“Wake up, Holloway,” he said. “You get your one phone call, then we're going to have a little chat.”
He escorted her to a wall-mounted phone at the end of the corridor, his hand hovering near her elbow but not quite touching her now, as if he were already bored with the performance. “Make it quick, and make it a lawyer,” he said. “You're going to need one.”
Cynthia picked up the receiver. The plastic was cool and slightly sticky, and the dial tone buzzed in her ear. She dialed a Washington, D.C. area code, her fingers steady on the keypad, and the number bypassed standard switchboards and connected directly to a secure line in the home of James Carter, the Deputy Director of the FBI. It rang twice. The sound seemed unnaturally loud in the quiet corridor, and O'Grady leaned against a wall ten feet away, smirking, clearly enjoying the sight of a woman he believed was calling a lawyer who could not possibly save her.
“Carter,” a gravelly voice answered, thick with sleep but instantly alert underneath it.
“Jim, it's Cynthia,” Cynthia said, keeping her voice low, her eyes fixed on O'Grady.
There was a fraction of a second of silence as Carter's brain shifted from sleep to high alert, the silence of a man who recognized a voice he did not expect to hear at one in the morning and who understood immediately that something was wrong.
“Director, where are you?” Carter asked, his voice sharpening. “Your security detail has been tearing the city apart for three hours.”
“I'm at the 42nd District Precinct in Oakland,” Cynthia said, still keeping her voice low, still watching O'Grady smirk from his place against the wall. “I've been arrested.”
“Arrested?” Carter said. “Under what charge?”
“Possession with intent to distribute,” Cynthia said. “The arresting officer planted the narcotics in my rental car.”
Silence on the line. Then, a cold, terrifying fury entered Carter's voice, the fury of a man who had worked beside Cynthia for years and who knew exactly what she was capable of enduring and exactly what she would not tolerate.
“Do you want me to send a tactical team through the front door?” Carter asked.
“No,” Cynthia said, and a sharp smile touched the corners of her mouth for the first time that night, a smile O'Grady could not see from where he stood. “I want to see how deep this rot goes. Send a discreet team to extract the dash and cabin footage from my rental car. It was impounded by the 42nd. Then, I need you to fly to Oakland immediately. You're going to act as my attorney.”