Kill Decision

CHAPTER 14

It was well past midnight, and Linda McKinney hadn’t slept in three days. Instead she was sitting at the desk in her room in front of the government-issued laptop. Oddly, it had no brand markings on it. She flipped up the lid and was surprised to see it was already powered on. The main page of a wiki was on-screen.

In the dim screen light McKinney could see her logon and password info on a printed security card next to the laptop, along with a “security best-practices” guide. She minimized the wiki page and noticed an Ubuntu desktop arranged much like the one on her own laptop. Okay, at least they were using open-source software, and they’d spied on her enough to install Code:: Blocks on this loaner machine. No doubt her weaver ant simulation project files would be on here as well. She was actually impressed that the government folks were this competent.

She double-clicked on the Firefox browser icon. Not surprisingly, it didn’t bring her to the Internet. No getting to the outside world. Instead it went to the same intranet project wiki page that was already open. The title “Task Force Ancile” headed the page with the company’s shield logo. Along the left side were links to various categories: intelligence, video, interdiction, and many more.

A top-secret operation with a logo. She thought that was funny.

McKinney clicked on the word Ancile, and a definition popped up describing the Ancile as the legendary shield of the Roman god of war, Mars. The text said Rome would be master of the world as long as the shield was preserved.

Master of the world, eh?

Ruling the world wasn’t on her personal list of priorities. She back-clicked and surveyed the categories of information available on the main project page. There were various headings: Robotics, AI algorithms, Forensic analysis, and many more.

She clicked on a link entitled Attack Scenes. It brought her to a page with dozens of thumbnail images. Brief introductory text described them as videos uploaded to various offshore aggregation websites. They appeared to be video clips of actual attacks as they happened, presumably filmed by spotter drones-like the one that had hovered outside her cabin back in Tanzania.

McKinney clicked on the first video thumbnail. It expanded to a full-screen high-def digital video of several men playing golf on a lush green course somewhere. There was no sound. Even now the angle was changing subtly, as though being filmed from a moving object. The men stood around the manicured green watching one of their number getting ready to putt.

Suddenly an instantaneous blast ripped the scene apart. McKinney recoiled in horror as body parts rained down in every direction. Strangely, there was no crater in the grass, which was now smoking, yet slick with blood. It appeared that the bomb detonated above the ground, to devastating effect. She closed the window and just stared at the main page. There were at least a dozen more.

“Dear God.”

She didn’t want to see any more of that. How had the videos been discovered? And by whom? The comments section still seemed to be hashing out the answer. Logons with call-sign names she didn’t recognize, but also the occasional one she did-Expert Three, Hoov, Gumball.

She backtracked to the main wiki page and followed the link to a diagram of all the drone attacks. It showed a map of the United States overlaid by a couple of dozen red dots scattered mostly on the coasts-although some were deep in the Midwest. As she moved her mouse over the dots, basic details of each attack popped up: date, GPS coordinates, number of dead and injured, and a hyperlink for more information. She clicked on a link for a bombing in Urbana, Illinois. She remembered its having been reported as a terrorist bombing in a park months ago. Six dead. A dozen injured. A dedicated page popped up with the names and photos of victims, grisly high-res photos of the scene. She scrolled down to see vast amounts of information, and another bustling comments section.

Looking at all the death and suffering that had occurred, McKinney couldn’t help but feel she was being petty in having suspicions. But then, they’d made a special effort to get her to view this, hadn’t they? Her contribution to the effort was apparently going to be as cannon fodder.

She pushed away from the desk.

McKinney stared at the ceiling in the alarm clock’s blue LED light. The cold glow cast fantastical shadows on the acoustic tile above her. She heard the whoosh of air flowing through the HVAC system and the occasional mysterious sounds of far-off activity-heavy trucks, echoed shouting, and clanging metal. She tried to imagine what was going on elsewhere in this secret place. A place that didn’t officially exist and where no one she knew could find her. Isolation protocol.

It was 1:47 in the morning according to the blue digits on the nightstand. The sheets and blankets were crisp and smelled new. The mattress firm. She felt truly clean for the first time in months. No dust or humidity down here, and the bathroom was new. The hot water came down in torrents. Properly focused, it could probably quell a riot. Everything in the room had the cool precision of Scandinavia.

