Page 64 of Flesh and Fury
“Wordy? Why?” Eoghan asked.
“The mix up with the lethal rounds when you faced the werewolves bugged me a little. Don’t worry. He was clean, though. I looked at the Doc, like I told you. She came up clean. All the marshals. All clean—with the exception of Ted Acres—that man just smells fishy.”
They both laughed.
“Anyway, just joking. Ted was clean as was Brady, Jones, Marks, and all the others. I was almost hoping Frank Buffy would come up dirty. That guy’s an ass.”
Eoghan laughed. “That’s exactly what Elroy said about him.”
“Who’s Elroy?”
“A little alien Powmay.”
“Oh, yeah. Anyway, I also looked at the computers from practically every single desk jockey in administration and IT and nothing else turned up. I will say this, after this case, I’m going to have a talk with a few of those guys down in the garage. I’ll be instituting some new rules against barnyard porn. Just saying.” They laughed as she concluded. “I just thank God the spyware was so thorough.”
“Where’d it come from?” Eoghan asked, more relieved than he could imagine and happy as hell he wasn’t forced to explain his own bad judgment with Kellen. He wasn’t sure he could hold his head up if he did. How desperate he must have been to have trusted a dog like Kellen McGillis. He shook himself as he heard her response.
She smiled. “The architect of the Agency’s new spyware is none other than Derwin.”
“Derwin, the honeybee?” Ari asked.
She nodded. “Yes. When he was here several months back, I told him I had a bit of a problem and what it was. As it turned out, he’d recently developed undetectable spyware that might help us. I took it and ran with it. The brilliance of that honeybee is going to save the day. The sheer volume of data the software has compiled has not only flushed out the moles quite nicely, but its design has allowed it to evolve as the case went along.”
“How so, Chief?” Ari asked.
“Every time you met with a new clan and got them to agree to help us, I inputted the latest new data and it popped out a new line of attack. It’s how I knew which tribes and clans might be willing to help our cause and where to send you.”
“So, you’ve been working on this for a while,” Ari concluded.
“Well, just before you met with the Tahoe clan. After they agreed to help and then put you on the trail of Severin and Invictus, I’ve been fooling around with it, running different scenarios. The software was designed to predict outcomes based on every new piece of data so I had to keep it up to date. It was what made me decide to send you to meet with the werewolves and after that, to Denver and Cheyenne. The program was what told me we had a pretty good chance of winning those shifter clans over and it was right about the Denver and Colorado Springs clans. Unfortunately, the dragons didn’t have any luck getting the Cheyenne shifters to sign on.”
“Wow, boss, I had no idea about Derwin,” Eoghan said.
“It wasn’t only the program, Sapphire,” she said. “It was the two of you who were responsible for the success of bringing all those tribes on board. The program gave me predictions and probabilities, but you were the ones who made it happen.”
Eoghan exchanged a glance with Ari who dragged his gaze away from the chief who he’d been watching with a cross between awe and great respect. “That’s fantastic, boss.”
She nodded. “I must agree. Derwin built a great system, but you made it work. Actually, the timing of his dilemma with his former queen and our current mole problem was uncanny. So, before he and Sheldon left for WITSEC, I asked him if he thought he might have something that could help. I figuredhaving done him a good turn would pay off and as it turned out, it did.”
“I’ll say,” Eoghan replied. “That’s great. I just wish we knew who our traitors were a long time ago.”
“Well, I think the knowledge came at just the right time, Chief,” Ari said.
Eoghan turned to look at him and nodded. “You’re right. At least this way, we’ve had time to make alliances with all our friends.”
The chief glanced at her watch before setting down her coffee cup. “Speaking of which, we need to roll out. I want to be there when the others start arriving so I can alleviate as much tension as possible between the groups who don’t know each other yet. The vampires won’t be arriving until nightfall, but we should get all the tribes and clans together and make introductions. I’ll need you there to help lay down ground rules with the clan members you don’t know yet. I want to make absolutely sure no one will have a problem working with vamps. I know their clan leaders told them they’d be part of this operation but until you get those groups in a room together, you never know what can happen. Reality is often different than the abstract as you well know.”
“You’re right, Chief,” Eoghan said, patting her on the back. He stood and Ari did the same. He had to admit, there was a lot to admire about his boss. Eoghan wasn’t sure what he should have expected when it came to her but this fierce take-no-prisoners version of her was new to him. He liked it. He glanced at Ari who turned to look at him.
“We should get changed, make sure we’re totally stocked up on ammo, and bring along extra firepower.”
“I have some next door,” Ari said. “I’ll go grab that and change clothes while you gear up.”
“I’ll just make a couple of calls,” Priest said, digging her phone out of her tac pants. Eoghan recognized it as the burner they all carried. He was so thankful she’d figured out who their mole in D.C. was.
“Hey, Chief.”
She looked up from her phone and twisted to look at him. “Sapphire?”