FBI Special Agent Ross Gamble studied the burned-out shell of an old building. He glanced around, taking in details, assessing the markers of the rundown southwest Albuquerque neighborhood: weeds growing up through cracked and buckled sidewalks; boarded-up shops and gang-tagged walls and fences; broken streetlights and the disreputable dumps the area residents called homes.
The ruin before him had been a respectable bodega at one time—back when every Albuquerque neighborhood boasted of its own little corner market. If one believed the news, the seedy storefront had most recently been used to cut, package, and distribute drugs—meth, coke, and heroin.
Gamble rehearsed what the Albuquerque news outlet had reported: Sources in APD’s gang unit believe that the building had housed a drug processing hub belonging to a local gang with ties to a Mexican cartel. A spokesperson for the gang unit, who asked not to be identified, suggested that the fire might have been started by a rival gang out of California seeking to horn in on the market and trafficking routes through Albuquerque. The unit has cautioned APD to be on the alert for gang-related reprisals.
Gamble and the other agents of the FBI’s Albuquerque field office didn’t involve themselves in local gang activity unless a case had direct international ties and/or crossed over into terrorism—or unless APD requested assistance from DEA’s Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force, OCDETF. The FBI participated in the OCDETF, as did APD; however, most federal law agencies left the menial, small-town stuff to local law enforcement.
But today? Gamble was here today because of one tiny tidbit a confidential informant had slipped to him—a name: Arnaldo Soto.
Arnaldo Soto. The hair on the back of Gamble’s neck bristled.
An unmarked car pulled up to the curb, and two men stepped out. Gamble spied his contact in the APD gang unit as he exited the passenger side. He raised his hand in greeting. The driver, who was unfamiliar to Gamble, nodded in his direction. The man scanned the area, lit a cigarette, and stood watch while his partner approached Gamble.
“Hey, man. Good to see you.” Pete Diaz thrust his hand toward Gamble and they shook.
“You, too, Pete. Who’s your friend?”
“Don Benally. Good man. Been with the gang unit five years.”
That was the extent of the pleasantries. Gamble and Diaz had too much on their plates to waste time with chitchat.
Gamble jutted his chin at the gutted storefront. “So, what did RCFL come up with?” The Regional Computer Forensics Lab served all New Mexico law enforcement agencies, federal and otherwise.
“They confirmed that the fire was arson. It was set from the inside, and whoever did it intended to make a statement. If you look over there, you can make out the safe.”
Gamble spied the blackened hulk, its door hanging open on twisted hinges, and nodded for Diaz to continue.
“When the fire started, the door was open just like you see it. We think whoever set the fire emptied the safe, piled everything that was in it on the floor, and lit the fire there. No accelerant, though.”
“Huh. Any idea what was at the ignition point?”
“Sure. The forensics geeks found traces of drugs and cash, couple of handguns, and the scorched remains of ammo casings.”
“The arsonists burned cash?”
“Apparently.”
Gamble, hands on his hips and a scowl on his face, surveyed the heap of rubble. “I don’t get it. I thought this was a rival gang hit.”
“That’s the word on the street—except no rival gang has taken credit for it. Besides, that theory doesn’t make sense, does it? Ever hear of a gang burning money and drugs instead of taking them? Nope. Doesn’t hold water.”
“So, if not a rival gang, then who?”
Pete shrugged. “Not too many possibilities. For instance, couldn’t have been a greedy employee, right? Greed and ‘let’s burn the drugs and cash’ don’t jibe. If it had been an inside job, they would have taken the money and left town in a hurry.”
“Sounds right. So, who else?”
“Maybe a disaffected ex-employee? Someone with a grudge against the gang leadership? Possibly a vigilante?”
“Speaking of gang leadership . . .” Gamble let his question hang.
“Guess you’ve heard the same rumors. You’re here because of Soto.”
“Well, suppose I am?”
“Yeah, and if Soto is in Albuquerque and the fire proves to be a rival gang hit, the streets are gonna run with blood.”
“What if it wasn’t another gang?”
“Then Soto is going to thin his own organization, weed out any loose or suspicious members, and shake down anyone who might have an inkling of who burned him out. You know Soto’s reputation for payback: If he even thinks he knows who did this, it ain’t gonna be pretty. He will make an example of them.”
