For the next ninety seconds the FBI agent was deep in thought except for the
occasional mumbling of the Anglo-Saxon word for feces. Finally he said," I
think I want to talk to sleeping beauty myself before calling this one in."
The first morning light brought with it some new revelations. Gould was still
at the hospital the patient there was now awake and still claiming to be
William Simmons. The Simmons/Verdoun was calmer. Not adding to the
mans calm at all was the fact that the CDC had ordered a total isolation
protocol. Weed and Jones were at the hotel; Gould's room was never used.
But the greatest revaluation of all was a phone call from the mysterious
Hunter. Hunter had called from South Carolina to say that the killed had
struck again in Savannah at 2:30 AM. Hunter also requested that the bodies
of the victims be checked for one to two micron size inorganic objects in the
cerebral spinal fluid. Jacob who took the call had managed to ask Hunter who or what he was.
Hunter said," I am a cop, way out of his jurisdiction."
Weed and Gould were having a heated debate over the phone. Weed had the
worst of it because he was simultaneously arguing with Jones. They were
arguing about telling Agent Stewart about Hunter and his victims. Weed and
Jones though the most likely outcome was them finding themselves in a nice
padded cell or the Isolation ward of Walter Reed talking to guys in space
suites. Gould insisted the FBI agent was quite reasonable. To reasonably
believe the truth he would have to be nuts, was Rays augment relayed via
Weed. The need for a fast multi-city manhunt not being something six
people alone could do was Gould's argument. Somehow Gould won.
Agent Stewart was contemplating career suicide as he prepared call in his
assessment to his superiors. All that the eclectic group that was the task force
needed was Secret Service Involvement. If that thing was lose in
Washington it would considered a threat to national security even though it
behavior show no clear purpose to date. With all the resultant alerts it would
take no time at all, in that town, to leak to the press, and not just the tabloids.
Worst it could all be a false alarm, and he would be the man to sound it. He
was still vacillating and starring at his cellular phone as if it were a poisonous
snake when Gould interrupted him. "I don't think it's in DC, and we have
to talk," Said the Philadelphian.
