In the alley behind the perpetrator's condominium building, Special Agent Greg Roberts gathered the other authorities around him for one last word.  

"Our target is one Lana Reed." 

Greg began turning slowly as he held before him a sheet of paper hot off the printer in the ERV which was still back at the bank.  It was a full color picture of Lana taken a couple of years before -- back before her [i]fall[/i] -- but it was still close enough to her current appearance to do the trick.  Greg gave a physical description of the young woman to the others, which included several FBI agents and two dozen members of the [i]Double C's[/i] Emergency Response Team, once known as SWAT before that awful Colin Ferrell movie by the same made the word hard for anyone to serious speak out loud.

"Keep in mind that Miss Reed is [i]not[/i] a suspect," he warned.  "She is a person of interest.  First team in will be armed with non-lethal rounds and weapons [i]only![/i]"  With a bit of a wry tone and a widening smile, he begged them, "[i]Please![/i]  Do not kill this woman before I have a chance to interrogate her--"

"And ask her about that incredible ass!" someone said from the back.

Greg tried to hush the sudden round of laughter and graphic talk.  Since the incident in the bank, a digital recording of Lana's assault of the wannabe robbers had made its way around the law enforcement entities investigating, and it had been duly noted that the woman was very well rounded in certain, delicious areas.

"Locate and subdue," Greg emphasized.  "Locate, subdue ... and later, if I can, I'll get y'all her phone number."  As a final round of low chuckles rolled through, Greg told them, "Let's do this."



Three minutes later, flanked by the ERT members armed with Tasers and shotguns loaded with bean bag rounds, Greg punched into Lana's lock the code they'd gotten from the building's Super.  He growled in a low whisper, "[i]Go![/i]"  The heavily armored and intentionally scary looking cops surged inside and scattered in pairs to every room as Greg hollered, following close behind them, "[i]FBI!  FBI![/i]"

From all about the nice sized condo, one ERT member after another called, "[i]Clear![/i]"  And within 90 seconds, Greg and Lee had between them taken a look in every room to see that Lana Reed was obviously in the wind.

"We've got a suitcase in the other room," Lee told Greg when he caught up with him in the living room.  "She was packing to split, but ... she must have gotten wind of us and taken off."

"Yeah," Greg said simply, looking about himself.  Something didn't feel right.  He didn't know what it was, but ... his gut was telling him this [i]just[/i] wasn't right.  He nodded his head toward the ERT's leader, telling him, "Do a thorough check of the apartment.  Have your other team search door to door.  Ask around.  You know the drill."

Within five minutes, the ERT was heading out.  It was a big condo, but it wasn't [i]that[/i] big.  While the search had been proceeding, a dog had been brought in to search for weapons.  Greg heard it barking suddenly and returned to the living room to check out the commotion.  The German Shepherd was simply staring at the wall, barking as if it had cornered a guns dealer.  But ... there was nothing there in which he should take interest.

"They do that sometimes," his handler explained.  "Who knows what goes through a canine's mind sometimes, right?"

After everyone but Lee was gone, Greg looked back toward the empty space on the wall.  As his partner spoke of returning to the bank, Greg told him, "I'll catch a ride with one of the Double C's.  I have something I want to look into."

Lee departed, and Greg sent the last of the Capital City uniforms out.  Then, he returned to the living room.  He stared at the wall for a moment, then looked about the room.  Then, he just plopped down onto the couch, drew a couple of relaxing breaths, and said in a calm conversational tone, "I don't believe in magic.  I don't believe in the invisible man ... or the invisible woman.  I don't believe in super powers.  But Miss Reed ... something unexplainable is going on here."

He looked about himself for some sort of response, but there was nothing.  He looked forward, then finished, "I'm going to sit here for five minutes ... give you time to think about it.  I'm not going to hurt you.  I just ... I need to understand what the hell happened back there in the bank ... if you don't mind explaining it to me."

Greg felt stupid saying all of that.  It was true: he didn't believe in magic, invisibility, or super powers.  But he'd also seen the bank recording.  Mass hypnosis maybe?  He simply had not explanation for it.  And what the hell, the worse that could happen was he sat here for five minutes and left without a response, feeling like an idiot.