Chapter 15

Spencer and Julie were booked on an American military cargo plane. When the plane lands in Andrews Air Force Base, the two agents are met at the plane by an awaiting black SUV. Spencer recognizes the young driver as one of the newest recruits into the TDF. They climb into the vehicle and are taken to the headquarters. The two agents go straight to Grines’ office.

The large man sits at his normally organized desk which is now scattered with files and folders. “Come in, have a seat and close the door,” he says shortly when Spencer knocks on the door. Julie goes in first, followed by Spencer. He closes the door behind them and takes a seat on the chair next to the woman, across from Grines. “When I sent you with Agent Branon, I didn’t mean for an international incident to take place.”

“We had to do what we had to in order to get to the bottom of this,” Julie protests.

“You,” he says pointing hard in her direction. “You are the reason for all this.”

“Me? What the fuck did I do?”

“You put my agent in danger and caused complete chaos over there.”

“Danger?” she asks incredulously. “That’s in his job description and what are you worried about? Once we were captured you would have left him out to dry just to keep your little secret safe.”

“Hey, you know I’m right here and I can speak perfectly well for myself,” Spencer tries to say, but is quickly drown out by Grines’ roar of anger.

Grines’ chair whips out from underneath him to slam into the shelf behind him. “How I run this organization is none of you goddamned business. Furthermore, you may run things by killing everyone in sight but we don’t here. And even though these agents know if caught we don’t acknowledge them as ours, but we certainly don’t leave them hanging out there to face whatever comes their way.”

“I don’t need to sit here and take a lesson for you,” Julie bites back. “I control an organization that doesn’t need your help to solve cases. You can forget about having the Black List on your side.”

Grines smiles and his body language quickly settles from anger to complete calmness. He pulls his chair back up and takes a seat, folding his hands together on the desk. The act seems to perplex Julie and she goes quiet for the moment too. “As far as the Black List working with the TDF,” Grines begins. “That has nothing to do with what you want. Your uncle has expressed as much to me already.”

“At least for the moment,” she mutters.

“At least for the moment,” Grines repeats. “Until something changes your uncle wishes you to continue to do so. But if you wish to leave you are free to do that too. I understand you run the research and development department of the Black List as well as the Western Branch.”

Julie sits there silently taking all that Grines has to say. Spencer remains silent watching the interaction between the two, waiting for the scene before him to fully play out. “I’m going to see this through to the end. After that you’d better hope my uncle lives a long healthy life.”

“I’ll accept that,” Grines says. “Now that I have you here I can proceed with what I expect to be the end of this situation. According to our data that our computer analysts have been hard at work with, we know without a doubt these summoning are being done with the use of True Energy’s facilities. The final product doesn’t end when the summoning finishes. A beam of energy is sent to a set of coordinates in the north arctic.”

“And what’s there of significance?” Spencer asks.

“This.” Grines pulls a photo from one of the files and slides it across the desk to the two agents. “It’s an oil rig.”

“I would ask why it’s there but it wouldn’t be too surprising that there’s oil there,” Julie reasons.

Grines chuckles. “I would have to agree but it is owned by Obsidian Oil which is owned by Ronin Wolff, the head of True Energy.”

“Kind of odd for a natural energy guy owning a company like that,” Spencer remarks.

“It is and it took some digging to get that information.”

“What is the significance of the summoning?” Spencer questions.

“Sternigan, with his vast library did some research for me. He believes they are the Seven Sisters or Pleiades if you prefer,” Grines explains.