Chapter 34: No More Risk
A/N: Sorry for the long delay on this upload. I basically couldn't write at all for over a week because of a vacation I wanted to sync up with the break between arcs, but then work got exceedingly busy and I wasn't able to make that happen. And work continued to be busy after my vacation, so things have slowed for the time being. Will try to get back to a more fluid writing schedule from here on out.
"
"So, obviously, I don't have any idea what your mindset has been the last few cycles, but...for whatever it's worth, Mars, I wasn't able to pick up on anything from our conversations. So, hey, you're amazing at hiding things. And I don't mean that as any kind of backhanded compliment."
Queen Mars's private chambers, despite belonging to the highest ranking individual on all the planet, was shockingly modest. Of course, it made sense, with the spirituality that guided her life de-emphasizing the material and promoting simplicity, but Serenity had seen more than enough royal bedrooms in her time to know that this one just didn't fit in. It was certainly clean, well-maintained, and symmetrical, and may have even managed to have a certain regal charm to it, but it just couldn't quite stack up in the typical measures. Serenity was seated in a small red stool against the back wall, Mars slowly pacing back and forth in front of her.
"I really just want you to know that I know everything now," Serenity said, hands folded in her lap. "You don't have to worry about accidentally telling me something, I...I don't want you to feel like you have to second-guess everything you tell me."
Mars slowly nodded, putting her right hand's fingers beneath her chin. "How long have you known?"
"Oh, awhile," she admitted. "Few cycles, maybe close to four. That's why I moved out, that's why I...haven't been around him very much lately." She cleared her throat. "This can't get out, is the thing. It would destroy me, as much as it would him. It's an unfortunate situation, I really don't like...having to go along with it, but it is what it is. I'm trying to work with it the best I can." She put her right hand out towards Mars. "Sorry Endymion threatened you like that, I...he feels bad about it."
"Trying to work with it the best you can," Mars mused quietly, looking down at the floor. "Serenity, what does that mean? You...you are still living in the Moon Palace, yes?"
"O-oh, yes, for now," Serenity said, giving a tight smile. "And, don't worry about it, I've already thought about that part of it. I'm probably moving back into the Earth Palace soon. I don't know exactly when, but...I've been slowly letting Endymion back into my life, I'm seeing him every few days, we're talking it out, coming to an understanding...it's fine, we're working it out."
"You're going back to him?" Mars said, sounding slightly incredulous.
"Well, I can't exactly separate from him, that's...the merger would be annulled," Serenity explained, wilting just a bit under her judging gaze. "So, as long as we're staying together, and...given we have a child together, I'm going to try to salvage things. Get things back to the way they were. Or at least, as close as possible."
"Serenity, your husband...you must be following the news reports. He's still active, his imperium is being sold virtually everywhere. And even if that wasn't the case, are you sure you really understand what he's done? Have you really grasped the...the sort of person that it takes to make the decisions that he's made?"
Serenity bowed her head a bit. "It hasn't been easy for me to come to terms with all of it," she admitted. "And there was definitely a time there where I thought I didn't want anything to do with him. I'm still mad at him, but...I've spent a lot of time resolving my feelings. I...I just don't believe he's a bad person. He's done bad things, I'm not just pretending like those things didn't happen. But I'm just not ready to walk away from it." She shrugged. "Not like I can, really."
"You've moved out," Mars stated. "You've been moved out for some time now, do you really have to...move back in?"
Serenity pressed her lips together tightly. "It's...it's complicated. There are a lot of things to think about here. I've been thinking about it non-stop for quite some time now, believe me. This is what's best."
Mars sighed, a concerned frown on her face. "Serenity, you know I care about you, right?"
"Of course," Serenity said immediately. "I've never questioned that...o-of course I understand that you couldn't tell me, not after what Endymion said. I'm not upset about that."
"That's not what I meant, exactly," she answered tentatively. "Could I offer you some advice, Serenity? Just as a concerned friend."
"Go ahead," Serenity replied.
Mars's face wrinkled as she thought. "I...let me try to put it this way." She turned towards Serenity, squaring her body up. "When someone, particularly a man, reveals the kind of person that they are, you should believe them. Because by the time you get a second confirmation, it might be too late."
Serenity's smile faded a bit as Mars's transparent warning got her to mentally waver a bit.
"Do you understand what I'm saying?" she asked.
