Chapter 15 : The Frankfurt Question
Olivia's flight left at 6:47 AM.
I watched her board from the terminal's observation deck — not close enough to be seen, but close enough to mark the moment she disappeared into the aircraft that would carry her across the Atlantic to a confrontation I couldn't join.
Frankfurt. Jones. A prison cell that contained a man who'd built entire networks of operatives while confined behind concrete and steel.
In the show, Olivia had faced Jones alone in that room. Had answered his questions, endured his games, extracted the information she needed through sheer force of will. She'd been magnificent — the scene had stuck with me through years of casual rewatching, a demonstration of what determination looked like when it met genuine evil.
Now she was doing it for real, and I was stuck on the ground in Boston.
Broyles had refused to authorize my travel. "You're a provisional consultant with limited clearance," he'd said when I suggested accompanying her. "Jones specifically requested access to division personnel. Sending you would give him exactly what he wants."
The reasoning was sound. The decision was correct. And I hated every second of being left behind.
The surgery started at 10:15 AM, Boston time.
Walter had spent the night developing an experimental treatment — a compound that would neutralize the parasite's neural connections to Loeb's heart without triggering the catastrophic bleeding that direct removal would cause. The approach was elegant in theory and terrifying in practice.
"I need you to monitor his vitals," Walter said, gesturing me toward the bank of equipment beside the surgical table. "Heart rate, blood pressure, neural activity. If any readings spike beyond acceptable parameters, tell me immediately."
"What are acceptable parameters?"
"We'll find out together." Walter's smile was thin but genuine. "Science is adventure, Kade. Sometimes the map is drawn as we walk."
I took my position at the monitors. Astrid handled the surgical instruments. Peter coordinated with Olivia via satellite phone, relaying questions and answers as she conducted her interrogation in Frankfurt.
The surgery was slow, meticulous, terrifying. Walter worked with the focus of a man who had spent decades navigating impossible problems, his hands steady despite his age, his mind tracking variables that would have overwhelmed most researchers.
Loeb's vitals held steady. The parasite's grip loosened by degrees. The satellite phone crackled with updates from Frankfurt — Jones was cooperating, providing information, playing whatever game he'd designed for this exact moment.
And then, between one surgical step and the next, Walter paused.
His gloved hands went still over Loeb's open chest. His eyes came up from the surgical field and locked onto mine with an intensity that made my blood freeze.
"The dosage," he said quietly. "I was about to administer the third compound at 47 milligrams. You corrected me to 43."
I hadn't realized I'd spoken. The correction had been instinctive, pulled from Walter's 1983 paper on enzymatic cascades — a paper I'd studied in detail, memorizing the dosage protocols that had become his signature methodology.
"Your 1983 paper," I said. "You always round down on enzymatic compounds. The margin of error is—"
"How did you know what I was GOING to say?" Walter's voice cut through my explanation like a scalpel. "I hadn't spoken the number yet. I was calculating it in my head. You corrected a thought I hadn't vocalized."
The surgical bay went silent. Astrid's hands stilled on the instrument tray. Peter's voice cut off mid-sentence on the satellite phone.
"I... assumed based on your methodology." The words felt hollow even as I spoke them. "The calculation is standard for—"
"I've been testing you." Walter's eyes didn't waver. "The Jacksonville comment. The thermometer readings. Your 'food poisoning' that manifested symptoms identical to Cortexiphan adjustment." He set down his surgical tools with deliberate care. "You know things about this work — about MY work — that you shouldn't know. That no one outside a very small circle COULD know."
Five seconds of silence. Maybe six. Long enough for my heart to hammer against my ribs, for my carefully constructed cover to tremble at the edges.
"Walter." Peter's voice, sharp with warning. "The surgery."
Walter blinked. The moment broke. His hands returned to their work with the mechanical precision of long practice, but his eyes found mine once more before he bent over Loeb's chest.
"We will continue this conversation," he said. "When the patient is stable and I have time to formulate the right questions."
I nodded. There was nothing else I could do.
