The Export by J.K. Kelly (read along books txt) 📕

was dropping in the distance. She paused, looked back, and told him something she knew would send him into a rage.

“Matt,” she began, “the new job at the NSA also brought some benefits.”

“You get to eat in the special dining room now?” he joked. She wasn’t laughing.

“No, but it does give me access to more assets in the field and in the lab. And just because we didn’t find anything out of the ordinary with Helene’s blood samples, I couldn’t let it end there. I had the NSA lab dive a bit deeper, and you were right, they did find something.”

He sat up with a jerk, and the look she saw in his eyes made her caution him.

“Before we go any further, Matt, you have to remember that the arrangement Helene negotiated with POTUS and the other parties in conflict was that you could not go after anyone on U.S. soil. No investigations, prosecutions, or–”

He cut her off. “Or terminations. I get it. Tell me what you found, and then I can take a few deep breaths and decide how to respond.”

“Helene was murdered. The lab found a very slight trace of an exotic nerve agent in her blood cells. The same type used by the Russians in England a few years ago, only better. It’s faster acting and less traceable. It’s odorless, colorless, works within seconds, and if you don’t know what to look for, a doctor or a lab would miss it completely.”

Matt was furious but able to restrain himself. Arrangement my ass, he thought, it’s time to go hunting for a killer, and I don’t care where they are.

“You’re one of the smartest women I know, Claire,” he told her. “So you’ve probably already figured out how it was administered and who did it. You already know, so go ahead and tell me the rest.” She did.

She laid it out for him. Her investigators had learned that a new domestic helper had been hired at the ranch, a maid, and that the maid had used a syringe to inject the material into Coleman’s nasal spray. After Matt had left the ranch, Dale had sent a team, without any warning of their arrival, to go through the property with a fine-toothed comb. She held the staff for questioning. Employees were reminded they had signed confidentiality agreements, and what happened at the ranch stayed at the ranch. Their agreement wasn’t with Coleman, it was with the U.S. government, and the last thing the FBI, NSA or the CIA wanted was for the public or the president to learn that this was a murder carried out by a Russian assassin in Coleman’s own bedroom. Those agencies would find out who did it and deal with it on their own terms.

The team brought back anything she might have come into contact with, and when they analyzed the liquid in the nasal spray, they had it. Coleman had dealt with serious allergies all her life and relied on pills and pump sprays to help her as best they could.

“When Helene picked up the tainted spray the new maid had left in her bathroom, it took only 30 or 40 seconds for her to realize something was wrong and drop her dead to the floor. She couldn’t call out. The nerve agent wouldn’t have let her. I’m actually shocked that she had the sense, and the ability, to move the ring. The liquid atomized in the spray and went right through her nasal passages to her brain.”

Matt’s mind was racing. He was thinking of all the things that Dale had already thought of and pursued.

“She looked at peace,” Matt volunteered. “It didn’t look painful.”

“No, it would have been like just falling asleep.”

“So this maid, do you have her? And how could she have gotten into the household of the DNI without being screened and then screened again?” Dale was as frustrated as Matt, and they both sat back in their chairs and stared into each other’s eyes for a very long minute.

“No, we don’t have her. She didn’t show up for work the morning Helene died. She called to tell her supervisor that her mother had taken ill in New York and that she was catching an early plane out to be at her side. That’s the last anyone’s seen or heard of her.”

“You know what this means, Claire,” Matt said impatiently.

“Yep, someone either compromised the girl into doing it, or someone on our side looked the other way and let a killer into Helene’s home. Well, it turns out we know who that person is.” Matt stood up from the chair, his face and body tense. He was ready to go after the person, regardless of who they were or where they lived. “Who, who was it, Claire?” he demanded.

“Sam Horton vouched for her, Matt,” she said sadly. “Turns out, he’s been banging her.” Matt’s heart broke. He’d known Sam forever, it seemed. They were like brothers every summer out west, but now he’d let someone into the inner circle, and it cost them both dearly.

“He didn’t know, he couldn’t have known what she was up to,” Matt insisted. “He never would have helped me with the blood samples.” Just then, Lois ran up onto the porch with another bone, and Matt, full of frustration and energy, threw the bone as far and fast as possible for her to chase after.

“You said you couldn’t do it yourself, so you asked Sam to draw the blood,” Dale reminded him. “Without you watching him, he could have given you his own blood for all you know. I doubt he was in on it, but I don’t think anyone should be off the list of suspects right now.”

“Does he know the maid did it?” She shook her head. He didn’t. Once Dale had put it all together, she had Sam’s cell, home, and office phone, police radio, and email accounts monitored. They were able to track his every movement through his cell and the transponder