Serenity nodded, not meeting Mars's gaze.
"I'm not your mother, I'm not here to tell you what to do. It's your decision. But I have to say, you should be very careful with your next decisions. Because you might not get a second chance at them."
Serenity swallowed down with great effort. "I understand."
"Promise me you'll think about it," Mars asked, compassion and sternness mixing in her tone to produce a request that was impossible to decline.
"I will," she said quietly, voice a little cool.
Queen Mars huffed a large breath. "Okay, then...well, I suppose...I suppose we've cleared the air."
Serenity nodded stiffly.
"
"Last chance, Your Highness," Zoisite said, standing right in the middle of the small, innocuous room that looked like little more than a casual living room, back to a modest fireplace, as he glanced back and forth between the Prince and Princess of the Earth Kingdom.
"Last chance for what?" Serenity asked.
"Um, Serenity, it's…" Endymion shifted his weight back and forth uneasily. "It's just a matter of plausible deniability. I know you said that you wanted to be informed going forward, but there's not really any need for you to actually see all of this. If I get caught, it's just one more thing that could be a problem for you."
"You said you couldn't get caught," Serenity reminded him flatly.
"Well...it's highly unlikely," Endymion said nervously. "But...if something does happen, it's going to be so much better if you can at least credibly pretend that you didn't know that any of this was happening."
Serenity gave a mirthless laugh. "Endymion, we're very, very far beyond that point." Her gaze hardened a bit. "The imperium was found on the Moon. My birthright. I want to see, for myself, what has come of it. I need to see, with my own eyes, why you think this is all worth the time and risk."
Endymion sighed, then looked over at Zoisite and nodded.
"Alright, let...let the record show that I think this is a bad idea," Zoisite mumbled, kneeling down to roll back an oval-shaped blue carpet, pushing it into a roll. He then began to pry up one of the tiles on the floor underneath. Serenity watched intently, Endymion reaching up behind his neck and scratching it, nervously glancing around.
Soon, a trap door in the floor was being pulled upward by Zoisite, revealing a small hatch down into a hidden room. It was dark, the light from above just enough to cast illumination on a pile of tan bags down on the floor. A thick rope ladder led down to the bags. Serenity crouched down, surveying the secret compartment the best she could from above.
"So, this person you're working with, he pays you, and you take what he pays you here?" Serenity asked.
"Right," Endymion answered. "I don't have any legal justification for having it, so I can't just...give it to my father and tell him to stick it in the treasury. So for now, I'm keeping it here."
"But how can it do anyone any good here?" she wondered aloud. "What's the point of making money if the only thing you can do with that money is...hide it?"
Zoisite straightened up. "I'm doing all I can to filter the money into a legitimate account through my various business investments, Your Highness. It's slow, particularly in comparison to the rate at which the money comes in, but it's really the only option available to us."
"When I take the throne, we'll have more options," Endymion added. "I can appoint Zoisite as the Secretary of the Treasury, and he'll have more opportunities to filter money in."
Serenity stuck her head down into the hatch, looking around. After a moment, she lifted herself back up and looked up at her husband, who quickly presented her with a small, pen-shaped black rod. She took it and twisted the top, getting a strong beam of light to shoot out of the end. Ducking back down into the hatch, she surveyed the sea of sealed bags with the additional help of the light.
"Looks like you'll run out of space before then," she mused. She grabbed onto the top rung of the rope ladder and swung herself downward, quickly descending down the short drop. Endymion opened his mouth to protest, but as she disappeared down below, he decided to swallow his complaint.
Serenity fell to her knees by one of the bags, fumbling along the outside of it until she found the mouth. Up above, meanwhile, Kunzite slowly leaned over Endymion's right shoulder.
"This is a very bad idea," Kunzite muttered through gritted teeth. "It's one thing for her to know what you're doing, but to bring her in on every single detail of it. Think about the kind of person she is."
"I don't have a choice," Endymion murmured quietly.
"Gods!" she exclaimed, poking her head into the sack she had just managed to open. "W-wait, are all of these filled with gems?!" Endymion looked down in time to see her crawl over to another bag and begin to quickly open it up.
"Y-yes," Endymion answered. "Moving that amount of typical currency would be cumbersome."
After quickly surveying a large collection of sapphires, she tilted her head back to look up at her husband. "How much money are you getting from this?"
"Oh, about...twelve billion creds a cycle right now," Endymion said.
