Walker (In the Company of Snipers #21) - Irish Winters Page 0,126
it. I want to know that bastard’s name the minute he calls back.”
Director Tucker Chase managed the one and only FBI psychic team in the country. Any one of his agents could psychically probe Costa’s mind, and he’d never know it. They might even release him, then tail him, give him just enough room and rope to hang himself. But only because they needed actual physical proof, since psychic probes into alleged perpetrators’ minds weren’t admissible in courts of law. Yet.
“Copy that,” Beau replied evenly, his sat phone already out of his pocket and at his ear.
Hans still stood looking across the room at Walker. “There is still more, Lieutenant. Much more.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Walker couldn’t believe all that Hans—his one-time court-assigned ICC defense attorney and a veritable stranger—had done for him. There was more, all right. The papers Hans distributed to the group outlined other discrepancies in the wedding video.
Number one being the accusation by the Khalid family that Prince Jamalud had been killed in the attack. Turned out he hadn’t. Hans had located the security footage taken at a prestigious local hotel, where Khalid’s parents had stayed the night before the bombing, then had the audacity to return to afterward.
Seemed Beau Villanueva was another stranger to be damned thankful for. He was good at video forensics, had used something called satellite triangulation, to zero down on the rear view of a man walking away from the explosion. The same man had also been caught on Costa’s video during that quick pan from the murderer back to the disaster—the ‘murdered’ Prince. Not only that, but the men and women walking away with him, were his parents and grandparents. This explosion wasn’t the end of a marriage. It was Khalid’s way out of that marriage.
Hans had dug deeper then, and discovered a link between Prince Khalid and Captain Spenser Cole, the Navy judge who’d presided over Walker’s trial. They’d met during a Foreign Military Sales Program Management Review, an FMS PMR, long before Walker was charged with murder. Poseidon’s stars were beginning to shine even brighter.
By then, Walker had to sit back and just let the revelations come. It was either that or hit something. There were so many. Hans had uncovered quite a spider’s web. He also knew the allegedly-murdered Khalid family had fled to Saudi Arabia and were in hiding at one of the reigning king’s many palaces. Living in luxury, while what was left of the bride’s family truly grieved.
Then there was Adam. He’d located three off-shore accounts in Goff’s mother’s maiden name: Wallace Bernadette Samar. After weeks of tracking down the elusive woman, he’d located her grave in New Jersey. Then backtracked through city, school, and hospital records to prove that she was, in fact, Goff’s mother. She’d been born in Jordan, came to the States with her parents when she was a young child, and had died of pancreatic cancer the year he’d graduated from high school. So how was a dead woman still depositing thousands of dollars a month into her off-shore accounts? And did she have anything to do with the Khalid family?
Back to Beau. Somehow, he’d gotten into the USN personnel system and had photographic proof of Walker’s Navcompt 3065 leave request when he’d gone to Guatemala. It was in the USN personnel system. Yet, both Prosecutor John Cudahy and Walker’s defense attorney LT Cameron Kroft, had denied any record of it. They’d claimed Walker lied, that he hadn’t requested, nor been on leave during that time.
Beau had also dissected the backstories to every individual who’d ever attended Walker’s trial. Not only was his former girlfriend Miss Breeze friendly with Prosecutor Cudahy, she was sleeping with him. Also noteworthy and profoundly disturbing, USN Admiral Pickering had attended the hearing more than once. He’d always sat in the back of the room, so Walker had never known he was there. But he’d always worn his uniform. Damn the arrogant ass.
“I wondered who that was,” Persia commented.
“You’ve seen the footage before?” Walker asked.
“Yes, parts of it. Hans shared the court video with Izza and me the first day at the safe house. I didn’t realize that was Pickering, though. I couldn’t see his rank insignia clearly.”
“That son of a bitch!” Stewart hissed, “Peckering had no business showing his face at your trial. No wonder these bastards never stood up for you. They were too busy kissing ass!”
“Pickering,” Walker corrected. “He’s Admiral—”
“I said Admiral Fuckin’ Peck-Er-Ing...”
Well, okay then. Peckering it is and would forever be. Walker was