Tears for Allah-Chapter IX

0900 Local_0600 Zulu
USS Ingalls
Ghoubet Kharab, Djibouti

Sturgis Turner and Alan Mattoni made their way on the destroyer's deck past one of the ship's two Mark 38 25mm machinegun systems. The preacher's son noticed that the M-242 autocannon had a gun shield and on it was a silhouette of the Marine Corps' Eagle, Globe, and Anchor. He also noted that the gun crew were definitely Marines and not part of the ship's crew.

xxixxx

"Commander Turner and Commander Mattoni reporting as ordered, sir." Captain Tyrell Jackson returned their salute. "I take it that you're the JAGMan team sent to investigate this incident," he replied.

"Yes sir," Sturgis returned. "What can you tell us about what happened?"

The Captain of the destroyer shook his head. "Like something out of a damn made for television movie. One of the members of the VBSS team, Petty Officer Brumwell, claims that one of pirates was going to shoot him and had a weapon. Brumwell fired first, mortally wounding him. The team turned that ship practically inside out but didn't find the weapon that belonged to the pirate. So here we are."

"Do you believe Petty Officer Brumwell?" Alan asked.

Tyrell Jackson pinched up his face in irritation at that question. "Commander, what I believe is irrelevant at this moment. Do I think MA 2 Brumwell is capable of cold blooded murder? No. Do I think Brumwell may have seen what he thought was a side arm in the pirate's hands? Yes I do. However, I have a responsibility to the other three hundred men and women on board to put my personal feelings aside and let you do a proper investigation of this incident. If he's guilty of murder, I want him prosecuted. But if this was justifiable homicide, I want him exonerated. Have I made myself clear?"

"Aye, aye, sir," the two JAGC attorneys chorused.

Jackson nodded his approval. "Ensign Yelson, Chief Thompson and Staff Sergeant Okgawa, leaders of the VBSS team, are waiting for you below in the ship's officer mess. If you think it's necessary and you need more privacy for any of these interviews, you can use my day room. MA1Wilson and Yeoman 2 Phillips are at your disposal and will see to your needs."

1307 Local_1707 Zulu
JAG Corps Headquarters
Falls Church, Virginia

"Just how bad was it Colonel?" The Navy/Marine Corps JAG asked of his SJA Colonel as she and Harm stood in front of him in his office.

"It wasn't so much the dropping of the book itself sir," Mac replied, "It was more the response of everyone to the noise made."

The Admiral turned to Harm. "Commander, you witnessed this?"

The aviator/lawyer nodded. "Yes sir, I came out of my office to see what had happened and noted the reactions of several of the enlisted to what had happened. They seemed nervous and irritated, more so than they should have about something like this. I also noted the reactions of Commander Burford, Major Clemons, Lieutenants Beck and Bernard. Very similar to those of the enlisted."

AJ nodded. "Mandatory psych evaluations for all the staff begin this afternoon. The SECNAV just cleared the last of the red tape that's been holding them up." The JAG turned and walked away from them and over to his darkened fireplace. He stared intently into it as he continued. "You'd think that since this terrorist attack took place on American soil that they would have moved faster on this, but the bureaucrats seem to have their own agenda and timetable on this matter."

Harm looked at Mac. He wasn't sure what they were supposed to say about that comment. "Yes sir," Harm finally replied not knowing what else to say.

AJ sighed and turned back to the two attorneys. "Look you two, you've been with me long enough not be 'yes men', you in particular, Colonel."

"Permission to speak freely sir?"

"Hell yes, Colonel. Isn't that what I just said?" snapped AJ.

Mac swallowed audibly. "Uh, yes sir. Admiral, is there anything we can do to help? We know you're frustrated-"

"Colonel, frustrated doesn't even begin to describe what I'm feeling at the moment. I've got a command riddled with PTSD cases that I saw coming a mile away. It's not like I turned a blind eye to the men and women serving under me, I put in the requisite forms and made the formal requests... only to be stonewalled by some Pentagon paper pushers who think because I have people with combat experience on board here at JAG that we shouldn't have these kinds of problems!"

"So what did the SECNAV say, sir?" Harm asked.

AJ gave a wry chuckle. "Well, for once, he went to bat for me and got those rear echelon commandos to understand the nature of our problem. But it took a hell of a lot more cajoling than I thought would be necessary."

"Sir, maybe you should take the afternoon off-" Harm started to suggest. He knew the Admiral had been hard pressed these past few weeks and upcoming days didn't look too promising for relief.