"Twelve...billion," she rasped.
"It goes up, I have a percentage of the business," Endymion explained. "The longer I work with him, the more it'll be."
She twisted her head back and forth, doing a rough mental count of the number of giant sacks of gems. "Endy…"
"This...this is why I did this," he said. "I know it might seem silly to take on so much risk for money when you're in my position, but...Serenity, this really could change things for the Kingdom. Just trust me, income streams like this that aren't removing money from the local economy, it's very rare that something like this happens. If it weren't for the regulations imposed by the agency, the imperium that I found probably would have turned the Moon into one of the dominant superpowers in the galaxy overnight."
She slowly nodded. "I get that."
"I wish there was some way I could just...sell all of it at once, be done with it, wash my hands of the business, but it can't be done like that." He shifted around uneasily. "There are a lot of angles here. I can't just have other people take care of everything for me either. I have to be involved."
Kunzite softly cleared his throat, giving his charge a bit of a glare at the back of his head that was unnoticed by the Prince.
"So, sweetie, is this good? Y-you said you...you wanted to see why I was doing this, t-this is why," Endymion said, watching Serenity grab onto the bottom of the rope ladder and start to pull herself back up into the room.
"Not yet," she answered. "I want to see it."
"It?" Endymion repeated.
"Yes. It." Her head popped up through the hatch. "The imperium."
Endymion groaned. "Serenity, please. That's not a good idea, it serves no one's interests."
"Endymion, it came from the Moon. You found it before we were married. You stole it from me." She pulled herself up onto the floor and rolled herself up into a standing position. "You say you did it...did it for my own good, did it for the benefit of my Kingdom, fine, but...I want to see it. I want to see what's such a big deal. I want to see what's so valuable and important that it...could single handedly shift the fate of the entire galaxy, or whatever it was."
Endymion held his lips together tightly, clearly tense and nervous. Finally, however, he looked over his shoulder at Kunzite and gave him a quick nod. Kunzite grumbled a bit, but quickly returned the nod.
"
With a grinding scratch, Nephrite peeled the lid off the top of the black barrel. Serenity eagerly looked inside, surveying the countless clear crystals within, filling the barrel to the brim. She slowly stuck her right hand down into the imperium, brushing her fingertips over the crystals.
Endymion, Kunzite, and Zoisite stood to the side, watching as Serenity's curiosity was satisfied. The quintet were flanked on both sides by massive metal shelves that had been loaded to capacity with similar black barrels, stretching across the full length of the ship interior. The shelving was repeated across the entire primary chamber of the giant carrier, each row crammed together tightly so that the space available was used with maximum efficiency. Nephrite had removed one from one of the bottom rows for Serenity's perusal.
The retired E-class freighter was currently out in the middle of deep space between the orbital lanes of Mars and the asteroid belt, about two million dolichos shy of the belt. The state-of-the-art autopilot system had performed as advertised, perpetually keeping the ship moving along a randomized course that only one person in the universe knew, while avoiding potential hazards and collisions. With the engines constantly running and the ship moving, even if someone happened across the ship by some random chance, they wouldn't think much of it. As risky as it seemed to leave such precious cargo completely unattended, thus far, it had worked perfectly.
"The ship's location at any given time can be determined by solving three complex equations, using time as the variable for each coordinate," Endymion explained as Serenity picked her head up from the imperium examination. "It'll just keep moving forever, adjusting for potential projectiles or obstacles. Whenever we need product, Kunzite flies out to wherever this ship is at the time and picks it up."
"Equations?" Serenity asked.
"Kunzite has them memorized," Endymion added. "It's the best, perhaps only, way to keep a find of this size and significance hidden."
She looked up at the towering barrel stacks up on the top of the shelves, arms crossed over her chest. She scanned all the way down the rows and rows of barrels, trying to count them before immediately deciding it was a pointless endeavor. "All of these are full?"
Endymion turned to look at Kunzite.
"Every barrel here is full," he replied. "Some of the shelves over towards the back side are empty, but when we first moved all of the imperium in, the entire hold was basically full."
Serenity nodded, face still hardened with a look of determination. "How much imperium is this?"
Kunzite exhaled, glancing down at the floor for a moment. "At this point, I would say...just shy of sixty million libras."
"Enough to run the galaxy for hundreds of years," Zoisite commented. "Many times more than what the agency has in storage."
