“In two hours, I have to give a full report in the Oval Office. Thus, I need to talk to him. So I can explain to the president why he needs to be worried about the lightning that hit the earth last year and left behind that boy.”

“For Christ sake, don’t use that terminology,” Flynn scowled. “It’s outdated. See, that’s the problem, why I should have been in charge of all the reports—”

“If it wasn’t lightning, what was it? And please make it concise, I am running out of time.”

“It’s some kind of transportation. Our satellites picked up distinct lights coming from storms a year ago. They must have some kind of technology that masks their ships, but the light they use to abduct and transport is visible to us. It’s always been referred to as lightning because it happens so fast. But we were waiting. We’ve been waiting for fifteen years. The first round of light was followed by another about a day later, also during a storm. Once again, four reports of this light at the same time, on the corners of every major population. We knew they’d first been abducted, then returned.”

“And you got to this boy—Ryan—because he was returned close to DC?”

“Rural Maryland, actually. Just so happens there’s a government-owned property with a lot of security cameras that recorded the flashes. When the second light came, we were ready and sent out teams into the woods. It didn’t take them long to find the boy, just standing outside in the wet trees.”

Kate looked to the door behind him.

“We expected him to be crying, hysterical. Instead, he asked for a Coke, wondered if anyone had Candy Crush on their phone. Turns out, as we’d theorized, he’d been missing for a day or so. Lousy grandmother with sole custody had sent him to live with her cousin for the summer, who we suspect runs a meth trade and hadn’t reported him missing. Real nice family. When we delivered on the Coke, we asked him if he remembered where he’d been. His response: ‘Yeah. With the aliens.’ Since then, he’s been quite cooperative. Even allowing us to do thorough … inspections. We’ve tried to find out what’s been implanted inside him. But no scans, no X-rays, have found anything.”

Kate nodded once. “I’m going in.”

“It’s just you, Senator. You understand that. It’s why we have to move him down here. Because of what happens when he gets in those trances. We never know when he’s going to unleash. We have no choice but to limit visitors. And always only one person at a time, never for more than a minute.”

“Because he can cause people to kill each other. I know that. You can risk one life but not two. I understand.”