The Admiral quickly let him know that wasn't an option. "Commander, I'm not going to leave when my command needs me most."

Mac hoped he would listen to her. After all, he had listened to her in the past. "Admiral, we can handle this-"

But not this time. "Colonel, I appreciate the sentiment and your intentions. However, right now I need to be here doing my job rather than running off with Meredith or Dammit or both. Look, I understand that you two are concerned about me, and I appreciate that. But my leaving right now and taking a mental health break won't help the situation. If anything, it might make it worse. Understood?"

"Aye sir," they replied. The Admiral had stated his case and that was the end of the discussion.

Satisfied that he had won this argument, AJ walked over to his desk and hit his intercom button.

"Coates?"

"Yes sir?" she immediately responded.

"Let me know the moment the psych evaluation teams arrive."

"Aye sir." she replied immediately. Surprsingly, she hadn't asked why. Maybe she also sensed that this was not the time to challenge him.

1223 Local_1723 Zulu
NCIS Branch Office
Ingleside NAS

Bud was looking at the laptop that had been packed in Merhod's suitcase. The state crime lab had already scoured the portable computer for any evidence so they felt it was okay to share it with him. The setup for the computer was pretty standard, but when he checked the hard drive against a listing of what it should have on it, he found a discrepancy.

The total file size did not match the crime lab's list of files that they had found on the laptop. He guessed it could have been damaged clusters on the drive or some other kind of corruption of the files, but the former Public Affairs Officer didn't think so. He decided the only way to find out for sure what was going on was to compare each file with what was listed in the report. He took another sip of his coffee and began his comparisons...

Two hours later, Bud had his answer. It was a double copied file. The techs at the lab had probably dismissed this as a duplicate file but when he looked at it more closely, that's when he saw it. In the copied file the suspect document was updated with a little more information, and the metadata, or information about the document, contained what looked like gibberish.

Bud knew better.

He wrote down what he had found on his notepad that was sitting next to the laptop. It definitely was a coded phrase but why here, on this document? And what did it say – was it for him, or for someone else?

Bud took the coded phrase and began trying to figure out the key. After 30 minutes of playing around with various permutations of the coded letters, Bud had to admit it was time to bring in the big guns. He opened his satchel and pulled his laptop out of its padded zippered black fabric bag, plugged it in and turned it on.

In addition to the combat simulation program which he had used in Mirbullah, Bud had various word puzzle programs on his hard drive. He typed the coded phrase into the search box and then began selecting from a list of code keys the one that most closely matched Merhod's coded phrase. It wasn't Manchester, but it was close. Bud made a few edits to the key and the coded phrase suddenly sprang into readable English.

Cooler shelf slides - 27Amin?01

"What the heck does that mean?" Bud said to himself as he examined the phrase.

"What does what mean, sir?" Tiner said as he walked into the room.

Bud looked around at Tiner. "Oh hey, Jason. I was just trying to figure out what Mr. Merhod meant by this phrase." He pointed to the decoded phrase on his computer screen. I found it in the metadata on one of the documents in his laptop."

Tiner looked over his shoulder at the words on the screen. "'Cooler shelf slides...'" He said out loud as he read. "What does 27Amin?01 mean?" The NLSO attorney asked the JAGC junior officer.

Bud shook his head. "I don't know, but I'm guessing it's another password for a computer maybe to a partitioned portion of the laptop's drive."

Jason looked at the laptop sitting next to Bud's "This one?"

Bud nodded. "Let's find out..."

Bud turned Merhod's computer off and then turned it back on. After running its diagnostics, it came to the username and password screen. Then Bud began typing. "Since there wasn't password in this coded phrase, we'll have to guess that it uses the same password."

He typed 27Amin?01 and the password supplied by the crime lab techs. ACCESS DENIED the laptop displayed in the box below the wrong username and password.

"Well, it's not that..." Bud murmured as he hit enter to clear the boxes and tried a variation on what he had just typed.

Bud tried several different versions of the supplied username and then tried to come up with a password related to the first part of the decoded phrase. He also tried the coded phrase in Arabic and Farsi - nothing. Each time the result was the same. ACCESS DENIED.

"I hate to admit this," Bud said with a heavy sigh as he rubbed his eyes, "but I'm stumped. You got any ideas?"

Jason looked over his shoulder at the phrase again. "Maybe it's a literal phrase rather than a code," he suggested hopefully.

Bud couldn't believe it was that simple. "You think he's referring to the cooler they brought with them in the car?"

