Page 186 of State of Suspense

She wanted to ask about Lindsey, but she didn’t want to delay him acting on behalf of Rodriguez.

Malone came to the door of her office. “What’s up?”

“I just received information I needed to pass on to someone who could do something about it.”

“What did you hear?”

She waved him in and waited for him to close the door before she updated him on what they’d learned from Bryant.

“Holy. Shit.”

“I alerted Terry O’Connor about the possible threat to Rodriguez. I figured he’d know what to do.”

“He’ll bring in the Secret Service and Rodriguez’s chain of command. They’ll take care of him.”

“Nick has spoken so fondly of Rodriguez. He’ll be devastated if anything ever happened to him.” She remembered him telling her about the info Juan had brought to him and how upsetting it had been to realize the military leaders had been plotting to overthrow his administration.

“You’ve done what you can there. Next question is what’s the plan with this info you uncovered about Cox?”

“I have no idea. This is way above my pay grade, and it’s riddled with conflict of interest for me. I was going to bring it to you guys to figure out next steps. What do you do when you find out the country’s top LEO is seriously compromised?”

“You report it to his boss and have him removed from office immediately.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Who’ll do that?”

“The chief will make that call. Do you feel the information is credible?”

“I do. Even though Bryant is angling for immunity, I feel like he’s being straight with us.”

“And he understands he may need to testify if charges are brought against Cox?”

“He does.”

“He’ll need protection.”

“Faith is aware of that and said she’d arrange it.”

“Are you comfortable with him getting full immunity?”

“Not entirely. He ordered the murder of one of his own guys in an effort to make us believe his son was dead so he could get him off the hook on the murder-for-hire charges. We know that much for certain, and I don’t like the idea of him getting away with ordering the killing of Zachery Calder. But… We won’t nail Cox without Bryant’s testimony, and to get that, we have to give him something.”

“Bryant’s crimes are more significant than Cox’s.”

“Maybe so, but the AG is ripe for blackmail, which could imperil the entire country.”

“Do you like Cox for the Forrester murder?”

“I would’ve liked him and his shady assistant-slash-nephew for it if the same gun hadn’t been used in Avery’s shooting. To my knowledge, Cox has had nothing to do with Avery Hill, other than being his boss’s boss.”

“We’re moving forward with the plan to use the judge to lure Harlan Peckham out of hiding?”

“We are. There’s a meeting at zero eight hundred on that.”

“Give me the White House chief of staff’s phone number. We’ll take the Cox matter from here.”

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