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Chapter Thirty-One

T he tent door flapped back, and Special Agent Herron stepped in. Kenna quit pacing the length of the floor and said, “I need to go.”

They’d taken everything. Her vest, all her weapons, and her phone—hanging up on Maizie in the process.

Special Agent Herron stopped several feet away and didn’t look at Kenna or Ramon in particular. “Until such time as you can tell me where Special Agent in Charge Jaxton is, you’ll remain here to answer further questions.”

Ramon sat on the end of a folding table they’d set up along with this white canvas tent, which was outside the front door of the silo, in the middle of nowhere. It might be impressive how quickly they’d erected a mobile command center, but she didn’t care. She just wanted Jax back.

The FBI was going through every inch of the facility, processing every single victim, everyone who worked with the doctor, and every single molecule of physical evidence.

This was going to take hours.

“I need you to let me go so I can reconvene with the rest of my team.” Maybe Ramon as well, so she motioned between them with a finger. “Let us go.”

“It’s been brought to my attention that the doctor did medical procedures on you. I’d like to discuss those.” She shifted, bringing a notepad and pen to her front. “When I’m satisfied with what I’ve learned, you’ll both be free to go.”

Ramon didn’t move. Probably because if he did, it would come across as aggressive.

“Are you going to answer any of my questions?” Kenna folded her arms. The need to find Jax and know if he was all right was driving her insane. If only she could shove everyone out of the way and just…run. Find him. Hold him, which would probably feel like hanging on for dear life.

“What questions do you have?” Special Agent Herron wandered to the table Ramon sat on, dragged a chair back on the tarp they’d laid on the floor, and sat down.

She crossed one leg over the other, calm even though she also had that hyperaware demeanor of an agent waiting for the situation to explode around them.

Kenna took the chair opposite.

Ramon hopped off the table where he’d have had his back to them, grabbed a chair, and straddled it so he could lean against the back. One knee jogged up and down until Kenna wanted to push against it to get him to still.

But she felt the same on the inside.

“What was in those vats?” Kenna crossed one knee over the other, proving to this agent she could be just as calm in the middle of a crazy situation. “We were exposed to it, right? When some of it leaked out.”

“Part of the reason you’re in here is that you were exposed to a substance we believe is an infectious disease Doctor Buzard was creating.”

Kenna bit the inside of her lip. “Are we infected?”

“Limited exposure seems to have little effect compared to direct contact. The preferred method of infection is through an immunization, which is, in fact, a dose of the disease designed to infect everyone in the world with the contagion.”

Kenna frowned. “He was going to tout the disease as the cure so he can target everyone ?”

Ramon said, “As if people don’t have enough distrust of medical companies already?”

“What does it do?” Kenna asked. “He isn’t just trying to kill everyone, right?”

“According to information contained on the hard drive you kindly turned over to us,” Special Agent Herron said, “the disease will kill a third of the world’s population.

The other two-thirds will recover with stronger immune systems and every function of the body operating at optimum.

It’s designed to alter the genetics of the person infected, but if it doesn’t kill you, it makes you some kind of?—”

“Superhuman? I mean, not powers but better. Stronger. Faster. Smarter.”

Special Agent Herron nodded.

“I think I might already have been given it.”

The agent didn’t seem surprised.

“More master race crap?” Ramon shook his head. “Where have I heard this before?”

“In the last hundred years or recently?” Kenna asked him.

“Maybe they’re one and the same.”

He thought Dominatus connected back to Hitler? Or at least the eugenics research that the Nazis based their philosophy on. She wouldn’t put it past them, considering how long the organization had been in existence. But it was far more subversive than that.

After all, they had gone this long without being discovered.

Kenna squeezed her eyes shut. Had Jax been rescued?

They had taken her phone, so she had no way to contact Maizie or Bruce.

She prayed that her associate was only going to make sure the lawyers did the right thing and didn’t mess up in a way that cost Jax his life.

She had everything riding on this, and all the trust she needed to have for Bruce stretched thin.

So taut it was about to snap if anything went in any way other than perfect.

I’m still learning how to trust. No matter what.

Maybe that was the point of all this. A test, a way to grow in her reliance on God.

Because who knew what was going to happen to her in the future?

