The display freezes.

“Mindi, what’s missing from this picture?”

She looks back at the Administrator nervously. “I don’t think . . . is there . . .”

“I would have thought that this was the moment to introduce to Abby Patrick to her chief antagonist. Where is the girl?”

Mindi starts to laugh, not a deep genuine laugh—a scared laugh. “Well, funny story, sir. You’re gonna laugh . . .”

“Let’s take bets, shall we?”

“Okay,” she gathers herself, places both hands very deliberately on the table, and explains. “You know how we’re always encouraging faceless government entities to intrude into the lives of these people?”

“Yeah,” he replies, his patience fading.

“Well, this is one of those situations where we might have done our jobs too well.”

“Again, you wanna take bets?”

“Our girl is not here at this meeting because her plane got delayed.”

The anger from a few minutes ago is starting to come back, but the Administrator clamps it down—for the moment. “Why . . .did her plane get delayed? Can’t we account for things like the weather when we lay out our strategies?”

“Well, sir, it wasn’t the weather.”

“It wasn’t?”

“No, sir.”

He scratches his head, trying find anything to dampen his growing anger. “Well, then, Mindi, what was it?”

“The plane couldn’t take off. It was missing some equipment, and, y’know, one of our rules that the, that, um, the people we have in the machinery put in place was that planes can’t fly without all their equipment.”

He nods, taking it in. “You couldn’t account for this? What was it? The landing gear was missing a widget?”

Mindi smiles nervously, and answers, keeping her eyes down on her hands. “No, sir. It was . . . ashtrays. The plane was missing some of its ashtrays.”

The other members of the team start to fidget nervously. William even conjures up a thick file folder and makes a point of flipping through the papers.

But the Administrator can see where this is going, and can only shake his head. “Ashtrays? The plane couldn’t fly . . . because the ashtrays?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, anybody, but, um, aren’t all flights within the Stronghold NON-smoking flights?”

Marcus answers quietly, “Yessir,” not bothering to look up from the arm of his chair, which he is pretending to adjust.

“So, let me get this straight: one of our key players is not at the first meeting of our principals because her flight was delayed because the plane was missing a part, the only use for would be to do something illegal? Is that the gist of this?”

Marcus and Seth mutter yeses while Mindi shrinks in her chair, trying to disappear.

The Administrator closes his eyes for just a second, takes a deep breath, and then explodes. Literally. All of the parts of his body to burst outward at supersonic velocity, . . .