“Yeah, I get that. He’s feared by those who work for him and eyed with caution by those up the chain. If he weren’t connected by blood at the top—” Gamble let that thought linger before he asked, “Any idea why he was sent to Albuquerque?”
“The gang’s local leader, one Mateo Martinez, had a bit of a problem a few weeks back. Seems his girlfriend clobbered him over the head, hog-tied him while he was unconscious, stole the gang’s take from the night before—and Martinez’s prized muscle car—and burned rubber. Got clean away. Quite the loss of face for Martinez. His superiors sent Soto to temporarily take the reins, assess Martinez’s standing, and shape up the organization.”
Gamble looked unconvinced. “Over what? A domestic dispute and a small chunk of change?”
“That and the disturbing news that someone other than his girlfriend called the cops on Martinez—from his own phone, even. That means an unknown participant was inside his house, someone party to Martinez’s girlfriend’s theft. When the officers arrived, they found Martinez trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey—and a brick of coke sitting on his table in plain view. The gang higher-ups want to know who ratted them out.”
“Still seems like overkill, sending in Soto’s kind of, er, management style.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve heard rumors.”
“Of?”
“Of Soto screwing up bad in Mexico, of him being sent here to ‘think on his sins.’”
Gamble didn’t comment; he returned to the curious details around Martinez. “Whoever messed up Martinez and called the cops also left the drugs on the table for the police to find?”
“Uh-huh. So . . . care to share your interest?”
Gamble didn’t answer. He looked down at one polished shoe tip and, instead of answering, he pondered what Diaz had told him.
In both cases, neither drugs nor money seemed to have mattered. Could there be a connection between the burned-out drug house and Mateo’s girlfriend? Between this fire and the call to APD from Mateo’s house? A common thread?
Pete Diaz and the APD gang unit didn’t mind partnering with the Albuquerque Division of the FBI, but they didn’t like working in the dark—and Gamble had evaded Diaz’s gentle probe.
Time to probe less gently.
“Give it up, Gamble. Why your interest in Soto?”
The FBI man shrugged. “Arnaldo Soto is a sociopath who needs to be taken out of play. Wherever he goes, law enforcement agencies have to restock their body bags. Isn’t that interest enough?”
Pete shook his head. “Nope. I’d appreciate a little more detail.”
Gamble’s smile was thin. “You know the whole ‘I’m not at liberty to discuss the specifics’ spiel, but . . . I guess I can tell you that Soto is a suspect in the deaths of several Mexican undercover cops. Unfortunately, one of those undercover operatives was FBI, working with the Mexican authorities. Another was DEA.”
“Okay, so it’s agency interest. Not personal.”
Gamble’s eyes hardened. “I didn’t say that.”
“So, it is personal. To you.”
“I didn’t say that, either.”
Pete’s nod was almost imperceptible. “Got it.”
“Thanks. You’ll be calling me?”
“I’ll keep you in the loop.”
The two men shook hands again and strode to their respective vehicles.
***
I rested another entire day, parceling out the remainder of the snacks I’d bought at the minimart, taking naps, drinking copious amounts of water. All the sitting around wasn’t good for my mental state, though: I had too much time on my hands to think without being able to act. I tried to ignore the nagging sense of despair, but it adhered to me like static cling.
When the food ran out, it forced me to get moving, to confront my logistical problems.
Remember my “glimmer of an idea”? After dark that evening, I made a careful circuit of my near neighbors’ homes, taking note of the cars parked in driveways and along the curbs.
What if . . . what if I were to ‘borrow’ a car for a few hours in the middle of the night? I wouldn’t keep the car; I’d just use it and put it right back.
The Ghost of Aunt Lucy Past rattled its chains at me, but I kept walking, looking for the “right” vehicle. Zander’s disapproving face hovered at the edge of my vision, too, but I refused to look at it.
I returned home, fed the nanomites, and waited until after midnight. Then I turned off the living-room lamp, slipped out the back door, climbed over the wall, and headed down the alley. At the corner, I turned right and jogged two blocks.
I’d spotted a likely candidate on my earlier reconnaissance.
Three cars lined the driveway of a single-story stucco-and-brick house. A fourth car sat on the street.
Sheesh. How many cars do people need?
I waltzed up to the car at the curb and placed my hand on the driver’s window near the locking mechanism. My next moves depended on the nanomites and their cooperation.
