Worst Case Scenario by Michael Bowen

Michaelson and the Moodies shared with one another but not with those around Wendy Gardner’s and Sharon Bedford’s ages.
    â€œI’ve brought you only bad news so far,” Michaelson said.
    â€œIt was news I had to have, though,” Deborah Moodie said. “And I know it wasn’t easy.”
    â€œI have more. Scott Pilkington has asked me to do something for him. I agreed on several conditions, one of them being cover for you. His response was equivocal.”
    â€œWhy would I need cover?”
    â€œBecause I want the name of the general who got favored treatment in the incident you were pursuing,” Michaelson said.
    â€œAnd you can’t get that from anyone but me?” A challenging glint brightened Deborah Moodie’s eyes as she asked the question. That query came from the Potomac, not the Mekong Delta.
    â€œI don’t know,” Michaelson answered. “But regardless of whom I get it from, Pilkington will assume I got it from you. That’s why you need cover.”
    â€œThanks for asking, then. Why do you need that name?”
    â€œIt’s a long story.”
    â€œThere’s plenty of scotch,” Alex Moodie said.
    â€œVery well,” Michaelson said. “On the Sunday of the Contemporary Policy Dynamics Conference in West Virginia, a woman named Sharon Bedford died. I’m convinced she was murdered. Before dying she’d hinted to me and probably to several others that she had sensitive information.”
    â€œBut she didn’t say what it was,” Deborah Moodie guessed.
    â€œRight. She was making these hints as part of a job search.”
    â€œPilkington was there and she probably shopped the information to him, too,” Alex Moodie said.
    â€œRight again. Put that together with Pilkington jumping through hoops to set our meeting up at the CPD Conference instead of at a cocktail lounge in Washington, and what do you get?”
    â€œSpeculation,” Deborah Moodie said. “One possibility is that what Pilkington was really interested in even before the conference was Bedford’s hints, and he met with you and Alex as a diversion.”
    â€œAgreed,” Michaelson said. “A related possibility is that Pilkington thought Bedford’s information might be connected somehow to the topic of his meeting with Alex and me.”
    â€œWhich is why you need the general’s name,” Alex Moodie said.
    â€œWalt Artemus,” Deborah Moodie said. “Retired major general.”
    â€œThat name doesn’t ring much of a bell,” Michaelson said.
    â€œNo particular reason it should. He wasn’t political and he didn’t have a very high profile outside the Pentagon. He only got his second star as a retirement present. His last long-term posting was military aide on the White House staff.”
    â€œWorking with the national security adviser?” Michaelson asked, his interest sharply piqued.
    â€œNo,” Deborah said, shaking her head emphatically. “That’s the first thing I thought, too, but according to Alex’s sources, he reported directly to the president’s chief of staff and not to the national security adviser.”
    â€œThat seems odd,” Michaelson muttered, but he decided to think through the implications later. He looked directly at Deborah. “As to your role in the underlying incident itself, what I have so far is Pilkington’s version. I’d like to hear yours.”
    Shrugging, Deborah Moodie walked away from the bookshelf and found a place on a sofa against the opposite wall. Michaelson read unmistakable pain in her eyes as she dredged up the memory.
    â€œPilkington’s version isn’t that far off, if you look at it his way,” she began. “It started in mid- to late ’ninety. I was supposed to sign off on an option paper about different ways to ration medical services, if we ever stop just selling them to the highest bidder.