About Her Cousin

 297.

I knock the code and enter. On the pair of monitors Drysdale, The Queen and Harlan all watch as the dinner moves, soup long gone, to the nutty desert course.

"Anything exciting?" I ask.

"The Senator is on his fourth rum drink and seems to be pushing towards an early evening, with a cigar and cognac prior," answers Drysdale.

"This thing is so blatantly chauvinistic I can hardly watch, even the old bag makes the occasional casual sexist remark. Inbreds. Disgusting," adds The Queen. Like a conductor asking for more brass I look next to Harlan wordlessly asking him the same question. "I will say this; so far Goldson has shown every indication that his subtle innuendo has been lifted directly from the official mafia playbook. If you listen closely there is a code of sorts intended for privileged ears only. By design, once he launches into a business segment, the women automatically tune out and the Senator tunes in. It is fascinating to watch in this environment."

"By 'this environment' do you mean theirs or ours?"

"Both."

On my com I again hear Julie ask for a private conversation and end the surveillance update with an encouraging word to the team, adding that I'll return shortly.

I take the stairs one flight up to my room, conveniently three doors down from the Senator's and find one of the burners we have brought for occasions such as this. I get the idea that Julie has some new intel meant for my ears only. Her tone of voice in answering removes all doubt.

"What part of immediately did you not copy? She fires like a semi-auto burst.

"Ah, sorry, I was in a meeting, my bad," I dodge.

Satisfied and softening, she continues, "This might be nothing, but it could also be huge, and I wanted to get the news to you asap," she continues, "remember your buddy Anton Bartowski?"

"Of course, he is heading to prison immediately upon release from the hospital."

"Maybe that will happen in the future but for now he is back on the street," she says, trusting that as messenger she won't be shot.

"What?"

"There's more. From the intel I could gather I appears as if there was a staged intercept as he was being transferred, a very clean and professional hit. The hospital staff was overwhelmed while security was elsewhere."

"Elsewhere?"

"Yeah, and again, from the bits and pieces I am still putting together, it appears as if they, the hostiles, had inside information on the patient movement. Intel that could only have come from one place," she says.

I run the tapes in a real-time exercise of dot connection, a dead end blocking each one, and finally present the obvious.

"Either we have a mole, someone at the hospital is on the payroll, or…."

"…or Hartaugh gave the OK," Julie finishes.

I am stunned. The thought, as plausible as tomorrow's sunrise, had never occurred to me. But now it makes perfect sense.

"Anything else?" I ask, still fuming about my oversight.

"Yes. If you get a chance you might ask the Senator's wife about her cousin."