Justin walked back into the upstairs lounge in determination mixed with anger following the completion of his heated discussion with his uncle. He confronted Special Agent Regan, who sat deep in thought near the television. She, and everyone else, apparently had watched the entire call as it happened.

“Why did you not tell me about the FBI investigation, Regan?” he demanded without preamble. “What does the FBI plan to do?”

Regan returned his stare firmly. “I know nothing about it. I never heard about such an investigation.”

Justin glared back at her, but she didn't flinch.

“How could you not know about it?”

She slowly shook her head and said in a forced but very even tone, “Mr. Knight, I swear to you, I know nothing about an investigation into your dealings at the bank.”

Justin didn't know whether to believe her. Regan turned to Janice, who watched the exchange closely.

“I need to contact my office again. I need to discover the truth about this allegation by David Knight.”

Janice studied Regan for a long moment. “Very well. You may use the phone in the office. We will record this call.”

Regan nodded. A young man none of them had seen before rushed into the room over to Janice and whispered something in her ear. She whispered back, and he gave nodded confirmation. She paused and whispered to him again.

As the young man rushed from the room, she stood up quickly and walked over to where AJ sat and whispered something in his ear. He whispered something back, and she replied equally quietly. He nodded.

“Special Agent Regan, I regret that we must delay your call. We discovered that someone at the bank's end tried to trace Justin's video conference call with his uncle. We think they did not succeed, but we must assume otherwise in order to play it safe.”

Suddenly, a voice came from the walls saying, “Emergency evacuation. Please follow the red arrows shown on the walls to the exits. Everyone will please evacuate the building immediately. This is not a drill. Emergency evacuation...” the message repeated. On the wall of the room nearest the door, a large red arrow now appeared on a surface that moments before displayed a piece of wall. It flashed slowly and pointed to the hallway. The exact text of the automated message they heard also appeared on the wall, just above the arrow.

“If you will all follow me, please, we must evacuate this building immediately,” Janice shouted above the recorded announcement.

“Wait, we gotta get the things from our room!” Michaela shouted.

“No time for that,” Janice said. “We have a team on call who will rouse our guests for evacuation and remove everything from all the rooms. We will return your things to you later. Right now, we must get you out of here safely. Come with me, all of you.”

She led them out to the hallway and opened a door next to the elevator, which revealed a staircase already filling with people as they walked down. They descended to the basement where they found more people waiting to depart. The elevator door opened, and yet another group of people entered the crowded space. The guard at the security desk held a microphone to her mouth.

“Please move through the door to the parking area. We already have two vans ready for you, and more will arrive presently. Follow the guard's instructions at the door. When he directs you to go out into the garage, move quickly and quietly. Do not panic. We will evacuate everyone from this location with plenty of time to spare,” she said.

Janice went over to her and whispered something to her, which caused her to nod her assent. Then Janice said to their little group, “Come with me. We will get you people out of here first.”

The guard said into her microphone, “One moment please, everyone. Jack, clear a path,” she said to the guard at the door. “Please make room for this party to go first. We must get them out of here right now.”

“What about the rest of us?” a man shouted who had already approached the door.

“Like I said, we will remove all of you from this location in plenty of time. However, this party must leave first. Please make room at the door to allow them to pass,” the guard with the microphone said. She had to repeat herself a few times as a couple of other guards started clearing a path. Amid some grumbling the crowd finally complied with her request.

Justin, Michaela, Lizzie, Regan, and AJ followed Janice to the guard standing by the door, who let them through. They found two vans already open and waiting, and they walked toward one of them. This van had no comfortable chairs in it, merely benches along the side walls. They crowded in as quickly as they could, and AJ slammed the door shut from outside.

“Isn't AJ coming with us?” Michaela asked.

“He will drive,” Janice told her.

“You trust him, then,” Regan asked. “After all, he's not supposed to know our location any more than the rest of us do.”

“I do trust him, yes, more than I trust you. He's my little brother, after all,” Janice replied, smiling. Regan raised her eyebrows but said nothing.

“He's little?” Michaela exclaimed in disbelief.

They all laughed in spite of themselves. It eased the tension a bit.

Lizzie and Michaela sat on either side of Justin, while Janice and Regan sat across from them.

Regan turned to Janice and said, “What about your facility? Do you have no concern about what will be found if indeed it gets raided?”

Janice shook her head. “Not really,” she said. “This is all just precautionary, but we will treat it as a final evacuation just to be safe. We have a team that will strip the place down of all essentials and wipe it clean. Within an hour, any raiding party will find nothing left inside. Not a fingerprint will remain.”

“An hour?” Regan asked, impressed. “Impossible!”

Janice smiled. “We're pretty good at this.”