"Only one way to find out," Jason replied. Both men got up and headed down the hall to the evidence lockup area.

1147 Local_0847 Zulu
Officer's Mess
USS Ingalls

Alan Mattoni and Sturgis Turner sat across from Ensign Peter Yelson, MAC Milo Thompson, and Staff Sergeant 'Ken' Okgawa. Alan was taking notes as Sturgis listened to the men. They had been interviewed separately earlier. Now the two JAGC attorneys had brought the three together to see if their stories meshed.

"It was a standard Visual Board Search and Seizure Op, sirs," Yelson said in reply to the Bubblehead's question. "Corporal Hoshi's fire team was on rotation for the boarding party while Sergeant Dobson's fire team manned the two 25 millimeter auto cannons."

Sturgis nodded and made a notation on his pad before looking back at the Ensign. Same answer as before. "And the teams are always mixed Naval and Marine personnel, Ensign?"

"Aye sir, always." Yelson replied without any hesitation. The JAGC attorneys had learned that this was Yelson's first experience as CO of anything. Still the boyish blond haired Ensign seemed to be handling the responsibility well. In the two years that he had been CO of the boarding parties, no incidents of any kind had occurred. That meant that Yelson was extremely lucky or extremely good, and right now Sturgis was leaning toward the extremely good and understood why Jackson had put him charge of the VBSS teams.

Sturgis looked over the Master at Arms Chief. "Chief Thompson, why don't you tell me again your account of what happened?"

Chief Thompson nodded. "Aye sir. We were in the process of securing the weapons that we found on the deck, sir." Being a law enforcement officer on board Ingalls, he knew the importance of checking stories when something like this happened, and because he didn't have anything to hide, he didn't mind repeating what he knew as many times as they needed him to. Thompson had entered the service right out of high school, and while his aptitude tests showed he could master just about anything, the auburn haired sailor found himself time and time again drawn to law enforcement type duties, so when it came time to choose his specialty he chose law enforcement.

"What kind of weapons, Chief?" Sturgis asked. He didn't really need to know, he was just being thorough.

"Rocket propelled grenades," the Chief replied automatically. Realizing he was being too vague, he hastily added. "Uh, specifically both launchers and rockets. Plus some PK machine guns and RPK light machine guns, sir. We were making a pile of the confiscated weapons on the aft deck."

"And where was MA2 Brumwell, Staff Sergeant?" Alan asked as he continued writing.

Staff Sergeant Okgawa, like the Chief and the Ensign, didn't have anything to hide so there was no hesitation when he answered. "He was down below decks as part of Corporal Hoshi's fire team, securing weapons from other members of the crew." Okgawa, they had learned, had grown up in Somalia's Jubba River Valley. When civil war broke out back in the early 1990's, his family fled to Mogadishu to escape the roving death squads of the various warlords that had taken over the country. There the young Bantu befriended a squad of US Marines who unofficially accepted him as their guide. As the situation in and around Mogadishu deteriorated, Okgawa's family was killed and the Marines decided they couldn't leave this kid behind when they pulled out. So working with their CO and the Embassy they were able to take Okgawa with them when they left. 'Ken' as they called him, never looked back. As soon as he was eligible, he entered the Corps and the rest, as they say, is history.

The former submarine officer was almost sure these men had not had any part in the weapon's disappearance. None of them seemed to harbor any ill will toward Brumwell despite repeated questioning, so Sturgis decided to try a different tact with the Chief to see if that would rattle him, since he seemed a little nervous. "How long had MA2 Brumwell been part of these Visual, Board, Search and Seizure Ops, Chief?"

Sturgis could see the Chief was doing some mental calculations. "Going on...that is, about a year and...eight months, sir." Thompson said carefully not wanting to blow another answer.

"Did anyone besides MA2 Brumwell and Corporal Hoshi see the pirate with a weapon?" Alan asked of the three.

Chief Thompson exchanged looks with Ensign Yelson and Staff Sergeant Okgawa as if looking for consensus, and when none was forthcoming, he shook his head. "No sir. MA3 Lasco had just arrived on deck, having just confiscated an AK-74 assault rifle from one of the dhow's crew members, and Lance Corporal Edmunds was with me, having just deposited a confiscated weapon on the aft deck pile."

Alan was a little perturbed by Thompson's actions but he couldn't really find anything in what he had given so far that showed that he was not telling the truth, so he chalked it up to nerves. "And where were Corporal Hoshi and MA2 Brumwell when you came below to investigate the gunfire?"

