"I am announcing today a new task force within the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, one developed in coordination with the Department of Health and Human Services. This task force, the Active Operation Foster Corps, will include field agents who have seen the compounds and know the conditions from which these children come. These agents have been handpicked for their extensive training not only in all aspects of search and seizure, investigation, containment, and combat but also for their education and backgrounds in psychology, sociology, and social work. They will be critical in aiding Social Services at the state level to place these children with foster parents who are trained and equipped to deal with their very unique needs." She paused. "It is important that we start developing some nonviolent solutions to our problems."
She looked up. "I'll take some questions."
There was a second or two of silence as the reporters finished jotting down her announcement or reread their notes or consulted with their bosses. Styluses clicked against tablets, and there was a whisper here and there. She could imagine Eli watching her now, his beard and mustache gray and stained with tobacco, his skin sallow, as she tried to stand very still, tried to show no impatience. She tried to remind herself that they hadn't lost yet. They would find him. They would. She set her jaw as if they were facing each other in person, not in her imagination.
"NCBS here," a reporter announced himself and broke the quiet.
She nodded to him. "Yes. Wyatt." She had made it a point to learn the journalists' names after her first press conference.
He smiled, glancing up and then back at his notes, as if apologizing for his question. "I appreciate your concern for the children here, your reasoning in establishing the task force. But can you tell us what action has been taken in regards to the automated soldier, the android with call sign Ora, who shot and killed the child in that raid two months ago?"
She looked quickly at Peter. They had prepared for this question, they'd answered it more than once, but it had felt easier rehearsing the answer in the stillness of her office.
"As I've said before, the AS has been withdrawn from the field for observation and tests. Nothing has changed there." She avoided using the android's call sign. Polling showed that the names generated a poor response from much of the public when AS were the topic of conversation.
Wyatt followed up on his question. "Do you anticipate it returning to the field?"
She cleared her throat. "We will not return any technology, AS or otherwise, if we find that they are a continuing threat."
Wyatt raised a finger as if to press her further. She continued. "I think it is important, though, that we do not lose sight of the threat of the Civil Union. They are the ones militarizing these children and placing them in harm's way. Our priority, in any raid, is always to extricate these innocents first and foremost."
"Director." Sherri from CWE, a venue transitioning from tabloid to legitimate outlet. "We have a source that draws a connection, a personal one, between yourself and Eli Whitaker. Can you speak to that?"
Adrian's fingers twitched on the podium. This, she was not prepared for. How had they dug that up? Peter, at the back of the room, immediately began searching on his tablet. He would send anything he could find to her own.
She tried to smile. "Could you clarify what kind of connection you're talking about?" It was probably a mistake to ask that, to allow her to say more. It left her at a tactical disadvantage. The journalist's face showed that she knew that.
"Sure. My source says that you dated Mr. Whitaker's son, a Trey Caudill."
"His foster son. In high school."
"But you did date him?"
"Yes."
"And Trey Caudill is now the special agent in charge of the Louisville field office, is that correct?"
She was tired of answering these questions. She had gone through a battery of them when they vetted her for acting director, a position she had never wanted or asked for. And hard as it was for even herself to believe, Trey's promotion to the Louisville office after her departure had happened without her knowledge. She would have been happy, then, to have never talked to him again.
"Where Trey and I grew up, there weren't a lot of options after high school." She felt her stance relax, the slightest twang of her Appalachian accent creep into her speech. The reporters looked a little bemused, surprised at the direction of her answer. "I went into the military. He got his college degree and then became an agent for the ATF. It was only much later that I decided I wanted to move closer to home and opted for a career change. I joined the ATF to try and make things better here."
A forensic accountant had sifted through her financial records. She had agreed to an interview with lie-detecting technology.
"So your answer is 'yes'?" Sherri was obstinate and blunt.