The surgery continued. Loeb's vitals stabilized. The parasite's grip released entirely, the organism dying without the neural connections it needed to sustain itself. Walter declared the procedure a success at 2:34 PM, his voice carrying the satisfaction of a scientist who had solved an impossible problem.
But his attention kept returning to me. The weight of his observation pressed against my awareness like a physical force.
I'd made a mistake. A small one, maybe — a correction spoken too quickly, too instinctively, revealing knowledge I shouldn't have. But Walter had been watching for exactly that kind of slip. Building his case. Waiting for confirmation of a hypothesis he'd been developing since the moment I walked into his lab.
The walls were closing in. And now they had Walter's name on them.
Olivia's call came at 6:17 PM.
I was in the lab's break room, nursing a cup of coffee I couldn't taste, when her voice crackled through the satellite connection.
"Loeb's stable?" she asked.
"Procedure was successful. Walter's confident the parasite won't regenerate." I paused. "How was Frankfurt?"
"Jones is..." She trailed off, searching for words. "He answered the question. Provided the information Walter needed. But that's not why he agreed to cooperate."
"What do you mean?"
"He has demands. Beyond the surgery. Beyond the intelligence exchange." Another pause, longer this time. "He wants to meet someone from our division. Specifically."
My stomach dropped. "Who?"
"The consultant. His exact words were: 'I want to speak with the man who sees what others don't see.'" Olivia's voice hardened. "How does David Robert Jones know who you are, Kade?"
I had no answer. Jones shouldn't know me. I was a provisional consultant, barely a footnote in the division's records. There was no reason for a bioterrorist in a German prison to notice my existence, let alone request a meeting.
Unless he'd been watching longer than anyone realized. Unless his network extended further than the FBI understood. Unless something about my presence had drawn attention I couldn't track.
"I don't know," I said. The words were honest. Terrifyingly honest.
"Broyles refused the request. You won't be going to Frankfurt." Olivia's tone suggested the conversation was closed. "But Jones said something else before I left. He said the intelligence he promised would 'arrive on its own schedule.' And then he smiled."
The phone line went dead.
I sat in the break room and stared at the wall, coffee cooling in my hands, mind racing through implications I couldn't fully process.
Jones knew about me. Had asked for me specifically. Was playing a game I hadn't anticipated and couldn't understand.
Astrid found me at 9:43 PM.
I'd been reviewing case files in the lab's secondary office, trying to distract myself from the day's revelations. She knocked once and entered without waiting for a response.
"Walter's been watching the surgery video," she said. "Over and over. He's focused on the moment you corrected the dosage."
"I know."
"He's going to figure it out. Whatever you're hiding — he's going to find it."
I looked up from my files. Astrid's expression was calm but serious, the look of someone who had decided to say something difficult.
"I'm not hiding anything dangerous," I said.
"I believe you." She sat down across from me. "But belief isn't evidence. And Walter doesn't work on belief — he works on data. You've given him enough data to be suspicious, and he won't stop until he understands what it means."
"What do you suggest?"
"I don't know." Astrid's voice was gentle. "But you should prepare. He's patient when he wants to be. And he always gets his answers eventually."
She left without saying goodbye. I sat alone in the office and felt the weight of multiple threats pressing down on my awareness.
Walter. Peter. Olivia's file. Nina Sharp's flag. September's observation.
And now Jones. David Robert Jones, who had somehow noticed a consultant that shouldn't have existed, who had requested a meeting with a man whose background was fabricated and whose knowledge was impossible.
The game had changed. I was no longer invisible. I was no longer operating in the margins.
I was on someone's radar now — multiple someones — and every move I made would be watched, analyzed, recorded.
The phone on my desk buzzed. A text from an unknown number, forwarded from Broyles' office:
Frankfurt update: Jones wrote something after Agent Dunham's departure. Prison guard photographed his notebook page. Contents attached.
I opened the attachment. A single page, photographed through reinforced glass, showing neat handwriting in what looked like German.
But at the bottom of the page, in English, a single name was written.
Underlined twice.
Clark.
I stared at the image until my eyes burned. Jones knew my name. Had written it down. Had made me a target before I even understood the game being played.
The walls weren't just closing in anymore.
They were starting to press.
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