Operations Center 3, CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia
“Your daughter is secure, sir.”
Morrison breathed a sigh of relief, dropping into a spare chair in the operations center as Leroux’s team continued to track Kane, the agents he had sent finally getting his daughter into a safe location at the airport. He looked over at Leroux. “Now I can tell my wife what happened.”
Leroux smiled. “She still might kill you.”
Morrison chuckled. “Wait ’til you have kids. If they don’t kill you, your wife will.”
Leroux flushed, turning away.
A little too soon, perhaps?
He decided to save his underling, Sonya Tong gazing at the poor guy longingly. “Status on the strike teams?”
Leroux threw himself back into the job, Morrison never regretting for a moment promoting the young man. “We have six rally points across the city. They’ll start to redeploy as we narrow down their destination. This is an FBI show, so we’re just bystanders on this one.”
Morrison nodded, content to be on the sidelines for once. “I wouldn’t want to be the one making the decision on this.”
“Why not?” asked Child, immediately back peddling as Leroux shot him a look. “I mean, umm, why not, sir?” His head dropped onto his chest.
Needs to work on that brain to mouth filter.
“If they want to catch them all, then they can’t take these guys down today. The ones that haven’t arrived yet will just go to ground. But if we let these guys go and lose some of them…”
Child’s head bobbed slowly. “You mean if they succeed, then the person who decided not to act would be blamed and probably lose their job.”
Morrison smiled slightly, scrutinizing the young man. “Son, I don’t think there’s a person out there today who’s worried about losing their job. They’re worried about losing American lives on their watch.”
Child cast his eyes down once again. “Of course, sir.”
Leroux looked over at Morrison. “So whose shoulders is it on?”
Morrison sighed. “Today, I’m afraid it could all be on Dylan.”