Flynn stood with a hunch, looking even more haggard in the dim light. “I didn’t know anything about him when he was suddenly assigned to lead the SSA late last year. Prior military, his records showed. But there wasn’t anything prior about it. Everything became clear when the military arrived two days ago, and our director ditched his black suit for his old dark navy one, featuring quite a few medals. I can see by your expression that everything is suddenly coming very clear. Feel free to take a seat.”

“I’ll stand, thank you,” Kate said. “I’m not involved in the strategic planning of director personnel in government offices, but it’s certainly not unusual for a member of the military to be asked to step in to lead an obscure agency—”

“Please, Senator. It’s called infiltration. It was their plan all along. We were all snowed. I figured you deserve to know, given your role in it. And why you won’t ever see your nephew again, or your mother, if they find her. Which they will. They won’t stop until they do.”

“They? It’s your agency—”

“The military is now running the show, Senator. We’re just worker bees doing their bidding. My counterparts across the world are reporting pretty much the same story. Every military in every nation in the world is scrambling, just as ours is, to collect the abducted, now that the SSAs have delivered our findings. We should have known better. Of course, only the US has found the host, the conduit. It means we have the means to control. Even direct, if the occasion calls for that.”

Kate felt the dread spread across her. “Obviously the priority is to stop the abducted before they are activated.…”

“You have been too long convinced that you hold the cards. You are blind to what even your president has been convinced to do. Yes, contain the abducted, stop the disasters. But just imagine what they can be used for. What wars can be won, who will emerge the true superpower if we, and only we, have someone to control them all.”

The agent leaned forward. “Senator, you have helped deliver the key weapon in the greatest arms race of all time.”

The van drove down the street, slowly enough for the photographer behind the wheel to glance down at the map on his phone. No way is this address right. There’s nothing out here.

Still, he double checked out the address on the printed-out email and compared it once again to the map. Hell, it was the same.