MAC RUBBED AGAINST Lyndon’s legs. He was ready to snatch him up if this went sideways.
“Do you know how to talk?” Kadance walked around the agent.
He twisted to look at her.
She stopped in front of him.
Finally, Agent Brown said, “I’m bringing you both in for questioning.”
“I don’t think so,” she said.
“I’m an FBI ag—”
“You’re not working for the FBI right now.”
“Do you need to see my badge?”
“I didn’t say you’re not an FBI agent. I’m saying that’s not who you’re working for at this particular moment. If that were the case, you wouldn’t be following an innocent, law-abiding citizen like Dr. Vaile.”
He lifted his chin and straightened his back. “Who are you, anyway?”
“Haven’t you heard? I’m Dr. Vaile’s guardian angel.”
He sneered.
“What?” she said. “You don’t believe in guardian angels?”
He hesitated, but then his anger apparently got the better of him. “He doesn’t deserve it. If such a thing existed.”
“Whether or not they exist is another debate. But Dr. Vaile most certainly deserves an angel.”
Lyndon didn’t know what to make of her. He wanted to ask her where she was going with this, but he remained quiet and let her handle the agent—also ready to attack if the agent even considered laying a hand on her.
“I’m more of a fallen angel,” she added. “But you get the point.” She resumed slowly walking around him. “Why in the world would you think Dr. Vaile doesn’t deserve a guardian?”
Brown had to twist around to look at her.
Lyndon kept waiting for him to lose patience, try to grab her, or pull his weapon.
As Kadance walked behind Agent Brown, the agent focused on Lyndon. Lyndon met his gaze straight on.
Kadance paused next to the agent.
Finally, the agent, still staring at Lyndon, murmured in a low and deadly voice, “I don’t know why she hasn’t eliminated you yet.”
“She’s tried,” Kadance said. “And failed.”
“If she wanted him dead, he’d be dead.”
“So that begs the question,” Kadance said. “Why do you think she’s failed to kill him? Maybe she’s not as smart as you think.”
“She hasn’t failed. She’s given the order he’s not to be eliminated.”
“Must be more recent orders,” Kadance said.
“Why is that?” Lyndon asked. “Why am I not to be eliminated?” Was it simply because she valued his intelligence?
Agent Brown pressed his lips together.
“He doesn’t know,” Kadance said. “He’s a peon.”
“Why are you following us?” Lyndon asked.
Agent Brown crossed his arms.
“Do you not know what’s going on?” Lyndon asked.
Agent Brown shifted, but Kadance shifted as well. He stopped and looked at her. She had an intense look in her eyes that clearly showed what she was capable of. Agent Brown stayed put and refocused on Lyndon.
Sometimes Lyndon didn’t understand why people got so touchy when he asked simple questions. “I would go ahead and answer my question if I were you.”
“Maybe he’s backup in case we avoid cameras,” Kadance said. “I don’t think he was supposed to make contact with us.” She watched Agent Brown closely and smirked. “Thought so.”
Lyndon quickly ran through the possibilities in his head. “Are you trying to make a name for yourself?” Lyndon asked Agent Brown.
Kadance, still watching Agent Brown closely, nodded and shifted her stance to face him more directly. “That’s it. What, you thought your fantastic mastermind needed help?”
“She doesn’t need anything.”
“She must want something from me,” Lyndon said. “Or else I wouldn’t still be alive, correct?”
Agent Brown sneered.
“It’s a rational question,” Lyndon said. “Why’re you so angry?”
Kadance glanced over at him with amusement in her eyes. She wiped the amusement away as she turned back to Agent Brown.
Lyndon asked, “Did she personally give you the vaccination shot, or did someone else?”
“What’re you—”
“You have a faint bruise on your arm. She offered you a vaccination for the disease she’s about to release. Did she give that to you?”
He lifted his chin.
“That’s a no,” Kadance said. “He’s never even seen her.”
Agent Brown sneered.
“I’m assuming she sent you the vaccine in the mail,” Lyndon said. “Last question: Why did she give you the vaccine? What are you supposed to do in return?”
“Okay. Let’s play musical expressions.” Lyndon glanced at Kadance, and she nodded infinitesimally.
“You’re going to be stationed at Congress and are supposed to facilitate entry in some way.”
Kadance, still closely watching Agent Brown, gave a slight shake of her head.
“Your role is to provide misinformation.”
Kadance shook her head.
“You’re to slow the response time once the attack happens and do whatever you can to fumble the coordination of efforts.”
Kadance tilted her head the slightest degree, and then nodded.