She sat up in bed. This whole place just felt wrong. She couldn’t quite put her finger on what was eating at her. Why she couldn’t sleep. Why she hadn’t slept since the attack. She grabbed the TV remote and switched on the television. The Weather Channel blinked into existence on the far wall. Soothing music played over a list of international cities and temperatures. After a few moments she changed channels to the first of several cable news networks in rotation.

More beating of war drums. People being warned to report suspicious activity. More details of yesterday’s bombing in D.C. Updated fatalities from the Karbala bombing-4,300 dead. She changed channels several more times. Nation-under-siege hysteria was everywhere. Even the commercials were for pepper spray and burglar alarm systems. She stopped on one channel where a congresswoman from Ohio was speaking on the floor. “… in a rush to make sweeping changes we’ll regret. We’ve been down this road before, and we’re no safer for it. Sixty-five billion dollars over the next four years for a fleet of autonomous drones to defend the homeland. Again, money that could be put toward education, health care, or infrastructure. Drones are not going to stop these bombings. In fact, our drones might be the root cause of these bombings…”

McKinney cast off the covers and sat on the edge of the bed. The news had moved on to another story, but she hadn’t. She turned it off.

Our drones might be the root cause of these bombings.

And sixty-five billion dollars for drones being pushed as an emergency defense. The ultimate automated cash machine-drones could be both the hero and the enemy, and who would ever know? Sixty-five billion dollars. And that was probably just the start.

McKinney got up and walked aimlessly around the room, feeling the cool stone on her feet. What reason did she have to believe what they’d told her?

She was a scientist, and science required evidence to sustain a hypothesis. The operative hypothesis being that this was a government-sanctioned top-secret military operation to defend against deadly drone attacks. But where was the proof to sustain that hypothesis? Over the past decade, half a dozen illegal black ops run by rogue elements in the military had been revealed-assassinations, torture… Maybe these people weren’t even with the military-maybe they were private operators, looking to influence government policy. Maybe they were agents of a foreign government. What did she really know?

She thought back over the past forty-eight hours. They had flown here in private aircraft, to a private air terminal at Kansas City-bypassing customs and Homeland Security entirely. Smugglers could have done the same. Did she really know she’d been at an army base back in Wiesbaden-or that it was even Germany? It was dark. She saw a couple of men outside in uniform. She saw offices and army insignias, but truthfully, how did she know that wasn’t just some airport office somewhere? She hadn’t seen any military cargo planes or fighter jets.

The attacks were real enough-they’d been in the news for months-but if these were the people behind them, they could easily have provided all this footage to her. But why would they need to deceive her? Could they be trying to trick her into helping them? The iterations of conjecture were stacking up fast.

What did she really know?

She felt confident she was in Kansas-the highway signs, the cars and businesses on the way in. She was in the United States. There was supposed to be rule of law here.

She padded over to the bathroom and ran some cold water in the sink. She leaned over and splashed her face. Was this just lack of sleep making her paranoid?

Why not be paranoid? She’d been kidnapped-and by people with a serious amount of resources who seemed focused on robotic war using her social insect algorithms. And getting ready to use her as bait for a drone attack-one they might be running as well, for all she knew.

McKinney walked around the room, looking for cameras. Nothing apparent. But then she knew cameras could fit on the head of a pin now. She caught sight of herself in the mirror above the bureau dresser-looking like a prisoner with her short brown hair, in her Cornell T-shirt and sweats, or like some New York branch of the Baader-Meinhof gang. Lean and crazed. The blue light and shadows made her look twice as dramatic. She burst out laughing-almost hysterically-for several moments. If her father and her brothers could see her now, what would they say? Caught up in international espionage. Absolutely laughable.

She grew serious again. McKinney had to know what was going on in this place. Asking questions wasn’t enough. It was time to acquire some hard evidence.

She approached the hallway door and pressed her ear against the wood, listening for any movement outside. Everything was quiet. Satisfied, she carefully turned the dead bolt and then the lever handle. She pulled the door open wide enough to look out both ways down the corridor. She heard only the light buzz of overhead lights. No cameras visible, although there were sensors up on the walls, smoke detectors, sprinkler heads, and the like.

The coast seemed clear, so she stepped out into the hall and started moving left, in the direction she’d entered the day before with Foxy. As she passed the other numbered doors, she heard the sound of snoring from somewhere. It faded as she continued, and soon she came to a T-intersection marked by fire doors held open by magnetic retainers. She peered around the corner.

