Enough time had passed for him to make his move. They would have had no choice but to expand the scope of their manhunt. They would get help from regular law enforcement but the MCB would be limited by how much information they could share, and the cops would push back by being uncommunicative and surly. The MCB had developed a culture of secrecy and mistrust, so their capable field agents would be spread thin. An attack on their headquarters, where their brothers were murdered, by one of their own? They’d prefer to keep this in the family. They wouldn’t want an outsider to pull the trigger on this one.

He knew the regular human MCB agents’ thought processes well. He knew their strengths, their weaknesses, and exactly how they would react.

It felt nice being on his own. It was rather liberating.

* * *

Doug Stark was extremely high on painkillers, so when Agent Franks sat down next to his hospital bed, his first thought was that he was hallucinating. Only Franks just sat there, staring at him in typical Franks fashion. You’d think that a hallucination would actually bother to do something interesting. Franks was dressed in hospital scrubs and Stark hadn’t even known that they made them that big. He was also wearing an ID badge that had a picture of a doctor that was obviously not Franks on it.

“The docs said I’m going to be pooping in a bag for at least six months because of you, jerk.”

“It wasn’t me.”

Stark’s voice was extremely raspy. “You’re not imaginary, are you?”

“No.”

Stark repeatedly pushed the call button.

“No one is coming,” Franks stated.

Stark gave up. He’d just gone through a few surgeries. He was in no condition to do anything useful. He didn’t even think he could shout loud enough to get help. “There was a man on the door. Where’s my guard?”

“Good try. There were two.” Franks nodded at the bathroom. “In there.”

“Did you . . . ?”

“No.” Franks actually looked a little offended, like he had room to get offended, as if after killing a building full of agents, offing a couple more would hurt his reputation. “They’ll wake up.”

Maybe it was all the drugs, but he couldn’t work up enough emotion to freak out about Franks showing up like the angel of death. “Are you here to finish what you started?”

“I was framed.”

“But I saw you.”

“You saw what Stricken wanted you to see.”

“Stricken?” The drugs were slowing his brain down, but that couldn’t be right. Stricken was his benefactor. They were political allies. Stricken had pulled strings so Stark could get this job. “Huh?”

“Idiot.” Franks sighed. “There’s no time for this.” He stuck a Post-it note to Stark’s forehead. “Here.”

“Hey.” It covered one of his eyes. All he could see was neon pink. It was rather degrading.

Franks stood up. “Pass that on.”