She might be called to go through things so much worse than anything she’d ever faced before, and she would need a robust foundation of relying on God and the fact that He was in control of everything.

If that meant she had to walk the road ahead of her without Jax? To bury him and have to keep going with her life, keep fighting the good fight?

This time, she would have God. So it wouldn’t be like losing everything, even if it certainly felt that way.

“Doctor Marcus Buzard is dead,” Special Agent Herron said. “We have recovered his body, and we are in the process of shutting down this operation. All of his people have been arrested, and those he was experimenting on are safe now.”

Ramon glanced at Kenna with one eyebrow quirked up.

“What?” she asked.

He shrugged one shoulder. “Maybe he wasn’t experimenting on those kids. Maybe he was infecting them, and the ones that lived, he was going to release them back into the world so they could spread the disease.”

“Those who didn’t catch it would go in for an immunization,” Kenna said, terrified of the picture that painted in her mind. “They would get it as a result, and soon enough, the entire world would’ve been exposed to it.”

Special Agent Herron nodded. “There was a manifesto included on the hard drive. We didn’t find it right away because it was buried. His master plan was for one person to take over leadership of the whole world.”

“Sounds like a warped view of the book of Revelation.” Kenna shook her head. “Like trying to usher in the end times.”

Ramon asked, “How does that go again?”

Kenna glanced at him. “I’m not going to tell you. Why don’t you go read it for yourself?”

That was the only way he was going to be changed—if he sought the truth on his own and realized what he’d found. No matter how much she explained, she couldn’t argue him to faith. He had to decide on his own what he believed.

“Maybe I will.” Ramon nodded. “For the case.”

She nearly smiled but didn’t. “Special Agent Herron, I need to leave.”

“Sit back down, Ms. Banbury.”

“It’s Mrs. Jaxton. As in Special Agent in Charge Jaxton, my husband. Your boss.”

Herron glanced around. “Is he here? I don’t see him.”

Ramon asked, “What’s going on?”

“Given your company’s actions, word came down from the highest ranks of the Department of Justice that you’re to remain here to explain why footage of this operation leaked onto the internet along with the information contained on the network that the FBI has only just gained access to.”

Kenna’s stomach clenched.

Herron continued, “Your staff took matters into their own hands. These persons must surrender themselves to the FBI for questioning while we determine if charges are going to be filed.”

Ramon started to argue.

“Subverting justice for your own ends isn’t legal, Mr. Santiago.”

“It’s just Ramon.”

Herron said, “I highly doubt you are just anything. Any of you. Or the young woman in your employ. Isn’t that right, Mrs. Jaxton?”

Maizie.

Kenna lifted her chin. “Any questions you have as to the actions of my employees can be directed to me. I’ll be making any statements you require.”

“And if I require that your employees be interviewed by the US Attorney’s office, what happens then? You cut and run, and your company goes underground? That is how you work, isn’t it?”

Well, yeah .

“Our enemies employ the same tactics.” Kenna shrugged. “How else do you expect that we can survive to bring justice when people like Buzard believe they are above the law, that they can kill millions and change things on a global scale?”

“So you consider yourself above the law?” Special Agent Herron asked.

“That’s not what I said.”

“Your little speech to Buzard is going viral. Many are calling for a psychological evaluation, and perhaps they are right. Maybe you have cracked.”

She’d thought for a second that Herron was talking about Buzard needing an evaluation, but he was dead.

“Kenna isn’t crazy,” Ramon said. “She’s the sanest person I know.”

“Your credibility hangs on the edge of a precipice, Mr. Santiago. Given your history with the bureau?—”

“He was exonerated. The actions of one dirty FBI agent—who was connected to a family whose whole goal was to affect national culture, politics, and policy—don’t count against a man who was doing his job.

Who stuck to his oath as an FBI agent until he had no choice but to be what everyone believed he was. ”

Herron said, “Sounds like a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

“Like me believing in conspiracies means I find a conspiracy everywhere I turn?”

“You tell me.” Herron shrugged.

This wasn’t the time to lean forward and bang her head on the table, but it was tempting. “I didn’t make up what happened here.”

“You’re right. This is undeniable.” Herron leaned back in her seat. “Now tell me, where is SAC Jaxton?”