The line went dead and Jeff slapped the speakerphone button, turning off the droning sound of a dial tone.

“Holy shit,” said Nate. “Who was that guy?”

Jeff gave Nate a rueful smile. “That was former Chief Warrant Officer Paul Hutchison, a legendary CID agent. I trained under him. Let’s just say that there isn’t a man alive who knows more about fraud investigations, crisis and hostage negotiations, and protective services. Oh, and despite his being in his mid-sixties, he’s a computer and cryptography genius.”

“And now he smells a rat at AgriMed. You really think this is related to my case?”

“Do you?”

Nate nodded.

“Yeah, me too.”

Jeff pulled a tablet PC from his desk drawer. “This is my personal tablet. I’ll set up a wireless hotspot off my phone and transfer his data over.”

“Keeping things off the government intranet?”

“Hell yes. Let’s just say that there’s nothing that the chief said that didn’t jibe with what you and I already suspected, so I’m doing this on the QT.” Jeff laid the tablet on his desk and motioned for Nate to come closer.

Nate wheeled his chair around Binghamton’s desk. And for the first time in his career, he watched an Assistant Director of the FBI breach investigative protocol.

###

Nate whistled appreciatively as he stepped out of his car and looked across the twenty acres of well-manicured lawn. In the middle of the ocean of green stood a massive three-story home with tall columns across its front. It reminded him of Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s ancestral home.

At the edges of the property, other agents were establishing a perimeter. He walked purposefully along the stamped concrete walkway leading them through the well-manicured lawn.

Nate glanced at his partner on this case, Agent Alexandra Ragheb, a woman he’d worked with a few times before. “Pretty nice digs for a research scientist, don’t you think?”

The slim dark-haired agent frowned. “I’ll say. This whole thing seems off.” She gestured to the agents in the distance. “Why so many others? Are we expecting trouble?”

“I hope not,” Nate said, “but it’s best to be prepared.” He reseated his Glock in its shoulder holster and smoothed out the wrinkles in his suit jacket.

As they approached the home’s entrance, he couldn’t help but be impressed. The front doors were ten feet tall and looked as though they were carved out of solid mahogany. Nate guessed they were over five hundred pounds each. When he pressed the doorbell, fancy chimes sounded somewhere inside the home.

“One minute,” a woman’s voice called from somewhere in the house.

After a few moments, the doors opened, and they were greeted by a short black-haired woman in an apron.