The Last Protector(Clayton White #1)(42)

“He won’t,” Hammond growled. “And don’t ever mention this to me again. Understood?”

Girdner’s reply was curt. “Anything else, Mr. Vice President-Elect?”

“Don’t get fancy with me, Tom, or you can kiss your nomination goodbye,” Hammond replied before he ended the call.

During CONQUEST, Girdner, then a brigadier general, had been the commanding officer of the Army Corrections Command. His assistance had been needed when it came to the actual design of the interrogation program. Girdner was due to retire at the end of the month, and it wasn’t a secret that the president-elect, under the advice of Hammond, was going to nominate him as secretary of defense. Hammond didn’t think Congress would object to a waiver for Girdner under the National Security Act of 1947—the law that stipulated that the secretary of defense had to be a civilian well removed from military service.

Hammond and Girdner had always seen eye to eye. Trust had never been an issue between them. Hammond hoped it would stay that way.





CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE


Naval Air Station Fort Worth, Texas

Veronica was getting desperate for information. She had tried calling Noah, but he hadn’t answered his phone. Same thing for the other members of her team.

Why aren’t they taking my damn calls? she fumed. She was seriously considering escaping her protective details. She needed to head back to California to assess the damage to Drain. She couldn’t stand being kept in the dark.

She had already spotted where one of the Secret Service cars was parked. She had seen Special Agent Myers climb out of it. Myers, who had been seated next to her on the plane, had left the keys on the kitchen counter before heading toward the guest bedroom for his four-hour break. It would be child’s play for her to grab the keys and slip out of the house through the bathroom’s window. Leaving the military base unnoticed would be drastically more challenging. She was still working on her plan when her phone chimed with a text message.

It was from Clay.

Three CID agents were found dead inside the offices of SkyCU.

Just when she thought the situation couldn’t get worse, it did.

What were they doing there?

Instead of texting back, Clay called her.

“Where are you?” she asked him as soon as he was on the line.

“Just outside the SkyCU building,” White replied. “I’m the one who found them.”

Veronica didn’t know what to think. There was too much unanticipated information coming in at the same time. “What were you doing there?”

“After our last conversation I decided to stop by,” White explained. “You sounded so worried I thought I’d give you a bit of comfort by checking out the place.”

“Was anyone else hurt?” she asked, suddenly worried about her teammates.

“No. Just the three CID agents,” White said.

“Drain is gone,” she said, hearing the tension in her voice. “Completely wiped. Noah told me the only way to do that was by someone downloading malware directly onto our servers.”

“You mean in person? Here at the SkyCU office?” White asked.

“Correct,” Veronica confirmed. “Do you think that’s what the CID agents were doing there?”

Why was she thinking about her father again?

“There’s no way to know for sure, I’m afraid, but if I was a betting man, I’d say that they were probably there to secure the place, not to wipe Drain off your servers.”

“Who killed them, then?” she asked.

“My guess? Whoever installed the malware,” White replied. “And before I go, does the name Girdner ring a bell?”

“Tom Girdner? I don’t know him personally, but if you’re talking about the provost marshal general, yes. I know of him. He’s one of my dad’s friends. Why?”

“Why? The provost marshal general is in charge of the CID, right?” White said. “I just wanted to confirm. I’ll call you back as soon as I have more concrete news.”

Clay’s hesitation hadn’t lasted long. Just a beat, really. But she had noticed it. And she didn’t like it. For some reason, her fiancé hadn’t been totally straightforward with her.





CHAPTER THIRTY


San Francisco, California

White rolled out of bed and yawned. He looked at his watch. He’d slept for less than an hour. Ashby and Folsom had driven him back to San Francisco once the police had taken his statement. They had checked into a hotel and called it a night. His last conscious thought before falling into a dreamless sleep had been of Tom Girdner.

White had never met the general, but he had heard good things about him, mostly from Hammond. Like Hammond, Girdner was supposedly a straight shooter. His name had been mentioned in the news recently as a possible pick for secretary of defense in the next administration. Since he was a friend of Hammond’s, that made sense. What didn’t make sense was that the phone White had seized from the dead CID agent had registered no less than four missed calls from Girdner, all of them prior to White finding the bodies. There had been no more calls since then.

There were two things White had difficulty understanding. The first was why a CID special agent would receive four calls directly from the provost marshal general. General officers didn’t call warrant officers, especially in the middle of the night. They just didn’t. The second issue White was struggling with was the way the missed calls showed on the CID agent’s phone. It read GIRDNER—4 MISSED CALLS.