Daemon

up. ‘I was angry at Sobol, correct. I wanted to shut him down.’
    Tilly resumed. ‘So this was before you learned that the so-called “Daemon” did not exist?’
    ‘That’s correct.’ He paused. ‘I know it’s my fault the house burned down, Senator.’
    The chairman motioned for Tilly to hold off, then turned to Merritt. ‘The committee will judge who’s at fault – if fault is to be found. Please just answer the questions.’
    Tilly pressed on. ‘To be clear: did you not enter the house to take refuge from the fire on the lawn?’
    Were they giving him an out? He thought of the dead faces of his men. Their fatherless children. He wouldn’t take the easy way out. ‘No. I meant to destroy the Daemon.’
    Tilly glanced at the chairman with some exasperation, then turned back to Merritt. ‘This was your
sole
reason for entering the mansion?’
    Merritt looked up. ‘Yes.’
    Tilly flipped through the pages of Merritt’s reports.
    There was silence for a moment.
    The chairman looked gravely at Merritt. ‘Agent Merritt, I can only imagine the horror you’ve been through, but because of your actions the mansion and all the outbuildings burned to the ground – destroying evidence that might have helped to locate and convict Sebeck’s accomplices.’
    Merritt knew this all too well. He thought of little else nowadays.
    The chairman looked down his glasses. ‘Let’s bring this fishto the boat, shall we?’ He flipped through his papers, then looked up. ‘You say you have very little recollection of how you survived the fire. You write in your report’ – he lifted his glasses and read from the page – “my tac-suit must have kept me afloat in the water and turned me upright.” The chairman lowered the page. ‘And yet, you were found a hundred feet east of the location you indicated as the mouth of the pit. It might be very hard, Mr Merritt, but can you recall anything – absolutely anything – of the layout or contents of the cellars before you lost consciousness?’
    Merritt stared at the floor. Not a night went by that he didn’t recall fleeting images of terror from that night. The trapdoor above him engulfed in flames. Flaming wood falling down upon him. The air in his gas mask growing warmer – suffocating him slowly. The sudden explosion. The cinder-block wall blasting apart near him, sending fragments into his leg. A rush of water. Falling as it flowed out into a room of fire. The flood of water roiling around him. Scalding steam. Like a scene of hell itself. Crawling. Then the water sweeping him – converging with another stream and sucking him across the center of the inferno as he struggled for air. The rush of water. Tumbling down steps into the wine cellar and landing in the pool gathered there at the lowest spot in the house.
    He didn’t regain consciousness until four days later in the burn unit at USC. Months of agony followed. His wife’s loving eyes. The faces of his girls. Faces he thought he’d never see again. Faces that gave him the courage to face each agonizing day.
    He had no recollection of floor plans or equipment or schematics. It was all just a sea of fire.
    He shook his head slowly.
    The senators looked at each other. The chairman nodded. ‘Well, Agent Merritt, I must tell you this is not easy. Six men died under your command, and the entire estate was lost – by your own admission – due to your attempts to penetratethe server room – contrary to orders. This committee has no choice but to recommend to Director Bennett that you be put on a disciplinary suspension, pending final judgment in this matter.’
    The words fell on Merritt like slabs of rock. It felt like the last ounce of breath had been crushed out of him. He couldn’t speak.
    The chairman picked up his gavel and rapped it twice with an echoing
clack-clack
. ‘This hearing is adjourned.’
    Merritt limped down the steps of the Capitol, thinking hard on the changes in his life since that October night. But today was a beautiful spring day. The cherry trees blossomed along the Potomac. He gazed across the National Mall at the monuments built by the valiant generations that came before him.
    All he ever wanted was to serve his country.
    But he’d failed. And all of the conspirators except Sebeck had escaped, possibly because of Merritt’s foolhardiness. His career was over.
    He limped onward, along a landscaped sidewalk beneath budding oak trees. Men and women in uniform or suits scurried