“Sounds like a chop shop to me,” Regan said, a note of admiration mixed with the sarcasm in her voice.

“We have some experience with that as well,” Janice said with a grin.

Justin didn't laugh.

He glared at Regan. “Why should I believe that you do not know anything about this frame my uncle put together? He seemed pretty confident of Bureau involvement.”

Regan grimly shook her head from. “I don't know anything about it, and that worries me. I saw the complete file–what I thought was the complete file–on this case. I read it before I came to visit you that first evening. It contained nothing about any plans to implicate or investigate you in the way your uncle implied. To the contrary, the lack of such a plan made it one of the most distinctive points in the file.”

She turned again to Janice. “I must get to a phone as soon as possible. I must find out what this means.”

“We will arrange it,” Janice assured her. “Just be patient.”

“Where are we going?” Michaela asked.

Janice turned to her. “The trading floor, while we arrange a new safe house. It shouldn't take more than a few hours. Oh, and by the way,” she said turning back to Regan, “We have a little surprise for you.”

Regan furrowed her brow questioningly. “What kind of surprise? What are you talking about?” Janice just smiled enigmatically and refused to say more.

“Dad, wait until you see it,” Michaela said excitedly. “It's like a little twisting alleyway inside a cave.”

Justin smiled at his daughter's sense of adventure. She could still experience such enthusiasm despite all she endured over the past two days. It testified to the resilience of her spirit and to her ability to live in the moment.

“I can hardly wait,” he told her, still smiling.

Lizzie spoke up, “We need to discuss our next steps.”

Everyone turned to her.

“Clearly the bank plans to smear Justin and try to hang everything on him. We need to get our side of the story out first.”

Janice shook her head, “No, it's too soon. We don't have enough proof yet.”

“What do you mean? What are you two talking about?” Justin wondered, turning first to Lizzie.

“You forgot the original reason why I came to work for you. I came because the AU wants you to be their spokesman. We believe that our message would carry more weight coming from someone with your stature and standing–and your integrity–within the banking community than it would if it came from one of us. A lot has changed since then,” she said, taking his hand and giving him a big smile, which he returned, “but one thing has not changed. We need your help now more than ever. You know the truth, beyond doubt. You told your attorney, and you later told us, that you could never continue to work for the bank knowing what you know. I believe you meant it.”

“I did.”

“We hoped the time might come when you would embrace the idea. Well, I think that day has arrived, and now the world needs to know,” she concluded, turning to Janice again. “We couldn't time it better.”

“No,” Janice said. “We have too many holes in our story. The opposition can rip our side of the story to pieces. We don't want to act quickly or hastily,” she said, this time facing Justin. “We don't want to make any public statements until we can present a strong case, an unshakable case.”

Lizzie declared with conviction, “And when will we finally stand up? Will we ever have the perfect case? You demand perfection in an imperfect world. You can wait for doomsday, and that perfect day will never come. At some point, somewhere along the line, you have to decide to take a stand.”

“We have taken a stand,” Janice said. “We do every day.”

“Not publicly,” Lizzie pointed out. “The AU, TST, UMA, and all the rest take tremendous risks every day trying to help people who really need help, trying to change the world. When will we reward all those risk takers for their efforts? Progress can only happen after the world hears our story. We currently face the worst economic crisis in the history of the country, and we know the cause and the solution! Name me a better time to tell our side of the story!”

“And if we tell this story you want us to tell, and if it does not get people to rethink our entire financial and legal system, what then? If we expose ourselves and the big splash doesn't work, it will waste years of preparation and hard work!”

“No, that's not true,” Regan interjected. “Even if you try and fail to achieve your goal, you will make some progress. You might not even see the progress at first, but given the importance of your message–and yes, I now believe your message is very important–you really cannot fail. Even if you only win a small segment of the population over in the short run, you cannot fail in the long run.”

“It's like Thomas Edison, isn't it?” Michaela spoke up.

“What do you mean, honey?” Lizzie asked.

“Well, he kept trying and trying to invent the electric light bulb, didn't he? And he kept failing. He failed 10,000 times or something like that, but he kept trying. Then, one day after all those failures, it finally occurred to him that his problem came from air in the light bulb. He pumped out the air, and his light bulb finally stayed on.”

This confused everyone.

“Well, don't you see? Even if it doesn't work the first time, you can't just stop there. You have to keep trying until you find the way that works, until you finally figure out how to keep the light bulb lit.”

Everyone smiled at this.

“Right!” Lizzie said, with a big grin, and she high-fived Michaela.

Janice, however, turned to Justin. “What do you think?”

