“Yes, ma’am.”
“Good. Do you know who the judge is assigned to the warrant?”
Sarah rattled off the name. Amin turned her head to the side, clearly putting pieces together. “I believe Cleo Barnes went to school with his wife. I’ll have her reach out through back channels. You’ll have that warrant in hand by nine a.m. Anything else?”
“Not that I can think of right now.”
“If you come up with anything else, please let us know. We want this taken care of quickly. So, let’s bypass the bureaucratic red tape.” Sarah thought the conversation was over, but Amin had one last thing to say, “Oh, and, Agent Murphy, please keep this conversation between us. There’s no need to tell Director Steele.”
“Understood, ma’am.”
“Good.” With that, the camera on the other end went dead.
Sarah felt a headache coming on. She hated politics.
* * * *
Blayne
Blayne walked Denzili and Hennigan to the door. When Dr. Hennigan walked out, she said, “We’ll be in touch.” Blayne wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a threat. He shut the door behind them, locked it and leaned against it as he let out a long breath. The conversation he was about to have with Kira wouldn’t be fun.
He pushed himself off the door and walked back into the living room. Kira had moved to the couch, crossing her legs at the knees with her arms folded in front of her. All she asked was, ‘What the actual fuck?’ Kira turned her head between Blayne and Ethan, waiting for a response.
“Don’t look at me,” Ethan said. “I wanted to let her bleed out on the couch.”
“Why didn’t you call me?” Kira asked. “You realize you were harboring one of the most wanted women in America. And if half of what she’s told us tonight is true, she may be single-handedly one of the deadliest people on this planet. Again, what theactualfuck!”
Blayne tried to form words to explain why he’d allowed all this to happen, but he didn’t understand his decision. “I thought it was the right decision.”
“That goon of hers shot you!”
“Trust me, you don’t think I know that? When she showed up here last night, of all places, I knew we had to help her.”
“You aided a terrorist,” Kira responded. “Do you know the legal jeopardy you put yourself in? The legal jeopardy you’ve put Ethan, Dr. Giest-Mueler, and…me in?”
What she said was true, but Blayne still believed in his guts he was making the right decision. He finally sat down. He rested his elbows on his knees as he leaned forward and looked Kira directly in the eyes.
“I do,” he finally said. “God knows, I do. You don’t think I’ve been practically shitting myself for the past twenty-four hours? None of this makes sense to me. All I know is that Dr. Hennigan—”
“Assuming that’s her real name.”
“It is,” Ethan said. Kira spun her head in his direction. “She went to the bathroom, so I searched for her online. Her full name is Dr. Phillipa Hennigan, and she’s a board-certified psychiatrist.”
“You had the means of calling for help all day?” Kira rolled her head in frustration. “I at least thought you had a gun to you the whole time and couldn’t be stupid enough to be party to this mess.”
Ethan’s mouth dropped open as he searched for something to say.
“That’s not fair,” Blayne responded. “You weren’t there. She needed our help and promised to tell us about last month. I wanted answers.”
“If she’d been arrested, you would have gotten answers,” Kira said.
“Yeah, she told us she wouldn’t live long enough to answer questions if she was taken in,” Ethan said. Kira started to respond, but Ethan held his hand and plowed forward. “Trust me. I didn’t think the argument was very strong either. But, the more I’ve considered it, the more I think she was right. We’ve seen what they would do to destroy a fucking cell phone. You think they’d let one of their own end up in police custody?”
Kira sat there for a moment, seething. After a beat, resignation washed over her face. Blayne noticed her foot bopping up and down rapidly.
“Now what?” she asked.
“Now, we’re stuck between a rock and a hard place,” Blayne admitted. “We can’t tell anyone without incriminating ourselves. We have nothing actionable. All we can do is wait.”
