“They’re calling the shots with the locals. The Washington SAC just got woken up. They’ve got the NSA monitoring all comms in the area in case he tries to contact anyone,” answered a different office minion. “Franks placed one call to Dwayne Myers during his escape. No transcript of that one yet.”

It would probably be pushing his luck to have Myers picked up as an accessory, though it was sorely tempting. “The minute you get that transcript I want to see it. MCB will be shell-shocked, but the explosives were all left in nonvital areas.” He wanted Franks gone, he didn’t want to permanently damage his other assets in the war against the supernatural, just wake them up. “They’ll get their shit together in short order.”

“FBI and DHS are on their way in,” reported the first one. “That’s a lot of outsiders on the case.”

He could tell that his inner circle was scared. They were volunteers. Everyone here knew the real score. They understood that even dirty wars were worth winning. All of them were in deep. If they got caught, every last one of them was looking at prison time. If Franks flipped this and somehow exposed STFU’s actions, Stricken wouldn’t hang alone.

Fear was an excellent motivator.

One of his men approached cautiously. “Orders, sir?”

“First off, the Task Force will offer our assistance to our sister agency in their time of need. We’ll coordinate as we normally would with the MCB. This is just another case involving a monster. Second, we debrief our team and figure out if we’ve left any loose threads that need cutting. Anything that doesn’t lead straight to Franks, we squash it.”

The entire command center staff was staring at him, waiting. Word of Foster’s death had already spread around the office. Foster was a bit of a sociopath, and hadn’t exactly been beloved, but he’d been one of their own.

“Don’t worry. This isn’t a setback at all. Franks escaping actually works to our benefit.”

He could tell they didn’t believe him. A few men were studying their shoes.

It was time to rally the troops.

“You know, this whole thing reminds me of a story. When I was a kid, I lived in a really small town. Poor place. I’m talking a real shit town. We even had a problem with stray dogs. They’d hang out at the landfill and form packs. They started breaking through our fences and attacking our pigs. We shot a few of them, but you’ve got to sleep sometime. A dirty job like protecting pigs from wild dogs sucks when you’re on your own and nobody in charge gives a shit.”

A few men chuckled. It sounded a lot like their thankless job.