"On the side of the room closest to the hatch, sir," Thompson replied

"Who came in the room first?"

"I did, sir." Thompson said in response to Sturgis' question. "Followed by Staff Sergeant Okgawa."

Alan made another note on his pad beside the list of questions he had asked. "And you saw the same thing as Chief Thompson, Staff Sergeant?"

The ebony Staff Sergeant nodded as he looked directly at Commander Mattoni. "Yes sir. As I had stated earlier, I had the dhow's Captain in my custody and brought him below with me. MA2 Brumwell and Corporal Hoshi were against the bulkhead closest to the hatch. They had their weapons leveled at the three other pirates."

"Did you immediately initiate a search for the weapon?"

"Yes sir, we did. I ordered Lance Corporal Edmunds to secure the weapon."

"And he reported he couldn't find it, correct?"

"Yes sir, we did a thorough search of the room and then in the other cabins and then the rest of the rooms below decks. We also searched topside."

"But the weapon wasn't found."

"No sir, it wasn't."

Sturgis sighed. As far as he was concerned, the questioning of these men was about over. It was time to move on and question other members of the boarding party. He felt confident that they had left no stone unturned in their questioning of the boarding party leaders. "Staff Sergeant, I know this might sound a little repetitive, but did you search the entire room?"

He thought he'd asked this question of all of them before, but response he got from Okgawa was not what he was expecting.

"Yes sir. We even found a hidden compartment in the floor, but no weapon."

Sturgis and Alan exchanged a look of mild surprise. That was something that wasn't in the official report and hadn't come out in the earlier questioning.

Sturgis jumped on this hoping it would lead toward solving the mystery of the missing weapon. "Did you find any evidence of the pistol having been there?"

However the Staff Sergeant's answer was both good news and bad news. "Aye sir. We swabbed the interior of the compartment for gunshot residue. It tested positive for GSR, but a lack of prints stymied us."

Both JAG attorneys eyebrows raised at this information. Alan wrote on his pad and pointed to it Brumwell innocent? How did the bad guys hide the weapon? They were about to ask him to elaborate about this last bit of information that he had provided when he spoke again.

"Uh, one of the new men in our squad, Corporal Chitwood, was a criminal investigator technician in civilian life. He was a big help to us in determining that weapon had been in that compartment."

"But your search still didn't find the weapon."

"No sir," Okgawa said with disappointment evident in his voice. "Sorry I didn't mention the compartment earlier, sir."

So now they knew that the weapon had possibly been hidden in the room by one of the pirates but then someone had also gotten back in there and spirited the pistol out of there before the search party could find it. The question is, who did it? Sturgis decided to see if Okgawa knew more than he was telling.

"Staff Sergeant, pistols do not just vaporize."

The Marine Staff Sergeant nodded. "Yes sir, I know that, sir. But I trust my men and I trust Brumwell like he was a member of my own squad. If they say there was a weapon, then I believe them."

And you don't think any member of the squad was responsible for its disappearance?

Okgawa shook his head. "No sir."

"What about you, Chief?"

"I believe them too, sir. Brumwell doesn't harbor any personal grudges and no one has any beefs with him. He's had some personal issues lately, but he hasn't let them affect the performance of his duties. And Tommy...Corporal Hoshi is one of the best, sir. If he ever wanted to transfer to this crew, I'd recommend him in a heartbeat."

Alan decided to follow up on Chief's mentioning of Brumwell problems. "You mentioned MA2 Brumwell has had some personal issues lately. What kind of personal issues?"

"Uh, yes sir. Brumwell had a few dust-ups with other members of the crew. Nothing major, just the kind of thing that happens when men have been at sea for a while. In one case he was just defending himself, but the Office of the Watch at the time didn't see it that way. He's kind of stickler for protocol and all that, sir."

Alan fought the urge to give Sturgis a look when Thompson mentioned that the OOW was a strict rule follower, but he knew Sturgis had heard the disdain in the Chief's voice about the officer.

"What about the other incident?" the Bubblehead asked.

Thompson nodded. "It was clearly his fault and he admitted it. Took his punishment and didn't bellyache or anything."

"Anything besides these dust-ups?"

This time Thompson shook his head. "No sir. Keeps his nose clean, does his job."

Sturgis glanced at Alan, who put his pencil down, signaling he finished with his questions. The former Dolphin agreed. It was time to talk to the other members of the boarding party.

