Two cars sat in front of the White Oak Technology Building that housed the Veritas labs. Inside the front foyer, a man spoke quietly to the security guard while another man cleaned up the mess outside the maintenance room. The body was loaded into the trunk of one of the cars and the injured man was taken to a nearby clinic, where his eyes were flushed, the bones in his wrist set, and his skin stitched.
“You understand what will happen if any word of what happened here tonight leaves this building,” the man said.
The security guard could barely swallow. “Yes, sir, I understand fully.”
“So I can trust that you’ll keep this between us?”
“Absolutely.”
“Then I think we have an agreement and I can be leaving now. Take care, Robert,” the man said. He walked back to the second car and drove out onto Technology Boulevard. What the hell was going on? He had sent two experienced agents in to take care of a female research scientist and a country hick, and he had just collected one dead body and one seriously injured agent. How well the injured man would ever see again was in question. Not that he really cared, just that things like this generated questions and he didn’t need questions right now. He checked his watch and swore under his breath. He needed to get back to D.C. before he was missed. He entered the traffic on I-64, then cut off at the turn to the airport.
Christ, Andrews was going to blow a fuse when he found out they had missed Pearce and Buchanan yet again. But what could he do, short of sending in an entire SWAT team? He dialed Andrews’s private number as he approached the airport.
He was not looking forward to this conversation.