The Chaos Café was closed. Zubec had spent more time than usual cleaning up, but finally, and John thought probably grudgingly, he’d gone up to bed. It must infuriate the man to know that there was someone in the apartment right above him, someone that Christine had not invited in. Someone who meant to harm her. But the girl was safely away, and Zubec played his part by pretending ignorance and doing nothing.
The woman had left the apartment after a few minutes. She still had Getty’s phone, and they were able to track her while she tracked Christine’s phone around the area.
Eventually, she’d figured out that it was in a squad car and come back to the apartment.
She was still alone. There was no back-up team. Reese watched and waited.
The night deepened. The pulse of the city slowly, quieted. It was never silent, not here, but it was hushed. John sat in the alley with his back to the wall and listened. He remembered nights in the desert when it was so quiet he could hear the wind pushing tiny grains of sand around. Nights in the jungle so loud he couldn’t hear himself think. But nothing was quite like New York.
In another hour, he knew, it would all shift again. The late-nighters would head home, brushing past the early risers. The day would start all over again. One day after another after another. It had been strange to him when he first came here. Now he knew the city, knew its moods, knew its pulse. He liked it best at night.
Walking in the dark, Cara would have said. Being the dark. But Cara was gone, and John was starting to think, just once in a while in quietest part of the night, that maybe he could find his way back to the light.
His phone chirped very softly against his ear and he keyed it on. “Good morning, Finch.”
“Just about. I have something for you, finally.”
“I never had any doubt.” His phone chirped again, and Reese brought it out to look at the screen.
“That’s Matthew Getty,” Finch said. “His real name is Kevin Frey “ only that’s probably not his real name either “ and you and he have a former employer in common.”
“Agency,” Reese guessed. “He’s a NOC.”
“Non-official Cover. Yes. He seems to have been placed at Venture East for the purpose of maintaining the black web in order to cover the redistribution of highly classified data, mostly photos.”
“Show me.” The first photo came up. It was too tiny to see anything on his phone; he widened out a corner of it. “Weapons system,” Reese said. He scrolled around the screen. It was still too small to get a good look at it. “Some kind of missile.”
“There are six others that seem related to that one,” Finch said. “They were all embedded underneath the same movie, an epic entitled … well, never mind. But all seven were together.”
“Steganography. That’s pretty old-school for the Agency.”
“Even Bin Laden used it,” Finch agreed. “But it’s still effective. Especially if it’s hidden under something so vile that no one would want to look for it.”
“Unless it’s so vile that someone who finds it by accident immediately destroys it with thermite.”
“True. So far I’ve found eleven movies that have images hidden within them. And I must say, I’m very glad Miss Fitzgerald isn’t here looking over my shoulder. It’s … vile is a good word.”
“Anything on the woman who shot Frey?”
“Nothing yet,” Finch answered. “I think we can safely assume she’s also CIA, but I haven’t been able to identify her.”
“Some kind of middle management,” Reese said. “Maybe on a disability reassignment of some kind.”
“I’ll keep looking. But if the CIA thinks that Christine has their files, I don’t see how we can keep her away from them indefinitely.”
Reese looked up and down the street. There was still no sign of any backup for the shooter. “That may be less of a problem than we think. Have you finished making the hamburger back into steak?”
“It’s loading onto the external hard drive now. Should be done in about twenty minutes.”
“Good. Let’s get this over with.”
***
2001
Fusco and his partner stood at the east side of the pile, just outside the makeshift wire fence. They were supposed to be guarding against looters and troublemakers. But they’d spent most of their time keeping out earnest civilians who wanted climb in and help, or giving directions to people from out of town who were looking for hospitals or shelters or anywhere else their missing loved ones might be. Or herding gawkers away from the hundreds of news crews that circled the site endlessly.
He stared out at the pile. It was almost pretty, with the sun setting through the dust. And then it was just sad.
Someone stopped next to him. Fusco glanced over. Then he looked again.