1442 Local_1842 Zulu
JAG-NCIS Liaison Office
NCIS Headquarters
Washington Navy Yard

Faith hung up her phone. "That was Lieutenant Price at North Island NAS," the JAG-NCIS liaison explained to her partner. "They had a couple of boxes of Lieutenant Singer's personal effects that were in storage and wanted to know what to do with them."

"What did you tell them?" Jack McBurney asked of his office partner.

"I told them to send the boxes to us."

Jack stopped looking at the deposition he was reading and focused his attention on her. "What's in them?"

"According to Lieutenant Price, three towels, a bedspread, four sheets for the bed, an inflatable bed roll, a well-worn paperback and what he described as a mostly blank diary book."

Jack gave her a puzzled look. "Mostly blank? How 'mostly blank'?"

Faith wasn't paying any attention to him. She had opened a document on her computer which she labeled 'Lieutenant Singer's Personal Effects' and began typing as she answered his question. "A couple of words scribbled at the top of the first page. He and the other investigators there couldn't make anything of it, so they sent the diary to storage with the other items."

Jack was about to ask what Singer had written but his question was put on hold when Faith's telephone rang. She picked it up as she continued writing. "Commander Coleman,"

The voice on the other end was one she hadn't really expected to hear from again. "Commander Coleman? Commander Rabb. What can you tell me about the status of Lieutenant Singer's files and her personal effects from North Island NAS?"

Faith glanced over at Jack who had resumed looking at some case notes. She lowered her voice so it wouldn't carry over to his desk. "Their status sir?"

"Yes, Commander, their status. Where are they now?"

Faith kept her eye on Jack to make sure he wasn't listening. She really didn't want to explain who she was talking to, especially in light of their most recent conversation about Lieutenant Singer's effects. "I'm not sure why you need to know sir."

"I'm doing to some follow-up work on the Singer case, tying up some loose ends," Harm said casually.

The former North Island JAGC attorney didn't believe a word of what he was saying. She decided to go with the direct approach to try and shake him off this pursuit. "Are you sure that's wise, sir?" That comment made Jack glance over at his partner before going back to his reading.

Harmon Rabb paused, but only for a moment before he launched his next volley. "Nevertheless Commander, I'd like to see them."

Faith decided to match his insistence with her logic. "Commander, as your attorney of record, I would advise you to let this go. Let someone handle this."

"Commander Coleman in the past five months three incidents have come up, each one having ties in one way or another to Lieutenant Singer." Bud had earlier emailed him for advice and let him know what was going on in Corpus. Now there were three incidents involving people on that list he held in his hands.

Faith got up and left the room, walking out into the hallway. The look in her eyes before she left warned Jack to stay where he was.

Despite this unsettling news the Commander had just given her, Faith again tried for logic. "Sir, you're not the principle investigator in this matter, are you?

"No Commander, I'm not. As of this moment there isn't even a case," the former Top Gun admitted.

She had him. Now she knew what to do. "Sir, does the Admiral know about your 'off the books' investigation?"

If the threat of letting the Admiral know what was going on was supposed to shake the Commander, it didn't. If anything he became more determined than ever to continue his investigation. "No Commander, he doesn't and I'd like you to give me 48 hours."

"48 hours for what sir?" Honestly, Faith had no clue what he was going to do with that time.

JAGC's top troubleshooting attorney supplied the answer. "To find out how Lieutenant Singer ties into all this."

Faith sighed heavily. Not only because she realized wasn't she going to be able to deter him from his one man mission, but also because the SJA Major had joined her in the hall mouthing 'What the hell is going on?'

"All right, Commander, 48 hours," she said into the phone and then cut the connection while staring down McBurney.

xxixxx

Bud and Jason were the evidence lockup area looking at the cooler Hassan had mentioned in his code.

"No sliding tray," Bud announced as he finished his preliminary inspection of the portable container. "Looks like your standard cooler," he added with a note of disappointment in his voice.

Jason too, was disappointed. He had hoped this arcane code left by the terrorist on his laptop computer would lead to something that would exonerate his client. "Yeah, except that it has a thicker bottom than most," he said dismissively.

But Bud perked up when he said that. He quickly fished a magnifying glass out of his leather satchel and gave the container a closer examination. "This has been rebuilt …very professional looking…to make it look like it was made this way..."

Jason looked at the cooler through the magnifying glass when Bud handed it to him. He nodded, indicating he saw the same thing. "Goes along with Mr. Merhod's engineering skills and background, sir," he added.

