“Mother of God, we’re screwed,” Fender said, seething.
Hobbes and Cass had both gone pale and stony.
The screen returned to Special Agent Mahoney, who said, “As of now, the woman’s name is unknown. But the man is Lester Hobbes, a mercenary and an assassin. We are asking anyone who has any information on Hobbes or this woman to come forward and help us locate them.”
“How do you know Hobbes and the woman are part of the vigilantes?” a reporter shouted.
Mahoney said, “Elena Guryev used her iPhone to video the feeds of several security cameras in her house during the attack.”
That set off a frenzy among the reporters, all of them asking where Mrs. Guryev was.
The FBI agent turned stoic and reserved. “Gunmen broke into an FBI safe house this morning and killed four of my best men. They also severely wounded a DEA agent and shot Mrs. Guryev to death, leaving her deaf son an orphan. And, yes, we believe the gunmen were associated with the vigilantes, or the Regulators, as they evidently call themselves. Turning to the raid in Virginia—”
Fender grabbed the remote, punched mute. “Regulators?” he said, looking around the room. “How did they know that? Who used—”
“Doesn’t matter,” Hobbes said, looking at Cass. “We’re done.”
“The both of you did us all in,” Fender said, getting to his feet and looking like he wanted to smash things. “Taking off your hoods. Breaking the rules of engagement. What the hell’s with that?”
The room around Brown erupted with accusations and demands.
Brown stood up and roared, “Enough!”
The fifteen Regulators shut up, all of them red-faced and panting.
“It’s done,” Brown said sharply. “They’re coming after us. You knew they would eventually. So it’s done. What are you going to do about it? Are you going to turn on each other? Are you going to run? Or are you going to fight back, show some spine, believe in a better tomorrow created by your sacrifices and mine?”
He let that sink in for a while and then said, “Show of hands. Who’s with me?”
After several moments, hands began to go up, thirteen of them, including Cass’s. Fender remained livid but eventually raised his hand. Finally, Hobbes did too.
The television screen had switched from the FBI press conference to the weather forecast.
Brown grabbed the remote, turned the sound back on, and watched the forecast. The National Weather Service was calling for gale-force winds overnight.
“There, some good news for once,” Brown said. “Couldn’t be better. Get your gear strapped down, and your heads screwed on straight. We go at twenty-one hundred hours.”
CHAPTER
88
NANA MAMA WAS cooking pancakes for Ali the next morning when I came downstairs.
“Pancakes?” I said, rubbing Ali’s head. “What did you do right this time?”
“He put that letter to Dr. deGrasse Tyson in an envelope,” my grandmother said, gesturing at a stamped, addressed envelope on the counter. “In my book, seeing things through is cause for pancakes and real maple syrup.”
Ali grinned as she set a plate before him. “You think he’ll answer me?”
“You never know until you try,” I said. “Where’s Bree?”
“Up and long gone,” Nana Mama said. “She’s got a pile of paperwork to plow through and wanted to get at it. You hungry?”
“Tempting, but I think I’ll skip the—”
“Hey, Dad, look!” Ali cried, pointing to the little TV on the counter.
I glanced over and saw the bizarre image of a bearded driver in an Amish buggy looking up at a low-flying, pale white blimp that was dragging a thick steel cable more than a mile long across fields and through trees.
The newscaster said that sometime during the night the blimp had broken free of its mooring at the U.S. Army’s Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, where the military tested everything from cannon rounds to chemical weapons. The blimp was part of a top secret over-the-horizon surveil-lance system currently being evaluated. The army believed the blimp’s cable had snapped due to gale-force winds that had struck coastal Maryland overnight.
“I’ve seen that thing,” I said. “The blimp. A couple of times last week from the Eastern Shore.”
The newscaster said the heavy cable had already damaged multiple high-tension lines and several homes and buildings. The army had crews trailing the blimp and trying to figure out how to bring it down safely.
“Runaway blimp,” Nana Mama said, shaking her head.
“You don’t hear that every day,” I said, pouring myself some coffee.
Before I could take a sip, my phone buzzed, alerting me to a text, and then another, and then a third. Annoyed, I set the coffee down and dug the phone from my pocket.
Call me.
Kerry Rutledge.
Urgent.
A fourth text came in. A phone number.
I took my coffee, went out into the great room, and called the young woman who’d survived the road-rage attack.
“Dr. Cross?” she said.