That much he could tell her since a Navy dive team had already isolated the tap deep in the wreckage. He'd alerted them to the coordinates the minute he'd loaded Darcy into the ambulance. Covert was no longer an option.
Walking away from that ambulance and leaving her in the care of Doc Clark was the hardest damned thing he'd ever done. But finding answers and finishing the investigation offered the best way of keeping her safe.
She'd been attacked because of him. He would never forget that. He was through discounting coincidences. Someone had targeted her because she'd been close to him. He knew it. Accepted it. And wouldn't rest until the bastard responsible was in a cold grave.
A very cold, very deep grave.
While the General explained in more detail, Max let himself study Darcy, reassure himself. Force his heartbeat to stop slugging against his chest for the first time since the divers had advanced toward her.
She was alive, needing only a few stitches in her arm and another night of observation in the base hospital. The day hadn't ended with more blood on his soul.
Her blood.
He damned well intended to keep her alive until he could get her off the island. Security police stood watch outside her door. DeMassi lurked the halls. Kat Lowry and her crew were monitoring every call going in and out of the base.
Max scoured the events of the past weeks for ways he could have done anything differently. The way he saw it, the downslide had started the minute he'd laid eyes on her. The attraction had crackled so visibly any fool could have noticed. And those working the other side weren't fools.
He forced his attention back on General Renshaw's words detailing Daniel Baker's Air Force involvement.
Darcy frowned. "Crusty, too?"
The pilot pitched his candy wrapper in the trash. "Why is everyone always so surprised to find out I have a few connections? Man, sure could give a guy a complex. Yeah, I'm what I guess you could call a consultant on this one. I'm not an OSI Officer, but I run dark-ops testing programs with the OSI, mostly with surveillance equipment. Which made me a logical go-to guy to act as the Air Force liaison on diver dude's mission."
Darcy's gaze gravitated to Max's tattoo. A fire raced below the surface at her fascination with the marking. Did she burn to touch it as much as he burned to be touched by her?
Baker cleared his throat.
Darcy's eyes snapped up, only a hint of pink on her pale face. "Why are you telling me this much now, Crusty?"
"Because we have our man. Thanks to Keagan's direction and coordinates, we've secured the surveillance leak. Once Keagan reached his boat, he deployed forces to track your attackers. They located a body. The security police are running ID checks and have another person in custody now."
"Who?" she pushed.
"Vinnie, the dive shop guy, helped out with O'Club catering. He was found diving in the area."
"But why would he... Oh."
"Yes, that wasn't his real job," Crusty confirmed. "He's a civilian employee working in Army CID— apparently also a mole in military intelligence."
"Civilian?"
"Don't forget nearly half the military counterintelligence workers are civilians—Government Service employees. Our Vinnie is a GS 9."
Max watched her absorb the information of Vinnie's government service status. His arrest. Would she buy the story? Sure the guy had been picked up, but Max wasn't so certain the CID civilian employee was guilty of anything more than a bad hair day. Something didn't sit right, and Vinnie was sure as hell denying involvement.
But Max didn't intend to fire up Darcy with his doubts.
Her eyes lit with battlefield anticipation. "So when do I start looking at mug shots to ID the others?"
The General's hand clamped around the bedrail as if to bar her escape. "You don't."
She sat straighter. "Pardon me?"
"You don't," her father clipped orders. "Keagan here can do that. You're going home."
Darcy's rigid spine kept her upright without any help from the mechanical bed, even while tucked into a standard-issue thermal blanket. A twinge of guilt stabbed Max over calling her father.
He sure as hell understood her struggle to step out of her dad's overlarge shadow. Max scratched his forearm, still burning from just the caress of Darcy's eyes. He'd marked himself with tattoos more than once to claim his life as his own and rile his old man.