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“Listen to me and the team. Let us protect you while we get him. And if you remember anything, tell me.”
She asked the question that had been bugging her since she’d spoken with Will at the cafe. “Shouldn’t there be more of you? Why isn’t there a whole army of people working on this?”
“Oh, there is. Trust me. We might be the ones you see, but there are more. We’ve got our team in Virginia, of course. But between the FBI, NSA, Secret Service, and DHS, there are probably thousands of people working on catching this guy.”
“DHS?”
“Homeland Security,” he clarified.
“So… you’re working with all those people?”
Will’s cheek twitched. “We’re getting our information directly from them, yes.”
She exhaled deeply. At least that made her feel better. “Maybe you should just turn me over to one of them? Then I won’t be in your way,” she offered.
“No,” he said sharply, his tone making her jump. “Sorry,” he said. “What I mean is… The safest place for you is here with us. There’s… there’s more you don’t know and that I can’t tell you.”
Her frustration rose again. “Well why not? If I’m just supposed to stay here with the three of you, and trust you, then where are your badges? Who do you work for?”
Will pressed his lips together. He glanced behind her toward the nightstand. “How about this? I’ve got a call with my boss here in a minute. I’ll let you talk to him. If you don’t want to trust us after that, then we’ll talk about transferring you to FBI custody.”
“That seems fair,” she admitted. Hannah didn’t want to be in FBI custody. If she was going to get a story, she knew it was going to be here with this team. But she also needed more information than Will was giving her to make all the puzzle pieces make sense. Right now, this team of three commandos felt like they could be anyone.
“Okay. Let’s jump on the call. After you talk to him, though, I’m going to need you to go hang out in the bathroom while I finish the meeting.”
Her eyebrows flew skyward. “You can’t be serious?”
Will flashed her a charming smile that completely disarmed her. “Sorry, sweetheart. But it’s the best I can do. You’ll see why.”
Her curiosity was piqued. And her cheeks were warm from the way Will’s southern drawl tripped over the wordsweetheart.
Will grabbed a briefcase and opened up some sort of video screen and keyboard. It was like a laptop, but bulky and old-fashioned. He typed a series of numbers into the screen and a moment later, a man appeared on the screen that wasn’t much bigger than her phone.
The man’s voice came through clearly. “Gilbert, good to see you. Sitrep?”
“Hey, Ross. Let’s just bring in POTUS and I’ll bring you both up to speed, okay?”
If Hannah had expectations of this meeting, Will had just blown them out of the water.
A few moments passed, and then the screen flashed. Vice President Coulter–President Coulter, she corrected herself–appeared side-by-side on the screen with the other man. Will had called him Ross?
“Mr. President, thank you for joining us,” Ross said.
“What do you have for me?” The president looked tired, but interested. Hannah briefly considered the possibility that this was a deep fake. She’d heard rumors about the ability to create incredibly realistic fake videos.
“Before we begin, Mr. President, there is someone I’d like you to meet.”
Hannah’s eyes widened, and she was pretty sure she let out a squeak of surprise. Will pulled her into the frame. She saw the surprise on the face of the other men on the video.
“This is Melanie Byers, the woman who witnessed the assassination of President Walters and captured it on video. We believe our shooter is now targeting her to eliminate the potential video source.”
“Nice to see you alive and well, Ms. Byers.”
“Thank you, Mr. President,” she managed, guilt plaguing her for her deceit. Was lying to the president a federal offense?
Will’s hand remained on her arm as he spoke. “Ms. Byers will be stepping out for the remainder of our conversation and will be briefed on a strictly need-to-know basis. But frankly, she needed to trust that me and my team were, in fact, legitimate.”
“Ah, I understand. Ms. Byers, I’m sorry for the terrible events you’ve been through the last few days at no fault of your own. Please rest assured that the United States government appreciates your discretion and cooperation as we capture this fugitive and bring him to justice. You’re in the care of one of my most trusted men.”