The adjoining corridor was wider, and the sound of metal clanging and occasional shouts was louder to the left, toward the garage. She turned the other direction, where the hallway continued to another T-intersection with no doors in sight. She decided to walk purposefully in the center of the hallway, head held high. Nonchalant.

Once at the corner she headed decisively left and bumped straight into a closed door. It had some sort of electronic sensor lock with a glowing red LED light over its handle. McKinney turned back the other way without skipping a beat and headed down the white hallway lined with blondwood doors. The other end of the corridor also terminated in a closed door, but she didn’t see any red LEDs over its door handle. She marched toward it.

On the way she passed another door, behind which she could hear muffled talking. She slowed to listen and heard radio static, then indecipherable radio voices. Then several people talking in a foreign language. McKinney cautiously approached the door and pressed her ear to it.

A man’s voice was talking in a guttural language she didn’t recognize. Maybe Russian?

The sudden piercing caw of a raven close by made her literally jump and turn. There, perched on a fire extinguisher sign jutting out from the wall, was a large black raven, examining her curiously.

“You scared the crap out of me.” She approached the bird, while it continued to regard her calmly. McKinney could see the raven wore some sort of fiber-optic headset that was barely visible until she got within a few feet. The bird stepped out onto the edge of the sign and flapped its wings, caw ing again.

“No one likes a snitch, Huginn.”

The bird caw ed back.

A familiar voice spoke nearby. “That’s Muninn.”

Startled again, McKinney turned to see Odin standing in the corridor, not far behind her.

“Can’t sleep?”

She marched up to him. “I heard someone talking in a foreign language behind that door.”

“You still don’t trust me?”

She pointed. “The more I think about it, the more suspicious I am. Why aren’t we on a military base? Why can’t anyone show me government credentials or any proof who you are? Why am I locked up here?”

Odin nodded slowly. He appeared to be carefully considering his answer.

Muninn caw ed again behind her.

McKinney pointed at the bird. “And what the hell are you doing using animals? How is this ethical?”

“You need sleep, Professor.”

“What I need is proof that I’m not helping bad people do bad things.”

He pointed to the raven. “Huginn and Muninn fly outside every day and always return of their own free will. If they regarded you as a friend, they wouldn’t have sounded the alarm.”

“You’re using them.”

Odin extended his arm and Muninn flew over to perch upon it, then climbed onto his shoulder. “That’s a cynical view of symbiosis.”

“Training ravens to help fight your wars is hardly symbiosis.”

“I sometimes wonder who’s training who. You know what they say about field research: ‘Never study an animal smarter than yourself.’” He approached the door McKinney had been listening at and pounded heavily on the wood.

The radio chatter beyond stopped, and they heard heavy footsteps approach the door. It pulled open a crack, and a wrinkled, gray-haired man with a ponytail and liver spots answered. A cigarette was tucked in the corner of his mouth, smoke curling around him. He spoke in a slight Russian accent. “What the hell are you pounding on door for? You scared the hell out of me.” The man’s eyes darted from Odin to McKinney, and his expression turned to a slight grin. He pulled the cigarette out of his mouth and opened the door further. “Well, good evening, dear lady…” He extended his hand, but Odin interrupted him.

“Knock it off, Rocky. Tell the good professor here why you speak Russian.”

The man scowled and opened the door all the way. “Because I’m Russian, you asshole. Why?” Behind him McKinney could see an electronics lab littered with circuit boards and drone aircraft components.

“Where are you from?”

“What’s this all about?”

“It’s a simple question.”

The man huffed. “Is FBI doing this nonsense again?”

“Answer the question.”

“My brother and I defected 1989. My clearances are in order, and anyone who says otherwise can kiss my Ukrainian ass.” He started poking Odin in the chest. “And that includes you. You think you intimidate me? I’ll take that bird of yours and shove it straight up your JSOC ass. I was held by KGB for a year in Smolensk. There’s not a man in the world who can-”

Odin held up his hands. “Rocky! Okay, man. I just wanted to put something to rest. It’s cool. We’ll get out of your hair.” Odin gestured to McKinney and started heading back down the hall.

Rocky leaned out into the hall. “You haven’t introduced me to your lovely young friend, Odin.”

“Need-to-know, Rocky.”

“Ah… fuck you and your secrets. I have better secrets.” He went back into his lab and slammed the door.

McKinney sighed as she walked alongside Odin.

