"What a weird little bastard," Otto muttered, and Machiko nodded slowly. Shakira chuckled and shrugged.

"He might be socially awkward. If he's in a position to know something important going on at EGI, he's probably high up in the company. Maybe a savant. I wouldn't be surprised if he never learned to interact with people because he just had his mind on tons of other things all the time."

"Makes sense." Otto un-muted his mic. "Shadow, stand by for the safe house's location."

"Huh," Shakira said. "Just got a text from Callahan. He said he's not able to get to the meeting."

What? Machiko turned around and shook her head. "He's right there. Oh, hell." The realization sank in quickly and sucked in a quick breath.

"That's not Callahan," Otto said at the same time, spinning his chair around to glance at her and then Shakira. "Did he say anything else?"

"Just got another text. He said he noticed a suspicious van parked across the street when he went out to his car, so he locked himself in his house."

Goddamn it. "Who's closest to his location?"

Otto glanced at one of his monitors. "Ramirez and her team."

Machiko connected with Ramirez's comm implant. [Lola, Callahan hasn't left his house yet and there's a suspicious van across the street. I need you guys to go check on him.]

[On it, boss.]

Machiko switched to Shadow's implant. [Shadow, that guy isn't Callahan. Abort.] Several seconds passed with no reply. [Shadow? Do you copy?] Again, silence. Machiko pinged Shadow's comm implant and nothing came back. She pulled her phone out and dialed Shadow's number.

″I'm sorry, the number you have dialed is out of range or the phone is turned off. Please hang up and try again."

Machiko contacted another of her teams. [Jack, something's hinky about this. I'm not getting a response from Shadow's implant and her phone's either off or out of range. She may need backup. Go find her.]