The agents gave no response. She assumed the slip of her accent must have also grated on their nerves. One of her favorite techniques was to come off folksy, and when her opponents thought it equaled a lesser intelligence, she could slide on in with a “bless your heart,” and then promptly dismantle them with fifteen years of debate and forensic training and a Stanford undergrad education.

Seeing Agent Flynn Hallow standing at the end of the hall, she readied all her sparring skills.

“A child is down here?” she demanded.

“A necessary evil, so to speak, Senator.”

“That’s not acceptable. If you have anything else down here, including a damn spaceship, you need to tell me.”

“We keep all those in New Mexico.”

“While I’m not in a joking mood, I see that you do a have a sense of humor.”

“Do I?” Flynn said.

Stand back, she wanted to warn her escorts. “Let’s you and I have a talk.”

Flynn nodded for the agents to step away from the door where he had been waiting. Kate went to stand directly before him.

“I’ve read the SSA files on my mother. I know much of it is missing, as are portions of my nephew’s file. I know you’re keeping a lot from me. But realize that I’ve been reading legislation all my adult life, so I know to look in the footnotes. And in a small subsection, your name is briefly mentioned as being at the substation in Argentum where my mother and her friend Roxy were held all those years ago.”

She then cocked her head. “Of the very few things my mother ever told me about that town, she described a man who looked a lot like you, smelled of cigarettes, who ultimately ordered her assassination, which she and her friend were barely able to avoid. That means you tried to have the wife of a then-sitting US senator killed. I wonder what the head of the FBI would think about that.”

Flynn didn’t flinch. “What makes you think he doesn’t know?”

He did wince, though, when she leaned in closer. “The only reason I don’t have your ass thrown in a federal prison is that for the moment, I need to know what you’re hiding from me. I am tired of being lied to. I have the ears of the most powerful people in this country. And they will all know what you’ve done. Every single action taken by this agency. If there is indeed a child down here, I am taking him. I will get my mother and bring them both safely to my home—”

“After you meet the boy behind this door, I think you’ll change your mind about that.”