CHAPTER FOUR
David Friedman was generally an easygoing guy.
That was part of what made him and Faith such excellent partners.
She was strong-willed, assertive, and self-assured.
David was self-assured, but he was mild-mannered and willing to go along to get along.
He could calm Faith down, and she could bring decisiveness to the relationship that he sometimes lacked.
It bothered him how much this case was changing him. He was being more decisive, but he was losing his calm, and in hindsight, many of his decisions had turned out to be very poor ones. He wasn’t breaking his promise to Faith at the moment. All he was doing was looking into the names on the list.
But he knew he wouldn’t stay away. Just like Faith couldn’t stay away from the field, David couldn’t stay away from this investigation. Seeing Sierra had touched something dormant inside of him. He could no more stop acting on it than he could stop breathing.
He rubbed his chin and scanned the obituary of Dr. Richard Fenniman, the second name of the list of researchers given to him by an as-yet unidentified informant.
Faith and Michael had made it clear that they needed to identify this informant before they continued to investigate.
David had agreed to this, but when faced with the reality that his investigation was going to stagnate until they had that answer, he couldn’t bring himself to stop.
And that morning, it occurred to him that the informant could be a name on this list.
Most of the names on the list belonged to people who had died between four and five years ago.
There were only two exceptions: Dr. Martin Ramsey, who had died a few months ago shortly after he had come up in one of Faith’s investigations, and Dr. Richard Fenniman, who had allegedly died in a fiery car crash on I-95 six months ago.
David knew Martin Ramsey wasn’t the whistleblower because he had been found with a bullet hole in his head. Fenniman’s body, on the other hand, had never been recovered.
Perhaps because he was still alive, maybe he had faked his own death to protect himself from the 93rd Testing Brigade and had now resurfaced to help David put a stop to their experiments.
“Hitting it hard and early, huh, big man?”
David smiled wryly and turned to the hulking FBI agent looking over his shoulder.
Jeff Hammerton was an enormous man who looked like an NFL linebacker.
He and his partner, Greg Rogers, were assigned to the Washington Field Office, and, thanks to the fact that Faith was probably the most famous agent since Elliot Ness, were currently assigned to protect him.
They didn’t know everything about the case David was investigating, but they knew he was supposed to stay home and behave.
That would make his efforts today difficult.
“Trying to get a head start, yeah,” he said.
Hammerton chuckled. Then he looked over David’s shoulder and frowned. “Expecting to see someone in there?” he said, thrusting his chin at the screen.
David sighed and tried to hide his irritation. “Just trying to see if this guy might be connected to what I’m looking into.”
“Hmm.” Hammerton gave David a knowing look that made David feel about thirty years younger than his thirty-eight years of age. “We gonna be good, right?”
David didn’t bother trying to hide his irritation anymore. “Yes, I’m going to be good. Would you mind not looking over my shoulder when I’m working?”
Hammerton opened massive hands that could probably crush David’s skull like a grape were they so inclined. “Sure thing, boss. Just don’t want to end up in trouble with your lady. She loves you, but she ain’t love me, you know? If I piss her off, that’s my ass gone, you feel me?”
David doubted Faith would ruin Hammerton’s career if David managed to slip him and Rogers, but he understood Hammerton’s point. “I won’t get you in trouble.”
“Good man. Greg’s making omelets, by the way. I’m not married to him or anything, but I can admit the man makes a mean breakfast.”
“I’ll take an omelet,” David replied.
“Good deal.”
He stood in the doorway, an elephant-sized man who, in David’s experience, was gentle as a lamb. It was easy to imagine Hammerton as capable of violence but very difficult to imagine him perpetrating it, even if he was justified in doing so.
“I had a dog once,” he told David. “Little bichon frisé. Named her Princess.”
David smiled, trying to imagine the enormous Jeff Hammerton cuddling a tiny lapdog. “That’s cute.”
“Yeah.” Hammerton chuckled. “I got in trouble once for her. I was taking her out for a walk, and this boy kicked at her. Didn’t kick her, just kicked at her.
She yelped and jumped away ‘cause she got scared. So I picked this kid up by his collar and hung him on a fence post. I left him there. Told him I was coming back later, and if he wasn’t still up on the fence, I was gonna beat on him ‘til he couldn’t walk right. ”
David’s eyes widened. It wasn’t so hard to imagine Hammerton being violent anymore. “Damn.”
“Yeah. I guess his teacher called his parents when he was late to school, and they found him hanging on the fence crying.”
David laughed. “Ouch. Bet he remember that lesson.”
Hammerton chuckled. “Yeah, he never bothered me again.” He reached a massive hand and scratched behind his head. “I guess I’m saying I understand.”
He smiled at David, and David saw the empathy in his gaze. “I’ll go let Greg know you want some eggs.”
The big agent left David’s room. David spent a moment picturing a young Jeff Hammerton putting the fear of God into a little bully who thought he could pick on a dog just because the creature was smaller and weaker than he was.
He really wished he could do that. Just put the fear of God into the CIA until they never thought of hurting a dog again.
The problem, of course, was that the CIA was the fear of God.
He turned his attention back to the screen.
The obituary didn’t give him much. It was typical boilerplate stuff.
Fenniman was a respected veterinary doctor and researcher.
His friends and family described him as kind and passionate.
His patients all rated him highly. He would be remembered for his contributions at home and in his career.
David closed the obituary and performed a general search. It took a few tries for him to find the right Richard Fenniman. It was apparently a more common name than he realized.
Finally, though, he had a basic understanding of Fenniman’s career and why the 93rd Testing Brigade might have been interested in him.