Justin looked at Janice. She had risked so much leading up to this day, as did AJ and all the other AU members. Regan’s motivations still confused him, but she had shown her willingness to help. The new love in his life gently squeezed the hand she still held in her own. Finally he gazed warmly at his daughter, who behaved as if she knew his reply before he did.

“I never expected to join a revolution. I still do not want to. The idea of trying to change people's minds about anything strikes me as ridiculous. You cannot change someone else's mind. Only they can do that, and most people do not. Most people get stuck in a mindset. There they sit.”

“But Dad,” Michaela interrupted him. “You change people's minds every day! You sell them loans and stocks and all kinds of stuff.”

“No, I do not change their minds, sweetheart,” he said kindly. “I just give them information so they can decide for themselves what they want to do. They always decide for themselves. I just try to give them the information they need to make their decision.”

“Isn't that what you would do now if you decided to speak out?” Michaela asked him pointedly. “You would give people the information they need and let them decide for themselves, wouldn't you?”

“Yes, I suppose I would. I admit, the idea strangely appeals to me.”

Lizzie smiled at him.

“But it will mean a major change in our life,” he pointed out. “Once I speak out, we cannot go back to the lives we knew. They will try to hunt me down. They will file lawsuits. We might have to go into hiding.”

“Count on it,” Janice said. “They will come after you every way they can. They will do everything possible to shut you up and discredit you. Of course, we would help, but you analyze it correctly. You cannot go back to the life you knew if you speak out. It will disappear forever. Further, they might try to kill you again. Or your lovely daughter. Or Lizzie. They will seize your assets. They will do everything in their power to destroy you, and they will have no qualms about doing any of it. And while we would do everything in our power to help keep you safe, we make no guarantees.”

“What will you do if I speak out,” Justin said, this time looking at Regan.

“Well,” she said hesitantly, “my boss wants me to establish ties with the AU, to get a dialogue going with your organization,” she said turning to Janice now. “But I'm also troubled.”

“By what?” Lizzie asked her.

“By the claim Mr. Knight's uncle made. You see, my instructions in this case have always come right from the top. The Director himself briefed me. I cannot begin to tell you how rare an event that is. He has hundreds of people below him who take care of that sort of thing. Yet,” she said squeezing her hands into tight fists, “now we have reason to believe that another, parallel operation exists, a plan to discredit Justin. If I hadn't heard your uncle say it,” she peered at Justin, “I would not have believed it. I must call in. I need to hear from the Director's own lips what game he plays.”

“And if you learn it's true, if for some reason he admits to this other operation, what will you do?” Janice asked her.

“I don't know,” Regan replied, shaking her head. “I just don't know.”

They went over and over it every way they could think of during the remainder of their trip, but they achieved no other real progress in their discussions. At one point, during a lull in their conversation, Janice said, “I think we have arrived.”

A moment later, AJ opened the back door and boomed, “Last stop!”

Regan looked around after getting out of the van with the others, her professional eye surveying the surroundings, evaluating them. She hadn't seen any signs so far to suggest their location. She recognized the city smells of dirty exhaust, sour odors, and the occasional greasy food smells of passing diners, but they could have ended up anywhere on Manhattan Island or off it.

They passed inside the doors to the trading floor as Michaela regaled her father about the sights. She held one of his hands as her tongue prattled on, while Lizzie held his other hand, walking quietly at his side, listening.

Martinson watched from the roof of one of the sports bars where he'd climbed up hours earlier to watch street-level activity. An unmarked van entered Gerard Avenue, proceed about halfway down the block and turn off the road and stopped next to the small loading dock directly across the street. A much larger delivery truck pulled up in front of the same spot and stopped in the middle of the road, blocking Martinson’s view of the van. The truck idled there for about a minute before pulling away. When it left, he noticed that the unmarked van had disappeared.

“Boss, I think I've got something here,” he said into his cell phone, currently connected in walkie-talkie mode. He described what he saw.

“It's gone completely, without a trace?” Donahue asked him.

“Looks like it.”

“Could the van have slipped away while the truck sat blocking your view?”

“No way, boss. There wasn't enough room.”

Donahue sent Taylor and Hammons on foot to check out the location. They approached that part of the street carefully, looking for any signs of surveillance. Spotting none, they walked slowly up the sidewalk to within 20 feet of the loading dock. Neither of them could see anything out of the ordinary, other than the fact that the spot stood empty.

“Our scanners tell us Shorty went down about 60 feet. Look for cracks in the pavement,” Donahue ordered.

The two men scanned the small drive carefully.

“We don't see any cracks at all in the ground. I don't even see anything that looks like a seam,” Taylor reported.

“Impossible. Something's got to be there,” Donahue countered, shaking his head in bewilderment. “Keep looking until you find out what it is.”

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