Epilogue: Because I'm Sure It Isn't Good

Director of The FBI: Recording Started. Meeting Attendees are Johnson Meril Director of the FBI, Special Agent Diana LaDon FBI, Director Lucas Gray attached to the Vice President's Office, Doctor Shelby Lynne consulting psychologist with the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit. Meeting to discuss the Honus City Gang Rape incident as it pertains to Project G.

Agent LaDon: Project G, sir?

Director Gray: The recording will serve as documentation and notice that I am authorizing Agent Diana LaDon for eyes-only clearance to Project G. Agent LaDon, you will receive the files after our meeting. You are not allowed to take them outside the presence of the agent who brings them to you.

Agent LaDon: Director, what is this about?

Director Meril: You must have wondered why I ordered the investigation in the direction of identifying past victims.

Agent LaDon: Sir, my interpretation was that you ordered me NOT to investigate in the direction of identifying Robert Chain's murderer.

Doctor Lynne: I advise we not address the act as murder or the individual as a murderer.

Agent LaDon: Ma'am, what else should I call it or him?

Doctor Lynne: In the case file, you always use the masculine. Why?

Agent LaDon: The audio techs confirmed gender from the recording I made of the initial contact. Male, educated, under forty. He used a device to subtly alter his voice along with deepening it naturally.

Doctor Lynne: The analysis of grammar and language used in the package came up as middle-aged female and very highly educated, yet you continue to use the masculine.

Agent LaDon: Obviously, the killer had help.

Director Gray: I would take Doctor Lynne's advice, Agent, and stop referring to him as a killer or murderer. Stop even thinking of him in those terms.

Agent LaDon: Again sir, how should I refer to him then?

Doctor Lynne: Call him an Angel.

Agent LaDon: I'm sure the women whom Robert Chain would have victimized agree with you. I know some cops that do, but the FBI should not.

Director Gray: He is no longer an FBI matter.

Agent LaDon: Sir!

Director Meril: This comes from the highest authority, Diana.

Doctor Lynne: Do not worry, dear. You're staying.

Agent LaDon: I don't understand.

Director Meril: We expected an agent of you to ignore the order, even if you only pursued him on your own time. I was only instructed to slow you down.

Director Gray: My team needed time at Chain's death site and to interview Stephen Grand.

Agent LaDon: You work for the Vice President, Sir. Why would you be interested in this case?

Director Gray: I only work for the Vice President because people ask less questions. Johnson tells me you do not agree with the forensics report about the events leading up to Robert Chain's death.

Agent LaDon: Taken in whole, the report basically states a heavyweight boxer wearing kevlar armor jumped one story down from the adjacent building, stumbled into the pigeon coop, kicked the lock in on the roof door, fought with Robert Chain, and dragged him up to the roof to throw him off.

Director Gray: So you do not believe the details of the report.

Agent LaDon: I don't believe the conclusions, sir.

Director Gray: Robert Chain's knife had foreign fibers on it. He clearly stabbed his attacker, but the knife came to an abrupt enough stop to injure Chain's wrist.

Agent LaDon: That could be explained by Chain missing with the knife but catching the attacker's clothing. In missing, the knife struck the wall, explaining the injury.

Director Meril: There is no damage to a wall except where Chain was thrown into one.

Agent LaDon: But sir, to believe otherwise is to accept that the attacker was wearing the equivalent of plate armor. No fibers that might have come from a kevlar vest were found on the knife or the scene.

Doctor Lynne: What about the baseball bat?

Agent LaDon: The attacker used it on Robert Chain.

Doctor Lynne: He had no injuries of that nature.

Agent LaDon: He was thrown through a TV, against a wall, and off a building. He has injuries on top of injuries, ma'am.

Director Gray: How do you explain the same fibers on the knife also being on the bat?

Agent LaDon: There are a lot of things about Robert Chain's death that I cannot explain, but the scenario the forensic reports put forward is wrong. I know it and if I had not been interfered with I might have proven it by now.

Director Meril: No, you would not have, Diana. Not without a paradigm shift.

Agent LaDon: What?

Director Gray: Let me give you a different scenario, one that fits the evidence better.

Agent LaDon: I'll be happy to hear it, sir.