Chrissy “ Daisy “ whatever the hell her name was this week “ was still thin as a rail. But she looked fresh-scrubbed, her hair brushed, her clothes cheap but all in one piece. She had a big messenger bag over her shoulder, bulky and full. He thought she had a silver cast on one arm, but when he looked closer he realized it was six rolls of duct tape, worn like bangle bracelets all the way up past her elbow. He knew what she was using it for. The posters were all over the place, covering every flat surface.
She reached into the bag, brought out a bottle of water, and handed it to him.
“Thanks.”
“Sure.”
He looked at her again. For the first time in a long time her eyes were clear and focused. “You get clean?” he asked.
“Working on it.”
“Need some help?”
“Got some, thanks. I’m through the worst of it.”
“You picked a hell of a time.”
“I think my dealer’s in the pile.”
Fusco snorted. “Best news I heard since this happened.”
She just shrugged.
“You got enough to eat?”
“Yeah. I’m okay.”
They looked at the pile for a while. The rescue guys kicked on the giant flood lights and turned the dusk into fake midday again.
The girl sighed. “Be safe, Fusco.”
“You, too.”
She handed a bottle of water to his partner and wandered off into the city.
***
2012
Fusco woke with a start. He sat up, looked around. The TV was still on; some old sit-com was talking quietly to itself. Christine had kicked her shoes off and was curled up at the other end of the couch in a tiny little ball. She had her scorecard in her lap, but she’d been asleep since the sixth inning.
Fusco rubbed the back of his neck. He got up quietly and walked around the apartment. Checked the windows and the doors. It was a nice place. Looked like nobody lived here. Hell of a lot of money to spend for no one to live here.
He went back to the living room. The girl hadn’t moved. Well, having somebody trying to kill her could wear a girl out. She’d been lucky Reese got to her when he did.
But it wasn’t really luck. Reese had some weird way of knowing about stuff like that.
Fusco shook his head. He didn’t know how Reese did it, him and his strange little friend, and he was pretty sure he didn’t want to know. What mattered was that the girl “ Chrissy or Daisy or Christine or Scottie or anything else she wanted to call herself “ was safe. And knowing Reese like he did, Fusco was pretty sure she’d stay that way.
He looked around again. Then he took a pillow off the couch, fluffed it up, and settled into the big chair across from her. He put his feet up on the coffee table. Whoever could afford this place could afford to have the scuff marks cleaned off. He closed his eyes again.
A minute later he opened them, took his feet down, and kicked off his shoes. Then he put his feet back up and went back to sleep.
***
“What are you going to do with it?” Finch asked anxiously.
Reese turned the thumb drive in his hand, slipped it into his pocket. “I’m going to buy an insurance policy for our girl.”
Finch looked up at the apartment windows. “Mae Miller. Formerly a field operative once, shattered both legs on a mission in 1992. Been stuck in middle management ever since.” He looked at John. “We know she’s a killer. Are you really going to trust her?”
“I’m going to trust that she’ll do whatever it takes to stay alive. You sure you can handle Dover’s house? He’s been dead a while.”
Finch made a face, but he nodded. “I’ll manage.”
“Don’t drop the file until I call you.”
“I understand.” Finch looked at him, almost asked another question, and then didn’t. “Be careful.”
“You, too.”
“Mine’s already dead,” Finch reminded him. “If he gives me any trouble, we have much bigger problems than we anticipated.”
Reese nodded. “You have a point.” He waited until Finch was out of sight. Then he walked toward the café.
He went up the back stairs quietly, but not too quietly. He wanted her to know he was coming. When he reached the landing at the second floor, the door opened and Zubec glared out at him from his dark apartment. “I don’t like this,” the man growled softly, without preamble.
“I’ll take care of it right now,” Reese promised.
The barista pulled a trash can into the doorway. “You yell, I’m comin’ up there.”
Reese nodded. “Appreciate it.”
The big man retreated, leaving his door propped open a foot.
John made his way to the top floor and keyed in the combination, not quickly. He pushed the door open six inches, then paused, reached around the door, and grabbed her weapon.
