But the seeds of doubt were growing within her. Was she doing the right thing? Would it be better to just let it all go? Pretend she didn’t know what she knew? Should she tell her lawyer about the parallel investigation she had launched, ask him to go public if anything happened to her? Or would telling him put him in danger too?
She stifled a yawn. Her lack of sleep over the last few weeks was making it more difficult to concentrate. She felt more nervous about the upcoming hearing than she had expected. Normally she was a highly competent public speaker. But she had begun to feel strangely unsure of herself.
Even her husband, loyal to the core, had once or twice asked her if she was sure she was making the right decision by testifying. She detected his doubts. Sensed them. And that worried her.
Her lawyer had, only the previous day, mentioned coming to “an agreement” with the DOD for a financial settlement, in exchange for her silence. The suggestion had unnerved her. A lot. Had her lawyer already been approached? Had they threatened him? If she told him what she knew about the murders, would he share that information with lawyers on the opposite side? And then what?
The thing was, she was already in too deep. She couldn’t backtrack now and be able to face herself in the morning. But even if she could, she wasn’t in the mood for compromise. Perhaps she should be. It would give her an easier life, that was for sure. But integrity was important to her. Besides, it wasn’t in her nature to conceal such things.
Rosalind’s gaze again wandered around the coffee shop. She wondered who these other women were. What did they do in DC? Did they work for the government? Were they stay-at-home moms? Recently, she had begun to think of leaving her government job, with its pension and great health benefits, and striking out into the private sector. She had already been approached by a couple of Washington think tanks who had offered pretty crazy money. It would mean less stress and a chance to explore her interests. But she, slightly reluctantly, had passed, believing her work was not yet complete. She wasn’t brought up to just walk away.
Her work defined her. As a special agent within the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, she reported directly to the assistant inspector general responsible for investigative operations. She had the highest level of security clearance. Most of her job was routine. But the frightening financial irregularities she had unearthed led right to the heart of the Pentagon.
The more she thought about it, the more enraged she got at the appalling waste of public money involved. Hundreds of millions of dollars in slush funds. Secret bank accounts. Dirty money. Kickbacks and corruption. Cronyism. Her parents had instilled in her the value of hard work, self-reliance, and also integrity. Her mother had prided herself on being thrifty. Saving every extra cent in an old cookie tin for her children or special occasions. She didn’t believe in being wasteful. Rosalind wondered how the people she was investigating in the highest echelons of the US military could live with themselves. While the brave men and women of the American military were on the ground in all corners of the globe, putting their necks on the line for their country and for freedom, some bastards higher up the chain, who were already handsomely paid and rewarded, had their noses in the trough. It was disgusting. What would be the end result? Troops having to make do with older equipment. Fewer boots on the ground. Less hardware to defend the country. That wasn’t the America she knew or believed in.
For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Her father had quoted those words to her from the Bible.
Rosalind couldn’t in all conscience just sweep aside what she’d found. That wasn’t her way.
Her cell phone rang, snapping her out of her thoughts.
Rosalind reached into her handbag and took out her phone. She wondered if it was her husband, calling to say he was home from running errands with the kids. But when she checked the caller ID, she saw it was her lawyer.
“Hey, Rosalind, you OK to talk?” he said.
“Sure, go right ahead.”
“How are you feeling?”
Rosalind kept her voice low. “Anxious. But I’m ready.”
“I’d like you to come over to my office.”
“Right now?”
“Sometime today or tomorrow morning would be great. I need to go over some of the audit documents and a couple of aspects of your report.”
“Let me get back to you on that.”
“Hell of a lot of paperwork I’ve still got to get through before the hearing.”
“Tell me about it. I’ve waded through it all for the past eighteen months. I think if I have to read another auditor’s report into accounting irregularities, I’m going to scream.”
The lawyer sighed. “There’s something else I want to talk about, Rosalind. Something I really need you to think about.”
“What’s that?”
“What we talked about yesterday.”
“I said no to the settlement.”
“You did. But even at this eleventh hour, it’s not too late.”
Rosalind was annoyed that he seemed to be trying to get her to bail on her own investigation. “My mind is made up.”
“I understand. But I’m saying this as a friend and not just as your lawyer. Things are going to be rough.”
“I know that.”
“But do you really? Rosalind, they’re going to come after you in the press. There will be leaks from the Pentagon. You know how it works. They’re going to blacken your name. And I’m telling you, there will be even more pressure over the next forty-eight hours for you not to testify.”
Rosalind sensed he was taking the long road around to get to his point. “What do you mean, ‘even more pressure’?”
He sighed. “I talk with their lawyers regularly. I mean every day. That’s what lawyers do, right?”
Rosalind wondered if this confirmed she’d been right to be careful about sharing details of her secret investigation. “I’m not sure I understand?”
“It’s not just their in-house attorneys—who are very good—anymore. They also now have a powerhouse DC firm on retainer.”
“Since when?”
“Since three days ago.”
“I’m sorry, what? Why didn’t you tell me then?”
“I needed to get the lay of the land first.”
Rosalind ran a hand through her hair. “So this hardball law firm is going to rough me up, is that what you’re saying?”
He hesitated. “Four of the company’s partners are working solely on the legal strategy to neutralize the threat you pose.”
“Legal strategy? So you believe that this is not going to be a straightforward closed session?” Rosalind asked.
“The closed session is the least of your problems. They’re going to come after you in court, try to prosecute you for revealing classified information. They’re going to claim the whistle-blower law doesn’t shield you. They want to destroy you.”
Rosalind leaned back in her seat and shook her head, struggling to take it all in. It was the last thing she wanted to hear. “Seriously?”
“It gets worse. They are prepared to utterly destroy you, professionally and personally. Drag you through the dirt.”
“Personally? I’m sorry, in what way and how are they going to destroy me personally?”