“You’re just the man I needed to speak with,” Kira said.
Chapter Twenty-One
Agent Murphy
Murphy and Harper were leaving the FBI Field Office in New Orleans when a white van pulled up in front of the station, and the side of the door quickly slid open. For a brief second, Murphy almost went for her gun, thinking Harper or she was about to be kidnapped. She let her arm drop back to her side.Worse… It’s a reporter with a camera. I would much rather be kidnapped.
Murphy slipped on her fakest smile and asked, “How can I help you, Mr. McNeil?”
“Where are you going?” McNeil asked, shoving a microphone in her face.
“None of your business,” Murphy said as she rested her hand on her hip, a few inches away from her holster.
“Any chance it’s because Ethan Bond was taken into custody this morning?” Murphy stared back at McNeil without blinking, her jaw set in a tight line. “Come on, Agent Murphy? The public has a right to know.”
“Let me reiterate what I told you the other day. The FBI does not comment on ongoing investigations—”
“Comment on ongoing investigations,” McNeil said, his words overlapping with Murphy’s.
“See? You remember,” Murphy said with a giant, still-fake smile. “Now, if you’ll excuse me,” she said as she stepped around McNeil and started walking toward a car waiting for them.
“I know this is all tied up with the Peregrine Airlines 923 explosion,” McNeil blurted out.
Murphy spun on her heel without thinking and was about to say something when she noticed the camera was still pointed at her.
“Off,” she said as she stared into the lens directly.
Murphy watched as the cameraman looked to McNeil for confirmation. McNeil nodded, and the red light on the front blinked out as the man lowered the camera. McNeil handed the cameraman his microphone saying, “You can wait for us in the van. If I need you, I’ll let you know.”
Murphy waited for the van’s door to slide shut.
“What are you doing, Murphy?” Harper asked, whispering in her ear. He’d positioned his back to McNeil so McNeil couldn’t try reading Harper’s lips.
“Fishing,” Murphy said as a predatory grin crept over her face. “So, Mr. McNeil, what do you think you know?”
“Well, let’s see… We have two murders, a plane explosion, a bombing and an assassination attempt, and Ethan Bond is in the middle of it all. He’s either the mastermind or the target. And since he wasn’t walked out of the Pennington University Hospital this morning in cuffs, I’m guessing it means he’s the target. My question is ‘why?’”
“That’s some interesting conspiracy theorizing you have there, Mr. McNeil. Are you sure you’re not a member of the tinfoil hat society? Why not blame aliens or space lasers? Heck, maybe it’s the child-eating lizard alien cabal running our government doing all this? You’re as crazy as those Q-Anon whack jobs.”
“You may joke, Agent Murphy, but the facts are the facts.”
“And please tell me, what facts do you have to support any of this?”
McNeil stammered something about how the timeline worked, but Murphy looked at McNeil like he was a member of a tinfoil hat club.
“I’m not some conspiracy theorist,” McNeil finally blurted out.
“Have you listened to yourself?”
“I’ll let the American public judge what I have to say.”
“You do that,” Murphy said, shaking her head at him as she plastered on a look of concern. “I’ll be sorry to see you leave RNN in shame. All things considered, you’re not a bad guy.”
Murphy spun on her heels and walked away without waiting for a response. Harper didn’t skip a beat and fell in beside her.
Once they were in the sedan, they told the driver to take them to the Naval Air Station. They were catching a plane to Ellington Field in Houston. From there, they were boarding a chopper that would whisk them away to the Federal Building in Downtown Houston.
“You totally believe this theory, don’t you?” Harper asked.