He was best known for his cutting-edge research into the psychology of dog owners, and had partnered with psychologists (of humans) to identify ways in which the brains of dog owners differed from those of non-dog owners.
In particular, he studied the areas of the brain associated with emotional intelligence, empathy, and intuition, particularly the ability to understand what others want without needing explicit communication.
He noted that those areas were significantly more well-developed among dog owners and theorized that could explain why dogs and their owners shared such close bonds and why people who cared well for their dogs also tended to have healthier relationships with other people.
Fairly basic stuff, especially compared to the far more out-there theories of Carolyn Maldonado, who genuinely believed in an active telepathic connection between dog owners and their pets.
Still, her research had focused on dogs and how drugs could unlock their latent psychic abilities.
Fenniman focused on the human side. Maybe the 93rd used that research to help condition their human operatives.
His stomach turned a little. Sierra, the alleged military working dog he had examined whose condition and behavior had first alerted him to the 93rd, was handled by a woman who introduced herself as Staff Sergeant Whitaker.
She had been hostile to him and occasionally openly confrontational.
He had taken an instant dislike to her that was cemented when he observed the way she treated Sierra.
He’d never even considered the possibility that she could be a victim herself.
There was no doubt that Fenniman and the others on this list were victims. David still didn’t know how voluntary any of their participation was or if any of them were active participants at all.
Maldonado, for example, didn’t appear to have ever heard of the 93rd Testing Brigade.
They’d just stolen her research and killed her so she couldn’t find out about it and get in their way.
But maybe Fenniman hadn’t been opposed at first. Maybe the reason he lived so much longer than the others was because he had initially chosen to help the 93rd and had a change of heart later.
Maybe he had faked his death because he knew he would be killed if the CIA ever found out about that change of heart.
Then he had heard of David’s investigation, possibly from a contact within the 93rd, and was now trying to help him put a stop to the project.
David wanted to find out for sure if Fenniman was still alive, and if he was, he wanted to get in touch with the man and learn everything he knew about the program.
He searched for an address and found one.
A quick check with the DMV using Faith’s credentials confirmed that Daisy Fenniman, Richard’s wife, still lived in Fairfax, a city about forty-five minutes north of Quantico.
If he could only find a way to slip Rogers and Hammerton.
He leaned back in his chair and sighed. That wasn’t going to happen. He’d just have to deal with waiting until Michael vetted his contact.
And will Sierra still be alive by then? Is she alive now?
He dropped his head into his hands, grabbed a fistful of his hair, and squeezed softly. “It’s not fair. It’s just not fair.”
“You gonna go talk to her or what?”
David flinched at the sound of the second voice. This one was a little graver than Hammerton's but not quite so deep.
He turned around to see Hammerton standing next to the speaker, his partner and equally large friend, Special Agent Greg Rogers. Rogers held a plate with a steaming bacon and Swiss omelet and looked at David with the placid expression common on the faces of so many big men.
David blinked and glanced at the computer screen. “I told Hammerton I’d behave, so I will. I don’t want you guys to get in trouble with Faith.”
Hammerton chuckled. “Yeah, Greg and I were talking about that, and we decided that we didn’t feel right just sitting around while those dogs are being abused. So we figured that as long as Faith was in Baltimore, we might as well help you out a little bit.”
David blinked again. “You guys want in?”
“We do,” Rogers confirmed.
“But…”
David hesitated. Faith had intentionally kept the two of them out of the loop to keep them from placing themselves at any greater risk than they were already in just by being around David. He was grateful for their offer, but he didn’t want them to get hurt because of him.
“You’re worried the CIA’s gonna come after us if we help you,” Hammerton said.
David didn’t blink this time. His surprise was too great for that involuntary reaction. Then it occurred to him that they had mentioned the abused dogs even before bringing up the CIA.
Rogers chuckled. “Sometimes, I think you guys forget that we’re also FBI agents. I know we look big and dumb, but we’re just big.”
David managed to blink finally. “Um… Yeah, well… Wow. So you guys know?”
“Yeah, we figured it out a few days ago. We weren’t sure what we were going to do about it, but the more we think about it, the more we think that helping is the right thing to do. So if you want to talk to Ms. Fenniman, we can make that happen.”
David blinked. “What… How did…”
Hammerton laughed. “Boy, we’re detectives. And you ain’t a good liar. We knew what you were planning to do the moment we saw you on your computer this morning.”
David still wasn’t sure. “Guys, this could be really dangerous. They’ve tried to kill me already. They’re watching me still.”
“Yeah, we’re gonna have to do something about that,” Hammerton agreed. “Might need to change your haircut and grow out your beard, but we’ll figure it out. In the meantime, we still think it’s the right thing to do.”
When David continued to waver, Rogers said, “David, we’re in. We’re not asking. I mean, we are, but we’re just being polite. Lovely as your house is, we don’t want to spend seventy percent of our time sitting around it.”
Finally, David relented. He smiled at the two men and said, “Thank you. I really appreciate it. You guys are awesome.”
“Hell yeah, we are,” Hammerton agreed. “And since we’re going to be partners, we might as well be on a first name basis. I’m Jeff.” He hooked a thumb toward Rogers. “That’s Greg.”
David grinned and extended his hand. “Dr. Friedman.”
“Go to hell,” Jeff fired back.
David laughed, and the other two joined in. David still had some misgivings about bringing them in all the way, but overall, he felt excited. He wasn’t trapped anymore. He could finally make some real progress.
Maybe, just maybe, there was still hope for Sierra.