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Confusion replaced his anger

“Great to see you, Zelimir,” Thom bellowed over the whine of the helicopter’s turbine He recognized the startled look on his security chief’s face and chuckled “I bet he’s the last person in the world you ever expected to see with me, eh?”

Kovac found his voice withouthis eyes away from Dr Adam Jenner “Yes, sir”

Severance dropped his voice an octave, esture of inti Past time”

Jenner approached and touched a gloved hand to the bandage where Kovac had pistol-whipped his, Mr Kovac”

Ten round base’s most luxurious suite It was here that Tho chaos In total, there were facilities here for two hundred of the top anization

The last ti but bare concrete walls He adone into the suite, and, apart from the fact the ere actually flat-panel televisions, could find no evidence he was fifty feet belowground

“This is almost as nice as our new house in Beverly Hills,” he reainst a silk da to love it”

He asked a waiting attendant, as bearoup’s leader, for coffee service and sat in one of the wingback chairs in his office The flat-panel ainst a rocky coast The live feed was from a camera mounted not too far from the base’s entrance

Jenner lowered hiid attention in front of Severance

“Zelimir, sit, please”

The Serb took a chair but in no way relaxed

“You know the old expression ‘keep your friends close but your enemies closer’?” Severance asked once the valet had poured coffee He didn’t wait for Kovac to answer “Our greatest enemies aren’t only those who ridicule our beliefs without fully understanding them They are those that once believed but have lost their faith They do us the greatest harm because they are privy to secrets ould never share with outsiders Lydell Cooper and I talked about this at great length”

At the lance at Jenner, as if to say Jenner didn’t deserve to be in the same room when that name was uttered The psychiatrist looked back at him with a fond, almost paternal smile

“We decided to create an expert on Responsivism, a man who families would turn to if they felt they had lost control of their loved ones He could also approach those who left on their own, in order to determine their intentions He could then report back to us so, ah, appropriate actions could be taken”