“No,” Ashley says, still watching the police. “I mean, yes. But it was still small. I heard on the radio . . .”
I wait for her to say something else, but she’s staring ahead. At first, I think it’s just a blank stare, but then a woman holding a baby gets up, and her eyes follow them.
“Were they able to evacuate the kids? I heard a helicopter—it sounded like a big one—as we were leaving. But I don’t know how it could hold everyone.”
“They have buses, too. The chopper was for the ones who need to be . . . contained.”
“How did you get away?”
“I drove.” And then she fixes me with a look that very clearly translates as shut the hell up.
So I do. We sit there for the next few minutes, mostly in silence. Kelsey speaks to Ashley a few times, and gets short but generally civil answers. Ashley seems to relax a bit when the police leave, but she tenses right back up when she realizes that means Taylor and Aaron are about to join us.
“I need to find a bathroom,” she says, quickly capping the water bottle and tossing it onto the seat next to her.
“Down the hall to the . . . right.” Kelsey concludes with a little huff because Ashley is already well out of earshot.
“Who was that?” Taylor asks.
“A friend of Daniel’s. Ashley. She worked at The Warren. At Delphi, that is.”
Ashley’s long gone now, but Taylor tilts her head in that direction anyway. “Seems very upset to be just a friend.”
Aaron is only half paying attention. He’s looking up something on his phone. I move to sit next to him. Since Kelsey and Taylor have deemed us a couple, I might as well take advantage of it.
“What are you looking for?”
“Just . . . picked up on a few things when he was taking my statement. Nothing concrete, but . . . checking to see if CNN or one of the local stations—hold on. Holy . . .”
He clicks the link. A reporter is in the foreground. Off in the distance is the building Deo and I were in. Fire blazes from every opening. Two of the other buildings in the courtyard are also in flames, and smoke pours from the windows of a third.
“Firefighters from five neighboring counties struggle to contain a baffling fire in the sleepy river town of Port Deposit, Maryland. For the second time in five years, fire has swept through Memorial Hall, the one-hundred-and-seventeen-year-old building directly behind me. Once part of a prestigious private campus, the Tome School buildings were purchased by the federal government during the mobilization for World War II, as part of the Bainbridge Naval Training Center. The historic buildings you see here are pretty much all that remain. Local authorities attributed the 2014 fire to teenage arsonists, but some are questioning that conclusion today with the discovery that these fires actually began underground. Gunshots were also reported earlier this evening, and at least one person captured video of a military-style helicopter touching down nearby sometime after midnight.
“The Department of Homeland Security is on the scene, and an unofficial source has confirmed that a terrorist organization was operating out of this abandoned, underground government facility. Authorities have been following reports that Franco Lucas, a suspect in the murders of several local women over the past few years, was operating a human trafficking ring in neighboring Harford County. The speculation now is that he may have been using that ring and other illegal activities to fund the group. The source had no comment on whether they have Lucas in custody. There was also no comment on whether the fire was set by the terrorist group itself, or by the government in an effort to . . . well, smoke them out.”
The image goes back to the news desk, with an inset screen of the reporter at the scene on his right.
“Thank you, Vince. Do we have any word yet on the nature of the terrorist group? Is this a foreign threat or domestic?”
“No word yet, John, but rest assured that there will be updates on this breaking story throughout the day.”
The fire disappears and is replaced by a woman in a red suit who looks appallingly chipper for 5:15 in the morning.
“News of a potentially massive terror cell less than seventy miles from the nation’s capital . . . less than a year from the presidential election? Let’s check in with our political correspondent, Cindy Barr.”
“Well, as you can imagine, John, Twitter is heating up fast. It’s still well over an hour before sunrise, but candidates from both parties have already jumped into the fray. The most interesting so far, however, may be a message that appears to come from independent candidate Ron Cregg himself, known to be an early riser.
“As you can see in the screenshot the tweet from @RonCregg reads: @Whitehouse incapable of managing threats in our backyard. Info on this cell provided to DHS by source close to Cregg campaign back in JULY.”