. “Special Agent Patti Rogers with the FBI. With Special Agents Anne Nichols and Lucas Hardesy. May we come in, sir?”
“What’s this about?” Mr. Wooten asked, understandably taken aback. One FBI agent on his doorstep would be bad enough... but three?
“I’d rather not discuss it out here, sir,” Rogers said. “May we come in, please?”
With a frown, Wooten swung open the screen and they trooped in. The living room was smallish but nice, homey. Family pictures — son Tony with a younger brother and older sister peered at them pleasantly from over the years — rested on perfectly dusted end tables, a sofa with a knitted afghan hugged one wall, a BarcaLounger sat next to a couple of wing chairs, each facing a flat-screen TV on a stand.
Hardesy asked, “Is Mrs. Wooten at home?”
At first alarmed, then reluctant, Mr. Wooten twisted toward the back of the house. “Connie,” he said, barely raising his voice.
“What is it, dear?” came a voice from a doorless doorway onto the kitchen. Plates were clinking. “I’m busy right now!”
Bringing his wife into the mix had brought home to their host how serious a visit this was, and Amos Wooten said simply, “FBI.”
A short, stocky, aproned woman, her hair a shade of red unknown in nature, stepped into the room drying her hands on a towel. Her eyes were light blue and very pretty. “Did you say FBI?”
Rogers made the introductions again, ending with, “Perhaps we might all sit down.”
The Wootens traded a look and moved to the sofa and sat down side by side. Within moments, their hands found each other. The agents assembled seats around the humble living room.
Every law enforcement officer hated this part of the job, hated it like poison. Rogers had been the bearer of bad news more than once back in her county deputy days, and it never got easier. As a federal agent, she usually came in well after someone had already received the worst news of their lives.
“Mr. and Mrs. Wooten,” she said, “your son Tony died last night in Hillcrest Heights, Maryland.”
The wife’s grip tightened on her husband’s hand, her knuckles turning white.
“I’m sorry to have to tell you this,” Rogers continued, “but Tony was murdered.”
She waited for the tears, the explosion of grief, but instead found herself staring at two people whose wide-eyed confusion said they didn’t understand a word she was saying.
Mr. Wooten said, “In Maryland, you say?”
“Yes. Hillcrest Heights. He was living there, but you probably knew that. Did you know that?”