Nothing but Trouble_ A Kevin Kerney Novel - Michael Mcgarrity [84]
Officially there wasn’t anything Thatcher could do about it other than defer to the vice chief. Still, he fumed that Clarke had not even given him the courtesy of a call about needing Brannon for a special detail. Because Henry Powhatan Clarke was clearly Brannon’s mentor and protector, Thatcher couldn’t help but wonder if hidden motives were in play.
Since her arrival at the military police directorate, Brannon had caused Thatcher nothing but trouble. It had started with her assignment to revise sexual-assault criminal investigation protocols and procedures, which she’d turned into an indictment against the army for failure to prosecute offenders and adequately protect victims.
Her findings had reached the halls of Congress, and it had taken a concerted effort to keep the situation from becoming an embarrassment to the service while preserving the careers of several ranking, highly connected officers. Fortunately, Thatcher’s second cousin, U.S. Senator Howard Ballard Rutledge, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, had buried Brannon’s report under the provisions of the National Security Act. But from that moment on Thatcher had kept a watchful eye on Brannon and her work, reviewing it in exhaustive detail.
Thatcher had hoped to quash Brannon’s chances for promotion by holding her back from accepting a plum temporary duty assignment with the training branch, and giving her a less than exemplary efficiency rating prior to her departure from his command. But General Clarke had outmaneuvered Thatcher and quashed his plans.
He wondered what Clarke and Brannon were up to and had spent the last two days discreetly trying to learn the nature of Brannon’s assignment. People he could usually rely on for information had professed no knowledge, and all his attempts to tease out any particulars from collateral sources failed.
Alarmed and convinced he was a target of some scheme hatched by Clarke and Brannon to ruin him, Thatcher decided to uncover the threat on his own and counteract it. Late Tuesday evening, after the personnel in Brannon’s section had left for the day, he exercised his authority to conduct a security audit of her workstation and began going through her files, paperwork, and notes in minute detail, searching for anything that would confirm his suspicions and reveal the nature of the plot against him.
In the top drawer of Brannon’s desk he found a file containing computer printouts of her outgoing telephone calls. Some time back Brannon had placed a number of calls to the Quartermaster Corps and the army forensic lab. He knew of no reason for her to do that. Additionally, over a considerable period of time, Brannon had also telephoned the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. One call had been made the day before Clarke had cut her special orders. What was that all about?
Thatcher decided to dig deeper and began dialing the numbers. Within short order he had duty officers at the Quartermaster Corps and the forensic lab scrambling to locate any documents or memorandums to or from Brannon. Then he phoned the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and spoke to a supervisor, who told him his department routinely kept in contact with Brannon regarding the status of an army deserter named George Spalding.
“What is the current status of the case?” Thatcher asked.
“Spalding is still at large,” the officer replied. “But based on a close watch list of one of Spalding’s known friends, we now have reason to suspect that he may be in Ireland.”
“Was this information shared with Colonel Brannon?” Thatcher asked.
“Yes, the colonel was advised.”
Thatcher thanked the officer and hung up. Well over a year ago the Spalding case had been transferred from Brannon to army CID. Yet Brannon had continued to follow