“Your friend Connor stumbled onto something,” he mumbled, jamming the small wad between his cheek and gums. “Something he shouldn’t have.”
“We knew this part already,” I said impatiently.
“And where most people would’ve backed slowly away,” Woodward continued, ignoring me. “He pressed on harder than ever.”
Maddox shot me a sideways glance. From how tight his mouth had gone, he was thinking the same thing I was.
“Are you saying you turned a blind eye?” I challenged. “That you let him do this alone?”
“I’m saying he went too deep, too quickly,” the man spat. “And that by the time he brought it to me, it was already too late.”
I stood there in the cold, clenching and unclenching my fingers, attempting to keep calm by staring out into the rain. I tried imagining what the base looked like in its heyday, back when it was filled with people. How green the trees and lawns might’ve been. How smooth the cracked sidewalks were, alive with people. The vast empty parking lots, filled with vehicles.
“I tried to help him,” said Woodward. “Actually I did help him, but he kept coming back. Kept digging even after I covered his tracks, kept pushing his way through the layers of muck.” He shook his head slowly. “I’ve got a family. A wife, kids — some of them in college. There’s no way I could—”
“We get it,” I snarled. “You left him out there, all on his own. You hung him out to—”
“I TRIED, goddamn it!” The CPO spat again, and this time his spittle was a gob of greasy black liquid. “I went to bat for him! When I figured out they were watching him, I got him a new place. When he came to me with what he had, I even brought it to my superiors.”
I inched forward expectantly. “And?”
“And they squashed it,” the man said helplessly. “Just as fast as he compiled it, they… they…”
Maddox nudged me as the man dropped his head into his hands. He was almost in tears. Almost.
For me, it wasn’t good enough.
“Tell us what happened,” I growled. “And tell us everything. Leave nothing out.”
Woodward stepped closer to the middle of the gazebo, urging us forward. A breeze wafted in and his voice went lower.
“There’s a lot of old hardware around here,” he said confidentially. “High-level technology, resting in old places, sitting on old drives. Buried in the backs of decommissioned buildings,” he continued, “information that’s been copied and forgotten… just not by everyone.”
“So… secrets?” Maddox asked.
“Yes.”
“Someone’s stealing secrets,” I repeated.
The man nodded. “Stealing and selling them off, although I never knew everything. Winters kept most parts to himself. When he realized how dangerous it was, he didn’t wa
nt me involved anymore. Even when I went after him, tried to get him to talk to me, he basically blew me off.”
As much as I wanted to be angry, it sounded like Connor. It would’ve been something he’d do; put the needs of others first, well before himself. He’d done it on the battlefield for sure. And it seemed he was doing it here, with Woodward, right up until he died.
“What kind of information can you give us?” I asked.
“Even better,” Maddox interjected, “who’s watching us?”
“That part I don’t know,” said Woodward, glancing around again. “But whoever was after Winters followed him back to Nevada. And they’re Air Force, not Navy. Stationed at Nellis. Connor told me that much at least.”
I jerked my head toward Maddox. He took his phone out of his pocket and pulled up a photo.
“Know this guy?”
The CPO answered immediately. “Of course. That’s Evan Miller.”
“He wrapped up in this?”