Chapter 32 - Three months later
Agent Angel was stood in the observation room next to Agent Hoover. They were looking at thousands of screens that monitored the world. The last twelve years of his life had been devoted to finding those pods. This room had been built to do just that, and now his aim had been achieved.
In his hand, he held a half-smoked cigarette which was slowly burning down to the butt, sending spirals of smoke around the room. A thin, sinewy figure lurking in the shadows at the back of the room breathed in the smoke through two tiny mouth-like nostrils. At the same time, Agent Hoover tried to blow the smoke away from his face.
The Italian police’s failure to take hold of two children aged only twelve years old had made Agent Angel furious at first, especially when Kurtz had told him that they had both come from the pods. He arranged for the policemen involved to be discharged but had come to accept it. After all, he reflected, they now had both pods and all four discs. From this point of view the mission had been a success, even if the second pod was still not open.
An electronic bell rang inside the room, and Agent Hoover looked down at the image on his computer. It was a woman dressed in a white lab coat.
“It’s Jean Kurtz, Sir, shall I let her in?” he asked.
Agent Angel nodded, and Agent Hoover pressed the switch to buzz her in. Steady footsteps echoed around the room as she approached Agent Angel.
“What is it, Kurtz?” he asked.
She spoke slowly in her confident whiney voice, but Agent Hoover could tell she was worried about what she was saying.
“We’ve analyzed all the data on the four CDs and put it against our own. I can assure you, Sir, that we’ve checked and rechecked our findings countless times. However, no matter how we look at it we can’t create Identical Hybrid Beings using Professor Larsen’s research alone. I’m sorry.”
Agent Angel crushed the lit cigarette in his palm and asked, “What are you telling me, Kurtz? That we can’t move on? That it’s the end of the line? That I have to finally abandon my dream after more than forty years? A dream that began before you were even born!”
Jean Kurtz shuffled from one foot to another.
“No, Sir, I am not saying that at all. We can still achieve the objectives of Operation Mulatto using the data from the four discs you gave me.”
“How? And your answer better be a good one.”
“We need DNA, Sir,” she paused. “We need at least one of those two children. They are the key.”
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