“Right. Like I can pick up the phone and call the president of the whole friggin’ college.” She glares but behind the angry façade, I see hope.
“Perhaps you can’t but I know someone who can.” We hop off at the next stop and when I’m sure we’re not being followed, I call us an Uber which takes us back to my hotel.
In my room, I open one of the drawers, pull out my magic wand, and wave it over her body. The red LED stays off until I rub it across her purse. Then, it goes nuts.
She pales. “I have another tracky?”
I grin at her Australian. “Yeah, permission to find it?”
When she nods, I dump her purse upside down. It takes me a while but I finally find the miniature device in a zippered compartment.
She actually moans when I pick it up and show it to her. “This here is a US government-issued tracking device. Did you know you got the FBI’s tidy-whities bunched up their arses?”
“Do you ever speak English?”
“Let me try again. You’re being followed and your conversations monitored. Why?”
She stands and paces from the hotel door to the window and back again. “How many times do I need to tell you? I know nothing about weapons. I’m just trying to make EMF safer.”
I drop the electronics devices, smash them with my heel, and flush them down the toilet. “Apparently, the FBI didn’t get your memo.”
The wand proves my room is clean so I figure we can talk and eat. I order some room service. I’ve found that a tasty cheeseburger and fries is the best food for getting at the truth and I wait until she’s almost done to begin my interrogation.
“When you were doin’ your experiments, you stumbled onto something, didn’t you?”
At first, she opens her mouth and I think she’s going to deny it but then she bites down on her quivering lower lip and nods.
“Who else knows?” I lean in and take her hands, willing her to trust me.
“No one, I swear it.”
“What about the stolen notebooks? Was there anything in there?”
She nods and clenches my hands. “Someone, if they were smart enough, might get a clue.”
“How bad is it?”
Her eyes go wide and she speaks barely above a whisper. “Think Hiroshima and Nagasaki bad.”