"It's worth quadrillions of creds," Endymion added. "More than the entirety of the Earth Kingdom."
Serenity put her right hand's index finger up to just above her lip, blinking down hard several times in rapid succession.
"So, um...is that all you needed to see?" Endymion asked hopefully. "Are you...you're satisfied?"
She grimaced, then closed the distance between her and Endymion with a couple quick steps. "No more risk," she ordered, putting her index finger up into his chest. "No danger. No violence. You promise me that, whatever happens while you're involved in imperium smuggling, none of that." She waved her right hand up behind her, towards the hundreds of barrels. "I'll find a way to live with this. But I've recently had two very uncomfortable conversations with longtime, close friends of mine, because of this. I don't want any more of those. This stays compartmentalized from our lives from now on."
Endymion was slightly taken aback, but quickly recovered enough to nod his head. "Y-yes, of course. I already said, the mistakes that I made before were just that, mistakes."
"You promise me that this is just...lab work from now on, and I'll stand by you," she said. "I'll turn the other way and pretend that...that you're a baker who makes really valuable bread. But the moment things turn into something more than just that, you have to get out."
Endymion reached up and gently put his left hand up on her shoulder. "Alright, Serenity. I promise. No more risk, no more danger, no more violence."
She glanced over at his left hand, her stern expression holding strong. "Okay. Then...then I'll stand by you. And we'll work through this."
"
Cronus slowly ran his finger along the colored map in front of him, focusing intently on the drawn terrain. "Surely, The Rings must be starting to realize that some third party has decided to involve themselves in this war. Eventually, they're going to be prepared for it."
"What can they do?" Tellu replied, leaning up over from the opposite side of the desk as Cronus tapped away at a point on the map. "They can't even keep up with Saturn's forces at this point. They don't have anywhere near enough resources to try to prepare for a random attack at a random location at a random time. I'll take two thousand mercenaries to Dione, land them right on top of that hill, we hit the barracks, two minutas, we'll be out of there."
"Putting actual troops on the ground is concerning to me," Cronus mused. "The last thing I need is putting something out there that could potentially lead back to me. I'm not going to be able to explain it, you understand?"
"You'll have nothing to explain," Tellu said confidently. "We're going to hit them so quickly, they won't even have time to think about a counter before we're out. And we'll be using mercenaries, so—"
The communicator disc on the desk began to flash a series of colors, drawing Cronus's attention away from the serious conversation.
"Let it go to recording," Tellu said dismissively, waving her hand over towards the disc. Cronus, however, moved to grab it.
"Not this one, I'm afraid," he said simply. With a tap to the middle part of the disc, he held it up in front of his mouth. "Good afternoon, Cronus of Saturn speaking."
The voice that replied was clearly feminine in tone, sounding rather young.
"Cronus! Is now a good time for a short discussion?"
"Um...yes, sure, that's perfectly fine with me. I see you're calling from an official Galactic Imperium Agency line, so...at the risk of making a fool of myself, might I chance a guess? Am I speaking to Princess Venus?" Cronus said, immediately exuding charisma.
"Right you are!" Venus replied. "I'm just starting to.. .get a feel for things around here, really throwing myself into things...fascinating stuff, really. Let me tell you, people around here talk about you all the time. You're a big deal here! So, I was interested in, maybe, having a little discussion? Building a rapport? Maybe get your perspective on things?"
Cronus hesitated briefly, giving the communicator a bit of an odd look. "Um...well, if you think it would be beneficial to you, then by all means. I'm happy to do whatever I can to assist the agency. Maybe we could meet in-person in the coming days?"
"Well…"
Cronus's nose wrinkled as an obnoxious static overtook Princess Venus's voice, filling the connection.
"...I think that…"
"Um, Your Highness, I'm getting some interference on my end." Cronus said loudly. "Are you hearing that?"
More static.
"...call you back…"
"R-right, Your Highness, call me back any time and we'll try to work something out," Cronus instructed, reaching forward towards the disc.
"...personal line…"
He tapped the center of the device, ending the conversation and getting the various blinking lights on the device to fizzle out. "You know, I wasn't really expecting her to take an active role over there."
"It's strange," Tellu agreed.
"Gods, I hope she loses interest quickly," Cronus said with a little grin. "I'm busy enough without—"
The communicator began to ring again, Cronus unable to hold back on rolling his eyes and sighing.