The woman tried to hold onto it, but Reese wrenched it over her head and slammed the door into her body. She released the gun and backed away quickly, then dove behind the couch.
Reese did not chase her. He aimed her gun toward the center of the couch and said, calmly, “If you stand up with that backup gun in your hand, I will kill you.”
“Who the hell are you?” she demanded from behind cover.
“My name’s John Reese. We probably have mutual friends.”
There was a very long silence from behind the couch. She knew the name; she was going through everything she knew about him. Calculating. He gave her all the time she needed. “John Reese is dead,” she finally stated.
“Mark Snow lies.”
Another silence. She knew that was true, too. “What do you want?” she finally asked.
“Strangely enough, Mae, I want to help you.”
“How?”
“I have your pictures.”
“What?”
“The pictures that Frey was supposed to have. I have them. And I’m prepared to give them to you.”
“I’m supposed to believe you.”
“I don’t think you have much choice.” Reese moved sideways toward the kitchen. “I’m tired of talking to the couch, Mae.”
“How do I know you won’t kill me?”
“You don’t.”
He took another step, silently, and then another. Two more and he’d have a clear shot at her.
A little .22 scraped across the wood floor toward him. Reese stopped it with his toe, kicked it behind the breakfast bar. “Very good. Now come on out.”
The woman stood up slowly, awkwardly. She stayed behind the couch and studied him. Reese got the feeling she decided she’d made the right decision.
“You have my pictures,” she finally said.
Reese brought the thumb drive out with one hand, without lowering the gun in the other. “Right here. Thing is, Mae, they’re not your pictures. They’re not the Agency’s pictures. Unless I’m mistaken, these pictures belong to the NSA. And we both know they will be very cranky if they find out you have them.”
Mae came to the end of the couch, perched on the arm. “You got me. What do you want?”
He tipped the gun in his hand. “This is the gun you killed Frey with, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Kevin Frey. Also knows as Matthew Getty. Recently promoted to IT Director at Venture East Financial. You shot him in his office late last night. We have it on video.”
“Who’s we?”
Reese shook his head. “Is this the gun?”
She looked away, but didn’t deny it.
“Good.” He dropped the gun into his pocket. “You know that Frey was hiding the pictures inside pornographic movies. Did you know they involved children?”
Mae looked back at him. “What?”
“Kiddie porn.”
She shook her head, disgusted. “What an idiot.”
“No argument there. He was making a little profit on the side, getting a cut for persuading Dover to host a black web. Everybody had their fingers in the pie.”
“Why do I care about this?”
“Because the kiddie porn is what got Christine Fitzgerald involved. She didn’t know about your pictures “ sorry, NSA’s pictures. And she didn’t care. She found the porn and she destroyed it. That’s the beginning and the end of her involvement in this.”
The woman stared at him.
“Frey didn’t tell you he’d lost the pictures,” Reese continued. “And once you found out, you didn’t tell Snow. If you had, you wouldn’t be here alone. You probably wouldn’t be here at all. You know how the Agency feels about cleaning up its own messes.” She flinched, just a little; he knew he was right. “So here’s how this goes down. I give you the pictures. You take them somewhere else and hide them. I don’t care where, but it had better not involve children. Tell Snow that Frey was compromised; tell him whatever you want. He never has to know that you lost possession of the pictures. And as a bonus, I’ll arrange for the porn dealer to take the fall for Frey’s murder.”
“That’s very generous, Mr. Reese. What’s in it for you?” she asked.
“You never heard of Christine Fitzgerald. You lose her phone number and you forget where she lives. As far as you know, she was never even born. Because if she ever has even the faintest reason to be afraid of you, if she even thinks she sees your shadow at her door, you won’t have to worry about the tape of you murdering Frey. There won’t be any trial. Are we clear?”
Mae considered. “That’s it?”
“Of course, I was never here, either.”
She nodded. “Snow knows you’re alive?”
“He knows. He’s trying to change that.”
“Sounds like you’re in more danger than I am.”
“Don’t bet on it.”
Mae held her hand out for the flash drive. “Is this the only copy?”
