Easy and Obvious

 224.

In Montana, having spent three solid days of 24/7 surveillance has provided enough intel to put the revised and updated plan in motion. Merle, Drysdale and Mustang and I review the few intricacies wrapped around the basic 'grab and go' power play. As the core group assembled in the compound represents the hierarchy of the cell's food chain, taking the head of the snake lessons the need for complete stealth, with the trickle down being the word of mouth reports from the only surviving hostile. The news of  'a hundred bad-ass Feds' shutting down the terrorist stronghold from the designated survivor is exactly the headline Hartaugh and Adelson might have interest in reading to conclusion.

In Vegas, Davis and Saunders, now armed with the results of Eddie Acosta's back-door canvasing of Adleson's security lieutenant, and with the subsequent information cross-check, make the gutsy call to set up a meeting. Gutsy for the simple fact that although the word on the street suggests Adelson to be innocent of the three attempted assassinations and the possible poisoning of TOM, this is no sure thing with no polygraph data to confirm and no guarantee that they are not inviting themselves into the very den of the wolf who failed to have them permanently silenced eight months ago.

In DC Julie and Harlan have been busy. Julie, as well as her daily duties in data analysis and communications, has been on the tail of known Hartaugh fixer, Anton Bartowsky. It appears that Mr. Bartowsky, who has a history with the group sufficient enough to include him as a person-of-interest, has been in regular contact with Adelson's crew. Additionally incriminating are the frequent calls to and from Warden Daniel's office. The last of which, Julie was able to painstaking remake from a garbled shotgun microphone recording of a conversation resulting in the question on the whereabouts of a certain Major George H. Mason, onetime liaison and point of contact for the now infamous and mysteriously cancelled super drone test at the Florence penal facility.

Harlan has been tracking the person, aka Mr. 38 in and around DC, primarily in an area between Foggy Bottom and American University. A small residential brick Colonial that by all appearances is the quiet home of a professional couple working at some level of government, perhaps patents and copyrights, has been the focus of his surveillance. Mr. 38 comes and goes several times a day, in and out like a cabbie on call.  

I consider these events in combination. Is there something missing? Are we overlooking an obvious conclusion? Is the fat needing to be trimmed similar to the lesson behind William of Occam's famous cutting to the bone razor suggesting that the solution to any situation is usually the easiest and most obvious one?

I can't help but answering to myself the reality that in this situation nothing is easy and very little obvious.