“If it will put your mind at ease, Professor, wander around the facility. I can’t open every door for you, but you can talk to whomever you find. Pump them for information if it helps you sleep.”

She nodded to herself. “I’ll do that.”

Odin turned down a side corridor. “Don’t stay up all night. We’re going to need to brief you on the baiting operation tomorrow. At no point will you be in actual danger.”

“Why am I not convinced of that?”

“Tomorrow.” Then he was gone.

For several minutes afterward McKinney walked the halls, but since most of the doors were locked she found herself heading toward the garage and the sound of metalwork under way. At first she just peered through the small wire-mesh windows in the doors, but then she walked through the double doors and out into the garage. Half a dozen workers were busy modifying vehicles to either side, with flashes of welding equipment and pounding of mallets as they made adjustments. Foxy stood talking to Smokey over a clipboard, both of them with submachine guns slung across their chests.

Foxy was flipping through pages on the clipboard. “Tell ’em they have four days to get their mission loads palletized and over to SOAR so they can calculate centers of gravity. Weapons go ‘air only’-no ordnance overland.”

Smokey nudged his head toward McKinney, and Foxy turned with some surprise to see her.

“Looking for something, Professor?”

“Can’t sleep. Odin said I could look around. You can check with him.”

“All right.” Foxy smiled, and then held a hand to his right ear, speaking softly to the air while Smokey watched her. She could see a small wire corkscrewing down from Foxy’s ear into his collar. After a moment he looked up and shrugged. “Suit yourself, Professor. Let me know if I can help with anything.”

She nodded absently, but she was already looking around the motor pool. A couple of the trucks that had been here when she arrived were gone. She couldn’t remember which ones. Before she reached halfway in the line of vehicles, she stopped to watch another military tech in his twenties digging through a bundle of wire he’d pulled from the side panel of a large four-wheel-drive truck. He was a clean-cut kid referring to a wiring diagram and using a voltmeter to test connections.

He noticed her watching him.

“Quite a project you’ve got there.”

“It’s the job, ma’am.” The kid had a southern accent that she couldn’t quite place. Texas? Georgia?

McKinney approached the ten-ton truck, running her hand along its gleaming fender. His eyes darted toward her furtively.

It was actually an impressive truck. Brand-new and with a broad chrome grille and a crew cab that could probably accommodate four or more people. It was branded with the shield logo of Ancile Services and looked ruggedized for overland seismic work, with the door handle at about eye height. However, most of the cargo area was taken up with what looked like a multiton electrical generator with twin oversized exhaust pipes. The side panels of the generator were open, exposing circuit boards, switch boxes, and bundles of wires that the tech was examining.

She nodded toward the bundles of wires. “How’d you learn to do all this?”

He glanced up. “The training, ma’am.” He grunted as he reached deep into the equipment panel.

“What are you guys doing out here, anyway?”

He paused. “Can’t discuss that, ma’am.”

She nodded slowly. “All right…” She ran her finger along the truck again and started wandering back along the garage, examining the vehicles on the far side.

McKinney wandered past a large four-wheel-drive U.S. Forest Service fire control truck. It had an extended four-person passenger cab and equipment panels along the length of its enclosed cargo bay-all teal green. Whatever modifications were being done to it were either finished or not yet started. Her eye strayed past it to the workbench just beyond-where a key fob hung on a peg from a metal carabiner.

She glanced back toward Foxy and Smokey, who were still engrossed over lists on the clipboard, then over at the kid working on the nearby truck. He was focused on wiring. McKinney purposefully walked over to the workbench and slipped the key chain from its peg. It bore a plastic tag marked International 7400 DT530 in bold black letters. She turned to see the International logo on the nearby truck’s large chrome grille.

She took a deep breath. Was she really considering this? Was it lack of sleep?

But then again, if these people were who they said they were, this would only be an inconvenience. If they weren’t, then she might be saving lives-her own among them.

McKinney climbed the steel step near the cab and opened the driver’s door. With one last furtive look around she got in and flexed her fingers over the steering wheel. After gathering her courage, she reached out and pulled the cab door closed. Another swift motion, and she stabbed the power door-lock button.

She put the key fob into the ignition and cranked the engine until it came to life with a rattling diesel roar. A glance in the tall rearview mirrors showed the young tech dropping his wiring diagram and running toward her truck.

