Myers shook his head. “This is far bigger than me, than Franks, even than the Bureau. I don’t understand Stricken’s motive, and I certainly underestimated how far he was willing to go, but I know that if we don’t break from this path he’s put us on, it will take our country down a very dark road. The Subcommittee was meant as a check on unrestrained power, but I’m afraid they’ve been co-opted. I haven’t spent my entire life fighting monsters simply to replace them with something worse. If I am killed or disappear, finish the mission. Is that understood?”

They hesitated. This was well beyond the scope of their official duties. This was swimming in the deep end, with sharks.

Myers gave them a patient smile. “There’s a reason I approached you two as confidants. You are both very talented, low ranking enough that nobody of importance will pay much attention to you, but most importantly, neither one of you has close family who can be used against you as leverage.”

Archer looked at Grant, and saw that he’d gone a little green. Archer was probably a similar shade. Shit just got real. “Yes, sir,” they answered simultaneously.

“Grant, I’ve given you a few names of other agents you can trust. Henry, you know how to access my secret files. Our case needs to be rock solid or it will be dismissed. We will put the pieces together and take this straight to the President.”

“And what if he agrees with Stricken?” Archer asked.

Myers paused for a long time. They’d all been thinking it. “Then I’m afraid Franks will solve this problem his way.”

* * *

The diner had good pie, and good pie could help assuage the fact she was a virtual slave to a shadow government kill squad, and that kill squad had just gotten its ass handed to it by Frankenstein’s monster. Pie was amazing like that. Not really . . . Heather stuffed another chunk of apple into her mouth and chewed. Franks’ beating them still stung . . . though that was a really flaky crust.

The place was quiet. The lunch rush was over and the dinner crowd hadn’t started coming in yet. Heather had been killing time, sitting in a corner booth for a few hours, but since she had been continually ordering food, the staff wasn’t in any hurry to throw her out. More than anything her servers seemed impressed that a woman of her size could put down such a ridiculous amount of food. They didn’t realize that shape-changing burned a lot of calories and regenerating from injuries took even more. Franks had really done a number on her. Heather had broken damn near everything. Besides, STFU gave her a decent per diem.