Five days ago. Day six of the Strickland experiment.
"What can you tell me, Burndock?" Grace asked, looking out his office window, his back turned to his most trusted agent.
"Some kind of atmospheric disturbance. The electronic feeds cut out for a very short period of time two nights ago. Around eleven PM."
"Natural disturbance?"
"No way of knowing, sir."
"Breer and Lewis were outside the car with their guns drawn, correct?"
"That is correct. They knew something was wrong."
"Were their guns fired?"
"Lewis fired four rounds, Breer fired three. We found and retrieved all seven shell casings, sent them off to the lab. Plenty of blood, and we sent that off to the lab as well, but early tests are showing it just belongs to the two contractors."
Grace stood and looked. Once again, the sun was rising. It had been twenty-four hours since he'd gone to Strickland's home. Twenty-four hours since the two bodies had been discovered and since he'd met Louisa Gutierrez. He'd spent the majority of the day at Strickland's residence, overseeing evidence retrieval and making sure all investigation was properly segmented. He had to follow protocols, and there hadn't been any choice but to involve the Department of Wildlife, but he had been able to call in a favor and get the right people involved. Unfortunately, Chief Gutierrez was new to town, but he hoped that he'd get her on board soon enough as well. Her predecessor had certainly been easy enough to coax into his back pocket.
He'd honestly been surprised that he hadn't been called to Washington yet, but he suspected it was coming. If he knew Director McKie, he was stonewalling, at least for a bit, to give him some time to get this resolved before having to dash out of town.
"What's the next step?" Grace asked, turning slightly from the window and glancing back at Burndock.
"I think that depends on you, sir," Burndock replied. "And what really happened to Breer and Lewis."
Grace smiled thinly. "What do you think happened?"
"Doesn't matter what I think," Burndock replied, a bit more tersely than he intended. The deaths of the two contractors had bothered him a lot more than he let on. Neither of them had really known what they were dealing with, and had likely gone to their deaths ignorant of the dangers they had faced every night. Something about that wasn't sitting easy with him. It's one thing to be putting your life at risk for the service of your country and being fully aware of your commitment to your duty?but it's something else entirely to just be doing a job to earn a buck without having the slightest clue how close to death you were every single day. Hired guns or not, Breer and Lewis had been innocents. Completely outside this vicious little circle of experimentation. They'd just been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Maybe.
Or maybe they'd been at the wrong place at the right time. Grace had engineered a number of tests for William Strickland along the way?perhaps this was just another step towards their ultimate goal. Somehow that made it worse. A lot worse.
"Of course it matters," Grace replied, throwing Burndock's terseness back at him. "If we're not all on board, none of us are on board. You are on board, aren't you, Nate?"
Burndock hesitated, but just for a moment. He hoped it hadn't been long enough for Grace to detect it. "Yes. Absolutely. I'm 100% on board."
"Good."
"I'll get back to work," said Agent Burndock and he turned towards the exit.
Grace faced him, pulling himself away from his view out the window. "Can you do me a favor?"
"That's kind of my job."
Grace smirked. "Get me everything you can on Louisa Gutierrez. New Chief of Police in Norwood."
Burndock nodded. "All right. Looking for anything specific?"
Grace shook his head. "No?but I suspect she may be."
Burndock nodded, then turned and walked silently from Grace's office.