Bud began feeling along the entire length of the containing, probing with his hands. "He said there is a 'tray that slides'". Finding nothing unusual, they opened the portable cooler and looked inside. It looked normal enough – no evidence that interior had been changed.

"No sliding tray in here either," Bud declared.

Bud closed the lid and focused his attention on the bottom again. Then he saw it. A thin seam that almost couldn't be seen in normal lighting. "There is a drawer on this side of the cooler."

Jason looked at him hopefully. "Do you think this was the tray he was talking about, sir?"

"We'll find out soon enough, Jason." It took Bud a moment, but he finally figured out how the mechanism worked.

The tray silently slid open revealing a Palm Pilot in a brown leather jacket case. Bud gently pulled out the state the art personal data assistant and laid it on the table beside the cooler.

"Look at this thing!" Bud exclaimed, opening the jacket.

Jason was equally intrigued. "I've heard about these, sir, but I haven't seen one until now."

Bud turned it on and waited for the machine warm up.

"Do you think the files were encrypted?" Jason ventured.

As if in response to his question, the PDA beeped, demanding a user name and password before allowing anyone to go any further.

Bud sighed. Then he realized it was a little silly to think the terrorist wouldn't have password protected his PDA. "Well, to find that out, we'll need to figure out the user name and password it wants."

There were about to do just that when Special Agent in Charge Chad Tolbert walked into the room and saw the cooler and the PDA on the table. "I thought I heard you two in here – hey, where'd the fancy PDA come from?"

"We found a file on Merhod's laptop that told us about a secret compartment in his cooler," Jason replied.

Chad leaned in and looked at the PDA Bud was examining. "A secret compartment...this guy was a regular James Bond, wasn't he?" he remarked.

Bud looked up at Chad. "He built it into the cooler, made it look like it was actually part of it."

"So what's on the PDA?" the Corpus Christi SAC asked.

Bud shook his head as he went back to his minute inspection of the device. "Can't tell yet, it's password protected."

Chad nodded. "I can help with that. I got a friend in DC who's a whiz at this kind of stuff."

Chad pulled out his phone and tapped in a few numbers. "Hey Abbs, it's me, Chad."

The female voice on the other end was ecstatic and loud enough for both attorneys to hear her. They could also hear frenetic music. "Chad! Chad! Chad! Chad! How's Corpus Christi?!"

Chad smiled at the infectious glee in her voice. "Beautiful as always Abby. Hey look, I need a favor."

"Name it," the Washington DC NCIS Forensic Specialist replied as she turned down her music.

"Got a PDA down here we found in a terrorist's personal effects. Its password protected. Do you think you can help us get in and find out what's on it?"

Abby didn't hesitate. "Sure! What have you got for me?"

Bud spoke up. "All we have right now is a phrase that we found encrypted on a document in its metadata. It's 27Amin?01-"

"Lieutenant Roberts! Is that you?! It Abby! Abby Sciuto!"

Jason and Chad noticed Bud's face coloring. "Uh hi, uh, Ms. Sciuto-"

"Lieutenant, it's Abby!" the Forensic Specialist said somewhat petulantly and immediately perked up again. "Tony told me about what you and he did in Bahrain. You have some neat crypto skills, JAG man!"

Bud's face got even redder. Both Jason and Chad were smiling. Abby had a way making anyone feel special. Unfortunately it also opened the recipient of the praise to unmerciful ribbing from any nearby friends.

"Uh, thanks again, Abby," Bud said, hoping that Abby was about finished.

"Oh you're welcome!" Bud could hear the grin in her voice. "Did you say the phrase was-"

Chad replied saving him. "27Amin?01"

Abby was silent for a moment as she wrote down that information. "Okay, got it. Anything else, Chad?"

"No, that's all that we have at the moment." Chad said.

"Okay. Give me a couple of hours and I'll get back to you. And let me know if you come up with anything else."

Chad grinned as he listened to her response. "Thanks Abbs, I owe you."

"You owe me, like, bunches, Chad. But hey, no sweat, your credit is good with me."

"Thanks again, Abbs." He cut the connection and looked at the two JAGC attorneys. "It'll take her a little time, but I guarantee you she can figure this out. She's that good," he assured them.

Jason pulled out his phone. "I probably should have done this earlier. Lieutenant Strom, the prosecuting attorney, needs to know what we've found so far."

Bud nodded. Jason was catching on quick. He just hoped Strom wouldn't think there was some kind of collusion between them.

-TBC…