Page 30 of Cyn
Joe chuckled. “Darling, I’m pretty sure Mac is quite used to surprises whenever you’re around.”
She winked at him. “That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.”
“Drop the lovey dovey shit—not that I don’t like it, but now is not the time,” Mac said, ushering them into a room and shutting the door behind them. Inside were two women officers, each with a file in front of them.
“Lomar, tell Dr. Steele and Chief Harris what you found,” Mac said, gesturing to one of the women. “Cyn, Joe, I’ve told both my investigating officers that you have an interest in the case given that McElroy’s body was found on your property,” Mac added, offering them a cover story to explain why he’d allow his team to talk to them. Both Joe and Cyn gave a small nod, then turned to the woman Mac had called Lomar.
“In the four months leading up to Private McElroy’s death, information about Al-Shabaab had been accessed twenty-seven times from the computer block assigned to McElroy’s team,” she reported, sliding a piece of paper over for them to see the dates and times. “From the file, you’ll see that McElroy used his own credentials seven times, but he used two different sets of credentials for the rest.”
“And how do you know it was McElroy using them?” Cyn asked.
The other woman slid another sheet in front of them. It was a grainy picture taken from CCTV as he entered the computer center. “The times he entered and exited the building coincide with the times the information was accessed. We’ve also started confirming the whereabouts of the two privates whose credentials were used. We don’t have a complete report on that yet, but we have confirmed that several of the times the creds were used, it would have been impossible for them to have been used by the men in question.”
“And what information was accessed?” Joe asked.
Mac shook his head. “At their level of clearance, there isn’t much to see that’s more detailed than the news, but our reports do include names of men known, or believed, to be members of Al-Shabaab.”
“Was that the only information he accessed that wouldn’t have also been public?” Cyn clarified.
Mac inclined his head. “A little more, but nothing that would jeopardize his safety if he knew.”
“Other than names, what else?” Joe pressed.
Mac scowled at the reports sitting on the table. “An analysis of the growth of the movement as well as their recruiting methods, dossiers on the founders, and suspected bases of operations. But again, most of the information, other than the analysis, can be found online. The system he accessed pulled all the intel together in one spot, so he didn’t have to go picking and hunting, but that’s all. What the hell was he into?” Mac demanded, suddenly.
Cyn shook her head. “I don’t know. Private Crammer thought he had some white supremacist leanings, but that doesn’t explain why he’d be interested in Al-Shabaab.”
“Maybe he was planning to go after them?” Joe offered. It would have been a suicide mission and, based on what Cyn had relayed of her conversation with Private Crammer, that wasn’t really McElroy’s style. But Joe was hard pressed to figure out what else McElroy might have been interested in when it came to the extremist group.
“Any activity on his cell or sat phone or anything?” Cyn asked. He wouldn’t have had a phone of his own—at least not legitimately—but he would have had access to such devices.
Both women shook their heads. “We checked the records associated with the devices he had access to,” one answered.
“What about days off? Do you know what he did on days off?” Joe asked.
Mac’s gaze skirted over the two women before landing back on him and Cyn. “Not much to do around here, but if they do leave base, they have to check out and in. He checked out six times in the past four months. Each time he was gone for eight hours but back in time for check in. Unfortunately, we can’t track where he went and no one else from his team checked out with him so he was likely alone.”
“Alone and wandering around Ambouli?” Cyn pondered more than asked. “Is there any Al-Shabaab presence in the area?”
Mac snorted. “As far as we’re concerned, they’re everywhere. Safest for us to think that. But if you’re asking if we know of any specific operators in the area, yeah, there are a few.”
“Would McElroy have known this?”
Mac started to shake his head, then stopped. “Like I said, he would have gotten some names from the files. But the local locations Al-Shabaab is suspected to be operating from are all unconfirmed. If he went looking for some of the people named in the files and put it together with some of the unconfirmed locations, it’s possible hecould havefound someone, but it would have been a needle in a haystack.”
“And not an easy thing to do for an inexperienced Army private,” Cyn murmured.
The five of them sat in silence for a moment, then finally, Cyn let out a long breath. “Okay, thanks for checking into it. I don’t know what it all means, but I’ll keep you posted as to anything we find.”
Mac nodded. “With this level of interest,” he said, waving to the papers on the table, “we’re going to be taking a good look at that team. It’s not unheard of to have extremist sympathizers and that’s the last thing we need right now. If we find anything, we’ll let you know.”
Cyn nodded and rose. Joe followed suit. They thanked the two women, then Mac escorted them out. “You headed home tonight?” he asked, as they made their way to the front of the building.
“We’ll leave tomorrow morning. That will put us back in Boston at a reasonable hour,” Cyn answered.
“You up for a little dinner tonight?” Mac asked when they paused in front of the same man who’d escorted them over. He was standing at attention, obviously waiting for Mac to give him orders.
“In town?” Cyn asked, her voice eager.