“Of course not.”
“Of course not.” She nodded. “All right, Mr. Reese. We have a deal.”
***
The sky was starting to lighten by the time Reese got to Garuccio’s home. The house itself was perfectly ordinary; there were petunias in the flower bed and a bird bath beside the porch. The garish Cadillac was in the garage. Reese forced the side door open; the car itself was still unlocked.
He wiped down Mae Miller’s gun and hid it carefully under the liner in the trunk.
On his way out, he called Finch. “Ready?”
“All set,” Finch answered.
“I’ll meet you back at the library. Bagels today?”
“That sounds lovely.”
***
Fusco parked down the block from the café. “Chaos, huh? That’s about right for you.”
Christine nodded wearily. “I thought so. Want some coffee?”
“Sure.”
They got out of the car. “Can I ask you something?” Fusco said as they walked.
“Is it about the apartment?”
“No.”
“Go ahead.”
“That morning, you said something I’ve always wondered about. You said … you said you just needed a little more time. I never could figure out what you were talking about. More time for what?”
“’On the internet, no one knows you’re a dog.’”
“What?”
“It’s an old New Yorker cartoon.” She sighed. “You know how the internet is full of middle-aged men pretending to be fourteen year-old girls?”
“Yeah.”
“I was trying to make it work the other way. A fourteen year old girl pretending to be a middle-aged man. I was creating an identity as a psychiatrist. So I could make the VA admit my dad somewhere. I almost had it. I just … ran out of time.”
Fusco shook his head. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
“It’s okay.” She stopped and put her arms around him. “It’s okay.”
He hugged her for a minute. It was nice. Over his shoulder, he saw a guy come out of the café and look at them. “Shit.”
“What?”
Fusco moved away from her just far enough to pull out his phone between their bodies. The guy went back inside. “We got trouble,” he said quietly. “Just, uh, just let me handle this …”
He dropped his phone into his pocket, still open, and walked the girl into the shop.
“Miss Fitzgerald?” Agent Donnelly said. “May I have a word with you?”
She looked at him. “Sure. Who are you?”
“This is Agent Donnelly,” Fusco said, without enthusiasm. “He’s with the FBI.”
“I didn’t realize you knew Detective Fusco,” he said formally.
“I’ve known Lionel since I was a little kid,” Christine said. “Please, sit down. Igor, set us up, will you?”
Zubec glared at them from behind the bar, but reached for mugs. They settled around a table. “What can I do for you, Agent … “
“Donnelly.” He brought out a picture. “Do you know this man?”
Christine studied the 5 x 7 glossy of John Reese. “No. Who is he?”
Fusco shook his head and looked away.
“He’s a rogue agent,” Donnelly told her. “A murderer. Possibly a terrorist.”
“Hmmm.”
Zubec brought them coffee, looked over her shoulder at the picture. Grunted.
“Do you know this man?” Donnelly asked him.
“He’s kinda hot,” Christine said.
“Not really my type,” Zubec grumbled. He walked away.
“Igor doesn’t usually work mornings,” the girl explained. She handed the picture back. “Sorry, I can’t help you.”
“Are you sure? We believe he has a partner. Someone extremely skilled with computers.”
Christine took a long drink of coffee. “So you think he’s a terrorist and I’m helping him?”
“I know you’re very well connected to the … tech community. You may know someone who knows him.”
She shook her head. “Sorry.”
Donnelly didn’t give up. “This man is extremely dangerous, Miss Fitzgerald. He may be part of a band of rogue agents …”
“Rogue agents,” she repeated. “That’s the second time you’ve said that. Whose rogue agents?”
“The CIA’s.”
“And you’re FBI, you said, right?” She nodded emphatically. “That’s really quite wonderful, Agent Donnelly. I can’t tell you how much that reassures me.”
“Excuse me?”
“Were you here when the Towers came down, Agent Donnelly?
Here in the city?”
“No.”