"Alright," he grumbled, planting his right index finger into the center of the communicator. "Princess Venus?"
"Is this better? Can you hear me?" Venus asked.
"Yes, Your Highness, that's better," Cronus said. "Now—"
"Listen to me very carefully," she ordered. "You're going to want to hear what I have to say, and your fate is tied very closely to how you choose to react to what I have to say." Her voice, despite being very clearly coming from the same person, had unmistakably changed into a more aggressive tone.
Cronus slowly tilted his head to the right, giving the communicator a bit of an odd look. "Um...well, yes, I can hear you," he said slowly, unable to put together an appropriate reaction to her melodramatic statement.
"Cronus, I know everything. You're the one we've been chasing all these years. You've been running imperium for a decade."
Tellu visibly tensed her entire body up, and Cronus was clearly thrown by the strong and immutable accusation. He gulped down a building lump in his throat, then forced a casual indifference into his tone. "Your Highness, I think you may have the wrong person."
"Cronus, don't waste time playing games. You don't have very much of it if you want to remain free after today."
Cronus cleared his throat, settling back into the cushioned desk chair, weighing his words carefully. "Princess Venus, I suspect you're not feeling well. Why don't you go lie down and call me back when you're seeing things more clearly?"
"Cronus, I can have half the agency smashing down on you and everything you own in less than two minutas."
Cronus pursed his lips tightly, leaning his head back, absentmindedly cracking his knuckles. "It's a very...odd accusation, Your Highness. I'm wondering where it came from."
"Not your concern," she said sternly. "All that matters is that it just so happens that you're not the one I want."
This statement got his attention, bringing his head back down level, staring at the communicator. While it didn't particularly matter, since the communicator was transmitting only audio, his concern was clearly evident on his face. It wasn't often that Cronus ever let his facade slip at all, so Venus's accusations were obviously shaking him.
"Princess Venus—"
"I want your chemists, Cronus. I know it's not you, you don't have enough time for lab work on that scale. I'm happy to settle for you if you don't want to work with me, but there's a scenario where you get to walk away."
Cronus's forehead wrinkled, as his concern and fear was turned to confusion. "Wait—"
"I need answers fast, Cronus. Or rather, you do, you're the one with everything to lose. It's very simple. You make it easy for us to arrest and bring in your imperium chemists, and you'll get the opportunity to clean up your mess in time to stay out of prison."
Tellu instinctively rocketed up to her feet, quickly jumping around as if expecting a sudden invasion of agency troopers through the door and windows. Cronus, however, remained focused on the conversation, though he continued to not contribute very much to it.
"Cronus, if I think you're stalling, there's no deal," Venus warned. "Give me a time and location where your chemists can be arrested, and you'll be given time to cover your tracks. There's a good chance we'll get your chemists anyway if we go after you."
Cronus slowly opened his mouth, staring down at the disc on the desk before him, mind racing through scenarios.
"Cronus?"
"Tomorrow. The laboratory on Deimos. First floor, east wing break room. Around the twentieth minuta," he finally said, slowly and deliberately.
"If you're lying, you're on the chopping block." With that final ominous proclamation, the connection was terminated, and Tellu took the opportunity to immediately voice her concerns.
"You can't be serious!" she snapped. Cronus, however, was ripping open one of the drawers to his right, pulling out a stack of folders and tossing them to the ground before pulling out one from the bottom.
"Put the Dione mission on hold," Cronus ordered, ripping a band wrapped around the folder and opening it. "This takes priority."
"Cronus, I...Endymion and Kunzite have had direct contact with you multiple times, if we turn them in, they'll turn you in!" Tellu protested.
"This way, we'll actually have some time to cover our tracks, we'll just have to use it well," he said. While there was definitely a rapid urgency to his tone, given how fast the last handful of secundas had turned the situation against him, he remained remarkable put-together and composed.
"We...how did she find out?!" Tellu asked, staring at the inactive communicator as Cronus rapidly flipped through the pages within the folder. "Ten years, the agency hasn't come close to us, and this girl just solves the whole thing in a couple cycles?!"
"All that matters is that she has found out," Cronus said, pulling a red envelope from the middle of the folder and handing it to Tellu. "We need to move quickly, take this and follow the instructors to the letter. We'll have a matter of days before Endymion tries to give us up to reduce his charges."
