Shattered Lies (Web of Lies #3)(48)

“Only if it doesn’t hurt my girls. They’re all that matters to me now.”

Dalton gave him a tight smile showing he understood and walked out the door. Jason shut it and locked it again. “Who is next?”

“Thurmond. But he doesn’t know anything more than he’s already told us. It’s clear he was set up to take the fall if Sandra started to come under suspicion.”

“Will he testify against Sandra?” Dalton asked.

“Maybe if it means he doesn’t get the death penalty. I’m sure he’d enjoy writing a tell-all book and doing interviews from prison.”

“Then let’s ask him.”

Dalton waited for Jason to open the cell door. Thurmond was sitting on the cot with his back against the wall, waiting for them when they entered. “Who are you?”

Jason rolled his eyes. “He’s still a little shit.”

“I can tell,” Dalton said seriously.

“Will you testify about everything you’ve told him?”

“Testify to whom?” Thurmond asked as if he weren’t sitting in a black site.

“The court and Congress, if need be.”

“What do I get out of it?”

“How about not dying and a chance to be on every channel live as you’re telling Congress what role you played along with Sandra?” Dalton casually answered.

“I want immunity,” Thurmond said, crossing his arms over his chest.

“How about you die in a secret prison? You’ll be that asshole they’re glad disappeared,” Dalton countered.

Thurmond looked ready to argue, but one look at Jason had him changing his mind. “Fine. I’ll testify. But I want a lawyer.”

“You’ll get one. Here’s the deal. If there is anything you haven’t told us, and we find out, the deal will be as dead as you will be. Got it?” Dalton asked as he stared a mutinous Thurmond down. Thurmond was trying to be tough while clearly petrified of Jason at the same time.

Thurmond looked away and then back to Dalton. “Deal. I, um, know something that Sandra could tell you that I may have forgotten about until now.”

“What?” Jason snapped.

“Um, a private security group that Sandra and President Mitchell wanted to contract through the State Department. They had something to do with the report I was generating. They were to be part of the response team to the financial district and the Department of Energy.”

“Which private contractor was it?” Dalton asked, knowing they were onto something big here.

“CBL Services Group.”

Neither Dalton nor Jason said anything. They were intimately aware of how dangerous CBL was. The head of the company was retired Col. Brandon Locke. He was now in his early fifties, but Jason had worked with him quite a bit before Locke was quietly pushed out of the military. Dalton had worked with him for a year before the rumors became too much and the military was forced to either admit what happened under their watch or quietly pension him off. They chose to pension him off and bury the evidence as much as they could.

“Anything else?” Dalton asked.

Thurmond shook his head. “Not that I can think of. So, we have a deal?”

“Yes, we do. If you think of anything, knock on the door and tell him. No matter how big or small it is. Okay?”

“Okay. When do I get my attorney?”

“If you can use half of your brain to figure out why we’re asking this and connect the dots, then you’ll realize how much trouble you’re really in. When it’s over, you will get your lawyer. Until then, you will be fed, clothed, and treated well, unless you start withholding information. You are considered an enemy of the state and you need to understand that.”

Dalton turned to leave and Jason followed him out. They didn’t say anything until the door was locked. They walked a couple paces away and huddled together, dropping their voices.

“Why am I not surprised Locke is involved?” Jason asked rhetorically.

“All I know are the rumors. I met him a couple of times when we were overseas for rescues. I’d never met anyone so cold-blooded. He didn’t care if civilians were in harm’s way and that’s where the rumors came into play,” Dalton remembered.

“Brandon Locke is a disgrace to the military. He ran an elite group of black op soldiers who were just as bad as he was. They had absolutely no moral code. Sometimes you need that in war. But you need someone who can control them. Locke was more interested in riling them up and letting them loose than focusing on the mission.

“I remember a rescue that I was called in on before you joined us. They went into the mountains to try to find one of the high-value targets. They were caught in a shoot-out and one of them was injured. My team was called in for a medical evac. In the meantime, the terrorists were hiding among innocent families. By the time I arrived, they were all dead, and not from the terrorists. Locke had gone in and wiped them all out. Innocent or no, he didn’t care. He got his target. Children as young as two were murdered. My team found women with clothes ripped off and a single bullet in their head.” Jason looked down the hall as if he were there, looking at the casualties.

“I shoved Locke against the helo, but his men were on me in a heartbeat. They threatened us all and said what we saw were the casualties of war. We took it to our commander and were told, very clearly, to drop it. I heard there was an incident with a foreign ambassador and his family that finally ended Locke. It was a rescue mission and during the blood lust that followed the rescue, the ambassador’s daughter was raped by one of Locke’s men. Allegedly she was a very beautiful nineteen-year-old woman and was being held alone in a separate room. When the soldiers killed her captors, they thought they deserved an extra reward for saving her. The woman caused a scene, and Locke killed the girl to keep it quiet. The ambassador went straight to Sandra Cummings, who was the head of the Senate Foreign Affairs at the time, and it was covered up the best it could be, and Locke retired,” Jason said with a disgusted shake of his head.