McKinney released the parking brake, then depressed the clutch and smoothly threw the shifter into first. She revved the engine and popped the clutch, launching the massive truck forward. The young tech was almost up to the cab, but stepped back and appeared to be shouting for help now.

It all seemed surreal in the haze of her exhaustion, but she really seemed to be doing this. She was mounting an escape.

McKinney was already slamming the truck into second gear. Even under the circumstances, she had to admire the quality of the equipment. It was nothing like the ancient five-ton Mercedes trucks she’d driven on rough mountain roads in remote stretches of Africa or the jungles of the Amazon. This thing was brand-new.

She glanced out the passenger rearview mirror and could see Foxy and Smokey running forward, submachine guns ready in their hands. The words tumbled out of her mouth unbidden. “Please don’t shoot.” She had to be too valuable to them for that. She had to be.

McKinney brought the truck surging toward the workbench and the corrugated steel perimeter wall that enclosed this building-in-a-cave. She remembered that the empty buffer zone was patrolled by Expert Five’s automated fish. Then it was a straight shot to the second perimeter wall-and to freedom.

She plowed the truck through the sheet metal wall with a thunderous crash that echoed in the cavernous space, with pieces of metal hardware clanging away. In the confines of the mine the noise was deafening.

But the massive Fire Service truck plowed through the wall like paper. The green paint of the hood was scarred and scratched, but otherwise she was already hurtling off into the darkness of the buffer zone.

The engine roared as she put the truck into third gear and kicked on the headlights-then the overhead lights and sirens. They wailed away like a banshee in the confines of the mine, the lights exposing the exterior perimeter wall ahead as she weaved past a huge stone pillar.

Dozens of flying sharks swam slowly toward her, but she plowed right through them before they could get out of the way. Some went under the tires and others got stuck in her grille and rearview mirror brackets. The truck was still accelerating. Thirty-five miles an hour now.

A glance at her side-view mirror festooned with shark balloons and she could see that she’d sheared away a long section of the prefab wall behind her. Men were rushing around the garage area. She turned forward again. “C’mon! Move!”

She smashed the truck through the second perimeter wall at forty-five miles an hour, wincing as the second thunderous clatter of steel panels and brackets blasted aside. McKinney then spun the wheel to the right, to bring the truck back in the direction she remembered as the entrance. The high center of gravity of the off-road truck made it lean into the turn, the tires screeching on the slick stone floor. She eased off and slalomed a bit to regain control.

McKinney slammed the shifter into fourth and started picking up speed. The twenty-foot-wide pillars of stone raced past on either side. The truck roared through the darkness, while McKinney searched for signs of civilization.

But headlights soon appeared in her rearview mirror.

“Shit.” That hadn’t taken long. Something smaller. Faster.

Looking forward again, she saw lights ahead-the inhabited areas of SubTropolis. And that meant marked roads. She pressed the pedal down and kept accelerating.

The headlights behind her had almost caught up by the time she merged onto a marked road with a friendly Exit sign. She eased up on the gas, realizing only now that the air brakes hadn’t had time to charge completely. The truck fishtailed and shuddered as she tried to slow it down heading into a curving turn, scraping against one of the massive pillars in a shower of sparks.

“Get it together, Linda…” But now she had the truck racing down an established roadway; someone up ahead was pulling over to let her fire truck past. She leaned on the horn as well, roaring past.

McKinney glanced at her speedometer and realized she was going sixty in a twenty-five-mile-an-hour zone. But a glance at her rearview mirror again made her stomp the accelerator down. It looked like one of the Bureau of Land Management Forest Ranger pickups was a hundred feet off her tail. It also had its sirens and rack lights on, the headlights alternating on and off.

McKinney roared toward a subterranean intersection with a stop sign. She started to ride the brakes and downshift. A glance in the rearview again. She shook her head. It wasn’t right to kill someone to save herself. She downshifted further and continued to slow, hoping her sirens would warn people as she approached.

McKinney slow-stopped her way through the intersection, and was already accelerating on the far side when she saw the BLM Ranger pickup pull alongside her. Smokey leaned out the window, shouting at her. She could see an automatic pistol in his inside hand, still concealed within the vehicle. McKinney cranked the wheel to the left, veering into them.

The forest ranger vehicle slammed on its brakes and just narrowly avoided being smashed against the stone tunnel wall.

