“Listen,” came Steven’s voice. “I think I know where William is.”
“You think he’s still alive?” I heard myself respond. Then, a pause. “Steven, please. You owe it to my father to tell me. Tell me what you know—”
Deanna hit the pause button. “You know this is coming from that hotel in Tennessee. Obviously, we had the room bugged. You need to know that this audio—along with photographs of Steven Richards being forced out of the hotel room by FBI agents, and you and I leaving afterwards—is compiled in a file that can be sent, with the click of a button, to FOX News and The Washington Post. Can you imagine what they’d do with this after what’s already been released about you in that basement with Richards’s supporters? What it would do to your family? Because this is where we’re at now, Mrs. Roseworth. You either agree to go quietly into obscurity, or we release this. It will show you in a hotel room with your former lover. Agreeing to do anything he asks. Is this the last memory you want your family to have of you? For your husband to have of you?”
I heard it then, a slight tapping, coming from the corners of the room. As I glanced over, Deanna snapped her fingers. “Stay with me, Mrs. Roseworth. I need to know you understand. If you will agree to vanish—with our assistance—the recording never goes anywhere. It’s also imperative that you tell me how it is you found this town. We didn’t hear the two of you discuss Argentum in the hotel room. How did Steven Richards tell you about it?”
The tapping sounds grew louder now. They came from the corner of the room, directly behind where Deanna sat. Over her shoulder, I could see a tall pneumatic tube stretching from floor to ceiling. Something tiny was inside, popping.
“They have a right to know,” I said softly, looking at the glass tube, then back to her. “Families all over the world spend their whole lives dying a little more every day wondering what happened to their loved ones, and you’ve had them all the time. And if anyone tries to find them and tracks them here or to any of the other bases, you have no qualms about murdering them, too.”
“It’s not that simple, Mrs. Roseworth. Surely you must realize that. We’re in the containment business, not the killing business. Back to my earlier question. We need to know how you got here. The more open you are with us, the more we can be lenient in letting you see your grandson before…”
“Before what? The man ordered to kill us obviously failed. My husband will soon know where I am—”
“I hate to be the one to tell you this, but your friend didn’t make it. And it’s no one’s fault but your own.”
I paused. “I don’t believe you.”
“A tragic accident, from what I’m told. She drove off the road, crashed the van. She wouldn’t have been driving in this horrible weather if you hadn’t directed her to leave—”
“You’re lying.”
She sighed, took out her phone, punched with her finger and then held it out for me to see. “One of our officers came upon her wrecked vehicle.”
I leaned in and could see the van sunk in a snowbank. Even on the small screen, it was easy to see that the shattered back window was riddled with bullet holes.
“My God,” I whispered.
“No one wants any more tragic accidents involving anyone else you love.”
“You wouldn’t hurt William—”
“You need to start explaining how it is you came to find Argentum,” she said, having to raise her voice over the now-frantic popping sound. She turned around to the tube as the entire building shook for a moment.
In response, the long canister began to fill up, as if some sort of film was suddenly coating the glass from the inside. The building rattled again, and Deanna had to steady herself against the wall. When the shaking stopped, she began to type briskly on the computer.
“What’s happening?” I asked.
“Nothing you need to concern yourself with.”
The door opened and a man in camouflage stuck his head in, a long-range rifle over his shoulder.
“Ms. Ruck, you need to come. Right now.”
“I’m debriefing—”
The building shuddered. The wheels under my chair began to roll.
“Right now,” the soldier insisted.
Deanna held on to the wall. “You might have noticed, Captain, that I am not in your military, and I don’t take orders from you. And the tremors aren’t unusual. Gather them up—”
“Ma’am, there are two ships. And they’re sending them down.”
“They always come down.”
“No. Not people. They’re coming down.”
Deanna stood up. She stole one more glance at the tube and grabbed the door. “You’ll have to stay here, Mrs. Roseworth. I should be right back. Use this time to think about what we’ve talked about. You know what you need to do.”
As she hurried out, a series of beeps came from outside and another tremor rippled through the building. I went to the door. The handle refused to even move.
I covered my mouth with my fingertips.
Roxy.
My oldest friend, my constant companion for so many years, dead because she wouldn’t let me come here alone. My girls, my grandsons, Tom, all lost. The military would take Roxy’s truck and my Volvo from the Nashville airport, crash hers off some rural road in Paducah, and have mine crushed. If they had gone so far as to frame Steven for the death of William, they could certainly go to extraordinary lengths to hide the truth about what happened to us—
No. I will not. I began to pace, keeping my hand on the wall. I will not let it all be in vain.
The glass tube was now emitting a low humming sound. I approached it and knew why the sound was so familiar. My throat tightened in realization.
It wasn’t humming. It was vibrating.
Inside, thousands of ladybugs swarmed, frantically smashing against the glass and climbing on top of each other. The bottom of the tube was difficult to see, making it unclear where the bugs originated.
There was no doubt why the medical center kept a tube like this in the room.
The soldier said they were coming down.
The room shuddered violently and the lights dimmed as pads of paper and clipboards slid off the shelves and slapped onto the floor. I instinctively reached out to balance the tube, but found it firmly set into the concrete. William’s room had been empty, right? I didn’t remember seeing breakable things up high, heavy things, that could have fallen on him. Was he still in the room? What if they had already taken him somewhere else—?
The lights went out. I held tight to a table as darkness swallowed the room. I eased alongside the table, brushing up against a chair. I looked for the door, but the window in the door was nowhere to be seen, as the lights out in the hallway were also extinguished. I fumbled to where I thought the door was and slid up against the wall.
In the pitch blackness of the room, I saw it: the blinking light of the battery of Deanna’s laptop where it had fallen to the floor. Maybe there was wifi, maybe there was a way I could send an email or something to the outside world.
I felt through the darkness. But once I opened the laptop’s brilliant screen, my hopes were dashed. The internet signal was gray, with no bars.
I could still use it as a light source, try to find something to break through the door. But even if I happened upon a circular saw or a sledge hammer, I realized, I still couldn’t get through the electronically locked door.
The screen glared at me. The laptop belonged to a woman who had to be one of the top officials amongst the black suits. Maybe she had the pass codes to the doors in one of the folders.
Each file appeared administrative: budget, addresses, PowerPoint presentations, research models. I continued to read the headers: overlays, contact points, spreadsheets, survivors’ interviews, satellite coordinates—