Page 71 of Trust No One

“Ms. Melbourne,” he said. “Mr. Smith and Mr. Wolf. Welcome.” His voice was raspy, as if his throat had been damaged at some point.

“Thank you, sir,” Mel answered.

“Have a seat,” he said, waving at the three chairs in front of his desk.

When they were all seated, Mel between Dev and Gideon, Bradford Allen sat, as well. “Your phone call intrigued me,” he said. “What can I do for you.”

Mel cleared her throat. Dev and Gideon had appointed her spokeswoman because she’dbeenan administrator. She talked to other administrators all the time. “First of all, thank you for agreeing to meet with us. We all appreciate that. Secondly, I need to tell you that Dev and I are friends of Simon and Caroline Livingston. I’m afraid we inadvertently pulled them into our business. Dev and I both knew Simon in Kabul.”

Bradford Allen’s eyes narrowed. “Are you the people who were hiding in the bathroom when I went to the hospital last night to visit Simon?”

Mel didn’t glance at Dev, although she wanted to. Her fingernails pressed into her palms, and she took a deep breath. Lifted her chin. “Yes, sir. That was me and Dev.” She cocked her head, curious. “How did you know we were there?”

“The door was ajar, so someone could listen. Although I couldn’t see anyone in the rest room, I was pretty sure someone was in there. Caroline kept glancing at the room.” He leaned back in his chair. “I’m not used to someone spying on me.”

“We weren’t spying on you,” Mel said, her palms sweating. “But we needed to hear what you had to say. The fact that you were straightforward, that you didn’t get angry because Simon and Caroline wanted to go to an FBI safe house, were points in your favor. And Diana Redfield swore we could trust you. That’s why we’re here.”

“How do you know Diana?” Allen asked.

Gideon shifted in his chair. Leaned forward. “Before I quit and went to work for Mel and Dev at Blackhawk Security, I was an FBI agent,” he said. “That’s how I know Diana. We had at least two Russian moles in the FBI. Blackhawk Security caught one of them. We persuaded him to give us the name of one other in the FBI. We’re fairly certain there are more, and the FBI has an ongoing investigation. I’m sure Diana wouldn’t mind that we shared that information with you.”

“I’m well aware of that investigation,” Allen said. “So let me ask again. What can I do for you?”

“I think it’s a case of what we can do foryou,” Mel said. “We have evidence that one of your agents based in DC is dirty. We have videos of him killing a Marine Colonel in Rock Creek Park two days ago.”

She pulled up the video on her phone, then leaned forward to hand it to Allen. He stared down at the screen, frowning as he watched the video. Finally he handed it back to her.

“That appears damning, but videos can be faked,” he said, his voice expressionless.

“Yes, sir, they can be,” Mel said, swallowing the lump of irritation in her throat. “These aren’t, but we don’t expect you to take our word for that. You can take copies of the videos from my phone and Dev’s and have your technicians study them to make sure they haven’t been altered.”

Allen picked up his phone. “John, bring a couple of clean flash drives in here, please.”

He hung up the phone, and the door opened a few seconds later. The receptionist walked it and set two flash drives on Bradford’s desk.

“If I promise not to copy anything but the video you showed me, may I copy them onto these flash drives?” Allen asked.

Mel looked at Dev. He gave her a tiny nod, and she nodded back. Turned back to the director. “Yes, sir. Copy the videos.”

It took less than a minute for Mel and Dev’s videos to be copied onto the flash drives. The receptionist reached for them, but Allen put his hand over them. “Leave them here, John.”

When the receptionist had left the room, Allen leaned back in his chair. “So if these videos are genuine, Cliff Kingsley is a murderer.”

“Yes, sir.”

“It looks as if the man who died was about to draw on him,” he said, his voice expressionless.

“Yes. But if you listen to the conversation we recorded, Kingsly felt that Larrimore – that’s the Marine Colonel – was a risk he was no longer willing to tolerate.”

“How did you discover that Kingsley was crooked?” Bradford asked.

Mel recounted Bree’s story of watching Larrimore give a Russian information about their troop movements in exchange for money. How Kingsley had threatened her when Bree tried to report it to him. And then Mel laid out all the research she’d done on Kingsley. She bent and removed a manila folder from her bag. “This is the information I found on Cliff Kingsley and the money and property he’s accumulated.” She set the folder on his desk and pushed it toward him.

“Gideon searched on the dark web for Kingsley and found him talking to several people, some of whom were CIA agents. From their conversations, it was clear they were all corrupt.”

“We have decoy agents on the dark web, Ms. Melbourne. Perhaps Mr. Wolf found Kingsley talking to them.”

“I’m aware of the decoy agents,” she said, her stomach churning with anxiety. “And some of the people talking to Kingsley might have been exactly that. If they were, though, the question is why is Kingsley still a CIA employee?”

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