The Law of Three

Chapter 6

Chapter 6

A Jury Of Her Peers

 -- Manhattan --

Sarkey watched them as they watched her. Six men, two from the FBI, two with the US Attorney General’s office, a representative from Homeland Security and an ATF agent sat at the table in the hospital conference room, three to a side. The NYPD didn’t have a presence, even though eighteen of its officers had died during the assault with many more injured and maimed. As of the night of the attack the Feds had taken complete control. Sarkey sat at the head of the table facing a large flat screen monitor mounted on the opposite wall waiting for the debriefing to continue.

Maybe it would be better if I were in a cage. Then they could reach through the bars and poke me with sticks.

Sarkey felt vulnerable in her hospital gown and robe. She wished she had her pistols strapped to her body. Not that they would protect her from these men. They had the power of the pen. With one stroke they could destroy her career and exile her to some God forsaken, backwater gulag. Yes, even the FBI maintained a gulag system for wayward agents. The agency called it Montana.

They’d just finished watching the security video of the attack, again. Awkward didn’t describe the way she felt. Awkward would have been watching pornography with her parents. This was worse. She was a star in this piece of silent, filthy digital cinema and these men seemed to enjoy forcing her to watch her team getting wiped out time after time. Gun porn. Violence porn. Blood porn. She shivered involuntarily.

“You alright, Agent Sarkey?”

Deputy Director, Thomas Mann, barked his question. He loved to say there were only two men separating him from God - the Director of the FBI and the President of the United States. He also liked to point out that he’d been in his position before they ascended to theirs and he’d remain long after they were gone. Mann was the bastard who knew where the bodies were buried. That he’d put most of them in the ground went without remark.

“Fine, sir.”

“We hear you’re getting out today,” George Ramos, the Homeland Security agent offered.

Even though he sat in as an unofficial representative of the White House, he had no power in this room.

“As soon as I’m done here, sir.”

“Then let’s recap,” Mann broke in. “You set up the security. 24 hours later everybody in your command was brutally murdered along with the first ever defector from the Cuman Union, Emil Dózsa. That it?”

Sarkey had to agree there was very little to add.

“Yes, sir.”

The cameras she’d installed detailed every movement in the warehouse building and the surrounding streets. As such there were few gaps to fill. The security set up had been detailed and complete. They had the tapes of the interrogation of the suspect, Emil Dózsa. They noted how little contact she’d had with him and that she hadn’t slacked in her duty for one minute. She knew that didn’t matter. She’d survived and survival made her the only suspect. That she’d escaped certain death by the sturdiness of her shoulder rig wouldn’t mean a damn.

“Some kind of new body armor,” stated Gregson from the AG’s office.

“A drug we haven’t seen on the street before. Made him impervious to pain and speeded up his metabolism, gave him superhuman strength,” this from Lawrence Bailey, Mann’s assistant. “Too bad we don’t have a body to get a sample from. Everything was incinerated in the fire.”

“I still don’t know what kind of targeting device he had on his pistols. He never missed,” Taylor from ATF added flipping through his notes. “We’re still going through the chopper wreckage trying to find his weapons. Maybe a new kind of laser tied into his night vision. I don’t know.”