Tellu snatched the red envelope out of Cronus's hand. "I...I just don't understand," she continued to muse. "Why would she...this doesn't make any sense, why would she offer us a deal?! Why does she want our chemists more than us?!"
"Good questions," Cronus admitted, picking up the communicator and starting to turn the knobs on the side of it. "That I do not have the time to try to answer right now. The only thing that matters right now is survival." He pointed at the envelope at her hands. She began to open it, roughly tearing at the seam and yanking a couple of sheets of paper out.
"Just...you have to admit, something isn't right here," Tellu grumbled.
"Maybe," Cronus conceded. "But by the time I could confirm it one way or the other, it would probably be too late. If we're fast, we'll survive. And, if we're lucky...it might even work to our advantage." With a final press of his thumb to the center of the disc, the communicator activated.
"
"Kunzite, it had to happen that way," Endymion said defensively, as the two young men casually strolled down the pristine white hallways towards the east wing break room of the Deimos installation of Galen Laboratories. "And you heard her, she's...she's on board! She's okay with it!"
Kunzite teetered his head back and forth a bit, a frown on his face. "Your Highness, you can't honestly be comfortable with her knowing all of your secrets like this. One thing for her to know in general, but to let her in on everything is beckoning disaster."
"I am comfortable!" Endymion replied through gritted teeth. "She knows that she'll lose everything if this gets out. She...she has every incentive in the world to keep a lid on things." The pair turned to the right, into a small room with a few round tables and plastic chairs scattered about, as well as a row of food dispenser machines against the far wall. Kunzite took a brief moment to scan the room to make sure they were alone, then leaned back to check down both sides of the long hallway.
"With all due respect, Your Highness, Princess Serenity is emotional and immature in a way that we simply aren't. Logic will leave her far easier than it leaves us," Kunzite said, going over to one of the dispensaries on the right side.
"Maybe not," Endymion countered. "She's certainly surprised me recently. There's more to her than even I expected."
Kunzite sighed, grabbing the upper right corner of the dispenser. "Just let the record show that I think it was a bad idea to bring your wife into this any deeper than the absolute bare minimum."
"You know I love her still," Endymion protested. "If I had a chance to get back on good terms with her, I had to take it."
Kunzite begrudgingly nodded, then gave the dispenser a tug out. Surprised to find it not immediately giving under his pull, he gave it a larger yank. It did not smoothly slide out from the wall as it had done dozens of times in recent cycles, instead merely scraping a tiny distance across the floor. Mere fractions of a finger length. Endymion looked down at the base of the rectangular dispenser, noting the miniscule move that it had made.
"What the…" Kunzite leaned in closer to the wall, peeking behind the dispenser, using the small distance he had managed to pull it out to look behind it. His eyes widened, and he quickly pushed off the wall and grabbed Endymion's shoulders and began to guide him back towards the hallway. "It's been sealed off, we need to get out of here."
"Wait, wha—"
"HOLD IT!"
Endymion felt as if his stomach had come very close to jumping straight out of his mouth as the situation quickly went from alarming to an unmitigated disaster. He turned to look over his shoulder, dreading what he might see. It was as bad as his worst fears, as three heavily armored and uniformed figures stood out in the hallway, pointing large plasma rifles at him and his bodyguard. The uniforms, complete with tinted face masks, made all three of the figures look roughly identical and unidentifiable, and the triangular logo on the chest plates marked them as agency troopers. It was all so much bad news at once that Endymion couldn't even process it immediately.
The situation was bad enough for Kunzite to not even try a violent escape, with three high-powered weapons pointed at his charge, and he instead opted to slowly release the Prince and back away.
"ON THE GROUND!" one of the troopers ordered. "HANDS BEHIND YOUR HEAD!"
Endymion went through the motions of what was being ordered of him, as did his general, but his mind was still processing the horrific ramifications of what was happening and what would happen next. He didn't even particularly get upset as one of the agency soldiers roughly grabbed his wrists from behind his head and pulled them down behind his back to be cuffed, a rather unnecessarily rough bit of treatment that he would have expected his princely status to protect himself from.
In short order, he was laying flat on the ground, face down, hands locked together behind his back. Two more agency soldiers entered the room to finalize the arrest. He probably should have been listening to what they were saying, but he just couldn't quite get the memory of his most recent conversation with his wife out of his head.
Something about no more risks.