Director Gray: He jumped from the street and not the building next door.

Agent LaDon: I don't appreciate the humor.

Director Gray: If you look at the screen. The handrail on the steps of the adjacent building. The next pictures show the damage done to it. This is the shoeprint pulled from the street and handrail. After calculations done by the best minds available to me, we know something in the three hundred plus pound range hit the railing and bounded upwards from it.

Doctor Lynne: Keep listening, Agent LaDon. It gets better!

Director Gray: The jump followed this trajectory. The damage to the roof here shows where he landed and rolled. Three hundred pounds and momentum, the pigeon coop did not have a chance! Here is a close up picture of the doorknob, this dent matches perfectly with a knuckle.

Agent LaDon: He punched the lock in! I'd believe the sledgehammer version of the forensics report much sooner than I'd believe that.

Director Gray: Blocking of the front door does not need to be explained. In the living room, Robert Chain ambushes the intruder striking him multiple times with the baseball bat. Chain's strikes drive the attacker into the fireplace mantel knocking over the vase. Chain pulls out the knife and stabs him, painfully discovering that the man is immune to blades.

Doctor Lynne: The attacker punches Chain, breaking three ribs and puncturing a lung. The evidence is irrefutable, Agent LaDon. The blow was a punch!

Director Gray: Robert Chain is propelled at high speed through the television set and into the wall. The pool of blood shows a significant amount of time passed before Robert Chain was taken to the roof and thrown off.

Agent LaDon: I'm supposed to believe there's a man walking around with an immunity to edged weapons.

Doctor Lynne: You are a krav maga expert, Agent LaDon. Say that you knew exactly what Robert Chain had done and decided to kill him. How would you do it?

Agent LaDon: I would never...

Director Meril: Answer the question.

Agent LaDon: Sniper shot through a window. If I wanted to do it personally a small caliber gun to the back of the head in a crowded street where he couldn't see me coming.

Doctor Lynne: That is also why you are sure the attacker is male.

Agent LaDon: Robert Chain was too dangerous; women at my level know better than to take the chance. Even a man should know better.

Director Gray: He's impulsive.

Doctor Lynne: Chain was a predator hunting humans, Diana. His attacker knew it and still closed the gap. Look at the way he blockaded the door, he cut off Chain's escape, but he was also blocking off his own way out if he needed it. He baited an attack!

Agent LaDon: It was obviously personal--he has a close relationship with a victim.

Doctor Lynne: Think about the kind of man who walks into that building without a knife or gun to kill a prolific serial rapist and murderer.

Agent LaDon: It doesn't matter, ma'am. It's impossible for a man to jump up three stories, walk through a knife stab, or throw Robert Chain with enough force to do that much damage to a wall.

Director Gray: Not if he is a Grendel.

Agent LaDon: What?

Doctor Lynne: It is the official government designation for what we believe you are dealing with. Since like your use of murder and murderer, it gives away the government's intention and hope, I prefer Angel of Death or AoD.

Agent LaDon: Are they joking, Director Meril?

Director Meril: I have read the file on the one they discovered four years ago. He got headcount to justify Doctor Lynne using that name.

Director Gray: If a Grendel killed Robert Chain, throw out what you think is impossible, Agent LaDon, and go pick up a rack of comic books to try to figure out what might be possible.

Agent LaDon: A Grendel? An AoD? How am I supposed to take this seriously?

Director Gray: Ask me that after you've read the Project G files.

Agent LaDon: When can I start on them?

Doctor Lynne: Not yet. They will cloud what we believe you already know.

Agent LaDon: What would that be?

Director Gray: Who the Grendel is.

Agent LaDon: I don't know anyone immune to knives, sir.

Doctor Lynne: Pretend for a second everything we have said is true. Angels are real! And they can be female. Do you still think a man killed Robert Chain?

Agent LaDon: It was a man.

Doctor Lynne: You know it?

Agent LaDon: Yes.

Doctor Lynne: Not because of the call or size of the fist print on Robert Chain's body.

Agent LaDon: The man who called me killed Robert Chain, Doctor. There is no question in my mind! It was in his voice and when he said he'd kill those three boys if justice was not served. He meant it!