Agent Franks lifted one hand to his earpiece, scowling. His blunt features twisted into a dangerous scowl, then he walked quickly from the hall. The three government men sitting on the stand behind Stark all reached into their pockets at the same time. The lights of the phone’s displays could be seen across the hall. The G-men exchanged glances, and then two of them stood up and quickly walked off stage. The other agents providing security all began speaking softly into their microphones. Phones began buzzing all across the auditorium, except for a few MCB men who had forgotten to put them on vibrate, and those began to ring. Every single MCB in sight had just gotten a call.

Something was going down.

A murmur rose from the audience. Agent Stark continued reading from his prepared remarks and let the call go to voice mail, but after a few seconds his pocket began buzzing again. He finally looked up from his paper, scanned the audience, saw all the display lights and realized there was a problem. “Better answer this. Probably the wife.” He laughed nervously, covered the microphone with one hand, and turned away to take the call. Stark listened and didn’t make a sound for probably thirty seconds. It was very awkward.

When he turned back around, his eyes were very wide. “Well, uh…Let’s see…Important business. You’ll have to excuse me for a moment.” He took a few halting steps, realized he should probably say something else and came back to the microphone. “I’ll be right back. There is nothing to be concerned about. Please remain seated.” And then the Director of the MCB fled the podium.

The audience murmur evolved into the suspicious muttering of several hundred Hunters. The final government man on the stage looked around, realized he was all alone, then got up and hurried after his boss. A minute passed, but no one came out to fill the void. It was the middle of the keynote address and the spotlight was completely empty. Now we knew something really interesting had happened.

“Bring out the dancing girls!” one of the Australians shouted. There was general nervous laughter.

My phone vibrated. I pulled it out, expecting a text from one of my teammates. Hopefully someone had been able to overhear one of the MCB and had an idea what was going on. But the number was listed as Unknown.

Would you like to know what is going on? Meet in room 212. You have 5 minutes.

That seemed odd, but it wasn’t until I looked up that I realized the really weird part. There were about fifty other Hunters scattered across the room reading their phones too. I recognized most of them as team leaders or managers from the various companies. VanZant, who was standing only a few feet away, showed me his phone.

We had all received the same message.

Chapter 5

Chapter 5