Jeff shrugged. “Evidently, a request from a CID assistant director doesn’t always have the pull you’d think it does with the FISA judges. Requesting surveillance of a foreign government can be a tricky thing. They have immunity, and there’s a bit of cat and mouse that some of the intelligence folks play. We claim professional courtesy and promise not to spy on each other, but we do it anyway. And this time, we got blocked.

“I also reached out to my CIA contacts—official and unofficial. I even went through the front door. Nothing. If what happened on that island is a CIA op, nobody’s talking. Sorry, Nate.” The sixty-something-year-old man jabbed his index finger in Nate’s direction and asked, “So how about on your end? Have you tracked down that witness from the island yet?”

Nate swallowed the disappointment he felt over the lack of cooperation from both the FISA court and the CIA. His mind flashed back to the redheaded coed he’d interviewed only three days ago. “Yup, I found her and you won’t get an expense report, because it just so happens that she’s local now. Katherine O’Reilly is enrolled in Georgetown University, and she was particularly helpful.”

“Oh? How helpful?”

“Well, let’s just say that the poor girl and her boyfriend were definitely in the wrong place at the wrong time. Imagine doing a Gilligan’s Island and getting yourself stranded somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, but instead of coconuts and paradise, you’ve got killer birds coming at you from every direction, all of them trying to get a piece of your ass. It’s a miracle she got off that island at all.”

Jeff frowned. “And you believe her?”

“One hundred percent. She showed me some of the scars.” Nate shook his head as he recalled her pushing up the sleeves of her sweatshirt. The puckered quarter-sized pink scars ran all up and down her pale arms. “It’s not like I had her on a polygraph, but Jeff, I’ve done this for nearly two decades, and I’m telling you, she believed every word of what she told me. I’d stake everything on that.”

“I’m not doubting you, just asking. You said there was a boyfriend there too? It would help if we had a corroborating statement.”

Nate shook his head. “Officially, Brad Harper is MIA. He’s been missing ever since the incident four months ago. Presumed lost at sea. But Miss O’Reilly was pretty heated about that AgriMed company. She believes wholeheartedly that they let him die somewhere on that island and then covered it up.”

“Then why didn’t she go to the cops?”

“Because some corporate guy from AgriMed flew out there and got her to sign a non-disclosure agreement. In exchange for her silence, they paid her off to the tune of six figures.”