The Intelligence Director

Chapter Five

Director Raze knew this was far from over.

Even after they’d managed to return the girl to her lab and successfully wipe the incident from her mind, he still had the matter of the breach to deal with. Which was why he wasn’t surprised to find Dr. Alixter back in his office the very next morning.

He took a seat in the chair opposite Raze and crossed his legs casually. As though he were just there to talk about the weather. “I want to know how this happened.” His voice was calm. Eerily calm. Raze almost preferred it when he was angry and yelling through his teeth.

Raze nodded, indicating the cluttered desk screen, as if the mess of reports and briefs were enough evidence to assuage Alixter, which he knew it wasn’t. “I’m working on it.”

“Clearly not hard enough,” Alixter argued. “Otherwise, this mystery would have been solved.”

The truth was, the mystery had been solved. Raze had figured it out late last night. That glitching Lyzender Luman had distracted his guards with a vapor bomb in the Medical Sector. Then he and the girl had managed to board a delivery van leaving the compound.

Fortunately for Raze, Lyzender didn’t know about her genetic implant. The one they’d used to pinpoint her location via satellite.

But he wasn’t about to admit any of this to Alixter. Not until he could figure out a way to bury his own culpability. Because Raze knew none of this would have happened had he not shut his comms off yesterday. Had he not been in the lab assistant’s room.  

Raze stared through his office wall at the buzzing command center. A dozen agents running fool’s errands in an effort to make the place look busy. To make it look like all resources were being exploited to get to the bottom of this.

His eyes landed on Vas. So far he hadn’t asked any questions about the girl, which was admirable. But he also knew he couldn’t allow the memory of last night to remain in the man’s mind. It was too risky. He’d already scheduled a memory modification session for later this afternoon.

“Actually,” Raze said, still staring at his chief operative. He turned back toward Alixter. “We do have a lead.”

The doctor’s eyebrows rose inquisitively.

“I’d rather wait until I have a chance to follow up on it before I divulge any further information.”

Raze half expected Alixter to fight this but, surprisingly, the president rose from his chair and said, “Very well.”

And then he was gone.

Raze waited until the doctor had left the building before swiping his finger along the panel on his bottom desk drawer. He pulled it open and surveyed the contents. He only had two injectors left. He was now wishing he hadn’t wasted the third on the stupid lab assistant.

For more reasons than one.

He pulled out the tiny device and pushed the drawer shut with his foot.

Raze would be damned if he was going to let a glitching seventeen-year-old punk ruin his life.  

 Hiding the injector in the palm of his hand, he accessed the intercom. “Vas?”

“Yes,” came the fast, obedient reply.

“Can you come in here, please?”

He watched through the glass as the agent leapt to his feet and hurried toward Raze’s office door.

Raze felt just the slightest hint of regret as the other man took a seat in his office. It was always a pity to lose a promising young operative. Vas had shown a lot of potential.

But, just like the rest of Raze’s staff, he was expendable.

As all subordinates should be. 

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This story concludes in Chapter Six