CHAPTER NINE
“McKenna!” I yell her name when I spot the brunette public relations rep for the snowboarding team walk past.
She stops, not baffled, confused, or stressed out in any way. She obviously doesn’t know Cyrus was practically arrested less than two minutes ago. There’s no way she’d be as calm and collected as she is if she knew what happened here. Which makes the matter even worse.
We may be in another country, but each team is required to provide their own security. More often than not situations are handled without issue. Celebrate your win a little too hard and need help getting back to your room, our security team does that for you. Have a fan get a little crazy and way too close during the autograph session, an American team security person will take care of it foryou. I’ve always considered it a good idea to handle our own, but now it seems like somebody has overstepped their bounds.
“Cyrus was arrested.” Even though she’s less than a foot away, I yell out the declaration.
She steps back visibly confused. “What do you mean arrested?”
“I mean, somebody in a security uniform came in and took him away.”
“That’s ridiculous, Charlie. He competes in likeforty-five minutes. No one would do that.” Her eyes scan over a cheap brown clipboard. She fans a few pages back and forth like somewhere on one of her sheets of paper it’ll say 1:15 — arrest Cyrus.
“Someone took him somewhere and we have to get him back. He has to check in to his position in twenty-five minutes.” Screw the time till he competes, check-in happens sooner and if he’s not therehe’ll forfeit.
“Okay,” she says way too calm for me. “We need to find Asbell.”
Jim Asbell? “The director of public relations?”
McKenna’s boss?
“Yes, nothing goes on around here without his approval. If someone took Cyrus somewhere, he’ll know where and why.”
It’s not exactly the answer I wanted. I need her to be more like saddle up and save the day. Maybe knock together a few heads, butshe has a point about her boss being in charge. Nothing happens around here without his knowledge or approval.
“We need to find him.” She pulls a cell phone from her back pocket and holds down the button before placing it to her ear.
My foot taps.
“We’ll find him fast.” The phone can’t ring more than twice before McKenna smiles. “Jim, I’m hearing reports Cyrus Hanson was arrested?”
Her headbobs up and down nodded in agreement to whatever is said on the other line, but since she’s not close enough, I can’t hear anything. It’s absolutely frustrating. He doesn’t talk as loud as my mother.
“Yes, we’ll do that right now. Thank you.” She slides her finger across the phone, disconnecting the call without even a goodbye. “Come on let’s go.”
I follow her before asking, “Where?”
McKennadoesn’t even slow. “Jim is in his office. He wants to see us there.”
We do not have time to be tracking down this old kook in his office. Cyrus is down to like twenty-two and a half minutes before he has to report for his event. If he’s not lined up when he should be, he’ll disqualified from the run. That absolutely cannot be allowed to happen.
“Can we meet him halfway,” I ask, following McKennathrough a series of metal doors.
This time she does slow and turns her head to answer. “He likes to hang out at the nerve center.”
Images from Tony Stark’s lab are immediately what I think of, but we cross through one last door and McKenna stops, knocking on a simple, plain, steel gray door. There’s nothing ominous about it. She knocks four times before a voice on the other side says come in.Opening the door much slower than I appreciate, I barrel past her to get inside quicker.
The room looks a little more matrix-ish on the inside. An entire wall is encased with televisions screens. Each one plays a different news broadcast of the Winter Games. A medium sized sleek black desk sits in the middle, a regular black office chair behind it. The man sitting in the chair faces the TV screens.He turns.
“Ah, Miss Wilson. It’s good to see you. In case I haven’t told you yet, congratulations on the silver medal.”
“Thank you, sir. You did congratulate me.” He congratulates everyone at the celebratory dinner held after completing each event. But there are a lot of athletes here. He’s probably forgotten.
“What can I help you with?”
McKenna steps up. “Miss Wilson says a few minutes agoshe witnessed a security guard take Cyrus Hanson away for questioning. I don’t see anything of that nature having been approved from our office.”
