JACK AND TAYLOR SAT QUIETLY WHILE SCOTTY’S BOSS, DEPUTY Director Shane, reamed him out.
“Damn it! You lied to me about having a family emergency. If you had told me you were trying to trap Damon Crosse, I would have made sure you had plenty of backup.”
“I was worried we would scare him off,” Scotty said.
“Yeah? Well, maybe if you’d done it right, Crosse would be sitting here in cuffs instead of being in the wind. I should fire your ass for this. At the very least I’m going to have to suspend you.” He shook his head. “What the hell was the meeting about anyway?” Scotty looked down at the floor.
Jack spoke up. “Damon Crosse is collecting ancient relics. We’d gotten our hands on some and pretended to be someone from the church selling them.”
Shane gave them an astonished look. “What?”
“It’s a long story,” Jack said.
He began to speak again when Taylor cut in.
“Were you able to connect Crosse to Licentia Labs?”
“Not yet. We’ve got teams going through everything there. But since we found that the vaccines scheduled for the president were contaminated, it’s now a national security and health issue. The National Security branch, CDC, Homeland Security, they’re all over it. It’ll be the top news story in the morning.”
“You’re kidding,” Scotty said.
His boss shot him a look. “Do I look like I’m kidding?”
“You think it’s a terrorist plot?” Jack asked.
“It’s an active investigation, so I can’t discuss any details.” He looked pointedly at Jack and Taylor. “Especially with you. I’d better not see any of what we’re talking about in the news. Your journalistic fervor has done enough damage.”
Jack didn’t bother telling him this was about much more than a story. Besides, he deserved the guy’s rancor. He’d thought only about Taylor and Evan when he’d asked Scotty to help them.
They spent the next two hours being interviewed and finally got back on the road after three A.M.
“What are we going to do now?” Taylor said, her voice pleading.
Jack was so beside himself that he couldn’t even muster the strength to offer any words of comfort to his wife. She was right—they were totally and completely screwed. Crosse was free, no one knew where he was, and they had just handed him a double dose of power if what Jeremy said about the coins was true.