Agent Brown’s eyes widened slightly. He glanced at Kadance then quickly away. Then he turned and bolted.
Lyndon considered going after him but then decided against it.
“She’s really good at propaganda,” Kadance said.
He nodded. “I wonder how many more like him she has.” Then he asked, “Do you think he’ll try to keep following us?”
“He’s pretty terrified at the moment. He’s probably worried she’s going to kill him for making contact with us and for leaking information.”
“So, he might not even tell her what we’ve learned.”
“Good possibility.”
Mac meowed up at Kadance.
“Stay close to me,” Kadance said to him and motioned toward the area directly around them.
Mac bounded off. Kadance watched him for a few seconds, surely to make sure he stayed close.
She turned back to Lyndon. “So, why doesn’t she want you eliminated?”
“She obviously wanted me out of the picture pretty badly before. It had seemed fairly obvious that she wanted me dead because I had figured out her secret.”
“And she hasn’t simply stopped trying to kill you. She gave the order not to kill you.”
“I’m not finding a rational line of thought that would fit the sequence of events.”
She looked over at Mac, who had climbed halfway up a tree. “Me either.”
“There must be some other variable.”
She turned back to Lyndon. “But what?”
He sighed. “I don’t know.” He turned, walked a few feet away, and rubbed his temples.
KADANCE WATCHED LYNDON stand there thinking.
A few minutes passed.
She walked over and stood next to Lyndon. He was looking out over the grass and trees, but she knew he wasn’t really registering any of it. She could almost see the thoughts and hypotheses flashing across his eyes, each thought analyzed and either thrown out or filed. He’d figure it all out, everything. She knew that with perfect certainty.
“I don’t . . . ,” she started, but stopped.
Lyndon looked at her. He’d paused his thoughts and was focused on her.
She let herself ask the question. “How could you feel so strongly?”
“You mean why do I love you.”
She gave no response.
He hesitated but then leaned closer, just a few inches from her ear. “Because I see the light in you.”
He walked away, toward Mac.
Mac ran around Lyndon, playing, and Lyndon chased him. Finally, Mac skidded to a stop and lay down. “That’s it?” Lyndon asked. “That’s all you have?”
Mac meowed up at him, and Lyndon smiled, though the smile strained a bit with pain.
“We should create a disturbance,” Kadance said.
Lyndon looked over at her. “What kind of disturbance?”
She appreciated how he let her change the direction of their discussion. “At the Capitol,” she said.
“Something big enough might delay or move the State of the Union.”
“Exactly.”
“There are too many cameras. I don’t see how we can pull it off. She’ll be tracking our every move.” Then he said, “Unless we can find a way to break her connection or maybe turn off her facial recognition software.”
“Can you hack in somehow?”
“I might. It depends on how sophisticated it is. But I’ll need access.”
She called Mac, and he jumped up and trotted over.
“We should get going.” She headed in the direction where they’d parked. Lyndon stayed by her side.
“Where should we go?” she asked him.
“We should try a digital sign. She’s obviously tapped in to at least some of them. There should be a computer connected to the sign somewhere. That’ll give me an interface to work from.”
“Where would the computer be?”
“Probably in a utility room close by. I assume it would be locked.”
“I can take care of that.”
He nodded. “I figured.”
They moved quickly and were back in the car a few minutes later. Kadance drove, and Lyndon watched out the window.
Lyndon pointed to an indoor sports complex. High up on the building was a huge digital board, and below, just above the entrance, was another digital board, long but squat. There was parking along the road, so Kadance swooped into an open spot.
They walked inside. Based on all the signs and banners, this was where the Wizards basketball team played. They walked through the main hall, passing several shops and small restaurants. She looked for anything that might be a service or utility room. Non-public areas weren’t as well marked, of course, so they tried a few rooms. Lyndon kept watch while she picked the locks.
After a few tries, they found the room Lyndon was looking for. She, Lyndon, and Mac squeezed inside the small space draped with wires and electrical equipment, and she closed the door. Lyndon stood at the terminal and started typing.
She liked watching him work. His expression was so intense.
“I think I have it.” Lyndon’s gaze stayed locked on the screen, and his fingers flew over the keyboard.
She was quiet and let him focus.
She looked over at Mac. He was staring at some wires. They were exactly the size that he liked to chew. She shook her head at him, and he curled up and lay down with his head rested on his paws. He looked depressed.
“I’m in,” Lyndon said.
“That was fast.” She moved to stand next to him so she could see the screen, though she had no idea what she was looking at. “Can you shut off facial recognition?”
“I think . . .” He continued typing. “I think I can track the source.”
“Like where she is?”
