A name came to mind, but he shook his head just as quickly. Why would she do this for him? The better question was, Why would Devin expose her—even tangentially—in this potentially messy or even deadly conspiracy? Then again, she fit the profile Berg had described perfectly. They’d been best friends in high school, maybe a little more, though he’d never made a real move on her, and always regretted it. Whenever their paths had crossed after high school, which became rarer each year due to her Navy Reserve Officer Training Corps commitments, they’d picked up right where they’d ended last time, as though they’d just hung out the day before.

He hadn’t seen Marnie Young for close to four years before she walked into his mother’s wake, and despite the strained circumstances of the setting, the connection between them had felt the same. He’d furtively scanned her fingers for a ring, not that he hadn’t done that before. She’d always had that effect on him, though it somehow felt different this time. Probably because she’d told him she planned on trying to find a job in the DC area. The prospect of being able to see her more than once or twice while she was on leave or in between duty assignments appealed to him.

After graduating from Northwestern University and receiving a commission in the United States Marine Corps, Marnie had spent the next fifteen years moving from one duty station to the next, much of that time spent deployed overseas, in both combat and noncombat zones, flying helicopters. Sikorsky CH-53E Super Stallions, to be precise. Devin knew all the details. He’d followed her career through letters and chats with her parents.

He knew that she’d been awarded the Bronze Star with “combat V” for dropping off reinforcements and evacuating wounded Marines during an operation in the Helmand Province of Afghanistan, “under blistering small-arms, machine-gun, and rocket-propelled grenade fire that had repulsed all previous landing attempts.” She’d never said a word about it during any of her visits. Still hadn’t. He’d found out during a quick stop by her house to return a book her dad had loaned him a while back. They’d very proudly showed him the citation but made him promise not to tell their daughter. That was Marnie Young in a nutshell. Amazing but unpretentious.

Devin had been thrilled to learn she’d be sticking around the area for a while, which made the decision to ask her for this favor painful. It was a lot to ask of her, given the full context of the situation, which he obviously couldn’t reveal to her. If this whole thing publicly blew up on him in some spectacular way, her career aspirations in DC could be collateral damage.