“So that’s no big surprise. You come from a cowardly lot.” Here, her eyes made a quick shift to Mitch. If he saw it, he didn’t let on. He was leaning in as far as he could, his knees jiggling up and down.

“We picked up on their movements through informants last night. But here’s where it gets interesting. They seem to be in the company of some nurses.” She was angry; I could see it now. As much as she wanted to tease emotion out of me, she was desperately trying to hold hers back. So the Agents hadn’t known about the nurses, not until now. I felt the power shift a bit. I knew more than she did.

“We now believe they are part of a network that has been in operation for some time, moving inventory right under our nose, sometimes taking it from our very hands. And I don’t like being robbed. We don’t look kindly on thieves.”

She paused again, getting herself under control, though she had barely shown the faintest of cracks. “So, as you can imagine, time is of the essence. So is stealth. And for this, we need someone on the inside.”

“Brilliant,” Mitch whispered. He couldn’t hold it in but knew better than to really interrupt her.

“You have given us important information that leads us to understand that there are some who return to their packs once they manage to leave the institutes. So it should be no surprise for them to find you out in the woods.”

I wanted to jump up, to scream and dance. I could go back to them? Was this really happening? Once I was with them, it would be easy to escape, for real this time. I could shake off a Recruiter tail like nobody’s business and be back on the trail with my family.

“What we want now is not just to capture your group, but to bring down the network of nurses. This requires having a man on the inside whom they’ll trust and allow to join them while they are moving with the network. All the more important, since you explained your group’s past experiences with Agents—I believe you called them traitors?” She looked up at me. I couldn’t respond, and she kept going.

“We know we cannot infiltrate the network with just anyone, and we need to jump on this opportunity to track them. So, you are to rejoin the clan, as it were, and convince them you are the same old hobo they lost. Then you are to travel with them and gather information on the network so that we have the intel we need to bust up the larger extraction route for good. We have gotten word that they are taking cargo across the border into the United States.” She said this last part with so much distaste her nose wrinkled.

“But we don’t know how. So, once you are in position, once you are at the border but before you cross over, you will notify us, and we will come to collect everyone.”