The lounge was devoid of anyone and anything save the furniture and dog-eared magazines resting in a haphazard pile on the center of a low coffee table. The glimmer we sought wasn’t here. All was empty and still, utterly silent except for the last flat echoes of our footsteps.

“Are we on the right floor, then?” Felicity asked, becoming the first to break our collective reticence. Her pronounced Irish brogue was an audible betrayal of the fatigue we were all feeling. Normally her accent was a mild lilt, noticeable, but not terribly prominent. However, when she was tired it would thicken as it did now. The accent highlighted her words in broad strokes with each syllable she uttered. Given the uncharacteristic Southern twang that had overcome her voice during the height of this nightmare, the familiar Celtic affectation was a welcome sound.

“The seventh floor waiting area is where they said they were,” Agent Parker responded. “They should be here.”

I had been fumbling in my coat pocket and now had my cell phone in hand. I began dialing a number as quickly as I could. “Yeah, well they should be but they aren’t,” I said, eyes never leaving my thumb as it stabbed buttons on the keypad.

“Could it be they’ve gone for coffee or something?” Felicity offered the question with a note of uncertainty in her voice.

“Maybe,” Parker replied, surety lacking in her tone as well.

Just as I was about to place the phone against my ear, a distant mechanical chime sounded from behind, prompting all three of us to turn in near unison. At the far end of the hallway, from whence we had come only moments before, a set of doors in the dual bank of elevators began to slide open with a muted rumble. As the stainless steel parted, a lumbering janitor exited, pushing in front of him a wheeled bin. Without looking up he aimed himself toward a nearby trash receptacle as if on autopilot.

The fresh expectation of hope instantly dashed, I felt myself sag right where I stood, slumping into a dejected posture that physically announced my disappointment. To be honest, at this point the only thing really keeping me upright and focused was adrenalin augmented with caffeine, but both of those were swiftly running out.