“Nano,” I breathed. “Unlock this car.”
Silence.
I waited. Fidgeted.
“Nano. Remember what you asked for? A laptop? I said, unlock this car.”
A few chitters and seconds later, a tiny blue light jumped from my fingers and through the window. I watched the light touch down on the manual door latch.
Saw the lock rise.
I blew out a pent-up breath. “Nano. Make sure the interior lights don’t come on when I open the door.”
I waited while the twinkling blue specks did their thing. When I lifted the handle, the door opened, but the car’s inside lights remained off.
“All right . . .” I whispered. I slid into the driver’s seat, eased the door closed, and sat there, watching the house. When nothing happened, I buckled up and studied the dash for a minute.
“Nano. Start the car.”
While staring at the house I counted under my breath, “One, one thousand; two, one thousand; three, one thousand; four, one thousand; five—”
The engine turned over and caught. I didn’t move; my eyes were glued to the house: No alarm; no lights. A full minute later, I slipped the gear shift into drive and let the engine’s impetus roll the car down the street. I glanced back at the house. Still no lights. No shouts. No movement. I put my foot on the gas and, at a sedate speed, headed toward the nearest Walmart.
I spent the drive down Candelaria thinking through what had just happened.
The nanomites had obeyed my voice commands in two recent instances: They had uploaded my files and burned the hard drive, and they’d unlocked and started a car for me.
I blinked. Oh, yeah—and on my last trip to the tunnels, they cut through chain link fence and fried a snake, probably saving my life.
I hadn’t asked them to, but they’d acted on my behalf anyway.
“Huh.”
Um, and they unlocked the door to the drug house so that I could escape the fire I set.
Most recently they’d written two messages to me on the wall. The notes were “for-sure” progress—actual communication in response to questions! I felt a tiny spurt of hope flicker and push against the low-grade depression clinging to me.
What else would the nanomites do for me? What else could they do? And why the shift in their behavior?
I might not understand the why, but I needed the nanomites and their cooperation. I needed them if I—if we—were to do more than survive, if I were to keep ahead of the melancholy that dogged me and tried to suck me down. If even a slim chance existed that we might rescue Dr. Bickel.
Well, first, I needed the mites to locate him.
I wanted to liberate my old friend, yes, but Dr. Bickel was also the key to my many other problems. He was my sole hope of getting the nanomites out of me so I could reclaim my life.
Cushing won’t want me once the mites have left me. She will stop pursuing me and leave me alone once they are gone.
It was a lie I could almost convince myself to believe.
Maybe the why regarding the shift in the mites’ behavior didn’t matter if they continued to do what I asked? I’d have to figure out the “what else could they do” part as we went along.
I strolled through the Walmart not far from the intersection of Carlisle and Candelaria. It wasn’t my regular store, but it had the same layout as the one I was accustomed to—except reversed. Flipped. Everything opposite of what I was used to. Having shopped Walmart with the nanomites in the middle of the night many times, I felt comfortable, almost relaxed, roaming the store’s rows and aisles. I passed maybe five late-night customers on my way to the back of the store, but I felt confident that I could manage to keep out of their way.
In the hardware department, I pulled a heavy-duty extension cord from the shelf and stuffed it into one of the bags hung gunslinger style across my shoulders. I’d cut, hand-stitched, and otherwise jury-rigged a lone pillowcase I’d found in the safe house into two temporary shopping bags. They weren’t perfect, but they would work for now.
Then I wandered into the electronics department and found a single clerk on duty and two young men perusing music and videos.
Or were they only browsing?
One guy cut his eyes toward the clerk while the other stuffed a few items down his pants. They feigned looking at CDs a bit longer, then headed for the exit.
Punks!
I was angry with them—until I remembered that I had “borrowed” a neighbor’s car myself.
Well, I’ll leave gas money in the glove box, I decided.
Then I sneered at my excuse. Yeah, because that totally makes “borrowing” a car without permission all right.
Shut up.
I found the prepaid, no-plan phones first—behind a locked glass door in plain sight of the cashier. A sign read, “Ask Associate to Open Case.”
Uh, not likely.
I placed my palm on the glass and then grimaced.
You do know that glass is the perfect medium for leaving fingerprints, right?
I took my hand off the glass and used the hem of my shirt to smear the glass. With my hand inside my shirt, I again laid my palm on the glass.