“See, I was.” Her voice was sweet, without a hint of sarcasm. “And ever since then I’ve been scared to death that there would be another attack. But if the FBI has time to be chasing ‘rogue’ CIA agents around Manhattan, then that must mean that every possible outside threat has been dealt with, right? I mean, if there was even the smallest danger that we’d be hit again, you wouldn’t be wasting your time chasing each other, would you?”
Fusco looked away to hide his smirk. The expression on Donnelly’s face was priceless. He hoped Reese and his friend were listening.
“Miss Fitzgerald,” the agent said patiently, “this man and his cohorts are extremely dangerous. Under their mandate they aren’t even allowed to operate in this country. Their activities present a danger to civilians and probably a violation of their constitutional rights …”
“Ohhhh,” Christine interrupted. She no longer bothered to hide her sarcasm. “It’s a constitutional rights issue. Why didn’t you say so? ‘Cause the FBI’s hands are so clean where the Constitution is involved, aren’t they?”
“Excuse me?”
“Outside every Occupy protest there’s a van with no windows. If I were to hack into that van’s feeds, I wouldn’t find any warrantless wiretaps running, would I? And the feeds wouldn’t be going right to the nearest field office, would they?”
“That’s got nothing to do with this matter,” Donnell protested. “Surveillance decisions of that nature are made way over my pay grade …”
“And you just follow orders?” she challenged.
Donnelly stared at her. “Miss Fitzgerald …”
“Agent Donnelly, you seem like kind of a decent guy, and not entire dim. So I’m going to ask you to think about something. If we get hit tomorrow, if New York gets hit again or some other city, are you going to be able to look at yourself in the mirror the next day? Are you going to be able to say, a whole bunch of people are dead, but I did everything I could to stop it? Or are you going to say, the day before this happened, I was busy playing grab-ass with the CIA and not paying attention to the real threats? I could have helped stop this, maybe, but I was busy pissing on the bushes and marking my territory?”
Donnelly stood up. “Miss Fitzgerald. I’d like a look at your computer. Now.”
She shrugged. “Get a warrant.”
He glared at her. She glared back, unimpressed. Fusco kept his head down.
Zubec came to the end of the table and folded his arms. His meaning was very clear. But Donnelly refused to be intimidated. “The man I’m looking for is a terrorist,” he said clearly. “I suspect you of providing material support to him. Under the provisions of the Patriot Act, I can have you arrested and detained without trial indefinitely.”
Fusco looked up. “Hey, wait a minute…”
Christine put her hand on his arm. She continued to stare at Donnelly. “You can try that, Agent Donnelly,” she said. Her voice dropped, but stayed deadly calm, almost friendly. “But if I were you, I’d ask somebody first. Maybe somebody in Washington.”
They stared at each other for another minute. Finally Zubec leaned in and took Donnelly’s mug off the table. The FBI agent turned and strode out of the café.
“Damn.” Fusco slumped with relief. “What the hell was that?”
Christine patted his arm again. “You’re okay, Lionel. Drink your coffee.”
***
Reese looked at Finch over the computer monitors. “Our girl thinks she’s bulletproof.”
“Apparently.”
“Is she?”
Finch hesitated for a long moment. Then he nodded slowly. “She may be. I’ll find out.”
***
Finch presented his card to the handsome woman at the reception desk and waited. He glanced to his left, where one door was sealed and garishly labeled as a crime scene. The rest of the office, though, seemed to be functioning normally. It had been six days since the shooting. The man who had killed Matthew Getty, a porn dealer named Garuccio, was safely behind bars, along with dozens of other people arrested in the largest child pornography sweep in the city’s history. Garuccio denied any involvement with the murder, but police had found the murder weapon hidden in his car.
Larry Dover, who had been Getty’s boss, had also been found dead. He’s died from a heart attack, and if there were whispers about the circumstances “ something about more porn and bondage “ they were only sad and knowing whispers. The murder in the office was certainly more interesting.
The receptionist knocked on a different door and then opened it. “Miss Fitzgerald? There’s a Mr. Wren here to see you.”
“Who?” Christine called from within.
