“Right. But with Wilson gone, we’ve run out of options to acquire either. Specifically, options that don’t get us sent to Leavenworth for life. I’m pretty sure the Department of Justice doesn’t have a kidnapping-and-torture forgiveness program for people who hand over evidence of espionage crimes, regardless of the outcome. And just so we’re clear, I am saying that the only way we’ll find that summer camp or get a usable name is to kidnap and very likely torture one of the sleepers on her wall,” said Berg.

“My mom was willing to go down that road,” said Devin.

“Are you?” asked Berg.

Devin took a long sip of his beer instead of answering.

“We’re going to need some help with this,” said Berg. “This is way too big for the two of us.”

“What kind of help?”

“The kind that advertises its services by word of mouth and is very picky about its clients,” said Berg. “They also have a checkered past with Russia, so there’s a chance they’ll do this freelance.”

“We have a hundred thousand dollars,” said Devin.

Berg shook his head before biting into a fried egg roll.

“How much higher?”

“Out of our price range,” said Berg. “Even with my discount.”

“Discount?”

“I got them a lot of work back in the day. I also got them in a lot of trouble. We’ll see if I came out ahead.”

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 18

Berg had an answer from his “picky” friends in the morning. They’d do some poking around and get back to him. Devin wasn’t exactly encouraged by their cryptic answer, but Berg seemed to take it in stride. He wolfed down a cold plate of the leftover Thai food and went back to work in the vault with an espresso in one of the paper cups he’d bought at Walmart. Devin repeated the process with the Nespresso machine and joined him in front of the evidence wall with one of the better cups of espresso he’d tasted in a long time. Berg tapped the headshot photo of a dark-haired, blue-eyed man in his mid- to late thirties. His face had been circled with red marker and crossed out.

“Sean Walker. A rising star in the True America Party, when that was still a thing. A key adviser to President Alan Crane,” said Berg.

“Shot himself in a drunken stupor while sitting in the hot tub attached to his pool,” said Devin.

“Yeah. Yeah. I read all about it. Family conveniently gone for the weekend. Empty bottle of bourbon found next to the hot tub. A few more empties inside the house. Put a mystery pistol to his temple and pulled the trigger,” said Berg. “Clean up on aisle five. Sleeper with no future blew his brains out.”