“Nano.” I paused a beat. “Unlock this door.”
I waited—but not for long.
Warmth. Faint blue light. Click. Lock open.
I slid two phones from the case and shoved them into the bags under my shirt. I started to close the sliding glass door. Changed my mind. Grabbed a third phone—just in case. Closed the sliding glass door.
“Nano. Lock the case.”
Done.
Wow. They are getting faster.
Girls Wear was across the aisle from the electronics department. I crossed over, faced a carousel of dresses, and pulled one phone out of my bag so I could examine it. Leery of security cameras around the store, I pushed the dresses apart and held the phone between garments while I studied the plastic packaging.
Uh-oh.
The phone had an anti-theft tag attached to it—an electronic security device that would trigger an alarm when I walked out the door.
Well, of course it does, dimwit.
“So, no self-pay register,” I mumbled to myself. “Better and better.”
Lots of questions caromed around inside: Could the nanomites remove or deactivate the tags? But then what? Could I ring the phones up at a self-checkout register?
Or I should just walk out without paying for them?
I sighed and thrust the decision aside, delaying what I felt was my inevitable descent into a life of crime.
“Nano.”
How to phrase this?
I touched the anti-theft tag. “Nano, this package has an electronic device attached to it. My finger is on it. Deactivate the device so that it doesn’t trigger the alarm at the store exit.”
A spate of chirping ensued, but it lasted mere seconds before a stream of mites swarmed out my fingertips, were gone a few seconds, and returned to me.
I wasn’t convinced that the tag was deactivated, but I didn’t have a way to test it—except to walk out the door. I pulled the second phone from my bag and went through the same process. Ditto for the third.
Then I went in search of a laptop. Not the best selection in the world, but I wasn’t complaining—any one of them would do. The display models were chained to the countertop, but the boxed computers, just as the phones had been, were stored under the counters behind locked doors.
Same routine: “Nano. Unlock this door.”
Routine? Yes; I guess I was getting used to telling them what to do, and they were getting faster at doing it. Apparently, they were learning, too, starting to guess what I would ask them next.
Predictive logic, Dr. Bickel had called it.
I pulled the model I’d decided on from the shelf. As soon as I touched it, the nanomites swarmed onto it and—I presumed—deactivated the anti-theft tags.
“Nano. Thank you,” I told them.
Silence.
Right. Because social niceties were probably irrelevant to them.
I headed for the front of the store and the self-checkout registers. I had to wait until the area was clear before I touched the self-service screen and obeyed the prompt: “Scan your first item, please.”
I scanned one of the phones. A message appeared on the register’s screen: “Security device attached. This item must be paid for in the Electronics Department.”
Drat.
The scanner might not be able to discern if the tags were active or not, but the bar code generated the same result: I could not pay for the electronics I needed at a self-service register.
I paced the area in front of the scanner, an inexorable decision looming closer and my own twerpy version of Hamlet’s soliloquy racing around in my head:
To steal or not to steal? That is the question.
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous conscience
Or to take arms against a sea of adverse circumstances
“Not to mention a sea of Cushing’s stormtroopers,” I grumbled.
I don’t think many people my age are tormented by my brand of über, steroid-driven scruples. Then again, not many were raised by a surrogate mom whose moral compass was superglued on True North, whose worldview was black-black or white-white and ne’er the twain shall meet, let alone mix. Nor are many people saddled with an identical twin sister who is the very antithesis of principle, and whom, I am convinced, does not possess a conscience to be pricked or wounded—a sister I had vowed I would never emulate.
At the word “conscience,” my mind shifted a couple of stanzas ahead in Hamlet’s lament.
. . . The dread of something after death,
the undiscovered country,
from whose bourn no traveler returns,
puzzles the will,
and makes us rather bear those ills we have
than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all
Thanks again to Aunt Lu for depositing a healthy dread of death and hell into my impressionable young psyche. She had made me more afraid of breaking her code of conduct than I was of Cushing.
Yeah, so I have a conscience, and that makes me a coward, I fretted, but I’m being pursued. Hunted. Doesn’t that count for something? Doesn’t it make my choices understandable?
Cushing certainly has no conscience about what she’s doing, I reminded my personal Jiminy Cricket. Why do I have to play by different rules? I need this stuff to survive!
