watched.
Medical relief workers, security personnel and other non-medical staff came and went in a trickling stream that never seemed to end. None of them looked like spies, but then he didnât expect them to. He wouldnât mind if the spy turned out to be Ibeamaka, though.
The man was smarmy, and his obvious feelings for Dr. Fleur Andikan did not sit well with Ben. No doubt because she so clearly did not return them. She was too lovely and too good to be smarmed by the minor government official.
Regardless of Ibeamakaâs guilt or innocence, someone here was connected to the leak of proprietary military technology. He just wasnât sure how or who.
The data pointed to an inescapable connection between this Sympa-Med compound and the disturbing pattern of technological leakage. There was even circumstantial evidence that indicated Tanya Ruston might well be the leak, but none of the confirmation indicators in her background were there.
She didnât live above her means and showed no particular desire for monetary wealth. Sheâd spent eight of the last ten years living in what would be considered poverty to most Americans, in order to help those she saw in need. She was fiercely loyal to her family, even the parents who disapproved of her career. Her colleagues liked and admired her.
Besides all that, if Tanna wanted to sell secrets, sheâd have easier access and a much safer life doing so back in California. She was related to a brilliant scientist working on cutting-edge technology, who trusted her implicitly.
In addition to that, his own research indicated the espionage may have started before Tanna had come to work for Sympa-Med. Unfortunately, the data set was too small to make a definitive determination, but his instincts told him that the sister-in-law to his former co-worker was not an international spy.
And there was still the very real possibility that no spy existed at all, but that American military technology was being traded for access to African oil and minerals. If the leaks were sanctioned by military authorities, heads were going to roll at the Pentagon. Hell, they were going to explode, because once the press got wind of what TGP had discovered, it was going to be a media bloodbath of epic proportions.
Perhaps because his own father had been both an Army general and a bastard, Ben had an inherent distrust of the military. He wasnât sure what to make of the fact that Elleâs brother was in his protection detail. Tanna had made it clear she and Romanâs family believed he was a military scientist.
One thing Ben knew about the Army: They did not send their scientists out into the field to protect State Department bureaucrats. So, Roman was not a scientist. Why lie to his family about it? Maybe he wanted to avoid disappointing them, but what was the man doing leading a security detail? He was higher up in the food chain than that. At his age, with his education and obvious skills, he had to be.
As far as anyone else knew, Ben was just one of the many bureaucratic cogs in the over-spoked wheel that was Washington, certainly not someone who warranted high-ranking military personnel for his protection detail. The two Marine privates made sense, the other four did not. The privates did not seem to connect with the other four as they did with each other either.
Add that to the fact that while their camouflage matched the Marinesâ, the four older soldiers wore no branch insignia or rank indicators. While they all obviously deferred to Roman, there was no way to tell where the others fell in the ranks and that went extremely counter to military culture.
In addition, Roman had not told his family he would be seeing Beauâs sister. That set off an alarm klaxon in Benâs mind. No way had Roman not realized he would be seeing Tanna, so what did his oversight mean?
Ben didnât believe in coincidences when the data suggested something else entirely. The data