Page 9 of Mastermind

Nobody answers.

We try two more doors. Nothing.

I can’t blame whoever’s inside. I wouldn’t open up. Anybody can claim they’re with the FBI.

“Let me try this,” I say as we reach the next security gate. I kneel down and pick the lock with the kit I always have on me. It unlocks, and I raise the gate so everyone can enter the foyer.

I shut the gate, securing it again, and then pick the door locks and let us inside. There’s an empty security desk in the lighted lobby. I walk around it and press the button for elevator access.

It arrives quickly and seems to be as functional as the building’s lighting.

Two minutes later, we’re looking out from the top of the building at the black sea of mist below us. Helicopters fly in the distance. Hinder pulls out a blue flare and sends it into the sky, letting them know we’re downed first responders.

At the far end of the Void, I can see other buildings with their lights on. They’re like islands in a sea of electric ink. Why weren’t they taken out by the pulse?

“What brought us down?” Sheppard finally asks.

“Electrical failure,” says Hinder.

“Like an EMP?”

“I don’t know.”

Vaslov is staring at something as wind brings wisps of mist toward us. He reaches out and grabs into the air. His hand pulls back something, but it looks empty.

I get a closer glance and can see it’s not nothing. He’s caught a fine tendril of something. Like a . . .

“Black spiderweb,” says Vaslov, finishing my thought.

He pulls a plastic bag from a pocket and slides the strand inside.

My nose twitches as I realize I’ve been smelling something since we crashed.

“What is that? Ozone?” I ask.

“Some kind of discharge. I’ve smelled it before,” he replies. “I just can’t place it.”

“What have you got?” inquires Sheppard.

Vaslov shows him the bag. “This. The mist is full of it.”

“What is it?”

“I don’t know. But this was no truck filled with charcoal.”

I don’t comment. That was never my theory.

“Could it be a weapon of some kind?” asks Sheppard.

“Look around you,” I say. “How is something that can do this to an entire city not a weapon?”

CHAPTER SIX

TASK FORCE

I’m lying on the floor of a conference room in the FBI’s Newark, New Jersey, office, staring up at the ceiling tiles, trying to make patterns out of the random dots. I think I’ve had a total of two hours of sleep. Some of us have had none.

A younger me would have stayed up and bothered anyone who knew anything for more details. The older me realizes that a lot of my mistakes were made because I didn’t stop and let my body and brain recover.