As I held my internal debate, Zander’s face made another appearance, and his expression, saddened by my moral quibbles, added weight on the coward’s side.
I stood there, waffling, for five minutes, before I growled in frustration and sprinted for the exit. I jetted past the bakery and deli and was within steps of the door when a knife shot through my palm.
“Yeeoow!” I flung my hand side to side, trying to shake fiery darts from my palm.
The head of a woman browsing the produce section swiveled toward me. I ignored her concerned and confused gape as I rubbed my palm against my leg to numb the pain. My fruitless efforts were accompanied by soft chittering.
“Stupid, stupid Nano,” I mumbled.
Abrupt quiet.
I huffed and started toward Electronics, but I was outright disgusted.
I was disgusted with the nanomites and all the grief they’d caused me.
I was disgusted with Dr. Bickel for creating an artificial intelligence that, ostensibly, possessed more moral fiber than I did.
And I was disgusted with myself.
When I arrived at Electronics, I folded my arms and considered the clerk behind the counter. I studied the register, noted the clerk’s employee number. Came up with an idea.
It was worth a try, anyway.
Sure a lot of trouble just to be “ethical,” isn’t it? some cynical voice scoffed.
“Shut it!”
The clerk lifted his head and stared, but I was already crossing the aisle to the Girls Wear register. I found a store phone hanging behind the fitting room attendant’s counter, and put my hand on it.
“Nano.”
I already knew the mites could invade an electronic system and hijack its functionality. I knew they were capable of following complex instructions, too—but would they? Right then, I almost wanted to see them stymied.
Stupid bugs! Moral high ground be hanged.
“Nano. Use the store’s PA system to call Employee 157 to the front of the store.”
Their expectant silence was replaced by a low chittering that lasted thirty seconds or so and was followed by the usual warmth flowing down my arm and out my hand.
A minute later, I heard a mechanical voice intone over the speakers, “Employee 157. Report to the front of the store. Employee 157.”
How do they do that?
I saw our Electronics Department clerk fiddle with his register and pull out his key, locking it down. I jogged toward the register as the clerk fast-walked away.
Behind the counter, I placed my hand on the register and spoke. “Nano. Use Employee 157’s account to activate this register. Scan and ring up the items in my bag and provide a total for a cash payment.”
The level of nanomite activity went into overdrive for many seconds—and I saw the display on the register begin to move, to add prices, calculate tax, and come up with a total.
The register drawer popped opened with a ding.
I won’t kid you—I was amazed.
I yanked a stack of twenty dollar bills from one of my bags and peeled off thirty-six of them.
“Nano. I am paying with $720 in cash. Enter that amount.”
The numbers appeared on the display about the same time as I spied the clerk hustling toward me. I stuffed the cash into the right slot in the drawer, counted out the correct change, slammed the drawer closed, and stepped out from behind the counter as the breathless and red-faced clerk arrived.
I moved back and dumped the change in my bag, wondering if he’d notice anything awry.
The guy glanced around his work area and then, reassured that all was as it should be, pulled his cellphone from the rear pocket of his khakis and pressed buttons.
He cursed under his breath as the call went through. “Hey, it’s me. You won’t believe what just happened. Yeah, at work. I got chewed out for leaving my department—even though I was called to the front of the store over the PA system! I know, right?”
I didn’t hear anything further. I shot down an aisle and out the front door toward “my” vehicle. For a second I couldn’t remember what kind of car I’d driven—but then I recalled where I’d parked it. I hustled to it and put a hand on the trunk lid.
“Nano. Open the trunk.”
Click.
I piled the phones, extension cord, and laptop inside and closed the trunk in under ten seconds.
I stood there in the parking lot, breathing hard, my heart hammering. I was both relieved and elated. As soon as my pulse slowed, I pointed my feet toward the front entrance a second time.
I sighed with hungry anticipation. “Now for some groceries. This is the easy part.”
I had to restrain my enthusiasm a bit because I wanted to eat everything I laid eyes on. But even after I’d paid for and hauled two sets of foodstuffs to the car, I had to come back for personal items—and all that stuff took two trips, too.
I shoved toothbrush, tooth paste, floss, mouthwash, brush, comb, face cream, shampoo, shower curtain and hooks, shower cap, towels, washcloths, bathmat, dish soap, laundry detergent and softener, and a simple selection of clothes, including a lightweight hoody, into the trunk of my “borrowed” car.
