Page 31 of Protection for Asher (Safeguarded By The SEAL #4)

Squat leaned back in his chair, unsure how to approach their problem. Thario hadn’t found any direct connections to the mission he’d been on when he’d been blown up.

“So we have no way of knowing if it’s connected?” Jay asked.

Thario shook his head. “No, we don’t know.”

“Maybe we could do some investigations on base,” Apple said.

Thario nodded. “You need to be careful, though. You could lose your job.”

“We could lose our lives.” Jay's eyebrows shot up. “You, of all people, should understand that.”

“Do you really think it’s tied together?” Sharp asked.

Squat nodded. “I do.”

“If, and I do mean if it is, that means someone in leadership is dirty,” Griz said.

They all sat back, and silence filled the room.

Maybe they were way off base, but he didn't think so.

There were things that had happened in the last few years that were very unlucky.

“What if it wasn't bad luck that caused teams to fail? What if someone is purposely making teams fail so they could advance their agenda?”

“But what agenda are they advancing?” Squat asked out loud.

Apple shrugged. Squat stood and paced to the end of the room. All eyes were on him, even Frog’s gaze stayed on him. He hated this. It threw them into chaos mode and they didn’t know where to hit to solve this problem.

“It's probably not random. Whoever is sabotaging missions isn't just picking random teams to try to destroy. I think it's much more pointed than that.”

“How many missions in the last few years have had things go wrong?” Shine asked.

Thario turned to his computer and started typing. “Let me see if I can…there we go.” Thario took a moment to read the screen. “I have evidence of four missions that had issues, not including our mission. Before that, there were two that same year, but before then, it was less than one a year.”

Sharp tapped the table. “Someone is fucking with us, and I want to find out who.”

“I’m with you,” Griz said.

“I think we can figure out how to look and be careful,” Jay said.

Shine nodded. “We need to really think about who we are talking to and where we look.”

Squat turned to Thario. “Before you left the Navy, were you into computers?”

Thario shook his head. “I knew a little, but not as much as I do now.”

“Any idea where we should look?” Jay asked.

Thario glanced over at Jay. “You’ll have to be very careful. Whoever is doing this will be monitoring their systems. I can start looking at financials for everyone in command.”

Griz lifted his hand. “How about we all start there? Let’s see if there is anyone in Navy command who has had a sudden influx of money.”

“Sure. We’ll work for a few hours today. When are you all expected back at base?” Thario asked.

“We have two days before we’re due back,” Squat said.

Thario wove his fingers together and stretched his hands overhead. “Okay, let's see what we can do during your time off.”

Jay took a seat at one of the computers. “It could be someone in command at another base.”

Squat grunted. “But how would they know which missions the SEALs are going on?”

Jay shrugged. “We can’t rule out anyone.”

Thario got the list of people who were in command in San Diego.

It included officers in the JAG office, to people in the criminal investigative department.

They had to look at every one. The number of people was daunting.

Griz thought they should rule out the lowest level, but Jay said not to discount anyone.

Sharp started scrolling through the lists of people they had to look at. “Fuck, it’s going to take months to go through everyone.”

Shine nodded. “We’d best start now.”

Thario started typing fast. “Let me see if I can get rid of a few. Anyone who joined the Navy after my injury can be scratched off.”

“Maybe,” Apple said.

“Why do you say that?”

Apple blew out a breath and turned to Thario. “What if it’s more than one person? What if someone is working with another person, or what if it’s just random people who are doing it?”

Sharp shook his head. “That would take too much coordination. I think it’s one person, maybe two at most. But two people would be risky.

They would have to have mutually assured destruction plans.

I couldn’t imagine doing something so terrible and having to make sure the other person has kept the secret. ”

“Yeah, that would be gut-churning. Imagine having to make sure someone else kept quiet about something so awful. It would eat you up inside,” Apple said.

“We all keep some pretty big secrets,” Griz said.

Squat nodded. “Yeah, but we can talk about it amongst ourselves, and if someone else finds out, it's not like we'll go to jail.

I mean, if we traveled to some countries in other parts of the world, there might be a regime that wants us dead, but it's not like what this person is doing. They're committing treason.”

“What they are doing is treason, right?” Apple asked.

“Yeah, it’s bad. Maybe sedition, but most likely treason,” Thario said.

Squat held Sharp's gaze. “Whoever is doing this will be very dangerous. They are going to want to keep their secret safe.”

They all nodded. This was dangerous, like all the missions they went out on. They could end up dead, and their family could be targeted. They had to be careful in searching so their target never knew what they were doing.

Squat ran a hand over his forehead as the pressure mounted. “We keep this between us only. We work on this here at Thario’s place. No searching on our own computers.”

Thario nodded. “Yeah, don't take the chance by searching on your own computer. If you do, it could tie back to you. And we don't want you in more danger than you already are. Everything here is run through a VPN. We're basically untraceable here.”

Squat hated that they had to do this, but not looking into who was sabotaging missions would put every SEAL and other military personnel at risk. Something had to be done to stop the attacks or more would die.