(The Source in the Sludge)

Thank you for reviewing my story. I appreciate it.

I don't own Bones.

Ooooooooooooooooooooo

"Sari Nazeri didn't get to live the life she should have, but at least the guy that killed her is going to pay for what he did." Booth was still angry about the DOJ making a deal with Derek Johannessen. To give a murderer ten million dollars and immunity for murder just because he could provide the government an entire network of terrorists didn't set well with him. As far as Booth was concerned, Johannessen was a traitor and a terrorist too.

A slight smile on his face, Danny Beck agreed with Booth's sentiments. "I agree . . . my people tell me that the DOJ tried to force the Army to hand the guy back over to them, but General Waverly pretty much told them to go to hell. Johannessen killed a CIA asset and he was paid by terrorists to do the job. Waverly is determined to court martial Johannessen and he is going to get his way. Johannessen is a terrorist and he's going to be treated like one."

"Good." Booth stood up, walked around his desk, closed his office door and moved back behind his desk. Before sitting down, he leaned on his desk and looked at Danny with quiet intensity. "We need to talk."

The door being closed told Danny that they were about to have a very serious conversation. "Shoot."

Assured that Danny was going to hear him out, Booth sat down. "Okay, this has to stay in this room for now. I mean it Danny. It could be very dangerous for me and Bones and the people at the Lab if this gets out right now." He waited to see how Danny would react.

A feeling of unease flooding his body, Danny leaned back and gripped the arms of the chair he was sitting on. "Alright . . . you have my word." God what's going on now?

Hesitating for a moment, Booth studied his friend and finally started talking. "You remember we closed Gale Storm's murder case? Wayne Kitchen is in prison and William King is dead . . . case closed . . . except that it isn't."

The hair standing up in the back of his neck, Danny tried to keep his face expressionless. "What happened?"

"Angela is in contact with a hacker . . . I don't know who he is and neither does Angela." He knew that this was going to sound a little crazy, but Booth trusted Angela and he trusted Danny. "The guy found out about Kitchen and King and I guess he didn't think that was the end of the story. He knew that we never figured out who Kitchen's blackmailer was. The hacker started hacking databases that he shouldn't have and he started seeing something a little sinister. Angela says he looked for anyone and anything connected to King and Kitchen . . . He eventually followed the dots and they led to the McNamara Corporation. The owner Giles McNamara owned a lot of shell companies including Kestech Transpo Corporation. That company has only one purpose and that is to make payoffs. They deposited two million dollars into William King's account at around the same time Gale Storm was murdered. Kestech Transpo has also made payments to some doctors, coroners, a couple of DAs, three congressmen and one detective agency. My gut tells me that there are others."

"Shit!" Danny didn't like the sound of any of this.

Glad to see the anger on Danny's face, Booth continued. "I worked on an old murder case a few weeks ago. The victim was Lana Brewster, a yacht racer who died in 1995. Someone dug up her body and mailed it to Bones. She reexamined the body with Cam's help and they figured out that Lana had been murdered. The original autopsy was done by a coroner named Leslie Dollinger who was paid $9 million dollars to say it was an accident. The evidence pointed to a boyfriend as being the killer, but he killed himself a few days after we began our investigation . . . our suspect was Trent McNamara the son of Giles McNamara. Kestech Transpo was the one that paid Dollinger off . . . Giles is dead and now that Trent is dead that leaves the daughter Stephanie in charge of the company."

"Fuck!" Worried, Danny released the arms of his chair and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. "This guy that Angela has been talking to, is it just talk or does he have proof about the payment to King and these other people?"

"Oh, he has proof." Booth had seen the evidence in Angel's office. "The guy emailed Angela what he has so far and asked her to keep it off any computer that has a server. No internet access at all . . . the guy is scared and he wants Angela to take this seriously. I know I do."

Staring at the floor for a few seconds, Danny knew that Storm might have stumbled upon more than a traitor and he wished the guy had gone to his supervisor the second he had known that something was wrong. It had taken them months to find out what Gale had been working on and he had needed Booth's help to do it. He and his boss had hoped that the arrest of Wayne Kitchen would lead to his blackmailer, but so far Kitchen wasn't talking to anyone. When William King had been killed, they knew that the blackmailer or someone attached to King had panicked and killed him and they'd been trying to find out who that someone was ever since. "Do you think McNamara was behind Wayne Kitchen being blackmailed and William King being killed?"

"I don't know. The timing of the payments are right . . . We don't have enough proof to say what the payment to King was for, but Giles was dirty." Booth sighed. "The guy died a few weeks ago and I don't know if his son and daughter knew what was going on, but Stephanie has a law firm keeping us from talking to her about Lana's death. I'll need a lot more than this to approach her about Kestech Transpo's connection to William King. A hell of a lot more."