The woman checked the card. “Harold Wren. From Universal Heritage Insurance? He says you’re expecting him.”
“Oh, yeah, yeah. Send him in.”
The receptionist hesitated. “Do you want a minute to, um …”
“No, don’t worry about it. He’s seen my naked feet before.”
The woman did not quite roll her eyes as she gestured Harold into the office, but it was clear that she suffered from the impropriety of the situation.
“I have,” he assured her in passing. “They’re quite lovely.”
She closed the door behind him with a not-quite-rude emphasis.
Christine was perched on the wide window ledge with her tablet in her hands. She wore a scoop-necked t-shirt and a short skirt, and her bare legs were stretched out in front of her on the ledge. There were no shoes in evidence. Her toenails were painted vibrant purple.
She was trying desperately not to fit in to Venture East’s corporate culture.
“Your receptionist seems like a lovely woman,” Finch said. “Why are we tormenting her?”
“She’s not the receptionist, she’s the administrative assistant,” Christine answered. ”She gets things done around here. And she has Campanella’s ear. I want her squawking in it so he’ll hire someone and get me out of here.”
“His last two IT directors betrayed his corporate philosophy and his friendship. His company is on the fringes of an extremely nasty criminal investigation. He wants you here because he trusts you.”
“I understand that he wants me to hold his hand. I sympathize, I do. But when I said I’d fill in for a little while, I meant for a week and he heard for a year.” She shuddered. “I can’t do this, Random.”
He crossed the office to her. “It’s only been three days, Christine. Is it really that bad?”
“I can’t figure out how to get the windows open.” He looked out and down; the office was on the 23rd floor. “If I ask nicely, will Mr. Reese show me the proper technique for slashing my own throat?”
Finch chuckled, brought a single sheet of paper out of his pocket, folded in half. “Here. The names of six qualified candidates, all thoroughly vetted, with the starting salaries they’ll likely require.”
She snagged the paper like it was a lifeline. “Thank you.” She swung her feet down, dug in her skirt pocket and came up with a flash drive. “This is for you. It’s a pocket-sized FBI agent.”
“Agent Donnelly, I presume.” Finch took the drive.
Christine tapped on her tablet, held it out to him. “This morning, in my apartment.”
Finch watched for a moment while the man searched the room. She’d left the hidden computer open for him. “You let him talk to Zelda?”
“No, of course not. You think I let my baby talk to any schmuck who wanders in? I let him see a corner of the hard drive. Just an appetizer. He has no clue.”
“You did everything but slap his face with a white glove,” Finch said. “You knew he’d show up.”
“Of course I did. It only took him this long because everybody got pulled in on the porn raids.”
“Why did you provoke him?”
She cocked her head at him. “Shiny,” she said simply. “I’m a shiny little distraction. Every minute he’s looking at me, he’s not looking for Reese. Or you.”
“We can manage Agent Donnelly.”
“I know. But I needed to vent anyhow and he walked onto my turf.” She shrugged. “The weird thing is, so many strange men have searched my apartment lately, I think I’m developing a fetish for it. Is there even a name for that?”
“Probably. Every perversion has a name.”
“Even bookcase porn.”
“Even that.” Finch watched as Agent Donnelly left the apartment “ through the window. “All by himself and in and out through the window.”
“Not the behavior of a man with a search warrant in his pocket,” Christine confirmed. “So now he’s ours.”
Finch nodded. “It’s not damning in itself, but it may be useful as part of a bigger picture. Thank you.” He handed her tablet back. “I have something better.” He brought his phone out.
“Better than an FBI agent? Tell, tell.”
He brought up a photo on the phone and handed it to her. She looked at it, and then she looked at him, and then she looked back at it for a very long time. She traced her fingertips over the screen gently, reverently. “Is this him?” she finally asked. “Is this the boy?”
Finch nodded. “Facial recognition says it is.”
“He looks older.”
“The image Zelda found was from nearly three years ago. He was rescued in a raid last summer, in a ghetto in Argentina. He’s with a foster family now.” He tapped the screen to the next picture. The boy, a man and a woman, a smaller boy, two older girls, and a big dog. All smiling, except for the dog, who was possibly just slobbering on their boy.
