“I can handle it.” The driver proceeded to wave his badge again.
“I don’t think the FBI even has this redundancy for security,” Kate said.
“We’re not the FBI, ma’am.”
“According to budget appropriations, you are.”
“Technically, I suppose,” he said, opening the door. “Please follow me.”
Kate’s eyes immediately had to adjust to the darkness of the room beyond, which was lit only by hundreds of computer monitors and televisions that filled the space. The light from the screens revealed intense expressions and wrinkled foreheads.
They passed through without a single employee looking in their direction. Kate slowed her stride to try and see what they were all so intently studying, but when the driver did not, she was forced to keep pace. She did catch a glimpse of what appeared to be the latest video of hurricane damage in New Orleans, with the worker drawing circles on a monitor with a red digital pen.
The driver led her into a small room where a receptionist smiled and nodded. They passed through into a windowless office, lit this time with dim fluorescent lights. No one was sitting at the immaculately clean desk at the far end of the room.
“Am I not to be meeting with Director Wolve?” Kate asked.
The driver walked to the desk and sat down, touching the pad on the laptop to bring it to life. “You are. I’m Mark Wolve.”
“Excuse me?”
He typed quickly, obviously entering his pass code. “Have a seat, Senator.”
“You never thought to introduce yourself?”
“You never asked. You assumed I was the driver. I’ve learned in this life never to assume anything.” He continued to look at the screen intently.
Well played, Kate thought as she sat. Already getting the upper hand by making me look unaware and pretentious.
He reached for the phone. “Terri? Can you send in Mr. Hallow?”
“I was under the impression that we would be meeting privately, Director. I did not—”
“Director, Senator,” said the man walking into the room. The smell of cigarettes preceded him, and Kate felt the all-too-familiar need for a smoke. She’d officially kicked the habit two years ago, but the desire never truly went away.
Yet at the sight of Flynn Hallow, the smell actually repulsed her. The man’s skin had a yellowish tint, and his comb-over barely covered his age-spotted head.
She hadn’t liked him when she kicked him out of her office at the beginning of the year.
“I understand the two of you have met,” Mark said, still reading the computer.
“Yes. I’m sorry it didn’t end well at our last meeting,” Flynn said.
“No, it did not.” Kate rested her hands on her lap.
“But perhaps now you see what I was saying?” Flynn asked.
She eyed him coolly. “My stance has not changed. You asked me to share with the president a series of conspiracy theories—something which I have fought against my entire political career—and in return you promised to find my missing nephew. You not only did not find my nephew—an entertainment reporter did that for you—but I will not clutter the leader of the free world’s desk with unproven fiction.”
“Your mother obviously believed; even your father did at the end—”
“I will not be discussing my family with you or anyone else.”
“Senator, Mr. Hallow,” Mark closed his laptop. “We need to keep this civil. We have a real crisis on our hands over which we’ve got to get control.”
“Get control?” Kate leaned forward, showing the screen of her phone. “I’m sure your phone is lighting up just like mine. I said I would meet with you if you brought in my nephew safely. Obviously, that has not happened. But I’m told now that you have intelligence to share with me. That is the only reason I am here.”
“Let’s get right to it, then. We are afraid he has been taken.”
“Taken? By whom?”
“We don’t know. We suspect some kind of fanatical group.”
“I need facts, Director Wolve, not your suspicions. I am frankly tired of hearing about this agency’s wild suppositions—”
“Perhaps you’d like to see the videos.”
Kate blinked. “Videos?”
The director turned his laptop to face her. She moved in closer, seeing dark, rapidly moving body camera footage.
“What is this?”
“One of our agents was wearing a camera. Your nephew was living in a trailer on some farmland, and when he snuck back in to gather something inside, we tried to bring him in. He ran from us, and we pursued. You can see at this moment—there—the agent emerges from the cotton—”
“Is that gunfire? Your agents are shooting!”
“He was about to drive away and they shot out his tires. Unfortunately, there was a casualty.”
“Someone died?” Kate’s fist now curled on the desk.
“An accidental shooting. We don’t know who these people were, but a woman and a little girl were seen leaving the trailer with him. By the way, he was also running from them; it appears they were not welcome. The woman moved into our agent’s line of fire and was shot. I am not happy about it.”
“Was my nephew hurt?”
“No. He’s fine, we think.”
“You think?”
Kate heard Flynn clear his throat behind her. Even in the frantic, dark video, she could see that the agent wearing the camera quickly turned to his right. One by one, his colleagues began to convulse and fall.
As that agent whipped his gun back to the Jeep, the camera began to shake wildly, and then both toppled to the ground.
“What’s happening?” Kate demanded.
“Look here,” Flynn walked up and pointed to the corner of the screen. The camera was now still and tilted from where the agent lay unmoving on the ground. From the brake lights of another car, the small figure of the girl was revealed.
“Director, can you flip the video and zoom in?” he asked.
“I already had it edited,” Mark said, reaching around and punching a key.
The video turned and moved in on the girl. She appeared to shake as she looked, one by one, to the agents. The brake lights from the car then fell off her, and she was bathed in black.
Kate watched as headlights then briefly flashed over her. She was still standing and trembling in exertion. A figure flashed in the dark and picked up her up, carrying her away.
“Wait, was that—”
“It was your nephew,” Flynn said.
“I don’t understand. What was that girl doing? What happened to your agents?”
“She’s one of the four, Senator.”
Kate turned to the agent. “You’re still fixated on that theory?”
“I think this video proves it’s much more than a theory.” Flynn pointed to the screen. “She killed those men just by looking in their direction.”
“We’re doing detailed autopsies on them now,” the director said, his chin in his hand. “But already our physicians are confirming they died of cancer.”
“No one just dies suddenly of cancer,” Kate said.
“They do when they’ve been attacked by someone implanted with the ability to kill with disease,” Flynn said.
“For Christ sake.” Kate stood. “This is what got you thrown out of my office last year.”
“And you refused then to even hear me out that it was starting again. But it’s worse this time. The deaths, the storms, the sicknesses, the bloodshed. We knew the abducted were returning again—”
“I can’t listen to this bullshit again.” Kate reached for her phone, which she’d left on her chair.
“After what you’ve just seen, after what your own mother and father believed, how can you continue to doubt—”