Priest arranged for a flight back to Vienna that afternoon. Alana called United Airlines using her police credentials to get priority seating with no wait list.
There was too little time to actually get any sightseeing done in D.C. The flight was scheduled to depart Dulles in early evening and Priest had some things to take care of before the trip. Among other steps, he decided he wanted to get a friend, Arnold “Aggie” Darwin involved. Aggie was not an investigator but he was a good sidekick, had a good sense of impending danger, and was well versed in European history and Church doctrine – knowledge that Priest thought would come in handy.
Aggie was an ex-drone pilot from the American war in Afghanistan whom Priest had met at Tall Cedars, a commune in rural Virginia. The place and the p