Christine studied the new picture. Then she looked up at him again. “Random …”
“Your suspicions would wound me, if you did not know me so well.” He smiled gently. “I did not create these, I promise. They’re from Interpol, and they were ferociously hard to get. And I fully anticipate that you’ll verify them independently.”
The smile started in her eyes, spread across her face. She squealed and slid own from the window ledge, threw her arms around his neck and kissed first one cheek and then the other, and then did it again. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” Then she simply hugged him. He felt her tears on his cheek.
Finch hugged her back for a moment. Then he pushed her away very gently, out to arms’ length, and gave her his handkerchief. “Dry your eyes and find your shoes. I’ll take you to lunch.”
“Oooh. Will there be chocolate?”
“For dessert. If you eat your vegetables.”
“No carrots.”
“As you wish.”
As they reached the outer office, the receptionist stood up. “Miss Fitzgerald? Mr. Capps just called. He can’t access the network …”
“That’s because I changed his password, like I asked him to do two days ago.”
“He’s a senior vice president.”
Finch went ahead of her and pressed the elevator call button.
“I’ll fix it when I get back from lunch. In a couple hours. If I’m not too drunk.”
“But …”
Christine handed her the list of names Finch had given her. “When you call Sam to complain, tell him he needs to hire one of these people right away.”
The elevator arrived and they left the receptionist sputtering in their wake.
“You know,” Finch said as the doors closed, “you’re actually quite good at that. You’d be an excellent executive. You have the right ruthless disregard.”
She just looked at him. “No broccoli, either.”
Finch laughed. “I see.”
As they left the building, a fire truck sped past, with full lights and sirens running. They both stopped, waited. Half a block behind it was an ambulance and a second fire truck. Finch watched Christine. She glanced up, to her left, to the nearest traffic camera. Then she looked at him. There were no more sirens.
“Agent Donnelly,” Finch said, “threatened you with indefinite detention under provisions of the Patriot Act. And yet that threat didn’t seem to alarm you.”
Christine looked at him steadily for a moment. “And by now I’m sure you know why.”
He nodded gravely. “They’re dangerous, Christine.”
“I know. So am I.” She considered. “Daisy’s dangerous, anyhow. And as long as they’re not sure exactly how dangerous, we all co-exist peacefully.” She glanced toward the camera again. “Détente is a good thing, Random. It keeps things from being unnecessarily complicated.”
So she knows, Finch thought. Just like that. She knows about the Machine, roughly, and she knows I built it. It was, in its way, very much like watching Kevin Frey being killed “ shocking only in how quiet and un-dramatic it was. He had probably known from the start that she would figure it out. Certainly he wasn’t surprised now. A bit disconcerted, but not surprised.
Her blue eyes were calm and clear, bright with the blazing intellect he’d first seen when she was nothing but, as Ingram had so poetically phrased it, a strung-out little junkie. He’d always known she’d be dangerous if she ever got clean. And she was. But not to him. Not now, anyhow.
“Détente,” he repeated softly. And then, because there was nothing else to say, “Lunch.”
She nodded. Then she put her hand in the crook of his elbow and they walked. It was a simple gesture, classic, and less intimate than holding hands would have been. Yet it brought her close to his side. Signaled to anyone watching that they were together, at least for the moment. Brought them into step as they walked.
She knows, Finch thought, and she is not afraid to be next to me.
It was a gift beyond measure.
Two blocks later, Christine said, “I have a question.”
“Only one?”
“Oh, I have a million questions, but I don’t think you’ll
answer any of them. But there’s one that gnaws at me. One I have to ask.”
“Ask,” Finch granted warily.
“About the whole Bat Signal thing.” A little impish smile played over her lips. “What’s your backup status look like?”
Relief and chagrin tumbled over each other in Finch’s mind. What was her rule? Nobody has adequate backup? Which was true, but in his case it was a deliberate choice. “It’s, uh … if I have to, I can operate from my laptop and rebuild the system in a day or two.”
