“What’s going on?” Caddrick demanded.
“Dr. Feroz is being taken into protective custody. The Ripper cults have targeted her for murder.”
While she tried to take in the implications of that shocking statement, the security agents hustled Shahdi through the station, leaving Caddrick and the reporters to trail after them, shouting questions nobody answered. They literally dragged Shahdi through the doorway into security headquarters, with the senator and fifty screaming newsies on their heels. The lobby was in chaos. Agents scrambled past them, swearing and shoving reporters aside with scant regard for broken equipment. Telephones shrilled for attention between deafening hoots from the station’s emergency sirens. Dispatchers shouted instructions into radios, scribbled information from the reports crackling over the speakers.
John Caddrick stood staring at the confusion, then strode toward the main desk, mouth thinned to near invisibility. Shahdi was escorted past the uncertain haven of the dispatcher’s desk where a harried woman was shouting into a radio. A moment later, Shahdi found herself in a nearly empty corridor lined with closed doors. “This way, Dr. Feroz,” her escort said, steering her around a corner. They cannoned straight into someone at least two feet taller than Shahdi was. She staggered and fell against the wall, then found herself staring up at Ronisha Azzan, Shangri-La’s Deputy Station Manager.
“Dr. Feroz?” Ronisha Azzan blinked. “Thank God, I was told you’d been located. Come with me, please. I was just coming down to meet you.”