The Nexus

Chapter 24

"We've done everything we can to get information out of the new prisoners, Director Aranda." The tall man stood straight, with his back to Alexis's door. The man's perfectly fitted suit was black with a high collar.

"Have you learned anything?" Alexis asked.

"Not more than we already knew," the man, Brooks, responded. "The only thing new is that they had all just met the woman who is now calling herself Emma, and that Miles Chandak felt that she was very important to their cause."

Alexis cursed under his breath. Miles Chandak was Emma's last target and he wished she had actually killed him. He considered telling Brooks to just go ahead and kill him now. In fact, he thought that maybe he should just order all of the prisoners to be killed.

It would come in due time. The Agency had to first erase most of these people's existence for that past few years, and then he could make them all disappear like he had done a million times before.

"Keep me posted on how things are going," Alexis ordered.

"Yes, sir," Brooks responded.

Alexis stood up at his desk and walked over to the large picture window that covered one wall of his office. He was staring out onto the tree-filled landscape when he felt the shift inside him. It was something he had dreaded for all the years that he had known of Emma.

Intel gave him clues as to where she was now hiding and he was ready to pull the trigger on raiding the little house that she was hiding in. He had to be careful, though. He had set his life up in a particular way as to avoid too much of any possible fallout being traced back directly to him. He was the brains behind The Agency, but the way it was arranged left the people on the rungs below him exposed to the world should any mistakes be made, and the people who he had strategically placed above him would do anything to protect themselves in the event of a disaster, including protecting him. He was the man who knew everything that was going on. He made the rich richer and gave power to those who thought of themselves as weak. He knew how to move all of the pieces of his little chessboard to get everyone everything that they wanted, all the while keeping himself in control of everything. No one knew what his ultimate plan was, and the way he manipulated everything, no one cared.

Now Emma was threatening to ruin it all. How could he achieve his goals if she figured out the power that she possessed.

He brooded and continued to stare out the window. The reflection that was there was one of a man with fine Italian features. His nose was straight and flat at the end. The dark eyebrows were beginning to finally show his age with streaks of gray that matched the streaks in his well-trimmed sideburns. The widows peak of his dark hair put the final touches on his groomed, yet fierce some, look. He was not as tall as Brooks, but was broad shouldered and still strong for a man his age, an age that no one could actually guess, but most people figured he might be in his early fifties.

In the reflection his jaw clenched and he felt that it might be time for him to do some of the dirty work himself.