Free The Second Perimeter by Mike Lawson Page A

of promotion, age discrimination, unfair shift assignments. That sorta whiny crap. Both are divorced and both have kids they don’t support. Neither has a criminal record, unless you count the DUI Mulherin got six years ago. They’re just a couple of fuckups.”

Just a couple of fuckups. That seemed to be the consensus opinion as that was at least the third time that Emma had heard that phrase, or a variation of it, used to describe the pair. So why had Carmody hired them?

“Is that it?” Emma said.

“No. I checked their bank records. Six months ago both men came into some money, a hundred thousand dollars each. This was just before they retired from the yard and started working for Carmody.”

“What was the source of the hundred thousand?”

“Carmody’s company. I guess it was some kind of signing bonus.”

Emma snorted. “Would you pay these two a signing bonus?”

“I don’t think so.”

“And where did Carmody get the money from?”

“He bought a house in San Diego when he was stationed there back in the nineties. He rented the place out when he wasn’t there. Seven months ago he sold the house and used the profit from the sale to start up his consulting company and to pay Norton and Mulherin. But there’s something fishy about the sale. He was paid almost three times what the house was worth. A development company bought the house and I haven’t been able to trace where they get their money from. I could do it eventually, Emma, but they told me I couldn’t spend any more time on this.”

“Could someone be funneling money through the development company?”

“Sure. It’s big, it’s global, and it’s got income flows from a dozen different directions. It’d be perfect for funding foreign ops.”

“You need to find the source of Carmody’s money.”

“I’m sorry, Emma, I can’t. Not now, and not unless you get something solid.”

Emma was silent for a moment.

“What about Carmody?”

“He’s a totally different breed than Mulherin and Norton. He started off as a navy nuc, trained as a reactor operator in Idaho Falls, then served on both attack boats and boomers. His record was spotless. Good fit reps, commendations, fast track for promotion. He was being considered for officer candidate school when he decided to leave the nucs.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing happened. He was twenty-four years old— he enlisted at eighteen— and after six years he was tired of submarines and decided he wanted to be a SEAL. The nucs weren’t happy about him leaving but he said if they didn’t transfer him, he’d quit, and he was just too good for the navy to lose. And the SEALs really wanted him, a big young guy with a technical background. He was a dream candidate.”

“How’d he do in the SEALs?”

“Great, until right before he quit. He’s one of those guys that has his medals stored in a government lockbox because he can’t tell anyone why he got the medals. Kinda like you, Emma.”

Emma ignored the compliment. “What happened before he quit?”

“He was in…someplace, and…well…something went wrong. One SEAL was killed and Carmody got the blame.”

Emma could tell that Peterson was reading from a report and not telling her everything— or anything.

“Come on, Peterson,” she said. “What kind of op and what did Carmody do?”

“Sorry, Emma, I can’t say. The point is, Carmody had to make a decision in the middle of a firefight and he made the wrong decision. In hindsight, that is. You know how it is; you’ve been there before. Anyway, Carmody was the NCMFIC and he took the hit.”

NCMFIC was military-speak for noncommissioned motherfucker in charge.

“Did they bust him out of the SEALs?”

“No. This guy was a star. They put a letter in his file and were going to make him repeat some training— basically a slap on the wrist— but he quit before they could.”

“So when he left the navy, he was pissed.”

“The records don’t say. His stated