Since the whole ordeal was over, everybody was trying to relax.
Stephen had been reunited with Rosie after the latter went running to find help for the knocked-out Gretchen. Stephen was now sitting on a chair outside the cell containing their prisoner, and the six-year-old girl was sitting on her father's lap. Neither of them had said a word in a while. Stephen was simply cuddling his daughter both protectively and reassuringly.
Ruth was sat on the chair next to him, trying to comprehend what she had just done. She had just taken out not only the wind machine but the tremor machine as well. And she wasn't even an agent yet.
Gretchen was sitting in the chair opposite them and to the right. She had her head back and her eyes closed, an ice pack resting on her forehead, where she had hit her head.
Everybody else had gone to survey the damage or search for anybody else in the building.
James was the first to return. He flopped into a chair next to Gretchen and leant back like she was doing, sighing. "Inspector Initials has gone," he informed Stephen and Gretchen. "Protocol dictates that in an emergency like what we just went through, BOWCA's leader has to evacuate straight away and go to a random one of eleven safehouses so that nobody except her or him knows where she or he is. And since we don't know where Inspector Initials is and we have no way of contacting her after the safehouse communication line was damaged in the attack, we can't tell her that everything has calmed down now. And since we can't do that, we're leaderless."
Gretchen and Stephen exchanged a worried look.
"Nobody else is here," Esther said as she and Zero came back around the corner with Ferb and Robin behind them. "Everyone's out."
"We can't tell them to come back," James mused. "Not with Inspector Initials off-grid."
Esther suddenly caught sight of Ruth sitting on the chair. She walked forwards and held out her hand. "Ruth Summers? I'm Esther van Dyke. I'm very sorry I couldn't greet you today."
Ruth stood up, smiled, and shook Esther's hand. "It's absolutely fine. It wasn't your fault you got hurt on the mission."
Esther's smile turned slightly sad. "I just wish we were meeting under better circumstances."
"Who's our leader now?" Stephen asked once everyone had sat down.
"James," Zero answered immediately.
James was taken aback. "What? Why me? I'm not the highest ranking agent here."
"No, but you're the most sensible, the most responsible, and the best leader out of all of us," Esther contributed. "You know what you're doing. You joined this organisation before Isaac, for goodness sake. I'd be proud to serve under you as a leader, even if only for a few days."
The others muttered their agreement. James couldn't stop a smile coming onto his face. "Thank you. I will not fail the role you have given me."
"We're sure you won't," Ferb said. "Now, what are we going to do now?"
"We have a suspect in an interrogation room," Robin said dryly. "I think it's fairly obvious what we're going to do now."
"Interrogate the suspect," James said, nodding. He looked towards Esther. "That's your area of expertise, van Dyke."
Esther chuckled and looked down at the ground. "I think you'd better do it," she said. "My area of interrogation skill is getting people to confess to things. We already know Bannister is behind the attacks; Ruth caught him red-handed. We just need to know why."
"What if he decides to play dumb and not confess?" James asked.
"Then I can step in," grinned Esther.
James smirked. "Fair enough."
He opened the door to the interrogation room but hesitated. Then he closed the door again. "I think I'll prepare some questions for him so I can appear more knowledgeable than I am. Maybe it'll get him nervous." He put on a disbelieving look. "Yeah, right."
Esther let out a short laugh. "You go ahead. Is it okay if I go in there in a minute and check out what we're up against?"
"You go ahead." James flashed a quick smile at her before he headed off down the corridor.
Robin sighed loudly and leant back in her chair. "I can't believe we're stuck in this," she said. "How did this even happen?"
Ruth stared at her. "I don't think we've met," she said.
"Oh right." Robin sat upright. "I'm Maria Robinson but everyone calls me Robin."
"I'm Ruth."
"Okay, now that we're acquainted, back to my question: how did this happen?"
"That's the point of an interrogation, Robin," Gretchen said. "That's what we're hopefully going to find out." She shot a look at Esther, who stood up and walked straight into the interrogation room.
Daniel Bannister was sat back in his chair. His handcuffed hands were behind his head. Overall, he looked very relaxed.
"You look comfortable," remarked Esther, folding her arms.
"Well, one must do what one must do to find relaxation in stressful environments," replied Bannister.
"Why?" Esther demanded. "You nearly destroyed our headquarters. I'm not going to attempt to find out how you did that but what I want to know is why you're so relaxed."
"Because I know something you don't," sang Bannister. "And it's going to tear your little friendship group apart."
"What are you insinuating?"
"I'm not insinuating anything," Bannister replied, grinning inanely. "I'm stating outright: there's a traitor in your little group out there, and I know who it is."
Esther felt a stab of nausea hit her but she just took a deep breath, said, "I will not be swayed by your pathetic attempts to unnerve me," and left the room.
His words were replaying in her head, despite her attempts to block them out: there's a traitor in your little group out there, and I know who it is. She was almost sure that Bannister was making it up to psych her out, but a part of her brain was worried that he was telling the truth.
What if the traitor he mentioned was the one who sold the secrets to America and got my husband killed?