Clean underwear.
Yay me.
I returned the car to its owner an hour later. Before that, I’d driven it up the alley behind my house and emptied the trunk, piling all the stuff on the other side of the block wall—discreetly, of course. Then I’d driven the short distance to the car’s home, left it at the curb where I’d found it (a twenty in the glovebox), and walked back.
I stood on the back porch, scanning for prying eyes before I unlocked the door. It took five trips to haul everything inside the unlighted house, and I felt a lot better when I was finished. I surveilled the neighboring houses once more before I closed and locked the back door.
As I unpacked and put food away, I realized how famished I was. I opened a can of soup. While it heated and I watched the numbers on the microwave’s old-school display flip over, I gobbled up two pieces of fruit and chugged a bottle of juice. When the microwave dinged, I pulled the hot soup out and wolfed it down with some crumbled crackers.
Afterward, I wanted to get straight to work, but my poor body was having none of it. Instead, with my tummy warm and full, the exhaustion of the last days overcame my resolve. I cut open the packaging around the three phones and put them on to charge, and plugged in the new extension cord. With the cord grasped in my hand, I collapsed into the bed.
I’ll get busy first thing in the morning, I told myself as I drifted away, and maybe the nanomites will find Dr. Bickel!
***
Imogene Cushing picked up the phone on its second ring. “Yes?”
The mechanical voice on the other end said only four words: “Secure phone call requested.”
Cushing put down her phone and marched from her office and down the hall. “Mrs. Barela, I will be in the SCIF.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Cushing crossed the parking lot that surrounded the MEMS and AMEMS labs, followed a sidewalk some distance, and entered another building. A guard at the security checkpoint scrutinized her credentials. When he allowed her to pass, she walked down a hallway. At the end of the hall she swiped her clearance badge to activate the security features on a heavy door. She entered her personal code to complete the sequence. The lock on the door snapped open. She entered, closed the door behind her, and manually engaged another lock that switched on a red light in the hallway above the door, signaling that the SCIF was in use.
The “Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility” was built to stringent government requirements and was swept daily for listening devices. Anyone who attempted to enter the SCIF passed through meticulous screening to verify the individual’s identity and proper clearance level. These measures ensured that the room was a safe and secure location for classified conversations.
The room housed a single computer terminal. The terminal was “air gapped,” that is, hard-wired to a dedicated government network but physically isolated from all other networks, secure or unsecure. No wireless signal could penetrate the walls of the SCIF, nor did the SCIF’s computer possess Wi-Fi capability. Access to the hard-wired, classified network was granted only through rigorous login procedures.
The SCIF also contained a single phone line hardwired to a secure and encrypted phone network.
Cushing picked up the secure phone and dialed a number she knew by memory. When the two scrambled lines synced, the party on the other end greeted her.
“Good morning, General Cushing. Thank you for calling.”
“What is it, Colonel?”
She listened, her expression growing angrier by the moment. “What do you mean, ‘Bickel sent an email’? How? How could he have done that? I ordered that he be allowed no computer access!”
She listened, and shouted into the receiver. “A guard’s smart phone? Who gave the guards permission to carry personal phones?”
As the voice on the other end of the line continued to speak, Cushing tapped a pencil tip on the surface next to the phone. Harder and harder. Until the fine point snapped. “They were playing cards with the prisoner?”
Her anger turned to ice, as did her voice. “What have you done with the phone Bickel used?”
As the disembodied voice droned on, Cushing’s angry expression gave way to a nervous tic. “And you believe your actions will suffice, Colonel?”
“Yes, ma’am. With the SIMM card destroyed, the location of the phone’s previous calls cannot be traced.”
“You understand that this in no way excuses the lax, undisciplined manner in which this incident occurred.”
“I do, General. I take full responsibility for the situation. My IT staff has created a ‘dead zone’ around the, er, facility—no Internet and no cell service in or out. They have locked down the land lines so that they have no access to long distance services. And, of course, I have removed and replaced the personnel. The new guards have strict instructions: They are to have no personal interactions of any kind with the prisoner.”
“See that they don’t, Colonel—if you value your wings.”
She slammed the phone onto its receiver and stared into space, thinking. As she thought, she jabbed the pencil’s broken tip into the desk’s surface.
~~**~~