“Say that last part again?”

Wheldon stared at him steadily.

“There is no organization more deadly than a covert intelligence service. A politician tells a group of government workers to work hand in hand with violent military men to do unaccountable things in secret. Outside of the light of scrutiny, these men are told to eliminate people or to sell arms to foreign militaries. Without inventory or receipts. Without any way to check up on them.

“The National Security Division of the Justice Department is not allowed to be inspected, we are told, because the inspectors don’t have the intelligence clearance. You see the problem here? What do you think happens?”

Gannon shook his head.

“We need to do this now, Pete,” Wheldon said. “The more hits we get, the better our chance of exposing this corruption to the public.”

“You think this will go viral?”

“It should, Pete,” Wheldon said, wide-eyed. “This is the biggest bombshell I’ve ever heard.”

47

For how on the ball and techy Agent Arietta seemed, his bare windowless trailer office looked like something out of one of those cable shows about hoarders.

It had a cheap white plastic folding table for a desk and a couple of old gray metal file cabinets in the right-hand far corner. Instead of having a computer, the desk was covered in a mountain of paper, and in the corner opposite the metal cabinets was a big plastic trash barrel filled to the brim with greasy take-out containers and Dunkin’ cups.

Reyland was sitting at the paper-covered desk reading the file on Eric Wheldon’s daughter away at William & Mary when Emerson popped his head in.

“Boss, we got something.”

When Reyland went back into the war room, the lobby of the Arlington Hotel was blown up on the big wall screen. He gazed up at the gold-lit sconces on its brown walls and the people standing by the white marble check-in desk. The feed was coming from one of their agents who’d gone in with a pin camera.

“What’s up?”

“The girl on the right. Brown hair. Might be her,” Emerson said.

Reyland walked over closer and looked up at a girl in profile there at the check-in desk. He studied the photo that the surveillance team had taken of Ruby Everett in Times Square the day before.

“Didn’t the outside camera with the facial recognition see her?” Reyland said.

“Well, actually, only if she came in walking from the Seventh Avenue intersection where the camera is,” Arietta said. “If she got out of a taxi in front of the hotel, it’s probably too far for the camera to see.”

“Now you tell me,” Reyland said, rolling his eyes at Mr. Geek Squad.

“What do you think?” Emerson said.

Reyland made a sour face as he stared back at the screen.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Same eye shape, same nose, but the video quality is garbage. It’s too hard to tell. Tell them to get closer.”

“You need to get closer,” Emerson said into his phone.