“I doubt she’s handling this part herself. But someone must be monitoring.” He paused as he continued to type. “Someone in DC.”
“It makes sense she’d want them nearby. Just in case.”
He finally stopped typing. “I can’t shut off facial recognition, and I can’t sever her connection to anything but the signs in this complex. But I have an address.”
“Do you think we can cut her off from there?”
“Definitely.” He did a few more things on the computer, surely covering his tracks.
She listened at the door to make sure no one was around, and then they walked out into the hall, and around to the exit closest to the car.
Kadance got behind the wheel. “Where to?”
He typed the address into the cell phone’s map program.
Kadance followed the directions, but with some variations. She tried to avoid cameras where possible. “They’re likely going to see us coming,” she said.
“I know. I’m hoping they’re not prepared for us to find them and will either hunker down or just flee.”
“What if there’s a group of them? What if they’re armed?” She didn’t have a problem going in, but she knew she’d never get Lyndon to wait in the car. He’d be offended if she even asked.
“Whoever is working her technology side of things is extremely skilled. I think it’s much more likely they don’t have a plan for what to do if we find them. It’s probably one person in some apartment surrounded by a lot of equipment.”
“It was that difficult to hack in?”
“Just as difficult as government servers. If not more so.”
And he’d done it within a few minutes. “I have an idea,” she said. “Turn off the map program.”
He did as she asked, and the annoying voice on the phone telling her she was going the wrong way shut up. She stayed on the main road and passed the street the phone had been yelling at her to take. Instead, she watched out the window, looking for an opportunity. A couple of blocks away, there was a huge brick church on the corner. And that little voice in the back of her mind that she’d listened to most of her life said to park.
She swooped into an open space. “We’re going to throw them off,” Kadance said.
Lyndon nodded and got out of the car when she did. Mac followed them as they went into the church. Luckily, no one seemed to be around.
“Help me find the back way out,” Kadance said.
“I understand what you’re doing,” he said. “We’ll have a shot at taking them off guard.”
They found their way through the beautiful building and out to a back alley made of brick pavers.
“Look for cameras,” Kadance said.
There were a few cameras on the backs of the houses and above garages. They were careful to stay out of their range. They walked along fence lines and around garage outbuildings. Toward the end of the alley, they hopped a fence and cut through a side yard between two houses. Another block over, they made it to the alley they needed.
Around a corner, they stopped and Kadance looked at the map program on the phone to figure out which of the apartments they needed without being able to see the street number on the fronts of the buildings.
She handed the phone back and led him to the correct building, while they continued to watch for cameras. They hopped a fence to avoid a camera angle, slid along the back wall, and up to the back door. Kadance picked the lock.
Once inside, they were in a small hallway. There was a door to an apartment in front of them, mailboxes on the wall, and stairs to the right, surely to upstairs apartments. Lyndon pointed to the mailboxes, to the only one not labeled with a name: 201.
Kadance headed up the stairs, and Lyndon and Mac followed.
There were two doors at the top of the stairs. From the door on the right, number 202, she could smell cookies baking. She listened at door 201 for any sound, anything that might tell her if someone was inside, how many, and where within the space. It was quiet. She continued to listen for another minute, and Lyndon patiently waited.
Finally, she heard a chair push against hardwood. She estimated the location of the sound within the space. She calculated the probable layout given the size and general design of the building.
She took her lockpicking tools out of her pocket and silently started working the lock. A few seconds later, it clicked.
Kadance took her knife out of its sheath and mouthed to Lyndon, I’ll go first.
He didn’t look particularly happy about it, but he didn’t argue.
Then she looked at Mac and whispered, “Stay.”
Mac sat, but he didn’t look particularly happy either.
Kadance listened at the door for a few seconds until she heard footsteps. They sounded to be moving away from the door.
Silently, she turned the doorknob and then inched the door open. There was a hallway that ended at an open space at the front of the building. On either side of the hall were closed doors, likely bedroom and bathroom. She’d heard footsteps, but not a door, so the person inside was likely not in one of those rooms.
She silently but quickly moved toward the end of the hall. She felt Lyndon behind her but didn’t hear his footsteps—impressive.
As she neared the end of the hall, she listened to determine where the person was, to the right or to the left. She shifted to the right side of the hall and inched to the end of the wall, where she could see into what was probably supposed to be a living room but was filled with computer equipment and a workstation set up on a large folding table.
She listened.
A cabinet door closed.
She turned the corner, with her knife held in front of her, and at the same time, Lyndon started toward the computer equipment. To the right, she saw a man standing at a kitchen island pouring a glass of Pepsi.
James.