Chapter Twenty-Nine

Twelve Angry Men

As the meeting slowly dispersed, Jimmie picked up the Washington Post off the pile of newspapers on the meeting-room table. The front-page stories were all about Vice President Tom Brady’s trip to the new American moon base. He’d been shot into space the previous week. His mission was scheduled to last through the week of the midterm elections. (The jokes about whether he could keep his space suit inflated had started months earlier and hadn’t let up.) It was almost as if somebody wanted the VP out of the country. Way out of the country.

Jimmie glanced at the Post’s review of the all-female remake of Twelve Angry Men, which was still called Twelve Angry Men. He read the score of the Nationals game. They were on a roll. Probably headed to the World Series.

He turned to the Metro section. The top local headline read, “You’ll Never Guess Which Georgetown Rowing Star Was Killed in a Military Training Exercise Gone Wrong.”

Jimmie was about to skip to the next headline when the photo caught his eye.

Jimmie did a double take, and then a triple take. The blond hair . . . the high cheekbones . . . the Millennial smirk . . . There was no mistaking it: The photo of the Georgetown student identified as David Connor Brent was the same Connor Brent he’d met in the park two nights ago.

Brent had been rowing solo on the Potomac last night when he rowed straight into a naval training exercise. A Navy SEAL platoon was in the middle of a simulated attack using live rounds. Buoys labeled CAUTION had apparently been floating nearby to warn boats away. It wasn’t known why David Connor Brent had rowed past them, but he had been reduced to chum in a matter of seconds.

Strangest damn “accident” Jimmie had ever heard of.

Jimmie tried to keep his reaction in check, but it was impossible. It felt like he’d just been slugged in the wedding tackle.

“Everything okay?” Emma asked. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Jimmie folded the paper and slid it back to the middle of the table. He looked her straight in the eye. “Harper left yesterday’s game with a sprained ankle. Even if he stays off the DL, I’m looking at three to five games without his bat in the lineup on my fantasy team.”

Emma rolled her eyes at him. For a second there, Jimmie had thought she’d been on to him. It seemed apparent to him that if she’d had any involvement in Brent’s death, it would have shown on her face.

Hers weren’t the only eyes on him, though—there were others lingering in the room, watching his reaction. Corey Lewandowski had been foaming at the mouth as Jimmie read the article. It was possible the press secretary had rabies. Had there been any bite marks on Lester’s body? Jimmie didn’t know. All he knew was that the game had just gotten deadlier.

Twice as deadly, to be precise.