Washington, D. C., Saturday…
On the way to the hospital, Kalidas made two calls. One was to Sheriff Sam Fletcher. Another was to Capt. Denise Rivera. Kalidas had never met Sam but she had heard good things about him from Jay, Dolores, and Bouncer. And Chris obviously had a great deal of admiration for his boss. She was taking a chance, she knew, but when they checked into a hospital, DHS would know where they were anyway.
She gave a rapid fire account of what happened to both the cops and also described their conjecture about the clones, explaining that Jay and her group had already come to the same decision in all likelihood and were also on the run, trying to escape from the DHS. Then she went straight to Bethesda.
Jay and the marines, meanwhile, showed up at Quantico, after Jay had expertly hot-wired a van. After some fast talking between the marines at the gate and the marines in the van, they made their way into the base. In its heart could be found the FBI Academy and research center. Refurbished many times over the years, they still consisted of the original three sprawling brick buildings connected by a network of glassed walkways above ground. Below ground there was a labyrinth of labs and ops centers that tripled the space that existed at the turn of the century. The people that worked there now far outnumbered the military present on the base, testimony to the fifty year homeland security buildup to counter terrorism.
Since the sentries had phoned ahead, the disheveled group in the van were quickly led into elevators and taken to one of the ops centers. Both marines and FBI were there, in the person of Asako O'Brien, two other FBI agents, and a representative of the marine base commander. Asako and the other two agents were easier to convince than the base commander's rep, who couldn't quite swallow the whole story without checking. So it was Jake Hanlon, FBI director back in DC, who moved first, spurred into action by a trinity of calls from Denise Rivera, Sam Fletcher, and the FBI at Quantico.
Pierce Hamilton was on the golf course when his cell phone rang. He pulled it out, took a look at the caller ID, and nodded to the two Secret Service men accompanying his party.
"Give me some space here, guys," he said. Since his golf partners were two Supreme Court judges and a senator, they understood that national security business came first. They moved on to the next hole, leaving Pierce and his bodyguards alone.
"Go ahead, Jake. What's the deal?"
Jake Hanlon was not a man of many words. He described the situation briefly and clearly. Pierce's orders were just as clear and to the point.
