Disciplinary Hearing of Special Agent John Hale

518 Words
When he sat down, FBI Special Agent John Hale wasn’t sure what to expect of the panel in front of him. His boss had warned him that there would be extremely tough questions asked of him. Of this, Hale had been sure. He had known that it would end this way when he came down the mountain with an incoherent story and a group of teenage girls with bruises and sticks in their hair.  He had known the second he had seen that first spark of Magic from Annie Proctor that he would end up in this chair in front of these people, pleading for his job. Because at the end of the day, he had known that his report would have holes a mile wide and so dark that not even a flashlight would pierce through to the truth.  “Special Agent Hale,” a severe-looking woman said, her tone perfectly pleasant and at such odds with her tight gray bun and sharp suit that it only made him more nervous. “Tell us about Annie Proctor.” “What about her?” he asked, knowing that his inability to tell them the truth would likely cost him his job if not his actual freedom. After all, what he’d done on that mountain, what he’d been forced to do, had been illegal.  “When did you know that she was the murderer?” another woman asked, her tone unpleasant. She was scowling at him. He didn’t blame her. It was rather remarkable that he was only sitting in front of a disciplinary committee instead of a jury of his peers. Although, he hadn’t yet ruled that possibility out.  “I realized she had committed the murders sometime around two weeks into the case,” he answered. “When the storms came.” “The storms that destroyed Salem?” a man asked. He was at retirement age, and Hale had never met him like the rest of this panel. That was a good thing. It meant he had never been in this amount of trouble before. In fact, before this case, he had never been subject to any disciplinary action before. He blamed Annie. Perhaps unfairly, but that was what he was going with.  After all, he never would have solved this case without her. He would have drifted around the edges of a conspiracy, too blind to see what was in front of him and hopelessly lost in details that refused to merge into a picture that made sense. Not that the picture Annie had provided for him made any sense, but at least it was complete. He looked at the panel in front of him and wondered what it would take to make them believe the truth. The whole truth and not the truth that he had constructed to make the story seem believable. He imagined nothing short of seeing Magic itself would do the trick. After all, he had to see it three times before he could wrap his mind around what his eyes were seeing. It had caused quite a crisis of consciousness.
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