“Uh-huh.” She sighed in exaggerated disappointment.
“Less redundancy means less vulnerability,” Finch pointed out.
“Uh-huh,” she repeated. “I’m betting that you don’t always have that day or two to spare. And it offends my sensibilities that a man of your talents could be wandering around the city without adequate resources.”
Finch felt his eyebrows shoot up. He’d been accused of many things, and many of them rightly, but being ‘without adequate resources’ had never been one of them. “I don’t …”
She didn’t let him finish. “So I told Zelda to recognize your voice indefinitely. And every access tab in the apartment knows your thumbprint.”
Finch stopped, absolutely startled. “What?”
Other people bumped them in passing; he drew her into a doorway with him.
“That’s why I had you shut the screens down, for the thumbprint. If you don’t have time to rebuild your system,” Christine said simply, “you don’t have time to hack into mine. If you need it and I’m not there, the keypads on the doors have a thumb scanner on the underside. Let yourself in, do what you need to do, try not to break anything.”
Christine Fitzgerald had, in the whole world, five rooms of absolutely privacy. Five rooms where she felt safe and alone. As damaged as she was, and as desperately as she needed that space to survive, she had granted him complete access to it. This was not her loaning a house key to a casual friend. It was giving him the keys to her entire life. “But … why?”
She looked toward the south, just for a moment. “I gave duct tape to people.” Finch frowned, puzzled. “Duct tape,” she repeated. “I put the rolls on my arms, as many as I could carry, and I walked around and gave pieces to people. So they could hang up their posters. Have you seen my wife, have you seen my son, have you seen my brother, I can’t find her, he never came home.” There were sparkles of tears in her eyes; she blinked them away impatiently. “Duct tape. And they were all horribly, pathetically glad to have it. And you …” She shook her head. “You’re right, I have a million questions. And I don’t need answers to any of them.
“What you’re doing, you and John, it’s important. Maybe more important than you know. Save the cheerleader, save the world, who knows? And the other thing …” She stopped, blinked tears away again. “I need to know you’re not cut off. Not ever.”
They stood very close for a moment, silent, while the city shouted around them. Not entwined physically, though her hand still rested on his arm. Just close.
He would never absolutely need her system, Finch thought; he had contingencies, alternatives. But he would use it, since she’d offered, and having it available would make things easier. The gift of her trust was far more valuable. If he had her trust he could use her mind, and that was an asset beyond calculation. With the right guidance, with a little care, she could become as valuable to him as Nathan had been …
He stopped. That was his old way of thinking. The billionaire thinking. He wasn’t that man any more. He didn’t want to think of Christine as an asset. He wanted to think of her as a friend. Friends were so very rare for him.
Maybe he would never be rid of his old way of thinking, not entirely. He would have to work at that. But he had time.
“Thank you,” he finally managed to say. He drew her out of the doorway and they walked again, together.
As if the whole world hadn’t changed in that moment of silence, she said, “Does lettuce count?”
“As a vegetable? No. But tomatoes do.”
“Even though they’re a fruit.”
“Yes.”
“So not only are you going to inflict me with nutritional standards, Random, but you’re going to be completely arbitrary about it?”
“Yes.” Harold chuckled and put his hand over hers. Christine Fitzgerald had become everything he’d hoped she could be, all those years ago. Everything Ingram had been sure she could be. He probably owed Nathan a hundred dollars, he realized. Maybe he’d mail it to Will, anonymously, without explanation. The idea amused him.
She knew too much, and he should have been worried. But because she’d been generous, so undemanding, he was inclined to relax. To let his guard down.
Which was probably her plan, of course, and if it was deliberate, then he needed to be doubly cautious. Only the paranoid survive.
Unless Christine’s motives were exactly what she’d said they were. A pretty girl brings you a cup of tea.
Old thinking, new thinking. He shook his head. Whatever happened with this bright-eyed, blue eyed woman, it was certainly going to be interesting.
***
The End
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