Page 32 of Edge of Honor

“Fine. Hank’s.”

Within eleven minutes, they were sitting at a table outside with a view of Recreation Pier, the Potomac, and the boats in the Wharf Marina.

It was hot and steamy, but Fields didn’t care. After the trip to the morgue, she wanted as much fresh air as she could get. It was also nice to see the water.

Everywhere she looked there were American flags as people got ready to celebrate the Fourth of July.

By the time the waiter came to take their order, her appetite had returned. She asked for a crab cake sandwich with Old Bay french fries on the side. Carolan ordered a shrimp po’boy and subbed in hush puppies. The setting and the food beat the hell out of the Shake Shack or the Five Guys near the office. For a few moments, she could relax and almost forget that she was a law enforcement officer.

Across the table from her, Carolan scrolled through the photos she had AirDropped to his phone.

Zooming in on several of them, he stated, “Based on all the red, white, and blue ink, I think we can safely say our John Does were not foreign actors.”

“So they were Americans attacking Americans? Why?”

“I haven’t gotten that far yet. I’ve got a splitting headache. Where’s that guy with my Coke?”

As if on cue, the waiter appeared carrying their beverages. Setting the glasses down, he told them their lunch would be ready soon and disappeared back inside.

Carolan pulled the paper off his straw and went after his soft drink like a man who had just stumbled out of the desert.

“God, you have no idea how much I needed that,” he said, pausing as the sugar from the Coke began to work its magic.

She was about to admonish him that he needed to take better care of himself when their phones chimed in unison.

“It’s a text to us from Gallo,” she stated, looking down at her phone.

Sipping his Coke, with his eyes closed and his face turned up toward the sun, Carolan replied, “What does it say?”

“The Bureau has compiled all the CCTV footage from the cameras in the area, as well as from the cell phones of protesters who were recording at the time of the attack, and have produced a master video. It’s encrypted in the cloud. He’s given us a login and password.”

“I’m not watching that before I eat. But feel free,” Carolan replied.

“And you make fun of me for being grossed-out by the morgue.”

“The purposeful taking of innocent life doesn’t give me a queasystomach, it pisses me off,” her boss responded. “And when I get angry and try to put food on top of it, I get acid reflux, which pisses me off even more.”

It pissed Fields off too, but not to the extent that she couldn’t watch the video and try to learn from it, which is what she did until their lunch arrived.

Once they began eating, the conversation shifted to sports—primarily how the Washington Nationals were doing and what their hopes were for the Commanders in the upcoming season.

Fields then mentioned that friends of hers were planning simultaneous bachelor and bachelorette parties in Vegas and that the guys had picked the dates to coincide with a big MMA fight they wanted to attend. Suddenly a light bulb went off for Carolan and he waved the waiter over.

“What’s going on?” Fields asked.

“That tattoo of the sword and the tree,” he replied, fishing some cash out of his wallet. “I remember now where I saw it.”

As the waiter approached, he handed the money to him and told him to keep the change.

Taking one last bite of his sandwich, he washed it down with what was left of his second Coke and said, “Let’s go. We need to get back to the office.”

CHAPTER 15

Harvath had a long list of things to do before putting his plan into action. Step number one was to let Sølvi know what was going on.

The moment he stepped out of the Carlton Group building, she began revving the Dark Horse Mustang’s beefy V-8 engine.

“Good meeting?” she asked as he smiled and climbed into the passenger seat.