The news was bad, but Danny felt that they had just been given another clue that would eventually lead to the person pulling the strings that got Kitchen to commit treason and got Gale killed. "Thanks for letting me know. I'm going to try to do a little digging on my own." He held up his hand. "Don't worry. I won't do anything obvious. Nothing to give us away. I'll use the lightest touch I have."

With nothing else to say, Booth leaned back against his chair. "I am sorry for your loss, Danny. I know you loved Sari and she didn't deserve to die like that."

"Thanks, Man." Danny stood up. "Keep me in the loop and I'll do the same."

Once Danny was out of the office, Booth turned to face his PC. He had other work to do, but he wouldn't give up on the McNamara case. Something bad was happening and he was going to find out what it was.

Oooooooooooooooooooooo

Danny was pacing back and forth in front of Bing Taylor's desk and the man was starting to get annoyed. "Danny sit down." Once the CIA agent was settled on the chair, Taylor leaned on the desk with his folded arms. "Okay, so Booth's people with the help of an unknown hacker has found a connection between the McNamara Corporation and William King . . . and his shell company paid off a coroner to cover up a serial killer as well as some congressmen, a couple of coroners and some others? Why the hell haven't we been able to make the connection between McNamara and King?"

"You're kidding me, right?" Danny snorted. "The guy is a hacker which means he hasn't waited around for warrants and shit like that. We can't investigate anyone legally in this country so we've been using someone at The Department of Homeland Security to handle this, but and here's the big but, what if we're trusting people we shouldn't be? I mean two DAs are taking payoffs and right now I don't know who they are or what the payoffs are for, Booth didn't say. Wayne Kitchen was being blackmailed to do some pretty horrific stuff. Who's to say that there aren't some dirty Homeland Security Agents involved or FBI Agents or NSA? Who am I supposed to trust?"

"Okay, okay, settle down." Taylor hadn't meant to set off Danny, but it was hard knowing that something was going on in the country and not knowing exactly what it was. "Kitchen was blackmailed by someone to commit murder and treason. King was paid to kill Gale to protect Kitchen and his blackmailer. Kitchen isn't talking. King was killed to keep him silent. One of the men that killed Gale was murdered and the other one sang like a songbird, but he only had the goods on Kitchen and King. We have a hacker out there feeding Angela Montenegro information about the McNamara Corporation and its shell companies. One of those shell companies paid off King to supposedly kill Gale, they paid off a coroner to cover up a murder by a possible serial killer and they've been paying off congressmen, DAs and so on and so forth."

Calmer, Danny nodded his head. "That's it in a nutshell. I wish I knew who the hacker is, but Angela doesn't know and I'm pretty sure she wouldn't tell me if she knew. She's loyal to her friends and she's going to protect her source."

"I need you to stay in contact with Booth. He's your friend and he trusts you. Offer to help him with whatever is going on. We can't legally do any investigations in this country, but I think Carla Johnson over at Homeland Security is trustworthy. She's a retired Army veteran and she's got a reputation like Strickland Storm. She's a patriot and no one is going to buy her off. I say we feed her some information about the McNamara Corporation and see what she finds out. We need to find out who was blackmailing Kitchen and had King killed. I want to know why there are Congressmen on the take. I need to know if there are more than the three mentioned. I'd also like our techs to check and see if anyone has hacked into our computers. This hacker seems to be a ninja warrior with a keyboard. I don't like that. We need to find out who he is. When we do, I do not want him approached or stopped. He's doing pretty good on his own supplying Ms. Montenegro with information that Booth needs. I just want to know who he is and maybe keep an eye on him. He's in danger. Sooner or later the blackmailer is going to find out what he's up to and his life isn't going to be worth a bucket of warm spit. We also need to keep an eye on Ms. Montenegro. She's playing with fire too."

Danny didn't see any other options available to them. "I'll get on this. I might have Tom Jones watch over Booth while we're at it. Everyone attached to the Kitchen case is in danger as far as I'm concerned. Booth knows Tom, but I don't think that matters. Booth is good and he'd pick up any tail we put on him anyway. At least he knows Tom and trusts him a little since Tom watched over Parker Booth and made sure nothing happened to him."

"Set up what needs to be done and I'll sign off on it." Taylor had known all along that Gale's murder had been bigger than anyone had wanted to admit. Gale had made a huge mistake not talking to him about it and now here they were still trying to play catch up. "Gale was too damn smart for his own good. He wanted to make sure that he had something before he talked to anyone and now we know he had grabbed a tiger by the tail and that tiger was dangerous."

Standing, Danny ran a hand through his hair. "We have Booth and his crew working to find out what's going on. He, Dr. Brennan and Angela are keeping each other informed so if something happens to one of them the rest will still know. Gale wasn't a team player, but Booth is. He's going to get us what we want. I just hope it isn't too late."

Oooooooooooooooo

Let me know what you think of my story. Thanks.