McKinney turned forward as she emerged from the tunnel mouth into a cold Kansas night. She let out a howl of joy and tried to orient herself.

She recognized some of the area from when they came in. There was a truck stop across the wide road on the far side of railroad tracks. A strip of brown grass patched with dirty snow divided the poorly maintained concrete highway.

There were trucks and cars out here now, but she still drove aggressively, fire truck sirens blaring. She crossed the highway, dodging in front of an approaching semitruck and roaring across the railroad crossing.

A glance in her rearview mirror showed the Ranger following close behind. To any normal person this would look like two emergency vehicles racing to a call. She had no idea where to go-only that she had to find a large crowd of people. Lots of witnesses-or police.

McKinney followed a surface road and was surprised to see, of all things, a gambling casino close at hand. She dimly recalled passing it on the way in from the airstrip.

It loomed there along the banks of the Missouri River-the Ameristar, an island of stucco and concrete in a sea of parking lots. She knew one thing about casinos: They had loads of armed security. Beyond it McKinney could see the sparse skyline of what must be downtown Kansas City. Hallelujah. Civilization.

She accelerated toward the casino entrance and hung a right at an absurd, cartoonishly large replica of a locomotive, glittering with lights and a marquee. Nickel Slots! $ 3.99 Prime Rib.

After years abroad in the Third World, she just had to laugh at the absurdity of this situation. Lack of sleep had her half out of her mind.

The forest ranger vehicle came up on her again, but she kept yawing from side to side on the main casino road to prevent them from pulling alongside. Fortunately, they weren’t trying to shoot her tires out. Perhaps they were more concerned about getting the truck back in drivable condition. Other cars leaving and entering the casino pulled over to let the erratic emergency vehicles pass.

They were now approaching the stucco portico of the casino’s main entrance, flanked by glittering neon towers. McKinney roared under its roof and toward the valet station, where cars and a few taxis were parked or idling.

A glance in her rearview showed the forest ranger vehicle slowing and hanging a U-turn. She felt relief flood over her. She’d done it. She’d escaped. Turning forward she realized just how fast she was still going and pounded on the brake. The fire service truck shuddered, screeching as it collided with a concrete crash pylon just short of the nearest waiting taxi. She lurched forward in her seat, but no air bags deployed.

Dozens of people ran toward the truck. All faces turned to her. Security guards and parking valets. She slumped back in her seat, suddenly overwhelmed by intense weariness. She suspected it was the beginning of her body’s parasympathetic backlash to the adrenaline surge.

Not yet. This isn’t finished. Not yet.

She killed the engine, the sirens, and all the lights, then undid her seat belt and climbed down from the cab. Half a dozen men had reached her-a guy in a suit, a couple of old men, a security guard, uniformed parking valets.

“You all right, honey?” A balding middle-aged security guard with a big belly was holding her arm.

She wriggled free. “I’m fine. Call the FBI! Kidnappers are pursuing me. They’re in that federal ranger’s truck behind me!”

The guard frowned at her as scores more people gathered around them. One of the other people in the crowd pointed back toward the entrance. “It’s driving away.”

“Where?” The guard grabbed her arm again and moved to look down the casino drive. “You were running away from federal rangers?”

McKinney got in his face. “If they were real rangers, why are they fleeing a crash scene? Why are they trying to get away?”

He studied her face, and the gathering crowd seemed to be mulling it over. McKinney looked up to realize that she’d really wrecked the truck. The front wheels were six inches off the ground, the bumper and front grille staved in by the pylon, which had torn out of the ground at a forty-five degree angle. Even the sidewalk was buckled.

More armed security guards had arrived, and they were starting to push the crowd of onlookers away. The oldest and apparently most senior of the security guards came up. He was completely bald and looked like an ex-soldier himself, now in his sixties. “What the hell. Ya lose control of her, honey?”

Before the first security guard could speak, McKinney answered, “Call the FBI! I was escaping from kidnappers.”

He frowned and pointed at the U.S. Forest Service truck. “Where the hell did you get a Forest Service truck?”

She was surrounded by a dozen armed security guards in brown shirts, slacks, badges, belts, and nightsticks now. What might normally feel alarming felt greatly reassuring. Her heart rate was returning to normal, but she suddenly felt exhausted.

The senior security guard was staring at her, still surprised.

She spelled it out for him. “Call. The. F. B. I.!”

He patted her on the arm. “Let’s start out with the police, honey.”